Vogue Italia profiles award-winning Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu in the video below; We’ve profiled and mentioned Wanuri on this website a number of times; she directed the Africa First Focus Features sci-fi short film, Pumzi, and she’s working on an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s novel, Who Fears Death. Kisha Cameron-Dingle, who previously served as associate producer on Raoul Peck’s Sometimes in April and Spike Lee’sBamboozled, is producing.
Kenya Moon Runner is a school project by MIKAEL NÄSLUND an Interactive Art Director.
CLIENT: Hyper Island / Grow / Kenya
BRIEF: This school project was hosted by Grow and the brief was to rebrand Kenya.
CONCEPT: The basic idea is to run to the moon. Kenya is known for having the best long distance runners in the world. So we made a big event that Kenya should be the first country running to the moon. We made it by inviting approximately 9000 Kenyans for the event. And that made Kenya run to the moon in less then 5 hours. But we did not want to stop there. We therefore invited the whole world to participates in a similar race, but on their Smartphones. While you’re running you can compete with you friends you can also build teams and compete with them. But everybodys distance is added to reach the moon.
With all the international news storylines on our front pages and television screens, the water crisis affecting 1.8 million people living in Kenya has not received the coverage needed to raise public awareness or funds. But our girl Solange is using her gift to help put Kenya’s people in the forefront of our minds.
Solange Knowles recently partnered with The Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN) to record the track “Kenya.” The song is co-written by Solange Knowles, Chris Taylor and Twin Shadow.
Founded by The Coca Cola Africa Foundation, RAIN is a $30 million initiative to provide over 2 million people in Africa with access to drinking water by 2015. The initiative brings together business, local government, NGOs, and committed individuals to help tackle the water crisis in Kenya and across the continent. So far, the program has partnered with the United States Agency for International Development to start 34 water projects in 19 countries.
The droughts in Kenya have affected the lives of nearly 2 million people coping to find water for themselves and their families. Without being able to keep themselves alive, many in Kenya’s rural areas have been unable to maintain the livestock that earn them money. The lack of water has also led to extremely high rates of absences for school children, with some districts reporting as many as 70% of students missing school.
While Kenya is not a stranger to droughts, this one has struck along with the global economic crisis and many are finding their livelihoods hanging by a thread. All proceeds from Solange’s “Kenya” will be used to provide access to clean water and sanitation resources to people in need not only in Kenya but across the continent as well.
Solange is really living the phrase, “Black gives back.” So often we see white celebrities actively championing causes affecting people of color around the world. While it is often suggested that black celebrities are not as involved in philanthropy, Solange is disproving the notion. The singer-songwriter is using her talents for a great cause and we could not be more proud.
To learn more about RAIN and how you can help those affected by the droughts, please visit the initiative’s website here.
Jimmy Santiago Baca is a poet, memoirist, activist, and native New Mexican. His books include a memoir, A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet, and the story collection, The Importance of a Piece of Paper. "Language placed my life experiences in a new context, freeing me for the moment to become with air as air, with clouds as clouds, from which new associations arose to engage me in present life in a more purposeful way." His recent novel, A Glass of Water, tells the story of Casimiro and Nopal who carry with them the promise of a new beginning as young immigrants having made the nearly deadly journey across the border from Mexico. The Dallas Morning News says, "An insistent theme of redemption blends with an unexpected lyrical tenderness, confirming that even in the harsh landscape of his stories, Mr. Baca sees a horizon of hope." Distributed by Tubemogul.
On “The Show Goes On,” the first single from his forthcoming album, “L.A.S.E.R.S.” (1st & 15th/Atlantic), Lupe Fiasco does some venting at the expense of his own record company before turning the song into an anthem about perseverance.
Fiasco not only paraphrases the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten – “Have you ever had the feelin’ that you was bein’ had” – but calls out his employer for putting “chains on your soul.”
It’s a bold, border-line crazy move by Fiasco, but the Chicago native, born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco in 1982, felt he had had enough. Making “L.A.S.E.R.S.,” he says, caused him to re-evaluate his career and pushed him into a depression so deep he nearly didn’t come out of it.
On his first two acclaimed albums, “Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor” (2006) and “The Cool” (2007), Fiasco established himself as one of the more distinctive new voices in rap, an inventive lyricist with a knack for channeling the self-empowering uplift and incisive anger of the most politically conscious ‘60s and ‘70s soul, funk and reggae and filtering it into 21st Century hip-hop. But even after selling more than 500,000 copies of “The Cool,” Fiasco says he found himself in a struggle with his label, Atlantic Records, to make “L.A.S.E.R.S.” as he envisioned.
The MC’s fans, growing restless over endless delays bedeviling the album, eventually petitioned for its release (gathering more than 30,000 signatures) and staged a protest last October outside the label’s offices in Midtown Manhattan.
The label finally set a release date for the album (it’s due in stores Tuesday), and Fiasco says he’s happy overall with the final result. One of the album’s key tracks, “Words I Never Said,” was directly inspired by the fan-led protest, a real-life example of the activist message Fiasco was trying to convey. In an interview, he went in depth on the struggle to make “L.A.S.E.R.S.” (Atlantic Records was thrice asked to address Fiasco’s assertions in this interview, but declined):
Q: You created a 14-point “L.A.S.E.R.S.” manifesto in 2009, which outlines what your career has been about: It’s OK to be different and think differently, it’s cool to be a misfit and swim against the tide. Did that directly inspire the album?
A: It was an attempt to achieve some simplicity. “The Cool” was so complex and metaphorical that I felt a need for the message to be distilled and put 100 proof in your face. It was an attempt to make the album more pop, as in popular, as in something that people could relate to, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, a member of the KKK or a Black Panther, a supporter of Barack Obama or Glenn Beck. The manifesto has core ideas that everyone can believe in, and I wanted it to be the starting point for a real serious conversation. Me being part of a multinational corporation was part of it too.
Q: By approaching music as an outsider, as someone with non-mainstream ideas about politics and music, did that affect your relations with Atlantic while making “L.A.S.E.R.S.”?
