Odunde festival lives on

Richard Wright “was very preoccupied by the impact of racism.”

Richard Wright, the acclaimed author of “Native Son” and “Black Boy,”
was born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, but it is Philadelphia
that is honoring him with the proclamation of Richard Wright Week from
April 20- 27, 2008. Wright, who would have turned 100 this September, will
be the focus of a number of citywide presentations, including a
special Robin’s Bookstore address from the author’s daughter, Julia
Wright. The acclaimed author’s final manuscript, “A Father’s Law
($14.95, HarperCollins)” was just released by the younger Wright in
honor of her father’s birthday.

“As a present for his centennial, I dug up his last unfinished novel,”
explained Wright. “It’s the only existing draft of what he was working
on when he died. ‘A Father’s Law’ is about the relationship of a Black
police chief and his brilliant university-bound son. The police chief
slowly comes to suspect his son is the serial killer that he has been
assigned and promoted to find and punish.”

The novel was written during a six-week period near the end of
Wright’s life. “The book is unfinished, so you don’t know if the
father is imagining it, or whether the father has indeed a serial
killer for a son. It is an extraordinary book. Had he lived to finish
and perfect it, I believe it would have been a masterpiece. As it is,
it is riveting reading.”

Wright, the grandson of a slave, was born on the Rucker Plantation in Roxie,
Mississippi September 4, 1908. Soon after his family moved to Memphis,
Tennessee, in 1913, his father, a former sharecropper, abandoned the family, leaving his mother to support them alone. His family moved to Jackson, Mississippi to live with
relatives, and he graduated as valedictorian of his 9th grade class in May 1925, but left school a few weeks after entering high school. However, even as a youngster, Wright knew his calling. At the age of 15, Wright wrote his first story “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre”, and it was published in the Southern Register, a local Black newspaper.
Wright’s daughter explained that her father died prematurely at age 52
in Paris from the combined childhood effects of malnutrition and the stress of
the FBI’s continued investigation for being a member of the Communist
Party between 1932 and 1942. He departed the party in 1942 because of
ideological disputes.

“He spent some time in the communist party before effectively leaving
the United States never to return,” said Wright. “For people like (former FBI Director) J. Edger Hoover, once a communist always a communist. My father had grown beyond communism, but remained under surveillance and duress for the whole of his life, especially abroad where they were fearful he would denounce racism in the United States
in France where he lived.”

The literary giant raw and powerful prose was a source of fascination
for poet Lamont B. Steptoe. “I made a point of taking a course in
Black literature where I read ‘Uncle Tom’s Children,’” recalled
Steptoe. “I found the work compelling, poetic, nightmarish and
unforgettable. I made it a point to read everything that was published
by Wright. In 1992, I journeyed to Paris for a conference at the
Sorbonne in honor of Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Chester Himes
that would bring together many of the surviving members of the heady
days of the Black ex-patriot community in Paris from the fifties up
through the late sixties. There I met Ellen Wright, Julia Wright, the
late Ollie Harrington, who was one of Wright’s closest friends and
Wright’s grandson, Malcolm.”

The younger Wright noted that her father tackled astonishingly modern
themes for novels written over 45 years ago.

“He was very preoccupied by the impact of racism on the mind of Black
men and Black women,” said Julia. “That is exemplified in his study
‘The Mind of Bigger Thomas’ and his concerns throughout his whole life
on what makes a Black man angry. (He wondered) can we act on some of
these factors and give Black male minorities a rest from duress? It’s
such a present day problem and it’s being debated everywhere today.
It amazes me when I speak to audiences because I find so many time
bubbles in his work.”

“Red Ink: Celebrating the Radical Tradition in Literature” with Julia
Wright discussing Richard Wright and his work will feature Lamont
Steptoe and other area writers on Sunday April 27, 2008 at 2pm at
Robin’s Book Store, 108 S. 13th Street, Philadelphia. For more
information on various Richard Wright Week activities visit
www.robinsbookstoreonline.com or call 215-735-9600.

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…For MC Hammer, the Future Net is “in my blood.”

By Bobbi Booker

A unique technology education forum featuring hip hop pioneer MC
Hammer drew community members, ex-offenders and students from the
nearby Renaissance Advantage Charter School to the Southwest
Philadelphia Mayor’s Office for the Re-entry of Ex-Inmates last week.

When Hammer heard the murder rate in Philadelphia had skyrocketed to
an average of one per day, he called his friend (and Germantown
native) Rev. Eugene Williams and pledged his help. For the past year,
Hammer (born Stanley Kirk Burrell) has reached out through his
technological initiative called LOOK University, a socially
responsible program to reduce violence through music, digital media
and the arts.

Rev. Williams explained that LOOK University is a groundbreaking
strategy that uses the digital media to educate the hip-hop cultural
community to the realities of the impact of violence, incarceration,
risky sexual practices and hopelessness.

“LOOK University is a project that teaches you how to create your own
buzz. How to use digital media and all of the tools that are available
to everybody today and how to turn that into a different message and
become an entrepreneur.”

Williams, CEO and National Director Regional Congregations and
Neighborhood Organizations Training Center, has always been concerned
with making the connections between theology and community development
and revitalization. While speaking to the 75 guests, Williams noted
that, “Language is important. These are not ex-offenders. These are
residents who are returning from prison. They are not aliens coming from
outer space. These are people that we nurtured from the cradle and
people some of us have known.”

Building upon the demand for services by the ex-offender population,
services like the Office for the Re-entry of Ex-Inmates have been
designed to provide previously incarcerated individuals with an even
broader range of transitional services to help them address the
barriers many face as they strive to regain self-sufficiency and
secure employment.

MC Hammer delivered a message that covered his dramatic journey as one
of America’s entertainment legends. As he explored his life as a
rapper who is now focused on spirituality and family, Hammer encourage
both the youths and their elders to continue to dream big. “When I
first decided I was going to rap, and again being a young man of
vision, I already owned two houses.”

However, it was Hammer’s quest to provide wider consumer access to his
music videos, like “U Can’t Touch This,” that lead him to Silicon
Valley developers. Today, Hammer is an adviser to stealth Internet
start-up, Dance Jam. “I took that information, studied that and 14
years later, when it comes to anything that marries music, film and
entertainment and placing it on the Internet, a mobile or wireless
device, I’m one of the experts in Silicon Valley.”

Hammer’s influence on hip hop culture and music was not lost on those
in attendance where half of the room vividly recalled his catchy Top
10 hits, while the other half had yet to be conceived.

“To return to our rightful position is not just ending violence, it’s
also instilling the true history so that you know who you are,”
explained Hammer during a brief history of Blacks and technology.
“Kings and queens is what you truly come from. When Napoleon got over
to Egypt, he could not believe what he saw. He said, ‘The same people that
we have enslaved are the ones who created science, math, astrology,
medicine.’ Somehow, since that day, we’ve have been tricked into
believing we are the inferior ones. Inferior!? Of course, I know how
to build businesses from technology. It’s in my blood.”

=Originally Appeared in The Philadelphia Tribune on Sunday, March 30, 2008=

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…”Stop being musicians and start being the music.”

World-renowned film composer and trumpet player Terence Blanchard was returning from a two-week stint in Japan when Hurricane Katrina struck his New Orleans hometown. Blanchard and his family were forced to evacuate from their New Orleans homes for months, and his evolution as a displace musician fighting for the cultural rebirth his hometown continues to blossom. A portion of Blanchard journey is captured in both the CD and the documentary, “Flow: Living in the Stream of Music,” that follows Blanchard and his band on a stunning round-the-world musical journey. Additionally, director Spike Lee invited Blanchard to score his tour-de-force 4-part documentary, “When the Levees Broke.” One of the most poignant scenes in the film depict Blanchard and his aged mother and aunt clinging to each other during the family’s first post-Katrina visit to their ravage homes. Today, Blanchard says his mother and aunt are on the verge of moving back into their homes, but he is still concerned about the future of his hometown as it struggles to recover from a storm that occurred nearly two years ago.
During a quick studio break on Friday evening from mixing the “Levee” soundtrack he’s re-scoring for release this summer, Blanchard says he is concentrating on keeping a spotlight on the gravity of the new Orleans situation were thousands of residents continue to suffer.
“One of the things that we’re trying to do with the album is keep the awareness out there,” said Blanchard. “When we were recording the record, we did a take of a tune I had written in the New Orleans tradition in 4/5. It was very upbeat kind of song and I was going to close the album with it. But we decided to pull it form the album because we didn’t want to give anybody the impression that everything was okay. You know, because we want people to still talk about what’s going on and be involved in what’s happening.”

Blanchard was a pivotal voice in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz “Commitment to New Orleans” initiative which includes the relocation of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance to the campus of Loyola University New Orleans from Los Angeles. “The Monk institute has a strong commitment to community service. They have a big outreach program that reaches a lot of high school, middle school and grade school kids. That program in itself will touch the lives of a lot of young kids outside the music world and hopefully will encourage some young musician in the field of jazz. We also told the students to come with a horn in one hand and a hammer in the other cause it’s all about rebuilding the city.”

The Institute’s programs will also provide employment for New Orleans musicians while attracting displaced musicians living in other areas of the country back to their hometown, and unite the city’s jazz, arts, and cultural communities.

“I don’t see the music (in New Orleans) as being lost forever because it’s such a part of our culture,” explained Blanchard. “It’s our DNA; you know, it’s what we’re made of. So I don’t ever really see that as something that’s going to be lost. But I do see (the music scene) taking a huge hit right now because there are a lot of musicians who are just not at home and they’re living elsewhere to make do, and that’s hard. I know some guys who’ve been instrumental in the music scene on New Orleans and they’re not in New Orleans right now. We have to be concerned about that. And there are people making efforts to bring those people back. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

“When it comes to jazz there’s certain cities in certain part of the country that get all the attention, you know, Detroit, New Orleans, Kansas City, New York. But, I went to school at Rutgers University and one of the things I learned is that New Jersey has a vast history with the music. And it gets overlooked a lot one of the pivotal creators of this music. He carved out a new path for the role of the guitar in jazz.

Terence was a featured panelist at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (he will also perform at the upcoming festival in 2007) and served as a keynote speaker at the Billboard Film and Television Music Conference in November. Flow: Living In The Stream of Music is scheduled to screen at various film festivals throughout 2006/2007, and has been touted as an engaging documentation of what it means to commit to a life in music, a landmark educational film for young people — and for anyone of any age facing the uncertain prospect of a career as a musician. “The overriding goal in what we do,” says Blanchard, “is to stop being musicians and start being the music.”

