Blackadelic Pop

So Bad

2012-01-29T20:04:00.006-05:00

Faith and Biggie, copyright (c) 1995

From the first time I heard gravelly voiced rapper Biggie Smalls booming about "Party and Bullshit" in 1993 I was an instant fan. When his debut Ready to Die was released a year later, I played the disc so much that my girlfriend asked me, "Who do you prefer more, me or Biggie?" I knew it was a trick question, but I'm sad to say Biggie would've won, at least at that moment.

Not only was he an acute social observer and playlistic personality, but also a wonderful storyteller whose brutal words rivaled my favorite noir novelists Chester Himes and David Goodis. On the tracks "Gimmie the Loot" and "Warning," shout-out to dope producer Easy Mo Bee, the big man from Bed-Stuy dropped criminal-minded science and painted vivid pictures of the wild streets of Brooklyn. In the same breath, the brother could also reveal a tender side, giving his characters dimension that other rappers failed to deliver in their rhymes. Meanwhile, like Redd Foxx or Richard Pryor talking about sex, Biggie's bedroom vulgarity was often very funny.

Although I won't pretend that we were friends or anything, I did have pleasure of being in his company a few times and was surprised by how laidback and cool the brother could be. We even blazed an el together the night I went to the Hit Factory to interview Lil Kim for my "In the Studio" (Vibe) column in 1996. Kim was recording her album Hard Core. When I walked through the glass doors of the studio, Big's boys stared at me as though I was a hired killer. Tupac had been killed a few months before, but the East Coast/West Coast Was was still in effect.

The room went mad quiet as a bunch of blunt puffing hard rocks stopped smoking and eyeballed me closely. Finally, after determining that I wasn't a threat, someone finally screamed, "Yo, I think that's the nigga from the magazine." However, as we well know, their caution wasn't unwarranted . A few months later, Biggie too would be dead.

A few days before his death, I was assigned by The Source to review Life After Death. Having received an advance cassette from a Bad Boy insider that Friday afternoon, I listened to the album all week-end as though it were on a continuous loop. Come early Sunday morning, still wearing the headphones and b-boy nodding, my girlfriend opened the door and told me Biggie had been killed in California. At first I thought she was kidding, some kind of sick joke on her part. Yet, after tuning in to Hot-97, me and the rest of New York City got the news that Biggie was gone. Without saying another word, I turned off the stereo, crawled into bed and cried.

Almost fifteen years after his death, I'm still fascinated by The Notorious and his music. The way that Greil Marcus will write about Bob Dylan at any opportunity, is the way I feel about documenting the life and art of Biggie Smalls. Although his career didn't last as long as the Minneapolis mumbler, Biggie has become my Bob Dylan and this week two new essays by the Blackadelic Kidd (that's me) will be published on the subject. The first piece "Forever" serves as the introduction to XXL's special Notorious B.I.G. issue. Props to Vanessa Satten, Jayson Rodriguez and Dave Bry. The same issue also features an excellent essay on the aural dopeness of 1997 by writer Shaheem Reid.

http://www.xxlmag.com/features/2012/01/xxl-pays-tribute-to-notorious-b-i-g-with-march-2012-issue

The second essay "The Ballad of Faith and Biggie," published in the Irish pop culture magazine "One More Robot," dives deep into the murky waters of Bad Boy's history, music and mythology. Based on interviews with Faith Evans, Aliya S. King, Bevy Smith and others, this piece of pop documentation was a favorite to research and write. As Faith so brilliantly summarized about the early years of the the seminal label, "Bad Boy wasn't always perfect, but some great music came out of that chaos."

Being that editor/publisher Dean Van Nguyen decided to make this the "Nineties Hip-Hop" issue, the magazine also features an essay on Hype Williams by Miles Marshall Lewis, a piece on Pac by Charles R. Braxton and an art portfolio by Andre LeRoy Davis, the black Jack Davis. In addition their is a bad mojo wrap-around cover piece by John Breiner.

http://www.onemorerobotmagazine.blogspot.com/2012/01/one-more-robot-issue-9.html

OPEN erotica

2011-10-26T22:08:00.002-04:00

The coolest new erotica blog and journal is OPEN
edited by Fayemi Shakur and Michael A. Gonzales
photo edited by Akintola Hanif
http://openerotica.com

Bronx Brewery Tasting Tonight

2011-10-26T10:50:00.002-04:00

For the beer lovers in the house, this is for us...

Immediate Release

THE BRONX BREWERY SELECTS BIER INTERNATIONAL

AS HARLEM FLAGSHIP

Inaugural Harlem Tasting of Bronx Pale Ale Set for Wednesday, October 26, 6:00 PM

New York, October 13 — The Bronx will take its place among such regions
renowned for beer as Germany, Belgium, Austria and Japan when The Bronx
Brewery’s Pale Ale gets tapped at Bier International, Harlem’s first
beer garden. Known for its singular selection of global beers and
sumptuous food pairings, Bier International will celebrate Bronx Pale
Ale joining Die Familie with
a customized tasting session on Wednesday, October 26 at 6:00 PM.
Bier International chef Adriano Flor Santos will collaborate with
Bronx Brewery head brewer, Damian Brown, to present a palette of menu
items specifically crafted to pair with the unique flavors of Bronx
Pale Ale. Bier International is located at 2099 Frederick Douglas Blvd.
between 113 and 114 Streets.

The
Bronx Brewery, the latest brewery to come out of New York City,
introduced
Bronx Pale in September 2011 after a period of intense recipe
development and testing in the South Bronx neighborhood of Mott Haven.
“We are excited to introduce
Bronx Pale Ale at Bier International, given their exceptional
commitment to providing quality food and artisanal beer to the Harlem
community,” says Brown. “The pride they take in conducting their
business matches our pride in our beer,” adds Bronx Brewery general
manager, Christopher Gallant.
Brown and Gallant will be in attendance at the October 26 tasting to
answer questions as well as host a discovery beer exploration table
where patrons can touch, smell and taste the unique ingredients that
comprise Bronx Pale Ale.

“Once I sampled Bronx Pale Ale, I knew it would make a superb addition
to our impressive and well-respected
beer menu,” says Chris Pollock, Bier International co-owner and
manager. Co-owner Ousmane Keita adds, “The Bronx Brewery’s support of
their community complements our own commitment to featuring a menu and
community activities that reflect the diversity of the neighborhood we
serve.”

A deep amber, American-style pale ale with an ABV of 6.3%, Bronx Pale
Ale is brewed with five different barley malts, generous additions of
Cascade and Centennial hops and a unique strain of yeast. The British,
German and American malts used provide a blend of caramel, biscuit and
nutty flavors and
provides a gentle, pleasant bitterness with an intense citrus and
floral aroma. It is dry-hopped, unfiltered and unpasteurized.

###

For more information:

Bier International

Sheila Jamison

Buppy Hipster PR

buppyhipsterPR@gmail.com

212.598.9484

The Bronx Brewery

Chris Gallant

chris@thebronxbrewery.com

617.372.6866

Absolute Funk: An Interstellar Trip to Honor the “Godfather of Funk,” George Clinton

2011-10-21T06:22:00.012-04:00

Absolute Funk: An Interstellar Tribute to George Clinton, The Godfather of Funk

Oct 25, 2011 7:30 pm | Tuesday

Industry veteran and all-around cool person Vivian Scott Chew
is one of the producers of this tribute to wild man and musical genius
George Clinton, which looks like it's going to be one of funky night. Having
first seen the P-Funk crew on stage of the Apollo back in the day when funk
was a baby and grown men wore diapers, I couldn't think of a better place for
this stellar line-up to bring the noise.

Below is a press release that explains everything, but any jam
featuring Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell and Nona Hendryx, three
of my favorite '70s artists, is where I'm going to be. As a fan of the funk,
it sounds like the roof will be on fire at the Apollo come Tuesday night,
where there will also be a tribute video conceived and produced
by Reginald Hudlin and Vivian Scott Chew.

For more info, please read the press release below. For 30% ticket discount, please go to: www.thewordpr.co/AbsoluteFunk.html

STAT! For New York City’s Public Hospitals! and KISS FM present

Absolute Funk: An Interstellar Trip to Honor the “Godfather of Funk,” George Clinton

Tuesday, October 25, Apollo Theater, 7:30 P.M.

Original P-Funkers Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell join

Musical Director Ray Chew (“American Idol,” Showtime at the Apollo”) and an All-Star Line-Up including Sheila E., Paul Shaffer, Nona Hendryx, Questlove, Tye Tribbett, Fab 5 Freddy, Full Force, Vernon Reid, Dallas Austin, Doug E. Fresh, & Kim Burrell

(New York, NY) – The second annual STAT! For New York City’s Public Hospitals! (www.stathhc.org) is being presented by New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) and The Fund for HHC from October 23 – 30, with one concert in each borough. On Tuesday, October 25, STAT! For New York City’s Public Hospitals! and KISS FM will host a tribute to legendary musician George Clinton, the “Godfather of Funk,” at the Apollo Theater.

The STAT! 2011 centerpiece concert directed by Ray Chew, musical director of American Idol will celebrate George Clinton’s fifty years in entertainment. Original Parliament Funkadelic members Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell will reunite for the evening and will be joined with a great assortment of musical artists that have been influenced by George Clinton’s illustrious career. Sheila E., Paul Shaffer, Nona Hendryx, Questlove, Tye Tribbett, Fab 5 Freddy, Full Force, Vernon Reid, Dallas Austin, Doug E. Fresh, & Kim Burrell will all perform as part of the homage.

The event is co-created and produced by Reginald Hudlin (Director of movies "House Party," "Boomerang," "BeBe Kids" and TV shows "Modern Family," "The Middle," and "Psyche") along with Chew Entertainment co-founder, Vivian Scott Chew who was responsible for the 1996 landing of The Mothership in Central Park.

Tickets to STAT! 2011 are available at www.stathhc.org or by calling 646-458-2815.

STAT! For New York City's Public Hospitals! is in part possible thanks to the support of the following sponsors: Jet Blue, American Airlines, TD Bank, Office Max, Aloft Harlem Hotel, Emblem Health, Greater New York Healthcare Association, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Cardinal Health, MetroPlus, Sodexo, Dallas BBQ, Verizon Wireless, Au Bon Pain, and more. Media partners include: KISS FM, Hot 97, Metro New York, Amsterdam News, Village Voice, El Diario, WLIB, and Telemundo T-47.

STAT! 2011 will benefit New York City's public healthcare facilities, celebrate HHC’s 37,000 employees, and help raise awareness about the important role that our public hospitals and healthcare facilities play in the city of New York. A portion of the proceeds from this year’s series of events will also help launch Guns Down, Life Up, an initiative to combat gun violence.

STAT! For New York City's Public Hospitals! is in part possible thanks to the support of the following sponsors: Jet Blue, American Airlines, TD Bank, Office Max, Aloft Harlem Hotel, Emblem Health, Greater New York Healthcare Association, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Cardinal Health, MetroPlus, Sodexo, Dallas BBQ, Verizon Wireless, and more. Media partners include: KISS FM, Hot 97, Metro New York, Amsterdam News, Village Voice, El Diario, WLIB, and Telemundo T-47.

About STAT!

STAT! For New York City’s Public Hospitals! was conceived by longtime philanthropic supporters of HHC and by The Fund for HHC, which works to raise community awareness and promote equal access to healthcare.

About HHC

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) is a $6.7 billion integrated health care delivery system with its own 480,000 member health plan, MetroPlus, and is the largest municipal healthcare organization in the country. HHC serves 1.3 million New Yorkers every year and more than 475,000 are uninsured. HHC provides medical, mental health, and substance abuse services through its 11 acute care hospitals, four skilled nursing facilities, six large diagnostic and treatment centers and more than 80 community based clinics. HHC Health and Home Care also provides in-home services for New Yorkers. HHC was the 2008 recipient of the National Quality Forum John M. Eisenberg Award for Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality. For more information, visit www.nyc.gov/hhc.

# # #

July 13, 1977 (a poem)

2011-10-08T10:44:00.009-04:00

by michael a. gonzales

living uptown, the night of blackout '77
i remember a bunch of hollering boys on our block
playing stickball in the street
as miss josephine sat on the stoop
eating a greasy fish sandwich, her radio tuned to wwrl
while screaming girls twirled, playing jacks behind her back
sweat dripping from their brown skinned faces
"it's hot as hell," grandma used to say
"hot as fish grease," somebody screamed

of course, most folks on my block didn't own air-conditioners
just wack-ass fans that blew hot air, stale air, dusty air
while that girl robin across the street, fine as red-bone wine
sat braiding her sister's wild hair, tangled from playing in the
open hydrant...

little sister sat still until the ice cream truck
came creeping down the street
playing the same song over and over and over
had to wonder how the driver didn't go crazy
between the repeating music and screaming kids
others would've flipped their lid, but dude was always calm
as he made banana boats and coke floats and chocolate cones
overflowing with sprinkles

as the sun settled down to sleep
somewhere in the distance lightning struck
and twice, the street lights flickered

1977

2011-09-28T18:56:00.007-04:00

copyright (C) 2011, Paul Pope

copyright (C) 2011, Paul Pope

The other day I was in the Barnes & Noble on Court Street and I saw The Best American Comics 2011. Flipping through the book, I peeped a new graphic short story written and drawn by artist Paul Pope. One of my favorites, I discovered Pope years ago when he self-published The Ballad of Doctor Richardson and THB. Having grown weary of comic books during the Image years, when a hack like Rob Liefield could become king, Pope renewed my faith in the medium. To me, his art was beautifully lush and finely detailed while still being sensitive, urbane and surreal.

If Pope's drawings was music it would be Fripp & Eno joining forces with Sid Barrett, Dionne Warwick, David Lynch and a squad of glitter rock gods. Reprinted in this volume was a piece called "1977," a cool strip about a young kid who discovers David Bowie while listening to his mom's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). It's a charming piece where the reader witnesses a young kid (Pope) discover the vast universe beyond the comforts of home and his mother's car.

1977 has become one of those years that artists enjoy revisiting, be it Paul Pope or Spike Lee, whose own ode to the decade became the film Summer of Sam (1999). Having grown-up in New York City, my experience was closer to Lee's cinematic mash-up of serial killer Son of Sam, disco, the blackout, punk rock, heatwaves and the Yankees winning the World Series than Pope's own suburban locale.

In the most recent issue of the Dublin-based cultural magazine One More Robot, I contributed my own "version" of 1977 in the autobiographical essay Broadway Buddas and the Birth of Hip-Hop, which tells the tale of how I discovered the joys of toking weed (aka "budda") the same day I first heard hip-hop. Hanging with my buddy Kyle in those long ago yesterdays, we could get a thick sack of smoke for $3.00 then go hear DJ Hollywood and Lovebug Starski rocking a Harlem block party. As one advertising genius once proclaimed, it was "two great taste that went great together."

Considering Hollywood and Starski as underrated pioneers in the field, I've long wanted to write about their contribution to rap music. In 1997, I spent a few days interviewing them both in a 7th Avenue bar and heard some cool back in the day stories. It was supposed to be in Vibe, but for some reason the editor killed the piece before I even transcribed the tapes.

Years later, thinking back on that summer day in 1977, I realized I needed to document that small slice of hip-hop history . Having carried the memory since I was thirteen years old, I finally wrote the first draft of the piece last year between Christmas and New Year when I was chilling in my other hometown, Baltimore.

Cat sitting for my friends Beth and Don, one chilly night I gulped a few glasses of white wine, drifted on black cloud and imagined that I was some bizarre combination of Nik Cohn, James Baldwin and Hunter Thompson. Illustrated by my friend John Breiner, a brilliant young Brooklyn based artist, "Broadway Buddas and the Birth of Hip-Hop" is a throwback tale that pays homage to the streets of Harlem and the underground sounds that changed the world.

For more information on One More Robot or to keep up to date with the latest news visit www.onemorerobotmagazine.com or follow the magazine on Facebook and Twitter.

www.johnbreiner.com

Gonzales on Gil Scott Heron, DJ Hollywood, Jim Thompson and more

2011-09-26T11:59:00.008-04:00

One More Robot # 8:

Gil Scott-Heron, Radiohead, Miles Davis, Prince, The Beatles, D’Angelo, and Jay-Z among the artists featured in One More Robot’s Autumn Issue special feature ‘The 100 Songs That Changed the Game’, available to buy early next week in Dublin City and worldwide right now via mail order: http://item.ly/320764355423

In a special article for their eighth issue, Dublin’s leading cultural journal One More Robot polled their team of music writers to create a list of 100 of the most influential post-World War II songs. A huge 19 page feature, each song choice is accompanied with some brief notes written by a contributor passionate about its inclusion, as well as insights into particularly influential artists and introductions to each featured decade to add extra perspective.

“We probably could have stretched it out to another 100, such was the scope and quality of the tracks nominated by our writers,” editor Dean Van Nguyen wrote is his editorial piece. “But we had to draw the line somewhere.” One artist to be featured in the piece was Gil Scott-Heron.

For the issue, One More Robot commissioned artist John Breiner to paint a special portrait of the singer, songwriter, poet and novelist, who sadly died earlier this year. Breiner's stunning work appears on the new issue's front cover. Cultural critic and essayist Michael A. Gonzales wrote the cover story on Gil Scott Heron.

Gonzales, who also writes crime fiction and has previously published literary essays on crime writers Chester Himes and Ernest Tidyman, contributed an article that recounts the turbulent relationship between The Killing duo pulp writer Jim Thompson and rising young filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. In addition, Gonzales also penned the personal essay "Broadway Buddas & the Birth of Hip-Hop" about growing-up in New York City during the seventies and the early days of rap music.

Also included in the new issue: Derek Owens chats to Luke Ford, one time chronicler of the adult film industry, and there’s coverage from the magazine’s recent Battle of the Bands event The Rock-Off Redemption, including interviews with the joint winners Race The Flux and Tandem Felix. A more comprehensive look into what is in the new issue is available via the magazine's website.

About One More Robot

One More Robot is a print magazine covering music, media, culture and beyond. Published and printed in Dublin, Ireland, it’s available to buy in independent stores Trout Records (George’s Street Arcade), All City (Crow Street, Temple Bar), The Record Art and Game Emporium (Fade Street) and The Winding Stair Book Shop (Lower Ormond Quay). The new issue will be in stores early next week and can be purchased right now worldwide via mail order: http://item.ly/320764355423

The magazine recently celebrated its second birthday and over the course of the last two years has assembled a team of writers whose backgrounds feature published work in The Irish Times, The Dubliner, AU, Rolling Stone, XXL, The LA Times, Pitchfork, Wax Poetics, Vibe, The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The Telegraph and many other respected publications. This is their eighth issue. Their seventh, a specially-themed Pop Issue, is still available to buy online @ http://item.ly/320764356575 Recently, editor Dean Van Nguyen appeared on Dublin City FM to discuss the issue. His interview is available to hear via his blog.

For more information on One More Robot or to keep up to date with the latest news visit www.onemorerobotmagazine.com or follow the magazine on Facebook and Twitter.

Nona Hendryx

2011-09-15T09:36:00.004-04:00

This Saturday night September 17^th, legendary musician Nona Hendryx presents a fiery musical mosaic in RIGHT NOW! (a WeDaPeoples Cabaret), curated by award-winning poet/playwright/ recording artist Carl Hancock Rux as part of the Uptown Nights at Harlem Stage series on at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse.

RIGHT NOW! has its roots in an inclusive post-9/11 project created by the late performance poet Sekou Sundiata that explores what it now means to be American. In an unusually intimate setting, Hendryx will create a rock-and-soul mélange that traces her musical history as main writer and one-third of the female trio Labelle to her extraordinarily adventurous solo career. She’ll perform unreleased material (a driving cover of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, a song challenging Michelle Bachman’s candidacy) and cuts from her new CD Mutatis Mutandis (opinionated tracks such as “Tea Party” and “The Ballad of Rush Limbaugh”).

As an old fan of Nona Hendryx and her contributions to the canon of Black rock and pop, I jumped a chance to ask her a few questions for Blackadelic Pop.

MG: Part of the show is examining your history as an artist. Why do you feel made Labelle unique in pop music?

Nona: Labelle broke the mold of what girl groups used to be from when we began as Patti and the Bluebelles. With Labelle, our wardrobe was different and the music became more of a hybrid of funk, rock and opera. We weren’t afraid to cover songs like “Four Women” by Nina Simone or Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Creatively, behind the scenes, we were more involved in the writing of the songs.

MG: Many folks might not be aware that you wrote many of the songs for Labelle including “You Turn Me On” and “Space Children.” How did you start writing?

NH: Well, I had always read and wrote poetry. In school, my first love was writing, but I was into reading the works of e.e. cummings, the Bronte sisters and James Weldon Johnson; years later I got into H. Rap Brown and Nicki Giovanni. Although I can’t remember the name of it, one of the first songs I ever wrote was with my old friend Curtis Mayfield, who encouraged me as a lyricist. He and I wrote a song together in Baltimore that the Bluebelles later recorded.

MG: It seems that in modern times, so-called “girl groups” have disappeared from the pop charts.

NH: And, to me that is a real shame. There is something magical about girl groups, something that happens when particular voices come together as one. Not just in girl groups, but all groups be it the Jackson 5 or the Staple Singers. But, record companies are notorious for tearing groups apart by picking one artist over another. But, there is nothing like the sound of multiple voices on a record.

MG: What’s next for you?

NH: In January, my new CD Mutatis Mutandis will be getting a wider release. This disc is very political, and features songs that talk about everything from Katrina to the Tea Party to the oil spill.

Tickets for RIGHT NOW! are $45, available by phone at (212) 281-9240 and online at www.harlemstage.org.

Black Polaroids on Planet Pop

2011-09-11T17:31:00.005-04:00

As a central cultural figure in New York City from the sixties to his death in 1987, visionary Andy Warhol wielded more artistic influence than even he knew. From A to B and back again, Michael A. Gonzales traces when pop met soul.

Raised in New York City during the seventies – perhaps the most perfect simulacrum of Planet Pop that America has to offer – at eight years old I was turned on to the wild world of Andy Warhol. Although I don’t remember where I first noticed the strange dude with his fright wig and glasses, Warhol’s image was seemingly everywhere. From television interviews to newspaper photos posed inside the hedonistic heaven of Studio 54 to advertisements for various products, most knew his pale face and monocyclic voice before they even saw his art.

Digging through art books at the Hamilton Grange library, I read about the “reptilian” (as David Bowie once described him), damn near albino artist ruling the art world from behind a silk-screening machine and snapping Polaroid pictures of celebrities, disco dancers and other strangers attempting to be famous for 15 minutes.

Dragged into the brilliant crimson of his infamous Campbell’s Soup cans, I became an instant fan of Warhol and the mythology surrounding the vibrant studio the Pittsburgh native called ‘The Factory’. An artistic utopia where the walls gleamed in aluminium foil, and the collective creative freaks gathered in various rooms reading movie magazines, digesting drugs, blaring rock music, writing poetry, publishing magazines and composing soundtracks as numerous super-8 projectors flickered boring black and white films in the background.

Although located in the most racially diverse city in America, the melting pot seemed to evaporate at The Factory’s entrance. Flipping through photos from the studio’s heyday in the sixties, The Factory, like most of the art world during that period, severely lacked racial diversity.

However, for many young kids of colour coming from various New York City hoods, Andy Warhol was the first ‘real’ artist, outside of Marvel Comics illustrators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, whose work they recognised. Even though there were other ‘public’ artists like LeRoy Neiman and Peter Max, none were as cool and strange as Warhol.

“Back in the seventies, a lot of graff kids also went to local art high schools and were well aware of what was going on in modern art world and were down with Warhol,” Erik Talbert, an alumnus of the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, explains. “I think the main reason his work resonated with the graff dudes was the colours that he used. Warhol’s pictures were always so vibrant.”

Many art critics believe Warhol’s paintings from the seventies were second rank, as though his surviving being shot in 1968 by crazy lady Valerie Solanas represented an artistic death instead. Nevertheless, for me, his celebrity portraiture period, especially the 1975 Mick Jagger series, were as sensational as jazz trumpeter Miles Davis going electric.

