Take this blast to the dome:
~~~
Can I get just ONE billboard (not 10) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes BUSH and the American Establishment for COMMITTING, not just perpetuating, violence against ALL the human families of the earth?

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 9) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes the racially biased "drug war" incarcerates African American youth at much higher rates than their white counterparts and gives them more time for committing the same crimes?

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 8) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes the WEALTHY white-male supremacist who run the "music industry" and controls the propagation of destructive images? Targeting rappers is NOT targeting the "music industry!" Rappers are laborers in the industry of music; they manufacture the products that their company demands of them. Rappers are like models in a cigarette advertisement that most often don't even smoke cigarettes, but for want of work, they'll promote the harmful tobacco products!

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 7) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes black "pastors" who sell their flock to politicians who DO NOT represent the interest of the Black Community?

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 6) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes the CIA/Reagan-Bush administrations deliberate flooding of the Black Community with cocaine from Central/South America to finance a covert war in Nicaragua?

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 5) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that demands reparations for this Genocidal crime against humanity?

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 4) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes the inadequate education in our communities that has left a substantial amount of black youth unable to read on a fourth grade level after 12 years of school. Inefficient administrators and superintendents. Not to mention horrible teachers who can not be fired?

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 3) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes Big Time black media moguls like Kathy Hughes, Bob Johnson, and the black woman who presides as president of BET for their participation in the dissemination, propagation and perpetuation of negative images that "degrade women" and "perpetuate violence."

Can I get just ONE billboard (not 2) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes the lack of financial transparency in the black churches in America who fleece their poor urban and middle-class black families of tithes and offerings that never find their way back into the community to aid the very people the church is set up to support?

Can I get just ONE billboard (just 1) paid for by the black church of Southside Chicago that criticizes the rich white-male supremacist patriarchy in which we are embedded for its shaping and maintaining of anti-black behavior in all of its life sustaining institutions be they private or public?

JUST ONE!

Wise Intelligent

www.myspace.com/wiseintelligent

It's NO LONGER Smart to be DUMB!

~~~

learn:

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.- Yes, 50 Cent is one of rap's most lucrative entertainers. Yes, he's sold more than 11 million albums, and yes, he has built a rap empire. But no, 50 can't count on selling his usual million albums the first week in these troubled musical times—which is why he needs manager Chris Lighty more than ever.

Lighty didn't get to be hip-hop's go-to dealmaker by accepting the status quo. So while sales may be down, Lighty is still working magic to make sure 50—and other high-profile clientele like Diddy and Busta Rhymes—keep getting very paid.

During an interview in the swank cafe of the opulent Beverly Hills Hotel, Lighty rattles off various opportunities for 50, including a vitamin supplement deal, a role in a Brett Ratner movie, and his own condom line. Coming soon for another client, LL Cool J? A Chapstick deal for the rapper known for licking his lips.

"Now you have to as many strategic alliances as possible to market your music and market your brand, to grow the brand and then in turn hopefully grow and help another brand," says Lighty.

"As music sales go down because kids are stealing it off the Internet and trading it and iPod sales continue to rise, you can't rely on just the income that you would make off of being an artist."

It's an aggressive and diverse strategy as the recording industry grapples with sharply declining record sales—but not a new one for the 38-year-old Lighty, who has been a player in the hip-hop game since he was a kid DJ some two decades ago. He rose through the ranks at Rush Management (Russell Simmons' first company) before eventually founding Violator Management 10 years ago (Mona Scott and James Cruz are partners).

"A lot of people look up to Chris Lighty because of the blueprint that he's laid over the years," says Grouchy Greg, founder of the leading rap Web site allhiphop.com. "He started with KRS-One and Scott La Rock, and if you listen to early hip-hop records, you'll hear early mentioning of him. He's been instrumental in a number of influential artists' careers."

Now, with a roster ranging from Academy Award-winners Three 6 Mafia to maverick Missy Elliott to up-and-comer Papoose, Lighty's mission is to not so much to make musical superstars, but multifaceted entertainers who can be marketed in an array of ways: a sneaker deal here, a soft drink partnership there, a movie role down the road.

"He has helped me establish accomplishments on the level of business moves that have been very, very, very, very lucrative for me," says Busta Rhymes, who has worked with Lighty for years.

On this day, a tour Lighty is setting up for Diddy and Snoop Dogg is causing him headaches. He constantly checks his Blackberry during the interview (he jokes that he only shuts the device off when he falls asleep, "whenever that is, and whenever I wake up I still look at it.")

Headaches and violence are part of the job, especially when you work with 50 Cent. The latest is the arrest of G-Unit member and 50 Cent BFF Tony Yayo, for an alleged assault on the 14-year-old son of a rap rival. Lighty was by Yayo's side after his recent arrest.

Then there are the more mundane troubles—a client with sagging sales, another looking for more attention, another questioning the direction of his or her career.

"I've had the 'How'd you mess me up?'" Lighty says. "I rewind back in time, and say, 'I?' We always make this decision together ... we always collectively make the decision. When things go left, we come up with emergency plans, and plan B, and C and D if necessary to move a project around."

"We've gotten blamed, and then unblamed quickly," he adds with a laugh.

He's had to tell clients to stop throwing money at a project that's not doing well. Or he's worked even harder than expected to boost things for a client: "With Lil' Scrappy right now we're having a hard way with his album but I still believe in him as a star."

But the commitment remains, through hits or duds. His relationship with many of his clients go back years—Diddy, an old friend, signed on recently for promotion of his latest album, "Press Play," and clients like LL Cool J, who is coming out with a new album later in the year, have been connected to Lighty for more than a decade.

That's why Rhymes stays with Lighty—and why, he says, no other agency has even tried to steal him away.

"They see the loyalty, they see the commitment, they also see the success and they see the history. And I don't think a lot of people have the courage to compete yet," he said. "What they would have to be offering me doesn't even exist yet."

~~~

     

An Exclusive Interview w/ Frank Alexander-2Pac's Bodyguard

An Exclusive Interview w/ Frank Alexander-Tupac's Bodygaurd
http://www.thuglifearmy.com/news/?id=3746

Last week in a 'Hip Hop Exclusive Friday', we dropped the news of the upcoming DVD 'Tupac: Revelation. The DVD takes a new look at the murder one of the hip hop community's most loved and respected rap artists, Tupac Shakur (2Pac).

Director Richard Bond, in association with one of the most famous bodyguards in hip hop history, Frank Alexander, have compiled the DVD titled 'Tupac: Revelation', which is set to release in September 2007.

The following interview was done with Frank Alexander and RJ Bond prior to myself (ThugLifeArmy.com) seeing a private screening of the DVD. The DVD not only points out some of the false impressions, but it also brings up the "bigger picture" of the murder of hip hop icon Tupac Shakur (2Pac). It actually forces the viewer to step back and look again at what has been in front of everyone all this time.

This interview will be posted in 2 parts. The first part today and part 2 will be posted next Friday as a Hip Hop Friday Exclusive.

In the weeks to come we will have more 'exclusive' information on the DVD and other interviews.

Here is Part One of the Frank Alexander and RJ Bond Interview.

Robert – Thank you both for taking time to update us on your current project.
Everyone in hip hop is aware of your place in hip hop history, as you were the body guard for rap icon Tupac Shakur (2Pac). Your first DVD project 'Before I Wake' was unique because it was coming from someone who was actually there and actually knew and loved Tupac. How many copies of that project have sold to this date?

Frank Alexander - Over 250,000 copies worldwide! They just broadcast the movie for the first time on TV in Chicago, so its an exciting time for both projects.

Robert – The new project you have slated for release in September of 07, 'Tupac Revelation' can you tell us the premise of the project?

RJ Bond - A mosaic is a group of pieces that by themselves or even in small groups have no meaning, but when all the pieces are put together and then looked at from a distance, a picture begins to form. Revelation is exactly that- a look at both old and new information regarding the murder of 2Pac. New information gives meaning and clarity to old information; in many cases it gives the old information something it was lacking- context. And that changes everything.

Robert – Is there really enough 'new' information about the murder of Tupac to warrant such a project?

Frank Alexander - Best way to explain it - if you ever play solitaire, its like turning one of the cards in the piles, if the right card comes up then the whole game is unlocked.

RJ Bond - I can say this with absolutely clarity- yes there is. It is truly amazing how many people that the Vegas Police have not spoken with who carry key pieces of the puzzle. Many detectives can tell you that there are always one or two key clues, which act like a Rosetta Stone - they unlock everything.

Robert – With the release of this new DVD is it possible that some action may be taken on the unsolved murder of Tupac?

Frank Alexander - The trouble with information is that sometimes we don't get answers from people because we do not know what we need to ask. Everyone thinks "something should be done" but if you cannot be more specific with what that "something" is, it's easy for those with the information to dismiss your question. One of the goals of this documentary is to lift the curtain on some of the backstage action and give people direction on exactly what we need to be asking and why. Hopefully when the questions we drive to are reviewed publicly, then those with the information are not going to be able to hide behind ambiguity.

RJ Bond - That depends. Let me say this first; our interviews with a former Prosecuting Attorney and Judge, as well as cops and detectives spells out some things many people don't know. You know, education is everything; we had a learning curve ourselves. These people gave us some of the "inside information" that many people like you and me don't have everyday knowledge of. That's how those in power keep the masses at bay - control the education and control the flow of information. We talk about, for example, what a grand jury indictment standard is; and it's not what many think. It's not "proof beyond a reasonable doubt", that's for sure. It's really not that high of a standard to get a grand jury indictment. And without saying too much more on that, read between the lines. Action can be taken on many levels; either voluntary or compelled. This video drives both.

Robert – Has the information you reveal always been there but everyone just looked over it or was it 'overlooked' on purpose?

RJ Bond - It's like this: it's all about context, Context, Context, Context. You know like taking one verse out of the Bible, and not keeping it in its place. You could rip a phrase out of the Bible that says "God is Dead". But when you look at the CONTEXT it really says "THE FOOL SAYS God is dead". And a fool would say that. But in our piece it's a deadly combination; like I said a Rosetta Stone. Some of the information that is new shines a different light on certain events. Other information that has been there also gets re-defined. So that's there. But also there is old data that given time and distance, stands out on its own as unusual. Some of it drives not to what happened that night but what people (cops and robbers) did afterward –sometimes years- that also shows itself. There was a saying I heard once: "Your sins find you out." Time is not always on the side of the crook. Information is like many other things in nature- over time it gets looser.

Frank Alexander – RJ answered this question best…Turn over every rock and don't stop until you find the dirt and there's plenty of that!

Robert – Will those who are Pac's fans and those who have been watching this investigation be surprised by what is revealed?

RJ Bond - Fo- sho. As we say in the trailer, "shocked" is a better term for it. I go shopping and it amazes me what people come up with and I say "Damn why didn't I think of it- that is so easy…" and sometimes you get shocked about some invention that NO ONE came up with and now that dude or lady is making all that bank. But the most shocking thing about the whole matter is the weight and gravity of the information and just how much it applies to the night Pac was shot.

Frank Alexander – I was shocked by what RJ found out and he's not an investigator…so you tell me how can he find this information out and put it together when the Homcide Investigato's didn't?

Robert – Is the murder of Kadafi (Outlawz member) looked at in the new DVD?

RJ: Yes we touch on that. For time, we had to cut some of it out, but Yak is talked about a lot in the movie. May make an extra feature. Maybe that will be the sequel!

Robert – Yak said he could identify the shooter; did you and he ever talk about what happened that night?

Frank Alexander - To be honest with you about Yak I never heard him say nor did he say to me he could, "He said he thought he could".

RJ Bond - That's another thing this documentary does. It examines all the myths and legends and rumors and really busts them down to their truths (or as close as we could get them). We don't know what the cops know. But in many cases, and this is one of them, we really get down to many of the things that most people have believed just out of hearing it over and over again. It's called "Dogma". Something is said often enough and it becomes like fact, because there is no one there to refute it.

Robert – With the recent re-filing of the Biggie lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles for wrongful dead in Biggie's case, and the recent reports of a suspect in the murder of JMJ and of Tupac's friend Randy "Stretch" Walker, are we to think that maybe we will see justice in the future for Tupac (2Pac) and the Shakur family?

RJ Bond - Well, the news about the Wallace re-filing is interesting on many levels. The trouble is this investigation is like a 16 headed beast, its very complex and you can work one part of it for days all by itself. Like working the LAPD angle.

Frank Alexander - Here's the deal on that. We stay focused on the Pac murder. It gets things too diluted; stretched too thin. That's another problem with things in this investigation- they get overwhelming. Pac's death involves 3 states, 6 law enforcement agencies, dozens of murders, and has ties to at least 5 other murder investigations (either passive connection or direct). Just to keep this DVD at two hours we had to start making painful decisions just what we were going to keep on Pac's death, all on its own.

Robert – The new DVD 'Tupac Revelation' will it be distributed by Xenon Films also like Before I Wake is?

RJ Bond - We have foreign distribution at the moment and are dealing with many distributors who potentially could release the DVD in the US. Jury's out at the moment, but yes, Xenon has not been ruled out. But at this moment they are not an exclusive for the project.

Robert – It has been over 10 years since Tupac (2Pac) was taken and his life cut short. How are you dealing with all the memories?

Frank Alexander - I'm good now. When things happened on Sept 7 and Sept 13th I was a wreck for a very long time but I turned to the LORD and found myself and now I love the memories that GOD had blessed me with back then!

Robert – What do you do now? I remember hearing you were a minister? There is so much mis-information on everyone out there so we don't know what to believe.

Frank Alexander – Well at the moment I'm working with RJ on this project.

Robert – There are so many artists and producers now who claim they were 2Pac's homies, I know Pac had many many friends but were there that many in his inner circle or are some of these dudes 'frontin' cause there is no one to dispute their claims?

Frank Alexander – Pac had and knew many people as for back in 1996 when I was with him I only know and remember who was around then, those that claim to have known him I can't say who is who unless I were to talk face to face with those that claim knowing Pac today.

Robert – Was being 2 Pac's bodyguard and friend the coolest 'job' you ever had? And after you got to know Pac was it really like a job or did it move on to a 'luv' relationship?

Frank Alexander – I didn't want the JOB at first (full time) so I'm the one that came up with the idea of a rotating schedule of two day's on him between the bodyguards that was rotating on him. Pac was made crazy about losing his bodyguards and that he did with everyone except me! Then he and I just started to click plus he had heard about the New York Video shoot in Dec 1995 when Snoop and Tha Dogg Pound was shot at, because Biggie at the time thought it was Tupac filming in Time Square and called the radio station. So when that got back to Pac I'm guessing he made his mind up around that time about me. So then we became closer because it was he and I alone sharing our stories with one another as we drove around LA in between court/video shoot's and filming "Gridlock" where we really had nothing but time to know one another even better and then it became like we were home boys - but I knew my JOB and I kept it separate. But Yeah, it was the coolest JOB and I miss him and how things were back then.

Robert – In the Biggie family lawsuit the names of Los Angeles police officer Rafael Perez and his ex-partner, Nino Durden keep coming up and many try to link them to Suge Knight and Death Row Records. Do you remember these guys from your days with Death Row Records?

RJ Bond - We can't comment on that for the moment.

Robert – Did you leave Death Row right after the Tupac murder?

Frank Alexander - Yes, we talk about this a lot in the DVD.

Robert – After ten years do you lend any creditability to the Las Vegas Police Dept. in solving the murder of Tupac Shakur.

RJ Bond - I am going to be somewhat political here. I think Vegas is holding more than they let out (duh). And our DVD questions the lack of follow up. But I give them major points for not buying into things they could have; things that certain players would have really liked for them to swallow whole. Let's just say that some information they could have run with at one time turned out to not stand up to much scrutiny. Some people think that Vegas PD's lack of action is because "well everyone knows and they aren't acting on it". They just didn't buy it. After you see the DVD you can see what I mean, and if you were them, you won't buy it either.

Robert – Frank, what is the one thing that sticks out in your mind when you think about Tupac?

Frank Alexander - How funny he really was and how he made all of us laugh!

Robert – What do you think Tupac would have to say about his legacy among hip hop culture? His legacy grows stronger each year and his importance (even though he is gone) seems to grow stronger. Do you think Tupac would be comfortable with all of the things going on in his name?

This is the end of Part One of the interview. Watch next Friday for Part Two in another Hip Hop Friday Exclusive.


