If you afraid nigga say you afraid.

from Curtis Mayfield to Bob Marley to PE to Boots to ... living colour to bad brains... black people have always made problack music.

You see blues was nothing more than conscious problack music.
Gospel is nothing more than conscious problack music.
Jazz greats would explain that during their era of censorship, Jim Crow, and white supremecy, that Jazz was problack music speaking on the troubles of people of color.
In other words... black people have ALWAYS made problack music.
It's fairly sensible considering you would have to have an alternate view of your people or agenda to support or to make music that would counter your own neighborhoods, families, and support systems.

Jimi Hendrix has a wonderful piece called Black Gold...where he clearly explains that people of color are the fathers of this earth... and the barers of light, wonderfully creative people caught up in turmoil.

If you were a sucker for any movement and you weren’t sincere to it… then that’s your natural order.
You might be
The cat who had on timbs and a tissue up your nose when redman was hot..
That nigga with a gun and skullcap when NWA was out…
I maintain… anyone who was concered about consciousness that was serious in 89… will be serious in 09…
Anyone who shifted gears in 93 probably shifted gears in 03.
you might be that cat right now with a Blazer and a Fitted on...
thinking your fresh...

That was arguably the most potent period in hiphop as there was an agenda to the music. That climate during that period challenged younger writers and producers to not only think outside the box... but write music with content, substance, and demanding that you address the ills of our era. In a era that had no black leadership... it was hiphop that stepped up and played King, X,
In the words of the great Joe Strummer
“Today’s Revolution Music, is tomorrow’s pop”.

However… you have to have pop people to want pop music.
Nations of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet are two timeless gems that addressed the climate of this country during the late 80’s. I have always maintained that after the success of these albums there was a feverish attempt to counter it with work from Dre and Eazy. The fact that Eazy had the same lawyers as the lawyers who represented the cops who beat Rodney King, the fact that Eazy was in the Source defending the cops “if you look at the tape they were telling him to stay down, but the nigga wouldn’t listen”. The fact that Eazy was invited to the White House to have dinner with the Seth Lord himself… George Bush Sr. even taking a pic with him.
You see Jerry Heller who was the owner of Ruthless Records had a huge history in music.
He’s the man responsible for bringing Pink Floyd to the US for the very first time and as well as Elton John.
He was Marvin Gaye’s Manager from 1967-1972.
several things about Heller you don't know...

Is a teacher at UCLA for Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts. . . .

He is the first non-lawyer ever admitted to lecture at the Practicing Law Institute. . .???

Was manager to Ike and Tina Turner.

He was invited to the White House by two different presidents… Nixon and George Bush Sr.

Read that part again... Nixon and Bush... both worked closely with Kissinger. Now if you know anything about neutralizing and the operations of the CIA, then you know what this means.
I invite you to review the Heroine drug case of Jimi Hendrix in Toronto Canada...

Both of whom viewed popular music, rock music, and black music in general as national security threats.
Was this the downfall of ProBlack music? Who knows. Eazy was friends with Freeway Rick, the most notorious drug dealer out of Compton in the late 80’s and notably the man responsible for bringing CRACK to the black community thru the CIA.
Freeway Rick has explained how this work on many occasions.
Let’s discuss.

Assassination Politics of the Vietnam War period.

Former CIA Richard Ober, director of OPERATION CHAOS...
the most expansive domestic surveillance and covert ops net-work in America'shistory.
The intelligence sectors response to the anti-war and civil rights movements, ran covert
assassinations programs as well.
The Nixon administration rose on a foundation of political murder.
The C.I.A.had assembled a thick concordia of lethal methods.
The project began with an anonymous , undated memo on assassination by "natural cause."
Knock off key people the heavily censored document specified, " how to knock off key guys,
natural causes, a declassified memo..
1 Bodies left with no hope if the cause of death being determined by the most complete
autopsy and chemical examinations,
2 Bodies left in such circumstances as to simulate accidental death
3 Bodies left in such circumstances as to simulate accidental suicide
4 Bodies left with residue that simulate those caused by natural diseases.

CHAPTER 1 A Killing Field For The Heat

In 1967 a subversive form of music melded with politics in San Francisco.Thus,
destabilization tactics were summarized in a leaked memo, excerpt:
"show them as depraved" call attention to their habits, and every possible
embarrassment. Send articles to the newspaper showing their depravity. Use misinformation
to confuse and corrupt. Provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in death."