Having closed down The Factory after the shooting, it was during this period that Warhol began painting more black subjects including Muhammad Ali, OJ Simpson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. However, exploring the borders of race and class on Planet Pop, it was his exquisite portfolio of ten screen-printed portraits of glam African-American drag queens (Ladies and Gentlemen) from 1975 that are his most daring and inspired.

“New York has a thousand universes in it that don’t always connect,” writes Jay-Z in his 2010 quasi-autobiography Decoded, which features a 1984 Warhol ‘Rorschach’ painting on the cover. “But, we do all walk the same streets, see the same headlines in the Post, read the same writing on the walls. That shared landscape gets inside off all of us and, in some small way, unites us, and makes us think we know each other.”

For artist and hip-hop renaissance man Fred Brathwaite (aka Fab 5 Freddy) the artistic connection with Andy Warhol came when he was a kid living in the Bed-Stuy, once one of the most notorious ghettos in New York. “It was 1976 and I saw an Air France advertisement in a subway station,” Brathwaite recalls. “In the illustrated poster, there were various celebrities including Miles Davis, Carol Channing and Margaux Hemingway sitting on the airplane. In the back of the plane sitting alone was Andy Warhol. My first thought was, ‘Who is that guy with the crazy blonde hair and glasses?’”

While Fab 5 Freddy has had a fruitful career as a film producer (Wild Style), host of Yo! MTV Raps and video director (KRS-1, Gang Starr), his first love was always art. “Seeing Warhol’s startling image, I was curious, so I dug a little deeper and discovered how he set it off in the sixties art world. I can’t really say how many of the other graff kids I bombed with in Bed-Stuy knew of Warhol’s work, but for me he was cool, fun, interesting and radical.”

In 1980, four years after discovering Warhol’s work, Brathwaite painted an entire number 5 subway train in homage of the soup cans. “As an art nerd, I began feeling a real connection between graffiti and pop and I wanted to explore that in my own work.” The year before, he befriended another up-and-coming artist named Jean-Michel Basquiat, a young Puerto Rican and Haitian boho boy from Brooklyn who shared his passion for Warhol and later developed into a wild, styled artistic genius.

A few years later, after several chance meetings and finally a formal introduction, Warhol and Basquiat became friends. Not known for showing much emotion, Warhol was undoubtedly thrilled by Basquiat’s idol worship of both his paintings and persona as the two began hanging socially. Although Basquiat’s work was dubbed neo-expressionistic, one only has to gaze at the haunting paintings to see how much he was inspired by the pop landscape of music, comic books, films, television, cars and whatever else bleeped across his dreadlocked radar.

“For me, Basquiat’s work was mind-boggling,” says 40-year-old Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Franklin Sirmans. “He might’ve been influenced by pop and Warhol, but Basquiat’s work elevated the whole sphere and discourse around visual arts.”

In addition to Basquiat’s prolific output, he styled and profiled at ritzy eateries Mr. Chow or The Odeon, often with Warhol and other downtown scenesters; wore beautiful Armani suits splashed with paint; and dated a pop tart who later became the Queen of Pop, Madonna. As Warhol had already shown, being pop was also about staying on your hustle and being seen on the scene.

In 1983, with young upstarts Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf gaining on his fame, Warhol decided to collaborate with Basquiat at the suggestion of art dealer Bruno Bischofberger. “It was obvious that Warhol was holding on to Basquiat as though Jean-Michel was a life preserver,” laughs 36-year-old painter Jackson Brown. “At that point, Basquiat didn’t really need Warhol, but Warhol really needed him.”

Although adamant about not being influenced by Warhol, there is still much pop lustre in Brown’s portraits. “My father was a doorman at various ritzy buildings in New York City and I remember him bringing home a Sotheby’s catalogue that had reproductions of Warhol’s soup cans, Superman and Elvis,” he says. “I dug them at first, but then thought, ‘I could do that.’ For me, I revered Freddy’s graffiti version of the soup cans more, because they had more soul and passion. Warhol made being an artist look like the coolest thing on the planet, but I think his art is overrated.”

Unfortunately, when Warhol and Basquiat’s collaborations were unveiled in 1985 at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in SoHo, critics and fans held similar opinions. “I just didn’t understand the point of it all,” recalls graphic designer and artist Cey Adams, who attended the Mercer Street opening. “The paintings were entirely too big and they said nothing.”

Cey Adams and Bill Adler

Hailing from Queens, Adams was a former graffiti writer and a pal of Keith Haring and Basquiat. In the early eighties, he was just another young black artist who admired Warhol’s collected works. Hired by fledgling hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons in 1984 as chief graphic designer for Def Jam Records and Rush Management, Adams designed album logos, tour merchandising and album/CD covers for LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Slick Rick, Foxy Brown, Jay-Z, Method Man, DMX and others.

“The first time I met Warhol we were at a party for designer Willie Smith at the Limelight and the next time was at Keith Haring’s house,” Adams says. “His influence on me predates even my graff years, so standing next to him was like having a comic book hero in your living room. He didn’t talk much, but I asked him about Michael Jackson and we talked a little about his art. He was blunt and would just say what was on his mind. But, as popular as he was, I think he was amazed that young black kids knew who he was. To me, he was fascinating and mysterious.”

In the spring of 2011, Adams designed a poster for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibit Looking at Music 3.0, and is currently laying out the coffee table book Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label (Rizzoli International) edited by Bill Adler. “To this day, whether it’s a poster for Adidas or MoMA, or an album cover for Bad Boy [Records], that Warhol influence is a part of everything I do. The first thing I did when I started making money was buy two of his Muhammad Ali lithographs.”

After their 1985 show bombed, Basquiat began pulling away from Warhol, whom the critics accused of dictating too much power over their shared canvases. Although he rented a massive building from Warhol at 57 Great Jones Street, he saw little of his friend and instead began nodding out on the heroin slope. Two years later, Warhol passed away in 1987 after gall bladder surgery at the age of 58. The following year, Jean-Michel Basquiat overdosed and died in the bedroom of his Great Jones abode. He was 27.

More than two decades after their deaths, the art world is a vastly different cultural arena that includes more artists, curators and collectors of colour, as well as more women in roles of power. Today, Warhol and Basquiat are artistic icons whose paintings sell for millions while museum exhibits of their work travel throughout the world. In addition, their art has become hot status symbols collected by hip-hop superstars and executives including Jay-Z, Russell Simmons, Lyor Cohen and Swizz Beatz.

After spending 20 years away from the art, Fred Brathwaite returned to the studio and debuted his solo show New York: New Work at Gallery 151 in June 2010. The space was packed with guests that included hip-hop mogul P. Diddy, artist Lee Quinones, East Village scenester Shelia Jamison, rapper/producer Kanye West, filmmaker Charlie Ahearn, writer Nelson George and film producer Lisa Cortes.

Ironically, Brathwaite’s artistic rebirth was happening directly around the corner from where Jean-Michel Basquiet once lived and died. Standing in the gallery looking at Freddy’s stunning piece ‘Metro Movement’, an homage to his graffiti roots and Andy Warhol, behind me, a woman whispered, “Doesn’t this remind you of those days back in the eighties, going to openings at the Shafrazi Gallery.” Somewhere in pop heaven, Basquiat was smiling and Warhol was snapping a Polaroid.

originally published in One More Robot #7

http://www.onemorerobotmagazine.blogspot.com

Nina Simone/Wax Poetics #48

2011-09-06T21:49:00.003-04:00

Natural Fact
a cover story on the legendary Nina Simone
by Michael A. Gonzales

For more info, go to: : Afro.astro.channel
For Wax Poetics: http://www.waxpoetics.com/wax-poetics-magazine/issue-48

Afro.Astro Channel Meets Michael A. Gonzales

2011-08-20T08:16:00.007-04:00

My talented friend and fellow writer Jake-Ann Jones recently interviewed me for her illmatic blog Afro-Astro.Channel. For hours we rapped about my obsessions with funk, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Black rock, Nina Simone and, of course, writing. Recently I wrote about B. in "Black Polaroids on Planet Pop," an essay published in the Dublin-based magazine One More Robot and I'm currently working on another article about Basquiat to be published in the fall.

My upcoming cover story on the great singer Nina Simone will be published in the upcoming Wax Poetics #48, due sometime before the end of the month. While it would've been difficult to write about Simone's entire life in a magazine piece, my story "Between the Keys" concentrates on her political and personal transformation from naive country girl to a "rhythmic rebel" after befriending playwright Lorraine Hansberry and the New York City crew of Black intellectuals that included James Baldwin and LeRoi Jones.

In addition, the piece explores the real sisterhood she shared with Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun, and how their friendship helped shape Simone's music, stage persona and personality. For the story, I interviewed Simone's daughter Lisa Celeste Kelly, who has done tributes to her mother under the name Simone, as well as friends and fans Amiri Barakka, Asha Bandele, David Nathan, Dyana Williams, N'Dambi Blue, Alicia Keys, Mister Mann Friby and others.

I'd like to thank my friends Devin Roberson, Asia Minor, Serena Kim and Tomika Anderson, all who helped guide me on the the road to Simone years ago. While I've written many profiles and essays, this 6,000-word piece has a special place in my personal canon. Big-up to Wax Poetics editors Andre Torres and Brian DiGenti for allowing me the space to do Simone right. In the usual Wax Poetics style, the vintage pictures are simply beautiful.

To access the interview with Gonzo: Afro.astro.channel

For Wax Poetics: http://www.waxpoetics.com

For the Nina Simone website: http://www.ninasimone.com

The Erotic Imagination #3

2011-08-15T18:33:00.005-04:00

Like the visual equivalent of a Cocteau Twins album, the dreamy poetics of the late artist Jeff Jones one-page comic strip Idyl was the first sequential art that fueled my erotic imagination. Drawn for National Lampoon from 1972 to 1975, the strip featured a cast of nude characters that populated a poetic planet where fish could float through the air, animals talked and humans spoke in riddles.

Unlike more commercial female comic book characters that pandered to the budding libidos of young male fans (i.e. Power Girl), the graceful beauty of Jones' creation was its innocence. The nakedness of the characters within their atmospheric landscape was as pure as Adam and Eve prior to eating that damn apple.
Although I was only ten years old when I first discovered Idyl, there was a charming allure and exquisite weirdness in the work that kept me going back for more.

More than three decades later, the work Jones put into Idyl is still as fresh and exciting as it was then. What was obvious Jeff Jones' work was his obvious love for women. In Idyl as well as in his later paintings, the women in the work often seemed to be contemplating something heavy about life, love and death. Perhaps it was my own curiosity, but I always was intrigued by what was going on in their minds strange women.

Jones, an admirer of fantasy artists Frank Frazetta and Al Williamson, began his career painting paperback covers for romance, science fiction and sword & sorcery paperbacks before branching out to comics, fine art and sculptures. Drawing each Idyl strip in a beautiful pen and ink that resembled nothing else in comics at the time, there seemed to be an almost feminine, non-macho touch in both the drawing and writing style. While the images in Idyl were obviously erotic, there was nothing dirty about the the work; it was, and remains, simply beautiful.

On May 19, 2011 Jeff Jones died. Below are two links about his interesting life and amazing art...

1. by Michael Nasser: http://michaelnetzer.com/mnop/?p=354

2. by Steve Ringgenberg : http://www.tcj.com/jeffrey-catherine-jones-a-life-lived-deeply

The Erotic Imagination #2

2011-08-15T13:30:00.007-04:00

I never set out to become an erotica writer. In fact, prior to being commissioned by former Random House editor Carol Taylor (whose Brown Sugar series should be a part of your naughty collection), I'd read very little of it. Yet, since my first erotic story "Movie Lover" was published in 2001, I found my new found genre to be both exciting and liberating.

Too much of an egotist to use a pseudonym, I had no problem with folks knowing about the textual freaks dwelling in my brain. Of course, sometimes the reaction of friends, family and strangers could be very funny. Especially, since a lot of non-writers seem to believe that everything is autobiographical and, "you couldn't possibility be making this stuff up."

However, whenever I sit down to write a new story--the latest finished piece being "Stiletto’s Big Score," about the comeback of retired blaxploitation icon Miki Jamison, which will be published next year--there are certain artists whose work I literally revisit or try to conjure in my head while working. Be it the graphic art of Vaughn Bode, Jeff Jones and Howard Chaykin, savoring passages of Georges Simenon's fiction or re-watching Kar Wai Wong's poetic BMW short film (commercial) The Follow, each has a rhythm and flow that has propelled me creatively. I'm also a major fan of Spike Lee's sexy surreal Girl 6 (yeah, I'm the one), but I'll like to write a full blog about that flick at a later date.

Inspired by the many "hook-ups" I've heard about happening on Facebook, my most recent published erotica story "Serious Moonlight," perhaps the shortest I've ever written (my late friend Jerry Rodriguez used to tell me I wrote the LONGEST short stories he ever read), was published earlier this year in Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. As one of the most prolific and respected erotica editors in the business, it was an honor to be selected for Bussel's book. Any inspiring erotica writers should check out Bussel's website, where she regularly posts call for submissions.

In addition, my friend Fayemi Shakur is working on her latest project, an erotica journal called OPEN (of course, I'll be in the first issue) which I think will be an exciting venture for writers, photographers and artists. For more info, check out her Facebook page @: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47401062895#!/fayemishaku

Gotta Have It (Rachel Kramer Bussel website): http://rachelkramerbussel.com/writing/books/gottahaveit.php

Jeff Jones:
http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/07/jones-touch-by-jeff-jones-swank.html

The Follow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNoYLm3a-nI

Howard Chaykin (Black Kiss):
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=25425

Vaughn Bode:
http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/search/label/Jeffrey%20Jones

Georges Simenon: http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/three-bedrooms-in-manhattan

On The Crusaders

2011-08-04T10:56:00.003-04:00

After moving to Baltimore in the late-seventies, my mom dated a middle-aged be-bop fiend named Mr. Lee. Riding in his junky tan Cadillac that always reeked of second-hand smoke, I got my first lessons on the art of jazz. Steadily flicking ashes from a filterless cigarette, there was always a steady flow of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday or other old school jazzbos streaming from the speakers. “Now this is music,” Mr. Lee arrogantly assured me.

Flaunting his disdain against the David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and George Clinton albums that crowded my limited musical canon, Mr. Lee helped me to appreciate what I had secretly thought of as “strange noddling.” Later, hoping to impress him, I pulled out the closest thing to jazz in my collection, the stellar 1979 single “Street Life” by The Crusaders featuring vocalist Randy Crawford.

Spinning the 11:18 album version that I’d borrowed from my new best buddy Walter (dude had a basement full of dusty grooves), I was lost in the velvety textures of bandleader Joe Sample’s piano riffs and guest-vocalist Randy Crawford; years later, rappers Tupac and Masta Ace would sample this groove for their respective hip-hop hits.

As Mr. Lee listened to the entire track (in my young mind the jazzy soul conjured images of a cool neon wilderness populated with hop-heads, pool-hall hustlers and midnight cornerboys straight out of Nelson Algren), his face was blank. “That’s not jazz!” he bellowed. Storming out of the room, I overheard my mom wondering what had happened. “Nothing much, it’s just that boy of yours can’t tell pop music from real jazz.”

Though the Houston, Texas natives had originally called themselves the Jazz Crusaders, there were many purists who thought that these pioneering jazz/soul stylists represented the death of their beloved art. Yet, much like other fusionists in the post-Bitches Brew era of rhythmic rebellion, artists like Weather Report, Return to Forever and Herbie Hancock, the Crusaders were merely trying to forge their own musical identities in the often narrow minded jazz world. First formed in 1954 when pianist Joe Sample, tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder (who later doubled on electric bass) and drummer Stix Hooper were students at Phyllis Wheatley High School and played gigs under the names the Nite Hawks, Modern Jazz Sextet and Black Board Jungle Kids.

In an interview with writer Carina Prange, Sample recalled, “My father was a music lover. My older brother, he was 15 years older, played piano in an all black navy band in the Second World War. So he had records, records, records—every time he came home, he played the piano and I would just watch him. By six years, I told my mother I wanted to begin to play the piano and take piano lessons.”

According to jazz scholar Bob Blumenthal, “The music they played was typical of their hometown - bluesy, soulful, and spirited. They'd get together in the Fifth Ward, where Felder lived, to rehearse; before long, they fell sway to a new sound, by guys like Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach, whose records they'd listen to for hours.

“Adding trombonist Wayne Henderson, flutist/alto saxophonist Hubert Laws, and bass player Henry Wilson, they changed their name to the Modern Jazz Sextet and sought to master their instruments as the beboppers had done. But they never lost that Southern feel or their gulf basin roots. That group continued playing locally as the members worked their way through college.”

Moving to California in the early 1960s, after it was decided by the group that the New York City jazz scene had becoming too wily and weird as free jazz avant-gardists dominated the scene, they changed their name to the Jazz Crusaders. “The New York players made me realize that we were not jazz musicians,” Sample said years later. “We were territory musicians in love with all forms of African-American music.”

Recording throughout the sixties the Jazz Crusaders made eight albums for Pacific Jazz, where they were label-mates with Chet Baker and Chico Hamilton. Under the guidance of label owner/producer Richard Bock, the Jazz Crusaders released classic sides that included their 1961 debut Freedom Sounds (the title track, which opens this collection, was re-recorded in 1973) and Talk That Talk in 1966.

Yet, in an effort to expand their horizons like their musical brothers over at the progressive CTI Records, the Texas crew dropped the “Jazz” and jumped ship for MCA in 1971. On their first MCA disc simply titled 1, the Crusaders included a cover of Carole King’s pop ballad “So Far Away.”

In a review of 1, critic John Ballon wrote, “With their masterful improvising skills still in full force, the Crusaders plugged in, adding electric piano, electric bass, and most importantly, the electric guitar of Larry Carlton. Keeping their signature trombone & saxophone frontline of Wayne Henderson and Wilton Felder, the band really let loose.”

While some folks riff contentiously about the contributions of Sample and Carlton (whose hypnotic playing on “Scratch,” “Free As the Wind” and “Lilies of the Nile” is legendary), we should not allow there skills to overshadow the contributions of the groups co-creators Stix Hooper, Wayne Henderson and Wilton Felder. “Stix Hooper is perhaps one of the most underrated drummers in music,” says fusion aficionado Antonio Rodriguez. “He had a soulful musicality that other drummers couldn’t match. Stix was able to bridge blues and jazz, but he never sounded generic.”

Before “Street Life” became the Crusaders biggest crossover hit (the song has been used in neo-noir flicks Sharkey’s Machine and Jackie Brown), Wayne Henderson’s soulful “Keep That Same Old Feeling” from Those Southern Nights (1975) was the song most likely to be played simultaneously at Studio 54, a red-light basement party or a Harlem bar. With the group singing the lyrics themselves (later they would work with vocalists Bill Withers on “Soul Shadows” and Nancy Wilson on “The Way It Goes”), “Keep That Same Old Feeling” has the distinction of being the first Crusaders track with vocals.

Simply called “Trombone” by friends and collaborators (Henderson has worked with Bobby Womack, Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye) his contribution to the Crusaders includes their classic “Young Rabbits,” which was later used as the theme to the Academy Award-winning documentary When We Were Kings. Henderson also played drums on Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” and co-produced Rebbie Jackson’s “Centipede” (1984) along with her brother Michael.

The soulful saxophone and electric bass playing of Wilton Felder, a musician who has influenced a generation of players including Greg Osby and Nathan East, is undisputed. From the cool country grooves of “Way Back Home” (where Felder plays both instruments) to the wonderful “Nite Crawler” (which was written by Larry Carlton especially for Felder) to his session work (he played bass on the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back”), Felder was a master.

“I remember the way each of us played and made our sound unique,” Felder told the Virginian-Pilot in 2006 while promoting his last solo disc Let’s Spend Some Time. “There was individual playing within the context of a band. The Crusaders were a unit with each piece of the puzzle standing out.” Playing with one another, the puzzle was complete.

A is for Aja

2011-08-03T13:54:00.006-04:00

It was the winter of 1981 when my best friend and Long Island University classmate Jerry Rodriguez introduced me to the Steely Dan album Aja (ABC Records, 1977). Though I remember hearing the single “Peg” in 1977 blaring on WABC that fall, I really hadn’t paid much attention to the group. Yet, Jerry, as well as his older brother Antonio, talked endlessly about the group’s jazzy influences and beat writer influenced lyrics. In addition, it was the best chill-out soundtrack of that pop period.

One winter afternoon, our math professor, a young grad student name Mr. Harris overheard Jerry saying he wanted to sell his weights and offered to buy them. Though less than ten years older than us, we still had a “teacherly” respect for him. Yet, the night he came by the Cortelyou Road bachelor pad, our relationship changed.

Insisting we call him by his first name, we made a few drinks, rolled a few joints and put on Steely Dan’s gorgeous Aja. It wasn’t until “Hey, Nineteen” came on that Mr. Harris felt comfortable enough to confess his secret crush on one of our classmates, a beautiful Indian girl who always looked stoned. “I’m in love with her,” he slurred, then told us how he stared at her during class and fantasized about them making love.

After he left the apartment, Jerry and I laughed loudly. “Can you believe that guy?” I said. “How dumb can you get?” Returning to class the following later, Mr. Harris was back to being a regular sober dude and the three of us never hung-out again socially. Nevertheless, at the end of the semester, both Jerry and I passed our math class with A’s we knew very well we didn’t deserve. “A is for Aja,” I said. “More like asshole,” Jerry replied.

On Prefab Sprout

2011-08-01T20:39:00.004-04:00

In the summer of 1985, I worked in the cassette department of Tower Records in New York City. A few months before, my girlfriend of a year told me at a birthday party that I threw for her, that she was sleeping with somebody else. Later, when I asked why she left me, she answered, “You’re too nice. I need somebody a little meaner.”

Still carrying the burden of broken promises and a shattered heart when I met my Tower’s Records co-worker Barry Walters. A student at NYU, Barry also wrote music reviews for the Village Voice. While stacking shelves, he and I would get into these long discussions about pop music. Perhaps picking-up on my melancholy nature, he introduced me to the two discs that became my favorites of 1985: Bryan Ferry’s wonderful Boys and Girls and Prefab Sprout’s brilliant Steve McQueen aka Two Wheels Good.

While I admired Ferry’s laid back cool, it was the Prefab’s bitterly charming singer/songwriter Paddy McAloon with whom I connected as his compositions “When Loves Break Down,” “Horsin’ Around” and “Appetite” became my instant musical manifestos of post-teen misery. With each subsequent album, Paddy and Prefab’s sound only got better, richer and more ambitious. In addition, it was from reading interviews with Paddy in various Brit-pop newspapers that got me into listening to George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

Sharing Two Wheels Good with my late friend, writer and director Jerry Rodriguez, who would be celebrating his 50th birthday this month, he too was hooked. Drinking away our women troubles as we talked about our various queens of heartbreak, we both knew all the lyrics and had no problem singing them loud and off-key. It was only a matter of time before we judged all our future friends and girlfriends on whether they liked Two Wheels Good.

Twenty-years later, when Jerry was my room mate and battling cancer, I could hear him playing Two Wheels Good often from his room. More than two decades had passed since we both first heard it and it still sounded fresh.

On Rickie Lee Jones

2011-08-01T17:19:00.005-04:00

It was in 1979 when I first saw Rickie Lee Jones on Saturday Night Live singing “Chuck E’s in Love.” Lying on the couch in the basement of my mom's house in Baltimore, I was mesmerized by this long-haired chick singing about poll halls and dudes who walked like jazz. Casting an aural spell, Rickie Lee Jones’ popular single was my first peep into the coolsville of American bohemia.

Two years later, when I was a freshman English major living in New York City, Rickie released her novelistic second album Pirates and I became a true fan. At the time, I was hanging-out with an overweight Black girl named Beverly, who schooled me about her hero Tom Waits, the romance he shared with Rickie Lee Jones and how their break-up was the inspiration behind the bitter romanticism and beat poetics of Pirates.