…Celebrating Black Men as Fathers

Celebrating a central role in families

By BOBBI BOOKER

Most mainstream media often overlook the role that Black men share as father, mentor and supporter. The distinct and unique role fathers have in African-American culture was explored with several Philadelphia fathers who reflected on the impact men and fathers have on their children. Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter says fatherhood is about teaching and guidance.“I think fatherhood is a very serious responsibility, as is motherhood,” said Nutter. “The impact that men and fathers have on their children is often underestimated or ignored or even downplayed. If you look at any of the television shows, the fathers are not necessarily actively involved, or in many cases not even around.” “I learned any number of very important lessons in life from my own father, who is still with me. Whether as a young boy playing sports or learning how to throw or how to act in competition, there’s a verbal and non-verbal communication that goes on and kids pay attention to what their parents do and listen to what they say and often imitate those behaviors in their own lives. I certainly see many of those things with my own children.” Nutter says the many life skills he learned from his father are shared with his own children, Olivia, 12 and Christian, 24, who flanked him last month onstage election night of Democratic nomination. Fatherhood was the theme of Nutter’s most successful campaign commercials, which featured his daughter, Olivia, who discusses her father’s daily activities. Nutter says one of his prime responsibilities since pre-school is taking his daughter to school. ”(My children) have helped to make me the person that I am and, of course, for the better,” said Nutter. “The fathers are often looked upon for that great kind of silent strength and are often seen as the protector and guardian. I think that’s a very powerful image and reality for many children throughout Philadelphia.” Before he became a father, Yeadon resident Rajieb Allen, 31, thought he would eventually have several boys. Today, he says that his three daughters — Milan, 10, Morgan, 4, Meadow, 3 — have utterly transformed his life. “Nowadays, being a father means everything to me because of the way the majority of the children are being raised and the things that change in the world,” said Allen.  “I can’t even put it into words, to tell you the truth.  It’s a delight to see them grow. I never thought I would have girls, so it’s just a change in life for me. It slowed me down tremendously. (Having daughters) made me look at life in many views. They are my future.” Together, Fatin Dantzler and Aja Graydon are the husband and wife duo known as Kindred the Family Soul. As a business couple, they run The Kulture Shop on Baltimore Avenue and as a loving Black family, they share their lives with their children Aquil, 8, Diya, 5, and Nina, 3. Graydon says she see positive messages of love in the families throughout her neighborhood, yet many times Black men (especially the incarcerated) are overlooked. “I think that the fathers who are out there busting their behinds and are really working and doing their thing are overlooked. I live on a block with fathers who take care of their children but are definitely overlooked. Even the fathers who do have unfortunate situations, where fathers are incarcerated or who have been incarcerated who come out and take care of their kids or who continue relationships with their children throughout a very difficult situation, and we forget about them too, but they exist.” Dantzler says although his father was not involved in his life, another man helped him in his life’s journey. “For every father, the experience is different in raising your children in the different ways that they may need you or in how you have to assist or teach them, things that you didn’t realize that you were a teacher of. That, within itself, is just a blessing and a beautiful thing that you get an opportunity to see yourself as a person who is worthwhile and meaningful in someone else’s life. “We get an opportunity to see the direct connection that we have with our children. I value the opportunity to be in my children’s lives.” Senator Vincent Hughes’ recalls his father every year with the James Hughes Memorial Scholarship Fund and Golf Classic named to honor his father’s legacy as an advocate for education in a way that is beneficial to young people seeking higher education opportunities. Hughes says his father’s influence “was like a blanket blessing that hung over my life, and still does, because of his life, his work and who he was as a person. In life, he was solid as a rock for me. When I talked about running for public office, which came out of nowhere, he was right there asking the appropriate questions, probed and made sure he stood with me.” Hughes won a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives at the age of 30. Today, Hughes and his wife, actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, share a blended family which includes the Senator’s children, Ariell and Alek; grandchildren Dylan and Khaya; and Ralph’s children, Etienne and Ivy. Hughes says the lessons he learned from his father are passed forward to the next generation. “I’m a grandfather now,” reflected Hughes. “And I try to be solid, consistent and dependable for my children. I try to explain the pros and cons of what the issues are for them. And I try to do what I can to help them realize their dreams.” =Originally Published in The Philadelphia Tribune on Father’s Day, June 17, 2007=

For 58 years Mr. Culver delivered the news on his bike…

By Bobbi Booker

On Tuesday, February 5, 2008, newspaper deliveryman Mr. Floyd Culver died. He was 100 years old, and the following interview was done on the eve of his century-old mark. Mr. Culver still possess the old bike he delivered papers on for nearly 60 years, but he now uses a sporty little mobility chair to get around in. I could almost see the wink in his eye when he first proposed to me and his charm gave me insight to why he’d been married thrice. Ironically, his first child wasn’t born until he was 50 years old, the age she now is. He was a treat to speak with, and his presence will be missed.

=Originally featured as a front page feature in the October 9, 2007 edition of

The PhiladelphiaTribune=

As door-to-door delivery from the iceman and the milkman were fading
into the past, newspaper deliveryman Floyd Culver maintained a
substantial route in South Philadelphia. For 58 years Culver rode his
custom-made bike throughout the region servicing homes, business and
both Graduate and Pennsylvania hospitals. So, when he retired from
his route five years ago, many of his customers were sadden but
understood that it was time for the 95-year old gentleman to rest his
bike. Although Culver agreed to give up his paper route, he still has
not only his bike (which he still rides occasionally) but also a
motorized chair to tool around in.

Today marks a century since Culver’s birth in Alabama on October 9th,
1907. “I was born in a little town they call Headland, Al.,” recalled
Culver on the eve of his 100th birthday. “Born on a farm. Worked in
the field. Went to school four months a year. Finished 6th grade. My
mother took me out of school and I worked at a grocery store for 24
cents a day. That was in 1914, when I was only about 5 or 6 years old.
I rode a bicycle then.”

As a young man, Culver joined the Navy and was part of the World War
III invasion of Okinawa after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After his
tour of duty, his travels brought him to Philadelphia which has been
his home ever since.

It came as no surprise that Culver has married thrice, considering his
first words to the reporter after hello was, “Would you marry me?” As
charming as Culver is, he was a decidedly more business minded
individual. After his divorce from his third wife (with the legal
assistance of a young Leon Higgonbotten, Jr. Esq.) Culver attended the
William Penn Institute and earned his business degree in two years.
His first venture was a candy store at 18th and Bainbridge before he
realized another opportunity: newspaper delivery.

In his heyday, Culver sold upwards of 3,000 daily papers along a route
that spanned from Broad Street to 23rd Street and from Pine Street to
Washington Ave. In addition to selling The Philadelphia Tribune and
several other Black newspapers of the time, Culver also sold the
(now-defunct) Philadelphia Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The
Philadelphia Daily News and The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. “At one
time I had three boys working for me,” said Culver. “That’s when I had
the route all the way down to Moore Street. I had the biggest route in
South Philly.”

At age 50, Culver welcomed his only child, Brenda J. Taylor (now 50
herself). “That’s my backbone,” he says of his daughter. He is also
grandparent to a grandson, Evan, and granddaughter, Nicole, both
residents of Atlanta, GA. He’s a devout reader of the Bible, and looks
forward to the rare visits he makes to Shiloh Baptist Church at 21st
and Christian Streets. As a person who has bore witness throughout the
20th Century, Culver has lived through incidents of inner-racial
disparity. “I went to the church at 16th and Christian one time and
sat on the wrong side of the church where the light skinned people sat
and the (usher) girl come moving me over where the dark people sat. I
said ‘I won’t go to this church no more.’”

He credits his good health to the healthy lifestyle he has maintained
for decades through diet and a regiment that includes 666(r) Cold
Preparation pills, castor oil and Epson salt. In 1940 he gave up red
meat. “The food that I ate at the time that I grew up had a lots to do
with my body because I don’t eat no pork and no beef,” said Culver. “I
eat a lot of green vegetables, fish, chicken and turkey. That’s the
way I go.”

When asked the secret to a long life, Culver replied, “Mind your own
business, stay clean and don’t try to harm nobody.”
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–
Lifestyle/Leisure/Literature

“…This jewelry is like music to me.”

Remembering sculptor John Simpson’s genius through wood, words

John “Yah Yah” Simpson

By Bobbi Booker
Most folks look at a piece of wood and simply see the remnants of a tree. As a sculptor, John Simpson would look at the same piece of wood — a displaced branch or discarded tree trunk — and see a canvas.
Simpson’s death at age 71 on Dec. 3, lays to rest an artistic visionary whose highly evolved senses released the life forces inherent in wood and crafted into life-sized images of human figures that continue to resonate with art collectors, fans and friends alike.
Simpson, known affectionately as “Yah Yah” to many, was a unique and divinely inspired sculptor. He first started his craft as a boy in Norfolk, Va. fashioning play soldiers for himself from discarded wooden clothespins.
He was never formally trained, yet without being well versed in African art, he moved on to creating breathtaking works out of chair legs and baseball bats. When people first began comparing his sculptures to African works, he remained unaware of the connection. Others however, felt the sprit of Africa was clearly present in his artwork and jewelry.
“I feel so connected to Yah Yah’s jewelry,” neo-soul singer Erykah Badu recalled. “I remember when I first saw it, I was automatically taken back to the Congo, or whatever part of Africa represented in these atoms that are caught in this stuff. I could smell Africa with this jewelry.”
Badu, whose distinctive sense of style was enhanced by Simpson’s breathtaking jewelry, took time out from her studio sessions to poignantly describe her feelings after hearing the news.
“When I heard he died, I was wearing a ring that he made me out of turquoise rock and a spoon. This jewelry is like music to me. It carries millions of billions of atoms of those rocks and that metal in them. It’s impossible not to feel the expressions of my ancestors through that because Yah Yah’s hands did it.”
Simpson staged his first one-man show at age 18 with his 1959 Philadelphia exhibit debut. His work spanned over the course of six decades and was featured at the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is represented in the collections of such notables as George Dupont, Walter Edmunds and Charles Searles. Simpson taught art for three years at the Christina Arts Center in Wilmington, Del. and for one year in the Philadelphia Model Cities Program at the Ile Ife Black humanitarian Center.
Most recently, Simpson showcased his mixed media collection of wood sculpture and handcrafted silver artesian jewelry at the Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum.
“John was independent and one of the most productive people I’ve known,” said Richard Watson, curator of the African American Museum of Philadelphia. “He transcended description because his work was motivated by the love of the culture and people.”
Simpson married twice and was the father of five children: Karen Simpson, 50; John Ridley Seal Simpson, Jr., 47; Yvette Penny Simpson, 41; Oladele Simpson, 40 and Nile Simpson, 25. His oldest child remembered her father as an open-minded sprit who was intrigued with learning and sharing his experience from his global travels.
Simpson said her father traveled to South Africa twice, initially meeting with Winnie Mandela and gaining an audience with President Nelson Mandela on his subsequent visit.
“Every time he went somewhere, it was like he soaked up the culture, the people and the everything,” noted Karen. “He had that amazing ability to do that and then bring it back and put it into his artwork. It was unbelievable.”
Simpson’s halcyon years could be described as the period between the 1960’s and throughout the ’70s when maintained a studio at 34th Street and Spring Garden. The space served as a regional artist colony. Some of the guests that stopped by were legendary, yet Simpson, a quietly humble man, never bragged. It was just another natural occurrence in the life of a naturally gifted artist.
“Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn, George Howard, Grover Washington and Stevie Wonder used to come to his studio when he was in West Philly,” evoked his daughter. “He was cool with them but it wasn’t like he was tripping about it. He would vibe with them and give them what he had to offer and would take in what they had.”
“He did a lot of work with entertainers,” concurred Watson. “He entertained the likes of people like the Funkadelic and Stevie Wonder and he made all kinds of things for people. Philadelphia International and the whole family of musicians frequented John’s studio. Erykah Badu was one of his latest clients and he was making jewelry for her. He did not go unnoticed and unappreciated whatsoever.”
Simpson was also a skilled conga player (he occasionally made and sold congas, as well) who frequently sat in on the jam sessions that would break out at his studio. “That place that he had at 34th and Spring Garden was really wonderful,” recalled friend and fellow artist, Falahuddain Deni.
“All the female dancers that used to be with Alvin Ailey would come down from New York and spend the night over there. He had drums set up in there along with a family of conga drums and an upright metal bass. Plus, he was such a groovy brother, even all the brothers loved him. He was the type of person who was natural with his leadership ability.”
Simpson’s art was the conduit that linked Africa to America and ultimately bridged the timeline between jazz and hip-hop. “Yah Yah” has been creatively described as a sorcerer of wood for his ability to take true nature forms such as a tree or piece of wood and breath a life-like image into it.
A piece of wood Simpson crafted into the image of Badu is prominently displayed in the vocalist’s Brooklyn apartment. “It’s like carving away at a piece of clay only to reveal what’s already there,” explained Badu. “Whatever piece he made, it was already there. He’s just filling the space up with the physical manifestation of it.”
A memorial honoring the life and work of John “Yah Yah” Simpson is scheduled for Sunday, January 6, from 1-4 p.m. at the African American Museum of Philadelphia, 701 Arch St.

