Category Archives: Music and Entertainment

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree l THE MAN

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THE MAN

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Young and curious, crusin= the street, my partner and I, with life at our feet. Beautiful days of summer=s ilk, and beautiful ladies with legs of silk. Miles on the box with Thelonious in tow, playin’ “Round Midnite”, with nothin=but soul. Miles was moanin=, Thelonious was Monk, our senses were spinnin=- our top in the trunk.
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Down Century Boulevard, past Sportsman Park, North on Crenshaw, Can=t wait til it=s dark. Crenshaw was jammin=, not like today, with cognitive people, who went their own way. Cadillacs gleamin=, prosperity galore, Ladies a struttin=, that gait I adore. The hood left behind, no denial or shame, among my kind of people, who=d mastered the game.
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Dreamin= and crusin=, yet, chained to the hood, but into an element we both understood. Jazz was the thing that had lured our route, and no chain of poverty was keepin= us out! Cause THE MAN was in town, with his mighty ax, and he was jammin= that night at Dynamite Jack=s.
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So anxious to worship THE MAN in the flesh, the first thing that mornin= we started to dress. In our youthful exuberance we saw nothin= wrong, with the hours to kill before HE would go on. Hence, there we were with nothin= to do, THE MAN=S first note at 9, and it was now only 2.
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So we went to a park on Rodeo Road and proceeded to get in our Mack-daddy mode. We needed two women with presence and class, who were progressive, and sexy, and dug modern jazz.
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We lucked-out, no doubt, with Debra and Gwen, two sisters on cruse in their step-father=s Benz. These women were ladies we soon recognized, not only quite lovely but exceedingly wise. We spoke of Dizzy, Dexter, Thelonious and Bird, and all of the monsters of jazz that we=d heard. Then just as our session was starting to end, Gwen mentioned Dolphy, and we were at it again.
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We partook of the bush, we had a few beers, by 8 it was like we=d been partyin= for years. But now it was time to hit Dynamite Jack=s, to hear THE MAN blow, sip Scotch and relax.
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So we followed the ladies up into the hills, to a fabulous pad, must=ve cost a few bills. We dropped off my car, then got in the wind. We split to see HIM, and my journey began.
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Dynamite Jack=s was the place to be, there seemed to be thousands of new things to see. Doctors, lawyers, pimps and Awhoes@, dope fiends with their nostrils froze; Perverts, politicians (one and the same), everyone seemed to have some kind of game.
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At 16 years old I was really impressed, with this flash, this glitz, this flamboyant success. I knew before long, that my turn would come, I=d shoot for the stars, at least, out of the slum.

Then HE came on stage to a mighty roar, as bustling humanity hung all out the door. A quiet MAN, of knowledge and taste, yet HIS presence sent a chill through the place!
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Then flash became silence, and glitz bled to awe. Pure greatness just glistened from THIS MAN we saw. No posturing, no swagger, no hipster-like Mack, Just unfettered greatness, the essence, in fact….
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On that one precious moment, as I gaped at the stand, my young reckless mind would take hold as a man. That moment estranged from the kid that I=d been. Life’s door was flung wide, and a new man would step in.
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Now, many years later, assessing my life, with the dues of raising two kids with a wife. THE MAN is long gone from this earthly plain, but HIS unflaunting manhood stays etched in my brain.
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A kid on that night gave birth to a plan, that night when I looked up in awe at THE MAN. Revealed was a path that would color my life, that shunned the flamboyance and glitz of the night. To shoot for the stars! That was my plan – the stardom that=s found in just being A MAN!
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I’ve taken two souls, and molded their lives, away from the flash, and the glitz, of the night. Two college age kids now view ME with awe. I now see in their eyes what that night HE saw.
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Greatness is relative, I learned from THE MAN, through the glint in HIS eye, and HIS demeanor on stand. You don’t have to be famous to be someone grand, just pull up your trousers, and stand tall like a man.
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It was KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM that night that I saw; the EXCELLENCE of DISCIPLINE that put awe in awe, of one humble spirit, so sweet and sublime, but a spirit that=ll speak to all man for all time!
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So a droplet of beauty, from this “kid” to mankind; a pearl of wisdom, a wistful rhyme; some insight he gained as he bat away tears; might his essence endure through the unfolding years?
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A journey began, on that faithful night, that moment a young set of eyes saw AFirst Light.@When HE tapped out the rhythm to Africa Brass . . .
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and my dream to see COLTRANE had come true at last.