After class, we sat in Bev’s dorm room drinking Jack Daniels, beer chasers and playing the album continuously. For me, songs like "Traces of the Western Slopes" and “Lonely Avenue” were a gateway drug that led me on to stronger cultural addictions: Jack Kerouac, Charlie Parker, John Cassavetes, LeRoi Jones and others artistic rebels. Caught-up in my own boho visions, I soon dropped out of school and started hanging out in Lower East Side dive bars, going to Alphabet City literary gatherings and dating girls into Godard. In fact, I was doing everything “writerly” except actually writing.

Twenty years later, while working as writer-at-large for Vibe, I went to see Ricki Lee Jones in concert. As she stood on stage of Irving Plaza berating a drunken customer who kept screaming, “Play ‘Chuck E., play Chuck E,’” all those yesteryear memories came back to me as I sipped from a cup of Coca Cola.

Joi: Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome

2011-07-25T21:04:00.006-04:00

Writer's Note: Joi has been one of my favorite artists since she debuted in 1994 with the groundbreaking Pendulum Vibe. Both on stage and in the studio, Joi continuously brings her own special brand of excellence to the rocking soul scene. This piece was written originally last year for Wax Poetics #42 and it's my pleasure to share it with you now.

Joi
Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome

In the 1990s, Atlanta was a hothouse of post-new jack swing R&B. Yet, while most producers were content making safe Black pop for the masses, Dallas Austin wanted to be an auteur. While he’d constructed platinum selling singles for ABC, TLC, and Boyz II Men, the wicked keyboardist had grown-up admiring the artistry of Prince’s cyberfunk manifesto 1999, wanted to make a difference.

“You’ve got to do what people want you to do before you can do what you want to do,” Austin said in 1992. Two years later, he introduced the world to glam singer Joi. A lipstick liberator in the age of prefab divas, her 1994 debut The Pendulum Vibe was a wonderful introduction to an arty funk-rock aesthetic.

Still, it was Joi’s sophomore joint Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome that was supposed to set the world on fire. “My vision was simple,” she explained in 1997. “I want to do funky, ground-breaking stuff.” Although Joi, who has sung with OutKast and Curtis Mayfield, had no problem referring to herself as R&B, her style was as influenced by the sci-fi imaginary of Barbarella and P-Funk as she was by midnight wail of Gladys Knight.

Recruiting wild boys Fishbone to serve as backing her band, Joi returned to the studio with Austin (more co-conspirator than Svengali), Organized Noize, Whild Peach and boyfriend Big Gipp, who contributed country-ass adlibs to the upbeat radio single “Ghetto Superstar.”

“We are here to take you on an aural expectation,” Joi says on the introduction “Welcome Amoeba Spirit,” before kick starting the disc with the booming “Move On,” which combines gutbucket soul, rock guitars and Paradise Garage grooves. Later, Joi shows her true colors by segueing into a mighty cover of Betty Davis’s “If I’m Lucky (I Might Get Picked Up).”

“I heard George Clinton talking about Davis’s work, but it was actually Fishbone member JB who played me her songs,” Joi said. In addition, she covered Labelle’s raunchy “You Turn Me On,” a song from their acclaimed Nightbirds. “Labelle was like superheroes to me.”

Writing lyrics for all original material, Joi could be so revealing she sounded naked. On the bluesy “Hurt Sometimes” and the orgasmic “Dirty Mind,” she flaunts her freak flag without shame. Yet, when teaming with sonic architects Organized Noize (Dudgeon Family) on the psychedelic “Dandelion Dust,” she sounds fragile as Liz Fraser from the Cocteau Twins.

Too cutting edge for Joi’s original label EMI, Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome was rejected in 1997. Dallas Austin bought the album back for his Freeworld imprint and scheduled a January 1998 release, but the label soon folded. Fortunately, hundreds of advance copies were distributed to reviewers, journalists and radio; bootlegs are easily obtained.

More information about Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome can be found on Joi’s website Joilicious-online.org.

Black Polaroids on Planet Pop

2011-07-21T20:41:00.002-04:00

Summer 2011. One More Robot Magazine featuring “Black Polaroids on Planet Pop” written by Michael A. Gonzales; Art by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fred Brathwaite, Cey Adams, Jackson Brown and Asia Minor. On stands in Dublin, Ireland. Available online at http://item.ly/320727699652

http://onemorerobotmagazine.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-more-robot-issue-7.html

The Erotic Imagination #1

2011-07-17T19:06:00.002-04:00

In addition to articles and essays on pop culture, I've also published a good amount of erotic fiction in various collections. Last week, when I received an acceptance for a new short story, I started thinking about my own "erotic imagination" as well as the countless writers, filmmakers, comic book artists and still images that helped shape it.

While I've already written an essay about discovering Playboy magazine when I was a kid, I've never mentioned the FIRST true loves of my life, the wonderful women who were the "Jet Beauty of the Week." Besides the "Soul Brothers Top 20" music chart in the back of the magazine, the centerfold was my favorite part.

Indeed, how could I forget the time when I was about nine and I asked my grandmother if I could have her back issues of Jet. "What are you going to do with them?" she asked. Without missing a beat, I blurted, "I want to put the pictures on my wall." Knowing exactly what pictures I was referring to, grandma laughed for ten minutes and gave me the magazines.

A few decades later, whenever I sit down to write an erotica story, the Beauties are still inspiring me. Thank you, ladies...

Before Players

Before King

Before Smooth

Forgive if I go astary...

2011-07-17T17:35:00.003-04:00

but, last night I had a dream about this comic book.

D'Angelo: Black Pop Kool-Aid

2011-06-29T16:14:00.005-04:00

Writer's Note: As a music writer and fan, I've been following the D'Angelo story since I was first asked to interview the talented young brother for the Brown Sugar bio damn near twenty years ago. Over the years, I've written a few of my best pieces on the man that some call Michael. In 2010, I penned a dope Wax Poetics (#42) piece about the making of that genius first album.

Conducting interviews with Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Raphael Saadiq, Kedar Massenburg, Gary Harris, Bob Powers, Anthony Hamilton, India Aire and others, that story is perhaps the most definitive piece written about Brown Sugar as well as the early neo-soul period.

The year before the Wax Poetics joint, I wrote a different kind of piece about D, covering my attempt in 1999 to cover him for The Source about his brilliant follow-up album Voodoo. Assigned to interview him on the video set of "Left & Right," the day proved to be more than an adventure. I must confess, though I think the song is interesting, it was never one of my favorites; though, I'd love to hear the original version featuring Q-Tip instead of Meth & Red.

Although I've heard a few reports of D'Angelo working hard on some new music, for now us fans will have to be content with Brown Sugar and Voodoo, perhaps two of the best soul albums of all time.

On "Left and Right" video shoot
(watch clip first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2VIGwKimno)

by Michael A. Gonzales

“To me, there is a difference between artists and stars,” soul singer D’Angelo told me way back in 1995. And there was no doubt that he placed himself in the former category no matter how much the rest of the world wanted to place him as the latter. “I don’t want people to tell me how great I sound, but then I don’t build on it,” he added. “What comes first is the music. I want to make dope music. It’s been like that from the beginning and it’s going to stay like that.”

Twenty-one years old at the time, the former child gospel singer named Michael Eugene Archer was in the process of transforming himself into a powerhouse soul man with his stunning debut disc Brown Sugar.

Yet five years after the release of that groundbreaking album, which sowed the seeds of the so-called neo-soul revolution, the young Virginia native had a lot riding on his sophomore project Voodoo. Literarily taking his sophisticated sound to the “next level,” D’Angelo’s Voodoo was a stunning work of art that quickly became the talk of the town.

Nevertheless, following the runaway success of the damn-near pornographic (some prefer the term provocative) video for the second single “Untitled (How Does it Feel)” and a subsequent sold-out tour, D’Angelo retreated from the spotlight.

With the exception of a few cameos including an appearance on Q-Tip’s 2008 album The Renaissance, the man many hoped would be the savior of R&B has been musically inactive since 2001. There were reports about his escalating depressions and alleged drug use, and it looked as if the rigorous demands of the music business caused the young artist to have a classic rock-star crack-up.

In a 2007 Spin magazine article “Body & Soul,” Roots drummer and former D’Angelo collaborator Ahmir “?usestlove” Thompson asserted that the pressures of being considered a pin-up boy put the brother over the edge.

“Everybody is not built to be a sex symbol,” agrees Nelson George, author of the recently released autobiography City Kid and the classic soul book The Death of Rhythm & Blues. “Just look at how it fucked up his hero Marvin Gaye.”

Not to take anything away from Maxwell and the current chart-topping success of his album Blacksummer’s Night, but it was D’Angelo who courageously blazed the trail that allowed Maxwell and other exponents of the so-called neo-soul movement to be different. Though Brown Sugar and Voodoo are his only albums thus far, D’Angelo’s fearless experimentation broadened the language of R&B by exploring new sonic possibilities. Currently signed to J Records, D’Angelo has spent the better part of a decade making his third album James River, which will supposedly feature guest appearances from Prince, Q-Tip, and Cee-Lo. Periodically a label publicist will announce that D’Angelo’s long-awaited return is imminent, but so far no new music has been released.

Recorded at Electric Lady Studios over four years of sessions and released (finally) on January 11 2000, Voodoo was irrefutable proof that D’Angelo had arrived. Culled from over 72 hours of music, the 13 tracks were a fusion of jazz, funk, R&B, hip-hop and an inescapable sense of paranoia best captured on the unsettling DJ Premier–produced banger “Devil’s Pie.” The blazing album won D’Angelo widespread critical acclaim as well as a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album.

Still, it was hardly a conventional follow-up. “I always tell people that Voodoo is more of a musician’s album,” explains soul singer Anthony Hamilton, who sang backup on the Voodoo tour. “The music D made on that record is not the easiest to get into.” With its bump-n-grind groove and lecherous lyrics, Voodoo’s first single “Left & Right” was a late-’90s anthem to wild nights in the neon-lit metropolis of Manhattan where cool Black bohosbuppies popped ecstasy tabs like Tic-Tacs, cocaine delivery guys parked outside trendy clubs, and everyone was as freaky as they wanted to be.

http://samchamp.bandcamp.com/track/left-right-sam-champ-remix

The danceable “Left and Right” also functioned as an introduction to the basic themes of Voodoo, which depicted the classic soul-man battle between good and evil, love and hate, the sanctified and the profane. “You can hear the darkness in that album,” Grammy-winner India Arie says. “Maybe not so much in the lyrics, but in the tone. For me, it’s like the difference between [Marvin Gaye’s] What’s Going On and Here, My Dear.”

In 2009, D’Angelo remains M.I.A. (though he’s rumored to be back in the studio). Still the internet is overflowing with visual and aural artifacts documenting his two-album legacy including the little-seen video for “Left & Right,” which was shot (but not released) exactly 10 years ago. Originally conceived as a duet between D and his friend Q-Tip, the former Tribe Called Quest leader was later replaced by sexist rhyme animals Redman and Method Man.

“D’Angelo’s manager thought that Tip’s verse was wack,” recalls Gary Harris, the former A&R man who signed D’Angelo to EMI Records. “With ‘Left and Right’ chosen to be the first single, the main issue wasn’t necessarily about the music, but about making it hot.”

Artful and funky, director Malik Hassan Sayeed’s performance video of D’Angelo and the Soulquarian band was a brilliant exercise in Afro-impressionism textured with saturated colors, mood lighting, quick cuts, simulated sex, and a few moments of true beauty.

While Paul Hunter’s pelvis-centric vision of a naked D’Angelo in “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” was a publicity wet dream that earned a nomination for Video of the Year at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, the hedonistic images of “Left & Right” serve as a shocking visual metaphor forecasting D’Angelo’s forthcoming pop-life decline.

It was the summer of 1999, and I was assigned to interview D’Angelo for a then-leading urban magazine. Invited to the last day of filming for the “Left and Right” video, which was shot over the course of two weekends inside a vacant building in the Wall Street area, I was amazed by the Felliniesque vibe of director Malik Hassan Sayeed’s set.

A native New Yorker, Sayeed was director of photography on Spike Lee’s films The Original Kings of Comedy, Girl 6 and He Got Game; he had also worked as director of photography beside video auteur Hype Williams’ on his 1998 feature debut Belly and served as second unit Director of Photography on Stanley Kubrick’s swan-song Eyes Wide Shut.

“Malik’s concept for ‘Left & Right” was exceptional,” remembers on-set producer Rich Ford Jr. “It was a concert video that paid tribute to funk shows of the past.” Conceived during an era when the hottest music videos were ultra-bright and vibrantly colorful Hype Williams/Puff Daddy collaborations—many of which Sayeed shot as DP—the murky “Left & Right” was the antithesis of that trend.

Walking through a set that resembled a decaying tenement from David Fincher’s Se7en, I peeped funk father George Clinton standing in the corner nonchalantly smoking what appeared to be a crack pipe. “It was crazy,” Ford recalls. “I kept asking George to go somewhere else and smoke, but he really didn’t care who saw him.”

Standing against the back wall, I stared as D’Angelo swaggered towards the bandstand. Unlike the soft-spoken southern b-boy dressed in jeans and Timberlands I’d met four years before, he had transformed into a dandy bohemian on par with Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone.

dp2 With an electric ax strapped around his shoulders, D looked as though he was ready to conjure his inner guitar god. The formerly pudgy singer now had a body-builder physique, and his once neatly braided hair was wild and loose.

Wandering freely around the massive set, I detected the smell of sweat, fragrant oils, cigarettes and weed perfuming the air. The entire building was crowded with scantly clothed women in exotic feathers, crazed PA’s screaming over the din, the assistant director yelling at the PAs not to let rappers Redman and Method Man leave the building and go-fers running to the store to buy D’Angelo more cigarettes.

Looking like he’d just crashed-landed Funkadelic’s mothership into a vintage clothing store, D was dressed in a glam outfit of black vest (but no shirt) trimmed with faux-zebra skin and velvet pants. A silver crucifix dangled from his neck.

Joining his Voodoo session homeboys drummer ?uestlove, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, keyboardist James Poyser, bassist Pino Palladino and guitar Charlie Hunter on stage, D’Angelo was excited. Unfortunately, the guest rappers were missing.

“Well, where are they?” the director moaned into a walkie-talkie as the film crew set out to locate Red and Meth. Both pothead rappers had wandered away from the soundstage and disappeared. Though Sayeed was a vet of urban video shoots, he looked stressed.

“When the production company saw the chaos of the set, they were in pain,” laughs Ford. “Malik was frantic, but he managed to keep his composure.” The rappers were finally located in a trailer outside playing video games.

By the time the snickering rappers walked to the stage, the music began to blare. Driven by a laidback guitar, soulful finger snaps and macho lyricism, D’s lustful falsetto echoed throughout the room. “Smack your ass, pull your hair/and I even kiss you way down there,” he devilishly sang. “You know I will/think I won’t?”

Hanging over the bandstand, a gaudy chandelier glimmered. Reeking of the uber-masculinity of a prizefighter, D’Angelo reminded one of legendary boxer Jack Johnson stepping into the ring to do damage.

With his sexually charged persona “on eleven,” D’Angelo’s transformation from soul crooner to big-city rock star was in full effect. As the director shot the band’s mock performance, smoke machines sputtered, hand-held camera operators moved through the crowd and the off-kilter song blared from numerous speakers.

“It was like something out of a post–Purple Rain rock fantasy,” laughs vocalist Sun Singleton, who played one of the background singers. “Malik’s vision was freaky and as a former film major, I was in awe watching him work. He was serious, but very quiet.”

Standing in the rear, I joined the extras in enjoying the pretend concert as they swung their arms back and forth. After an hour, Malik finally got the shots he needed and called for a dinner break. Minutes later, the unit publicist retrieved me from the excited crowd.

“D’Angelo will be up in a minute,” she assured me as we walked upstairs to a dreary, dimly lit room containing a few chairs. Discolored with rust spots, water dripped from the ceiling in the far corner of the room. I sat down, pulled out my tape recorder and patiently waited for D to arrive.

From the moment D’Angelo stepped into the room twenty minutes later, I could tell something was wrong. Followed closely by six burly men wearing identical black suits, the intimating guys positioned themselves around the room, looking more like henchman than bodyguards.

Maybe tired, perhaps high, there was something strange about D’Angelo’s behavior. I reached out to shake his hand, but he eyeballed me suspiciously and mumbled something inaudible. Standing around the room with steely faces and outlaw attire, his boys made me uncomfortable.

Afraid that asking the wrong question could be deadly for my health, I turned on the tape recorder. “You’ve been working on this record for a few years,” I began. “Can we talk about the concepts behind Voodoo?”

Fidgeting in the chair, D’Angelo’s steady flow of non-answers seemed like an elaborate joke. Unfortunately though, he wasn’t kidding. Unlike my first interview with him in 1995, where we talked about music and life for hours, the dude in front of me four years later had apparently drunk the Black pop kool-aid.

Right before my eyes, D’Angelo was turning into a parody of the clichéd troubled soul man. At a time when he should have been on top of the world, D’Angelo was instead on the verge of toppling from the pedestal we (fans, critics) had put him on.

And as musical masterminds Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Sly Stone and Donny Hathaway have proved before him, bugged-out geniuses don’t always make a whole lot of sense in interviews. Leaning back in the chair, D’Angelo stared vacantly as I turned off the recorder.

“This is silly,” I said. “Maybe we should do this at another time.” Pushing back the chair, I stood up. Nobody moved or said a word as I walked across the floor. Closing the door behind me, I walked down the stairs toward the bright lights of the video set.

While “Left & Right” director Malik Hassen Sayeed and producer Rich Ford Jr. were excited about “bringing back” D’Angelo, at least visually, it was only a matter of time before the video became a burden to the filmmakers.

Though highly anticipated by fans and music biz folks—especially executives at MTV who’d scheduled special promotions and a world premiere for the clip—it seemed like the project would never be finished.

“We had already gone $30,000 over budget and the label was unwilling to give us any more money,” recalls Ford. “Malik had all these different special effects he wanted to add in post-production, but it was impossible. The video was due, but Malik wanted to do it his way.”

Disappointed by the lack of creative control, Sayeed, who that same year was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his DP work on Belly, took his name off the project and used the pseudonym Willie Lynch instead.

They ended up missing the deadline for the MTV premiere. “Even when we finally finished the edit,” Ford recalls, “the network punished us by refusing to put ‘Left & Right’ into rotation. That’s why so many people never knew the song was Voodoo’s first single, let alone a video.” Ten years later, Sayeed’s gone on to make videos for Jay-Z (“Jigga What, Jigga Who”), Prince (“The Greatest Romance Ever Sold”) and Lauryn Hill (Ex-Factor). He directs commercials for big name clients like Fuji, Nike, and Miller Light.

The D’Angelo video may not be the full expression of Sayeed’s vision, but it holds up surprisingly well after all this time, offering a window into a world that now seems a long was away.

Wax Poetics #42: http://www.waxpoetics.com/wax-poetics-magazine/wax-poetics-issue-42

On Andrew Dosunmu

2011-03-11T09:44:00.001-05:00

“RESTLESS IN THE METROPOLIS”

On photographer and filmmaker Andrew Dosunmu

Written by Michael A. Gonzales

http://aleim.com/andrew-dosunmu

Bonz Malone Interview: 2007

2011-03-10T19:32:00.009-05:00

Author's Note: This interview was originally published in one of my favorite magazines Stop Smiling Issue 30 in 2007.

Bonz Malone Interview
By Michael A. Gonzales

Although pioneering hip-hop scribe Bonz Malone is only a few months shy of forty-years old, it is still hard to believe that we have been friends for twenty of them. Going way back to the early days when hip-hop culture was moving from a New York City novelty to a worldwide industry, Bonz and I met at a Profile Records party for the long-forgotten female rapper L.A. Starr. At that time there were only a few Black writers documenting this musical terrain (including Nelson George, Greg Tate, Barry Michael Cooper and Harry Allen), Bonz was by far the boldest.

Though I read his poetic street rants (at the time, Malone wrote everything in his own special brand of ghetto phonetics) of this Brooklyn based wild-boy in the pages of Spin and the Village Voice, I had no idea he was such a passionate soul. Like a combination of Cameron Crowe (his youthfulness) and Lester Bangs (unafraid of the edge), the man-child who had once tagged trains and worked for a crack cocaine crew kicked in the door of music criticism and refused to leave.

While in real life, punk-ass writers like myself romanticized about the dark side of street life, Bonz not only lived it but he put it into his work. Of course, that gritty bravado sometimes made him a little scary to be around, but we were all a little richer for the experience.

Everybody that was around in those early days has a Bonz Malone story; in the rap-set world that we travel in, more than a few have even morphed into urban legends that rival alligators in the sewer. There was Bonz throwing M-80s after a 3rd Bass concert at the Beacon, there was Bonz handing in stories handwritten on loose-leaf, there was Bonz bombing the system one day and partying with Russell Simmons’ the next.

A ghettocentric renaissance man who has written wonderful articles, guest-starred in acclaimed films (Slam) and signed Mobb Deep to their first deal, Bonz Malone put a certified stamp of truthfulness on every endeavor. In Malone’s life and work, the main thing one could count on was his brilliance.

***
Michael Gonzales: First, where did the name Bonz come from?

Bonz: Well, there were two meanings. The first being that ‘bonz’ represented the skeletons in the closet. You know, those things we had done in the past. I would tell people, if you open my coffin a hundred years from now, that’s what you will see, bones. That’s the realest shit. So, when I started writing graffiti, that was the name I chose.

MG: What was the other meaning?

Bonz: (laughs) It also stood for Black Fonz, because I always saw myself as the
Fonzie nigga. Henry Winkler was a dope dude. How many Jewish actors you know can play an Italian better than real Italians?

MG: What was your hip-hop experience that made you want to be down?

Bonz: Man, it was the night that Wild Style opened in Times Square in 1983. I was 12 years old, and I had to wait for my grandmother to go to sleep so I could sneak out. I put my life on the line, but it was worth it. The theater was so crowded, I had to sit on the stairs. And, the whole movie was in the audience. I saw Grandmaster Caz, Rock Steady, Grandmaster DST and Lee.

MG: I know you wrote graff for years. What was that like?

Bonz: That’s the first element of hip-hop. Man, bombing trains was what I loved to do, that’s who I am. Even today, I have to fight myself not to write on the train. I never did any of those huge masterpieces outside the train, but I tagged in the train. Once we moved to Brooklyn, I was doing the 2’s and 5’s. Those trains went through the South Bronx, so people knew my name.

MG: You went from writing on walls to typing on paper. Talk about that transition?
Bonz: I started writing for the high school newspaper and Bill Adler, who was then the publicist at Def Jam, saw my clips and hooked me up with Spin magazine. The first professional piece I wrote was a review was a review of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising.

One of the things that made me what to write for print was reading Jimmy Breslin in The Daily News, because I didn’t like the way he wrote about the Black community in New York City. Breslin stirred a lot of racial shit in his columns, and it was obvious he knew nothing about Black people. Through my writings, I wanted people to know who were and the beauty that hip-hop represented.

MG: Were you paying attention to other hip-hop writers of that period?

Bonz: I was aware of the others like you and Harry Allen, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was working with John Leland and Joe Levy, and both of those guys taught me a lot. I considered my work to be graffiti writing in print. They later gave me a column (Radio Graffiti), but it was real sporadic because I kept getting locked-up. Every magazine I’ve written for—Spin, The Source, Vibe-have all bailed me out of jail at one time or another.

MG: What is your favorite album from that golden period?

Bonz: To me, the number one hip-hop album is Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam, 1988). When that fucking record dropped, I thought the end of the world was coming. I worn gray and black everyday. The first time I heard that record, I almost cried. Nothing made today could go up against that one disc. Nothing.

SS: Didn’t you and Chuck D. get into a little thing back then.

Bonz: Yeah, because he dissed me for no reason. He called me a “house nigger,” because I wrote for a white magazine. Hell, there weren’t any real hip-hop magazines out then, but he was mad because I was writing about rap in a rock magazine. We talked about it later, and now we have nothing but respect for one another.

MG: At one time rappers talked the world, now they just talk about themselves.

Bonz: You’re so right.

MG: After your Spin days, you went over to The Source.

Bonz: Originally The Source was a college fanzine, but when they decided to move to New York and become a glossy, they contacted me over at Spin. I wrote a Queen Latifah cover story, I wrote a Tribe Called Quest cover story and I wrote the first Biggie story. We didn’t make much money, but we sure got a lot of free t-shirts.