=Originally published in The Philadelphia Tribune December 21, 2007=

“…In my head, I’m thinking about music.”

Photographer pushes the boundaries
Man of many talents dazzles with ‘innovative’ collection

John Dowell

photo by Michele Hunter

By Bobbi Booker,

As a great contemporary American painter, etcher and lithographer for more than 35 years, John Edward Dowell, 65, has now added master photographer to his list of accolades. During a debut of his latest exhibit “Cityscapes,” which opened in Philadelphia on Friday at the Brandywine Workshop, Dowell greeted dozens of art enthusiast, collectors and colleagues who were captivated by the scope and artistic depth of his latest collection. The North Philadelphia resident happened upon his innovative, cutting-edge style of photography less than a year ago as he experimented with combining lithographs with photo images of slices of urban life. Eventually, photography evolved into his primary focus. Dowell now shoots photos using a 4-by-5-format field camera and then digitally scans the images. The final pictures are produced as nearly 2-by-3 foot prints that are amazingly detailed. High-rise vantage points serve as his backdrop for capturing spectacularly detailed slices of urban life. What is most unusual is that each of Dowell’s photographs captures a natural, ethereal-type of iridescence that results from a blend of light and movement. As guests survey the multidimensional photographs, they marvel at the spectrum of color and cutting-edge photographic style. They also point out the clarity of everyday life captured in the photos, which convey the tale of metropolitan life in each respective city. In one photograph, Dowell shoots Chicago’s landmark Marina City, built by architect master Bertrand Goldberg. The photos capture the Twin Round Towers (aka corn cobs) in a multidimensional montage that reflects, in extraordinary detail, a McDonald’s work crew cleaning up after closing on the building’s ground floor; a Christmas tree twinkling in a eighth floor bay window, the continuous blur of saffron highway traffic and mirrored images reflecting iridescent scenes off of the Chicago River. “What blew me away was they aren’t like any approach to photography I’d ever seen,” said Allen Edmonds, president and executive director of Brandywine Workshop. “It’s the choice of contrast, the colors, the time of day and they were not manipulated. That’s composition … that’s understanding. So they’re really paintings. You couldn’t do this and just be a photographer with a camera. You’ve got to be an artist to do this.” Dowell’s works in canvas, ceramics and print currently sits in 58 private museum collections worldwide, including the Biblioteque Nationale Museum in Paris; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and Yale University Museum. “ It’ s electric,” said Larry Robin, owner of Robin’ s Bookstore. “ His art has evolved from ceramics, to lithography, to photography. John has a mind that just doesn’ t stop. He wasn’ t a photographer. He was looking for a way to express the continuity of what you see.” He is the chair of the Printmaking Area and a full, 35-year tenured professor at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. Dowell instructs students in his master’s of fine art classes to think beyond the rules, urging them to interpret art with the nostalgic vision of their mind’s eye and creative autonomy. A Lindback Award recipient, recognized for distinguished teaching, Dowell has taught his innovative perspective on art at universities spanning from Rome to Seattle. Still, it is his laid-back North Philadelphia style and artisan’s finesse that people notice before they’ve even glimpsed his work. “He was never trained as a photographer, if so, they would have told him that he couldn’t do this,” Robin said. “He knew what he wanted and he made the camera do what he wanted, which was to be able to see and sense the history, movement, continuity, while capturing the separateness and space.” A major element in Dowell’s art has been to find an abstract, visual interpretation of poetry and music. He has been drawn in particular to the equivalent of a artsy-style visual of jazz. “In my head, I’m thinking about music,” Dowell said. “I want to shoot where you see a reflection from the outside (and wonder) is that real or not real? But then, I’m shooting inside the building and you see people inside. But it’s all caught in an instant. I hear one guy blowing the saxophone and all of a sudden the drummer comes in with a solo. See that’s what I hear and I’m looking for that and I see that in my images.” Artist and poet Theodore Harris said, “It’s so shocking and beautiful. The fact that he has expanded his vision with photographs and experimentation, ever since I’ve seen John’s work from his abstract prints and drawing to this he’s always expanding his work … moving into realms of thought. This takes you into another world and let’s you know more about him as a person and an artist. That’s what it’s all about: taking chances and rolling the dice and see what we hit. I think John hit big time with this.” “Illuminations” featuring the photographic work of John E. Dowell Jr. and Andrea Baldeck runs through July 8 at the Brandywine Workshop, 730 S. Broad St . For more information contact (215) 546-3675 or visit http://www.brandywineworkshop.com/.

“…For many African Americans, it’s not an unfamiliar story that somebody passed.”

Blood test: Author explores famed father’s hidden lineage   By Bobbi Booker Tribune Staff Writer Two months before he died of cancer, renowned literary critic Anatole Broyard called his grown son and daughter to his side, intending to reveal a secret he had kept all their lives and most of his own: He was Black.But even as he lay dying, the truth was too difficult for him to share, and it was his wife who told their daughter Bliss that her WASP, privileged Connecticut childhood had come at a price. Ever since his own parents, New Orleans Creoles, had moved to Brooklyn and began to “pass” in order to get work, Anatole had learned to conceal his racial identity.As he grew older and entered the ranks of the New York literary elite, he maintained the facade. Now his daughter Bliss tries to make sense of his choices and the impact of this revelation on her own life in her memoir, “One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life — A Story of Race and Family Secrets” ($24.99, Little, Brown).The book’s title stems from the uniquely American caste system that holds any person with any Black ancestry, no matter their appearance, is Black. The elder Broyard was Creole and his family ranged in every color from brown to white.Consequently, when 6-year-old Anatole’s family arrived in Brooklyn in 1927 his parents had to pass for white in order to get work in 1930s New York. The struggle for employment lead to Broyard’s eventual decision to cut his family ties to maintain his status in the white world. Broyard was born into a post-Reconstruction America in which almost every state had a one-drop law on the books, or something equivalent by 1925. The one-drop rule was ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 when it overturned the Virginia Racial Integrity Act. Non-Americans found those classifications outrageous. Simply put, America’s one-drop rule means if you are not quite white, then you are Black, whereas outside the U.S. culture if you are not quite Black, then you are white. For most of the 1970s and ’80s, Anatole Broyard was a book critic for the New York Times who held considerable influence and was widely known in literary circles. When Broyard died in October 1990 after a long, painful and debilitating struggle against cancer, continuing interest in him was insured by the disclosure that he was, as his wife told their two adult children, “part Black.” According to Bliss Broyard, “My mother explained that my father had ‘mixed blood,’ and his parents were both light-skinned Creoles from New Orleans, where race-mixing had been common.” Broyard’s racial identity was an open secret to those who knew him and were aware — or suspected — he was not a white man. Controversy erupted in many literary, journalistic and social circles when several years after Broyard’s death, Henry Louis Gates reported the mixed ancestry of the famed literary critic in an article for the New Yorker entitled, “The Passing of Anatole Broyard.” “For many African Americans, it’s not an unfamiliar story that somebody passed,” said Bliss Broyard. “The people that I have met have appreciated the fact that I want to reclaim this history, because a lot of people feel like I didn’t have to explore this and make a part of who I am. There’s a respect for that, but at the same time my dad’s choice — and I can understand this, too — makes people angry. You look at somebody like Walter White who passed to investigate lynchings, but then he was the first director of the NAACP, but he used it to benefit the race. I can understand the anger at my dad and I can also understand my dad’s desire outside of racial categories. He should not have had to do that. He isolated himself and paid a price.” Eventually, the younger Broyard searches out the family she never knew in New York and New Orleans, and considers the profound consequences of racial identity while chronicling her evolution from sheltered WASP to a woman of mixed race ancestry. “I think of racial identity as a product of your experience of how you’ve lived your life,” Broyard explained. “On any form I check all that apply: Black, white, Native American. I think of myself as someone with mixed race ancestry, or mixed. “It’s interesting since the book has come out and has made me some sympathetic for my dad because there are some people out there that have really strong feelings about what I should call myself or what my dad really is. [They feel] either he wasn’t Black because he looked white or his ancestry was white and why should he have to call himself Black. People feel really strongly about that. “Or some people say that there’s really no such thing as mixed and African Americans come in all shades and all African Americans are mixed. It’s interesting and people have really strong feelings about this still.”

=Originally Published in the Philadelphia Tribune on November 2, 2007=

“…No other hair in the human family does that.”

By Bobbi Booker

Picture: Natural Hair Care Pioneer Yvette Smalls has shared her message via her “Hairstories” documentary

For the past dozen years or so, there has been resurgence in African American interest in natural hairstyles and care. Natural hair has been prominently featured with sports and entertainment stars and the general public has reflected the increased in popularity of styles such as cornrows, locks, braiding, twists, cropped and locked –most of which originated in Ancient Africa. This weekend’s 13th Annual International Locks Conference: Natural Hair, Health & Beauty Expo will celebrate the splendor of Black culture through classes on overall wellness. The expo, traditionally held during the first weekend of October, has expanded to two days of education, healthy food options, informative workshops, soothing healing circles, music, fashions, and a stunning hair show and competition.

Sakinah Ali-Sabree started as a conference volunteer and now serves as the operations manager. “The conference is about more than hair,” explained Ali-Sabree. “It also promotes Black businesses and have different vendors offer their products to the community and have workshops to educate the people in the community. It was an outlet for Black business that didn’t have a store.”

Although there has been a reemergence of natural hair, African Americans–and Black women in particular–still face an underlying tone that straightened hair is a more acceptable or professional hairstyle. As recently as August 2007, controversy erupted when “Glamour” magazine apologized for a staffer who called Black women’s natural hairstyles in the workplace “shocking,” “inappropriate” and “political.”

“People feel like locks are just a hairdo, but it comes with a little responsibility,” noted Ali-Sabree who accents her hair with elaborate ‘Gele’ head wraps. “That’s why I always stress the importance of education and learning about your hair, culture and your heritage, and basically the background on locks and where it comes from. I’ll have Asians or Caucasians say to me, ‘Oh that’s a nice hairstyle’ or ‘Maybe I should try that,’ and tell them it’s a history behind it. It’s not just a hairstyle for me; it’s a cultural statement.”