A: Definitely. On a technical side I’m hamstrung, because I’m not a 360 artist (signed to a deal where the label gets income from touring and merchandise as well as sales of recorded music). That put me on a different priority list, a different budget to record the album, a different level of promotion. I’m not on the “A” list at Atlantic Records. There was a certain level of disbelief in the project. I was told “The Cool” wasn’t a success. Like what planet are you on to say it wasn’t a success? An album that sold 700,000 and got four Grammy nominations? That wasn’t success? So what is a success? A No. 1 smash on the radio, I was told. But I don’t know how to make those. I don’t think anybody knows what that is. So now I get into breaking the cardinal rule, which Jay-Z told me early on was, “Don’t chase radio.” You fast forward to 2011 and it’s let’s chase radio. It becomes an interesting hypocrisy that affects how you write your songs, who you hire to sing hooks, who you hire to produce. I was literally told for “The Show Goes On” that I shouldn’t rap too deep. I shouldn’t be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don’t need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down. It was better to paint the Upper West Side lady and her poodle so everyone could look at it right away and understand what was going on. I felt like I was painting poodles. It’s why in the first line of “The Show Goes On” I paraphrase Johnny Rotten at the Sex pistols’ final show: “Have you ever had the feeling that you were being cheated.”
Q: How did you resolve the conflict with the label?
A: I had to paint puppies, to be honest. But I threw in my own twist. One of the eyes of the puppy is a nine-headed deer, and there’s some kind of mutation in the lady’s hands. There is some subversiveness tucked in there. The album is still a collaboration. They had to give, I had to give, because they have to have some incentive to promote the record. So the first verse of “The Show Goes On” is about them, but the rest widens it out. There are tracks like “Words I Never Said” and “All Black Everything” where they let me do what I want, they didn’t interfere. There was no pressure to create, no expectation to please someone. I’m comfortable and happy with the record as a whole, where before there was an imbalance. I hate this record, the process of making this record, and I love this record. What I had to go through was not fun, the ugliness I saw in people. But I love the manifesto, that the message got out, that fans protested for four hours in front of the label’s New York headquarters and demanded attention.
Q: The protest started with the fans, right?
A: It started with a kid who had some grievances with the label and he wrote a petition, grammatical errors and all, calling for the release of my album. Like me, people were getting tired of being told the album is ready but it’s not coming out. He got 30,000 signatures. It literally started as a joke on a hip-hop message board. “We should protest, ha ha ha.” Then someone says, “If we did, what would we need?” Another person says, “We’ll need permits.” And somebody else pipes in, “I know where to get them.” It snowballs into the Oct. 15 “Fiasco Friday.”
Q: That activist message is in “Words I Never Said.” It’s life imitating art, or art imitating life. Which came first, the song or the protest?
A: The whole album, the mission for me was to get people to act. At the time of the protest, “Words I Never Said” wasn’t recorded. But the message was out there with the manifesto. People got it. You take action if you see an injustice being done rather than sitting silent. I went back to the studio and did “Words” after that. People were saying to the protestors what about protesting against gun violence or poverty. And their response was that’s what Lupe raps about. It was motivation for me to give them a song that can’t be misinterpreted. Stare right at the neck of the detractors, challenge society, don’t let them intimidate you into silence.
Q: On the track, you criticize President Obama as well as right-wing commentators like Glenn Beck. Were you expecting to get some flak over that?
A: I honestly thought I wouldn’t. We shot a video for it, and once it gets more out there who knows what will happen. I think there is some basis for my complaint. I’m not throwing shots, I am a well thought-out guy. I’m trying to say something that has meaning, depth. I get more thumbs up and nods of approval from people who respect the fact that I speak my mind. I don’t vote, but I pay taxes. My taxes help pay for a lot of these wars and this public school system. We all do. That gives me the right and the responsibility because our hands and money are in all of this. My taxes from performing on stage pay for some hell in another part of the world. I can’t stay silent about that.
Q: In the song “Beautiful Lasers” it sounds like someone is contemplating suicide. Is that about you?
A: It’s about me contemplating suicide, coming to grips with it. I was reading about Hunter S. Thompson and why he committed suicide, the Kurt Cobains, people in the same business as I am who actually carried it out. You have the corporation in your ear and you’re living a public life, but you also have a private life and are thinking I don’t want to be here. And it also refers to social suicide, where I would just leave, just not do music anymore. I came out of it literally not (caring about any of it). It was a constant set of demands: If you don’t do this interview, you won’t get coverage in this magazine. If you don’t do this song, this album isn’t happening. Saying that I didn’t care became my therapy, my recovery. And I felt like I needed to document it. I felt like if I’m going through that, and I’m a normal person, I felt like other people must be contemplating this too because of similar pressures to do things they felt were wrong or against their better judgment. This is a very personal album about things playing out in a public space. My lack of enthusiasm for doing this event, or appearing on this TV network, or working with this person -- I didn’t see it right away, but it was destroying me. I was going through this classic breakdown. It came out in “Beautiful Lasers.” It’s a very powerful, energetic song, and me screaming in it was therapy.
Q: How close were you to feeling you could kill yourself?
A: The idea of suicide was real. The danger came as I started to catch myself rationalizing it. For six, seven months I was questioning my faith and thinking about how would this affect my mom, my family. I only got out of it by talking freely to a few people about it. They let me take myself out of circulation for awhile. It was a secret set of friends. A couple people in particular who let me stow away and allowed me to be cut off from the universe for a while.
Q: It sounds like you lost a piece of your soul. How do you get that back?
A: The first song on the album is called “Letting Go.” It’s my declaration of independence from the clutches of the record industry, the blogs, the fans, the press, the lifestyle. It’s me hanging over the side of a building. Remember in the “Juice” movie, the scene where Tupac is being held over the side of a building? I envisioned that in this song. There is a part of me that has been lost because of all this. I lost a damaged piece of me. And I got the rest of me back. We were performing parts of the record that the label was saying were not a hit, yet on stage people were hearing these songs and would go crazy in reaction to them. It made me realize that somebody is not telling the truth, and that things were going to be OK.