~~~

Why Barack Obama Needs a Whuppin': Honest Abe, He Ain't
by Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report

"Obama personifies the definitive end of Black organized struggle in the United States."

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=251&Itemid=34

Barack Obama is the antithesis of Black Power, a man who promises with every word he speaks, with every nuance of phrase and body language, and through his voting record as a U.S. Senator, that he personifies the definitive end of Black organized struggle in the United States - a unilateral surrender to white racism. This is his appeal to the white masses: that they will no longer be challenged to confront history, or to relinquish privilege in the present.

Obama's siren song to African Americans is of an entirely different nature. He does not have to sing it; we provide the music, ourselves. The lyrics and melody are actually alien to Obama, but he has heard them off and on in his strange sojourn through life, and senses their power to sway us. He understands that most of us will demand nothing from him - not even elemental allegiance. His "Black" flank, he knows, is covered, while his white "progressive" flank is neutralized and confused by Black failure to recoil at his betrayals of the most basic elements of social democracy. The field is wide open to the greatest opportunist to emerge from melanin-rich ranks in the New Millennium.

Obama has already cashed in on his "Race, but not really, Card" - to the tune of $25 million dollars in contributions in the first three months of this year, three-quarters of it from corporations. This does not happen by accident. Since setting foot in the U.S. Senate, Obama has directed his entire message machine to the task of convincing corporate America that he is a friend who can be counted on to leave the actual Power Game in their hands. One of his first votes was to transfer most class action suits to federal courts, where multi-billion-dollar companies found guilty of race, gender or general employee abuse are fined the equivalent of the millionaire CEO's latest weekend at the casinos in Monaco. In the process of taking class action suits out of state courts, where the penalties to offending corporations have historically been much harsher, Obama voted against an amendment to put a cap of 30 percent on credit card debt charges. A fraction of that multi-billion dollar gift to the most unproductive sector of the economy wound up in his campaign coffers.

"Obama understands that most of us will demand nothing from him - not even elemental allegiance."

The alienated man from Kansas, Hawaii, Indonesia and Harvard has not skipped a beat in his pursuit of Power Approval. He stood down while only California Senator Barbara Boxer stood up to challenge the theft of Black voting rights in the 2004 election. He coddled American Manifest Destiny queen Condoleezza Rice and Bush Supreme Court nominees, while doing nothing - absolutely nothing - to materially aid Katrina victims. He has stuck like Crazy Glue to positions on the Iraq war and health care that are practically indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's - and in no way threaten the military-industrial complex or health care-insurance industries. Obama vows to add 100,000 more troops to the U.S. aggression and occupation force, to be deployed...wherever his masters want them to go.

Obama is a company man. He knows the language, the subtle and overt signals, and emits them like a beacon. Ruling circles have gotten the message, and that is why corporate media have made him a contender, and corporate billfolds have financed him. The "skinny kid" made his bones at the Democratic National Convention, in August, 2004, while he was still an Illinois senatorial candidate - a shoo-in against the hopeless and deranged Black Republican Alan Keyes. Obama put all white fears to rest: "There is no white America. There is no black America. There is no Latino America. There is no Asian America. There is only the United States of America." Hallelujah!

Therefore, there is no specific oppression of Black people in America (carried out by whites), and there is no Black polity worth paying attention to. Voila, the problem of centuries is solved!

"Obama vows to add 100,000 more troops to the U.S. aggression and occupation force."

The litany of Obama's subsequent transgressions against the entirety of Black struggle is too long to recount in this article, and can only be understood as methodical elements of a studied plan to eliminate race as a subject of debate in American political life. Obama is the NOT-Black candidate, who just looks Black, and will absolve white folks - like a priest behind a screen - of historical, present, and future sins. He will integrate the mythical American narrative, washing it clean of real facts by his very presence and gleaming smile. He is happy. White folks are happy. Blacks are happy. Oh, happy days!

The Internal Enemy

In his journey to personal identity - dishonestly but expertly packaged for white and corporate audiences in his two books - Obama learned a salient and elemental fact of Black life: we want recognition by the nation as a whole, and some connection to the national narrative. African Americans have claimed at least five U.S. presidents - Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge - as "soul brothers" in blood, alleging they have Black ancestors. It does not matter that none of them, including Lincoln, thought of Black people as equals or even, in some cases, human. Such is the hunger.

"Obama has become a great presence that threatens the very fabric of Black politics."

We at Black Agenda Report are not immune to the illness. While our team was operating out of Black Commentator, in 2003, Bruce Dixon and I discovered that Obama was listed as a member of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the corporate-funded rightwing of the party, created by white southern Democrats (Bill Clinton, Al Gore) for the purpose of blunting Black and labor influence in the party's affairs. Obama was at the time a national nobody, not ranked as a front-runner in the Illinois senatorial primary. We called him on his alleged affiliation with the DLC, which was posted for all to see. He claimed to know nothing about it - a transparent lie. But we gave the "brother" a pass, and engaged him in a dialogue.

There followed a month-long series of interchanges - June 5, June 12, June 19, June 26, 2003 - in which Obama danced like Mr. Bojangles to get around the issues at hand. Was he a DLC Democrat, by affiliation or political affinity? Finally, tiring of the charade and the reflexive spin from Obama's mouth, Dixon and I compiled three questions to the wannabe senator, the answers to which would determine if he should be in the DLC and, therefore, unworthy of our support. Obama, a genius at double-speak, fudged all three, on the Iraq war, universal health care, and NAFTA/so-called free trade.

We gave him a pass, and said he was clean, although both of us knew by then he was an inveterate liar and evader. He had actually flunked the "bright line" test. Neither of us wanted to be the ones to put a damper on an up-and-coming Black star. We understood that our people didn't want crabs in the barrel, pulling brothers down, or the appearance of it.

We apologize, to our people and to history.

Since that time as a nobody, Obama has become a great presence that threatens the very fabric of Black politics, having declared there is no such thing. At a recent gathering of Black trade unionists who support the most left-wing social democratic agenda that is allowed in American political discourse, Obama was treated as a savior - despite the fact that his applause-filled speech endorsed almost none of the specific planks of Black trade unionists. He had fudged again, and gotten away with it. No white man could pull it off, but Obama did, and entertained fans for an hour afterwards, taking pictures with folks who wanted to show their grandchildren that they had been in the presence of the next Black president.

He is a knife in our heart.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford (at) BlackAgendaReport.com.

hmmmm.... I dunno about that last one.

but why not share some info on how to love better? :)

 10 simple ways to put the romance back into your relationship

While every couple has down spells, these simple tips will help rev those engines once again.

By Heather Camlot   
   
During a recent fitness class at Toronto's Ella Centre for Parenting and Pregnancy, my instructor asked me what topic I was writing about this week. I told her about this article and my fellow moms immediately jumped in. After all, if anyone needs a bit of romantic rekindling -- between the diaper changes and the sleep deprivation -- it's new parents. One woman suggested a weekend at the spa. Another proposed getting a wax, stating emphatically that if you don't feel sexy, why should your partner think you are?

Nancy Hurst, a psychologist and marriage counsellor in Edmonton, says romance is about connecting. "When you feel connected, when you feel close to the other person, when you feel the other person is listening to you, that is where romance begins."

What can you do to revive your relationship? Follow our 10 simple ways to get you back on the romantic track.
   
1. Enjoy the details
"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important," said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sherlock Holmes creator may as well have been speaking about romance. "The little things that my husband has done, like leaving me notes that say 'Have a great day, I love you,' are really nice," says Julie Dupoire, a mother of two. Hurst also suggests calling your spouse at work just to say hello and taking a few moments in the evening to recap the day's events. (Find 50 other loving suggestions by Canadian Living readers!)

2. Talk it out
Flowers, music, chocolate -- all are wonderful romantic gestures, but if one half of the couple has some underlying resentment, maybe because they had no help with the kids that day, then any gift becomes pointless. "The more there's a connection, the more you feel close about your relationship, the easier it is to get through the conflicts," explains Hurst. "A solid base makes things less volatile." Dealing with your issues will lessen any strain or stress and open up the lines of communication -- and reception to romantic notions.

3. Touch
"At this particular stage of my life, running after a toddler and seven months pregnant, I find my husband's massage at the end of the day is a great way for us to reconnect, not to mention relax," says Marsha Moshinsky, married for 12 years. Physical contact, be it kissing, hugging or holding hands, is a simple way to show the other person how you feel, even when those tender moments may be fleeting with the kids yelling and the dog barking in the background.

4. Go out on a date
A night out is a great way to reconnect with your partner, and if you can ritualize date night, you'll always have something to look forward to and get excited about. "We have my parents come to our place once a week," says Howard Wiseman, a father of two. "It allows my wife and me to get out together and talk."


   
   
5. Be kind
A compliment goes a long way to making someone feel special and important in your life. "Small gestures of appreciation -- even if it's just a simple thank-you -- for doing the mundane tasks necessary to keep a household going are appreciated," says Marc Reppin, married for five years. "It sends a message not only of appreciation, but also of respect and commitment that you are in this together."

6. Get physical
According to a recent report by the University of Chicago, Canada, along with Austria, the United States and Spain, was one of the most sexually satisfied countries in the world. The study also found that in Western nations, about half of the men and one-third of the women said sex was extremely important in their lives, and that in relationships based on equality, couples are more likely to have sexual habits that meet both partners' needs. (The findings are based on a survey of approximately 27,500 people aged 40 to 80 in 29 countries.) So, what does this all mean for romance? A little bit of wooing sends the heart aflutter, while sex is a special bond between partners that helps maintain and strengthen a relationship.

   
   
7. Surprise each other
Receiving something unexpectedly is always exciting (as long as it's good news) and brings a smile to both partners' faces. "I love to surprise my wife with tickets to a play or show," says Randal Schnoor, married for 12 years. "I place them on her pillow and she just melts. We rarely get a night out on the town these days, especially now that we have a young child. It gives us a special day to look forward to."

8. Do something together
"We travel a lot and our romantic moments seem to occur abroad," says Ayanna Durant, who's been with her boyfriend for three years, "likely due to the fact that in a strange city the only people we really know are each other." She also says she'd love to sign up for a class or workshop in something both she and her boyfriend love doing or have always wanted to do. Hurst adds that even simple moments together, like reading the paper and talking about it, throwing a dinner party or exercising, can encourage passion.

9. Do something apart
Everyone needs some time to him or herself, as much as you may love being with your partner. "Allowing your partner time away from you is important to the health of your relationship," says Reppin. "The time apart, properly spent, revitalizes your partner and your relationship. And because it relies on trust to work, it strengthens your relationship, too."(Discover some great activities to do on your own.)