Expo presenter and natural hair pioneer, Yvette Smalls, has long used the slogan “Braid It-Don’t Burn It” to promote a pan-African appreciation of Afro-textured hair.

“Our hair is our crown and glory and we must embrace that standard,” said Smalls. “The standards of beauty that we’ve been taught are not necessarily beneficial for our people. I help Black women create our own standards.”

According to Smalls, natural hairstyles draw African Americans closer to their roots. “I believe that a lot of the empowerment lies in self-definition and shared experiences,” expands Smalls. “I encourage hair harmony because the essence of beauty is in the soul, not in or of the body.

“My quest of self discovery was beyond image and that’s what made me feel as though it were important to bond and share my experience with women so that we would have to go through some of the things we go through with the issue called hair.”

The Expo will also feature Hollywood newspaper columnist Rych McCain and his new book, “Black Afrikan Hair and The Insanity Of The Black Blonde Psych! (Why EVERY Black Afrikan “MUST” Wear Their Spiritually Divine, Nappy Hair Natural)!” ($25, Valley of Maat Publication). For over 20 years, McCain has researched the critical medial and social effects that have arisen from the poor self-esteem issues that African Americans have over their hair. “Hair is 75 percent of our personality,” said McCain, who has conducted education workshops for over 16,000 community youth and college students.

“The ladies know that,” stresses McCain. “They are not going to go out into the public unless their hair is together. I remember when my mother use to make sure that my sister’s hair was pressed. McCain’s research underscores the “spiritual divinity and physiological functions that natural nappy, kinky, and divine hair performs.”

“Our hair is the only hair that spirals out of the scalp and that’s because of the shape of the follicles but also because of our melanin,” maintains McCain. “When you look at the spiral it is the most profound motion in the universe. Everything on earth spirals. Blood spirals through your vain. Flowers and all plants spiral out of the ground. When you flush or take a shower and look at the water, the water spirals down the drain because of how the earth moves. The same force that creates the spiral of water going down a drain is the same force that creates the same spiral that makes our hair comes out of our head in a spiral form. No other hair in the human family does that.”

60 Second Critic: All The Way From Philadelphia

By Bobbi Booker

The Three Tenors of Soul, All the Way from Philadelphia

Shanachie Entertainment; $18.98

The soulful “Sound of Philadelphia” once defined the city musically around the world, especially in the songs of ’70s balladeers like the Stylistics, the Delfonics and Blue Magic. The distinctive falsettos of those groups’ lead vocalists on a new album should send a shudder of excitement down the spines of TSOP fans. Instead, producers have taken these magnificent voices and thrown them haphazardly onto a cover album. With karaoke-like presentations of the Bee Gees’ “Too Much Heaven” and Hall & Oates’s “I Can’t Go for That,” this recording teeters on calamity. There are plenty of big names represented on it. Too bad ­Philadelphia’s golden musical era isn’t.

=Originally published in Philadelphia magazine, October 2007=

 

…”If you look around the world today, still African Americans are struggling with some major challenges and issues.”

By Bobbi Booker
Few would have single out Iyanla Vanzant when she first arrived in Philadelphia from New York City to become an internationally recognized self-help guru who’d become a force in empowering women of all classes, races and socio-economic backgrounds. Yet, starting with “Tapping the Power Within: A Path to Empowerment for Black Women” in 1992 and for the next decade, Vanzant would go on to write over13 books—some autobiographical—but all containing basic spiritual principles, self-affirmations, and personal rituals. Vanzant graced the New York Times best-sellers list for her works “Yesterday I Cried” (Fireside, 2000), “One Day My Soul Just Opened Up” (Fireside, 1998) and “In the Meantime” (Fireside, 1999). By the 21st century, Vanzant would become an in-demand motivational speaker and television personality recognized as one of “100 Most Influential African Americans” and one of “50 Women Who Are Changing The World” by Essence Magazine.

Vanzant life story of her harsh childhood of being beaten and raped has helped thousands of women (and men) connect and find healing. This week, Vanzant returned to Philadelphia for the duel duties of hosting a three-day a week WURD-AM morning show and presenting a weekend-long self-help conference entitled “Spiritual Living, Spiritual Loving.”

Besides her writing, she has also been involved in television. In 2001 she hosted her own short-lived talk show Iyanla and three years later joined the reality television series “Starting Over” as a life coach. She eventually found the small screen was a big hassle. “When you are doing something like (television) you’re living somebody’s vision of what you should be doing,” explained Vanzant.
“Reality isn’t always real. Television’s commitment is to entertainment, not to healing and my commitment is to healing.”

The majority of Vanzant’s healing lessons takes place at the Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development she founded near her home in Silver Spring, Maryland.

When she was introduced to WURD 900-AM listeners this week, many callers welcomed her back to the region. “Philadelphia is where my career took a major shift through the support, encouragement and the nurturing that I did in Philadelphia, particularly at WHAT-AM. It was an opportunity for people to hear me and for me to really connect with people and their ideas, and we’re going to do that again.”

According to WURD 900-AM President W. Cody Anderson, Vanzant’s inclusion to the line up will shore up programming at the sole African American issues focus station in the area. “Iyanla has been a friend for a long time and I really appreciate the fact that she has maintained that relationship,” said Anderson. “She’s willing to do anything that she can do to help us established the kind of image and communication that we want.”

Vanzant emphasized the importance of sharing her message on African American-based radio. “If you look around the world today, still African Americans are struggling with some major challenges and issues,” Vanzant said. “There are so many things that we need to look at and talk about. People are suffering, and our community continues to suffer. We still get the least amount of services. Our children—our families—are in uproar. All of the things that one would think that we had moved through and overcome seem to right back in our face again.”

Vanzant notes that like her students, she had to reevaluate her goals and discipline herself to take time while juggling a hectic schedule, which now includes working on her latest book and multi—media project scheduled for 2008 release. “I’ve learned that it’s not healthy to burn the candle at both ends,” said Vanzant. “So I am learning to be much more gentle with myself and just honor this body, this life in a way that ensures that I’ll be around for a while.”

Spiritual Living, Spiritual Loving with Iyanla Vanzant took place Friday, Saturday & Sunday, March 23, 24 & 25, 2007 at the The Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts located 736-38 S. Broad Street (at Fitzwater on The Avenue of The Arts).

= Originally Published in The Philadelphia Tribune on March, 23. 2007=

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“Brown Sugar: Over 100 Years of America’s Black Female Superstars”

By Bobbi Booker

Donald Bogle’s road to uncovering the lives of Black entertainers started in the library of the Philadelphia Tribune that he would comb through while tagging along with his father (then a Tribune executive) on Saturday visits to the office. He recalled being transfixed at the obituary image he discovered of songtress Billie Holiday sporting her trademark gardenia. Already a movie buff, Bogle recalled that he “got caught up in the careers of all these personalities, the moments when they first became successful, the years they peaked as artists, and the periods afterwards when some slipped into decline.” The unique perspective Bogle has as an eyewitness to history has been shared in several books he’s authored including “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films,” “Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams,” and the prize-winning biography “Dorothy Dandridge.”

Bogle continues his historical trek and celebration of America’s “dark divas” in the newly designed and updated “Brown Sugar: Over 100 Years of America’s Black Female Superstars” (Continuum Paperback, $34.95). Originally published in 1980, “Brown Sugar” was also the basis for the four-hour, four-part, documentary that appeared on PBS traverses the career trajectory African American women entertainers have blazed from the 19th century through the new millennium. “There are three new chapters (and) 165 new pages, so it’s almost twice the length of the original,” explained Bogle. “If anyone has the first one, it’s probably going to become a collector’s item because it’s designed in a different way with different photos that we couldn’t include in this one.”

An interpretive history, “Brown Sugar” is not only about the accomplishments but also the sometimes heart-wrenching struggles and tragedies of highly talented and ambitious women who set out to announce themselves to the world – and while doing so, surmounted extraordinary obstacles, both professionally and personally. Included are profiles and lavish images of Ma Rainey, Josephine Baker, Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Marian Anderson, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Eartha Kitt, Leontyne Price, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Aretha Franklin, Pam Grier, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Halle Berry, Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey, Lisa Bonet, Jasmine Guy, Lauren Hill, Queen Latifah, Beyoncé and many others.

“The old women (entertainers) most of them came from very tough backgrounds and they were often improvised. Many of them rose out of poverty, which makes their achievement all the more remarkable that they climbed out of that to get to international success. Today, Beyonce and even Whitney Houston grew up in a middle class household, and even Janet Jackson’s (childhood) was even dysfunctional, but it wasn’t what we’d call hardcore ghetto. That’s something that has changed very much for the women.”

Contemporary artists continue to reveal— sometimes unintentionally —that they are inspired by the artist of old and continue to include stylistic dance movements in contemporary. There is an intangible yet intertwined history the women of Brown Sugar share by the dent of commonality as Black women. According to Bogle, this remarkable tradition is largely unknown or not understood—or simply unacknowledged.

“Beyoncé and Josephine (share a) kind of sexuality that is there and the movements as well. You can see that if you see old footage of Josephine Baker. You can see these connections because Josephine Baker moved in a way that white women did not move and that is part of this thing that’s been past on to someone like Beyoncé. A current star might not be aware of where all this has come from. The other thing that Beyoncé has—and there is a connection with these women in the past whether it’s Josephine Baker or Bessie Smith or certainly Ethel Waters—is that Beyoncé never comes across as some sort of woebegone ghetto girl. She exudes this glamour and the idea that she really was born for this life of extravagance and displays a fundamental optimism in her performances. She also has a sense of humor and all of that connects back to these women of the past. You don’t necessarily see that with white female superstars.”

“Brown Sugar” is not only about music stars. It is an unexcelled examination of the lives, careers, and sometimes-contradictory images of African American goddesses of pop culture: the movies, television, music, and theater. Lavishly illustrated, “Brown Sugar” is a pioneering book – for example, in Bogle’s application of the operatic term “diva” to pop goddesses. “One thing about the length of the new book is that there are so many more women working,” said Bogle. “Again, that doesn’t mean that they are working the way that they want to. What we do have now are these women who are able to command multi-million dollar contracts that really were unheard of (before). Someone like Diana Ross and Donna Summer, in the past those women did well and had really good deals for the time, but not like the deals later. Also the women now have their own sort of conglomerate. Beyoncé has the House of Dereon clothing line and these other things that she’s putting together, in addition to her singing career. It mirrors what happens with stars like Jay-Z, P. Diddy. So you do have that sense of women marketing themselves in a certain way and really creating something else besides their music.”

=Originally published in The Philadelphia Tribune on Sunday, July, 22, 2007=

The DJ Spooky remix of D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”

By Bobbi Booker

Pictured: Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky in the midst of a multi-media presentation of “The ReBirth of a Nation.”

Nearly a century after it’s cinematic release, D.W. Griffith “The Birth of a Nation” remains one of the most influential and controversial films in the history of cinema. Although the 1915 movie’s innovative technical achievements were hailed, the film’s Civil War themes also drew protests due to its controversial promotion of white supremacism and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, who continue to actively use it as a recruiting tool.