Born and raised in Mississippi, Charlie Braxton has been one of the first writers to cover the Dirty South emergence in hip-hop. Before the upcoming release of Gangsta Gumbo, a southern anthology written with french journalist Jean-Pierre Labarthe, this francophile American told us his story. And his concerns with modern-day rap.
Abcdr Du Son: You grew up and you live in Mississippi. What is the story of your family?
Charlie Braxton: I was born in 1961 in McComb, Mississippi, one of the hot spots of the Civil Rights in the sixties. My family was heavily involved in it and I actually grew up in segregation. To understand Mississippi in the sixties, you have to understand the tracks and highways that divided blacks and whites. I lived in an area called Bear Town. It was and it is still extremely poor. We didn't have running water but across the Highway 24, where the rich people lived, they got everything they needed to the excess. That sort of shaped my outlook on life and race relations. Music played a major part on it, too. I lived next door to a juke joint so I heard a lot of blues and R&B. I actually went to school with Vasti Jackson who is a third generation blues musician. Across Highway 24 there was a drive-in, like those you see in American Graffiti, where white kids would gather, play the juke box and dance. I would hear classic rock like Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Hendricks, The Who… And next door, I would hear Tyrone Davis, BB King, Albert King… It was a very strong education in music. It laid the foundation for me to understand the music of my generation, which hip-hop is.
A: Was there also a strong musical background in your family too?
C: My mother and my father divorced when I was three. I lived with my grandmother who was into gospel music, while my mother was into secular music. Throughout the week, we would hear Mahalia Jackson, Shirley Caesar and The Mighty Clouds of Joy. The only time we could play secular music at the house was when my grandmother went to church on Sundays. That's when I would hear Albert King, Diana Washington, The Temptations, Curtis Mayfield, Sly and the Family Stone, Barry White... She played those records almost religiously. Even though we were going through the most difficult times, there was always optimism and a social commentary in black music. The history of black artists has always been about justice and resisting oppression. That's something that I have always picked up, even in my writing as a journalist and as a poet.
A: You grew up during the end of segregation. Can we talk about an ending or did things remain the same at the time?
C: The laws changed but the feelings of people didn't change, that took a while. I didn't go really to school in an integrated environment until the mid-seventies. You had kids whose parents had risen under the segregationist mentality. And now, they were going to school with black kids. Some of them were cool, some of them were not so cool. It was a struggle but I really believe what really changed things was music. The fact that Jean-Pierre and I formed a friendship over our love of southern music, the fact that you and I are talking today, it's due to music! I want to further that understanding with humanity. Music has always played an important part in getting people to understand different cultures. Music is a universal language, no matter what part of the world you go to. If you play a good record, everybody understands instantly. I remember when I first heard MC Solaar: he was rapping so fast, I could only pick up a couple of words. But I knew that he was rhyming on beat, he had a cold flow and the music was dope. Solaar was the man. Big up to him!
"For most of people out of New York , "Rappers Delight" was the first window to hip-hop. That was a pivotal moment in my life."
A: At what time did hip-hop appear on your radar?
C: I'll never forget it: 1979. I was in Jackson State University , on my freshman year, first semester. I would listen to funk, jazz and R&B. My roommate, Roosevelt "Pee Wee" Clark, was from the South Bronx . He walked in my room. I was playing the Bar-Kays "Move your boogie body", he had a tape of the Cold Crush Brothers on a cassette. His box was bigger so his music drowned mine out! I was like " What are you listening to? " and he said " This is hip-hop. " He had a great deal of knowledge about the Cold Crush Brothers, the Fearless Four, Treacherous Three… He taught me about those things. I was fascinated. I remember the first time I heard rap music on the radio. It was "Rappers delight" on WJMI, around early February. We had just come back from holiday. The first time I heard it, I was like " Wow, that's the Chic record. " And then I heard " hip, hop, the hibbit, the hop… " Pee Wee was asleep, I woke him up: " Yo man, they're playing rap on the radio! " He got up, like, " You kidding, get outta here. " No listen! We turned it up and the first thing he said was " What is this crew I never heard of? " At the time, there was this controversy because the Sugarhill Gang wasn't from the Bronx . To me, it didn't matter. For most of people out of New York , "Rappers Delight" was their first introduction to rap music, the first window to hip-hop. That was a pivotal moment in my life.
A: How did your parents react to you becoming involved in hip-hop. Was there a conflict of generation at the time?
C: My mother thought that I had lost my mind [laughs]. You gotta understand: to my mother and to the older generation, rap was noise. My mother told me "Look, you grew up listening to blues, jazz and R&B, and you gonna devote your career to this?" When she comes to visit me, I don't play rap music around. She's offended by the language. And I respect her because she's my elder. That was a huge conflict, but she wasn't too happy with me being a writer, period. I don't know in France, but in America, writers don't make a lot of money. This, plus the fact that I'm physically handicapped. My disease is called Cerebral Palsy, I have to walk on crutches. My mother's concern was how I would take care of myself.
A: At the time, did you try to rap, too? Was it something that appealed to you?
C: Believe it or not, I've never said this to anybody but I actually did record. I was going to Jackson State and a friend of mine named Rufus Mapp was a percussionist. I was doing poetry. I was heavily influenced by The Last Poets. We had a band that sometimes accompanied me as a poet. He and I were talking and he was like "We gotta put this on tape, dude!" We record a record called America , Land of the Free and Home of The Brave. The group was called NEWS, because there was somebody from the North, somebody from the East, somebody from the West and somebody from the South. Ultimately, the record never saw the light of day. The one copy I did have of it was burnt in a house fire…
A: I heard about that story… [Ed. Note: in 2002, during a police chase, a car smashed into Charlie Braxton's house, which was destroyed by fire.]