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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me – it’s just that God does.

OUR COMMON GROUND Opens 2013 Season with Political-Cultural-Social Commentator Playthell Benjamin

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OUR COMMON GROUND with Janice Graham

2013 Season Opening

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 Playthell Benjamin

February 2, 2013 10pm ET

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2013 Season Opening

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GUEST: Playthell Benjamin, Author, Commentator, Scholar and Broadcaster

Commentaries on The Times

“Praising Saints, Celebrating Heroes, Unmasking Charlatans, Defending the Defenseless and Chastising Scoundrel

“He characterized Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West as misdirected and Marvin X of Oakland, a recovering left coast crack head and shameless sophist with an alter-ego bearing the curious name of “Plato Negro;” a pompous wag who confuses mindless mumbo jumbo with profound wisdom, alas I have been dragged back into an ethnic kerfuffle of the sort they love to wallow in but I eschew.” He writes about all the great issues of our time, and he is interested in the whole world. From the issues of SandyHook to Syria, the White House and the UN, there is no argument that Playthell Benjamin is a learned scholar and street smart analyst.”


About Playthell Benjamin

Playthell George Benjamin is the producer of “Commentaries On the Times” which he writes and delivers on WBAI radio in New York City. He is a producer with The Midnight Ravers, a long running show exploring the world of art and politics which has won several radio awards for excellence in programming. He is an award winning journalist who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in two different categories: Explanatory Journalism, Village Voice 1988, and Distinguished Commentary, New York Daily News 1995. As part of the production team for The Midnight Ravers, Mr. Benjamin won a 2011 award for excellence in radio programming, given for The Curtis Mayfield Special.

playthell benjaminIn addition to major political current events, he has extensively written about the differences in political approach within the Black community on issues related to the Obama presidency, administration policies and achievement. Playthell has been an OUR COMMON GROUND Voice since the late 1980s and we welcome his voice back to our microphone. Our discussion will focus on issues related to Obama administration achievements, the inter-community discourse on Obama, and class struggle in America. His provocative, well-informed commentary is hard-hitting and sure to invite serious consideration of our positions and direction.

He characterized Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West as misdirected and Marvin X of Oakland, a recovering left coast crack head and shameless sophist with an alter-ego bearing the curious name of “Plato Negro;” a pompous wag who confuses mindless mumbo jumbo with profound wisdom, alas I have been dragged back into an ethnic kerfuffle of the sort they love to wallow in but I eschew.” He writes about all the great issues of our time, and he is interested in the whole world. From the issues of SandyHook to Syria, the White House and the UN, there is no argument that Playthell Benjamin is a learned scholar and street smart analyst.

He writes that he has spent “a half century chronicling the triumphs and studying the problems of the black world. Indeed I was a co-founder of the first free standing, degree granting, Black Studies Department in history – the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Mass, Amherst. I also spent quite a few years as an activist trying to solve those problems, beginning with the explosion of the black student movement in the south during the spring of 1960. Since then my life story would make a spectacular read even by the standards of a romance novel.”