10. Do it every day
There is no set schedule to being romantic or being romanced. Making the effort every day is what will keep your relationship strong. "I don't mean to downplay grand gestures, but if the other stuff isn't there, the grand gestures won't make it," says Hurst. "Ask your partner what they need, what they want. Then include those little things every day to keep the romance going."

~~~

and if you want to see some fun stuff, peep this!

http://www.transformersgame.com/

awesome!
peace to Anita at the National Post building, peace to Scott Andrews (I'll be in touch for sure!), peace to John DiMarco (brother man!!! freedom will soon be ours to share), peace to Lex, peace to Ben Carrozza, peace to Kat Angus (taking over my desk, LOL), peace to Adam (I wish I saw you, man) peace to Jen (it felt much better now :) and peace to everyone I saw today!

thank you for what you have shared.
love, Adhimu.

p.s. I won't do it anymore. I can't tell you what "it" is. That's between me and the universe. Thanks for caring.

for caring, you get this:



Upon AllHipHop.com's relaunch, Part One of the "Streets is Talking: 50 Cent" interview ran, touching on new albums, longstanding feuds, and some label rumors. Two weeks later comes the second half—delving deep into 50 Cent's past, for an always candid look into the mind of Curtis Jackson.



With a memory that catches tiny details, there seems to be no area one can't go with 50. Arguably the King of Rap for the last several years goes as far as to request a writer to ask whatever questions were screened by labels and management.

 

In an age of political-correctedness, 50 Cent presents himself in living color, speaking so freely. The man behind the scenes can be humble at times, but he appears unflinchingly honest.

 

As the other two icons of rap frequently don sunglasses when questioned, Fif looks you in the eye, and gives you his humanity.



As Curtis is delayed a quarter, one can only wonder what's going on behind those eyes. The Streets are Talking, so is 50, but it's the things he won't tell you without a beat underneath that have made him an iconic superstar.

 

What he does speak on though, a reader would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.



AllHipHop.com: You released "How To Rob" during your label situation at Columbia Records. The record caused quite a stir amongst the industry, but created publicity too. A couple of people had some words for you after that, namely Ghostface Killah and Big Pun. What was the situation like when you bumped into Ghost in the Sony building?



50 Cent: Well it was no altercation or none of that, so it's all good. We got a lot of egos in Hip-Hop. The competitive nature in Hip-Hop just makes them want to constantly compete with who is in their division. At that point, that was desperation out of me. That was me being on my second record company, them not understanding me again...approaching a release date where there was no momentum at all... and when I did drop "How To Rob" and it did start getting momentum and it worked out, they took the record and put it on the In Too Deep Soundtrack. It never equated to anything for me.

 

AllHipHop.com: So outside bumping into Ghost, and Big Pun saying something back to you on a record, did you ever get confronted by anyone else mentioned on that song after that record got big?



50 Cent: No, I think the chorus made it clear what my intentions were "This ain't serious/being broke can make you delirious." If a person wanted a problem after that, they just wanted a f**king problem anyway, like you know.



AllHipHop.com: You soon started hanging with Nas. Did you two click or was it for business?



50 Cent: Well you can't just decide to hang out with someone who's got momentum. Nas, when he first came around, [he said] "Yo, you remind me of [me] when I first came out."  That's his perception of it. He actually took me on the Nastradamus tour. He was a good dude; I liked him because he had did something for nothing. It's hard to mistake a person as someone who isn't genuine; when they do something that you know is beneficial to you with nothing to look forward to receiving in response to their actions.



AllHipHop.com: When you were rolling with him, you did the song "Projects Too Hot" with Nature and Nas. There were some obvious jabs to Roc-A-Fella Records on the hook, were you aware of the building tension between Nas and Jay?



50 Cent: Nah, I didn't feel anything.



AllHipHop.com: Speaking of records and controversy, did any of the old timers mentioned on "Ghetto Qu'ran (Forgive Me)" ever step to you? You were still living in Queens at the time; did you ever feel tension on the streets after you released that joint?



50 Cent: None. Everybody who heard the [still unreleased] record, appreciated it. That's a big misconception. People try to figure out a reason, like that's the police trying to figure out a reason saying it's because of the song [that Jam Master Jay was killed], like get the f**k out here. Nas made a record ["Get Down"] after [mine] that salutes some of the same n***as, but n***as call me a snitch for doing it. There's a difference. They're upset because it hurts them to watch me to win.  People get upset; they will feel discomfort to having [to] watch me do good.



AllHipHop.com: What was your take on when a lot of the rappers in the Hip-Hop Community started labeling you as a snitch? How did that make you feel?




50 Cent: That's the worst thing you can actually be in the environment I'm from. Yeah right, they going to call you that. If I snitched, then who I told on? You see what I'm saying? They said I was supposed to show up at Preme's trial; [the] trial came and went. See what I'm saying? They're going to say whatever they're going to say. You can't control the media, they're the people that see you outside of that, [who] have no knowledge of what they're talking about and they just heard someone else say it and ran with it.



AllHipHop.com: What's your definition of snitching?



50 Cent: Well snitching is giving them information. You're giving information to the authorities, bottom line, that's it. They were trying to say I was snitching by writing my experience and having real s**t pulled into my music. I don't know what to write about if I don't use my experience. And then I say a n***a is a snitch if he sends his kids into the precinct to point n***as out. I'd say someone is a snitch if they let their girl go into the precinct and they sit and fall back. Come on, man.



AllHipHop.com: When Jam Master Jay was killed in October 2002, it was said that the police stepped to you and put you under police protection, is that true?



50 Cent: Nah, I was supposed to perform at Mars 2112 the night Jam Master Jay got killed. They said, "If 50 touches the sidewalk, we're just going to arrest him." Because they felt like whoever killed Jam Master Jay... [pauses], they was thinking early on... [pauses]... you got a body there and you know [there's] a homicide, before you came in this place to kill a person, right, you know it's an intended situation. You go, "Where's the answers to this lie?" It lies between his friends and his enemies. And when you go through Jam Master Jay and his enemies, you have a long list. And when you go through his friends, and I pop up, it's all, "S**t, he's not an angel."



You've got to understand, if he wants to make an album, he's right next to a precinct that has had chases, motorcycle chases and different s**t where they were chasing me for different reasons. They have a perception of me that's darker from my youth and they just assume that it just had some type of connection early on.



AllHipHop.com: You think that person that's in jail now who sent them dudes to get you has anything to do with Jay's death?



50 Cent: I have no idea. And if I told you I did have an idea, I'd be a snitch.



AllHipHop.com: During the Irv and Supreme trials, it came out that certain Murder Inc. employees and related individuals were tracking your whereabouts through two-way pagers.



50 Cent: Yeah, I mean I was off the radar for the most part. I ain't run into nobody that I [wasn't] supposed to be dealing with; I was moving how I was supposed to. So if somebody [were] to say, "Your man [is] in the hood," that's what they're saying on the pagers. You know, telling n***as where I was at, but that n***a's brown-nosing. When you got real drama, you gotta be low, baby. When you come out, you got to put your dancing shoes on. So it just doesn't bother me.



AllHipHop.com: What's the deal with the video for "Amusement Park" being accepted at MTV? People saying it got rejected at MTV, but I saw it the other day and I didn't see anything too crazy?



50 Cent: Yeah, you know what it is? I got energy around that is great, it works in my favor. But it's a negative thing, people want to say something that ain't right about me. I think it comes from watching me having so much success that they are sick of it—I mean in a short period of time—you got guys out there that [have] been successful a lot longer than me.  I think my confidence, they mistake it for arrogance. I come from a place that's cold, where nobody ain't going to believe in you; so if you don't believe in yourself, you ain't going to make it.  I can't escape what I am.

 

AllHipHop.com: Recently, you made some comments about Master P at a press junket for BET. You commented that Master P doesn't sell any records, and more or less, isn't very relevant.



50 Cent: You got to say what they said to me before you say what I said. They said, "Master P was agreeing to censor himself; not to say certain words in his music." Check this out, because he is not as current as he used to be, maybe he'll compromise himself and not do it. Maybe he's a different person than he was. But initially, when he came in, he had content [like] Ice Cream Man, you understand what I'm saying?  It was a different thing. And for me, don't expect me to compromise myself. If it's over, then it's over; I'll find something else to do. But I'm not going to not say what I would say when it comes time to write the record.



AllHipHop.com: He recently wrote an editorial on AllHipHop.com and one of the first things he mentioned was that he paid for your first tour in the South. Is that true?



50 Cent: What he did was he made an investment in himself. P is a really smart businessman. He took me on the road with just me and him right out on the tour. Yeah, at the time, I was getting about $8,000 a show, I was on a mixtape. I had no commercial records out. On the mixtape energy alone, I was touring through the South with Master P. And he was like, "Let me bring him," because I had that momentum at the time.  He gave me $250,000 for 10 shows; that was big. You know coming off my corner, $250,000 is a lot.  So I ran around with him and did what we did. I don't understand how that relates to him [being] willing to censor himself.

 

AllHipHop.com: Well in response to the press junket, he definitely brought that point up, it was actually one of his opening statements in his editorial. He also said, and it's not directed towards you, that people in rap need to grow up a little.



50 Cent: So he's in a different place now obviously. If he feels different, then he has his rights and he's entitled to his own opinion. How could you tell a painter to paint a picture and don't use black when you're painting this room; it's impossible for him to be accurate. Hip-Hop is a mirror, what we writing is a reflection of the environment of what's going on.


[To the interviewer]



You got a [magazine] in front of you right now Don Diva. A lot of the stuff they might be writing may be more realer to the guys that end up in those publications than the actual artists that are writing it, but they are influenced by those people so they write from that perspective. It's entertaining to them, and it's something real about it.  It's a part of their experience. If they have been altered by it in any way, then it's part of their actual experience.

 

AllHipHop.com: Moving along...did your heavy influence at Interscope translate into you going to Dr. Dre and telling him, "I just kicked Game off G-Unit. It's either me or him, you got to choose."



50 Cent: Do you even have to ask that question to know the answer to that one? I ain't have to tell him; Dre [has] been around for a long time. I mean, it's obvious, if you know how much I put into the actual work, as far as the album is concerned. If you remember, you just heard me say I wrote 10 songs for the concept of Before I Self Destruct, put them on the side to start creating the Curtis [album]. Idea conceptually developed the record, it's done and ready [to be] presented to the general public. Before I Self Destruct has 10 records completed, and I only have five songs left to complete my total studio requirement [to Interscope].


My last album The Massacre, [had] 22 songs on it, the maximum playing time possible.  Technically, it's a double CD. I started writing an album that I recorded 12 or 13 records [for] in three days. It was two verse songs, so the songs weren't all the way completed, but it was just the ideas was complete. I put those songs on the side before I completed The Massacre. The songs that went on the side, six of those songs surfaced when Game couldn't complete his album. I did the deal; Game completed the album. I had excess; I had a computer full of hit records, of material. I brought him to the house; I gave him "Hate It Or Love It," "How We Do," "Church For Thugs," "Special," "Higher," "Westside Story"—there you have it, The Documentary.



Three of those records I just mentioned to you were his first three singles. So anybody that is confused at this point is out of their f**king mind. The difference between a good rapper, and a good songwriter, now you give him a record with the chorus built in, he's going to get busy [sings "It's Okay (One Blood)"]. When you give him a record that don't have a chorus on there, he's going to do his 50 Cent rendition. That's the only way he figures he can actually pull it off, you got to make reference to something.



AllHipHop.com: Anything else you want to touch on that we didn't touch that's current?  Any new business dealings, updates, signings, acquisitions?



50 Cent: I think we pretty much got it. What kind of questions you wanted to ask me that they asked you not to ask?



AllHipHop.com: Censorship, and your opinion on the ongoing debates...


50 Cent: You know what I think? Those people are what they can deliver. Anybody who is actually willing to be something different based on a few people saying, "Oh, that's not right, this is the way I was raised." I'm giving you something from my heart or making the music that's actually capturing a feeling, then why would I change it? Like it doesn't make sense to me, I can't understand that to save my life. Why would you ban words in music that you are willing to ban in television that you are not willing to ban on cable television? If you are going to provide a platform, [allow] Sirius and XM Radio those platforms to exist where's that acceptable, then why would you say it's not okay to say it when the CD clearly has a big ass advisory sticker on it? And Walmart only sells the clean version of the record, so it's optional for you to buy that content or not. You know what it is? All this s**t is underlying racial s**t.



That Don Imus s**t, first of all, his apology was accepted by the young ladies, because the young ladies don't see themselves as "nappy headed hoes." So you make your references to "b***h, hoe, slut," or whatever you want to say on the record. Have you heard these things on a record before, have women around you been appalled to hearing that because they heard that playing? They don't usually find disrespect in that, you know why? Because they don't usually direct it to themselves; you just hear it. It's just something that's just going on.  In one ear, out the other, you feel that I'm saying?



What it is when Don Imus is gone off his show, we angry at White folks, then they go, "It's not okay for Don Imus to say it, but it's okay for the rappers to say it?" And then the people we consider Black leaders, go after Hip-Hop also to make themselves not appear biased, man. But at the same time, I think they're escaping the fact [that] Hip-Hop has made more Black millionaires than any other art form than you can point to; to point to it as you want to destroy it or whatever level, it's beyond me.


AllHipHop.com: Do you think those quote unquote Black leaders have ulterior motives when it comes to situations like that?



50 Cent: You know what? To be honest with you, I think some people consider them Black leaders. They may have ulterior motives. I don't know what to think of the situation. But I will say that they're ambulance chasers. I will say that I think they have personal injury attorneys that don't give them kickbacks. And I will say that they will cause enough fuss until you come cut the check, and that's just that. 
 

Do you know anyone looking to invest in the future of hip hop music and culture?
if you don't know how much work I've put in, do the research, and get back to me at:
mindbendersupreme@gmail.com

thank you for your help, and may destiny bring the right people together to do the right things for the right reasons.
one love from Adhimu Shabazz

tell you all about it when I return...
create lovely  moments for yourself and all you cherish
love, Adhimu!

Biggie Smalls - Was It All A Dream?
by Addi "Mindbender" Stewart

Biggie Smalls is the illest. Unbelievable how it's already been 10 years since the tragic news hit the streets. Where were you when you heard it? Did you believe it at the time? Now that it's shockingly a full 10 years later, ask yourself: do you believe there will ever be a time in your life where you hear the late-breaking news of the world finding out who was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Christopher Latore Wallace aka The Notorious B.I.G.?

Chris Rock can joke all he wants. But if you care to research the details of the murder of Biggie Smalls, it was much, much deeper than meets the eye. It was a highly organized hit, not a retaliation from some fraudulent East Coast-West Coast war. What's beef? Beef is when street enemies also work as Police. Beef is when there's no justice, no peace, causing mothers grief. Beef is when lies kill truth, guaranteed to ruin the minds of youth…

Check out this bizarre.

There is always life after death. It goes: dead, then injured. Often for the injured survivors, the damage is permanent. It sure is this time. An entire culture and all close friends aside, his close family still has no closure to the hole in their hearts. Biggie is survived by two children, a daughter T'Yanna, and Christopher Jr., a son… and of course, his mother. Biggie was her only child. Her struggle is that much heavier, with no other children to help her though the wake of such an enormous loss. Certain little facts get forgotten along the way to the future as rap's past dissolves faster and faster. To those still paying attention, Voletta Wallace is continuing the David. Vs. Goliath fight of her life against the City of Los Angeles and the LAPD, for concealing evidence that their officers were involved in the death of her beloved son. There has already been a mistrial from an officer concealing evidence from the case, crucial evidence with testimony of certain individuals revealing potential names of people actually suspected of being responsible for pulling the trigger on Biggie after the Soul Train Awards on March 9th, 1997.

Find your last bit of hope. Get your mind right like Dr. Dre reconciling with Snoop Dogg, and imagine. What if there were suspects arrested tomorrow? What if there was an official trial, with a judge and a jury? And most importantly: what if there was a guilty verdict? What if there was no out of court settlement accepted, no mistrial, no escape on a technicality? If the names of the masterminds behind one of hip hop's most damaging crimes and one of its most heartbreaking unsolved mysteries were found, what then? Could they ever receive a fair trial? Would they ever be sent to prison? And what would happen to the police department that was possibly complicit in the crime? Would there be riots in the streets? Considering the history of Los Angeles and Rodney King, William Cardenas, Juan Saldaña, John Jordan, 16-year-old Julio Castillo, Stanley Miller, and surely countless other unnamed and unknown victims of the silent but violent history of police brutality in the City of Angels, this is not entirely unimaginable. Hell, it might be the most righteous reaction to a social institution like the LAPD, when its mandate is allegedly "to protect and serve". But with scandals and savagery that continue to unfold year after year on the streets of Los Angeles, the streets of North America and places beyond, one must seriously begin to ask: what do we not know about this international occupying force that patrols poor and disenfranchised neighborhoods everywhere? Who do they truly protect daily? What do they truly serve consistently? These questions remain incomplete and unanswered at best, and unrecognizably twisted by propaganda and media manipulation at worst. To find the absolute truth behind the scenes of the trial and the players in this tragic drama, and to receive complete justice, so many people wonder: will we ever get one more chance?

"A deliberate concealment of information" is how Judge Florence-Marie Cooper described the illegal actions of Detective Steven Katz, who unbelievably tried to state that he simply "forgot" the crucial testimony of a prison informant that he had met with and spoken to earlier in the course of the Biggie Smalls murder investigation, telling the Judge that "he had forgotten it in a desk drawer." For six years, he was the lead investigator of this trial, and he actually said in court that he had simply "forgotten" hundreds of pages of crucial testimony for the entire time before this stunning mid-trial revelation. When was the last time you heard of a defendant cop forgetting vital evidence to the plaintiff's case in a desk drawer? It's incredibly convenient… for both the police officer, and the entire LAPD. And how convenient was it that it directly pertained to the potentially-record-setting settlement that might manifest as a result of the verdict to this quietly historic and already clearly corrupted 'Innocent Citizen vs. The City of Los Angeles lawsuit'? Quite.

After the verdict, when the LAPD was found guilty of withholding crucial evidence to the plaintiff's case, and basically breaking the law to protect the privacy of the police force, Shaheem Reid of MTV quoted Ms. Wallace's lead attorney, Perry Sanders, over a year and a half ago, and he had this to say: "Little did we suspect so many lies [would] be told under the penalty of perjury." Sanders pleaded with anyone with information on Biggie's 1997 murder or corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department to get in touch with him and help make the badge-wearing criminals responsible to a level of truth and justice. "This [case] sends a message you cannot trust the police." He also stated that the whole department is not corrupt, but clarified that a few crooked officers "give good cops bad names. It's time to clean house at the LAPD at the highest level."

Voletta Wallace was asked for her thoughts on the discovery that the LAPD withheld evidence that it had collected itself, therefore deeming it valuable if not vital, yet not submitting it for trial in a court of law, and she responded with a lack of surprise. Surprisingly though, it was a secret source within the police organization itself that told her about the corruption that was making obstacles that are supposed to be non-existent become very real. Ms. Wallace, after releasing her frustrations vocally outside the courthouse, calmly stated: "I've labored with pain and sweat just to find what happened to my son."

What might have happened to your son, is virtually clear when you piece together some of the current evidence, yet it still remains unverified by investigation, therefore "officially" unknown. Stating the complicated case very simply, it is still speculated that Suge Knight ordered the death of Biggie Smalls (or Sean "Puffy" Combs), and called in David Mack to find a hitman. David Mack then hired his ex-college roommate, Amir Muhammad, to commit the drive-by in that legendary black Impala, and drive off into the night. A public execution in a busy Los Angeles street, in front of hundreds of potential witnesses, without a police chase or video surveillance… even though the FBI admit to following Biggie Smalls in L.A. for up to a week before his murder. Mind-blowing. But this is the reality of the situation. Allegedly wearing a Nation of Islam suit and bowtie to conceal his identity during the drive-by shooting, the killer of Biggie Smalls still walks free in society to this today, without even a slap on the wrist as punishment for the crime. One decade later, we think about Biggie and some of us still wonder: "who shot ya?"

Even though evidence exists that hypothetically connects David Mack and Amir Muhammad to the Biggie murder, the Wallace family inexplicably dropped these two suspects as defendants in the trial against the City of Los Angeles, after the FBI and the LAPD (unsurprisingly) dismissed them as suspects. The law-enforcement-utilized paid informant who first identified "Amir" as the triggerman recanted his statement and declared his identification as fraudulent. Amir Muhammad (formerly known as Harry Billups before his coversion to the Nation of Islam), an accused man who, if convicted, possibly would be reviled as the arguably the biggest enemy ever to inflict pain upon the hip hop culture, has proclaimed innocence, stating in the LA Times:
"The fact is the police have never talked to me. And the reason they haven't is because I had nothing to do with this horrible crime. The police didn't chase this lead because they obviously realized at some point it wasn't true. ..The story made it sound like I was some mystery assassin who committed this heinous crime and then just dropped off the face of the Earth--which is the furthest thing from the truth. ..I live and work right here in the Southland area and have done so for many years. ... I can't find the words to express the injustice I feel was done to me."

Yet, for someone who so vocally expresses being not guilty, and furthermore, feels like he is the target of a character assassination of the highest degree, Mr. Muhammad has been unusually lenient in seeking justice or compensation for the "libel and slander" that has been connected to his name and face (the main police composite sketch of Biggie's killer remains strikingly similar to the picture of the real Amir "Harry Billups" Muhammad). If he was 100% innocent, he could easily take someone to court, and would probably win compensation for his losses. But he has declined all legal action to date. Why? Possibly because there remains extensive photographic and circumstantial evidence that places him directly at the scene of the crime at the Peterson Automotive Museum that fateful night? And possibly because he is a known associate of David Mack, an LAPD officer who was convicted of committing an armed bank robbery, among a long list of other serious felonies? Maybe that's why. And why in God's name haven't the LAPD ever taken him in for a single questioning? Maybe because they know that David Mack was as corrupt of a police officer as they come, and any associates affiliated with Mack would open a black hole of dark secrets that the city would rather keep closed, as it would implicate various people across the entire department, from former police chief Bernard Parks, all the way down to some of the least decorated beat cops on the force. It would be worse than RAMPART Scandal that threatened to implode the LAPD in the 1990's. How many department-wide corruption scandals can one city take? Well, how many innocent people can one group of evil policemen murder before the people learn the facts and decide to retaliate?

A police informant named Kenny Boagni was the one who spoke to law enforcement official Steven Katz, and stated that he shared a cell with notoriously shady LAPD officer Rafael Perez, the one-time partner of LAPD officer David Mack. At one point in Ms. Wallace's first trial, her contention was that David Mack was the central contact and a prime conspirator in the murder of Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace, and the subsequent 10 year cover-up of that same crime. Allegedly, Marion "Suge" Knight was connected to David Mack through David's moonlighting job as a security officer for Death Row Records, where Detective Rafael Perez was also apparently employed, part time.

As was stated, shortly before its first trial began in June 2005, the family dropped Mack and Muhammad as defendants, after both the LAPD and FBI dismissed them as suspects. Boagni, the paid informant who first identified "Amir" as the killer and later figured prominently in both the LAPD and FBI investigations, recanted his testimony, and claimed that his identification of Muhammad was fraudulent. This, after he confessed a long list of connections and events that tied together the fragments and separate events that occurred on the night of Biggie's murder. Firstly, Boagni stated that "Mack and Perez were involved in Death Row Records, they went to all their parties and stuff" (they were also partners: partners on the police force, and partners in crime, various extreme criminal offenses that eventually received conviction). Furthermore, Boagni admitted Rafael Perez called David Mack on the cell phone before the drive-by on Biggie, and that, in a November 2000 declaration to a police detective, Boagni said "Perez told him he was at the award show when Biggie Smalls was killed". Plus he said Rafael Perez called David Mack on a cell phone before the murder to say that Biggie Smalls was in his SUV. These are the words of Assistant City Attorney Don Vincent, as told to the presiding L.A. judge over the wrongful death lawsuit brought against the city, before Boagni was somehow declared an unworthy informant. Strange. And it's very strange how Perez, Mack, and Suge Knight have never been charged or questioned even once by the LAPD, when even the most flimsy, rumor-based theory on "who killed Biggie Smalls?" would probably include the name 'Suge Knight' in it, and possibly a few of his employees. Still very strange, indeed.

Recently, the LAPD had assigned a brand new task force to investigate the murder, removing the forgetful Detective Katz with a six-man team of veteran homicide officers, who currently are equipped with a new office, a new budget and a computerized tracking system to organize the "messy 72-volume 'murder book'". A book that possibly carries the name of the killer(s) of Biggie Smalls, but is possibly in the possession of the last people in the world that would want to reveal the killer's name, because of the potentially earth-shaking repercussions it would have on the City of Los Angeles and the LAPD. Time will tell what will happen. Steps are being taken, slowly but surely, that edge closer and closer to the answer to the question some of us have been asking since March 9th, 1997: "who killed Christopher Wallace? And why?"

It's 10 years later now. We still miss B.I.G. Poppa. Crews have disbanded. Labels have changed. Hip hop has grown. Biggie Smalls music has been imitated, but nowhere near duplicated. He's probably rolling in his grave hearing people sample his essence, and hearing how his friendly rival Nas says that "hip hop is dead". A large part of it died with Biggie Smalls, though. And it won't ever heal until we know the whole truth.

The trial of Ms. Wallace vs. The LAPD is set to resume in Summer, 2007, where she continues to attempt what's almost impossible: seek the truth, receive justice and find a guilty verdict for those responsible for the corruption, negligence and viciousness that took Christopher Wallace away from us forever. He will live on forever through the music. And he was similar to Tupac Shakur, in foreseeing death before death actually came to see them… and he was right about "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems", "The 10 Crack Commandments", and "The Long Kiss Goodnight". But The Black Frank White, the original King Of New York, was dead wrong about one thing: Biggie Smalls was not a nobody until somebody killed him. He was somebody special.

life is so lovely.
peace to KainMarko for the beats! i'm writing to them as we speak. a new Mindbender!
peace to Philaflava.com , a wonderful website. I'm there daily, going nuts on the message boards. Fun conversations, join in if you like.
peace to all the lovely women and men I've met this week. Peace to all those on the same frequency as me, and have connected through anti-coincidence.
peace to Meric, who tells me that his favorite Marvel movie is 'Ghost Rider', so I'll follow his words all the way to Heaven. Love ya, bro!
Peace to NYMAG.com with the article 'Is Praise Good for A Gifted Child? No!' which enlightened me on the emphasis of EFFORT over INTELLIGENCE. Yes!
peace to the seeds I've planted, I love to see them return whenever!
peace to Del! thanks again for hittin me up homie, lovely to hear you're good!
peace to Rob and Steve, your trust maintains my life! THANK YOU GRATEFULLY!
peace to 'I'll Sleep When You're Dead', the best album of the year! I can live with #2 :)
peace to music, which I'm going to make today!
peace to Susan Iantorno, thank you so much for your help!
AND PEACE TO DI-WAN Iantorno! :) I love you so much angel!!!!
Adhimusic is me