C: That was a devastating time in my life. I lost everything. I had a demo copy of KLC solo record. I had 6Shot's demo. Jatis, the group Bobby Creekwater comes from, I had that record too. Nobody has ever heard it. That's one of the single most painful events in my life. I lost books. I lost two manuscripts that I was working on: a volume of poetry and a history of hip-hop. Now that I have these new archives, I'm gonna donate them to some library. My oldest son is into hip-hop, he's a rapper. He wants me to give it to him but I don't know. If he shows that he can archive and take care of it, I may let him keep some of it but I really wanna donate it to a library.
A: Did you manage to save a couple of things?
C: I have actually started some stuff back over. People were generous in terms of donating material. Artists donated their records, record companies gave me records and journalists gave me stuff. I've been able to deal a decent amount of things but it's nothing like what I had. Every now and then, I think about a record. Somebody will say "Man, do you remember The Renegades?" It's a Jackson group. They actually only had only one copy of their record. John Bigelow from the group Reese & Bigalow and a founding member of the Renegades gave it to me and said "I know I'll lose it, that's why I'll always have it because I know you gonna take care of it." And it ended up in smoke. I remember sitting on my neighbours' lawn and watching the house go up in flames. I thought "OK, I got plaques in here, I got records in here, I got autographs books in here and I never going to get that stuff back." But I got my family, and if you got your love ones and they're safe, you can get all the material things back. It taught me a lesson no to value material things as much as I probably did back then.
"The beautiful thing about southern hip-hop was that there was no separation in the early stages between the artists and the audience. They wore the same clothes you wore. They lived the same life you lived, in the same neighbourhoods. "
A: How did you get your rap informations back in the eighties, living in Mississippi ?
C: Primarily from people, and reading magazines. I was living in Hattiesburg , Mississippi at the time. Radio wasn't playing rap down here. Jackson was the only radio station I knew that had a rap mix show, and that was WMPR. The show was called "Too black, too strong". But Jackson was 85 miles away and you couldn't pick it in Hattiesburg . Young people didn't know what was hot, what was new. I used to run a newspaper called The Informer and I decided to create a section called "Youth in Effect". We reviewed rap records, interviewed rappers so people could know what the latest music was about. That's how I really began to learn about rap music. At the time, the South was starting to emerge with people like Luke Skywalker doing their thing. I watched hip-hop in the South grow during its infant stages. I had a bird-eyed view because I was down here.
A: Do you get to know some rappers at the time?
C: I knew some rappers personally, and watched them grow as men. A lot of these artists started out as independent artists so they had to go to small towns like Jackson . Jackson was one of the first cities to embrace UGK and Rap-A-Lot. We didn't just buy the Geto Boys, we bought the 5 th Ward Boyz, Too Much Trouble, Choice, Blac Monks… Those guys came to us and walked with us because they were us. The beautiful thing about southern hip-hop was that there was no separation in the early stages between the artists and the audience. They wore the same clothes you wore. They lived the same life you lived, in the same neighbourhoods. When I was listening to Eric B & Rakim, I could access their music as great music and great lyrics, but a lot of people in my hood didn't know the nuances of the culture he was expressing. We weren't in the Five Percenter culture like that. To understand Eric B & Rakim, you had to understand that doctrine, you had to understand New York slang. When Rakim talked about "My mic is a third rail", I didn't know what he meant until I saw Wild Style : Fab Five Freedy was talking to reporters and told them "Watch the third rail, it's electric." I was shocked!
A: What were the fundamental differences between the southern culture and the north-eastern culture?
C: From a southerner point of view, our family structure is a little bit intact, our community too. In the South, family means everything. It is the center. Family isn't just the nuclear family. It also includes your cousins, your neighbours. We call the South the "Bible Belt" because the Judeo-Christian ethos is very strong here. You can listen to the hardest gangsta rap record, and that record will show a sense of remorse, because these kids grew up with these Christian values. There are community values and a humanitarianism that are reflected inearly southern hip-hop. What's happening now in hip-hop, particularly in what I called the trap rap era, you see less and less remorse and more revelling in the drug culture. When you listened to Scarface, he would almost warn you not to go this road. "I never seen a man cried 'til I seen a man die", that's a blues record! That's a record with a sense of remorse and a sense of catharsis. You don't hear that in the corporate rap that's coming out. I'm happy to see the South rise but it pains me to see corporate America exploit it to a fair swear. There's nobody at the top decision making level of major labels that's live in the ghetto down here and understands the pain and anguish and desperation that take place. If you got a record that's glorifying drug dealing and you got kids who live in these hoods, like in West Jackson, where there are no job, racism is still a problem… and you're telling them "Hey, look at me, I'm selling drugs, I got all this money", you're kinda like inducing the kids to delve into this.
A: At what time did it change?
C: It has been evolving for a long time. I first started to really notice it when I was given a copy of Trap or Die , Jeezy's record. I remember it clearly because I was given a copy of the record by a fellow journalist named Carlton Wade, and he was excited about it. My friend asked me "What do you think? Ain't he dope?" I said "The music is great, but the lyrical content scares me a little bit. Basically, this dude is really a poster boy for the underbelly of capitalism!" Look, he's making drug dealing the in-thing. He's talking about it in a glorified way. There was only one song in that record that I really, really liked. It's "Gangsta". If you hear that record, there's a quote from the Geto Boys Resurrection album: "Real gangstas go to the polls". That's the only time Jeezy added a social commentary, when he talked about how they were giving football numbers to the young black men who were in prison. That was it! After that, I didn't hear songs like that until The Recession came along. Jeezy has tried to bring an end to his ways. I give him that, but the problem is he had already set the precedent. I tell people all the time, when you go back and listen to the criticism of gangsta rap in its beginning stages, critics were not concerned about the violence and the sex. I think the political message that was being slipped in by groups like the Geto Boys was disturbing the ruling class.