MG: Talk a little about your time as rap A&R at Island Records under Chris Blackwell.

Bonz: That was in the early ‘90s. I almost signed Biggie. We lived two blocks away from each other. I had heard his demo around the same time Puff was trying to sign him. Biggie told me if I won a craps game, he would sign with Island instead. We shot dice on the roof of Island Records for three hours, but I lost.

MG: But, you did sign Mobb Deep.

Bonz: My man Matty C. ran the “Unsigned Hype” column at The Source. He played their tape for me, and in the first eight seconds, I wanted them. Nobody was making that kind of music except NWA. Nas hadn’t even come out yet. To me, Mobb Deep was the NWA of the East Coast.

MG: I know you worked for and partied with Russell Simmons years ago. Any insights?

Bonz: I liked Russell better when he was broke. He was cool and hungry, and not so self-absorbed. Russell has done many things for many people, but I’ve seen him become an asshole.

MG: What are some of the stories you’ve written that stand out?

Bonz: I covered the 1987 Grammy Awards for Spin; when Millie Villnilli won for Best New Artist, I almost got thrown out for screaming, ‘Ya’ll can’t even sing!’ as they were walking-up to the podium. Later, when I was writing the story, I said Dick Clark’s teeth were made of wood. As far as the rap side, I guess it was going to the studio to interview De La Soul, because they gave me a copy of 3 Feet… before it came out. At that time, something like that meant a lot.

MG: I know you kick-started your acting career with a part in Slam (1998).

Bonz: Yeah, I had been friends with Marc Levine for a long time. Originally, I was supposed to star in that movie, but, once again, I was in jail. I had introduced Marc to Saul Williams, so he got the lead instead. I wasn’t, mad, because I still got another part in the movie. That film changed our lives.

MG: What do you think about hip-hop culture in 2007?

Bonz: Rap music is a joke these days. It’s not hip-hop culture, its rap life. Rap life is more concerned with what it can get for itself, not what it can contribute. These niggas just want to make money, but they have very little to offer. I come from an era when rappers didn’t even curse, now you got all these cats cussing instead of rhyming.

MG: What about hip-hop writing?

Bonz: I have respect for everybody, but it was always my thing to be the best motherfuckering writer there was. I feel like I blasted the door open for a lot of people. A lot of writers today barely know there history, while other so-called ghetto lit writers like Relentless Aaron is just using writing as a hustle.

To paraphrase (graffiti artist) Iz the Wiz, a writer is somebody you want to write with or fight with; those words are burned into my heart.

My Picture in the Times

2011-02-24T01:41:00.005-05:00

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Although it's not captioned, my picture made it in the New York Times today, February 24th. All right, so it's not a solo shot, but that is me on the left rocking a gray Kagol and holding court like a Harlem born version of Truman Capote at the Aleim magazine launch party. Props to my new friends writer Tim Murphy and photographer Kristen Luce. For more about the Crosby Street Hotel bash and Aleim magazine, check out Tim's story @: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/fashion/24scene.html

Bully '72

2011-02-08T22:14:00.002-05:00

Bully ‘72

Washington Heights, Catholic school and bad memories

http://www.sensitiveskinmagazine.com/bully-72

On Ernie Paniccioli's Graffiti Photos

2011-01-19T01:40:00.007-05:00

"Urban Blight: the Graffiti Photographs of Ernie Paniccioli"
An Essay By Michael A. Gonzales

Note: This 2004 essay was written for my friend Ernie Paniccioli's photo exhibit at Bill Adler's now defunct Eyejammie Gallery.

Since the beginning of recorded history, New York City has been a haven for outlaws. From the hard-knock characters lurking in the Lower East Side of Herbert Asbury’s seminal "Gangs of New York" in the 1840s to the Mafia families in the 1940s to the grimy gangs trooping through the Bronx in the 1960s, we have often romanticized the dirty deeds of these urban desperadoes.

Coming of age in the heart of Harlem during the late Seventies, when hip-hop culture was so young it didn’t even have a name, I witnessed another kind of outlaw emerging from the rubble of a bankrupt city. Calling themselves "writers," these kids could have cared less about composing The Great American Novel or a Marxist manifesto. Their writing was done with spray-paint, using vibrant colors that illegally "defaced" public spaces and private property. Armed with cans of Krylon, Red-Devil or Rustoleum that had been stolen (or "racked") from the local Woolworth’s or hardware store, these visual vandals created multicolored spectacles on the surface of subway cars and ghetto walls.

Standing on the elevated 125th Street subway station, where the beat-down IRT #1 train ran, it was always a joy to see the aged steel cars creep down the tracks gleaming with a fresh piece of writing. These massive and moveable artworks were illustrated proof that yet another beautiful art form, like jazz or the Charleston, had been birthed out of the brutality of the hood.

Ernie Paniccioli and Eyejammie's Bill Adler

Although these works were immediately celebrated by enthusiasts of the graff genre as genius, many New Yorkers were less than enthusiastic. Irate parents, cops, and the court jesters running city hall were in agreement that these rebel writers were simply criminals destroying property. Of course, within the tribal universe of graff crews, writing was like breathing, and as long as there was a steady flow of paint -- sunset orange, jungle green, empire blue -- the world was a perfect place.

With names like Lee and Dondi, Vulcan and Blade, many of these talented kids were unhindered by the codes of surrealism, futurism or post-modernism. Yet whatever they lacked in formal education and museum visits, they made up with an overflow of vivid ideas, crazy styles, boundless energy, and badass swagger. In any case, if comic books had been a respectable influence for Warhol and Lichtenstein in the Sixties, they were certainly good enough for the graff kids a decade later. By the early Eighties, when a new generation of art world stars emerged -- including such new-jack painters as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Gary Panter and Kenny Scharf – it was clear that they were equally influenced by Warhol and the first great graff writers.

Ernie Paniccioli was recently discharged from his service in the Vietnam War and nearly thirty years old when he peeped his first graff crew chilling at the infamous Writer’s Bench in the subway station at 149th and the Grand Concourse. "What blew me away about these kids was how true their work was," Paniccioli says. "Looking at one piece, I could pick up on their magic, pain, anger, frustration and fear. I was also deeply impressed by their commitment. They risked being bitten by transit dogs, electrocuted on the third rail, and beaten-up by rival crews. They gambled everything just to do their art."

Of course, for many of the wild boys sneaking into the treacherous train yards at night, graff seemed like the only way of announcing their presence to an indifferent planet. "These kids kids barely existed for most of society," Ernie notes. "Unless it was thugs in handcuffs on the six o’clock news or a PBS special about the failing school system, no one paid them any attention. Graffiti was a way for them to scream. With graffiti, they were somebody."

Like his graffiti-snapping peers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, Paniccioli was one of the very few photographers allowed into the inner sanctums of these subterranean style warriors. Laughing, Ernie recalls, "When I first started hanging around, a few of the kids thought I was a cop, so they would run away. After a while we got to know each other, and they trusted me enough to tell me where they would be bombing. Believe me, I took it as a great honor that these guys invited me into their world."

Photographers Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, Ernie Paniccioli and director Charlie Ahearn

In 2004 New York City is a completely different kind of metropolis. The trains have changed, hip-hop has become a multimillion dollar business, Times Square has been redesigned as a theme park, and the once dangerous and decadent spirit that hovered over the concrete jungle, influencing a wide range of innovators, has seemingly disappeared.

Yet, while the furor for writing might not be as intense as it once was, there are new graff kids on the block trying to keep hope alive. These days Ernie Paniccioli can still be seen shooting pictures on the streets of the city...any city. Be it New York or Sao Paulo, Brazil (where, in February of this year, several of this show's images were shot), the brother is still doing it.

His work is important not only for its own sake, but because it preserves the work of the graff crews. "No matter how long they planned and worked on their pieces, the writers were well aware that the next day it might be scrubbed away," says Ernie. Indeed, as homegirl Susan Sontag has scribbled in another context, Ernie's work confers "kind of immortality" upon these transient masterpieces.

(Pictured below: Postcard for "Urban Blight". Mural by Team, 1985. Photo by Ernie Paniccioli.)

Coon Bidness

2010-09-30T15:32:00.010-04:00

Cover Image: 'GOLDLICKS (Wangechi Mutu)" By Marilyn Minter

"Is this a magazine CRITICAL of coonery, or is this some sort of avant-garde attempt at irony?" my friend Marcus asked when I told him about the new literary journal Coon Bidness. Indeed, twelve months ago when I received an invitation to contribute, I also had a problem with the name. On the otherhand, my Public Enemy loving-Black power spouting homegirl from Long Island thought it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. Yet, with editors Greg Tate and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs overseeing the project, I was certain that Coon Bidness would be like nothing we had ever seen before.

Although I've yet to see the final version of the "debutt issue," what I have seen is simply amazing. Overflowing with art, fiction, poetry and essays, contributors include Wangechi Mutu, Miles Marshall Lewis, Jessica Care Moore, Minister Faust, Iona Rozeal Brown, Siddhartha Mitter, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Laina Dawes, Arthur Jafa, Earl Douglass and many others. My own Black rock inspired short story "Daddy Gone Blues" (shout out to Stephanie McKay, Joi and Honeychild Coleman) also made the final cut.

While I had planned on writing a blog essay about this exciting new magazine, invoking everything from Zip Coon to Stepin' Fetchit to how much Spike Lee's preachy Bamboozled got on my nerves, I decided to let Coon curators Diggs and Tate speak for themselves. This interview was conducted via email...

1. There are a few people who find the title Coon Bidness offensive. What is the meaning behind it?

Greg Tate

Greg Tate: Coon Bidness (CB) is in the fine colored tradition of reversing racialized polarities, negatives to positives. Many in our vicious circle actually find the name quite delightful. Funny thing is, only Black Americans feel like they can say it out loud without risking a beatdown or being exposed as a closet racist.

But, CB was a well considered if knee-jerk artistic and political choice: LaTasha and I got disgusted over some younguns we know bickerin online about literary journals that published scant few-a-you people of de Negro persuasion. I went ballistic. I told Tasha, 'Man that's some coon bidness there; especially 160 years since self determined folk like Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany and David Walker were self-publishing anti-slavery when Dixie was king and a nickel could get shot just for showing off they literacy.’ Plus, we couldn't call it Emerge, Upscale, Black Enterprise or Black Tail; all the other good Black Progressive names were taken.

CB is also our quiet homage to the late great jazz musician and conceptual dramatist, Julius Hemphill. He released a quite crackling avant-garde album by that name in the 70s. Whatever respectability CB has we've completely borrowed from the very refined and adventurous Mr. Hemphill.

However, CB is also our oblique response to the Obama era. Thanx to Brother President, his gorgeous sensuous ebony Glamazon of a wife Michelle, and those precious kids, Blackfolk have never moved about this land feeling so proud and respectable.

LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs: We did have a conversation about the name of this baby and came to an agreement that one, this was going to show out some folks while others would take the chance and support us with their work. I had folks – good friends – scold me about the name. They felt we (I in particular) was marginalizing/sabotaging myself especially since I am the youngster in this endeavor; that I do not have much suction anywhere and perhaps less resources that entities--be they those in some academic/publishing/programming power--don't know who I am or choose not to know who I am. I am, to a certain degree, taking the greater risk. They hated it. Some choose their petitions to be silent: politely so. Some just told me, ‘Hey I
just don't see myself being associated with some thing called this.’ They did not get it nor did they want to engage.

With that said, it highlighted an argument that is spoken in public when it comes down to our positions as writers of a browner hue. There is a presumed limitations of publications that exists and a an outer worldly desire desire to be accepted by the very publications that have denied us moderate access. That with this desire, we often rather complain and petition these very publications than create something new. The tradition of magazines, journals and chapbook series has always included one or several voices that decided they wanted to establish something ELSE and in doing so, they created yet another platform to feature WHAT they believe in.

With the rise of African-American writers coming out of MFA programs, there seems to be a lapse in realizing and remembering just how much power they have. I remember a talk Al Young gave to a workshop some years ago about opening oneself to the types of publications you least expect publish creative works.

Also, during the summer of 2009, I began researching the works of Al Young and Ishmael Reed.

books by Al Young

In my research, their history on do-it- yourself (DIY) really jarred me in a positive way. Regardless of what one may assume of their work, they highlighted to me a somewhat forgotten history of DIY publications occurring in their prime. Jayne Cortez is in my opinion, the very person I look to as an inspiration for DIY. She doesn't wait on jack.We have much to learn from her consistency in this matter.

If we turn to 2010, DIY still exists, often manifested in form of the urban novel, the chapbook created by the hottest slam poet, the young spoken word artist who had made a name on the college chitterlin circuit. Vanity publishing has for a moment, resided in the funny place. We celebrate those who can do it and yet, it can be looked down upon. There is an insistence that we can’t do for self without a major publishing house backing us up. And then every couple of months, the New York Times does a story on the cat who sells 10,000 copies of his joint on the subways.

I understand the politics of the game and what that/this means and where it /he/she/they can take. Greg nor I, are not particularly set of following that jive. Perhaps I should. You tell me. Would we be talking about CB had I? We are also giving a big "wake the fuck up bitches" to those who've forgot.

2. How would you define the Coon Bidness aesthetic?

GT: Highbrow but raunchy. Classy but nasty. Charming but racy. Vulgar but impeccable. Tart but smart. Radical but tactical. Militant but pretty like a mutha. We're calling our debutt (sic) 'The Critical Ass Issue' for some profoundly funkybutt reasons. All comedians and shake-dancers know The Ass has quite a mouth on it, a deeply probing intellect, and quite a raffish, roguish style in dress all it's own.

LD: About this particular issue: Ass of all equations. Assed Out. Showing One's Ass. Hot Ass. Prophetic Ass.

Ass Backwards. Sweet Ass. Lack of Ass. Linguistic Ass. About CB in general: Genuine. Intellectual. Young. Flexible. Political. Intimidating. Silent like a samurai.

3. How is Coon Bidness different from other literary magazines?

GT: Besides the obvious, as in being ill enough to BE a literary journal called 'Coon Bidness.' But, just know that when you compare CB to other journals, all I think of is Muhammad Ali. Like The Champ, CB is, ‘the loneliest of boxing’s poet laureates.’ CB is too pretty, too fast, too smart for those other rags to fight. Why, just last week CB, murdered a rock, injured a stone and hospitalized a brick.

LD: I don't if it's better than any at present. I don't know if it's a hot mess. All I can say is that CB may be considered an underdog. CB also scared the chitterlins out of a cab driver last week. When CB is mad, you really should take heed.

4. What were some of the joys and pains putting together the debut issue?

GT: First joy was realizing who among our contacts was too hoity-toity, too chickenchit or just too bored with us to bother consorting with some foolishness called Coon Bidness. Dem kinda proper folk sent us NO work, even after kindly repeated requests. Second joy was the high-cotton caliber of work we did receive from poets, writers and artists, some very well known, some all but unknown. Everybody brought their triple A game, some even brung their triple XXX game. Everybody brought the ruckus--The Bidness, as it were.

Third joy was that some of the best and brightest work in the mag came from writers neither LaTasha nor I had even heard of before we began stockpiling literary weapons. Fourth joy is how pretty our triple-fab designer LaRonda Davis is making CB look. LaRonda got style and she versatile.

Our biggest pain has been proofreading 123 pages of Certifiable Black Genius. Fortunately, our Research Queen/Copy Czar Sun Singleton is crawled up that 'Critical Ass' crack with a blowtorch, some pliers, and an optical speculum, all to insure we don't make a sloppy, medieval strobe-light ass of ourselves once the mag sees the light of day.

LD: We fought. I think we fought because of many of things Greg has already pointed out when we first sent the word out. NO ONE RESPONDED. It was deep. It was painful. It was a WOW moment. And yes, some folks we personally sought sent nothing. Now the reasons for why they don’t know, but it did cause some frustration. So yeah, it hurt my feelings, it hurt Greg’s: not at much to give it up.

When the submissions did start coming, CB began to look serious. We received a range of materials. In any case, we got enough to go blind over and whittle down to 123 pages. We changed the cover art several times because the women artists featured were throwing so many gems at us.

5. From Wallace Thurman's 1926 periodical Fire!! to the more recent Miles Marshall Lewis edited Bronx Biannual, black literary magazines don't seem to last long. How do you hope Coon Bidness will change that cycle?

GT: Ha--one never knows do one? We could be a one-off too. Of course titles do fade and get revived all the time in the publishing world, so maybe all those you mentioned above are merely in limbo, incubating until the Fire Next Time or til the hiphop nation comes back. For the record though, we've already begun working on the sequel ‘Advanced Ebonics.’ Keeping vernacular hope alive since Toussaint wrote the Art of War in kreyol. Nuff said and It's clobberin' time.

LD: Who really knows?. I’m enjoying the frustration and discovery of this endeavor and it’s going to go wherever it decides. We do have some pieces that did not make it to first one up in the second. However, as Greg knows already, I do not want give to this project a deadline or an ultimatum. I like to marinate. Let it be like Nathaniel Mackey’s Hambone and come out whenever we decide or let it be that one issue that set out to fuck with folks. We’ve achieved what we wanted to do.

Coon Bizness will be released on October 14th

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=646067716#!/pages/Coon-Bidness-Magazine/155793724450579?ref=mf

Love, BW...

2010-08-02T16:54:00.011-04:00

Illustration (c) 2010, John Breiner

In the early 1990s, I was a struggling urban pop writer who had fallen into writing about hip-hop culture (meaning, mostly rap music) for various publications. Having already co-authored the rap book Bring the Noise in 1991 with my brother from another Havelock Nelson, I'd talked my way into The Source magazine, which had recently opened their New York office. A piece on Poor Righteous Teachers was my first story for them.

While I obviously loved rap music, unlike some of the folks I worked with, I was seasoned enough to remember the so-called old school of soul: of Larry Graham plucking his bass, of Earth, Wind & Fire tearing up the place and Gladys Knight riding the midnight train with Chaka Khan. While I dug the production prowess of Prince Paul, Marley Marl and Sam Sever, my REAL heroes were Gamble & Huff, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye.

"Before they were samples, they were songs," I snidely told one young writer who asked me if I had ever heard of Mandrill. Yet, with exception of a few small newspapers, fanzines and Ebony or Essence, there wasn't any magazines that featured in-depth features on soul/R&B artists until Vibe opened their doors in 1993.

In the beginning, The Source and Vibe reminded the geek in me of the days when comic book fan boys fought about who was better, DC or Marvel. One day I'd love to tell my own version of life behind the scenes at those magazines including their "friendly" rivalry, the bugged behavior of certain writers/editors and the beautiful hustle of working as a team to put out the best products possible. Alas, this is not that story.

However, while I was writing cover stories for The Source, the first being a blunted feature on Cypress Hill shot by photographer extraordinaire Danny Hastings, it was a year before I got a feature assignment at Vibe that was bigger than a record review or 500 words on Black Sheep or Pete Rock and CL Smooth.

"Do you want to go to Europe to interview Barry White?" former Vibe music editor Danyel Smith asked one afternoon in the fall of 1994. Staring with disbelief for a minute, I shook my head and smiled. Besides being a good friend at the time, Danyel had a knack for pairing writers with stories she knew they could set aflame. For me, that story was the 1994 comeback of the walrus of love. While I later learned that I had gotten the assignment because writer Gerri Hirshey, whose book Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music is one of my Black pop bibles, had turned it down, I was determined to pen a piece worthy of B.W.

In 1994, it was as rare (as in never!) for an old "disco" artist to make a real comeback that didn't offer some kind of kitsch appeal, but Barry was different. With "Practice What You Preach" (co-written by the late Gerald Levert) riding high in the charts, White proved that he was true to himself and his fans that he was still the man. As a kid, I could remember seeing big boned Barry on various talk shows looking regal; as an adult, I had danced many nights away (including on memorable martini fueled party at surreal Max Ernst's east village abode) to Barry's beat.

Coming home one night as my late girlfriend Lesley Pitts was cooking in the kitchen while grooving to the man's greatest hits collection, for some reason I wanted to change the music. "What do you want to hear?" she asked.

"I don't know. How about some Led Zeppelin?"

"Well," Lesley said, turning away from the stove, "do you want the food to taste like Led Zeppelin or do you want it to taste like Barry White."

The day that I arrived at the five-star Stanhope Hotel in Brussels, I walked through a conference room where a bunch of kids were dressed like various Disney characters. Looking at me as I passed through on the way to my room, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs started screaming, "Barry White, Barry White." Quickly, I explained that I was the other fat Black man staying there. Later that night, I was looking out the window when some Arab dude on the street screamed up, "Is Barry White staying there?"

"I don't know," I answered. Looking sad, he said, "I've lost my job. I've lost my wife. All I want to do is see Barry White." While I couldn't help the brother, I was blessed to be able to spend hours with B.W as well as going to two shows and interviewing his musical director Jack Perry and then-manager Ned Shankman. Barry and his camp made my extremely nervous self quite comfortable. I even broke one of my rules and asked B.W. for two autographs: one for mommy and the other for myself.

Although Blackberry Jam (hey, I didn't write the titles) was the best piece I could have written at the time, discovering the transcripts more than a decade later, I realized there was another story that needed to be told, one that placed Barry White in the context of famed California music producers Phil Spector, Sly Stone, Brian Wilson, Quincy Jones, Lou Adler and others. After reading British rock historian Barney Hoskyns' seminal book Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes and the Sound of Los Angeles, I knew I wanted to re-examine and re-define White's musical influence (walls of soul, dancing strings) beyond the obvious.

Thankfully, one of my favorite magazines Wax Poetics, under the editorships of Andre Torres and Brian DiGenti, gave me the opportunity to "dig deeper" into the musical history of the man famed music critic Lester Bangs once described as a "molasses-voiced monument." In issue #42, which also features pieces on Gil Scott Heron, Erykah Badu, Joi and D'Angelo (more on that story later) my 5,000 word mini-movie on Barry White is the current cover story.

Although known for my modesty (really, I am) Big Love is one of the best pieces I've ever written; my only hope is that it not only entertains, but also educates a generation of soul children who might not be aware of "the maestro's" extensive history from Watts gang member to burly doo-wop singer to on the road drummer to musical icon.

http://www.waxpoetics.com/2010/07/wax-poetics-issue-42

As a side bar, I'd like to give a shout-out to Brooklyn-based artist John Breiner for allowing me to use his beautiful illustration of Barry White for this blog. Having met him a few years back, I've been a fan of his work since day one. Although it is my plan to write about the man and his stunning work, as well as hopefully collaborate on a story or two, for now please check out his website and blog; the dude is amazing.

http://www.johnbreiner.com

http://johnbreiner.blogspot.com

Right On! Prince

2010-06-07T12:53:00.001-04:00

Birthdays were made for reminiscing, and the 52nd anniversary of Prince’s arrival on planet earth has got me strolling down the Blackadelic Pop Memory Lane. In the years before the internet was able to microwave instant celebrities daily, and glossy magazines like VIBE examined Black pop in a more adult fashion, the only solace for kids who wanted to know more about their music idols were the teen magazines.

Yet, while much has been written about the now-defunct 16 magazine and its maverick editor Gloria Stavers, who Bruce Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh claims, “basically invented rock and pop culture journalism as we know it today,” not much has been done to document the sepia-toned Right On! magazine and its underrated journalist/editor Cynthia Horner.

While many mainstream pop journalists, as well as urban writers at VIBE, XXL and The Source often poke fun at fanzine writers as well as the magazines themselves, there is no denying Cynthia Horner’s contributions to the canon of Black pop journalism.

Indeed, in the years before BET/VH1 reality shows introduced us to crackhead mothers and dysfunctional family drama, the “cozy ghetto exclusivity of the black teen slicks,” as cultural critic Carol Cooper once described them, was all we had.

As a child of the ’70s, I started buying the magazine for its many features on the Jackson 5, which showed the fans behind-the-scenes shots of the brothers lounging at home or standing beside Bill Cosby on the set of their latest television special. However, as the Jackson boys got older and their popularity began to wane, Right On! began focusing on other artists to fill its pages including the Sylvers, Switch, and Prince.