Playthell has won several prizes ranging from The Unity Award presented by the School of communications at Lincoln University in Missouri for distinguished commentary on race relations; the Griot Prize for excellence in covering a story requiring an exploration of African American history and culture: “Who is Listening to Louis Farrakhan?” It was awarded by the New York chapter of the Association of Black Journalist in December 1989. In 1991 Mr. Benjamin won the NYABJ Magazine Awards for Feature Stories, and in 1996 he won the first Annual Tom Forcade Award “for honesty and accuracy in drug reporting” awarded by High Times magazine for his columns on drug use and abuse in the New York Daily News.
From 1991 – 1996 Playthell was a regular contributor to the Guardian Observer of London, where he wrote on politics, culture and sports. He also wrote for the Sunday Times of London, particularly in the prestigious magazine, The Culture, which addresses cultural matters high and low. In the London Guardian he wrote feature stories ranging from the television coverage of the Los Angeles race riot sparked by the Rodney King incident, to the courtroom genius of the great First Amendment Lawyer Martin Garbus, as well as the O.J. Simpson Trial, The Mike Tyson Rape Case, The Inauguration of Bill Clinton, Concerts at Lincoln Center, and the Sista Souljah vs. Bill Clinton incident. Mr. Clinton’s saxophone playing was also subjected to serious critical evaluation in an essay titled “He may be the Leader of the Western World…But will he ever be President of the Saxophone? For The Sunday Times he wrote about the Youth Jazz festivals convened by the peerless jazz vocalist Betty Carter, Michael Douglass’ movie on the desperation of displaced white workers, Gangsta Rap, Jazz, etc.

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OUR COMMON GROUND with Janice Graham

“Speaking Truth to Power and Ourselves”

BROADCASTING BRAVE BOLD BLACK

Community Forum: http://www.ourcommonground-talk.ning.com/
Twitter: @JaniceOCG #TalkthatMatters
Web: http://www.wordpress.ourcommongroundtalk.com/

Original Creator of Matrix & Terminator Wins $2.5 Billion In Lawsuit

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NOVEMBER 17, 2009

Original Creator of Matrix & Terminator Wins $2.5 Billion In Lawsuit

After a six year dispute, prolific writer and profound spiritualist, Sophia Stewart has received justice for copyright infringement and racketeering and will finally recover damages from the films, The Matrix I, II and III, as well as The Terminator and its sequels. Yes, you heard that correctly – the entire Matrix & Terminator franchises, and her suspected pay off is expected to be the highest in history – an estimated 2.5 billion.

Her case is a true landmark, and far too uncommon as countless creatives are exploited by the snake-like dealings of the movie industry. Here’s a recap of her triumphant journey by way of George2.0:

“Stewart filed her case in 1999, after viewing the Matrix, which she felt had been based on her manuscript, ‘The Third Eye,’ copyrighted in 1981. In the mid-eighties Stewart had submitted her manuscript to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works.

According to court documentation, an FBI investigation discovered that more than thirty minutes had been edited from the original film, in an attempt to avoid penalties for copyright infringement. The investigation also stated that ‘credible witnesses employed at Warner Brothers came forward, claiming that the executives and lawyers had full knowledge that the work in question did not belong to the Wachowski Brothers.’ These witnesses claimed to have seen Stewart’s original work and that it had been ‘often used during preparation of the motion pictures.’ The defendants tried, on several occasions, to have Stewart’s case dismissed, without success.

Stewart has confronted skepticism on all sides, much of which comes from Matrix fans, who are strangely loyal to the Wachowski Brothers. One on-line forum, entitled Matrix Explained has an entire section devoted to Stewart. Some who have researched her history and writings are open to her story.”

Although it’s long overdue, and buried in large part by the media machine, Stewart has finally received official credit (and hopefully financial settlement by 2009) for her prodigious contributions to both Hollywood, and the world for her ground breaking sagas, both the Matrix & Terminator franchises. Let us hope that this landmark ruling provides a measure of hope for other ripped off screenwriters seeking justice even if only by way of public recognition.

To echo her 2004 victorious press release:

‘The Matrix & Terminator movie franchises have made world history and have ultimately changed the way people view movies and how Hollywood does business, yet the real truth about the creator and creation of these films continue to elude the masses because the hidden secret of the matter is that these films were created and written by a Black woman…a Black woman named Sophia Stewart. But Hollywood does not want you to know this fact simply because it would change history. Also it would encourage our Black children to realize a dream and that is…nothing is impossible for them to achieve!’