For the first time since it's creation the warfare state erected by the Dulles brothers,
Hoover, MacArthur, Kissinger, Nixon, etc. was threatened by an increasingly militant
segment of society.The FBI rose to the challenge.
On July 30, 1994, Intelligence files on Leonard Bernstein reveal the bureau spent
countless hours examining his links with associations deemed communist to subversive.

FBI agent Jane Moore said the FBI saw the strength and power of the idea of socialism,
realized it represented a very real danger to our profit-motivated corporate state andhad
declared total covert war against not only the denim clad revolutionaries but all
progressive forces
The bureaus tactic was to cut them down or burn them out before they realized their
potential.

At the federal level, the CIA. was already pursuing similar objectives under code name
Operation Chaos.

Targets of Chaos
Blank Panther Movement (Geronimo Pratt, jailed for 27 yrs. for murders he did not
commit. He was also a target of COINTELPRO, the FBI "counter-surveillance program"
Politically active hippies were also targets.Many underground papers were put out of
business when they were abandoned by advertisers who had been pressured by the FBI From
1967 to 1972 the operation compiled 13,000 files, which concerned 300,000 individuals and
organizations. The CIA directorate of operations created an index of 7 million names.

CHAPTER 2 The Machine Cia And Mob Influences On The Rock Industry

The mafia was to be enlisted for the covert war against the counter-culture. In the
mid-60's CHAOS officials and the mob both eyed the rise of political rock music. The CIA
saw them as long haired communists screaming for revolution and the end to the Vietnam
War. The mafia wanted more constrictive financial control over the recording industry. Top
40, the reigning broadcast format in America owes its very existence to the CIA and mafia
combo. Drugs would enter the equation, plus youth and LSD with the politics of heroin and
LSD drugs wereonly onecontribution the agency has made to the American culture.
The National Security Council was patterned after Hitler's security council , and its
jurisdiction was to oversee the CIA by dictate of the NSA of 1947.

CHAPTER 3 Parapolitical Stars In The Dope Show

Books were burned, book stores closed down, offices and social centers were broken into,
artists, writers, musicians and countless hippies got dragged into court., to answer
trumped up charges of corruption, obscenity, drug-abuse, and anything that might silence
their voices.LSD appeared on the streets, as if on cue to destroy student descent. More
potent drugs used in federally sponsored behavior modification studies (translates
mind-control) also found their way to society at large. STP created by Dow-Chemical Co. in
1964 was considered incapacitating agent by the CIA Emergency wards was choked in San
Francisco with freaking bohemians. PCP an animal tranquilizer, also fed to the hippies by
the CIA. The Mob opened mass production labs and a meticulously organized network of
traffickers to move black marketdrugs.
A CIA agent who claims to have infiltrated the covert LSD network, provided a clue when
he referred to Height-Asbury as a human guinea pig farm.A dozen years earlier in the same
city, George Hunter White and hisCIA colleagues had set up a "safe house" and began
testing hallucinogenic drugs on unwitting citizens. Now suddenly there was a neighborhood
packed with young people who were ready and willing to gobble experimental
chemicals.Charles Manson and Timothy Leary arrived in San Francisco and each had a keen
interest in mind-control.

Dulles mentioned in his memo that the agency was testing drugs on groups of people. CIA
personnel mingled with the drug dealers.. Monitoring stations were set up, among them was
Louis J West, Jack Ruby's shrink, West oversawDr Jose Delgado, author of Physical Control
of the Mind and Ross Addey, a veteran of operation Paperclip (Nazi's entry into CIA and
NASA and else where), Dr. Margaret Singer of the CIA created False Memory Syndrome. All
participated in the study of LSD as a politically destabilizing weapon. One CIA memo named
the drug as a potential new agent for unconscious warfare. In 1967 as CHAOS was launched
by CIA White House. Timothy Leary, tossed out of the army for erratic behavior, left
experimenting with LSD on prisoners in N.Y. for the CIA, and donned the robes of the
designated LSD media prelate. He later admitted to knowing at the time that some powerful
people in Washington have sponsored this drug research. Leary was constantly surrounded by
ops of intelligent agents.