The film’s politics made Birth of a Nation divisive when it was released drew significant protest from Blacks across the nation. Riots broke out in Philadelphia and other major cities because it was said to create an atmosphere that encouraged gangs of whites to attack blacks.

So why is noted independent artist, writer, producer, and musician Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, revisiting the controversial movie in the 21st Century? Because, he says, to forget the past is to repeat it.

“My whole theory about everything right now is that Black culture is a sign of strength and maturity and also just an ability to say that these are issues that don’t define us anymore,” explained Miller. “There a very famous phrase that says, ‘Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.’ And I think in the era of Condi Rice or Colin Powell, or for that matter Barack Obama as one of the first Black senators to be elected since the end of Reconstruction, there’s a lot of issues that are still lingering. So, I look at my Rebirth of a Nation project as saying there’s strength to understanding the dynamics of history. A lot of these issues are still a part of the basic vocabulary of how we think about American culture, whether you look at Flavor Flav’s Flavor of Love where he’s dressed like a minstrel from the late 19th century or the political dynamics of how Barack Obama is flowing.”

“Birth” smashed previous box office records, while ushering in a new standard in films: feature length movies. In its day, it was the highest grossing film, taking in more than $10 million at the box office. The movie’s controversy stemmed from the way it expressed the racist views held by many in the era in its depiction Southern pre-Civil War Black slavery as benign, and the Ku Klux Klan as a band of heroes restoring order to a post-Reconstruction Black-ruled South).

Eventually, Griffith would try to denounce prejudice in his next film “Intolerance” by showing how slavery was wrong, but his legacy would forever remain tied to “Birth of a Nation”. Miller deconstructs and remixes the original movie by applying DJ technique to cinema as an engagement with film, music, and contemporary art.

“I think it’s one of those films that set the tone for how you think about mass culture,” said Miller. “It was the first film that the term blockbuster was created for because so many people would go to see it that they lined up around the block. Also, the film was meant to be a rebellious statement at that time, but it was a rebellion of what whites viewed as politically correct situation and I view it as an ironic kind of reductionist situation.”

Miller is accustomed to creative exploration and intellectual debate, having been seeped in academia since his birth in 1970. Even his moniker is an arcane reference to a character in a William S. Burroughs novel. As the namesake son of Howard University’s dean of law (who died when Miller was three) and his mother, author Rosemary Reed Miller, who ran an international fabric shop off Dupont Circle, Miller spent much of his childhood in Washington, D.C.’s nurturing bohemia before studying philosophy and literature at Bowdoin.
“I grew up in a household where intellectualism was celebrated,” explained Miller.
“I have to admit, it’s okay to be intellectual and I really enjoy that. And I want people to think that Black culture is just about hip hop, but there also is a whole intellectual relationship going on.”

Today, he serves as professor of music mediated art at the European Graduate School in between his global travels as an internationally renowned DJ. Miller was one of the first international artists invited recently to play in Angola where a 20-year tribal war just ended.

“What I’m trying to do is get people to think that DJ culture is about remixing and sampling, flipping beats in different directions, but also it’s about flipping visual rhythm,” noted Miller. “I wouldn’t say that Griffith was getting jiggy or anything, in fact he’d probably be turning in his grave, but that’s kind of the point. The 21st Century is going to get wilder and more intriguing and my film, as a remix, is a celebration of that.”

The Gordon Thether, 3rd & Pearl Street (at base of Ben Franklin bridge) on Rutgers-Camden University campus, hosted DJ Spooky’s multimedia presentation “Rebirth of a Nation” at 8p.m., Friday April 13th, 2007 proceed by free panel discussion at 6 p.m.

=Originally Published in The Philadelphia Tribune on Friday, April 13, 2007=

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…Where Are They Now?An Update on Ex-Music Stars Chubb Rock, Ray Parker Jr. and Others

Originally published on Tuesday, June 05, 2007
By Bobbi Booker, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Just as superstar performers Beyonce, Rihanna and Jay-Z are constantly atop music charts, a mere generation ago, performers such as Ray Parker, Jr., similarly were heard everywhere. While Chubb Rock, Father MC and Miles Jaye didn’t share Parker’s blockbuster fame, they too, constructed the music that a generation of listeners boogied down to at parties or chilled out with on dates.

Been wondering about how some of these acts are faring years after their initial success? BlackAmericaWeb.com hopes to answer some of those questions — and some of those rumors — with the following four updates.
CHUBB ROCK

Long considered one of the East Coast’s most dexterous rappers, Chubb Rock (born Richard Simpson) was a former National Merit Scholar who pre-dated Kanye West as the college dropout. Rock launched his rap career in earnest after dropping out of pre-med at Brown University and released his debut album for Select records in 1988. The year 1990 not only opened Rock’s “Treat ‘Em Right,” his biggest tune to date, but also launched the “Chubbster” — his nickname, and also the title of another one of his hit three singles from his album “The One” which reached #13 on Billboard’s “Top Hip-Hop/R&B” chart.

Although Chubb’s infectious party sizzler, “Treat ‘Em Right,” included referenced to his ample height and girth (“6 foot 4 and maybe a quarter of an inch bigger/Than last year but still a unique figure”), the tune also urged listeners to political consciousness with the plea to “never forget Yusef Hawkins,” a 16-year-old black New Yorker who was killed during a racially charged attack in Bensonhurst.

Chubb’s prolific recording career slowed down in the late’90’s, but the Big Man never stopped performing old-school hits for his fans around the globe.

“I’m in a great place,” explained Chubb Rock, 39. “I just started my new label, History Records. We’re doing the new album, ‘The Grown and Sexy Theory.’ We’re working on this documentary called ‘Old School’ that I’m trying to have released January ‘08. I’m in the middle of writing this book right now. This is a good time for me, man. I’m ready to reenter the system, the game, and finish the report card on a good level.”

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FATHER MCDuring the 90’s, Father MC represented a merger of hip-hop and New Jack Swing. Born Timothy Brown, the former dancehall reggae performer was discovered and signed by upstart Uptown music executive Sean “Puffy” Combs and was instrumental in introducing Jodeci and Mary J. Blige to the listening public.”People will probably recognize me from Puffy dancing in my videos (and) Mary j singing in my joint, ‘I’ll Do 4 U,’” noted Father.From his 1990 debut album, “Father’s Day,” the rapper immediately followed with “Close to You” and appeared on the critically acclaimed Uptown CD, “MTV Unplugged.” As Father MC’s recordings tapered off, he rounded out the decade with a fully nude spread in “Playgirl” magazine.The new millennium brought a different distinction to Father MC, with several arrests for non-payment of child-support. One of his memorable arrests occurred when the radio shock jock Wendy Williams (then working at New York’s Hot 97) set up Father MC to be confronted with police who were called in by the radio host and the mother of Father MC’s babies.

Last year, Father MC’s appearance on the BET Awards sparked more rumors about his future.

“Right now, I’m about to drop an album. It’s called ‘The Noise,’ he said recently. “I got a position at a major label that’s under construction right now. I’ll be a major vice president in ten seconds if everything works itself out.”
MILES JAYE

The mellow tunes of Miles Jaye Davis may belie his early start in the Air Force, the singing cop in the disco group Village People or as one of the early protege’s of Teddy Pendergrass. His 1988 discovery by Pendergrass lead to Davis’ production their successful collaboration, ‘Joy’, which reached gold status.

Much like his namesake — the trumpeter Miles Davis — Jaye has proven to be a distinctive musician, recording 12 different instruments on several of his critically acclaimed CDs. As a writer and classically trained violinist, Jaye has penned, recorded and produced seven chart-topping hits, including “Let’s Start Love Over” and “I’ve Been A Fool For You.”

Jaye’s reputation as an R&B and contemporary jazz writer has seen him partner with some very notable jazz giants on his musical recordings, including Grover Washington, Jr., Roy Ayers, George Duke, Branford Marsalis, Dexter Wansel and Nat Adderley, Jr. He has also performed with Roberta Flack, Najee, Patti LaBelle, Peabo Bryson, Chaka Kahn, Gerald Levert, The O’Jays and dozens of others.

Jaye has scored more than 40 original compositions, and today concentrates on maintaining his fan base via the Internet.

“You know, I’ve decided to concentrate more and more of my time and attention to the website, www.milesjaye.com,” explained Jaye. “Where traditionally you release one single and one CD at a time, we’ve decided to drop multiple singles, CDs at the same time. We got a hot new summer single called, ‘Still Sexy:’ an R&B CD called, ‘Time to Get My Mind Right,’ a smooth jazz CD coming out with the first single leading called, ‘The Truth about Love.’ Probably my favorite project right now is a project called, ‘Secret Waters, Peaceful Meditations.’ There’s something for everybody.”
RAY PARKER JR.

Although Ray Parker, Jr.’s sessions work as a guitarist led him to be known as “the musician’s musician,” he is best known to the public for the theme song to the blockbuster “Ghostbusters” movie. However, Parker’s musical legacy spans back to his Detroit high school days, when he was a sought-after guitarist playing on a number of Holland-Dozier-Holland productions. After graduating high school, Stevie Wonder tapped Parker to join his 1972 tour with the Rolling Stones.

In 1977, Parker formed a fictional band, Raydio, and their first hit, “Jack and Jill,” introduced Parker’s signature catchy and infectious music style to the Top 10 on both the Pop and Soul charts. Thus began a string of hits for Raydio that included the smashes “You Can’t Change That,” “A Woman Needs Love” and “Two Places At the Same Time.” Parker also began writing and producing for a number of other artists, and he scored a number one hit in 1982 with New Edition’s “Mr. Telephone Man.”

By 1982, Parker dropped Raydio and began recording under his name. The hits continued with a more mature sound on “The Other Woman” and “I Can’t Get Over You.” Then in 1984, Parker scored his first across-the-board, number-one song with the theme song from the Bill Murray movie “Ghostbusters.” The tune topped the pop and soul charts for over a month and became one of that year’s biggest hits.

The song also became one of Parker’s biggest headaches when controversy arose with rocker Huey Lewis over “Ghostbusters”‘ similarity to Lewis’s 1983 hit “I Want A New Drug.” Parker settled the lawsuit in an out-of-court agreement with Lewis.

However, after “Ghostbusters,” Parker’s sales dropped. Although he had two more hits (1984’s “Jamie,” followed the next year by “Girls Are More Fun”), his 1991 album barely charted.

Today, Parker, 53, says he’s invested his earnings and is doing all right for himself. He took time off in the ’90s to raise his four children and now performs about 75 times a year.

“Nowadays, I am up to having fun,” said Parker. “I do a bunch of concerts now. I made a new record last year; I think it was the longest running instrumental on Smooth Jazz radio. I only want to do things that are fun now. Everyday I wake up, I just want to play with my kids or play with my family.”

BlackAmericaWeb.com Exclusive Series: 20 People Who Changed Black Music – The Prolific Prince, the Fearless, Peerless Rock-Soul Star

Originally published on Friday, June 29, 2007

By Bobbi Booker, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

The musical genius of Prince was immediately apparent when the teenaged artist released his 1979 hit tune, “I Wanna Be Your Lover.”

The world was just getting a peek at the young man who would blossom into an award-winning performer, a man whose artistry and influence would span the globe. Prince’s music has spanned myriad styles — from his early material, rooted in R&B, rock, and soul — and he has constantly expanded his musical palette throughout his career, absorbing many other genres, including funk, New Wave, pop, rock, blues, jazz and hip-hop.