~~~
By Nate Peterson
Aspen, CO Colorado
February 22, 2007

ASPEN — Genius/GZA, the solemn sage of pioneering New York rap collective the Wu-Tang Clan, doesn't write rhymes fast.

In fact, according to the Genius, certain phrases and storylines can remain in his head for years, gestating and gaining traction, before they end up on paper, then fully take form as complete songs.

"I can't cheat myself," said GZA (born Gary Grice in Brooklyn), who is credited with forming what would become the Wu-Tang Clan with cousins Robert Diggs (RZA) and Russell Jones (Ol' Dirty Bastard). "I'm not a fast writer. I know people who can write a rhyme in 30 minutes. But 10 of their rhymes won't compare to one of mine."

It's a boast that most knowledgeable MCs wouldn't contest. As a lyricist and a storyteller, GZA remains revered in the ever-changing hip-hop universe, a master of his craft who - despite median commercial success as a solo artist - is esteemed by about anyone who has ever picked up a mic to fire off rhymes.

On the Clan's groundbreaking 1993 debut, "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)," GZA's carefully crafted stanzas and penetrating delivery made him stand out among the group's 10 collective voices. His 1995 solo album, "Liquid Swords," which was produced by RZA and featured multiple guest spots from Clan members, is arguably the best Wu-Tang record ever made, and The Source named it among its top 100 rap albums of all time.

GZA's lyrics on "Liquid Swords" cast listeners into a dark world full of shadowy characters - drug lords, assassins and undercover agents among them - while a soundtrack of gritty, minimized RZA-spliced beats plays in the background.

Track for track, the wordplay on the album is arguably unrivaled among hip-hop records from the past 12 years.

While he has released three albums since "Liquid Swords," GZA said audiences at his live shows connect with that album's material - and the early Wu-Tang tracks - more than anything else.

His most devoted fans appreciate all his material, namely songs off his two most recent efforts, "Legend of the Liquid Sword," and the DJ Muggs collaboration "Grandmasters." But GZA said he doesn't pawn off those familiar with only "Liquid Swords" as listeners who haven't learned to grow with him.

"I embrace that forever," he said. "I always run into people that have connected with the music. It inspires me to meet people who love my writing and love my music. Sometimes they can put it in words and I can't."