While I credit my cousin Marie for turning me on to the little man from Minneapolis in 1979 when she played me the bugged track “Bambi” from Prince’s self-titled second album, it was Cynthia Horner’s early interviews and exclusive photo shoots that fueled my Black pop culture curiosity.

For the rest of this story, go to:
http://www.soulsummer.com/princes-pop-life/all/1

The Birdman of Harlem @ A Twist of Noir

2010-05-26T17:43:00.001-04:00

Of course, like Big Daddy the number banker used to say, “Prayers in the ghetto are like watercolors in the rain. If God moves in mysterious ways, then the Devil his own plans.”

Maybe if Candi had thought clearly, she never would have messed with Big Daddy. Hell, everybody in Harlem knew that his woman, the infamous Sheila Mae (breasts the size of overstuffed pillows, legs thick as tree trunks), was no joke. A colossal country chick who prided herself on hellraising and slicing the competition with the garlic-soaked straight razor, which she kept tucked in her cleavage.

Still, most of the broads who hung at the Oasis had cocaine for brains and stiff drinks for courage. As my own mother, who had worked at the ’O since I was a baby, told me after Miss Candi’s accident, “That poor woman was blinded by the cash, the flash and that big-ass Caddie.”

For the rest of this story, go to:

http://a-twist-of-noir.blogspot.com/2010/05/twist-of-noir-469-michael-gonzales.html

Such Sweet Thunder

2010-05-24T00:03:00.011-04:00

Indroduction:

Under fiction editor SekouWrites, "Such Sweet Thunder" was first published in 2005 in Uptown magazine. This story, about gentrification in Harlem and the plight of small business owners, came to me one night while walking to the A train from the Studio Museum. As a Harlemnite who still visits my old block as well as my mom's former beautician Jackie (I spent so much time in that shop, Jackie's like an aunt to me) and my late stepfather's apartment building, it was shocking to see much the neighborhood had changed.

The real Shalimar barbershop, not to be confused with the fictional account below, used to be downstairs from daddy's apartment on 7th Avenue and 123rd Street. The last time I checked, about six months ago, the storefront was boarded up. Owned by the late Luther "Red" Randolph, it was also where daddy worked for years. This being the '60s, when men were into heavy duty marcelling, my mom has horror stories of how raw daddy's hands would be from conking hair all day.

In addition to my own Harlem nostalgia, I've always loved hanging out in barber shops, listening to men philosophize about everything from politics to women to who is the best MC. Recently I explained to a friend how, for me, barber shops were therapeutic; to this day, the buzz of clippers have a way of lulling me to that perfect place.

Last, but not least, I'd like to give a big shout out to my homie Duke Ellington, whose music, style and innovation has been a constant inspiration since I first heard "In a Sentimental Mood" when I was six. Presently, I'm trying to think of a good story so I can swap the title "Money Jungle."

Barber Shop by Jacob Lawerence
Such Sweet Thunder
by Michael A. Gonzales

Pops from the barbershop knew the end of an era had arrived the moment he heard those dreadful diesels slithering down 7th Avenue. Lighting his first Marlboro that chilly April morning, his usually steady fingers trembled. Exhaling a whiff of smoke through thin lips, he sullenly glared out of the Shalimar’s dusty plate-glass window on its final day of business.

Two dirty fans swiftly whirled overhead, and the sweet scent of sizzling bacon drifted from Sara’s Luncheonette next door. Dressed in his usual uniform of a starched white shirt and black tie partially covered by a freshly laundered blue barber smock, Pops cracked his stiff neck.

In all of Pops’ years of looking out of that window, he had witnessed many neighborhood transformations: from ranting revolutionaries roaring about Malcolm X to soapbox preachers screaming about the souls of sinners; from nodding heroin junkies, their bugged eyes transfixed on the ground, to the panicky behavior of crack heads; from pretty little girls with Shirley Temple curls who would soon be mamas themselves to hard rock bad boys who grew up to be either pimps, punks or proper men.

A year ago, the neighborhood folks noticed a crew of white interlopers wearing yellow hard hats and carrying clipboards. The surveyors performed their jobs smugly, silently. Pointing at the storefronts, the men studied blueprints and jotted jumbled notes with sharpened pencils. With colored chalk, they scribbled peculiar symbols on the soiled sidewalks.

A few months later, much too their disdainful surprise, every merchant on the block received a formal letter from a newly formed city agency. Printed on raised lettered stationery, the memo informed the six store owners of plans to convert their aged shops into a sprawling shopping complex and luxury high-rises. In other words, as of April 29, 1999, Freddy’s Newsstand, Sara’s Luncheonette, Chino’s Sneakers, Fleishman’s Liquors, Vanessa’s number spot and the Shalimar Barbershop were to be closed forever.

Although Pops had lived in Harlem since he was twelve, one could still hear his Jamaican accent when he was angry. “God forbid we should try to take over one of their neighborhoods,” Pops protested the morning the official-looking letter arrived. “How many black boys done been beat down just walking through parts of Brooklyn or Staten Island? Harlem is my home. How they just gonna chase me out my home?”

As far as Pops could remember, he hadn’t been this vexed since M.L.K. had taken a bullet a year before the Shalimar opened. “At least then black folks were angry enough to riot,” he ranted. “These days we just take whatever slop we’re served.”

Black exhaust swirled from the hulking fleet of seven demolition vehicles skulking down the boulevard. Under an overcast sky the creeping convoy resembled a gloomy funeral procession. After months about anxious speculation of what would become of his friends and neighbors, the beast now roared outside their door.

The clamorous commotion of the Mack trucks caused the entire block to rumble. A few doors down, a demolition crew stridently demolished the two abandoned buildings on the corner. As ancient bricks crashed to the asphalt, Pops spotted a scraggly rat scurry beneath an emerald-hued El Dorado.

“Thirty years building a business and for what?” he huffed, extinguishing his cigarette. “Just to be kicked aside like trash in the name of progress.”

Pops slammed down his coffee mug on the stained Formica cabinet cluttered with sharpened scissors, sterile clippers, and plastic combs; on a shelf inside the cabinet was a white box overflowing with the multicolored candies he kept for kids. In the corner next to a chrome coat rack, Pops leaned his pure mahogany walking stick with its solid-gold handle. Handcrafted by an African dude down the block, Pops used the stick whenever his right leg cramped from standing too much.

Thirty years before, after Pops had served his adopted country in the Army, he had secured a veteran’s loan to open the Shalimar. The shop’s two other barber chairs were leased to his long time friends, a short spic named Carmelo and a former local soul singer everybody called Smokey.

The Shalimar had a splintered window seat that was stacked with countless magazines while a multihued poster of Muhammad Ali painted by LeRoy Neiman hung on the urine yellow wall next to the green and gold Jamaican flag.
copyright 2010, LeRoy Neiman

Underfoot, the cracked paisley patterned linoleum, with years of loose hairs trapped in its crevices, needed replacing, as did the dark blue hard plastic chairs that the customers used. While Carmelo and Smokey decorated their space between the mirrors with Jet magazine centerfolds, Pops had taped a radiant picture of his late wife Beverly to his section of the wall.

***
Opening the front door, a plump horsefly buzzed inside the barbershop and landed on the sugary rim of Pops’ coffee mug. He stepped onto the soiled sidewalk shaking his gray haired head in disbelief as a crazy lady with dirty fingernails fed the foul pigeons stale bread; she cooed along with the birds as though they shared a secret language.

“Her comes our new renaissance,” Freddy barked from his newsstand shed.

“This tearing down shit isn’t a renaissance,” Pops replied. He winced when a sharp pain shot up his leg. “More like a plague if you ask me. You seen how many rats been on this street since they started ripping down that building on the corner the other day?”

Surrounded by pulpy tabloids and slick magazines, Freddy stuck his bald dome out of the weather beaten stall. An unlit cigar dangled from his juicy lips. “Had to chase one out of my box this morning. Scared the hell out of me.” Looking closely at Pops, a concerned Freddy asked,

“How you holding up?”

“What can I say,” Pops’ said. “No matter how I feel it’s not gonna change nothing. Nothing at all.”

Violently coughing, Freddy spat into the dirty street. “Harlem is just another Plymouth Rock for these folks. Now I know how the damn Indians felt.”

Heartily, Pops laughed. “You ain’t said nothing slick to a can of oil, Freddy. Nothing at all. He strolled over to the newsstand and picked up a Daily News. Dropping two shiny quarters into Freddy’s tarnished tin tray, Pops strolled back inside.

Switching on the radio, Pops stopped turning the dial when he heard Duke Ellington’s melancholy music. “And that was ‘Star Crossed Lovers’, playing on the maestro’s 100th birthday,” the smoky voiced disc jockey said. “Next up comes Duke’s celestial ‘Come Sunday,’ featuring Mahalia Jackson.”

Still feeling an ache in his leg, Pop glanced at the walking stick. Carefully, he lowered the barber chair and plopped in the black leather seat. Opening his newspaper, he silently waited for the end to begin.

At dusk thunderclouds still hovered in the sky, but rain had yet to fall. Glancing at his tired face in the mirror, Pops touched his wrinkled forehead; a feverish heat rose beneath his fingers.
Like brown sugar, the babel of the barbershop bubbled: in the corner a rowdy quartet of regular hangout cats played a never ending game of spades. Turning up the radio a little bit, burly Smokey quietly hummed along to “Take the A Train” while sweeping hair from the floor.

“This gentrification jazz ain’t got a damn thing to do with race,” Carmelo proclaimed, his spic accent thick as stew. He was a short Rican, standing about five foot six in his colorful gators and black dress slacks. Sipping from a chilled bottle of Heineken as he cut a customer’s frizzy ‘fro. “This jazz is all about class.”

“Class?” Smokey replied. With his jungle of jeri curls, black velour sweatsuit, and thick gold chain, he looked like a broke down Barry White. “What a mida mida like you know about class.” Although they had been homeboys for years, Carmelo and Smokey loved to verbally spar.

“All I know is you’re like an old school house,” Carmelo said. “No class and no principals.” With the exception of Pops, the entire shop roared with laughter.

Pops opened the door and waited for a cool breeze to caress his warm face. Like floating quicksand, a murky mixture of dust and fumes hung in the air. Choking on the stale air, Pops felt a sudden tightness in his chest.

Taking a deep breath, the roar of the city sounded like a raucous big band grating on his nerves. Closing his eyes, Pops listened to the wail of the jittery jackhammers, the clank of cement mixers, the boom of bellowing voices. and the roar of restless machines.

“You all right over there, Pops,” Smokey asked. “You want some water or something?”

“I’ll be all right, just give me a minute. I need to get some air.” Reaching down, Pops shoved a plastic jam beneath the chrome-and-glass door.

“No disrespect, Pops,” Lester, one of the dudes playing cards in the back, said. At twenty-three, he was the youngest member of the barbershop crew. “But maybe you should look at this as a kind of blessing. Take some of that loot you done squirreled away and hop a flight to Miami Beach. Find yourself a big booty Cuban girl who keep you company.”

After Lester slapped five with his card playing cronies, Smokey barked, “Don’t go there, youngblood. Pops might not play the dozens, but I can get down.”

“I’m not trying to battle you, Smoke, I’m just sayin’...the ways of white folks is as old as the slave ships,” Lester snapped. “But, when the white man gets enough dough he spreads his wings and flies south. Chill in some condo, listen to Billie Holiday, sip some lemonade. Hell, who cares if they tear down every block in Harlem.”

Pops glared at Lester as through youngblood had just spat in his face.

“I care,” Pops hissed, his accent thick as fog.

“No disrespect Pops, but…”

“What do you know about Harlem anyway, boy?” Pops interrupted.

“What do you know about being a stranger in this city and making it home? What you know about Billy Eckstine crooning on stage at The Apollo on Saturday evening, drinking at Sugar Ray's that night or hearing Adam Clayton Powell Jr preaching at Abyssinian on Sunday morning? What you know about Bumpy Johnson or James Baldwin or Sammy Davis Jr. getting his hair clipped in my chair? Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m ready to lounge on the beach waiting for death.”
“Chill Pops,” Lester said, smiling uncomfortably. “Ain’t nobody say nothing ‘bout dying. I’m just saying...you don’t have to work forever.”

“There’s nothing wrong with working,” Pops hissed. “It’s what men do.” A frigid wind blew through the open door; for a frozen minute, Pops’ words hung in the air. On the radio, the jazz jock cued-up Ellington’s “Such Sweet Thunder.”

Pops caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. Glaring at his gray hair and wrinkled forehead, Pops wondered when he’d gotten so old. His flustered gaze fell to the floor the very moment a swollen sewer rat scampered through the open door.

“Jesus Christ!” Smokey screamed, dropping the broom.

Startled, the wide-eyed men stood up from their chairs as the long-tailed rat crashed into an overflowing wastebasket. Cigarette butts, used tissue, and various textures of hair tumbled to the floor. Pops stared at the repulsive rat scurrying across the soiled linoleum and slammed the front door. For a moment, the Shalimar was frozen in time.

Stiffly, Pops walked over to the corner and picked up the walking stick. In his fragile hands, the shellacked smoothness of the heavy mahogany contained the strength of a thousand tribes that once roamed the fertile motherlands of Ghana and Kenya and the Ivory Coast. In Pops’ perspiring hands, he felt the sweat of the mud colored men who had cultivated their kingdoms with callused fingers, sweaty brows and bloody feet, only to be eradicated by pale faces with loud machines.

Pops listened to the lush jazz streaming from the speakers, his tired eyes fixed on the vile vermin. He imagined himself as a swaggering young man coming of age in Harlem. Pops struggled to remember the first time he saw a buxom Beverly sitting on the stoop of her building. He pictured them, stylish young lovers in the summer of ‘65, sauntering through Sugar Hill.

A black prince on those once-vibrant streets, Pops walked the boulevards with an arrogance that everything he cherished in this world would last forever.

“Damn you,” Pops mumbled. “Damn you.” Outside, thunder crashed in the gloomy sky.

Afraid and confused, the rat stood on its hind legs and prepared to strike. Yet before it could leap, Pop savagely swung the walking stick and smashed the rodent’s skull. Blood and brains stained the yellow wall.

As he stared at the slaughtered rodent, Pops leg buckled and he collapsed to the cold floor. For the first time since the death of his beloved wife, tears fell from his eyes like rain.

Story copyright (c) 2010, Michael A. Gonzales
Images copyright (c) 2010 by respective creators

Cinematic Soul: The Soundtracks of Quincy Jones

2010-05-14T07:29:00.007-04:00

Premiering in 1972, Sanford and Son was an every Friday night at eight o'clock event in my Harlem household. "What channel does it come on again?" my grandmother would ask every week and every week I'd turn the television to channel four and patiently wait for the cool-ass intro music to kick in. While most program themes had lyrics, it was only fitting that a funky show like Sanford had a juke-joint instrumental to introduce this bugged junk man and his son.

Yet, being a nine year old music buff who bought countless 45s from Freddy's Record Shack on Broadway and read religiously the Soul Brothers Top 20 in Jet magazine, I began noticing Quincy Jones' name on several television shows including Ironside and the Bill Cosby Show, which featured the wild out track "Hikky-Burr." Although I had no idea who he was, I knew that he was the man.
To this day, the musical legacy of seventy-seven year old Quincy Delight Jones Jr. looms large over the landscape of popular culture. While our grandparents might remember him as the cool cat who once swung with Sinatra and Count Basie (released in 1964, It Might as Well Be Swing is a champagne music classic), most eighties babies will forever associate him with the post-disco blare of Michael Jackson’s mega-monster Thriller in 1982.

Yet, that collaboration might never have happened if the two had not originally worked together on the soundtrack for The Wiz, the wretched 1978 remake of The Wizard of Oz. Directed by the king of New York City cinema Sidney Lumet, who once described the film as urban fantasy (a genre his considerable talents were ill suited for after the brilliant social realism of Serpico, Network and Dog Day Afternoon) the picture, was a visual failure.

Though the much-maligned movie was almost made without Quincy’s help, who explained bluntly in his 2001 autobiography Q, “I just wasn’t feeling the songs,” he still stepped up to the plate. “I did it because Sidney Lumet, who had given me my first U.S. film-scoring break on The Pawnbroker, plus five more films, asked me to do it. I felt like I owed him more than one; I owed him a lot.”
Like a post-bop Martin Luther King with a conductor’s baton and complex arrangements, Quincy Jones was a pioneer who helped pave the way for other Negro musicians in that so-called Tinseltown. “Film has never been a Black friendly industry,” says director Nelson George, whose first feature Life Support was produced for HBO. “But, Quincy fought and charmed his way through to become Hollywood royalty.”

Though he would go on to create other great scores like In Cold Blood (his first Academy Award nomination) and In the Heat of the Night, it was The Pawnbroker that made it all possible.” Although Duke Ellington had contributed the soaring soundtrack to Otto Preminger's 1959 film, Anatomy of a Murder, helping to define the jazz-influenced film music in same way as Henry Mancini and Elmer Bernstein, it took still took Quincy to take the art form to the next level.

Beginning his professional career as a be-bop trumpet player in 1947, Quincy had worked with Ray Charles, got scammed by Charlie Parker and opened for Nat King Cole in Europe. Later, as vice-president of A&R at Mercury Records, he signed Lesley (“It’s My Party”) Gore. However, once given the chance he never looked back. As critic Philip Brophy wrote in a 1997 Wire magazine article, Jones became “a key-yet ignored-figure in wrenching the film score from its Wagnerian cave and slamming it down in the midst of cross-town traffic.”

The Pawnbroker was recorded in 1964 at A&R Studios in Manhattan over the period of two days. Quincy’s old roommate, friend, engineer and studio owner Phil Ramone (who later produced classic sides for Billy Joel and Paul Simon) remembers those sessions well. “Quincy stayed up days and nights for weeks writing those songs,” says Ramone via telephone.“Things were just magical. Man, that studio was so small we used to call in our basement in the sky. Q’s superstar buddies would come in to play two solos and be out. We had guys piled up in the hallway, while others would be in Jim and Andy’s, the bar downstairs; I had an intercom hooked-up, and I would call down whenever I needed somebody.”

Two years earlier, Jones and Ramone recorded the whimsical “Soul Bossa Nova” in the same studio. Popularly known today as the “Theme to Austin Powers,” which featured a Roland Kirk flute solo, it was obvious that everybody loved working with Q. Lalo Schifrin, who would later compose the famed Mission Impossible theme, played piano on that session.

“It was like a juke joint up 112 West 48th, but it was home to him,” Phil Ramone remembers. “Nobody ever said no to Quincy; if he called, you were there.” With a Who’s Who of cool cats that Pawnbroker director Sidney Lumet likened to “Esquire’s All-Star Jazz Band,” the line-up included Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones on drums, John Faddis on trumpet, George Duvivier on bass and countless others.

“The main titles use of vibes, celeste harpsichord and harp tantalizingly cast semi-jazz clusters against a monophonic semi-blues line played by thickened strings,” critic Philip Brophy observes. “It’s like hearing Ellington and George Gershwin simultaneously. It’s black and it’s jazz and all the space between.”

Despite the fact that Lumet had first approached John Cage and Gil Evans, he was more than pleased with Quincy’s efforts, which Jazz Improv magazine described as “a lush, string-laden mood pieces, interspersed with frantic jazz vamps.” In addition, Lumet was also impressed that Q. had studied under famed French composer and music educator Nadia Boulanger—who had also taught Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and Burt Bacharach.

“She used to tell me back in France—and it took me years to accept it—that you only have real freedom when you set boundaries and parameters,” Quincy wrote in his bio. “When you have total freedom, you automatically create chaos. As a jazz artist, this was hard to swallow until I had to score films on a deadline.”

Author Todd Boyd, who penned The Notorious Phd's Guide to the Super Fly '70s: A Connoisseur's Journey Through the Fabulous Flix, Hip Sounds, and Cool Vibes That Defined a Decade (Harlem Moon, 2007), also cites The Pawnbroker soundtrack as a personal favorite. “People sleep on that movie. To me, Quincy’s music went straight into the psyche of the main character played by Rod Steiger, who is a Holocaust victim who owns a pawnshop in Harlem. You can hear the depth of his paranoia in Quincy’s music. We can also hear that in the score he did a few years later for In the Heat of the Night.”
Forty years after its release, new jack film composer Scott Bomar still feels the influence of Quincy’s 1967 score for the Sidney Poitier feature directed by Norman Jewison. “That soundtrack heavily influenced the work I did on (director Craig Brewer’s neo-exploitation gem) Black Snake Moan,” says Bomar, who also scored Hustle & Flow for the same director. In 2003 Bomar was musical director for a segment of Martin Scorsese's PBS series The Blues.

“Jones’ mixture of jazz, blues, country and pop was amazing. Quincy not only did the score, he did all the songs you hear on the radio and jukebox; all the music sounds like it comes from that particular world. Quincy also used vocals in a very original way; without a doubt, the Ray Charles sung title track is one of my favorite songs.” In addition to Charles, the Afroed maestro also collaborated with singers Donny Hathaway (Come Back Charleston Blue), Shirley Horn (For Love Of Ivy), Sarah Vaughan (Cactus Flower Theme), Johnny Mathis (Mirage) and Diana Ross (The Wiz).-town traffic.

Still, like Los Angeles based crime writer Gary Phillips and composer David Holmes (Out of Sight), many of Quincy’s fans prefer the Playboy chill of his caper movie scores. Mastermixing the sonic swagger of synthesizers with more traditional instrumentation, the eletro-fusion heard on the groovy The Italian Job (1969), The Anderson Tapes (1971), $ (1971) and The Hot Rock (1972) process a neo-noir delirium that still resonates with movie lovers and hip-hop crate diggers. The track “Snow Creatures” from $ has been sampled by Gang Starr (“Alongwaytogo”) and Common “Tricks Up My Sleeve,” while The Hot Rock theme was lifted by both Jurassic 5 (“Improvise”) and Eminem (“Like Toy Soldiers”). “I like to listening to The Anderson Tapes or The Lost Man (1969) soundtrack when I just driving around,” explains Gary Phillips, whose crime novels include Bangers (2003) and DC Comics/Vertigo graphic novel Cowboys. “There is a great sense of pacing and rhythm in that music that just gets my creative juices flowing. For the crime and mystery stuff that I write, that music just takes me there. Quincy not only reflected the feel of those movies, but those soundtracks also captured the time period perfectly.”

While Quincy Jones has not done a full-length film score since teaming with Steven Spielberg on the majestic 1985 The Color Purple soundtrack (for which he received his eighth Academy Award nomination), his movie music is still as magical as it is distinctive.

“If you are putting together a compilation of great film music from the second half of the 20th century music, there is a good chance you will be using something Jones composed,” says writer/filmmaker David Walker, former publisher of defunct zine BadAzz Mofo. “More than anything else, Quincy Jones brought a sense of soul to film scores.”

Writer's Note: The Anderson Tapes is perhaps one of the best heist films ever made and Jones' soundtrack is the groovy foundation of many scores to come; if you don't believe me, just ask David Holmes.

a different version of this story was first published in Stop Smiling, Issue 32: Hollywood Lost & Found

Boogie Down Inferno (fiction)

2010-05-12T09:43:00.012-04:00

"I keep smelling smoke. I can’t tell whether it’s real or in my imagination.”
from "In the South Bronx of America" by Mel Rosenthal, 2000, Curbstone Press

Introduction: Anybody who lived through New York City's crack-era in the mid-1980s, knows it was a bizarre time. Like living in some kind of alternative universe where seemingly overnight friends, family and familiar strangers were stricken by a plague.

In my Washington Heights neighborhood I remember some drug hawker standing in front of the subway station on 145th and St. Nick trying to sell me something called "crack" in 1985 and six months later my lower-middle class neighborhood suddenly became a haven for spaced-out zombies, random robberies, middle of the day shoot-outs, countless prostitutes and other illicit activity.

Later, it would be revealed that the local police precinct, which would later be known in the press as, "the dirty 30," was taking bribes and wasn't really trying to protect the law-abiding citizens in the first place.This disturbing short story "boogie down inferno" was inspired by my vivid memories of those wild years when uptown was a combination Sodom and Gomorrah meets the wild wild west.