Born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince Rogers Nelson honed the circumstances of heritage as the background for his hit movie and Oscar-winning soundtrack, 1984’s “Purple Rain.” Although wildly popular before that point, from there, Prince’s superstardom was launched.

The famously prolific artist has released several hundred songs, sold nearly 100 million albums and won a half-dozen Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards along the way. In addition to “Purple Rain,” his body of work consists of 20 Top 10 hits, which include “Little Red Corvette,” “1999,” “Kiss,” “Cream,” “Diamonds and Pearls” and countless others that remain mainstays among adults, like “Head,” “Erotic City” and “Hot Thing.”

Yet, his achievements where nearly relegated to the B-sides of music history.

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Prince adopted an unpronounceable symbol as his official name from 1993 to 2000, thus causing the press to dub him “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” or simply, The Artist. During that seven-year span, The Artist waged a questionably successful war with Warner Bros. Records, scrawling the word “Slave” along his cheeks and demanding his artistic freedom. He released a number of musically uneven CDs that would alienate some of his fans while drawing puzzled reactions from other music professionals.”His stance about how morally corrupt (his record labels) are after “Purple Rain” and “1999″ was a bit hypocritical for me,” said saxophonist Branford Marsalis. “I thought it was disingenuous of him to criticize the system that enriched him. I agree that the system is not fair, but the system made him wealthy. It was kind of like Michael Jackson accusing Columbia of racism. It kind of rings hollow. It’s hard to really bolster your case when there’s overwhelming evidence that you are criticizing the system that has made you what you are. But at the same time, I like the fact that he understood the business well enough. The music industry is rather corrupt. It’s hard to know how much money you really make because there are so many invisible clauses.”Or, as music journalist and author, Richard Torres concluded: “It’s very tough to gain sympathy for a multi-millionaire.”When the dust settled from battle between Warner Bros. and Prince, the Artist had a completely new strategy to ensure his future artistic and financial control of his creative output. He was among the first to create a successful global online music presence where fans had exclusive access to his music.

In 2004, the new-and-improved Prince was ushered back into the public conciseness with the one-two punch of his February performance with Beyonce Knowles at the start of the Grammy Awards and his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Two months later, he would independently release “Musicology,” his biggest album since 1991’s “Diamonds and Pearls.”

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LISTEN: Prince’s Musicology

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“Prince comes in with the reigning diva of the moment, and he reminded America what he had and what he could do,” said Torres. “And then, it kind of kicked of from there. You get to the ‘Musicology’ stuff where Prince basically said, ‘I’m not gone. I’m still here, and this is the stuff you should basically be listening to.’”Part of the “Musicology” chart success was due to The Musicology Live2004ever summer tour, in which concertgoers received a copy of the album included in the ticket price. The tour was an unparalleled hit, with nearly 100 dates — resulting in a handsome profit for the Artist, and a chart-topping slot for “Musicology” due to the sales link.His scheme prompted both Billboard magazine and Neilson SoundScan to change its chart data methodology, stating that for future record releases, customers “must be given an option to either add the CD to the ticket purchase or forgo the CD for a reduced ticket-only price.”"He did the brilliant thing, where he went on tour and every person who bought a ticket was given a CD, and the CD was SoundScanned,” noted Marsalis, “so, he was going to be one of the biggest selling records of all time because if 18,000 people go to a concert, maybe a 1,000 of them will buy a CD. He was selling 18- to 20,000 CD’s a night and SoundScanning them, so of course the record companies got together and banned him from doing that because he wasn’t affiliated with a major label.”A bold move like that “undercuts all the other ticks on the dog,” Marsalis said. “When people get lucky and bump into a system that works and the world changes around the system, the good ones change with the times, and the really lousy ones fight to enforce the system they have. Good for Prince for being in the situation where he could benefit and have a little schadenfreude over the sinking ship that is the record industry.”

Prince continued his reintroduction to American audiences earlier this year with a stellar performance before a worldwide viewership of 1 billion in more than 230 countries during Super Bowl XLII.

“He has always been a phenomenal live act,” according to Torres. “He’s from the tradition that is now lost. You may have your qualms with a Prince album, but you know when you go to see a Prince concert, you’re going to see an event.”

Now Prince has a Las Vegas venue at which he regularly performs exclusive concerts, while continuing to perform around the world. Fans new and old are already clamoring for his highly-anticipated July 2007 release, “Planet Earth,” which will reportedly feature a reunion of former band mates Wendy and Lisa.

“Prince reminds you of how great he is and can be, and unlike Michael Jackson, he doesn’t give you that cringe factor,” said Torres. “He’s got the chops of a jazz musician. He’s got the aura of a rock musician. But he has the deep-down, gut-bucket funk of a true Black musician.”

Many in Rap Circles Dismiss Imus ‘Double Standard’ Outrage, But Say It’s Time for Change

Originally published on Tuesday, April 17, 2007
By: Bobbi Booker, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

America is taking a deeper look at the misogyny and bitter language of rap lyrics in response to last week’s firing of radio talk-show host Don Imus for calling the Rutgers University’s female basketball players as “nappy-headed hos.” Now the debate is focusing on hip-hop music and the genre’s controversial use of profane language as a lucrative yet destructive cultural force. Critics have singled out performers such as Snoop Dogg, Ludacris and 50 Cent, who they say have built lucrative careers based, in part, on calling black women “bitches” and “hos,” fueling the public discussion on what’s been a private, long-debated issue in the black community.

“We have lost total contact as to why the culture was started, what it stood for and the whole positive movement,” according to Lady B, host of the old-school hip-hop show “BackSpin 43″ on Sirius Satellite Radio. “It was supposed to be the total opposite of what we have now. Afrika Bambaataa and native New Yorkers from the Bronx started hip-hop as a way of healing the community, not destroying it. Its initial dream was to stop drug abuse and gang violence in the ‘hood, in the Bronx. It was a great thing for many people, [inspiring them to] put down their guns and knives and choose to battle with a turntable and microphones instead.”

Those says are indeed dead, she says.

“Now, we’ve totally flipped it,” Lady B told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Now it’s totally nothing but violence. It’s nothing but degrading to women, and it’s nothing but a cash situation now.”

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As one of the earliest female rappers in hip-hop history, Lady B says she feels that Imus’ use of hip-hop culture to defend his comments was hypocritical.

“We’re paying attention to the (hip-hop) lyrics because some prejudiced fool decided to call some sisters out of their names, and don’t even know why the two are connected,” she said. “It’s been this way, so why are you guys angry now?”

Philadelphia talk radio host Reggie Bryant told BlackAmericaWeb.com that black folks engaged in debate about any link between Imus and hip-hop have been hoodwinked.

“It is a calculated attempt to offset the venal specificity of this active racist by other part-time racists to deflect away from the real issue,” said Bryant. “The Imus thing has nothing to do with hip-hop, misogyny and gangsters calling people bitches and hoes. Nothing! White folk always find a way to deflect away from the point.”

The two issues are “mutually exclusive,” Bryant said.

“They start it off with Imus himself and his absolutely, totally unacceptable bleating about the incidental comment. The thing that’s so sad is that black folks, plus some Negros and a couple of colored folk, bit into it and became completely distracted,” Braynt maintained. “There is nothing at all [in the Imus controversy] that has any relevance to what hip-hop folk have been doing. Everybody knows that, for a long time, there have been people dealing with the lyrics and all that. And its white folk that make the lyrics available.”

Some observers have suggested that the national gag-reflex response to Imus’ venomous statements should not be used as an attempt to censor or silence hip-hop, but to instead examine our individual and collective behavior. Has the “CNN of the ghetto” — as Public Enemy’s iconic Chuck D. famously referred to rap — aired not only African-American socio-political stances, but our linguistic dirty laundry as well?

“We’re our own worse enemies in this case,” former talk show host Dave Warren told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “The fact is that a lot of us don’t take into consideration the things that we say.”

Cultural critic, author and columnist Stanley Crouch, a longtime foe of rap music, suspected the Imus ordeal would galvanize young black women across the country. He said a key moment was when the Rutgers players appeared at a news conference following the outrcry — poised, dignified and defying stereotypes seen in rap videos and “dumb” comedies.

“When the public got to see these women, what they were, it was kind of shocking,” Crouch said. “It made accepting the denigration not quite as comfortable as it had been for far too long.”

Some defenders of rap music and hip-hop culture, such as the pioneering mogul Russell Simmons, deny any connection between Imus and hip-hop. They describe rap lyrics as reflections of the violent, drug-plagued, hopeless environments that many rappers come from. Instead of criticizing rappers, defenders say, critics should improve their reality.

“Comparing Don Imus’ language with hip-hop artists’ poetic expression is misguided and inaccurate and feeds into a mindset that can be a catalyst for unwarranted, rampant censorship,” Simmons said in a statement Friday.

But even longtime members of the hip-hop community suggest the time has come for some introspection.

“It’s out of control right now, and I don’t like where it’s going,” said an exasperated Felicia “The Poetess” Morris, president and CEO of Poetess Media. The Los Angeles-based former rapper and BlackAmericaWeb.com contributor says it is not the words, but the images that are most sinister in hip-hop culture.

“Don Imus as no influence on young Black youth. None! Zip! Zilch! The rappers have got all the influence. So, my initial thought was if they’re get on Imus, (these videos) are really what influences these young girls,” Morris told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “That’s more influential and more hurtful to us than anything Don Imus could say to us. Our own music is more harmful to us that anything Don Imus or anybody else could say.”

According to Philadelphia-based music producer Docta Shock, the language used throughout the Imus debacle is all wrong. The first correction Shock makes is Imus’ intent when he refers to hip-hop.

“The 10 people that are playing all the time are not hip-hop. Three 6 Mafia or 50 Cent are just a couple of groups out of the thousands of people pitting out records,” Shock told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “When they say hip-hop, they’re really talking about a whole culture: Deejays, breakers, writers, rappers, photographers, clothing people. I hear great songs everyday that don’t have a shot to get on the radio, but then they want to blame the rappers. And they don’t make those decisions.”

But in rap music’s beginnings, most of its most successful artists did indeed have more control because the music was independently created, produced and distributed by the artists themselves — and not focused on widespread commercial consumption or radio airplay. Embracing new technology, Lady B says, would enable hip-hop to regain its independence and original artistic message.

“Maybe now, with what Chuck D and other intelligent hip-hoppers are doing — selling their own stuff on the internet and taking back the distribution — would work,” she told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Maybe we can cut out the middle and just address our people directly.”

Shock concurred, adding that “the difference between old and new rap music is that we lost the support, and we don’t own all those little labels like Sugar Hill and Profile anymore.”

The good old days of “underground” radio airplay, the forum in which rap music delivered its goods years ago, may well be lost on current music lovers, especially younger radio listeners who endure the same limited, daily airplay.

“The general public is generally programmed by radio because they’re playing songs over and over,” said Morris, “so you can’t help but sing along and kind of get stuck on the song. I think if radio programmers put that same energy towards offering rap music that is enlightened or positive, than people would be programmed to like that and that would succeed as well. Radio should give the same opportunity for good music that’s out there as it does the inappropriate stuff.”

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Associated Press contributed to this story.