We’d like to believe that the justice she received was not in name only, and she is able to reap the benefits of her enormous creative contributions.

Is Trinidad James an Artist or a Buffoon? Dr. Chistopher Emdin (OUR COMMON GROUND Voice)with Dr. Boyce Watkins

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Is Trinidad James an Artist or a Buffoon? Dr. Chistopher Emdin discusses

December 28, 2012 |

trinidad-chrisDr. Boyce Watkins had a conversation about the impact that hip-hop is having on the youth that listen to it. To add to the conversation, he invited Dr. Christopher Emdin to weigh in on the conversation about what rappers like Trinidad James are actually doing to young people when they release records full of destructive messages.

The interview is below:

Dr. Watkins:     Hi.  I’m Dr. Boyce Watkins from YourBlackWorld.com.  Last week I was in New York City and I stopped by a radio station, in the City, called Power 105.1, which is a hip-hop station.  One of my buddies is one of the hosts on the show called the Breakfast Club.  His name is Charlamagne Tha God.  So, I stopped through to talk to Charlamagne and we were talking about some of this nonsense with BET and whether or not it’s affecting our kids and stuff like that.

I asked Charlamagne,

“What do you think about this guy, this new rapper, Trinidad James?”

Charalamagne said,

“Oh, yeah.  Trinidad was here right before you got here.”  I said, “I’m so happy I didn’t cross paths with him on my way in the door because I think that might have been my first arrest for assault because I probably would have tried to beat this brother down.  His music just bothers me so much.  But, then again, maybe I’m just a hater because he’s got more money than me.”

So, to kind of get some perspective on this, I wanted to bring in one of my buddies who is one of the scholars I respect the most in the country, Dr. Christopher Emdin.  He’s not just a Professor of Education at Columbia University, which is impressive enough; but he’s also a very, very good hip-hop artist.  I’ve literally seen him bust freestyle in front of a group of high school kids and at the same time talk to them about how the power of hip-hop can be used to teach them science.  So, I’ve got Dr. Emdin on the line.

Dr. Boyce:          How are you doing today, brother?

Dr. Emdin:         I’m doing well, man.  I’m really appreciative that you gave me the opportunity to share some insight on this situation with Trinidad James.  He’s blowing up over night.

Dr. Boyce:          Yeah.  He really is.  Is it true he’s been rapping for about  8 or 9 months?

Dr. Emdin:         The interview narrative has been about 8 or 9 months but I think he’s been rapping a little bit longer.  I vividly remember actually being in Atlanta about a year and a half ago and I was talking with some young people.  Some of them were saying, “Yo.  Trinidad James is next.  Trinidad James is the truth.”  So, I think he’s actually been rapping a little bit longer than the narrative that’s being put out to the public.  His fan base has been there for quite a while.

Dr. Boyce:          Really.  Okay.

Dr. Emdin:         Yes, sir.

Dr. Boyce:          So, Trinidad just got a deal with Def Jam Records.  It’s so interesting because I’m kind of, mentally, in that space.  I literally had an hour and a half long meeting yesterday with Russell Simmons talking about bringing in hip-hop artists to support our campaign on mass incarceration.  You’re also in that space because you just finished an extraordinary event with Gza from the Wu Tang Clan on how to use hip-hop to teach science.

So, what is your take on the legitimacy now – or the perceived legitimacy of this artist who is producing music that many people might call straight coonery and buffoonery?

Dr. Emdin:         See, this is my take and I want to be very, very clear.  I do not blame Trinidad James for his over-night success.  I don’t blame Trinidad James for the fact that he is on every radio station across the country.  Nor do I blame him for the fact that he has become an over-night phenomena.  What I do blame is a record company that will sign this artist, support this artist, give him money, and continue in this trajectory or piggy back off of this underground success he’s made at the expense of promoting a caricature of blackness.  I don’t blame the brother.

The black experience has its nuances.  There is somebody who Trinidad James raps to and for.  Just like there’s somebody that Gza raps to and for.  There’s a wide array of that.  There’s intellectual rap.  There’s street rap.  There’s pop and molly rap.  I don’t advocate for the negative but I realize that it exists.