While editing this piece, I listened to Tricky's disturbing Pre-Millennium Tension, whose, "hallucinatory soundscape, where the rhythms, samples, and guitars intertwine into a crawling procession of menacing sounds and disembodied lyrical threats," seemed to be the perfect soundtrack for a tale about my beloved metropolis during those very dark days.

***

an abandoned car was parked in front of the hydrant. fire-truck sirens screamed in the night as raging flames kissed the midnight sky. staring at your former south bronx tenement over on 178th and vyse avenue, neighborhood crack zombies were entranced by the vivid yellow and crimson cinders raining down from the rooftop. “oh shit,” screamed a young black boy cruising the trash strewn street on a stolen five-speed bike.

this block is filled with ghosts, you thought, still buzzed from the cocaine you had been hitting since noon. feeling as though it were on the verge of exploding, your heart was beating a million miles a minute.

“another bronx building burning,” said a weary voiced stranger standing behind you.

looking all official and shit, you were dressed in the same police academy uniform you wore at graduation that same afternoon. assigned to work at the 48th precinct, your brain was buzzed from the the eight ball of devil’s dandruff you scored from some hunts point homie.

“fish scale,” he had assured you, as though it made a difference. all those youngbloods swore they were scarface. fuck the friendly skies, ‘cause you was higher than eddie palmieri hanging at casa amadeo record shop bragging about being the baddest piano player in the barrio. sweat rolled down your face like you had stuck it in a oven or something.

besides yourself, no one watching that building burn knew that there was a dead woman on the top floor lying next to a pissy mattress, her messy haired head cracked like the plaster on an old bedroom ceiling.

chick’s name was lisa hernadez, and once upon a time baby girl had been a great beauty with a big booty and supple breasts. still, that was years before the broad had become a full blown crack ho, wandering the streets of the boogie down looking to make her loot by any means necessary no matter how low down.

back in the day, when both of ya’ll had lived in that red bricked apartment building (her fam lived on the fifth floor, while you were one flight down) you had lusted after sweet lisa since you was teenager who stared at the ceiling while pulling your pecker.

eyes closed, your nasty daydreams were like private porn movies continually running on a loop in your mind. in that home-made triple-xxx flick in your head, you rubbed lisa’s perky nipples through sheer tube-tops, sucked the dirty toes that had been walking the block in red jellies and licked her hairy snatch as she screamed your name.

of course, in the real world, she barely knew that you were alive, so you thought of tonight payback for all those times she had mocked you, laughed in your face and made snide remarks behind your back. “whose laughing now, bitch” you thought to yourself, trying not to laugh aloud.

***
welcome to spic heaven: clearly you remembered the days of growing-up on that broke down block of vacant lots, drunken domino players and one storefront church. despite the sweet salsa songs your mother used to hum in the mornings, you never saw any pretty flowers blooming through the cracked sidewalks. unless, of course, they had mutated into dog shit, broken bottles, trash heaps and empty heroin bags.

back when you were a small school boy with chubby cheeks and sorrowful eyes, your mother was your entire world. every friday evening, after leaving her gig at the martin luther king health center, she stopped-off at the cluttered botanica tu mundo up the street. gently parting the colorful floral curtains in front of your living-room window, you patiently waited for her to sluggishly stroll down the block.

you looked at the shattered souls gathered on the stoop across the street, boisterous boys congregated around a chalk drawn skellzie board; a few feet away from jose’s luncheonette, a couple of strong armed teens dressed in two-tone sweaters and tight black pants played congas while a wino ex-boxer drunkenly danced wildly and sang out of tune.

minutes later you spotted your mommi slowly walking pass dented garbage cans, carrying a heavy shopping bag. it usually took her at ten minutes to tiredly scale the dirty marble stairs to your fourth-floor apartment.

after achingly removing her white nurse shoes, she poured herself a healthy taste of dark rum and flopped on the plastic covered couch. after taking a few gulps, she shared splendid stories about her homeland of puerto rico. with peppermint scented breath, her remembrances of the island were filled with dusty roads and white sand beaches, mystic sunsets and flying cockroaches.

from those tales you conjured images of wide-hipped aunts you had never seen and divine music you had never heard.

“tell me about poppi,” you begged after she had downed a few glasses of the potent rum.

“oh, he was such handsome man with his grey eyes and curly hair,” she swooned. a fisherman, he had drowned seven weeks before you were born. while you secretly hated him for dying, you never tired of your mother’s verbal snap-shots of their short life together: “it was olokun,” she wept, referring the deity of the sea in santeria. with frail fingers she crushed your small head into her full bosom and wept. “olokrun took your poppi away from us.”

in the corner of the white walled living-room, below a cheaply framed picture of j.f.k., mommi had constructed an altar. there was a small color photograph of your father lying atop the red and white satin cloth that covered the altar; there was that plaster statue of st. jude, lit white candles, fresh flowers, an apple, an upside down glass of water supported on a white dish and a jar full of coins. with your father’s spirit and the santeria gods as her constant companions, it was not uncommon for mom dukes to awaken after midnight to pray that he was at peace.

washing-up in lukewarm water the following morning, you glanced into the sparkling bathroom mirror, slowly searching for a resemblance with the man in the picture. when you were about eight, you noticed that the two of you shared the same haunted grey eyes. at least that explained why your mother never looked into your peepers when she spoke to you. hell, she just couldn’t stand seeing your father's eyes in you.

because of your poppi’s drowning, your mother feared losing you to “d’evil streets” outside your windows. with those beatbox boys blasting grandmaster flash tapes and nasty domincan girls shaking their bubble butts, to your moms, those bario blocks were wilder than the waves that had swept away husband.

once a month she performed a despojos ceremony, gently beating you with whatever herbs the botanica oracle suggested would frighten away evil spirits. she even placed a string of multicolored prayer beads around your neck to protect you from the demons that lurked in the shadows.

as you got older, she slipped deeper into a netherworld of religion and rum. speaking in tongues, she hung crucifixes throughout the apartment and sprinkled the corners with aqua floria. over the plastic slip covered couch hung a picture of jesus that for some reason scared you. affixed to the cross, blood dripped from his hands and feet.

one night when you were nine, your father approached you in a dream: visions of his sun blackened body lying on the white sands of a beach. there were piercing holes where his eyes should have been. with webbed feet and gills like a fish, he stood-up and approached. his hands were cold and slimy when he touched your fat face.

that rainy morning, you woke-up screaming.

outside of your hollowed home, you were a paradox: gang member and alter-boy, cheeba smoker and teacher’s pet, wild in the streets and smart in the class-room. you hung tough with a clique of kids who called themselves el barrio angels.

an everchanging crew that had been around since the days of the young lords, they had originally planned to be an off-shoot of the radical group. but, by the time you got down with them in the summer of ‘77, the notorious season of the infamous blackout that bought new york to its knees, the el barrio angels dappled in petty crimes that included selling weed, boosting clothes and robbing number taking bodegas.

by ‘79 ya’ll had become infamous in the hood. it was your best friend fast eddie calderon who had put you down with the crew. Money grip had got his nickname because he could out run any mick cop in the precinct,

skinny ass calderon, with his greasy hair and raggedly jeans, had been your homeboy since the two of you were no bigger than fightin’ cocks. after his parents had died in a car crash, he lived with his older sister in the projects. at first glance he didn't appear to the brightest star in the sky, but the boy was no dummy.

"if you look stupid then people don't expect much from ya," he declared. "that way you can get away with more shit with less consequences." although he was only two years older than you, calderon schooled your punk ass in the ways of the street. “we be like brothers from different mothers,” he fondly said.

the meeting spot for the el barrio angels was a decaying tenement a few blocks from the cross bronx expressway. a once stunning structure had been contemned years ago. the once exquisite marble floors, with their faded art deco designs, were chipped and soiled, and the broken windows looked like the eyes of a dead man.
the angels transformed the apartment on the third floor of a crumbling building into a clubhouse. somehow the gang’s leader had managed to install lights, an old pool-table, a stained cloth couch and a few tattered chairs. a beat-up eight-track played a constant stream of barretto and bataan. in the dimly lit room there was also a old safe with a broken door where the angels stored bags of weed and stolen loot.

whenever ya’ll went out, the wild stray german shepherd ya’ll named blood was kept inside the room. the canine’s constant barking kept the junkies far away. “blood would rip out their throats and eat ‘em hop heads like hamburger,” calderon laughed petting the dog. “them junkie motherfuckers know better than to fuck around over here.”

indeed, the only thing that disgusted you about the building were all those noddin’ junkies shooting up, pissing, shitting, fucking and dying in the halls. a trio of nappy haired colored dudes dressed in old vietnam jackets and oily jeans sold five dollar packs of p-funk from a first floor apartment, and throughout the rest of the building.

one dreary twilight in the summer of ‘79 you and calderon was just chillin’ in the club house puffing budda bless. like the villian twins you wanted to be, both ya’ll was dressed in your regular el barrio angels uniform of backwards black baseball caps, black pro-keds, white tube socks and black polyester pants.

outside the window, as the sun slowly changed colors from white glare to muted orange, the racket of a rowdy block party ricocheted off of the rickety structures. you just knew that kool herc was in the house.

later that night, there was a surprise raid by corrupt cops on the gang's chill-out spot. the boogaloo music had been so loud that none of the crew had heard those hard heeled police footsteps as they crept up the stairs. guns drawn and popping shit, the blue boys barged into the room.

scared to death when those pigs threatened to stomp anyone who squealed, you knew it was time to jet. in your eyes five-o were just a bunch of pussys with power and guns, flexing their muscles against a roomful of teenagers.

one chalky faced cop swung open the rusty safe door, and began stuffing all the loot and drugs into his pockets. with coffee and cigarette stained teeth, the pig laughed.

there was mayhem in the room as you and fast eddie scattered out of the window and scurried up a rusty fire-escape in beat-up pro-keds. once you reached the roof-top, both of you attempting to leap to the neighboring building.

fuckin’ eddie didn't make it though, falling to his death in the darkness.

though terrified, somehow you made it back to your apartment without a scratch. it was then, lying on the bed still in scared shirtless, but wiping away the sweat and tears, that you decided that you wanted to be a cop instead of a criminal.

it was not about knowing right from wrong, but about who had the supremacy in that police state. you’ve noticed how the fuzz swaggered through the hood with a sense of self-importance; you saw how they never paid for their food in restaurants; you heard stories from the other el barrio angels how the pigs are always ripping-off the local drug dealers, stealing the stash and keeping their cash.

“that’s gonna be my hustle,” you mumbled, wiping tears away with a tissue. in the next room your mommi slept, unaware of your revelation. “i’m going to be a cop.”

ten years later the decade has changed, but the barrio was still the same. or maybe worse. still, on that weary winter morning that you graduated from the police academy, your mother was so proud.

after taking her home to her new spot in riverdale, you hooked-up with a few other friends from the academy for what was supposed to be an innocent celebration in the old hood. in the city's liberal attempt to recruit former homeboys to police their own, thinking they will be able to relate better to the beamed-up crackheads and wild cowboy drug dealers, this was going to be your beat.

crack had worked a dark mojo on that hood. shit, niggas flipped for that rock cocaine. after it first hit the streets in the early ‘80s, the bronx barrios had become a surreal circus of ruthless addition and scary monsters who crawled in the night.

you looked at the new jack street dealers with their snarling pitbulls and exquisite foreign cars, and their wealth excited you. hell, you knew that soon you would be sharing in the spoils of the losing war on drugs.

that night, along with three of your fellow graduates, you boogied over to carlito’s pub, an old school bar that had been in the hood since you were a kid. the jukebox blared old salsa as though hip-hop had never been created. after hooking-up with your drug dealing homie in the bathroom, you began sniffing the pure coke and downing shots of barcardi as though tomorrow would never come.

“drinks for my friends,” you screamed as your mind slowly unraveled like a spool of thread. next thing you realized you are alone in the streets, wandering down the block in search of a piece of pussy gone astray.

the trick was to find one of those rock smoking hoes who knew how to blow like miles davis. it was then that you saw lisa, her skin smoother than black ice as ice. like other lost ladies, she had become as ruined as the hood itself.

“rock star, bitch,” you mumbled. “i wonder who broke you down. used to be too good for a nigga...now look at ya.”

dressed in dirty jeans, worn nike’s and a ratty sweater, you gave her two twenty-dollar bills to buy a few vials of rock before she took you to the apartment building where you used to live when you was a kid.

the block was swarming with illegal business. you walked into the dark building, and heard mumbling voices coming from beneath the steps. most of the creepy apartments appeared to be crack spots, but you were not nervous.

the fifth-floor apartment used to belong to her mother, who moved back to p.r. the year before. you can remember coming to a birthday party here when lisa turned ten, and the apartment was immaculate as the virgin mary. but that was so long ago. now the flat was a wreak, the sticky floors littered with old beer bottles and used condom packages; there were chink take-out boxes and chicken wing bones; there are dirty clothes all over the floor and jacked-up mattress in the middle of the living-room. there is an unholy stench that burns your nose hairs. there were dirty sheets covering the windows.

after lighting a few candles, lisa invited you over to the stained mattress. you still had coke left, so while she smoked those stinky rocks, you took a few sniffs. lisa chattered non-stop, and what little you caught of her conversation had to do with the baby her mother stole from her. another innocent child born a junkie, but now she was gone.

you didn't give a shit about this mess she was yapping, you just wanted your dick sucked so you could break out. blaring rap songs (eric b. & rakim, big daddy kane) crashed through the closed window like an urban rhythm soundtrack.

touching her bony leg, she told you to wait until she has smoked another rock. she is jumpy and nervous, but after sucking that glass dick lisa would be just fine, at least for five minutes.

you lay down, imagining yourself swimming in the ocean. you could feel lisa unfastening your belt and pants. gently she began licking your balls, sucking and gently gibbling with skill. with your eyes closed, in your mind you saw your father emerging from the sea. except, unlike those dreams from your youth, he doesn't look to be at peace. his eyes look angry and confused.

"be a man," your dead daddy said. "be a fucking man."

minutes passed and soon your vision was shattered by loud cackling laughter. despairingly you opened your eyes and saw that it was lisa laughing though fucked-up teeth.

"i been sucking your dick for twenty minutes and you still ain't hard, poppi," she says. "you been sniffing that shit all night long, now your little dickie won't co-operate."

you felt like a drowning man trying to catch your breath. with these simple words, blood rushed to your head. you could feel the anger building in your chest like a wall as her laughter echoed through that room of horrors as though it were coming through a set of hi-fi speakers.

“you’re going to regret that you raggy bitch,” you screamed, and before you could help yourself you punched lisa in the face. on impact, her mouth shattered as teeth and blood rained to the floor.

for a moment she was dazed, but without warning she leapt on your back and began pulling your hair as her fingernails scratched the back of your neck. "fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou..." she cried and screamed and lost her mind. regaining your balance, you flipped the crazy broad off your back. she looked like a broken doll sprawled on the floor, her skull cracked; you noticed your pants and underwear are still around your ankles.

although lisa had not moved since you flipped her a minute ago, her laughter was still loud in that evil room.

she was unconscious on the floor, but still you were afraid. suppose she filed a police report at the same precinct where you were to report to work in the morning.

it would be your rookie word against a crack-head, but who needed the grief; more than likely she would get one of the housing project posse-boys who populated the block to pop your ass on the sneak tip.

pulling up your pants, you buckled your belt and stared into lisa's damaged face. shit, she had bought it on herself, you reasoned. who told the bitch it was cool to laugh at the police.

slipping your dirty hand into your pocket, you felt a pack of newports. you lit one, sucking on the filter like it was a pacifier. lost in thought for a moment, you decided to set the entire pack of matchs aflame, tossing the lit matches into a pile of yellow newspaper next to the stained mattress.

flames scaled the cheap plastered walls lined with rotting wood, you could feel the heat on your body and sweat on your brow. as the fire begans to spread you could smell lisa's burning flesh. feeling no remorse as you dashed out of the door and down the five flights.

the next day, when you reported to the precient for your first tour working the four to midnight shift, you would hear the story of some crazy crack head who burned down a building doing stupid crack head shit. your fellow boys in blue would make crude crack jokes and you will laugh, showing them you are down with the program. fuck that serpico shit, you was down.

exiting the burning building, the sidewalk was alive with the jumping jive of spectators who now had something to do with their time instead of sitting on the stoop or shooting dice. cornerboys gathered screamed “meda meda” as though the world was coming to an end. but for you, it had only just begun.

angrily you glanced up at the building. it reminded of that flick the towering inferno. in your stoned mind, the fire looked like a crimson animal trying to escape from the confines of its bronx zoo cage.

watching that sizzling disaster of your own creation, exhilaration surged through your body like electricity. as the blaze grew even more intense, your little dickie finally got hard.

First published in Hood 2 Hood edited by Shannon Holmes
story copyright (C) Michael A. Gonzales, 2010
photos copyrighted by their owners

Futher Reading:

Iced by Ray Shell (Penguin Books, 1993)

An underrated novel about crack addition that director Lee Daniels once considered making into a film. This book is a masterpiece.

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?binding=&mtype=&keyword=iced+by+ray+shell&hs.x=13&hs.y=12&hs=Submit

Her Life: Mary J. Blige @ Soul Summer

2010-01-19T15:05:00.003-05:00

In years past, when Mary J. Blige’s primary claim to fame was being known as the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul signed to Uptown Records, she wasn’t above cursing out writers, sniffing coke in nightclub bathrooms, or stumbling drunk through music industry parties. Yet, in the eighteen years since the release of her triple-platinum debut What’s the 411 in 1992, the former wild child who came of age in Yonkers during the 1980s golden years of crack and rap, has transformed.

Though she grew up to win nine Grammy Awards, to write (and co-write) countless hit songs, and to make duets with Jay-Z, Bono, George Michael Elton John and Trey Songz, she still struggles with abuse issues from her childhood and the self-inflicted sorrow she put herself through as an adult. From drink to drugs to abusive men, she’s been down that rock ‘n’ soul road. However, as can be heard on Stronger With Each Tear, her ninth studio album, Mary J. Blige is still striving for strength in her music as well as her life.

Reflecting back, 2009 was a very good year for Mary. Beginning with her televised performance covering Bill Wither’s classic “Lean on Me” at We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration in February, she also co-starred in director Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself alongside Academy Award nominee Taraji P. Henson, launched her charity Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN), and contributed “I Can See in Color” to the controversial film Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.

“You can feel Mary creatively turning herself inside out on that song,” says Precious executive producer Lisa Cortes. “Her contribution to the film is a heartfelt song that elevates the emotion of the scene. It was obvious to me that Mary took her own pain and put it into her art.”

Recently Soul Summer lunched with Mary J. Blige over steak and potatoes as she talked about past accomplishments, future projects, and the soul of Nina Simone.

For the rest of this interview, go to:
http://www.soulsummer.com/mjb-live-and-in-color

The Love We Lost: On Teddy Pendergrass

2010-01-15T07:20:00.001-05:00

When I was a child, my mom had never been into music that was too funky. While other parents were bopping their heads to James Brown and showing their kids how to dance as Kool & the Gang blared from the speakers, my bougie mother was content listening to Frank Sinatra singles on WNEW-AM, going to Lena Horne concerts on Broadway and being as square as the last big Johnny Mathis hit sometime in 1950s.

But, all of that cornball make-believe ballroom stuff came to a screeching halt in the summer of 1973 (my 10th birthday) when some kind of way Moms got turned-on to the power of Philadelphia International Records and turned-out by the roar of Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes’ lead singer Teddy Pendergrass.

I’m not sure who schooled Momduke to the then-new soul supremacy taking over the airwaves, though I suspect it was her best friend Bubba—or possibly the girls at the hairdresser. All I know is whenever “The Love I Lost” came on the radio, the swoon of old favorites (Billy Eckstine, Arthur Prysock) became a distant memory.

Although Teddy had started making a little noise the year before with “I Miss You” and “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” from Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ self-titled debut disc, it was the pulsing heartbreak o “The Love I Lost,” with its “bittersweet, downward-bending melody over an exhilarating, string-laden romp” (as Don & Jeff Breithautt’s book Precious and Few so vividly described it), that became an anthem in our house.

While the song would come to be known as one of the first American disco records, it also was a precursor of the sophisticated Philly International soul sound that would take over 1970s radio. Teddy Pendergrass not only snatched my momma into the present, he also helped change the sound of R&B and became one of the biggest stars of the decade in the process.

for the rest of this post, go to: http://www.soulsummer.com/the-love-we-lost-on-teddy-pendergrass

Curtis Mayfield and the Black Rock Connection

2010-01-14T03:05:00.004-05:00

While Curtis Mayfield was always been considered one of the greatest soul voices to come out of Chicago, his guitar playing was often so understated that rock fans used to the dramatics of Jimmy Page, Prince or Carlos Santana might be weary to cite him as an influence. Yet, since the days when he was still strumming an acoustic while singing churchy sounding songs “It’s All Right” and “Amen” with the Impressions, his playing was an influence on dudes like Clapton, Beck and Steve Winwood.

Another fan of the Impressions (and of Curtis’ guitar playing) was Jimi Hendrix. According to Jimi Hendrix: In His Own Words (Omnibus Press, 1994), the voodoo chile rocker once said, “I like the Impressions…they’re some people that need to be really, really respected. See, these are classical composers. I don’t care what their music sounds like today, because today, as things are happening at that particular time, the people that’s in that particular time don’t really know the value of it until it dies off. But now people really have to start learning the value of things as they’re living today.”

Almost makes you wish brother Jimi could’ve lived long enough to see Curtis throwing down with wah-wah, feedback, fuzz and other electro-gadgets that caused strange music to erupt from the speakers. Tracks like “Billy Jack,” Kung Fu,” “Future Shock” and “Freddy’s Dead” captured a whole new level of racial angst and musical distortion in his grooves and licks.

FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, GO TO:

http://www.boldaslove.us/2010/01/curtis-mayfield-and-the-black-rock-connection.html#more

Remembering Curtis Mayfield on the 10th Anniversary of his Death

2009-12-26T15:53:00.004-05:00

Unlike the deaths of musical icons like Elvis Presley, John Lennon or Michael Jackson, there was not much fanfare when soul brother Curtis Mayfield died—ten years ago on December 26, 1999 —at the North Fulton Regional Hospital in Roswell, Georgia. At the age of fifty-seven, after more than four decades of songwriting, production and performance, the man whose friends nicknamed “the gentle genius” was gone.

Outside of old soul radio stations, not many seemed to care that the Mayfield was gone. Where were the distraught fans clutching photos of the bespectacled brown-skinned man while candles blew in the winter wind? Where were the urban troubadours strumming songs like “People Get Ready” or “Choice of Colors” on acoustic guitar? Where were the VH1 specials featuring neo-soulsters Lenny Kravitz, D’Angelo, John Legend, Joss Stone, Jill Scott and Maxwell talking how Mayfield’s musical magic and angelic voice had inspired their own creative spirits?

While Mayfield’s death and subsequent cremation a few days later became nothing more than a footnote in the national consciousness, I sat on the couch in my mom’s Baltimore living room and shed a few tears for the fallen artist. As memories of Mayfield rushed to my head, I was transported back to the Harlem hood of my youth where I first bought the Super Fly soundtrack album at Mr. Freddy’s Soul Shack in 1972, when I was nine.

For the rest of this story, go to:

http://www.soulsummer.com/memories-of-mayfield

Bill Withers

2009-12-16T11:06:00.002-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, Singer/songwriter Bill Withers is not dead. So take heart, fans who never stopped bumping his laidback 70s soul classics “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Lean On Me”—the man is still alive and writing music. “Jesse Jackson recently called me to find out if I was still alive,” Withers told a reporter in 2006. “He said his wife was walking around the house upset because she heard that I had died. We get a lot of those calls from foreign countries and everything. I’m used to it by now.”

In their lovingly enlightening documentary Still Bill, filmmakers Damani Baker and Alex Vlack have constructed a brilliant portrait of a musician who’s currently more in tune with his family than with show business and the endless demands of stardom. As Withers admits candidly, “The fame game was kicking my ass.”