For Visionary Black Artists Selling Their Music Online, Every Day is Independents’ Day

 

 

Originally published on Friday, June 08, 2007
By Bobbi Booker, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

R&B singer Eric Roberson has had over 137,000 MySpace.com profile views, and over 5,000 visitors have listened to or downloaded the several tunes he posts at the site from his CD, “Left.” As vocalist N’dambi prepares for her third album release, over 8,600 guests have listened to her song, “If We Were Alone.” You might not be able to score eight-time ASCAP winner Gordon Chambers at your local record store, yet he is a heralded star on CDBaby.com. And while the soulful sounds of Lady Alma have been in the air for years, hearing her on the air is quite another matter.

All of the above independent artists are bonafide stars in their own right, often selling out venues as they tour the nation or world. Their success stems from their affiliation with online music distribution, which has given independent artists new prospects for production, marketing and circulation on a global level, in an instantaneous fashion.

“When people hear of Lady Alma and a lot of other artists who have created a buzz nationally and internationally, the first thing they do is go to the Internet and find more history and music on these people. And if you’ve got music for sale online, that’s the fastest way people can get a hold of the music,” according to Tony Allen, Alma’s former manager. “It’s faster selling online, as far as reaching out to the masses internationally. People all over the world can buy your music, and you don’t have to worry about going to a retail store in Berlin trying to meet a storeowner and educate him on the artist. The community is right there on the Web.”

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AP VideoThroughout the history of recorded music, independent artists were at a disadvantage to their mainstream music colleagues, who could count on financial and commercial backing from record labels that were often affiliated with large conglomerates that controlled many subsidiary record companies. Today, the Internet has opened up new distribution channels for digital music, and this has leveled the playing field for music artists and performers. The rise of new media technologies, such as digital music and the Internet, has created new opportunities for independent musicians to self-produce and distribute their work on a global scale, both easily and affordably.A decade ago, James Collins, founder of the popular Baltimore-based band, Fertile Ground, created his own label, Blackout Studios, surrounded himself with like-minded musicians and began releasing his own music. To date, Blackout Studios has independently sold 300,000 units.”Each release that we have produced or marketed has a different strategy and doesn’t really follow a blueprint,” said Collins. “We don’t necessarily pump records to a formula. For instance, Fertile Ground, the biggest seller that we have, is a band that stays on the road. The records really support the tour, as opposed to modern black music that creates the inverse — where people only tour to support their new record. Fertile Ground really lives onstage; they have records that capture that light, and that is one of the strongest ways. The band sells about 60 percent of those records touring the 75 to 80 dates they do per year.”The Okayplayer.com form of Internet promotion inspired Collins, he says. In 1999, The Roots’ co-founder and drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson established Okayplayer as the official website for the innovative Philadelphia-based hip-hop band. Okayplayer has since evolved into an influential online community that not only nurtures its artists and encourages fan interaction, but also hosts an independent record label and sponsors a series of concert tours. Collins also credits his label’s success to online independent retailers, such as Dusty Grooves and CDBaby, which offer artists 75 percent of sales on a consignment basis, as well as additional promotion.”Everyone and anyone can do it,” said CDBaby spokesperson Sean Croughon from its Portland, Oregon headquarters. “The world’s changed a lot. It used to be that you used have to jump through the hoops of a few people in order to have your music made available. Before that, there were tons of tiny little labels all over the country that would put out records, but that was destroyed in the 50s and 60s, and now we are kind of returning to that. Everyone can be their own label.”

Online music distribution has given independent artists new prospects for production, marketing and circulation. The Internet has allowed individuals the ability to call their own shots by bypassing “the middleman,” taking control from both record companies and management. Technology has eased the chore of music production and CD duplication. Additionally, online record stores help artists tailor their tunes for music download entities like iTunes and Rhapsody.

“So now, those independent artists can be on the Web site alongside all other major label artists,” explained Croughon. “You can find music from any part of the world online, whether it’s through CDBaby, iTunes or any of the hundreds of independent record labels that sell online. It’s great. It’s just a golden age.”

New York hip-hop artist Count Coolout (born James Minor) recalls the initial street buzz that propelled his 1980 hit, “Rhythm Rap Rock.” Minor, now a music marketing consultant, runs his business online via JaThom Records.

“In the old days, (the major labels) didn’t want to touch us because we weren’t what they considered to be music at one point. A lot of guys were selling on independent labels,” said Minor. “It might be the neighborhood number man, the dealer who lent the money to actually make a label to put a record out. When the labels started to see how this music was being sold, they decided to start signing us and start giving distribution deals as well. Now, it’s come full circle.”

Today, major labels are even more reluctant to accept unsolicited material, forcing potential acts to rely on high-end intermediaries such as entertainment lawyers. Those artists who are signed are often submitted to a formulaic process that leads to similarity in the tunes that do receive airplay.

“What happens today, as opposed to yesteryear when I first started out, is there was no Internet. Back then, if the ‘net existed, there probably never would have been a brother on a major label,” explained Minor. “Today’s artists are selling the CDs from the Internet. They’re on the underground, but they’re still getting fame. The money coming from the ‘net may not be as great as if they were on a major label, but how much of that major money do they keep?”

On average, an artist signed to a major label deals gets about 8 percent of the wholesale selling price of the CD single (about $5) or CD album (approximately $7-$8 each). Depending on the deal the artist signed, they could receive mere pennies on a chart-topping hit song. It was this kind of formula that led to the financial downfall of such artists such as TLC and spurred other artists like Prince to trendsetting online music dominance.

“If a major outfit sells 100,000 CDs, it’s considered a total flop. If an independent person or label sells 10,000 CDs, they’re breaking out the champagne,” says Minor. “Do the math: 10,000 at $10 a pop is $100,000. So the majors, being who they are and doing business the way they’ve been taught to do it, have pushed themselves to the side. And people are just going forward.”

…African Americans Appalled by BET’s “Read a Book” video

By Bobbi Booker

Black Entertainment Television (BET) is once again embroiled in controversy regarding a music video entitled “Read A Book.” When the video first aired on BET’s “106th and Park” in July, the network invited viewers to join an online discussion about it. Since then the debate has escalated into an exceptionally heated online dialogue on various blogs concerning language and the negative stereotypes of African Americans. The controversial video has become a surprise viral hit for BET as several unedited versions of “Read a Book” recently surfaced on YouTube and drawn over 800,000 viewers.

The “Read a Book” video was developed by BET Animation, a new division established by the network’s president of entertainment, Reginald Hudlin, who made news in July as the executive who green lighted the “Hot Ghetto Mess” (HGM) series. Viewers, angry at BET lack of regard to their complains, took matters into their own hands by starting internet petitions and blogs. Nervous advertisers dropped out, television critics slammed the show and even BET sudden name change from HGM to “We Got To Do Better” could not save the programming from dismal ratings.

However, the “Read a Book” video has spiraled from an innocuous introduction to become an Internet sensation. The pro and con of this debate also highlights the generational—and digital—divide with older viewers saying they feel denigrated and younger ones saying the video is nothing more than a crude joke.

Bomani Ahmer, who says he’s “not a rapper but a poet with a hip-hop style,” wrote and performed “Read a Book.” The catchy video starts with a Lil Jon-like rapper screaming “Read a book, read a book, read a [expletive expletive] book!” In one scene, a woman shaking her rear with “BOOK” printed on her low-riding pants. The video also refers to “Niggas” and reprimands Blacks to raise “your . . . kids,” drink more water instead of alcohol, buy land, “wash your . . . teeth” and “use deodorant.”

“It is a satirical observation of the current ridiculous, offensive, and embarrassing state of the once noble art of Hip Hop,” writes Tcphilosopher , the primary poster of the video on YouTube. BET has not requested the popular video be pulled from YouTube.com. BET, is part of Viacom, the owner of CBS which earlier this year fired radio shock jock Don Imus for using what he called hip-hop-flavored humor in his comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

Jesse Jackson, among others, recently denounced the video, on his radio show. The “video ‘Read A Book’ on YouTube takes us into the abyss,” read Jackson ’s statement. “Billed as a satirical look at popular culture, a viewer is left with the distinct impression that nothing matters, that life is futile, knowledge fruitless, manners meaningless.

“A common definition of satire is witty language used to convey insults or scorn. The video is plenteously scornful and insulting, but not of crassness. The video insults reading, personal hygiene, family values and frugality. “Read a Book” heaps scorn on positive values and (un)intentionally celebrates ignorance. The simplistic repetitive rhyme and tune made it clear that the creator had not taken his own advice, i.e. to ‘Read a Book’”

BET continues to support the video and issued press release praising the video’s positive message: ” ‘Read A Book’ uses an irresistible beat on which to place the catchy, overly repeated lyrics. But instead of exhorting the listener to dance as much of current hip-hop does, he takes the opportunity to suggest ways through which people can better their lives.”

Last month, the home of BET president Debra Lee was targeted by online protesters in an Internet-based plea to urge viewers to boycott the network and to get BET to change its programming. Reverend Delman L. Coates of Clinton , Maryland’s Mt. Ennon Baptist Church and founder of the blog, “Enough Is Enough: Campaign for Corporate Responsibility in Entertainment” reports over 600 people from the northeast corridor had registered for the Saturday protest.

“This campaign does not go after the individual artist because they have the constitutional right to produce whatever music they desire,” This campaign is not debating artistic freedom or individual artists’ rights. This campaign is about corporate responsibility and government responsibility,” said Coates to EUR.com.

“I do think that Black executives have a responsibility to be accountable to the community. There were people before us who suffered, bled, died so that we can have our broadcast licenses. There are people who struggled so that African American executives could benefit from these positions,” Coates added. “Dr. King didn’t die so that we could present ourselves before the world stage in a negative way.”

…Our hair is our crown and glory and we must embrace that standard

By Bobbi Booker

For the past dozen years or so, there has been resurgence in African American interest in natural hairstyles and care. Natural hair has been prominently featured with sports and entertainment stars and the general public has reflected the increased in popularity of styles such as cornrows, locks, braiding, twists, cropped and locked –most of which originated in Ancient Africa. The recent 13th Annual International Locks Conference: Natural Hair, Health & Beauty Expo in Philadelphia celebrated the splendor of Black culture through classes on overall wellness. The Expo, traditionally held during the first weekend of October, has expanded to two days of education, healthy food options, informative workshops, soothing healing circles, music, fashions, and a stunning hair show and competition.

Sakinah Ali-Sabree started as a conference volunteer and now serves as the operations manager. “The conference is about more than hair,” explained Ali-Sabree. “It also promotes Black businesses and have different vendors offer their products to the community and have workshops to educate the people in the community. It was an outlet for Black business that didn’t have a store.”

Although there has been a reemergence of natural hair, African Americans–and Black women in particular–still face an underlying tone that straightened hair is a more acceptable or professional hairstyle. As recently as August 2007, controversy erupted when “Glamour” magazine apologized for a staffer who called Black women’s natural hairstyles in the workplace “shocking,” “inappropriate” and “political.”

“People feel like ‘locks’ are just a hairdo, but it comes with a little responsibility,” noted Ali-Sabree who accents her hair with elaborate ‘Gele’ head wraps. “That’s why I always stress the importance of education and learning about your hair, culture and your heritage, and basically the background on locks and where it comes from. I’ll have Asians or Caucasians say to me, ‘Oh that’s a nice hairstyle’ or ‘Maybe I should try that,’ and tell them it’s a history behind it. It’s not just a hairstyle for me; it’s a cultural statement.”