In my view, my issue is not with the artist himself.  My issue is with a public and with a corporate hip-hop system.  We call it hip-hop.  We call it something — an institution that’s supposed to advocate for our culture only identifying the negative caricature and making sure that that becomes what the picture is of the entire culture.  That’s what I have a problem with.  I have a problem with radio stations choosing to take Trinidad James and put him on their station in New York City or across the globe as what is the newest and hottest artist in the country.  Because they have the power to be able to identify another artist that is much more talented and perhaps has a different robust subject matter, and make that person be the picture of hip-hop.

So, I don’t blame the man.  The man that’s speaking based on his experiences, or his circumstances, or what he sees in Atlanta everyday, or his

self-construction, however flawed that may be.  I won’t critique that one publicly.  I would like to have a conversation with him about why that is how he constructs who he is; why it is that he sees the world this way.  I’ve heard interviews with the brother.  He’s actually quite articulate.  So, I’d like to talk to him about, “Why don’t you pull forth more of the complexity of who you are into your music?”  That’s conversation between me and Trinidad James or anybody who loves hip-hop or loves black men and wants to see them be more then what they are portrayed to be.  That’s a conversation between us and Trinidad.

My critique is not him.  My critique is the system.  My critique is the corporate system that allows us to force-feed this nonsense to our young people.  My critique is of the fact that we are now at a point where we are advocating for these who are spitting nursery school rhymes as if that’s complex hip-hop.  I don’t think Trinidad James is a product of isolation.  He didn’t come out of nowhere.  Trinidad James is the ancestor of Rick Ross.   Rick Ross has a nursery school rhyme and he pauses and says, “uh.”  And then, Trinidad James says, “Hot tamale, I’m sweating, whoo.”  That’s the same cadence.  It’s the basic baseline nursery rhyme cadence.  You know, Trinidad James is the evolution of Rick Ross.  And, there will be many more incarnations of that simplistic rap if we don’t get to the point where we start critiquing it and saying, “Hey, Company, there’s a brother right now, called “X”, who is spitting hip-hop on a consistent basis about every social dynamic of our time.  Every social construction where he talks about black maleness, politics, the media, and corporate entity, he talks about all these things that really affect black men but you’re not going to offer him a deal.  You won’t give him the debility.  He won’t get spins on 105.1 or Hot 97.  Then you blame the audience like the audience is asking for it.  The audience isn’t asking for it.  The audience is asking for complexity and blackness.  You take that as the message you want to show us and then you blame us because we’re the one’s consuming.  We’re consuming because you’re feeding it.”

And this is why I go back to what a great man once said, “It is that time that we turn off the radio, turn off the BS, and we get to the point where we start supporting artists who speak to and for us.  And when we have those artists that don’t do that, we critique them individually; we critique them personally.  We have a conversation about them because those brothers are hurt.  They’re lonely.  They’re speaking those narratives because they’re still trying to find themselves.  I hear Trinidad James.  I don’t get angry at the brother.  I get angry at the circumstances that allowed him to feel like this is the only way that he can get some visibility.

So, where we are right now is to really focus on the entities who push these messages upon us. , that take one artist out of Atlanta and put him on a National billboard.  And the question we have to ask ourselves is not why Trinidad James is creating that rap, it’s why is the public and the company and the record label and MTV and Viacom and Clear Channel and 105.1, 97.1, or whatever radio station it is that you’re listening to throughout the country, singling him out as what we should be showing our young people as an example.  That’s who I blame, not the man.

Dr. Boyce:     I’m in complete agreement with you.  And, I’ll say this: anybody who hasn’t seen Trinidad James’ video has got to check out his song.  The song that made him successful is called “All Gold Everything.”  And, it’s about the biggest caricature of black manhood that you’ve ever seen in your life.  Everybody in the video is pretty much running around with guns and money and drugs. Every buffoonish, ignorant, self-destructive stereotype that is fed to our black men on a regular basis is featured in this video. The next book that I’m releasing is related to what I call the gospel of black-male self-destruction, which is being fed to African American males through this music.  It’s being played out all around us and we see black boys imitating this on a regular basis.  It only leads them to either prison or the morgue.  We’ve got to stop it and we’ve got to deal with it and get it where it stands.