CHAPTER 4 The death of Cass Elliot (of the Mamas and the Papas)and other restless youth

According to Mae Brussell, researcher, in 1968 orders went out to proceed to neutralize
segments of society. including those restless youth. By 1969 the SSS (Special Services
Section of the FBI), combined with the Justice department and with the CIA operation
Chaos.
Thus. Manson Murders, etc. Manson joined the Process church, a Satanist church, who also
worshipped Lucifer and Jehovah. It was (is) big in Hollywood at the time.(Manson clearly a
mind-controlled dupe).

One FBI report on Cass Elliot marked urgent states she attended a fund raiser in
Hollywood , for Peace and Justice. Cass had political ambitions and wanted to be a
senator, maybe, in 20 yrs or so. An underground paper called The Realist suggested Cass
was the target of political foul play. The editorPaul Krassner said, "I believe she might
have been killed. She knew a lot about the incredible criminal links between Hollywood and
Washington and Las Vegas.

CHAPTER 5 The Murder In The House Of Pooh, Brian Jones Of The Rolling Stones

. The fusion of music and politics made the stones an enemy of the state.There were
infiltrators and drug set-ups and busts thus, Jagger said " This is a protest against the
system, war stems from power-mad politicians and patriots, we must end all these mindless
men from seats of power, and replace them with real people, people of compassion." The
stones were stalked harassed and getting paranoid.
An odd construction crew came to restore the house of Brian Jones, the former cottage of
AA Milne, author of Pooh books. They muscled their way into hisprivate life, and had a
weird hold over Brian. One worker, Thorogood, made a death bed confession, that he had
drowned Wilson The tell-tale signs of cover-up by authorities are unmistakable. He was
off drugs at the time. his death was not caused by a life of abuse as was claimed, he was
murdered.

CHAPTER 6 The End Of Rock Festivals

Five Months later, a music festival happened near San Francisco, and became murderous.
The band would be forever tainted by the surreal violence..
Editor of Rolling Stone, Jan Wenner, put the Rolling Stones Band in touch with Melvin
Belli, attorney of California well-heeled conservative base, whose eulogy at his funeral
was, "a man of law against the CHAOS of life, a man ofCHAOS against the law of life." He
was one of CIA's most trusted court room wonders.Belli chose the Altamount for the Stones
concert. It had all the charm of a grave yard, and not fitto draw 300,000 people.! Ralph
Sonny Barger of the Hells Angels was hired to keep the peace, (an informant hit-man, who
was hired by feds to kill labor activist Cesar Chavez, but was arrested instead on an old
charge.)Hells Angels are represented in 18 countries now, largest crime family export. Who
in 1969 suspected the Hells Angels was a death squad in employ of the political agencies?
(a refreshing break from the status quo?)

At the Stone's concert the Hells Angels beat up on the youth to excited to seeJagger and
Leary arrive, an 18 year old girl was stabbed to death for allegedly having a gun, by the
Hells Angels. There ended up 3 dead and many wounded.. A Cancer Was Planted And Growing In
The Counter-Culture

CHAPTER 7 Jimi Hendrix Political Harassment And Murder

He didn't die from a drug overdose, he was not an out of control dope fiend. He was not
a junkie.
FBI COUNTELPRO was out to do more than prevent a communist menace, from overtaking the
U.S.! (or to control black power movement). It was out to obliterate its opposition and
ruin the representatives of the people involved in the anti-war movement, Civil Rights
Movement, and the rock revolution.

Hendrix manager, Mike Jeffery, by his own admission was an intelligence agent. He
frequently boasted he had powerful underworld connections.There were many mafia managed
"acts". The CIA/Mafia connection had exercised considerable influence in the music
industry for decades.Hendrix wanted out of the contract. He felt he was under surveillance
and felt more and more unsafe in New York, his former safe haven. His manager, thus, might
have created a Toronto arrest, to silence Jimi. He preferred him to be isolated. He had
always been a trusting and open person before, and now he didn't know who to trust.

He was getting 10 grand for a 50 grand concert.Hendrix friends said Jeffrey's would get
more money from a dead Hendrix than a living one. There was also a possiblemillion dollar
insurance policy in Jeffrey's name.

Was Hendrix murdered? The official cause of death was asphyxiation caused by vomit? The
pathologist report left the cause of death open. Monica Danneman (investigator), had long
insisted Hendrix was murdered. At the time of her own death, she had brought media
attention to the case in a letter and highly publicized court battle.Monica's body was
found in a fume-filled car near her home, in south England. It was called a suicide.