As for the current state of hip-hop, GZA said he rarely listens to the radio, and isn't moved by most of the records he hears out in clubs. As an art form, hip-hop has become stale and saturated, and it lacks the focus with which he approaches his music.

"With me, Dirty and RZA, it was always about having the flyest rhymes, critiquing word play, just vibing," he said. "Hip-hop now, there's no finesse, there's no originality. I don't go into the studio trying to make a club song. That's never on my mind, I don't write like that. I hear rappers do interviews and they're like, yeah, we needed a club banger, or we needed this on the album.

"Rappers are so one-dimensional now. They get a club beat, and they figure the rhyme has to be about being in the club, too - a club rhyme. It's crazy. So now in the track you're in the club, you're buying the bar and you're VIP. You know what I'm saying? That's why my future plans are to write books and scripts and really, really take it there. That's the time and effort I put into writing a rhyme. I write them like novels or like they're screenplays."

As for how he creates his rhymes, GZA said he finds inspiration all around him. He compares his creative process to doodling - "where the pen is just flowing, or the pencil is just flowing and you don't know what you're drawing, it just becomes something," he said.

"The story comes to me," he adds. "I can be inspired by so many things: Music, people, books, anything."

Even just one off-hand phrase can lead to an idea. On his debut, GZA penned "Labels," a story rap that incorporated various record labels into the lyrics. He followed with similar concept songs on his later releases, including "Queen's Gambit" off "Grandmasters," a story rap about a strong, beautiful woman that wove the name of 31 NFL teams into the lyrics.

The worldplay is so deft that at first blush, most listeners wouldn't pick up the embedded theme.

Sample lyrics: I told her to stay strong, not to be ashamed/ You're a 10 I see, you just need to TITAN your game ... Her interesting background, but quite unusual/ A great force grip, but out of bounds for a musical/ She told me to call her, if I came to town/ I started TEXAN her, soon as my plane had touchdown ...

"Everything has to be written phorically," GZA said. "You almost have to have more than one meaning. Or even if it does have one meaning, there's many different ways to look at it. Like most things, I do that with songs."

"What's so messed up about hip-hop, as far as the lyrical part of it, there's so many things to talk about," he adds. "There's so much to talk about in life. But, you listen to records, and it's the same thing over and over and over and over."

An industry coup - like the one GZA and the Wu-Tang Clan piloted in 1993 - may be on the horizon. The group has plans to record some time this year for its first group album since 2001's "Iron Flag," although GZA said he hasn't heard exactly when and where that will take place.

The group, which last hit the road together for some shows in August and September, will be without founding member Ol' Dirty Bastard, who died from a drug overdose in 2004.

The only member who isn't on board - yet - is Ghostface Killah, the group's most critically successful solo artist in recent years.

"This is something that's been talked about for years," GZa said "I think there may be a few issues with a few members that need to be straightened out or whatever. Not myself, per se, but there maybe some little things that need to be straightened out. It's just a matter of all of us getting together. We've been talking about doing another album, and I think it's time. The fans want it, and they're still waiting for it."

~~~
Homophobia and Conscious Hip Hop

A call for standards: "conscious" rappers and homophobia
By Kyle "El Guante" Myhre
http://elguante.blogspot.com/2007/02/article-conscious-rappers-and.html

(Because this always comes up, one initial point of clarification: the term "homophobia" does not just mean "fear of gay people." It refers to ANY fear, aversion, distrust or hatred directed toward people who identify as gay or lesbian. So I don't want anyone coming up to me later saying "Ayo I hear what you're saying, but see I ain't AFRAID of gays, I just don't like them." I'm glad we're all on the same page now.)

I first heard New York rapper Saigon a few years ago—a few songs here and there from his various mixtapes, from hip hop websites and from friends' mix CDs. Armed with a razor-sharp wit, a real talent for multisyllable rhyme and the bombastic production of Just Blaze, Saigon was a welcome breath of fresh air. To top it all off, Sai was political! He was down with dead prez, he rapped about crooked politicians and he was one of an extremely few artists able to successfully blend street credibility with socially-conscious rhymes.

"Finally," I thought. "A credible rapper who isn't afraid to talk about real issues and actually has some personality. This guy could be the future. He could be 'the conscious 50 Cent.' Saigon could really change the face of mainstream hip hop."

But it was too good to be true, as these sorts of things always are. Saigon, as it turns out, is virulently, publicly homophobic. For example, Sai's response to Kanye West calling for a moratorium on homophobia in hip hop:

"S to the A I, may I say I never affiliate myself with a gay guy/ Sorry Kanye I, had homophobia ever since I was yay high."

Doesn't really get much more overt than that. And here is his rhymed multiple choice question on "Contraband II:"

"Question number three is for the females/ y'all know how I feel about the details/ this is 100% true, I'll bet with you/ why is three out of every four broads bisexual?/ A; 'cause they tired of the problems that the men bring/ B; they just munchin' on carpets 'cause it's the in-thing/ C; 'cause America say it's okay to be gay/ D; this just Sodom and Gomorrah on replay."

I really had no reason to be surprised. Throughout the years, rappers I had once looked up to as talented and socially conscious have repeatedly let me down when it comes to applying their revolutionary fervor to the LGBTQ community. While "mainstream" artists like Eminem, DMX, Busta Rhymes and many others have been publicly criticized for their homophobic lyrics, we've failed to shine that same light on many of our self-proclaimed revolutionary heroes, so-called "conscious" acts like Saigon, Immortal Technique, Brand Nubian, Capital D, El-P, Goodie Mob and many, many others.

Even "conscious" hip hop's champions, the oft-heralded Common and Mos Def, have a history of anti-gay lyrics.

"Homo's a no-no, so faggots stay solo…" (Common on "Heidi Hoe," 1992).

"Cats who claimin' they hard be mad fag/ so I run through 'em like flood water through sandbags…" (Mos Def on Blackstar's "Re-Definition," 1998).

"In a circle of faggots, your name is mentioned…" (Common on "Dooinit," 2000).

"Quasi-homosexuals is runnin' this rap shit…" (Mos Def on "The Rape Over," 2004).

To be fair, Common has since changed his view and attitude (at least publicly) and this is to be applauded. The point is, however, that underground/conscious/political artists are just as prone to homophobia as their mainstream counterparts, and we in the broader hip hop community have a responsibility to hold them to the same standards.

And this is usually the place in the discussion where people start getting defensive and/or making excuses for these artists. "We shouldn't expect them to be perfect." Or "homophobia isn't hip hop's problem; it's society's problem." Or "at least they're talking about other important issues." Or "it's free speech; stop trying to censor them." Or whatever.

But this isn't censorship or a demand for absolute ideological perfection; it's a call for some pretty reasonable standards. Don't be a bigot—is that so much to ask?

Hip hop—and yes, even "conscious" hip hop—has a problem with homophobia. It's high time we just admit this. From mainstream artists to underground artists to local and amateur acts—homophobia, both indirect (the use of homophobic slurs as a general insult; attend any emcee battle and see for yourself) and explicit (overt gay-bashing in lyrics) is far too prevalent in hip hop. Of course, it's far too prevalent everywhere, but hip hop warrants special attention both because of the nature/frequency of the attacks and the visibility and worldwide influence of the medium. I'd write an article about homophobia in polka music, horse racing, or old-world breadmaking, but the people who participate in those activities aren't constantly and publicly making idiots out of themselves (while commanding the attention of a global audience) by calling one another "fags."

This is especially problematic when it comes to artists who are placed on a pedestal by both the hip hop and activist communities as being pillars of progressive or radical thought. Immortal Technique, for example, is a hero to thousands of "revolutionary" minded hip hop fans who are either so desperate for politics in hip hop that they'll ignore his homophobia, or don't care about its presence in the first place. And I'm afraid it's more often the latter.

"Why you tryin' to be hardcore, you fuckin' homo-thug?/ and don't be sensitive and angry at the shit that I wrote/ 'cause if you can take a fucking dick, you can take a joke." (Immortal Technique on "Obnoxious," 2003).

Immortal Tech offers more jewels of wisdom in this interview with RapStation: "As for homophobia, hip hop never embraced faggots. One can't deny that there are probably rappers, DJs and fans that are mo's but I think since the culture was based around proving ones manhood; acting like a fruitpop isn't gonna get you anywhere."

(Tech does, oddly enough, make a very important point about how sexism and outdated ideals of masculinity serve to undergird homophobia in the hip hop community. As always, sexism and homophobia go hand in hand).

The bottom line, particularly for those who consider themselves progressives or radicals, is that homophobia, aside from being morally wrong and flat-out ignorant, is counterrevolutionary. "An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere." Rappers can claim anti-government, or pro-black, or pro-social justice or whatever all they want, but if they're casually throwing around anti-gay slurs then they're directly participating in the oppression of a significant portion of the world population.

Which is, of course, exactly what the powers-that-be want. We can't have decently-funded schools or universal health care because voters are too upset over the prospect of gay people getting married. We can't have revolutionary organizations because racism, sexism, classism and homophobia hinder people's basic ability to work together. It's divide and conquer, and perhaps it goes without saying, but it's bigger than hip hop too. Politically-minded rappers being homophobic mirrors a lot of other problems associated with the Left: white liberals being racist and completely oblivious about it, male activists being all for smashing the State but not willing to follow female leadership, college student organizers holding meetings that working-class people are not able to attend, the list goes on and on. We all need to start thinking more holistically.

As far as solutions go, this problem needs to be assaulted on multiple fronts. A whole lot needs to be done in the public realm with regards to education and legislation, but that doesn't mean that we in the hip hop community should just wait for those things to happen and filter down to us. It's going to take action.

First and foremost, we can support gay and lesbian rappers, artists like God-des & She, Rainbow Flava, Deep Dickolective, Deadlee, Soce the Elemental Wizard, Johnny Dangerous and many more. The more support these artists have the sooner mainstream acceptance will come. And the flipside of this, of course, is NOT supporting homophobic artists; if a rapper is saying some dumb shit, don't buy his album. Period.

And that's difficult—many of the artists I mentioned earlier are or have been personal favorites of mine. I grew up on the first two Goodie Mob albums and I still love a lot of their material. But group member Khujo's verses on "Fly Away" and "All A's" have really made me take a second look at the group—and at myself. Five years ago, I let his gay-bashing lyrics slide, rationalizing to myself that they're drops of negativity in an otherwise positive stew, and that as long as I'm not beating up gay people or joining the Klan I can't be homophobic.

But there comes a point when lines need to be drawn and principles need to be upheld. I can't take back the mistakes of the past, but I can be sure not to make them again—as much as I've liked a lot of Saigon's and Immortal Tech's material, I won't be buying either of their new albums.

It takes constant awareness too. I recently included the Lil' Wayne song "Shooter" on some "best singles of '06" list someone asked me to write up. And sure, it's a great song, but it also includes the line "behind door dick-takers/ it's outrageous." It's not as though I just didn't notice the line before. I noticed it and didn't care enough to change my decision to include it in my list, and that was wrong. Being truly anti-homophobic, truly revolutionary, is continuous work. We make mistakes, and we have to be able to acknowledge them while understanding that change is a dynamic process.

We can also write letters, send emails and talk to artists who have used homophobic language or expressed homophobic ideas. This could involve emailing Eminem, but it could just as easily involve talking to some random kid at a battle or one of your MySpace friends and asking him why he uses the language he does. A lot of people are simply never confronted about homophobia, and dialogue may be the necessary first step for many. A significant fraction of the artists who use homophobic language probably don't have any serious beef with the LGBTQ community—the common excuse is that words like "fag" have evolved into all-purpose insults, and that questioning a male emcee's manhood is just a part of hip hop culture. When we can initiate conversations about why that language—regardless of its intent—is harmful, we will start to open some eyes.

Finally, as artists, whether "conscious" or otherwise, we need to take some responsibility. Read up on the history of Gay Liberation and the struggle for LGBTQ rights. Find more creative ways to disrespect the hypothetical wack emcee that we all rap about from time to time (really, when every dis boils down to questioning masculinity and sexuality, it's not just ignorant—it's boring). If you're a battlerapper, point out when your opponent uses homophobic language and use it to your advantage—be creative. And for God's sake stop saying "no homo."

The aforementioned Kanye West recently made waves by passionately speaking out against homophobia in hip hop. But a month or two later he dropped this lyric on DJ Khaled's "Grammy Family:" "'Yeezy got a vision that's clearer than Evian/ used to hit the radio them faggots ain't let me on."

Yes, we all know that West is "complex," but this kind of hypocrisy is unacceptable. As artists at all levels of influence, from the Jay-Zs of the world to the basement emcee rapping into a computer mic, we need to lead with both words and actions—this is our community and it's on us to change it for the better. Silence and inaction both equal complicity.

(Kyle "El Guante" Myhre is a writer, activist, emcee and spoken-word poet. He can be reached at elguante@gmail.com or at www.myspace.com/elguante. Please feel free to repost or link to this article on your blogs, MySpace, Facebook, and everywhere.) 

to everyone at the Moka Only rap show last night:
Buck 65
Derek 'D-Rock'
Ryan Hanes
Moka Only
Tom Quinlan
Planet P aka Phil
Nnamdi
Boz
G Knight
Scandalis
Adam Bomb
Tek Man
Mikey
Bam Bam (thanks girl!)
Ty
Susana Ferreira (I mean it, girl!)
DJ Neoteric (Vancity in effect! next time i gotta hear you spin :)
Cass (you da man!)
Moka's Manager (you're super cool, homegirl!)
and alllll the people that were there at White Orchid last night... the show was heaven to me! All my friends in one spot again... it was like a high school reunion, LOL
we took the pictures that captured the love... I want to inspire a moment like that again soon... come to my album release party in the summer, y'all! It's gonna be PHENOMENAL PARADISE!

much love to Mark Valino and to Che Kothari for everything. Next time, it's on.

big up to Diane for the Hero Burgers... they needed more condiments, yes. And 'Water' was a great movie so far! I'm glad I ignored my ignorance! :)
I'm seeing life like a bunch of song titles now... it's hilarious.
Um yeah... time to do more.
life is love

"we must give our love with nothing expected in return... then we might receive something in response... but what we get in return is not what we truly want, it's simply the extra gift of what we get... because all we wanted to do was to GIVE LOVE" - my neighbor's super cool auntie

thanks to all who taught me lessons yesterday.
on to today's life story!
love Adhimusic

If you got beats, I want to hear them!
send samples, send ideas, send collaborations you want Mindbender on... anything!
I'm looking for nothing but the best beats in the world... historic, classic, amazing music!
Or serious experimental grooves that leave people with new feelings... that's good too :)
either way, let's make this magic real!
thanks a lot to every single person who shares their vision... let's connect heads, then explode minds!
nuff respect from Mindbender

I shouldn't even say a word.
But I have to update this with something.
it was nice to work with Diane's family last night, I got closer to Mario and Spiro and Yvonne and Susan... I didn't see Laura, and Dean leaves today back to England and I never saw him his whole trip, but regardless, family is real.
God bless Dale and Mom, I hope you are all safe and sound in Edmonton.
Khari, stop using drugs and I will too. We have too much in this world to be responsible to, and literally react instantly to with our missions in life.
Royce 5'9" gave me the most important interview ever. It will be up on earwaks.com soon enough.
I love life too much to not make a Heaven out of it. Watch how fast I create magic.

okay now, that's enough.
10% thinking, 90% building is the formula for life now

peep this:
     

When It Came to War-Martin Luther King Threw Down

I'm so grateful to the folks who forwarded this post. I listened to the speech (for the ?? time) this morning -- and I swear I heard it for the first time. I found myself crying I got so emotional. Even if you've heard it before, the timing is so perfect today it's amazing. Dr. King's eloquence and political wisdom is so profound. All you have to do is change the names of the targets of U.S. warmongering and it could have been written this date! Especially Iraq!! Change Vietnam to Iraq and you'll be blown away by the accuracy of King's statements 40 years after first uttered.

Martin Luther King Jr.: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam"
Sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967:

The sermon which I am preaching this morning in a sense is not the usual kind of sermon, but it is a sermon and an important subject, nevertheless, because the issue that I will be discussing today is one of the most controversial issues confronting our nation. I'm using as a subject from which to preach, "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam."


Now, let me make it clear in the beginning, that I see this war as an unjust, evil, and futile war. I preach to you today on the war in Vietnam because my conscience leaves me with no other choice. The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. "Ye shall know the truth," says Jesus, "and the truth shall set you free." Now, I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.


The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we're always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for in all our history there has never been such a monumental dissent during a war, by the American people.

Polls reveal that almost fifteen million Americans explicitly oppose the war in Vietnam. Additional millions cannot bring themselves around to support it. And even those millions who do support the war [are] half-hearted, confused, and doubt-ridden. This reveals that millions have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism, to the high grounds of firm dissent, based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition.


Yes, we must stand, and we must speak. [tape skip]...have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam. Many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. And so this morning, I speak to you on this issue, because I am determined to take the Gospel seriously. And I come this morning to my pulpit to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation.


This sermon is not addressed to Hanoi, or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Nor is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in a successful resolution of the problem. This morning, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans, who bear the greatest responsibility, and entered a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.


Now, since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is...a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed that there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the Poverty Program. There were experiments, hopes, and new beginnings. Then came the build-up in Vietnam. And I watched the program broken as if it was some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction tube. And you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor, and much of that fifty-three dollars goes for salaries to people that are not poor. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor, and attack it as such.


Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hope of the poor at home. It was sending their sons, and their brothers, and their husbands to fight and die in extraordinarily high proportion relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with a cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same school room. So we watch them in brutal solidarity, burning the huts of a poor village. But we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago or Atlanta. Now, I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.


My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years--especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action; for they ask and write me, "So what about Vietnam?" They ask if our nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence I cannot be silent. Been a lot of applauding over the last few years. They applauded our total movement; they've applauded me. America and most of its newspapers applauded me in Montgomery. And I stood before thousands of Negroes getting ready to riot when my home was bombed and said, we can't do it this way. They applauded us in the sit-in movement--we non-violently decided to sit in at lunch counters. The applauded us on the Freedom Rides when we accepted blows without retaliation. They praised us in Albany and Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. Oh, the press was so noble in its applause, and so noble in its praise when I was saying, Be non-violent toward Bull Connor;when I was saying, Be non-violent toward [Selma, Alabama segregationist sheriff] Jim Clark. There's something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when you say, Be non-violent toward Jim Clark, but will curse and damn you when you say, "Be non-violent toward little brown Vietnamese children. There's something wrong with that press!


As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964. And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was not just something taking place, but it was a commission--a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of Man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men, for communists and capitalists, for their children and ours, for black and white, for revolutionary and conservative. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved His enemies so fully that he died for them? What, then, can I say to the Vietcong, or to Castro, or to Mao, as a faithful minister to Jesus Christ? Can I threaten them with death, or must I not share with them my life? Finally, I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be the son of the Living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. And because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come today to speak for them. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of the military government of Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries.


Now, let me tell you the truth about it. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Do you realize that the Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation. And incidentally, this was before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. And this is a little-known fact, and these people declared themselves independent in 1945. They quoted our Declaration of Independence in their document of freedom, and yet our government refused to recognize them. President Truman said they were not ready for independence. So we fell victim as a nation at that time of the same deadly arrogance that has poisoned the international situation for all of these years. France then set out to reconquer its former colony. And they fought eight long, hard, brutal years trying to re-conquer Vietnam. You know who helped France? It was the United States of America. It came to the point that we were meeting more than eighty percent of the war costs. And even when France started despairing of its reckless action, we did not. And in 1954, a conference was called at Geneva, and an agreement was reached, because France had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu. But even after that, and after the Geneva Accord, we did not stop. We must face the sad fact that our government sought, in a real sense, to sabotage the Geneva Accord. Well, after the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come through the Geneva agreement. But instead the United States came and started supporting a man named Diem who turned out to be one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the world. He set out to silence all opposition. People were brutally murdered because they raised their voices against the brutal policies of Diem. And the peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States influence and by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown, they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace. And who are we supporting in Vietnam today? It's a man by the name of general Ky [Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky] who fought with the French against his own people, and who said on one occasion that the greatest hero of his life is Hitler. This is who we are supporting in Vietnam today. Oh, our government and the press generally won't tell us these things, but God told me to tell you this morning. The truth must be told.


The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support and all the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps, where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go, primarily women, and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the towns and see thousands of thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the United Buddhist Church. This is a role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolutions impossible but refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that comes from the immense profits of overseas investments. I'm convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.


A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be changed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.


Oh, my friends, if there is any one thing that we must see today is that these are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. They are saying, unconsciously, as we say in one of our freedom songs, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around!" It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo, we shall boldly challenge unjust mores, and thereby speed up the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing, unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of mankind. And when I speak of love I'm not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of John: "Let us love one another, for God is love. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us."

Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism. The home that all too many Americans left was solidly structured idealistically; its pillars were solidly grounded in the insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage. All men are made in the image of God. All men are bothers. All men are created equal. Every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Every man has rights that are neither conferred by, nor derived from the State--they are God-given. Out of one blood, God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. What a marvelous foundation for any home! What a glorious and healthy place to inhabit. But America's strayed away, and this unnatural excursion has brought only confusion and bewilderment. It has left hearts aching with guilt and minds distorted with irrationality.

It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home. Come home, America. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on." I call on Washington today. I call on every man and woman of good will all over America today. I call on the young men of America who must make a choice today to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, "You're too arrogant! And if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God."

Now it isn't easy to stand up for truth and for justice. Sometimes it means being frustrated. When you tell the truth and take a stand, sometimes it means that you will walk the streets with a burdened heart. Sometimes it means losing a job...means being abused and scorned. It may mean having a seven, eight year old child asking a daddy, "Why do you have to go to jail so much?" And I've long since learned that to be a follower to the Jesus Christ means taking up the cross. And my bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear. Let us bear it--bear it for truth, bear it for justice, and bear it for peace. Let us go out this morning with that determination. And I have not lost faith. I'm not in despair, because I know that there is a moral order. I haven't lost faith, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I can still sing "We Shall Overcome" because Carlyle was right: "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant was right: "Truth pressed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell was right: "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." Yet, that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the bible is right: "You shall reap what you sow." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when the lion and the lamb will lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid because the words of the Lord have spoken it. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all over the world we will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!" With this faith, we'll sing it as we're getting ready to sing it now. Men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And nations will not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore. And I don't know about you, I ain't gonna study war no more.