Now, I want to ask you the last question, Dr. Emdin.  One of the things that bothered me about Trinidad James is…I would have felt more comfortable if somebody had said, “Well, you know, he just doesn’t know what he does.  The poor boy, his IQ is about 80.”  Which is why his lyrics, as you mentioned, sound like kindergarten nursery rhymes.  But, one of the hosts at Power 105 said to me, “You know, he’s actually quite articulate and very intelligent.”  And, I said, “That is a damn shame that an intelligent black man has to be ashamed of his intelligence.  He has to hide his intelligence in order to make a dollar.”  That is pathetic to me.

So, what is your take on that, Dr. Emdin?  How deep is this anti-intellectualism issue within commercialized hip-hop; within the broader culture?  What is this doing to us as black men?

Dr. Emdin:         Well, it’s ruining us.  I mean… I’ll just be completely frank.  I’ve listened to a bunch of Trinidad James’ interviews just because I’ve been curious about this man’s psyche.  When I initially saw the video and heard the song, I thought the song was catchy.  I’m not going to front; when I heard it the first time, I said, “Man, it’s a catchy beat.”  I heard the song and I knew the lyrics were trash and I also watched the video. So, I started researching and listening to interviews.  I heard him on 105.1.  And, yes, he is articulate.  Yes, he can form a sentence.  But, the problem is why is it that we should be surprised when a black man can be articulate?  Why does it have to be like, “You know what, he actually is.”  Why can’t the stuff that he presents from the beginning be that articulate and that complex self?  Why does he have to play a character in order for him to be able to be successful?

But the reality is…my solution and my take on it… and this is not something I’ve created: There’s a bunch of hip-hop scholars and African American scholars that have said this for a very long time.  What I’m saying is we’ve got to reach the point where we start showing people that there is a different narrative.  And the piece of that different narrative I’m talking about is that you can have the hypothesized identity. You can rhyme, speak intelligently through that rhyme, be articulate through that rhyme, be aware of politics in your environment through that rhyme and be validated for it.  You don’t have to be stupid to be accepted.  You don’t have to play stupid to be accepted.  Because, what happens when you’re playing a character?

Psychologists tell us this all the time that individuals have core identities and they have role-like identities.  The core identity is who you really truly are which expresses your intelligence.  Your role identity is the identity that you have to construct in order to be successful in a social stair.  If you have a role identity that you enact so consistently, what happens is that it begins to rot your core.  You can have a core self and have played a character for so long that you play a game with your mind and you alter your true self by enacting a character for too long.  And so, the big problem here is deeper than just this one artist.  It’s in the fact that this artists creates a narrative that young people start emulating.  And the more that they emulate that narrative, it becomes part of their self-construction.  It impacts their core identity and starts to rot the intelligence that they have within them – that’s the issue.

Dr. Boyce:     Wow.  That’s really deep- life imitating art.  Anybody who doesn’t believe that the music affects the minds of our kids needs to go to talk to a good psychologist. They will tell you that the repetition of mantra, laced over a smooth continuous repetitive beat, makes your mind open to suggestion and therefore it sinks so deeply into your subconscious that you don’t even know it’s there.  Adolf Hitler said, a long time ago… and people said it before him, that those who control the minds of the people control everything.  So when you look at what our kids are absorbing, you can’t help but feel that we’re in a state of emergency.

So, I appreciate you, Dr. Emdin, for stepping on the front line to deal with this issue and to provide that voice that so many of us need.  Thank you so much.

Dr. Emdin:         Thank you, sir.

Dr. Boyce:     Thank you all for checking us out at YourBlackWorld.com.  Until we meet again, please, stay strong, be blessed, and be educated.

 

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