A: The same thing happened on the West Coast with The Chronic , and also in New York with someone like 50 Cent…
C: The difference between 50 Cent and NWA was NWA had "Fuck The Police". That was a powerful statement. Ice-T had "Cop Killer". "Freedom of speech, just watch what you say". It talked about of the hypocrisy of the system that says "OK, you're free to say anything you want to say, but if you say something that offends the ruling class, you'll be punished." The Geto Boys had records like "Do it like a G.O.", "Fuck a war"… That's been a tradition of black music: picking on the social ills of society, just as well as celebrating the life and the sexuality. It's always been about social commentary. Always. Corporate America is part of the ruling class. They are not going to allow music to criticize them when a lot of people start to listen. You asked me if there was a shift. It started to move shortly after the L.A. riots. The L.A. rebellion really took place all over the US . There was a riot in Atlanta that people don't know about. The only evidence of it is Goodie Mob's "Live at the o.m.n.i." That what's it's about: Khujo was locked up doing those riots. They had arrested so many people that they couldn't put them all in the Atlanta jails, they had lock em up in the OMNI theatre. That's what made me love hip-hop: it was speaking for the people who normally weren't spoken for in the mainstream. Thanks to hip-hop, I could listen to the group EnTeeEm – I'm going back to the old school, do you remember them?
A: What's the name?
C: EnTeeEm – I think it was a short for "Motherfucker".
A: Oh yeah, NTM! That's one of our flagship groups in France .
C: And they had a song called "Fuck the Police". They were arrested, weren't they? You see, here I am, an American and I heard about that record. They talked about the conditions that were taking place in France with minorities. Ice-T said it best: rap is a conversation. A conversation between me and my homeboys that the whole world happens to overhear.
"That's been a tradition of black music: picking on the social ills of society, just as well as celebrating the life and the sexuality. It's always been about social commentary. Always."
A: Did you have the chance to discuss it with someone like Young Jeezy?
C: I've never had an opportunity to talk with Jeezy. I've talked to people who know him. One of the artists who is signed to his label is named Boo Rossini. I know him very well. He used to be with a group called the Concentration Camp. Boo is one my favourite Mississippi rappers, he's like the Jay-Z of the Mississippi . He's very lyrical but he's a gangsta rapper. He's always had social commentary in his music but recently, I wasn't pleased at what I was hearing from him. One of the artists that I really like who keep that tradition going is Plies. "100 Years" is one of my favourite records. It speaks about the prison industrial complex, the unfair drug laws… If you're caught with crack at one point, you can receive anywhere from 20 to life. But if you're caught with powder cocaine, you will get less than 7. Most of cocaine users will be middle class white men and women. Most crack addict will be black and Hispanics. It will fall along racial lines. The jails were disproportionately filled with these drugs convictions. It was more or less railroading young afro-american men into the prison industrial complex.
A: Speaking about the artists, it seems like the more they sell records, the more they become pragmatic. Like, NTM, we saw them at revolutionary at first, but all they wanted to do was having a career…
C: A lot of those kids are coming from the hood. They don't have anything, and then here comes this record industry with all this money – which ain't really money, because eventually, they are going to be raped. Those companies offer them money, jewellery, cars, opportunities to access to these things… but there's a price to pay. They like your energy, they like this, they like that… But after a while, they start to say "Well, you know, we need you to say this instead of that, because this is what's selling." It may not be the exact same words, but it will be implied for you to understand. If you don't, you'll find yourself without a hit. No hit, you'll find yourself without contract. A lot of these kids aren't strong enough, because at that point, they gotten used to the perks of being stars, but the record companies never give them enough money to maintain this on their own. It's like a pimp / prostitute game. Do you remember the Ying Yang Twins? In the last album they did for a major label, they were actually trying to talk about street issues. They went from "Get crunk!" to talk about street issues…
A: And we never heard of them again…
C: Not on a major label. You think it's a coincidence? All the artists who are strong enough to resist that say "OK, I'm out" and they become independent. Dead Prez is a perfect example of that. The thing that made the South so powerful was that a lot of these artists started out independent. There was no corporate boss to tell them what they had to say.
A: It seems like the Dirty South victory is a bittersweet victory, for you…
C: I'm proud to see the TI's and the Jeezy's and the Rick Rosses do phenomenal things. Things that groups like A Damn Shame couldn't do. I'm happy that Pimp C, God bless his soul, got to see before he died the kind of fame and respect he truly deserved with UGK. But I agree with Pimp C: the current crop of young artists are lacking in social commentary. And that's what makes our music fascinating to the world: our journey, our struggle as black southerners down here changed the way America process what the ideal of democracy was about. That's a powerful message we're still trying to get across. When you take that back from the music, it becomes bubble-gum. It might taste good but it's not nutritious.
A: What artists impressed you the most when you interviewed them?
C: The Geto Boys impressed me immensely because they understood the politics of the rap industry. They understood why they were being attacked by the mainstream. Lil J from Rap-A-Lot Records, I was impressed by him. I was impressed with Master P. On the surface, you would look at this guy with gold teeth and that big accent… and you think, this guy doesn't appear to be this smart. But when you start talking to him, he's a genius! To be able to put together an outfit like No Limit, then be able to market yourself… This is somebody who got the will to making it out of Calliope Projects, and he did it! That's fascinating. Also, talking to Mia X, Fiend, Killer Mike… There's also some great things like Wildlife Society which is one of my favourite groups. I wrote about them when they were on TVT. They were the first group out of Jackson to get a record deal with a major hip-hop label. They blended gangsta rap and social commentary together in such an amazing way. If you're a young kid, out there banging, they talked your language but they also addressed racism, classism, the prison industrial complex, the civil rights movement but at the same time, they were gangstas. To me that's powerful.
A: Was it difficult for you to push southern artists in the media back then?
C: In the beginning, yeah. Nobody really wanted to hear it. And you gotta understand: the majority of the people who were running the media outlets were mostly from New York . And New York hip-hop in the 90's was very, very, very New York-centred. In other words, if you were not from New York or from the Tri-State NY area, you didn't get the respect you deserved. It's sad that UGK never got covered til after Jay-Z put them on "Big Pimpin'". Then, all of the sudden, everybody started to respect them. I love Jay-Z for doing that, I respect him for doing that, but why did it have to come to that?
"To me, the southern hip-hop is really the modern day equivalent of the blues. You can sense it, you can hear it. These are the grandchildren of Muddy Waters speaking to you today."