She had a lot of death threats, and people who knew her said "she didn't believe in the
concept of suicide"

CHAPTER 8 Death Of Jim Morrison, Lead Singer Of The Doors

Two years after the death of Brian Jones, Jim Morrison's body was found in a bath-tub in
his flat in Paris. Death was attributed to natural causes, possibly heart failure.Morrison
's political outbursts attractedthe FBI. He had said, " I like the idea about the breaking
away or over-throw of the established order." In another interview Manzerek (of the Doors)
considered possible motives for the elimination of the AnarchisticLizard King " they were
going to stop all rock and roll by stopping the Doors. He was considered the most
dangerous because he was saying . "We want the world and we want it NOW."
FBI harassment rendered Morrison so anxiety ridden that he had an ulcer by mid-twenties.
Paranoia struck deep and it was thought he was a marked man.Bob Seymore wrote a book re:
Jim called The End and conceded" you could say the CIA and the other intelligence agencies
may have had a hand in the deaths of Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison etc., simply because
they were the leaders of the generation of the 60's.

A book " The Bank of America in Louisiana" appeared in 1975, after his death, supposedly
written by Morrison. Some say he survived Paris and lived a life free from celebrity and
the FBI.A James Douglas Morrison, claimed to beoperating as an intelligence agent for a
number of groups including the CIA and Interpol, and also had connections with various
occult groups.ThisJM2 also claims to be the dead rock star. There are stacks of official
looking document, and letters between the agencies, CNN, NBC, and JM2. This claim was made
by researcher Thomas Lyttle who claims to have seen what looks like authentic documents.
There seems to be hundredsif not thousands of miscellaneous files under the name.No
autopsy was performed after his death, a probable violationof French law.Pamela Courson,
who was with him at the time, died later of an overdose that some said was a "Hot Shot" or
poisoned opiate.

CHAPTER 9 Joan Baez Phil Ochs

Joan Baez survived the Operation Chaos backlash, she fully understood that political assassination
could be her reward for openly castigating military-industrial masters of war. Her close
friend Martin Luther King Jr., the worlds most honored civil rights leader told her and a
group of activists before delivering his famed speech how the police had dumped him in the
hole and it was black and he couldn't see. They shoved food in the room but he wouldn't eat
it for fear it was poisoned , hungry and afraid he got on his knees and prayed and when he
got up he said it didn't matter anymore.
Kings entourage hid their pain when they knew what he meant." We knew he was going to
die, and he was ready to die, and he was ready to make a commitment to Vietnam etc"
He said, "I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the Promised Land and it doesn't matter anymore."

Joan Baez wrote a memoir," And a Voice to Sing With", (1987) of her childhood and her
father as a bright young Stanford scientist "Albert Baez recognized the danger of the
unleashed atom even in the early days" He took a job at Cornell University in Ithica, New
York (Cornell is the base of CIA Mind Control experiments and Joan is a survivor of ritual
abuse and mind control experimentation, according to letters she has written to
researchers and other survivors) Many universities are common cover for trauma-based-mind-control programmi She has a song about it:.........

"I am paying for protection, Smoking out the truth...chasing recollections...nailing
down the roof"

Baez entertained no illusions about the CIA, and promoted State of Siege, film she saw
as exposing the corrupt element of AID (Agency for International Development, overseas),
which funded the teaching of techniques of torture tactics in Latin America. We solicited
signatures against the use of torture. Torture was made more prevalent than it had been
since the Middle Ages, thus the danger was its common use as government policy. The hands
of the US government were far from clean.

Joan did years of intensive therapy to confront her inner demons ,fears, insomnia, panic
attacks, phobias, anxieties, etc. Therapists kept Joan glued together, "to get me to the
next gig", she said.

Joan's father was invited to become the head of Operations at Cornell, which would bring
him in contact with CIA Human Ecology Foundation, (re: Academic Mind Control Studies)
that are behind the fences of the Ivy League campuses across the country. Joan said it was classified.. She was not buried by Chaos, but she lived under its intolerant eye and
it could silence her. An example is a mistranslation in Japanese re: her comments on Vietnam and Nagasaki.
The interpreter was threatened and complied....A year later sale of her records
were banned from all Army PXs and when she denounced the draft on the Smother's Brothers Hour,she was censored by CBS, her comments cut, and CBS cancelled the Brothers soon after.
The same year, her then husband, David Harris ,was sentenced to three years for draft evasion.