~~~

One of Hip Hop's foremost pioneers is Joseph Saddler aka Grandmaster Flash. Back in the day he epitomized what a DJ should be and headed one of Hip Hop's best and most enduring groups The Furious Four, which later became The Furious Five. Flash put his superstar crew together in 1976. They eventually went on to record some of Hip Hop's biggest hits including, 'White Lines', 'The Message' and 'Scorpio' to name a few. However, long before records came out, GM Flash was Hip Hop's most popular act. Going to a Flash party was an event. Old school headz all have fond memories of seeing Flash for the first time. Both him and his group's showmanship are unequaled to this day.

There's not enough that can be written about Flash's accomplishments. He invented all sorts of techniques from backspinning to cutting and scratching and of course quick mixing which are the foundations for today's Hip Hop DJs. He was also responsible for tinkering with a mixer and developing a cross fading cue. He was also the first DJ to use a drum machine that he called a beat box…. This interview took place several days after 2Pac's death in September of 1996.

Davey D: For people who aren't familiar, tell us what was Grandmaster Flash's legacy in Hip Hop? What were you best known for within the early days of Hip Hop?

GM Flash: As an individual I was known as the DJ or the mixer. I was known for taking a particular passage of music and rearranging it. I called it the quick mix theory. It consisted of backspinning, the double back, cutting and scratching. I was also the first DJ to be known for doing acrobatics on the turntables. I would do 360 turns, cutting with my elbows, my mouth and crazy stuff like that.

Davey D: Not only were you the DJ, but you had some of the fiercest emcees in the business. Could you tell us the original members of your crew? A lot of people know you as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, but I remember when you started off with just one, then it became three and then for a long time it was GMF and the Furious Four. Break this down for us..

GM Flash: The first member was who I called 'The crowd pleaser' was Cowboy. The second one who was recruited was Kid Creole. The third member who was recruited was Kid Creole's brother who was known as Melle-Mel. The fourth member recruited was Mr. Ness who later became known as Scorpio. The final person was Raheim. I also had my assistant Disco B.

Davey D: What ever happened to Disco B?

GM Flash: Disco B still rolls with me now. He's still doing his thing. He does clubs in different places. He was very instrumental in helping me perfect my craft.

Davey D: What have been some of the positive changes you've seen over the years within Hip Hop? What are some of the changes you've seen that you don't like?

GM Flash: What I've found appealing is the fact that Hip Hop can take from any other genre of music, recreate it, reform it, rearrange it and put poetry over the top of it. That's Hip Hop. That was a positive thing for it. Now, as for what I don't like, I'll try to explain this real carefully. Me, Bambaataa and Kool Herc planted this seed. This seed was a seed to a tree. This tree had a massive trunk and this trunk had branches and leaves. The leaves symbolize different subject matter that we can speak on. If you think about the history of Hip Hop we've had artist who can talk about from socially significant ideas to something as cool as sneakers. There was a time when all these various subject matters were utilized. But what has happened, we as Hip Hoppers are not fully utilizing this tree. At this point in time, I just feel that this tree is leaning. By that I mean, I think we are putting too much weight on one side of the tree, when this particular genre of music allows us to talk about many things.

Davey D: Why do you think this has happened?

GM Flash: I think the music business plays a big part. Let's say have two record company's which I'll call 'Company Left' and 'Company Right'. Let's say Company Left has an artist with a hit record. Company Right would rather come up with a record that sounds like Company Left as opposed to allowing the creative flow of the artist to come up with something just as comparable. If you think about my era to throughout the 80's, you had anybody from Eric B & Rakim who's subject matter was totally different from Chuck D, who's subject matter was totally different from LL's, who's subject matter was totally different from KRS-One. We were basically bombing the airwaves and the record companies could not figure out how and why. What has happened is that to some degree they have taken an attitude where they don't listen to demos of diverse subject matters. They're looking for demos like the record the guy on the left just did. Hip Hop has become real constrained. The creative juices and creative flows have been diminished.

Davey D: Now this is very different from the days when you first came out, because the name of the game was to be creative and standout as much as possible.

GM Flash: Exactly, especially when you're talking about a music where you can do just about anything. We can talk about just about anything lyrically. We can even sing off key, but if it's produced properly it can be a hit. What has happened is that there's just too much of one particular subject matter being talked about. Classical, R&B and Blues are constrained. They have a bridge. They have a chorus. They have to sing in a certain key and have some sort of key. With Hip Hop that's not the case.

Davey D: When is something not Hip Hop? I run into people who will listen to a group like the 2 Live Crew and say 'That's not Hip Hop' or they would hear someone who has an R&B beat in the background and they'll say 'That's not Hip Hop'. The definition of Hip Hop has become narrowly defined. There are a lot of people who will maintain that music from the West Coast is not Hip Hop. They'll say that E-40 or Too Short is not Hip Hop. Now coming from one of the people who pioneered this how would you definitively define Hip Hop music?

GM Flash: Let me just say this and I want to be real clear. As being one of the pioneers who was known for the ability to mix music, I mixed anything from Billy Squire, Michael Jackson, to Beethoven. When I laid this foundation down, the key was being able to take almost anything musically just as long as it had a beat to it, so that the rhymer can syncopate to it. So what I'm trying to say is from a musical aspect for anybody to say that whatever they're doing in Florida is not Hip Hop or whatever they're doing in LA is not Hip Hop, who are these people to say that?

There were songs that Bambaataa played that were so funky and when I had the privilege of getting to know what they were, I was surprised. You take a song like 'Apache' which is considered one of the themes of Hip Hop. The guys who did were The Incredible Bongo Band. They were a bunch of white guys. There was one person in there who was Black and that was King Erickson. He was a percussionist. For anybody to say well this is not Hip Hop and that's not Hip Hop, that is not the way the formula was laid down. It was for the people who were going to continue take anything musically and string it along.