A: Even in France , most of us have been educated by New York . There's still a huge gap…
C: Let me say this to the French fans: in order for you to respect hip-hop, you must respect the South. The reason why I say that is clear: the music that hip-hop uses to make music – in other words the breakbeats – comes from people like who? Like James Brown. They come from soul, R&B, funk… Genres that have their roots where? The South. So you can't tell me that you love hip-hop but can't relate to southern music. Musically speaking, the deeper roots come from the South. James Brown is from Georgia . And he's the Godfather of soul!
A: That's the thing with hip-hop: once you know the history, everything becomes cohesive. But when you have only one side of the story, you start acting like you got the truth but you don't get it at all…
C: Exactly. This is like jazz purism. I love jazz music and I used to work at the college radio station that played jazz. I played jazz fusion, Ronnie Law… And a lot of the older cats were like "Errrrrrrr that ain't jazz." My point is, the nature of jazz, of black music, of music period, the nature of humanity is to evolve. Hip-hop is evolving. The Southern hip-hop is part of that evolution. Right now, there's a lot of criticism of snap music, of Soulja Boy – but hip-hop has always been about dancing. And just because it may not be your cup of tea, it doesn't mean you got to look down on it. Hip-hop is a multi-dimensional music. The problem is, you are not exposed to all of the music that we are producing. What's fascinated me about Jean-Pierre was how in-depth and sincere he was about the music. And I'm fascinated with your blog! What you're doing is really, really important because in the words of Andre 3000, when they accepted their first Source Awards: "The South has something to say." To me, the southern hip-hop is really the modern day equivalent of the blues. You can sense it, you can hear it. These are the grandchildren of Muddy Waters speaking to you today.
A: Do you have kids?
C: Yes I do, I have five of them. My older son is a rapper, his name is Big Spook. He's making his rounds in the hip-hop community here in Jackson . I have twins, Nzinga and Kamau, I have a stepdaughter named Hope and a 13-year old named Nile.
A: What kind of relationship do you have with them as far as hip-hop?
C: They are the ones that keep me interested in what's going on. There's so much music, I can't keep up with everything. The first time I heard Soulja Boy was when my daughter was playing his YouTube record. That was before he blew up. That record would have totally miss my radar until he made it to the mainstream. My son Kamau brought me a record by a local artist named Lil Yoshi. Dude is pretty good! I'm able to relate to my kids, I may be like "Errrrr, come on" with some of the stuffs they like, but what's good is I can say "You know who that sounds like? You need to hear THIS." I tell people "If you like Jeezy, then you need to go back and listen to Scarface and Trick Daddy."
A: How do you compare the childhood of your kids with yours, in Mississippi ?
C: I believe they are living in a better society. My youngest son is 13. When I was 13, if you'd have told me "Hey, we are going to have a black president", I would have said "Whatever it is you smoking, you need to stop." I couldn't fathom seeing a black man running this country because my future was so dark in terms of black/white relationship. Now my kids can not only fathom it, but they see it! They can actually say "I'd like to be president." That possibility exists for them. I'm not saying that things are honky dory in terms of race relations in Mississippi because they're not, but they are a hundred times better they were when I was a child. Now I'm teaching them to make sure the world will be a hundred times better for their children too.
A: How do you look at Obama's presidency?
C: I have mixed feelings. I'm happy that he's there. I just wish he would take a more progressive stance. The health care bill is really a great thing – we're one of the few countries in the western union that didn't have it. That's great, but at the same time, I wish he would be more aggressive in dealing with the Republicans, because they're trying to repeal everything he's doing. But that's just not his style, you know. He's a nice guy, but you can't be nice with the Republicans. They're kinda like Le Pen.
A: Oh, you know him too?
C: Oh yeah, I keep up with what's going on! Jean-Pierre keeps me up over there.
A: Now we got his daughter, Marine, and I'm afraid she scores big on the next election…
C: Wow. Here, somebody who may or may not be influenced by the T-bags planned a IED along the parade route celebrating Martin Luther King in Spokane , Washington . Thank God, the authority found it before it went off and rerouted the parade. Things are getting better but we still have people who think they can take back America to the 50's. We must do everything that we can to raise the level of consciousness among people so they won't accept going back.
A: David Banner has just been inducted in the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame. It's quite a symbol. What are your thoughts about it?
C: It's difficult for me to answer that question because I played a major role in his career. I know Crooked Lettaz very well. I've known Banner for a while, but we haven't spoken in years. I'm happy for him, I hope he can use that influence to help other Mississippi artists making it to the mainstream. One of the things that disappoint me more than anything, like you said, he's probably the best known rapper from Mississippi yet he is one of the less talented artists here. I say that with all sincerity, I love him to death but he is one the less talented rappers we have.
"I say that with all sincerity, I love David Banner to death but he is one the less talented rappers we have."
A: What's your story with him?
C: I was his mentor. I met him when they were Crooked Lettaz. They were locked into a really bad contract. Donnie Cross, an artist that I do manage now, was a member of a group called Us from Dirt. They were on the Crooked Lettaz record and they were signed to the same management contract. Things weren't going well. Donnie just had a sixth sense that something wasn't right, so he called me and asked to read the contract. He brought three different contracts to me: a management contract, a publishing contract and a production contract. But they were owned by the same individuals. I remember telling him. "Without even reading this, I can tell you have a problem here. Your manager's job is to get you the best deal possible from a publishing company and a production company. But if he owns the company he's signing you to and managing you, then he has a conflict of interests: he won't get you the best deal, he will get himself the best deal! " I asked Donnie if Crooked Lettaz had signed those contracts as they were. They had, so they were in trouble. And that might explain why their album was being dragged. The next day, David Banner, Kamikaze and Fingerprint showed up at my house. They brought the same contracts, I explained it to them and connected them to Wendy Day who helped him get out of the contract. Unfortunately, Us from Dirt didn't get out of theirs. They had to wait for eight years… That's why you only hear Donnie now.
A: Eight years is a pretty long time in rap.