Like many of us who grew up in the 1970s, Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover, who performed a riveting version of Withers’ jealous guy anthem “Who is He (And What is He to You?)” at a tribute concert in Brooklyn last year, was raised under the spell of Bill.

“When I was a kid, we played that tape in my fathers Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme,” remembers Glover, whose performance was captured in the documentary. “Those are some of my earliest memories of Bill Withers. Driving with my family to cookouts and picnics while everyone sang along to ‘Lean on Me’. His music is literally therapeutic for him and us. To me, he is what Bob Dylan wants to be.”

for the rest of this story, go to: http://www.soulsummer.com/bill-withers-lives

Critics on Super Fly soundtrack

2009-11-23T12:48:00.002-05:00

The Rolling Stone Greatest 500 Albums of All Time

Superfly, # 69

In the blaxploitation-soundtrack derby, Isaac Hayes' Shaft came first -- but that record had one great single and a lot of instrumental filler. Mayfield's soundtrack to Superfly is an astonishing album, marrying lush string parts to funky bass grooves and lots of wah-wah guitar. On top is Mayfield's knowing falsetto. Tracks such as "Pusherman" and "Freddie's Dead" are almost unremittingly bleak, commenting on the movie's glamorization of the drug-trade action and forecasting its inevitable results.

Nelson George, author of The Death of Rhythm and Blues

"I think Superfly is better than What's Going On. I think it’s the best album of an amazing era in black music."

Elvis Mitchell, Esquire

Pauline Kael wrote that The Godfather Part II was the first movie to say no in thunder. She could've said the same thing about Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly soundtrack. A seductive and rhythmic counterpoint to the picture's message about ripping off the Man -- and what blaxploitation picture isn't down with such a sentiment? -- Mayfield's score rebels against the movie's insidious mythologizing of a predatory drug dealer named Priest. Mayfield led his band through a rough and bluesy rendition of the title song and seemed to understand the unspoken dynamic of the movies of the era: This might be the only chance African-Americans got to redress decades of second-class imagery on the big screen and speak to the issues of the day.

Robert Christgau, The Village Voice

I'm no respecter of soundtracks, but I can count--this offers seven new songs (as many as his previous LP) plus two self-sustaining instrumentals. It's not epochal, but it comes close--maybe Mayfield writes tougher when the subject is imposed from outside than when he's free to work out of his own spacious head. Like the standard-setting "Freddie's Dead," these songs speak for (and to) the ghetto's victims rather than its achievers (cf. "The Other Side of Town," on Curtis), transmitting bleak lyrics through uncompromisingly vivacious music. Message: both candor and rhythm are essential to our survival. A-

Entertainment Weekly voted Superfly #6 in their 100 Best Soundtracks

A textbook case of a soundtrack that artistically dwarfs the film that spawned it, Curtis Mayfield's opus is a testament to the powers of a musician at the top of his game. Mayfield's music imbued the blaxploitation quickie with a moral pulse, taking aim at the scourge of drugs in the inner city. It was one of Mayfield's gifts that his songs could sound joyful and heartbroken at the same time, suggesting the complexities of the human experience. "Pusherman," "Freddie's Dead," the title track--Mayfield's lyrical high-mindedness would have meant naught if the music weren't as addictive as a drug itself.

Ryan Schreiber, Pitchfork (rated 9.8)

It's only when you listen to Curtis Mayfield's 1972 soundtrack to Superfly that you can truly get past the film's dated cinematography and bad acting. As most folks with clues realize, Superfly is one of the most influential R&B recordings of the 1970s (the majority of Seattle Grunge Rockers cite this album as an inspiration), and while some of the slang terms are less effective adjectives than flashbacks to yesteryear, they're true to their time. (Admit it; you've never been able to say 'junkie' with a straight face.)

Mayfield's Superfly was probably the most important record for shaping the future of black music. This is one of the first releases to include to the trademark blaxploitation smooth-funk sound. Right from the record's opening of bongos, Hammond organ and hi-hats giving way to a distant, wailing electric guitar, bass drum, and strings and horn sections, it's obvious that this is the production that led to similar work by Issac Hayes and even James Brown. Four years ago, I found Isaac Hayes' Shaft on vinyl for a buck in a thrift store and it became the ultimate "sex music" of my late-teen life. It's got nothin' on Superfly.

The Flavor of Chocolat

2009-11-20T12:31:00.004-05:00

Musician and singer Tamar-kali curates a night of bawdy, sexy, cabaret-inspired entertainment called “Cabaret Chocolat” on Saturday, November 21, 2009. With mentalist/ illusionist Marco the Magician as the emcee, the night will also feature a pre-show performance by accordionist/organist Mojo Lazarus, burlesque by The Maine Attraction, and dance performance artist Monstah Black.

Blackadelic Pop spoke with Tamar to get the nitty gritty flavor of Cabaret Chocolat: "I noticed in the last couple of years, there has been an interest and curiosity in early 20th Century entertainment. Whether its swing music or vaudeville, these events are often going on in the city. Yet, rarely are people of color involved. I wanted to do an event that bought together various kinds of performance beyond what I usually do. Like the Harlem Renaissance or Andy Warhol's Factory, I'm striving to do something special where various types of artists can meet, mingle and have fun. Folks are so much on their grind these days, we often forget what its like to be part of an artistic community. With Cabaret Chocloat, hopefully we can create an event that will not only be a great show, but will also get artists of different genres to meet and dialogue with one another. Believe me, this event will be both a spectacle and a scene."

Event info:

Saturday, November 21, 2009 -- $15 -- Harlem Stage Gatehouse

The Gatehouse is fully accessible for patrons with mobility challenges. Entrance to the building is located on Convent Ave. via ramp located on West 135th Street. One lift is located in the tower that can transport patrons to theater level. Seating is available for wheelchair bound patrons.

Tamar-kali’s CABARET CHOCOLAT: An Autumn Night’s Soiree

6 pm – pre-performance dialogue with Tamar-kali, Kandia Crazy Horse and Daphne Brooks.
7:30 pm – performance

Superfly Samples

2009-11-17T14:20:00.004-05:00

Darkest of night, with the moon shining bright/There’s a set goin’ strong, lotta things goin’ on/The man of the hour has an air of great power/The dudes have envied him for so long/Ooooh, Superfly…

Curtis Mayfield, Superfly (1972)

Samples and Covers/List from The Breaks.com

Superfly: (Curtom 1972)

* “Pusherman”
Cam'Ron ft Brotha’s “D Rugs”
Cookie Crew’s “Come on and Get Some”
Eminem’s “I'm Shady”
Ice T’s “I'm Your Pusher”
Zhigge’s “Zhigge Man”

* “Freddie's Dead”
Audio Two’s “Many Styles”
Brand Nubian’s “Gang Bang”
Donell Jones’s “When I Was Down”
Dru Down’s “The Game”
Fishbone’s “Freddie's Dead” (cover)
GangStarr’s “Gusto”
Hammer’s “That's What He Said”
Master P’s “Kenny's Dead”
May May’s “Ya Head is Dead”
Poison Clan’s “Low Life Mothers”
Poison Clan’s “Paper Chase”
Racionais MCs’s “Mano Na Porta Do Bar”
Robbie C’s “Death Lives In The Rock”
TMT’s “Fugitives on the Run”
UGK’s “Cocaine in the Back of the Ride”

* “Give Me Your Love”
Eminem’s “Open Mic”
Aaliyah’s “It's Whatever”
Big Daddy Kane’s “Get Bizzy”
Digable Planets’s “Nickel Bags”
EPMD’s “Can't Hear Nothing but the Music”
Inspectah Deck’s “Trouble Man”
Mary J. Blige’s “I'm the Only Woman”
Pete Rock - CL Smooth’s “Shine On Me”
Queen Latifah’s “Give Me Your Love”
Snoop Dogg’s “Bathtub”
* “Eddie, You Should Know Better”
Busta Rhymes ft Rah Digga’s “Betta Stay up in Your House”
Snoop Dogg’s “G'z Up, Hoes Down”

* “Superfly”

The Blow Monkeys (cover)
Beastie Boys’s “Egg Man”
Cookie Crew’s “Come on and Get Some”
Curtis Mayfield ft Ice T’s “Superfly 1990”
Divine Styler’s “Divinity Stylistics”
Geto Boys’s “Do it Like a G.O.”
Mistress & DJ Madame E’s “Hypergroove”
Notorious BIG’s “Ready to Die Intro”

* “Little Child Runnin' Wild”
Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights”

Wax Poetics Issue 38

2009-11-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

It’s been a long time coming. In fact, for the past eight years and thirty-seven issues, we’ve wanted to do a Curtis Mayfield cover. It finally worked out for our unofficial Film/Hustler Issue, in which we take a look at Mayfield’s epic soundtrack recording Super Fly. New York writer Michael A. Gonzales pulls from his own 1996 Curtis Mayfield interview as well as tapping Curtis associates, guitarists Craig McMullen and Phil Upchurch and composer/arranger Johnny Pate, to tell the story of the finest blaxploitation score of the 1970s.

Once again, we’ve created a split cover–with Curtis on front both times and the back shared by two classic films: Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (Radio Raheem in full effect) and Ralph Bakshi’s Coonskin (a Wax Poetics favorite). Besides speaking with both of these groundbreaking filmmakers, we also take a look at the new film Black Dynamite (Wax Poetics Records released the score and soundtrack), and music supervisor David Hollander reveals the fundamental facts of once-mysterious library music.

Last but not least, we finally unveil the Robert Beck aka Iceberg Slim story by longtime contributer Mark McCord (aka Mark Skillz). As the greatest hustler of all time, Beck finally gets his due.

Purchase at: Wax Poetics Storefront

Featured Articles:

Curtis Mayfield
“I don’t see why people are complaining about the subject of these films,” Curtis told Jet magazine in October 1972 in a statement that foreshadows the words of modern-day rappers. “The way you clean up the films is by cleaning up the streets. The music and movies of today are the conditions that exist.”
Spike Lee
What gets me mad about Bamboozled is that the New York Times refused to run the ad with Tommy Davidson and Savion Glover in blackface. The whole thing about the film was to show that there is a history behind this imagery.
Ralph Bakshi
When I was doing Mighty Mouse and The Mighty Heroes, I didn’t like what I was doing. That wasn’t the raw edge of life I grew up with. Bob Dylan was singing, the freedom marches were happening, Miles Davis was blowin’, and the stuff Coltrane was doing was brand new. So doing this stupid, old bullshit wasn’t good enough.

Also Includes:

Re:Discovery Melvin Van Peebles, Manfred Krug, Marvin Gaye, Judgment Night OST, John Carpenter
Roc Raida The Grand Master
Shadows and Phonographs This sinister role of the turntable in Hollywood classics
Brotherman Blaxploitation soundtrack for a film that wasn't meant to be
Adrian Younge Black Dynamite composer refuses to cut corners with his authentic old soul
Gangs On Film The South Bronx of 1979 documented in 80 Blocks from Tiffany's
Night Life Photographer Michael Abramson captured the magic of 1970s South Side Chicago
The Rhythm of Film DJ/producer David Holmes approaches soundtrack composition with a less-is-more philosophy
Mood Music European libraries created soulful instrumentals for '70s film and television
The Next Hustle Ex-pimp Robert Beck transformed into writer Iceberg Slim, introducing a new genre for literature, film and music
Comic Truth Animation and indie film pioneer Ralph Bakshi drew attention to race and culture
Gangster Boogie Curtis Mayfield injected his own cultural commentary into the Super Fly legacy
The Provocateur Director Spike Lee continues to tell personal stories by any means necessary
Playing It Straight Black Dynamite director Scott Sanders crafts high-caliber blaxploitation homage
Analog Out Cybernetics, Louis and Bebe Barron, and the sonic life-forms of Forbidden Planet

His Name is Craig McMullen

2009-11-08T23:09:00.012-05:00

You would think that a person who has their name misspelled as many times as I have would be more sensitive to getting other folk's name right. However, when it comes to my new pal and unsung guitarist Craig McMullen, who played with Curtis Mayfield from 1970-1973, I keep mistakenly writing his surname as McCullen. What kind of writer would I be if I didn't have an excuse. You see, ax-man extraordinaire McMullen and drummer Tyrone McCullen (Black men with Irish surnames) both played on my one of my favorite soundtracks Superfly. Yet, if you look at the under the Wikipedia entry, both of their surnames are listed as McCullen.

Of course, every journalist on the planet knows that Wikipedia is often wrong, but for some reason I keep getting surname dyslexia when it comes time to type out McMullen's name. "I feel like I have some kind of mental block," I told him yesterday after sending out a press release about my upcoming Wax Poetics article Gangster Boogie about the making of the Superfly soundtrack and I had messed up again. "But, don't worry, I promise I won't do it again." Good naturedly, Craig simply laughed.
Introduced to Mayfield by Rufus drummer Andre Fisher in 1970, McMullen was invited to audition for the windy city soul man. "I owned all his records, so I already knew the material," recalls McMullen. "Although Mayfield was still singing with the Impressions at the time, he was on the verge of going solo and McMullen was more than ready take that journey with him.

Along with drummer Tyrone McCullen, percussionist Master Henry Gibson, bassist Joseph "Lucky" Scott, the five group members travelled the world and recorded Curtis/Live in New York City's the Bitter End in 1971. "Basically, Curtis was a nice guy," says McMullen, who studied at Berklee College of Music and began his career playing avant-garde jazz. "We had a few ups and downs, but what family members don't."

Between the live album and Superfly, the team recorded Roots (1971), which one writer described as, " a visionary album and landmark creation every bit as compelling and as far-reaching in its musical and extra-musical goals as Marvin Gaye's contemporary What's Going On." From his home in Ohio, McMullen explains, "We all played on that album; Tyrone McCullen played drums on a few tracks too.

"Curtis was a great guitar player, so us playing together I always had to figure out ways of doing something different. When you're a session musician, it's expected that of you to play in more than one position so you don't bump heads with the other guitar players." In addition to the three year stint McMullen spent with Mayfield, where he perfected using wah-wah and fuzz in his work, he also played with The Supremes (Mary Wilson-Cindy Birdsong, Sherrie Payne), Aretha Franklin, The Sylvers, Bill Withers and Donna Summer.

"Being a studio musician, you got to think fast, because time is money. You have formulate your ideas quickly, because those who operate the quickest under pressure are considered the highlight studio players. If you want to be one, you got to act like one. Still, I played with Curtis the longest. His big saying was, 'I want you to do your thing.' And, I always tried to do my thing."

Playing old soul detective back in September, I tracked McMullen down when I started writing Gangster Boogie and he was the very first interview that I conducted. In addition to being a dope guitar player, McMullen is also a natural born storyteller whose Superfly memories of recording that masterful album in Chicago and New York were sharp as a tack.

While there is not much footage of McMullen playing live, he can be seen in the Superfly scene where Mayfield and company performed the provocative "Pusherman" as main characters Priest and Eddie chill out while waiting for their coke connect. "That was the only track that Tyrone McCullen played on and the only one we recorded in New York City." Thirty-seven years later, McMullen still thinks of the Superfly sessions as a special time. "I've played on a lot of albums, but Superfly was one of the best records I ever did. In fact, I think Superfly was one of the best records of all time."

For more of Craig McMullen's thoughts and observations on the making of the Superfly soundtrack, check out Gangster Boogie in Wax Poetics #38, on stands soon--Wax Poetics: http://www.waxpoetics.com

"Pusherman" Scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxq2pCaW7Sk

Mayfield & McMullen on guitar, Midnight Special: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3yQpzdIw5I

Alex Bugnon - keys .. Craig McMullen -gtr.. Norman Brown - gtr .. @ Columbus Jazz & Rib Fest .. July 2009 .

Art Crawl Through East Harlem

2009-11-05T15:01:00.006-05:00

Artist Manny Vega in front of his mosaic of poet Julia de Burgos on on the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and East 106th Street.

While New York can be a hard city to live in, there are small pleasures that that make it all worth while. Take for instance the lovely winter afternoon I spent yesterday in the presence of artist Manny Vega. Meeting for the first time at the East Harlem Cafe (153 East 104th Street), where his framed mosaics adorn the walls, Vega is one of coolest dudes I've met in a long time. Vega took me and my good friend Maggie on a mini-tour of the Spanish Harlem neighborhood where his stunning murals and mosaics can be seen in the 110 Street subway station, against the wall of a bodega and in various other public spaces throughout the community. "In the last few years the neighborhood has been rapidly changing," says the Bronx native. "I see my images as an anchor for the community."

Vega, whose work has been praised by noted Yale professor Robert F. Thompson, is just one of the artists who will be featured in this Saturday's exciting Art Crawl of East Harlem produced by Averlyn Archer, President & CEO, Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery and Jacqueline Orange, owner of Taste Harlem Food & Cultural Tours. In addition to visiting galleries, the tour will also feature public space art that can be seen throughout El Barrio. "You'd be surprised how many people live in the city and never see these beautiful works throughout their community," Orange says. "When people think of art in New York, the first thought is always SoHo or Chelsea. Hopefully with Art Crawl, we can change that perception."

The tour begins at 12:30 pm and ends at 4pm. The day concludes with a dinner reception at 6pm. Bus stops include:

El Museo Del Barrio, 1230 5th Avenue at East 104th Street

Deborah Cullen, Director of Curatorial Programs

The re-opening exhibition, Nexus New York: Latin/American Artists in the Modern Metropolis, examines pioneering Caribbean and Latin American artists who lived in New York City before World War II and shaped the American avant-garde.

My Art LLC, 251 E. 110th Street

Cecilia Moreno-Yaghoubi, Owner/Director

Colombia-born artist Cecilia Moreno-Yaghoubi’s three-dimensional assemblages evoke

individual dialogues/associations, experiences and memories from each person who views her work. She paints not only what she has seen, but also what she has felt and sensed, transforming visual landscapes into emotional ones.

Poet’s Den Gallery, 309 E 108th Street

Raphael Benavides, Director

Michael Lindwasser’s photographs use a combination of extreme angles and long exposures to create a unique genre. The exposures imbue his photographs with the vibrant colors of the daytime even though they were shot in the middle of the night. Emphasizing geometry, his work brings the ordinary into the abstract.

PRdream/MediaNoche, 1355 Park Avenue

Judith Escalona, Director

Devoted to new media, MediaNoche presents BIBIANA’s CZECH REPUBLIC 1998 – 2008, perspectives from an immigrant child. Visitors to the gallery enter a Czech immigrant’s tenement apartment, complete with kitchen, dining room, studio, bathroom, and living room. Ten years of photographic work are displayed on the walls, on ropes hung by clothes pins, and in digital frames.

Taller Boricua / Puerto Rican Workshop, 1680 Lexington Avenue

Curators: Marcos Dimas and Christine Licata.

The exhibition Crossing Bridges/Cruzando Puentes is an exploration of Latin “transculturation” by the artist collective Generation Four (G4): Vicente Fabré, Luis Leonor, Moses Ros and Reynaldo Garcia Pantaleón. Together they delve into the process, challenges and social phenomena involved in immigration and the transition from one culture to another. Individually, each artist has a visual language all his own, exploring these influences through an eclectic range of mediums, including oil and acrylic painting, sculpture, installations and performance art. The name Generation Four (G4) represents the artists themselves who immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic at different stages of their lives - as adults, adolescents or born here as first-generation New Yorkers.

For further information, go to:

www.artcrawlharlem.com

Manny Vega website: http://www.artbymannyvega.com

Manny Vega in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/nyregion/25citywide.html

photos by: Maggie Wrigley

The Big Picture: The Music of Michael Jackson

2009-10-28T09:47:00.003-04:00

— With the release of the much-anticipated Michael Jackson film This Is It coming on October 28, perhaps folks can finally step away from the television gossip programs and pay attention to what made the King of Pop special in the first place: brilliant songs combined with hypnotic performance skills.

Having last seen Jackson rock a screaming audience back in 1989 on the Bad tour, I still remember the blissful faces of the fans staring in awe and cheering as he cast a spell of pure showmanship. While it was obvious that Jackson put in hours of rehearsal, on stage his flow was effortless. Sliding from one step into another as the music built, Michael Jackson was enchanting and beautiful, electric and dangerous.

Yet, since his death this past June, Jackson’s aural brilliance and extraordinary body of work has been overshadowed by the singer’s bizarre life.

For the rest of this story, go to:

http://www.soulsummer.com/michael-jackson-the-big-picture

Reel Harlem...

2009-10-23T12:12:00.012-04:00

Just finished writing a long essay on the making of the Curtis Mayfield's celebrated Superfly soundtrack for Wax Poetics Issue 38. Featuring interviews with composer Curtis Mayfield, arranger Johnny Pate, guitarists Phil Upchurch, Craig McCullen, Jean Paul Bourelly, actor/director Fred Williamson and writers Barry Michael Cooper and Darius James, the tentatively titled "Gangster Boogie: Curtis Mayfield and the Makings of Superfly," delves deep into the ruins of '70s Harlem as the perfect backdrop for blaxploitation dreams and the fueling the soulful genius of a man called Mayfield.

From the streets of Sugarhill to the studios of Chicago, this dynamite story has a plan to stick it to the man. Seriously though, when we get closer to the release date I'll write a little more about the behind scenes chaos, drama and talent that went into creating this enduring album.

Yet, I will admit since listening to the Superfly soundtrack about five hundred times while writing this explosive story (cue wah-wah), I really don't need to hear it again for a year or two. For now, let me just do a visual homage to a few of the Harlem flicks that helped shape my own urban outlaw aesthetic. As my homeboy Richard Pryor used to say, "You messin' with the kid baby...shieeeeeeeeeeeet!"

WaxPoetics: http://www.waxpoetics.com/magazine

Unsung Soul Man Leroy Hutson

2009-10-11T14:28:00.007-04:00

Not sure if you're down with windy city singer, songwriter, arranger and producer Leroy Hutson, but he is one of my favorite unsung soul men. A native of Newark, New Jersey, brother Hutson went to Howard University with Donny Hathaway (whom he collaborated with on the classic track "The Ghetto") and Roberta Flack. In 1971, he was hired by Curtis Mayfield to replace him in the Impressions. However, at the time, not everyone was pleased.

"I remember being pissed when the line-up changed," late journalist and friend Tom Terrell once told me. "I had bought tickets to see the Impressions perform at the Howard Theater and when Hutson came on stage instead of Mayfield, I like...'Who the hell is this?' Yet, like other R&B fans, Terrell was soon swayed by Hutson's passionate voice. Two years later, Hutson also went solo.

Somehow I went my entire childhood having never heard of Hutson, but a chance encounter with the greatest hits package Lucky Fellow, The Best of Leroy Hutson (Charly Records) was the turning point. Though I bought the a disc simply because it was associated with Mayfield's funk house Curtom Records, whose roster included Baby Huey & the Babysitters and Linda Clifford, it was Hutson's cool sound that blew me away. Not many cats can sound laid-back and aggressive at the same time, but Hutson's voice and music was icy hot.

Recently, while working on a story about Curtis Mayfield, I was talking to guitarist extraordinaire Craig McMullen (dude played ax with Hutson, Chairman of the Board, The Sylvers, Bill Withers and Mayfield) who informed me that he'd soon be going out on the road with the unsung singer. Hopefully, they'll be at a venue near us.

All Because of You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4hui4_7DlU

Lucky Fellow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc0u7WWwxuk

So in Love With You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaPLjHtl1Po

Nights on Broadway (Introduction)

2009-10-03T21:32:00.006-04:00

Illustration by Larry Scott

“Nights on Broadway” is a hip-hop story in every sense of the word. Not only does it take place in the world of graffiti during the years that Kool Herc and company were creating new sounds from old records, but it is also a remixed version of another story I wrote a few years ago. Entitled “The King of Broadway,” it originally ran on the provocative Afro-arts website Nat Creole.com in 2005.

Although the stories are relatively the same, the major difference was adding the blue-eyed soul element of the Bee Gee’s song “Nights on Broadway” to this New York tale of school kids in 1970s Harlem and Washington Heights. Growing-up in these same areas during that same period, the funky white boy groove was one of my favorite jams.