Davey D: Do you the media has given Hip Hop it's due? Have we in the Hip Hop media treated it correctly? Have we defined it correctly? I mean there are a lot of magazines who have put out different definitions for Hip Hop other then the one's you, Bambaataa and Kool Herc have laid out for years. You have guys who get on radio, who just got into Hip Hop two years ago asserting their own misleading definitions, but because they have access to the airwaves, they're able to make those definitions stick. Do you think this sort of activity has led to Hip Hop becoming stagnant?

GM Flash: I think what's happening here is, there's a group or maybe one person who is saying this is gonna be the definition and this is what we want to get the kids to do now. The definition just keeps changing. It keeps changing even though there was already a floor plan. All the newer artists had to do was build upon the floor plan. The definition has already been set and that is, unlimited subject matters, unlimited music genres. This was already set in the early 70's. All that had to happen now was people build upon it. So if a person has an R&B track in the background and he's rhyming over the top of it, it's Hip Hop. If it's a techno track and he's rhyming over the top of it, it's Hip Hop. It's even to the point where now that R&B needs major assistance from our genre. That goes to show you that there is so much power in the derivative of the musical aspect of Hip Hop. The definitions have already been laid. For us to keep claiming this isn't Hip Hop and that isn't Hip Hop doesn't make sense to me.

When we were going into the studios, my point of view of course would differ from Heavy D's point of view. It would differ from Snoop Dogg's point of view or it would differ from LL's or any other artist. Of course we would differ, but that's the beauty of Hip Hop. We can come from our own particular point of view and lay it down. We should not be throwing verbal rocks at each other. We're all responsible to continue the growth of Hip Hop. You have to remember that after a while when your career is over, there's a child that's looking at you that wants to do the same thing that you're doing, so why not give him all the avenues? Give him all the avenues so that when he puts pen to paper he explores all avenues. We have enough black eyes coming from people who don't like Hip Hop. So for us who do love Hip Hop we should not be throwing black eyes at each other.

Davey D: Hip Hop and violence, how do you see it?

GM Flash: Hip Hop has always been a dynamo. It's the only genre of music where we hit a stage the objective is to get everybody as hyped as possible. That has been the objective. That's why Hip Hop works so well with an audience. Now the violence mixed in between, I personally feel that the business aspects have played a role. Meaning that you have some people in the music business that have the power to sign artists who will take an artist aside and plant a negative seed. They will encourage artist to do something just because the guy across town is doing it. He will tell an artist to escalate it to another level. They would set the stage.

Unfortunately we are arguing amongst each other so much when the bottom line is we don't own anything. We are offspring to a record label owner. So what the owners see is that we are fighting amongst each other and causing controversy, but as long as it's selling records they don't care. We have to take responsibility to say 'hold up, wait a minute this thing has gone to far'.

There's gonna always be an element of violence in all genres of music. It's with Rock-n-Roll and all the other genres. When it comes to the point that there is a tragedy over it that scares me. That scares me because all the owners will do is find some new element and back it and sit back and collect the dough. We gotta stop fighting amongst each other. I think the only rift should be when take it the stage and try to out perform each other.

Davey D: There were some legendary battles that you and your crew participated in, name some of those battles.

GM Flash: Before I was a recording artist I didn't look at things as battles. For example, me and Bambaataa might play in the same room. Me and Kool Herc might play in the same room. Myself and DJ Breakout might play in the same room. Now the audience might've look at that as a battle which was fine, but our true battles didn't come until we started touring.

Davey D: I heard you guys used to battle against bands like the Barkays and Lakeside?

GM Flash: This is what I'm trying to tell you. For example, I didn't take the word battle seriously until we started making records. When we started making records we would go into towns and get ready to do sound check. All we would bring was our turntables and a couple of microphones and other bands would say stuff to us like 'Oh you guys must be here for intermission music'. We would hear this sort of stuff from these big time groups. I won't name no names but they know who they are. When they read this interview they'll know who they are. We would take that as a slap in the face. We would find out when we went on stage and when we performed we used the formula of Hip Hop, which was to drain the audience. We would get them to clap their hands and say 'Ho!' As we were leaving off stage we would knock on the dressing room door of the next act and say 'Good Luck'. We would then sit back on the side and watch them play to a tired worn out audience. That's when the battle was on. I had love for Breakout; I had love for Bambaataa. I had love for Kool Herc.

Davey D: I know you don't call it a battle, but a lot of us did and if there was one rival group you guys had it was Grand Wizard Theodore and The Fantastic Romantic Five.

GM Flash: Ok, let me put that into perspective. Before I had fully put my group together, I was down with another group called the L Brothers. It was Gene Livingston, Corey Livingston and this little kid who was little brother named Theodore Livingston. Now when I was creating this formula, not everyone truly understood what I was trying to do. What I would notice was this little kid watching me do all this because the equipment was in Gene Livingston's house. Now his little brother would watch me, but Gene would say 'Whatever you do, Do not let my little brother touch the turntables. When Gene used to go to work, I used to sneak Theodore in the room and teach him. He had been watching me all the time. What I would do is put a milk crate under him and let him get up on the turntables and I watched this kid duplicate what I did. We kept it a secret for a long time, me and Theodore.

One day we did a block party and I stepped to Gene who was his older brother and I said 'Gene, your little brother would bring us so much more notoriety if we let him get on the turntables. For a long time Gene would resist because he couldn't catch what I was doing on the turntables. Finally he said 'ok' and I brought that same milk crate and that lunch kitchen table, I pulled out the turntables. I introduced him to the crowd as my student Grand Wizard Theodore. He did his thing and the crowd went nuts. He was a little kid and could hardly reach the tables. It put a damper on his older brother, because he couldn't catch the tricks. So it was a rivalry from there. I broke off from the L Brothers and created my own situation. I have love for Theodore because he was there. I have love for Gene. I have love for all these people because they were there. . The audience would look at me and Theodore as battling when we played a room, but all he doing was what I did.

Davey D: Where do you see Hip Hop going?

GM Flash: I'm a little afraid right now because now that it has escalated to someone getting the ultimate punishment which only God is allowed to do, as far as 2Pac dying. No one had a right to have done that. I know he has done things to people that were sort of insulting or not agreeable, but for him to die that's not good at all. Where is Hip Hop going? I'm hoping that this tragedy will help us to see we can't fight amongst each other, because we're gonna burn it out if we don't. Stop fighting. Right now I couldn't tell you where Hip Hop is going. There's gonna be a major summit held at Mosque 7 later this afternoon and we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna figure out how to put a stop on the violence.

Davey D: Last question, people are saying that pioneering groups like yourself have gotten ripped off from record companies and in a sense are winding up like the blues artist of the past that were exploited and left for broke. What advice would you give to young artist coming into the business so they could avoid the same mistakes?

