"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Edo G feat. Masta Ace, "Wishing"

Song: "Wishing" by Edo G feat. Masta Ace
Released: 2004
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in The Boondocks' 2006 MLK holiday episode "Return of the King," which had Dr. King (Kevin Michael Richardson) interacting with the characters in the Boondocksverse. Ignorant-ass Riley (Regina King, no relation) sizes up Dr. King and asks him, "Is you Morgan Freeman?" Self-hating, brain-damaged Uncle Ruckus (Gary Anthony Williams) protests against the civil rights leader and in one of the episode's funniest lines, declares "I was happier at the back of the bus!"
Which moment in "Return of the King" does it appear?: "Wishing" accompanies the brief montage where Huey (also Regina King) and MLK go door-to-door to spread the word about their political rally (the above photo is from this sequence). The 2004 track samples King's "I Have a Dream" speech and is Masta Ace and Edo G's list of wishes for changes in everything from the then-Bush-run White House to more-heated-in-2010-than-they-were-in-2004 issues like Islamophobia and health care ("I wish God could take away the pain/I know you wanna call me insane/I'm a dreamer"). "Wishing" isn't featured long enough in "Return of the King" for viewers to dig most of the verses, but the track's presence nicely foreshadows the final moments of Huey's episode-long fantasy ("It's fun to dream").

"Return of the King" is my favorite episode of any animated series in the '00s. The initial fear that Aaron McGruder dumbed down his thought-provoking and politically charged comic strip for TV was laid to rest with a brilliant, hilarious and scathing peek into an alternate reality where King didn't die from James Earl Ray's bullet.

King awakens from a 32-year coma and is disheartened by what's become of the world he non-violently fought for. His image and ideology are exploited in everything from advertising to so-called political discourse (a certain August 2010 rally at the Lincoln Memorial is eerily foretold during the scene where a bow-tied mash-up of smarmy Tucker Carlson and equally smarmy Bill O'Reilly tries to force King to espouse his "Country First"-like agenda, and the blowhard ends up getting an ass-whupping from Huey that always makes me applaud). Streets that were named after MLK have become hotbeds of violence. His pulpit has been taken over by preachers who are talkin' loud and sayin' nothing. MGM released Soul Plane.

"Black Entertainment Television is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life!," complains King in a climactic rant where he frequently says, uh, "Nintendo." King's wake-up call to his community pissed off the totally-missing-the-satirical-point-of-the-episode Rev. Al Sharpton (much of King's speech was lifted from a song by Asheru, the same MC who performed The Boondocks' dope opening title theme). Sharpton publicly lashed out against the McGruder-scripted "Return of the King" and demanded an apology from Cartoon Network for allowing MLK to be "desecrated." The Peabodys responded to Sharpton's criticisms by giving the episode an award.

"What I like about Al is that he's not in this for the publicity," snarks McGruder in the episode's equally hilarious and scathing DVD commentrak.

"Cartoons," adds Boondocks co-executive producer Rodney Barnes in the commentrak. "That's what Dr. King be doin' today: fighting against cartoons."

Edo G and Masta Ace have a dream at my SwiftFM site.

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Madvillain, "Raid"

Song: "Raid" by Madvillain feat. M.E.D. a.k.a. Medaphoar
Released: 2004
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's one of three Madvillain tracks featured in the 2006 Boondocks episode "Let's Nab Oprah."
Which moment in "Let's Nab Oprah" does it appear?: The sequence at the end of Act 1 where dumbass wiggers Ed Wuncler III (Charlie Murphy--hold up, isn't he black?) and Gin Rummy (Samuel L. Jackson--hold up, isn't he black too?) attack a Woodcrest bookstore to carry out the episode's title scheme, and Ed and Rummy's increasingly exasperated eight-year-old accomplice Riley Freeman (Regina King--hold up, isn't she a woman?) points out to the duo that they went to the wrong bookstore and kidnapped Maya Angelou by mistake.

The "Where's Oprah, punk?" clip from this sequence, which I tacked on to "Raid" as an intro for airplay during the "Rock Box" block, never fails to amuse me whenever I hear it. It's a hilarious sequence that also gives some nice exposure on TV to DOOM and Madlib and one of my favorite tracks off Madvillainy (because of couplets like "The metal fellow been rippin' flows/Since New York plates were ghetto yellow with broke blue writing"). The opening jazz-piano sample in "Raid" meshes well with the show's Vince Guaraldi-style original score.

Hear the Villain spit enough lightning to rock-shock the Boogie Down to Brighton at my SwiftFM site.

Memorable quotes from commentary tracks #6

"There's a rumor going around that Al Sharpton was holding two pieces of chicken right before King said 'nigger,' and I can't say what happened, but paramedics were called."

--Boondocks co-executive producer Rodney Barnes, joking about Rev. Sharpton, who protested the show's "Return of the King" MLK holiday episode in 2006, from the crew commentary for "Return of the King," which later won a Peabody Award

The Palace: Death to Skinny Jeans begins Monday and concludes December 28

As with all other arcs of the Palace webcomic, which I've written and illustrated from time to time since 2008, I'll be posting one strip per day for an entire week. I wanted to post the latest arc last week, but I had to make a last-minute change to a script for one particular strip. I scrapped that strip's original sight gag because the subject of that gag--Skids, half of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen's pair of Amos n' Andybots--was just too difficult for me to recreate in pencil and ink. Thanks a lot, Transformers sequel character designers, for making your bots so damn difficult to draw.

(I miss the Boondocks comic strip so much. I wonder how Aaron McGruder would have immediately reacted to Skids and Mudflap. And I wonder if he'll reference them in the Boondocks animated series' forthcoming third season.)

So because of that last-minute change, The Palace's new arc will unfold this Christmas Week, even though the arc isn't exactly Christmassy. But it references some of the most infamous moments involving America's favorite pastime of insulting Asian Americans, race, pop music and fashion in the past year, so I guess it is a good time to post the arc because many of the sites I click to are currently posting their year-end (or in the cases of The A.V. Club and The Playlist, decade-end) wrap-ups.

During this arc, I realized I draw best when I'm hearing music in the background. My computer is broken, and my iPod Nano appears to be on its last legs, so I've had to flip XM's alt-rock, hip-hop and R&B stations on while drawing the latest arc. "Empire State of Mind" does wonders for my illustrator's block. Now that's what I call a banger.