Hearing the track one night in a Brooklyn bar thirty years later, memories of former pop station WABC and school friends from St. Catherine of Genoa made me want to revisit my story. It was then that I decided to do a textual remix in the tradition Grandmaster Flash, Marley Marl, DJ Premier Rza and DJ Shadow—just to name a few.

Without a doubt, these master turntablists had been an influence on my writings as much as the countless writers, journalists and filmmakers I consume on a daily. In my mind, doing a cool remix of an existing story was a way of paying homage to the sonic scientists who introduced me to the concepts of Black futurism, deconstruction and the rhythmic power of noise. Though I am proud of both pieces, it is the remixed version that I prefer.

The beautiful illustrations for this story were done by the late Baltimore artist Larry Scott. A fellow Cancerian, we met at a coffee shop called Xandos, which was across the street from the Baltimore Museum of Art. Introduced by New Jack City screenwriter and former Harlem resident Barry Michael Cooper, who had relocated to B-more in the ‘80s, Scott and I became fast friends.

Art critic and curator Franklin Sirmans was one of the many folks turned out by Scott’s work. Reviewing the artist’s 2005 show “Evolution of Depression,” he wrote, “The drawings almost feel like he’s working 3-D constructing forms with the line. Then there’s the almost abstraction of the work. The thing that hooks me is the simplicity/complexity of the black and whites..they just look mad original and damn good.”

The same year, the alternative weekly The City Paper voted Scott the Best Visual Artists in Baltimore. A few months after his show, I asked Larry if he would be kind enough to add his visual brilliance to my story. Without hesitation, he promised to give me something in a few days.

Though Larry wasn’t of the hip-hop generation, having grown-up a fan of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, he had recently began listening to Tupac, Biggie and 50 Cent and using their gritty poetics to jump-off a new series called “Ready to Die…?”

Come the following Friday, when Larry told me to meet at the usual spot at six o’clock, I was shocked when he gave me an envelope containing twelve separate pen and ink drawings. Though not an art expert, I know what I like and Larry’s work had an effect on me. Like German-Expressionism, film noir and East Coast hip-hop, Scott’s work had a sense of urbane despair that embraced the decadence and danger of the city.

Studying his masterfully atmospheric drawings, I almost cried at the sheer perfection in which Scott captured the pain and joy, laughter and anguish of these characters. Flipping through the dozen related images, one could feel the power of Scott’s vision as he created his own flavor of be-bop/beat-box visualizations.

Although we often spoke of future collaborations, this was not to be. In November of 2007, after leaving the coffee shop portfolio in hand, Larry Scott suffered a fatal heart attack. His body was found sprawled on the sidewalk the following morning. A husband and father, Larry Scott was 50 years old. This remix is dedicated to him and the beauty of his work.

To read the story, go to: http://h2c2harlem.com/blog

What About Bobby?

2009-09-15T14:31:00.000-04:00

With Whitney Houston’s comeback disc I Look to You zooming to the top of the charts, the former “crack is wack” poster child has been making the media rounds. From her star-studded preview party at the Beverly Hilton to the highly anticipated interview with Oprah, the former pop princess turned coke queen has been playing the redemption card to the hilt. She has spared no detail, laying bare the most painful moments of her struggles with drug addiction and her turbulent marriage.

Still, through it all, her ex-husband Bobby Brown has been strangely quiet. Although somewhere in the world, Brown might be threatening to toss a TV from the window while calling somebody a bitch, I truly thought we might hear a little rah-rah from the original Bad Boy of R&B. Indeed, since his own fall from soul-man grace, scandal has been never been a stranger to Bobby.

“Bobby Brown was not able to sustain his career, because he did not duck scandal, he invited it,” says journalist Barry Michael Cooper, who coined the term “new jack swing” in a 1988. “Scandal was both his badge of honor and his scarlet letter. Somewhere along the way, he could not differentiate between the two.”

The kid who sang sweet fluff like “Candy Girl” as a member of New Edition has since joined the soulful legion of wildboys that includes Ike Turner, Arthur Lee, Sly Stone, David Ruffin and Marvin Gaye. And since he hasn’t released any new music since 1997, it’s easy to forget that Bobby Brown was once the man in the land of soul.

Although I never agreed with those who called him “The King of R&B,” there is no denying the influence of his seven-times-platinum album Don’t Be Cruel—not to mention the videos, the live shows, and persona he held over the public from the day of its release on June 20, 1988. Without a doubt, we can see a little bit of Bobby Brown in Chris Brown, Usher and even Britney Spears, who remade “My Prerogative” in 2004.

“From the beginning of his career, Bobby always wanted to be the center of attention,” remembers Steve Manning, the first publicist/conceptualist for the legendary Boston boy band New Edition. One glance at the photo with the 12-year-old wearing a bright red jacket as he stares boldly into the camera, made it clear that that Brown was not shy. “Bobby knew he had talent and he wanted everybody else to know it too.”

Though Bobby was young, the fiery Aquarius born on February 5, 1969, was a wild child. “I can remember meeting his mom and family, and they all had a street swagger,” Manning continues. “But Bobby was also very driven; he was destined to be a star.”

for the rest of this story, go to:

http://soulsummer.com/what-about-bobby

My Favorite Book Cover

2009-08-28T21:27:00.000-04:00

...I love Carrie Fisher and her new book cover is pure genius.

Alicia Keys on Soul Music

2009-08-24T17:41:00.002-04:00

It’s so easy to hate Alicia Keys. Besides being fine as crystal, the sister knows how to construct soulful pop songs with the flair of Stevie Wonder and the pop sensibility of Burt Bacharach. Yet, even with three best-selling albums, a truck full of awards (five Grammys in 2002 alone) and songcraft for days. Even if you give her a pass for those frequent Prince swipes (click these links to weigh the evidence and draw your own conclusions), there are still folks who believe Alicia Keys is an R&B poser.

In 2007, when Keys’ last joint All I Am dropped, my spiritual godfather Greg Tate wrote an inspired review called “Extensions of a Woman,” wherein he praised her for being damn-near a genius. Some of the villagers got a little rowdy, and like a scene out of Frankenstein complete with pitchforks and torches, one angry voice berated the singer/songwriter/producer by calling her “dumbed-down, mainstream, and utterly irrelevant as they come.”

For the rest of this story, go to:

http://soulsummer.com/ezine/feature-stories/alicia-keys-of-soul-and-superwomen

Looking Back at Mary J. Blige

2009-08-18T10:56:00.001-04:00

When you meet her in person, Mary J. Blige is nothing like the soul sister of perpetual suffering that was once her trademark identity. “I’ve actually heard some fans say they liked me more when I was miserable,” Mary says. “If they want to feel my pain, then I suggest they go back and listen to My Life. I’m not going back to that place, so they can hate all they want.”

Since first dropping onto the post-new-jack swing landscape of urban music in 1992, Mary J. has had her share of haters. “In her life, Mary has been through the storm,” says singer Anthony Hamilton. “She’s been criticized, bruised and lashed, but that didn’t stop her from emerging like a diamond. For years she has been called ‘the queen of hip-hop soul,’ but Mary J. Blige is really the premier soul voice of our community.”

As a true blue Mary fan, I first saw her on stage of the Manhattan’s former Paramount Theater the same year her 1992 debut What’s the 411? was released. Opening for thuggish rude boys and label-mates Jodeci, Mary took time to blossom but the audience supported Mary’s every nervous step. Even then, one sensed that Mary was fiercely determined to strive and survive in the musical jungle, no matter how hard some industry know-it-alls tried to put her down.

“Looking back to the negative things some critics wrote, I’m glad it happened, because it made me the person I am now. I’m not a selfish singer anymore, but one that is trying to give back. Be it on stage or in the studio, I’m trying to put my own life in the songs so other people might figure out who they are. All the singers I have ever loved gave so much in their material, and I know how much they have given me. That’s what I’m trying to give.”

FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY, GO TO...

http://soulsummer.com/feature-stories

The Black Rock Report

2009-08-04T14:40:00.003-04:00

As a card-carrying member of the Black Rock Coalition since 1986, I take much pride in the advancement of alternative Black music filtering into the mainstream. From those nappy haired superstars of the scene The Roots (you mean you really thought them cats were hip-hop?) and avant-rockers TV On The Radio to newcomers like Lil Wayne (what, somebody told you that dude was a rapper?) and the formidable Santigold, the movement is going hard, and no longer relegated to crowded downtown clubs after midnight.

At last month’s Afro-Punk Music and Art Festival in Brooklyn, it was fantastic seeing small children dancing to the blare of Earl Greyhound and Tamar-Kali, groundbreaking artists you will never hear played on segregated “urban” radio.

Like hip-hop, being “Black Rock” involves aesthetic and lifestyle choices that can’t be easily pegged. Veterans like Living Colour and Fishbone are still holding it down under the broad umbrella of “Black Rock,” while newcomers Gnarls Barkley and Saul Williams are busy expanding on their own ideas of alternative music. And does it even need to be said? You know they’ve all got soul.

With the Black Rock Report, it is our plan to report on upcoming releases, interview folks behind the scene (singers, producers, and writers) and school the masses on classic artists who continue to define the Black alternative milieu.

illustration copyright (c) Jermaine Rogers

http://soulsummer.com/ezine/feature-stories/the-black-rock-report

D'Angelo's "Left & Right"/Ten Years Later

2009-07-17T17:52:00.001-04:00

Black Pop Kool-Aid: D’Angelo’s “Left & Right”

“To me, there is a difference between artists and stars,” soul singer D’Angelo told me way back in 1995. And there was no doubt that he placed himself in the former category no matter how much the rest of the world wanted to place him as the latter. “I don’t want people to tell me how great I sound, but then I don’t build on it,” he added. “What comes first is the music. I want to make dope music. It’s been like that from the beginning and it’s going to stay like that.”

Twenty-one years old at the time, the former child gospel singer named Michael Eugene Archer was in the process of transforming himself into a powerhouse soul man with his stunning debut disc Brown Sugar.

Yet five years after the release of that groundbreaking album, which sowed the seeds of the so-called neo-soul revolution, the young Virginia native had a lot riding on his sophomore project Voodoo. Literarily taking his sophisticated sound to the “next level,” D’Angelo’s Voodoo was a stunning work of art that quickly became the talk of the town.

Nevertheless, following the runaway success of the damn-near pornographic (some prefer the term provocative) video for the second single “Untitled (How Does it Feel)” and a subsequent sold-out tour, D’Angelo retreated from the spotlight.

With the exception of a few cameos including an appearance on Q-Tip’s 2008 album The Renaissance, the man many hoped would be the savior of R&B has been musically inactive since 2001. There were reports about his escalating depressions and alleged drug use, and it looked as if the rigorous demands of the music business caused the young artist to have a classic rock-star crack-up.

In last year’s Spin magazine article “Body & Soul,” Roots drummer and former D’Angelo collaborator Ahmir “?usestlove” Thompson asserted that the pressures of being considered a pin-up boy put the brother over the edge.

“Everybody is not built to be a sex symbol,” agrees Nelson George, author of the recently released autobiography City Kid and the classic soul book The Death of Rhythm & Blues. “Just look at how it fucked up his hero Marvin Gaye.”

Not to take anything away from Maxwell and the current chart-topping success of his album Blacksummer’s Night, but it was D’Angelo who courageously blazed the trail that allowed Maxwell and other exponents of the so-called neo-soul movement to be different. Though Brown Sugar and Voodoo are his only albums thus far, D’Angelo’s fearless experimentation broadened the language of R&B by exploring new sonic possibilities. Currently signed to J Records, D’Angelo has spent the better part of a decade making his third album James River, which will supposedly feature guest appearances from Prince, Q-Tip, and Cee-Lo. Periodically a label publicist will announce that D’Angelo’s long-awaited return is imminent, but so far no new music has been released.

For the rest of this story, go to:

http://soulsummer.com/ezine/feature-stories/black-pop-kool-aid-dangelos-left-right

Follow Me...

2009-07-16T11:07:00.001-04:00

http://twitter.com/gonzomike

M.J.: Non-Fiction

2009-06-27T14:00:00.000-04:00

An Invincible Victory.

June 26th, 2009 | Black Music, NONFICTION, Obituary

Today, on NONFICTION, I’ll be talking about the life and music of the late, great Michael Jackson, who died yesterday, with ethnomusicologist Dr. Kyra Gaunt and cultural writer Michael Gonzales, author of “Remembering The Times: Memories of Mike.”

You can hear their ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, dig into our archives for up to 90 days after broadcast.

http://harryallen.info/?p=4176

Remembering The Times: Memories of Michael

2009-06-26T03:24:00.001-04:00

As one of the first generation of kids who embraced those five flamboyant brothers known as The Jackson 5 in the pre-rap music ’70s, especially the perky innocence of the Afroed rug-rat that was Michael, it is difficult to comprehend that the “King of Pop” is now dead.

In those long-lost years before brother Jackson became known as a parody of his former self, his gorgeous voice and staggering image seeped into the fertile imaginations of America’s chocolate city children. ”We embraced the J5 like family, like imaginary best friends or make-believe boyfriends,” wrote soul historian David Ritz in his 1995 liner-notes for the four-CD Jackson box-set Soulsation! ”We loved their bounce and joyful rhythms.”

Many current artists from Jay-Z to Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake to Usher, viewed M.J. as the guiding light that inspired their own ambitions. Missy Elliott once gushed, “I would sit in class and look out of the window hoping I’d see a limousine pull up outside. I’d hope to see a glittery glove on the limo door and it would be Michael Jackson and he’d say, I’m here to get Missy.”

I can only imagine how difficult it must be for her to think of M.J. lying in a coma, taking his last breath.

FOR THE REST OF THIS ESSAY, GO TO:

http://soulsummer.com/ezine/feature-stories/remembering-the-time-memories-of-mike

Blogging @ Bunnie

2009-06-09T16:48:00.001-04:00

When Bunnies editor Katarina de Montfort announced that the second issue was to be dedicated to voyeurism, I immediately thought of one of my favorite Hitchcock movies Rear Window. Simply put, the classic noir flick explores the many things one can witness when staring out of the window into our neighbors apartments. From the beauty of an attractive woman dancing to the creative struggles of a young musician to the darkness of murder, one almost never knows what to expect when staring across the way.

As a native New Yorker raised in an apartment building where our view was another building, I grew-up peeping into folk's windows. One true live story that comes to mind was a pair of sisters whose bedroom window was directly opposite my own. A hundred feet away, if that much, baby brother and I started sneaking peeks at the sisters quite by accident. Not yet in our teens, our hormones must have started peculating young. After a while, it became a regular routine for us to reckless eyeball as the young Dominican girls argued, quietly read or (please, please, please) got undressed after school...

http://redrabbitbooks.blogspot.com

Sade Interview...

2009-06-08T23:07:00.001-04:00

With the possible exception of all those D’Angelo devotees standing on the bank of the James River, the millions of Sade fans across the globe ahave got to be the most patient souls on the planet. Way back when her last album, Lovers Rock, hit stores in November of 2000, Elian Gonzalez had recently been shipped back to Cuba, George W. Bush had just stolen the election from Al Gore, and Almost Famous was flickering on the silver screen.

For the past week, there has been much chatter on the internets about a new Sade album dropping this year while the YouTube clip of her harrowing song “Mum,” recorded for the 2004 DVD Voices For Darfur, is always in heavy rotation. While hanging out with my homeboys Brook and Molaundo a few days ago, we started sharing anecdotes about shows we had seen (my only experience being the “Love Deluxe Tour” at Radio City Music Hall), our favorite videos and, inevitably, we got down to the real question: when was the real queen of royal badness going to bless us with some new music?

Unlike her other admirers, I know personally that there is no rushing Sade. Having turned fifty this past January, this golden lady has always taken her time. “I’m harder on myself than anyone else,” Sade once told me. It was the fall of 1992, a few months before Love Deluxe was set to drop—with classics like “Cherish The Day” and “No Ordinary Love”—and I had been hire to write her bio. “Sometimes it comes easily, other times it’s more difficult,” she explained. “One of the reasons I take a long time cutting tracks is fear, because one can’t change anything once the record has been released.”

FOR THE REST, GO TO...

http://soulsummer.com/ezine/feature-stories/the-barefoot-sade

Garry Phillips

2009-06-04T16:00:00.003-04:00

One of the coolest things about the internet is meeting folks with common interests whom
become real friends though you've never met. In the case of my man fifty grand, prolific
writer Garry Phillips, we not only became buddies, but he also put me down with one of last
years dopest book projects The Darker Mask: Heroes From the Shadows, which he co-edited with "representing D.C." Christopher Chambers.

Having wanted to write comic books since the days of my first typewriter, Gary put me closer
to that dream by simply putting me in the book. The fact that other scribes in Darker Mask includes Walter Mosley, Ann Nocenti and my late brother from another mother Jerry Rodriguez was only an added plus.

For those who might not be familiar with Gary's work in comics, novels and online, let me
just say that the man is a prolific scribe who writes hardboiled characters as though he
were the son of Chester Himes. For a minute in the 1990s, HBO had optioned his cool
character Ivan Monk, a Black private dick in LA. The fact that these flicks were never made
speaks more about the wackness of Hollywood than the character.

Indeed, I'd like to add that Phillips not only writes with gutso, but he also has a genuine love Los Angeles that rival my own with New York City; somewhere in noir heaven Dashiell Hammett, Nathanel West and Horace McCoy are smiling.

With all that said, I wanted to mention that Gary Phillip's newest book, the World War II saga Freedom's Fight (Parker Books), takes the writer in a different direction. As an avid reader, I love when authors feel bold enough to leave their comfort zones and stretch their wings.Though I haven't read Freedom's Flight yet, any war book that has blurbs from legendary comic artist Joe Kubert (Sgt. Rock) and playwright Charles Fuller (A Soldier's Story) is on my must read list for the summer. 'Nuff said.

http://www.gdphillips.com

http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/gary_phillips

http://www.parker-publishing-shopping.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=180

Gordon Parks

2009-06-02T03:06:00.013-04:00

These myths we can't undo they lie in wait for you/We live them till they're true
Hey Manhattan!

song by Prefab Sprout: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgIvDI2bmyE

Verbally tilting their hats toward the musical notes floating over the heads of Cole Porter and George Gershwin, one of my favorite Prefab Sprout songs is the joyful "Hey Manhattan!" Telling the story of a newcomer to the Big Apple, the track sounds like it was lifted from some 1950s musical where Frank Sinatra is smooching an innocent show girl while strolling beneath the Empire State Building.

Yet, while main man vocalist Paddy McAloon sings blissfully, dropping cultural signifiers about Kennedy and the Carlye, I began having a separate flick streaming through my head that may as well be called "Hey, Black Manhattan." In my musical, where everything is designed by the surrealist architects at Bell & Loyd and Apollo Heights does the score, the quintessential New Yorkers are dandies like Bobby Short, Melvin Van Peebles and Gordon Parks.

Having lived a somewhat blessed life as a fly on the artistic wall that is New York City, I've been lucky enough to meet all three men. However, though we didn't have much conversation, none had more impact on me than meeting Gordon Parks the day of XXL's legendary The Greatest Day in Hip-Hop photo shoot on September 29, 1998.

Introduced to Parks by the "city kid" Nelson George, who was making a short film about the event that gathered together over a hundred rappers in Harlem that fine day, I was in complete awe. Dressed in a denim jacket, his hair was completely white. All of 86 years old at the time, he still looked younger than some of the old school rappers present.

Many have heard my rants in the past on how much the soundtrack to Shaft changed my life. But, its influence was actually deeper that just the music. On the back of the album was a picture of three men who turned out to be producer Joel Freeman, composer Isaac Hayes and director Gordon Parks. If I'm not mistaken, my mom pointed him out. "He's the director," she said proudly.

Though I remember her rant against Sweet Back... when she saw it at the Apollo ("It was filth!"), mom liked Shaft. Looking at the photo again I checked out the dapper brother with the thick moustache and obviously cool demeanor, I instantly adopted Gordon as a spiritual godfather. Over the years, as I read more about his early career as the first black Life photographer or his work as a composer or his friendships with Malcolm x and Gloria Vanderbilt, the more I admired his "hustle" as a GQ renaissance man.

At recent opening of of Gordon Park's photographs at The Gallery at Hermes (691 Madison Avenue), I was once again reminded of why I love his work. In one word, it's the "duality" of the images. Be it a picture of gang member Red Jackson standing in front of a broken window, French fashion models wearing lavish gowns or icon Muhammad Ali with beads of sweat rolling down his face. The duality of Parks' work comes into play because, whether he was shooting poor tenement dwellers or Ingrid Bergman, his pictures never looked like they were taken by an interloper.

In other words, whether Gordon Parks was hanging in the hood or chilling on the Rivera, the brother always belonged. Shaking his hand that day in Harlem, I truly felt as though I was in the presence of true artistic power.

The Gallery at Hermes, 691 Madison Avenue, New York
show ends June 30, 2009

Item: June 2, 2009 – Pleasantville, NY – More than 4,000 prints and 20,000 negatives of groundbreaking African-American photographer Gordon Parks’s work – along with a large collection of 19^th and early 20^th century images by Mathew Brady and other early American photographers – will move to a new home at Purchase College/State University of New York, where the collection will be preserved, catalogued, and made available for public view and study, according to officials of the Gordon Parks Foundation, a division of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation.

About the Gordon Parks Foundation

The Gordon Parks Foundation was created to preserve and perpetuate the artist’s legacy, support the work of others, and honor those whose contributions have advanced what Parks called “the common search for a better life and better world.” For more information, visit www.gordonparksfoundation.org.

Blackadelic Pop

So Bad

OPEN erotica

Bronx Brewery Tasting Tonight

Absolute Funk: An Interstellar Trip to Honor the “Godfather of Funk,” George Clinton

Absolute Funk: An Interstellar Tribute to George Clinton, The Godfather of Funk

Oct 25, 2011 7:30 pm | Tuesday

July 13, 1977 (a poem)

1977

Gonzales on Gil Scott Heron, DJ Hollywood, Jim Thompson and more

Nona Hendryx

Black Polaroids on Planet Pop

Nina Simone/Wax Poetics #48

Afro.Astro Channel Meets Michael A. Gonzales

The Erotic Imagination #3

The Erotic Imagination #2

On The Crusaders

A is for Aja

On Prefab Sprout

On Rickie Lee Jones

Joi: Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome

Black Polaroids on Planet Pop

The Erotic Imagination #1

Forgive if I go astary...

D'Angelo: Black Pop Kool-Aid

On Andrew Dosunmu

“RESTLESS IN THE METROPOLIS”

On photographer and filmmaker Andrew Dosunmu

Written by Michael A. Gonzales

Bonz Malone Interview: 2007

My Picture in the Times

Bully '72

On Ernie Paniccioli's Graffiti Photos

"Urban Blight: the Graffiti Photographs of Ernie Paniccioli" An Essay By Michael A. Gonzales

Coon Bidness

Love, BW...

Right On! Prince

The Birdman of Harlem @ A Twist of Noir

Such Sweet Thunder

Cinematic Soul: The Soundtracks of Quincy Jones

Boogie Down Inferno (fiction)

Her Life: Mary J. Blige @ Soul Summer

The Love We Lost: On Teddy Pendergrass

Curtis Mayfield and the Black Rock Connection

Remembering Curtis Mayfield on the 10th Anniversary of his Death

Bill Withers

Critics on Super Fly soundtrack

The Flavor of Chocolat

Superfly Samples

Wax Poetics Issue 38

Featured Articles:

Also Includes:

His Name is Craig McMullen

Art Crawl Through East Harlem

The Big Picture: The Music of Michael Jackson

Reel Harlem...

Unsung Soul Man Leroy Hutson

Nights on Broadway (Introduction)

What About Bobby?

My Favorite Book Cover

Alicia Keys on Soul Music

Looking Back at Mary J. Blige

The Black Rock Report

D'Angelo's "Left & Right"/Ten Years Later

Black Pop Kool-Aid: D’Angelo’s “Left & Right”

Follow Me...

M.J.: Non-Fiction

An Invincible Victory.

Remembering The Times: Memories of Michael

Blogging @ Bunnie

Sade Interview...

Garry Phillips

Gordon Parks

"Urban Blight: the Graffiti Photographs of Ernie Paniccioli"
An Essay By Michael A. Gonzales