C: It can be your career! Like I said, I'm happy for David Banner but I want to see other artists out of Mississippi emerge. Like Big K.R.I.T., I'm happy for him. He's finally gotten him a deal with Def Jam. You are going to hear some great things from him. Hopefully, you are going to hear great things from Boo on CTE, Donnie Cross, Needle in a Haystack – one of the members died but I was really impressed with them. There are so much talent here, both on the R&B and rap level that need to be exposed. I'm hoping that that happen.
A: Is there anything you wanted to add?
C: I wanted to tell people of France , be on the look out for a book called Gangsta Gumbo by myself and John, Jean… Do I pronounce it correctly?
A : Jean-Pierre Labarthe. You don't have to spell the "H".
C: I took French in college. I got a B in it, and I'm not good with it. That's one of the biggest regrets of my life.
A: Didn't you want to live in France at some point of your life?
C: I tooked French because one of my favourite writers is James Baldwin. I had the opportunity to meet him twice and spend some time with him. He moved to France and I wanted to do that. Plus my grand-mother is creole. She's from Louisiana . I took French to be able to communicate with her but I can't. I can say some basic things like "Comment ça va ?" but if you started talking in French, I wouldn't understand it.
A: You never spent vacations in France ?
C: I've never been to France . Let me tell you this story: six years ago, there was a conference that was going to take place in France for the 30 years of hip-hop. Me and my wife were supposed to be on a panel but the conference got cancelled. I got my passport and everything – I was so looking forward to go on this trip. I wanted to hear some of the hip-hop out there, and I really wanted to meet NTM. I really wanted to meet them. Believe it or not, those brothers, they were like heroes to me, man. Anybody that has the nuts to say what they said and knowing they would go to jail and still did it, that's powerful. Not too many people can do that. You think about Martin Luther King, for him to get on the Edmond Pettus Bridge, knowing he was going to be jailed. That takes courage to stand up and say what needs to be said, especially when it's not popular. That takes a lot of courage.
We’re very focused on Chevron’s environmental pollution and human rights abuses down in Ecuador here at RAN, but it’s important to remember that Chevron is a multinational corporation that has had a similarly devastating impact on communities around the world.
The Guardian recently posted a blog entitled “Why Chevron’s lawyers must be among the busiest in the world” that details how aggressive Chevron is with its bullying legal tactics as well as the company’s horrendous record as a corporate citizen. The post is absolutely spot on (emphasis is mine):
Oil is the dirtiest industry in the world and Chevron, one the world’s largest companies, must be the oiliest. That’s saying something when you consider it has rivals including BP, Shell, Exxon and Oxy. Never mind the gross violations of the Ecuadoran environment for which it was punished this week with a $8bn (£5bn) fine. When it comes to aggressive legal tactics, vindictiveness, threats, pollution, intimidation, tax evasion and links with venal and repressive regimes, it is in a league of its own as its corporate lawyers bludgeon, bully and try to beat with the law any opposition it meets around the world.
Here’s a small taste of how the company works. Back in the late 1990s, it hired and transported the ruthless Nigerian military to remove a group of impoverished villagers from an company oil platform they had peacefully occupied in protest against pollution and the lack of jobs in the Niger Delta. Two villagers were killed and others were injured and then tortured by the soldiers. In 2009, the case ended up in San Francisco where a jury found Chevron not liable but then the company – whose turnover makes it bigger than 137 countries – tried to sue the villagers for its costs of $485,000. Even the judge remarked that the case was deeply mismatched. “The economic disparity between plaintiffs, who are Nigerian villagers, and defendants, international oil companies, cannot be more stark,” she said.
As a corporate citizen, the company is lousy. It is involved in polluting tar sands in Canada, massive coal mining operations in the US, and it is in constant battle with the authorities and communities over illegal gas flaring in Nigeria and Kazakhstan. It is also one of the world’s leading 10 lobbyists. It has been strongly criticised for – but has denied – human rights violations on three continents. But what it cannot dispute is that it has partnered and supported dictators and despots in Burma, Africa and Asia.
Its lawyers must be some of the busiest in the world. Court records show that in the past 20 years, the company has been made to pay around $2bn in fines and settlements to governments and communities for tax evasion, and environmental violations around the world.
The bit about Chevron counter-suing the Nigerian villagers is notable, given that the company is essentially executing that same playbook with regards to Ecuador. (If you haven’t heard about Chevron’s ludicrous RICO suit against the Ecuadorean plaintiffs, you can read it and weep here on the Understory.)
The point being: Chevron goes into communities all across the world and exploits natural resources, polluting the communities and abusing human rights in the process, and then expects to get away with it. Unfortunately, in many cases the company does get away with it. And if the people Chevron has impacted dare speak up and demand clean up or compensation, Chevron goes after them ruthlessly.
Chevron is by no means alone amongst the Big Oil companies in its irresponsible business practices. That’s why it’s important to remember Chevron’s global impact and the larger issues it raises. I always say that the trial in Ecuador is not just about Ecuador and Chevron — it’s about the future of our global society and the future of life on this planet. Will we continue to let the wealthiest corporations poison our communities with impunity in their pursuit of ever-more-exorbitant profits, or will we demand accountability and equitable distribution of resources?
I know which one I choose. Ecuador needs to be the line in the sand. Enough is enough.
His first books, Voices of the Living and the Dead and Dread Beat An’ Blood, bore the influence of Jamaican toasting sessions, in which selectors would play the instrumental side of 45s for deejays to improvise chants, stories, screams, lyrics and commentary over. Johnson would go on to produce many albums of dub poetry, but it is remarkable that the aspect of the aural in his poetry did not overtake the literary in his musical productions. The poems do not become songs, so to speak. They are poems to be taken from the page. An epistolary poem from prison, “Sonny’s Lettah,” brings the elements of textuality/imprisonment and personal connection beyond the page/liberation into conversation.
Dear Mama, Good Day. I hope dat wen deze few lines reach yu they may find yu in di bes af helt. … I really did try mi bes, but nondiless my sarry fi tell yu seh poor likkle Jim get arres.