Expo presenter and natural hair pioneer, Yvette Smalls, has long used the slogan “Braid It-Don’t Burn It” to promote a Pan-African appreciation of Afro-textured hair.

“Our hair is our crown and glory and we must embrace that standard,” said Smalls. “The standards of beauty that we’ve been taught are not necessarily beneficial for our people. I help Black women create our own standards.”

According to Smalls, natural hairstyles draw African Americans closer to their roots.

“I believe that a lot of the empowerment lies in self-definition and shared experiences,” expands Smalls. “I encourage hair harmony because the essence of beauty is in the soul, not in or of the body. My quest of self-discovery was beyond image and that’s what made me feel as though it were important to bond and share my experience with women so that we would have to go through some of the things we go through with issue called hair.”

The Expo also featured Hollywood newspaper columnist Rych McCain and his new book, “Black Afrikan Hair and The Insanity Of The Black Blonde Psych! (Why EVERY Black Afrikan “MUST” Wear Their Spiritually Divine, Nappy Hair Natural)!” ($25, Valley of Maat Publication). For over 20 years, McCain has researched the critical medial and social effects that have arisen from the poor self-esteem issues that African Americans have over their hair. “Hair is 75 percent of our personality,” said McCain, who has conducted education workshops for over 16,000 community youth and college students.

“The ladies know that,” stresses McCain. “They are not going to go out into the public unless their hair is together. I remember when my mother use to make sure that my sister’s hair was pressed.”

McCain research underscores the “spiritual divinity and physiological functions that natural nappy, kinky, and divine hair performs.”

“Our hair is the only hair that spirals out of the scalp and that’s because of the shape of the follicles but also because of our melanin,” maintains McCain.

“When you look at the spiral it is the most profound motion in the universe. Everything on earth spirals. Blood spirals through your vains. Flowers and all plants spiral out of the ground. When you flush or take a shower and look at the water, the water spirals down the drain because of how the earth moves. The same force that creates the spiral of water going down a drain is the same force that creates the same spiral that makes our hair comes out of our head in a spiral form. No other hair in the human family does that.”

The 13th Annual International Locks Conference: Natural Hair, Health & Beauty Expo2007 took place on October 6th & 7th from 11AM – 8PM at the Walter D. Palmer LLP Charter School 910 North 6th Street. Philadelphia, PA.
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…A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Univ. Penn professor examines contributions of UNCF

By Bobbi Booker

For nearly four decades America’s consciousness has been etched with the phrase “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” a statement made famous the United Negro College Fund. Since its inception in 1944, UNCF has become the nation’s oldest and most successful African-American education assistance organization. University of Pennsylvania professor Marybeth Gasman, details the evolution of the organization in her publication, “Envisioning Black Colleges: A History of the United Negro College Fund” ($45, The Johns Hopkins University Press). This book reveals the multifaceted story of the organization’s efforts on behalf of Black colleges and is told against the backdrop of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement.“My research is about the history of Black colleges and their relationships with white philanthropy,” Dr. Gasman explained during a recent book reading at the University of Pennsylvania Bookstore. “This book is really about the evolving and changing organization that we see as the United Negro College Fund. What (founder) Frederick D. Patterson did is he took his idea for this collective idea to John D. Rockefeller Jr., who was already providing the lion’s share of funding for Black colleges through his father’s Rockefeller sponsored general education board. So the billionaire philanthropist Rockefeller Jr. loved the idea of consolidation.”In its early post-World War II years, the organization was restrained in its critique of segregation and reluctant to lodge a challenge against institutional and cultural racism. “The UNCF that exist today is very different from the one that was created in 1944,” Gasman assessed. Through cogent analysis of written and oral histories, archival documents, and the group’s outreach and advertising campaigns, Gasman examines the organization’s struggle to create an identity apart from white benefactors and to evolve into a vehicle for Black empowerment. A significant part of that change came when Vernon Jordan, Esq. took over as UNCF president in 1970. He ushered in the “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” campaign that still draws attention to the significance of historically Black colleges and universities. The Philadelphia region has spawned two UNCF presidents including current president and chief executive officer Michael Lomax and past president the Rev. William H. Gray. The UNCF reported in 2005 that it supported approximately 65,000 students at over 900 colleges and universities with approximately $113 million in grants and scholarships. About 60 percent of these students are the first in their families to attend college and 62 percent have annual family incomes of less than $25,000. UNCF also administers over 450 named scholarships.

Hot Ghetto Mess is a Hot Damn Mess for BET…

Escalating backlash against Black Entertainment Television’s (BET) decision to broadcast a six-week series entitled “Hot Ghetto Mess,” or HGM, has led two major sponsors to pull their ads from both the program and the channel’s website last week.

As the controversy swirled through cyberspace and the airwaves, there were unconfirmed reports late Friday night from a blogger who claimed to be close to the show’s host Charlie Murphy that BET had decided to pull the plug on the show.

While BET, owned by communications giant Viacom since 2004, continues to be tight lipped about the details of its lost sponsors or HGM, it’s website continues to promote the July 25 debut while tauting a blackface character with a red slash through its face, along with the tagline, “We Got To Do Better.”

HGM is culled from the website of the same name and features photos and video footage of random African Americans engaged in behavior or dressed in attire considered embarrassing and socially unacceptable. Several requests made to BET’s corporate headquarters to speak with the station’s press liaison and HGM founder Jamilla Donaldson were not returned at press time.

However, a little-know blog called “What About Our Daughters” (WAOD) is striking at the heart of the media conglomerate. In April, Gina McCauley answered the call to make a difference after viewing Oprah Winfrey’s two-day town hall meeting following Don Imus’ demeaning comments and debating hip hop lyrics and the use of the n-word.

A guest suggested that Black women were going to have to make their complaints known, and with that McCauley started her blog. She is now at the head of a blogasphere movement that is comprised of 20 and 30-somethings on the Internet–the same demographic BET has targeted with HGM. What started out as an informal think tank about the images that are absorbed by Black youths with a mere 200 weekly views has exploded to 18,000 daily views and now features a weekly podcast.

On July 1st, McCauley contacted State Farm Insurance Co with her concerns over their sponsorship of HGM. By day’s end, the company had pulled the advertisements. Soon, Home Depot also pulled their ads. McCauley, a 31-year old Austin-based attorney, charges that BET cares only about its income stream and does not about the community they claim to represent.

“First of all, our position has been to stop funding the foolishness,” explained McCauley. “BET can put ‘Hot Ghetto Mess’ up without commercial interruption if it wants to, but I am not going to subsidize it and they should ask Black women who go to work everyday to purchase these products and goods and services of these corporations to subsidize something that demeans them. If these corporations know anything about exhibiting people of color for entertainment and amusement, they wouldn’t be doing this. If they knew anything about the history of blackface and how that affected perceptions of African Americans around the world for centuries they would not do this. I think it’s intellectually dishonest to think that people outside the community who view this aren’t going to use it to either create stereotypes or cement stereotypes that they have. I have a problem with BET looking for the very worse, in their opinion, that the African American community has to offer and beam it around the world.”

The channel calls the 6-week series “a blend of tough love and social commentary.” On the HGM site, Donaldson, a Black lawyer who’s also an executive producer on the BET show, calls for a “new era of self-examination.”

“If it happens to be controversial, that’s fine,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. “If it makes it more marketable, that’s fine, too. ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ was controversial, too, but (Michael Moore’s) message got out there.”

Donaldson believes people have misinterpreted the intention of her website. “It’s long-standing among African-Americans that we don’t criticize each other in public, you don’t air the laundry,” Donaldson said. “But I don’t buy into it.”

“Whose laundry and for what purpose?” retorts McCauley.” That’s a charade. It has never been about airing dirty laundry until (BET) got criticized. It was always about finding people who looked ‘funny’ and let’s mock and laugh at them. Part of this is Jam being very elitist in trying to imply somehow that because these people are poor and uneducated that it’s okay for us to mock and scorn them. I don’t disagree with her that people shouldn’t be conducting themselves in that way, but I think it’s a big leap from going from the Internet to international broadcast television and I think that BET is a certain stamp of approval because they’re called Black Entertainment Television.”

More disturbing than the proposed airing of HGM is the recent media coverage of the HGM website that has lead to the discovery of photos of African American youngsters posed in provocative ways. McCauley believes these images represent abuse and neglect and that HGM founder has an ethical obligation as a lawyer to report these exploitive images to law enforcement officials.

“There’s pictures of little Black children with cigars in their mouths,” said McCauley. “The LA Times article mentioned (seeing images) of toddlers drinking beer or whatever. I have not clicked on it because I heard a description that some of it could qualify as child pornography and I don’t want that on my hard drive. I just think it’s morally repugnant and disgusting to have photos of African American toddlers in situations where they are being abused and neglected and put that up for entertainment purposes.”

The success that BET may claim for existing for 27 years has increasing been overshadowed by the criticism it has drawn for what many view as demeaning programming. Some people have even referred to the BET acronym as standing for “Black Exploitation Television”.

“They may think of it as some sort of free publicity campaign for the program,” noted pop culture critic and journalist Richard Torres. “You have a network that’s supposedly Black Entertainment Television which is white-owned. And it’s funny because BET keeps trying to explain itself saying its catering to the 18-34 demographic, the same demographic that by the way is losing it’s life in Iraq and is at risk from various forces, yet they don’t address those issues. You have a Black man running for president, who by all accounts is a credible candidate, and they don’t cover that. Instead you get ‘Hot Ghetto Mess.’”

“The problem is that there are always going to be sellouts in our community who are going to look for the quick dollar or the quick 15 minutes of fame,” said Lawrence Otis Graham, one of the nation’s leading experts on race, politics and class in America. “The problem is that because the white media allows so few Black voice to come through that they often pick the most provocative and shocking person or voice to tell our stories.”

As a way to circumvent broadcasting regulations several years ago, BET created a late-night segment called “Uncut” to air uncensored videos. Perhaps the most notorious video to air, which for many came to exemplify BET’s program choices, was “Tip Drill” by Nelly that depicted him swiping a credit card between a stripper’s buttocks. The video spurred such outrage that Spelman University students teamed up with Essence magazine’s “Take Back the Music” campaign and forced the last-minute cancellation of a Nelly concert scheduled at the Atlanta-based school.

Much in the spirit of Dr. C. Delores Tucker’s epic battle with Warner Records over the depiction of Black women in hip-hop lyrics, there are a handful of Black women who are leading the charge against BET’s insistence on airing HGM. Latrice Janine, a 25-year-old college student out of Chicago, has obtained over 4,200 signatures since January in her online petition against HGM.

McCauley says she finds similarities to the potential airing of HGM and the exploitation of Saartjie Baartman, a 19th century European sideshow known as the “Hottentut Venus.” “Because she looked different they would take her to parties wearing nothing but feathers and just looking at her was entertainment,” said McCauley. “This to me is the exact same thing. For BET, who has made its money on perpetuating stereotypes to now turn around and say that they’re trying to combat the thing that they promoted is like a crack dealer suddenly opening up a rehab.”