GM Flash: Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public. The public makes you who you are. Also I would say do not enter into any agreement unless you are assisted by family and lawyer. This thing that was a dream at one time is now a multi-billion dollar business so make sure your business is straight.

~~~

    

Is Hip Hop Really Dead or Under Construction?

IS HIP HOP REALLY DEAD? Or Under Construction?
South Florida's Underground Artists Take Hip Hop Global
By Tony Muhammad

The fundamental message of Nas' new album Hip Hop is Dead has caught the attention of Hip Hoppers worldwide and forced us all to painfully look inwards and confront reality. Has Hip Hop become so commercialized that the music no longer reflects how those that represent the culture actually live? From chat rooms to message boards, everyone from old schoolers to new schoolers to true schoolers to dirty south grilled out blingers to back packing "purists" – are all debating the question, IS HIP HOP REALLY DEAD?

A recent sign that may indeed prove that the culture is dead was an on-air (radio) argument between female rapper-turned-radio host Monie Love and Young Jeezy on December 7. What was to be an interview promoting Young Jeezy's new album on the Philadelphia-based morning show turned into a debate on whether or not street credibility or talent/creativity determines MC authenticity and whether or not Hip Hop is really dead. The heated dialogue between the two made it clear that Young Jeezy had no clue who he was talking to. Monie Love is a British-born Hip Hop veteran of over 20 years who has an undeniable and popular presence in the culture. In the end, Monie Love shut down Young Jeezy's disagreement, almost plea, that Hip Hop is alive by simply saying, "No, it's dead." It was at that point that Young Jeezy walked off of the interview and out of the studio.

It is speculated throughout the industry that it was because of this incident that Monie Love's contract with the station was not renewed (although denied by the station's reps). Rumor has it that the incident may have ruined some "payola" (money for song spins) agreement between the radio station and Jeezy's record label or management. The incident not only shows how chain-flossing new schoolers are increasingly out of touch with Hip Hop foundation layers who built the culture they profit from, but it also shows how corporations have a tight grip on what is being played on the radio and how that artist and song are represented to the public– no matter how detrimental the messages are and how influential they are on the youth. In the end, it matters less if the artist's music is or is not authentically Hip Hop, but deplorably, what matters is how much they paid to get their record played or "get on."

In South Florida's ever-fluctuating underground Hip Hop mine lurks sparkling diamonds in the rough that choose to shine on their own terms rather than move with "blinged-out" trends. They make traditional sounding east coast Hip Hop music, a style that has been downplayed since Miami was nicknamed "The Bottom," and later the "Dirty South" in the late 90s. Because of stereotypes concerning what Miami urbanites typically appreciate in terms of music selection since the "hey day" of Miami Bass in the 80s, their style of music has been largely ignored by commercial radio. This is of course with the exception of Hot 105.1 FM recently adding old school Hip Hop shows on Friday and Saturday nights because marketing execs finally discovered that Miami experienced a significant influx of migrants from the east coast throughout the 80s and 90s; many of them Hip Hoppers who still bump in their cars classic albums like It Takes A Nation of Million To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy and The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest.

But, if we were to guide ourselves simply by what is played in the radio, we would say that that's all "old school" and no longer relevant. After all, it's being played on the station for the best in hits and OLDIES! Despite the stereotypes and despite the odds that traditional east coast style Hip Hop will ever blow up in Miami, the caliber of artists described above continue to make music in the way that they do simply because it is that particular style that inspired them while growing up. Repping "305" is not so much a priority to them as building with others, regardless of geography, who share a similar vision of success and are constantly on the grind to get ever closer to where they want to be.

Three local emcees that have been strongly building as of late, recording songs and even making whole albums are the trio of Orion, Ephnik (together known as OYE) and Omniscient of the group F.L.O.W. Official. The three collaborated on the compilation project The Movement Vol. 1, which has set the tone for the making of a Vol. 2 as well as featuring each other on their own individual projects. Reflecting on the current down state of the underground scene in Miami, Omniscient emphatically vents, "Three years ago there was a stage, a group of people … Maneuvers, Mind Shift, Source Spoken, F.L.O.W. Official … there were a lot of things poppin', open mics, there was SLAK in the Design District (Omniscient's own open mic spot for emcees) …We moved on from that because people were not supporting." Omniscient, being in the game for the past 7 years, notes, "It doesn't seem like the younger ones are trying to build the scene … they're trying to take advantage, always trying to get put on." Orion, echoing Omniscient's concerns, comments, "I feel that a lot of emcees hate on each other because of the way the scene is, it's a dog eat dog competition in Miami. A lot of emcees do not look out for other emcees."

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Omniscient describes how many of those who were building the scene several years ago have lost faith in building local unity. Several of which, he mentions, have even stopped making the traditional east coast style Hip Hop that they love and have begun making more stereotypically Miami "booty shaking" type music as an attempt to gain more commercial appeal. Not naming any names, Omniscient comments, "I don't think they really want to do that [style of music] … the system forces you to do that. It becomes a situation where you can go the easy route or go against the grain and do it the way you want to do it." "I'm not saying it's wrong or right, I'm just saying stay true to yourself," he adds.

Both Omniscient and Ephnik admit that they have made some compromises in the past when it comes down to making music, but it has been more on their own terms. Omniscient, who is Puerto Rican, never wrote lyrics in Spanish before until he was approached in 2005 to partake in a Reggaeton compilation distributed by Sony. Instead of rhyming about misogyny and getting drunk, as it seems like every other Reggaeton song on the compilation is about, he stood his ground and did lyrics that were more in tune with the way he actually lives his life.

Colombian-born Ephnik himself is known more for creating soulful and socially "conscious" Reggaeton. He dropped a heart aching banging joint about the birth and life of a drug dealer called Juanito on The Movement Vol. 1. The two are currently working on a strictly Spanish Hip Hop album to be marketed to the Latin-American audience. A snip bit of what is to be expected from the album can be heard on the extremely political, human rights anthem Derecho Humano off of Omniscient's just released "pre-album" Vocal Revolution

Orion, still hopeful about building a scene and keeping the art of emceeing alive, has started a monthly open-mic for emcees at the Saturday night venue Catalyst in Miami Springs. He notes, "We're trying to build a scene out here. Artists like Omniscient and Detox, whom we've worked with in the past … We've been open to colab with … If they have a show, they tell us about it. While there is a lot of hating, there are some who are still trying to build the scene." His partner Ephnik observes, "The people who we are working with we feel are steady with what they're doing. When we come together, we are always trying to do something positive and furthering." However, Ephnik also notes, "As far as a unification of a scene, I have really not seen the interest of people as a whole coming together in the name of Hip Hop."

The trio mentions other factors that have contributed to the decline of the scene, including a flood of people who all claim they can rhyme but do not go the extra mile to treat their craft as actual work, more or less like a hobby. Omniscient explains, "Now, the underground scene has been oversaturated with garbage, rookie emcees. Everyone has a story about how they've been writing since they were young."

Orion comments with his own experience, "There's almost a rapper on every block. Everyone I know knows someone who raps … a cousin or a neighbor or an uncle who raps. I was out one night with some friends and they had a friend who raps. He took out his mixtapes and was giving them out for free. He was then schooling me about how I should give my mixtapes out for free, that I'm wasting my time trying to sell my music on the streets. Later on that night, on my way to the bar I sold two CDs. This kid's eyes were wide open." Orion admits that giving away promos is "another way of playing the game," but adds, "It does mess us up in a world where record sales aren't what they used to be." Ephnik explains further, "It's kind of like you're a carpenter and there's another carpenter across the street and he works for free, it's hurting the craft. It means nothing to try to gain mass appeal if 900 people out of 1000 that got your CD for free don't like your music as opposed to selling it to someone who likes what he heard and is going to bump it in his car and then 4 or 5 other people who hear it are going to get affected by it."

Ephnik and Orion mention how they are always prepared when they are out in the scene with a bag full of CDs and a CD player with headphones so that potential fans can sample their music before purchasing it, thus building what they believe is a stronger market for their product. Orion elucidates, "If they buy it and they like it, they're not going to throw it away, guaranteed. Promos get thrown away." "I throw away promos and I'm a music lover," he confesses. "When we take 21 tracks of original music to the streets and we sell it, people are outraged," Says Orion. The comment I receive from the majority of people out there is 'Oh, you should be giving this out for free because you're nobody.' The thing is you have so many rappers nowadays with CDs filled with rhyming over candy sounding radio instrumentals and giving it out for free on the streets for the sake of exposure. Meanwhile, they're spending all of their money duplicating the CD, making all of the flyers, busting their a** out on the streets giving it out to people thinking that they're playing this promotions game. Really, you're playing a different ball game. That ball game is when there is so much money behind you with a label or some investor that you are able to do that and accept the loss. It makes no sense for us to go to the streets and just give away our art, our craft," he strongly adds. Ephnik firmly notes how his goal in becoming successful is just like any other artist; commercial, underground or otherwise. "The difference is administration, marketing and discipline. Me personally, as an artist I'm tired of being associated with the word 'starving.' I think I am a person who stands for freedom and unfortunately in this country it takes money to be free. People don't want to see that and talk all this sh*t and at the end of the day, if you want to commit yourself to something and further it, then payment has got to be part of it in order to have the time and the leisure and the equipment and the studio time, flyers and T-shirts … money is a necessity," stresses Ephnik.

In terms of promoting themselves outside of South Florida, all three agree that MySpace has been good to them. Orion mentions how he came to learn of the Umoja Village (shantytown) in Liberty City from someone who regularly visits his web page to check out his music. Not hiding their social activist side which truly complements their socially cognizant lyrics, Orion and Ephnik mention how they make regular contributions to the cause as well as participate at positive community building efforts such as the annual Organic Hip Hop Conference put on by Urban America Newspaper and the Florida International University African New-World Studies program.

Omniscient, who has actively participated in the Organic Hip Hop Conference since its first year in 2003, was diagnosed and successfully battled cancer in 2004. Since then, he has changed his diet and has developed a boost of creative energy and new focus as to where to take his career to become successful. He considers his battle with cancer to have been "a blessing" as it has made him more aware of the "garbage" that is put into food in this country. He mentions how because of his experience, he has been influenced to look into the richness of organic foods and the vegetarian lifestyle. Since becoming well, Omniscient has been strongly following up with other artists that are on his vibe both locally and internationally. Besides his work with Orion and Ephnik, he is currently working on several album projects. Among them is the Arrowax album with fellow Puerto Rican emcee 7 Star, who has successfully toured Europe several times. Omniscient has toured Europe himself with the revolutionary-oriented Botanica del Jibaro and is working on a solo album with a production crew he met in Spain called Strand and Tres. Besides this, he continues to work with his originally crew, F.L.O.W. Official (comprising of himself, E.M.O., Priest and Sic Vic) who are planning to release a full length album later this year called Architects.

Ephnik and Orion have their fair share of business, each currently working on solo projects as well as their combined OYE album produced by Paris-based West Bert of End-To-End. Like Omniscient, Ephnik has experienced his fair share of success through touring internationally. Just this summer he completed a tour of several South American countries; the highlight in Peru where he performed for a crowd of 8,000 people while opening up for renowned Puerto Rican Hip Hop pioneer Vico C. He also had the opportunity to record with other independent artists including Umano y Mazetas, Esaac MC, Tropas Costeras and Guanaco, getting featured on several compilations. Ephnik comments about the importance of moving beyond the MySpace world and actually getting out and touring internationally, "I think it's important to hustle to get the opportunity for exposure and touring is a crucial factor in determining whether an underground artist surfaces or not."

He describes the Hip Hop scene in South America as "still underground" yet "hungry," in a way reminding him of the freshness of the Hip Hop scene in New York in the early 90s. Ephnik mentions how after several of the concerts he performed at there were workshops for the youth, educating them about Hip Hop culture. He stresses that there is a great need for this here in the U.S. since we do not have shows like Yo! MTV Raps any longer to inspire and offer guidance to the youth through Hip Hop music. Truly, it was the substance driven Hip Hop of the late 80s/early 90s that has influenced these three to become the type of artists, and overall type of intellectually mature men, that they are. Independent artists whom Ephnik and Orion are currently building with include Infinit of the group Sumthin' Else, Detox, Avitar (based out of NY) and producers Name Brand and One Take (also based out of NY). The duo is currently getting ready to do a show in Puerto Rico in late January with Name Brand.

Besides MySpace, all three artists are currently looking to market themselves and their music in the direction that the music industry is headed – predominantly indie and on-line. Ephnik mentions how they are currently looking into getting their music on iTunes and available to download as ring tones. Again, commenting on the local scene, Omniscient says, "I don't see much happening over here, so that's why our focus is out there – the world!"

Based on the work that these highly determined artists are putting in, it can at best be said that HIP HOP IS TRULY NOT DEAD, but rather in a period of transition of re-defining and restructuring itself as the music industry and the global community currently are doing the same. In truth, their authentic and idealistic voices of truth and reason represent the future of Hip Hop, which is merely UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

BELIEVE THAT.
keep love alive!
Mindbender

Ghostface Killah: Night of the Living Fishheads

By Addi "Mindbender" Stewart

 

Kids, don't make him whip you with a strap... again. Just listen to the champ, cause it's officially a fact: the Knowledge God named GFK is back like that for 2006, and close to completing the Hip Hop Dennis Coles Notes of How To Be The G.O.A.T. (now arguably approaching "The Greatest of All Time". Sorry to disappoint you, LL). Redman once said "Def Jam forgot how to build an artist", but at least one rap superhero with a contract that's up there still gives the little people some sort of hope, that a few true school MCs -still- do explore and grow and perform rewarding shows… and that hip hop music isn't truly dead, ever since it sold its soul to corporate whores exploiting war. Remember when it would hold the fort like a toy soldier boy-wonder, filling up his undiscovered holy moral void with rhythmic love, overjoyed to uphold the social code? It would just puff a bit to reward its enormous growth towards global control… and things were still relatively normal though, drinking together with gorgeous girls interested in getting pleasure, while smoking 'dro til it was only sorta stoned, then playing porno poker, and doing other naughty things you aren't supposed to know… but that was LONG before hip hop's bloated corpse was found home alone, face down, drowned in Cristal mixed with piss and poisoned slow, after it tragically destroyed its nose and vocal chords from a self-inflicted fatal overdose of snorting coke.

 

Good. Just like the former-stocking-cap-masked rapper's new hit single says.

 

Actually, it's great, because "More Fish" is the surprise release and companion-piece full length follow-up to "Fishscale", and is Ghostface's second album of the year. We should thank Jay-Z for pressing the green button again on Ghost Deini and his Theodore Unit's newest shipment of kitchen-kingpin music. Shawn Carter is blessing us with such a great set of Christmas presents (Nasty Nas's new album, "Hip Hop Is Dead", is being released within a week of Ghost's new LP, for those who still buy CDs), but Ghostface Killah is the last of a dying breed of MC, and he deserves nothing less than proper marketing support, national and/or international exposure, plus maximum major label promotion. His vivid poetry consistently stands out like a golden eagle, vocally soaring above so many dull ghetto bird's horribly ignorant prose about their local streets, recorded cheap over boring beats, then sold by annoying people like a swarm of bees. But "you ain't a killer, you still learning how to walk…" to quote the immortal Big Pun. Ghostface is a rhyming ironman, still coming strong on his 7^th full length solo release since 1993. Among dozens of guest appearances, and standout contributions to every Wu-Tang album, he continues to be a gifted, irreplaceable, swift and changeable song creator. He's a hardcore, heartbreakingly honest artist with imaginative parallels to some very well-drawn and developed comic book character. Freestyling his adventurous advance through the years of rap history by always walking a sonic path ahead of the rap pack, he runs artistic laps around his peers as he still proudly carries The W's Iron Flag. Yet occasionally, the Wallabee Clark King makes music too far above and ahead of the masses, as 'Fishscale' didn't have very big record sales, moving more ounces than kilos, even though it was that pure uncut, underground raw shit cooked up specifically for his supreme clientele. He put it on the line for his January 2006 album, and the troubling results were that his out-of-retirement, Clipse-inspiring grindin' drug hustler rhyme stylings didn't find enough public consignment.

 

Previously downplaying his past abstract, madcap rap chants, and choosing to not make as many slang master Wu-Bangers, some relatively lackluster results started making rust stain his titanium chamber. Would it never be the same again, after sample-clearance robbed 'The Watch' and pickpocketed a few other supersonic conflict diamonds of rhyme rawness shining in the darkness and meant to spend their time on 'Bulletproof Wallets'? Some heads questioned why Ghostface wasn't cooking up as much of the colorful food-for-thought wordplay of 'Pretty Toney', yet, that same album became his lowest Soundscan career point, which eventually coaxed Ghost's uncontrolled substance flow and sound to settle down around hip hop's present drug seller mental perspective. He hesitatingly resumed schooling attentive ghetto students on how to get dollars through the pharmaceutical distribution musings of the Cuban Linx-born under-worldview of Wu-Gambino Tony Starks. The infinitely-cryptic content songs were almost completely missing: it was the return of Ghostface the Storyteller, one of the originators of illegal business picture painters, always mixing his dangerous street visions with bittersweet sympathy into a distinctive flavor. The difference between him and the rest are the wisdom body parts that some fraudulent artists are missing, sounding like part-television scripted prison and cop drama plagiarism, while Ghost flawlessly and unconsciously walked the God Body/shotta contradiction. The Wu-Tang Clan were forever young souls, but also old dirty bastards with hardened hearts, yet they struggled like humble gun-smuggling saints and killah priests that prayed the Sun's rays would eventually come and stay to evaporate their Staten Island rainy dayz. This critical admission and lyrical distinction is displayed in skits like 'Striving For Perfection', where Rae and Ghost were desperately hoping to eventually stop hustling yayo, to not go out like Tony Montana (or even "see Tupac", when he was still living in jail), and finally change from making c.r.e.a.m. by selling the glaciers of ice that melt to help create heaven and hell for the future incarcerated scarfaces of today.

 

1995's "Only Built For Cuban Linx" is unquestionably the origin of much of the criminology that reigns king in the over-played cocaine rap theme of street MCs speaking to today's generation. Ghostface's notorious soulful moments showing his vulnerable emotional side, alongside his intensely threatening explosive rhymes made it impossible for him to ever bring shame on a nigga, or to bring the pain to hip hop. His conflicted villain/victim sympathy, lyrical grace and brilliance on the mic always lifted him away from sounding even a bit the same as all the modern 'shark niggas' swimming in the payola-tainted lake of radio playlists today. Can it be that it was all so simple, since 9 wicked MCs signed to different labels, but forever stayed connected, representing in unprecedented dimensions of hip hop thru the yellow Loud Records symbol? Yes, but those days are now very far away. And, maybe there will be a better tomorrow. But until the culture is thinking straight, they all have kids and bills to pay, so they have to be getting paid up in the game wherever they still fit in. Things are strange, but it's okay, cause fuck it, ~everything's~ in a twisted shape...

Nevertheless, the question remains: how can a sonic architect make a house that starts out really great, but somehow starts breaking down, as he gets older and goes a little crazy, so he lets his children piss on the sacred ground since they're uneducated about the ancient creations found, and they don't get saved like their fate's to drown one day… should he just wait around and simply watch it all just slip away?

 

Also... where the hell is that Cure album that RZA made?

 

Ghostface Killah infamously states: "With the Purple Tape, me and Rae brought all that silk shirt, Cristal, wallabee shit to the game"… as well as the blueprint for much of the hustler/crack dealer craze that has, over a decade later, completely invaded hip hop's veins, so maybe they can help finally end it. Once the overwhelming imbalance is recalibrated, then maybe, the culture can be detoxed, and then resurrected again. A long overdue new Wu-Tang Clan collective album would definitely help the healing, while Ghostface Killah could continue his heroic streak of being one of Shaolin's and the Big Apple's finest, from Stapleton to Somalia, and beyond. Currently, Raekwon the Chef is even preparing a bit of R.A.G.U. (Rae And Ghost United) for his Aftermath debut, the extremely-highly-anticipated 'Only Built For Cuban Linx 2'. A cinematic, special collaborative invention by two madman laboratory professors attempting to add on to their masterpiece collection, it will feature the world-class beats Dr. Dre and the RZA. Plus the helping hand of Busta Rhymes, GZA, and The Rebel INS, among other Wu-Tang Clansmen, quietly highlighting the tragic fact that going against the grain in the rap game is much more detrimental than it was back in the day.

 

Maybe Raekwon and Ghostface Killah represent born-again deacons, here to exorcise the d'evils and crack dealing demons in hip hop by teaching against genocidal treason and speaking to those drug dealing people still needing a reason to stop gambling with their life over the stove top jackpot, and end the vicious cycle of crack spot competition, if its reminiscent of Biggie's definition of what beef is, and finally bring a peaceful decease to the criminal minstrel rap show happening during the international snowman forecast of evil, fatally freezing anybody not believing in the supreme team's offensive heat-seeking defense in the sudden death overtime of rap's Pablo Escobar season.

Catch the blast of a hype verse from Ghostface Killah, as the Wu-Tang saga continues once again...

and upon the recent announcement of Steve Rifkind and Rza's reconnection through SRC/Loud Records, this is a wonderful time to remember this timeless fact:

WU-TANG CLAN AIN'T NOTHIN' TA FUCK WITH!

(Mindbender/Ghostface article to come in next issue of Pound Magazine! Early 2007... stay tuned to true hip hop)