It woz di miggle a di rush howah wen evrybady jus a hosel an a bosel fi goh home fi dem evening showah; mi an Jim stan-up waitin pan a bus, nat cauzin no fus, wen all af a sudden a police van pull-up…
Second in the Civic Life series, MOORE STREET is a single tracking shot filmed on Dublin's famous Moore Street with members of the Dublin-based African production company, Arambe. In the film, which is a continuation of Molloy and Lawlor's fascination with changing urban terrains, we follow the thoughts of a young African woman in Ireland as she considers her future, and her unfolding sense of identity as she walks along the city street at night.Moore Street is an iconic street in Dublin, a market area migrant communities have historically made as their first point of arrival and settlement. The film documents the street at an interval in its official re-development, where already the everyday hopes and dreams of new communities are reshaping the city as home. This film was chosen to represent Ireland in the 2005 Sao Paulo Biennale.MOORE STREET is part of Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy's series of groundbreaking community engagement film projects, CIVIC LIFE. To see Joe talk about his and Christine's process, go tovimeo.com/10348089
FutureCycle Press annually conducts a juried full-length poetry book competition open to any poet writing in the English language. We offer to the winning author a $1,000 prize, publication in both print and ebook formats, and 25 copies of the printed book. We sometimes also offer publishing contracts to the top finalists. The contest is open from January 1 to April 15 each year; entries received outside of this submission window will be considered a general submission to the press.
To enter the competition, you must pay a $25 ($32 international) entry fee for each book manuscript submitted. You will receive one shipment/copy of the winning book for each entry. (Because the winner will not be published until the Fall of the same year, please be sure to notify us promptly if your mailing address changes.)
We encourage poets to read the poetry in our online anthology and check out our catalog for examples of the kinds of work we like.
Judges
The competition judges for 2011 include the editors of FutureCycle Press (Robert S. King, Diane Kistner, John K. Otley, Jr., J. Clayton L. Jones, Michael Diebert, Wally Swist, Steven Shields, David Chorlton). An outside panel, including poets Gary Fincke, Rachel Hadas, Joanne Lowery, and David Brendan Hopes, will help judge the top-tier (finalist) manuscrpts.
Manuscript Format
Manuscripts should be 48 to 70 pages in length, excluding front or back matter such as title page, dedication, biographical information, acknowledgments, or other descriptive text. Your name, full mailing address, email address, and phone number should appear on the title page.
If poems in your collection have been previously published, please include an acknowledgments page listing publishers' names and titles. When including any works to which you have legally given up book rights, you must supply written permission from the rights-holder and an appropriate "reprinted by permission" line in your acknowledgments. Also, if your manuscript is chosen for publication, we will ask you to provide a paragraph or two describing your book's content for potential readers. Although not required at the time of submission, you may include this information if you would like.
Please prepare the final manuscript in one of the following file formats: Microsoft Word (DOC), Rich Text Format (RTF), WordPerfect (WPD), or editable Acrobat (PDF). Please do not double-space the text of your poems, except between stanzas and after the title; indicate parenthetically when a stanza break is required at the end of a page. Please do not type titles in all capital letters; we prefer that titles and subtitles be styled as headings and the body as the default ("normal") body-text style. Use headers, footers, or automatic page numbering instead of manually typing this information on each page. Note: Fancy typefaces, unusual formatting, artwork, or other attention-grabbers that distract our judges from the merits of the poems themselves may decrease the chances of your manuscript being chosen.
How to Submit
All submissions must be made via our online submission form. Simply select the "Book Contest" type of submission and upload your file(s). Your manuscript file must be in one of the following file formats: Microsoft Word (DOC), Rich Text Format (RTF), WordPerfect (WPD), or editable Acrobat (PDF).
Include in your file a brief bio and cover letter, or you may enter this information separately in the space provided on the submission form. Be sure that you also include your contact info (email and mailing addresses, phone number).
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Sonora Review is given annually for a short short story. Rick Moody will judge. Submit up to three stories of no more than 1000 words each with a $15 entry fee, either by post or online through our website. Each submission must be submitted online or postmarked by midnight April 1.
Essay Contest:
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Sonora Review is given annually for an essay. Ander Monson will judge. Submit one essay of no more than 5000 words with a $15 entry fee, either by post or online through our website. Each submission must be submitted online or postmarked by midnight April 1.
If you provide us with a large SASE with your contest entry, or just send us a little extra money, we will send you a copy of Sonora Review 60. We’ve figured out that postage for this is $3.26, so let’s just say that if you enter the contest, the journal will only cost $3. That’s a steal!
The Sherwood Anderson Foundation has been helping developing writers since 1988 in order to honor, preserve, and celebrate the memory and literary work of Sherwood Anderson, American realist of the first half of the twentieth century.
The amount of the award each year depends on a number of factors, including the investment market. The 2009 award was $15,000. Applications must arrive postmarked no later than April 1 of each year. The winner will be announced on or before the following September 1 on this Web site. If the applications are not deemed to have high literary merit, no award will be made in that year.
Application requirements:
You should have published no more than two books of fiction. These may be one novel and one book of short stories but not more than two altogether. These must have been published by respected literary journals and/or trade or university publishers.
Send three of your best examples from these -- book chapters, entire published books or individual short stories.
Send a resume that details your education and gives a complete bibliography of your publications.
Include a cover letter that provides a detailed history of your writing experience and your plans for future writing projects.
Include a valid, active email address.
Self-published works of fiction or short stories do not qualify.
Poetry is not accepted.
Submissions must be in English.
Include an application fee of $50 made payable to: Sherwood Anderson Foundation This should be placed in a clearly labeled envelope and attached by a paper clip to the front of your application cover letter.
Mail your complete application to: Sherwood Anderson Foundation C/O David M. Spear 264 Tobacco Road Madison, N.C. 27025
No email applications will be accepted. No manuscripts or books will be returned.
With all the international news storylines on our front pages and television screens, the water crisis affecting 1.8 million people living in Kenya has not received the coverage needed to raise public awareness or funds. But our girl Solange is using her gift to help put Kenya’s people in the forefront of our minds.
Written by Mike G