kropotkindersurprise:

The Gulabi Gang, or Pink Gang, is an all-women vigilante group in India.

“Yes, we fight rapists with lathis [sticks]. If we find the culprit, we thrash him black and blue so he dare not attempt to do wrong to any girl or a woman again,” boasts Sampat Devi Pal, the group’s founder and head.

Devi first discovered the power of the stick in the 1980s when she used it against a neighbour who abused his wife. Devi’s intervention had the desired result and the recalcitrant husband was forced to mend his ways. More importantly, Devi’s model of delivering alternative justice inspired a movement that now boasts of a network of 400,000 women - dressed in pink sarees and all wielding a stick - across 11 districts of India’s largest province of Uttar Pradesh.

From fighting violence against women, preventing child marriages, arranging weddings of couple in love despite local resistance, to ensuring delivery of basic rights for the poorest of poor, the Gulabi Gang’s vision is to ‘protect the powerless from abuse and fight corruption’ has found easy resonance across much of India’s hinterland, blighted by unending reports of sex crimes and gang rapes.

“When a woman seeks the membership of Gulabi Gang, it is because she has suffered injustice, has been oppressed and does not see any other recourse,” says Suman Singh, the group’s deputy commander, from Mahoba district. “All our women can stand up to the men and if need be seek retribution through lathis,” she adds.

“The Gulabi Gang has stepped into the vacuum left by the state and offers an alternative means of attaining justice.”

[article]/[video]

rootsnbluesfestival:

Jimi

groovemaster10000:

This week’s album is a particularly important one. Are You Experienced, Jimi Hendrix’s debut album, is arguably the most important album in rock history. In a single album Jimi Hendrix achieved status as the world’s greatest guitar player. This is an album that changed guitar playing for generations to come.

Released in 1967, Are You Experienced was one of many classic psychedelic albums. Hendrix’s brand of psychedelic rock was something unlike anything else before. The type of psychedelic on this album isn’t focused on studio manipulation, vocal harmonies, or weird sounding keyboards. This brand of psychedelic was fueled by its guitar work. From the heavy distorted riff of “Purple Haze” to mellow chords in “The Wind Cries Mary,” the guitar work on this album is always fresh and complex. The album also blends more than just psychedelic sounds. Songs like “Hey Joe” and “Red House” are strongly rooted in blues.

The importance of this album is its influence on guitarists to come. While its undeniable that many guitarists today do things beyond Hendrix’s ability, the fact is, that wouldn’t be the case had it not been for Hendrix. On this album Hendrix made sounds with a guitar that nobody had ever heard before. This paved the way for countless guitarists of his generation and later generations. Guitarists like Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, and Eric Clapton, to name a few, all take a page out of Hendrix’s book. Are You Experienced is the album that established Hendrix, and the start of a brief, but legendary career. 

Are You Experienced had both a U.K. release and a U.S. release. This week I’ll be looking at tracks from both releases of the album. Pictured above are the covers of the U.S. release  (Top) and the U.K. release (Bottom).

b-dot-lynn:

gangsterrevolutionary:

Original Art by the homie Shamel Washington

DOPE

n8rnate:

spicefreakout:

Spice girls riding a couch in the space.

NOT JUST ANY COUCH. THE SNICK COUCH. GET’CHA MIND RIGHT.

hippest-protist:

crowdsourceinspiration:

This is actually fairly accurate.

don’t forget metal

seiya234:

this is too precious and I literally cannot

nerd4music:

msamberpriley: My best attempt at being a Snapchat model

bradpitts:

You know this guy? Jackson Pollock. The drip painter. He let his mind go blank, and his hand go where it wanted. Not deliberate, not random. Some place in between.  They called it automatic art.

furioas:

What’s been the hardest obstacle in your career to conquer? The biggest obstacle I ever had to overcome was the jean mini skirt. Which sounds very specific but, it is. - x

blackballad:

These fiercely feminist women are tired of sexual harassment and are doing something about it all over the UK