Civil rights activists were falsely linked to Communist organizations. A common smear
tactic.


Joan Baez And Bob Dylan Mimi Farina And Richard Farina.....................................

In 1961 Joan Baez met Bob Dylan. Whose songs had such stark political flavor. Bob
nearly died in 1966 after a motorcycle accident. Joan's brother-in-law Richard Farina did
die few months later in a motorcycle accident. It was suspicious and happened on his wife Mimi Farina's birthday He was on his way back from a promotional party for his book :
"Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up". Before his death he had been producing an album to be performed by Joan, it got shelved.


(Mimi Farina, sister of Joan, is an equally talented singer and politically active woman
who sings in prisons and goes out" hands on "to the poor people, last I heard, and I
think Joan's heart is also with the poor folk. Ms.Farina has organized groups to carry out these endeavours..).. (My Note)

After Dylan's accident he went thru a political change . He dropped the broadside lyrics
grating on the nerves of the establishment. Mark Edmundson wrote: "He wasn't ruined by
drugs. His work combines art and politics and the harshest truth about the world. He is a
visionary skeptic ,he loves the promise of America and yet is disgusted by much of its
reality."

His songs tell about the cane murder of black servant Hattie Carroll, the death of boxer
Davie Moore, the unbroken chains of injustice. They go to the heart of the decades most
recurring preoccupation ,that in a time of irreversible technical progress , moral
civilization has pathetically faltered, that no matter how much international attention is
focused on the macro-cosmic affairs, the plight of the individual must be considered.

Five years after the accident he wrote "George Jackson", a fiercely driven ballad about
the Black Panther leader " "George Jackson" who was murdered by a prison
guard.

Phil Ochs (The Out Law And His Brain) Mind Contro And MPD

"U.S. agents were able to destroy any persons reputation by inducing hysteria or
excessive emotional responses, temporary or permanent insanity, suggest or encourage
suicide , erase memory , invent double or triple personalities, inside ones
mind." ---quote by the late Mae Brussells, Operation Chaos investigator etc.
Ochs was a close chum of Bob Dylan, and thought Bob was the greatest poet ever.
Together with others they dragged folk music away from the migration camps and union halls and
into direct confrontation with the Eisenhower's looming military-industrial complex. Ochs
denounced the American politics in the "Cops of the world". song

" and when we've butchered your sons boys, have a stick of gum boys, we own half the
world...."OH CAN YOU SEE"? AND THE NAME OF OUR PROFITS IS DEMOCRACY.
He was the ultimate dissident song

" the comic and the beauty queen are dancing on the stage .The raw recruits are lining
up like coffins in a cage. Oh we are fighting in a war we lost before the war began"
Not long before he died, one night after too many drinks, he drew down the CIA Director
Wm. Colby, director of the murderous Phoenix Project in Vietnam. He claimed he put a
contract out on his life for 100,000 dollars. "I told Colby he's got a half of year to
live or get out of Vietnam or he is dead. They can kill me but he is dead" he said.( He as
well was certain that Gloria Steinem, editor of Ms. magazine and famous feminist is a CIA
agent) Ochs was founder of the Yippee party, sang with protesters, and appeared as a
witness for the trail of the Chicago Seven. His lyrics were considered so inflammatory
that he was banned from the air-waves. The FBI did not refrain form amassing a huge file
on him, and the feeling that he was never alone unnerved him. He wrote " take everything I
own, take the tap from my phone, and leave my life alone, My life alone! He was tarred as
a communist and a threat to national security. His friends said Ochs was convinced he
would be assassinated. He was driven to drink by the radio black-listing his music and the
ongoing surveillance and harassments and his nerve gave out. He lived in a perpetual state
of paranoia His vocal cords were crushed by thugs.

He developed a right wing pseudo personality called John Train who he wrote about

( Beth's note: Who created John Train? Was he like his good friend Joan Baez, a
mind-controlled MPD(DID), from abuse and experimentation? On the first day of summer
,1975," Phil Ochs "was murdered in the Chelsea Hotel by John Train, Ochs said in a taped
interview. "for the good of societies public and "secret," he needed to be gotten rid of."
He also made reference to his Pseudo personality in song fragments in an album never
recorded re: "Phil Ochs checked into the Chelse a Hotel, there was blood on his clothes,
Train Train Train, the outlaw and his brain. (my note: I have read accounts of cloning
since the 50's. Lots of hi-tech knowledge kept secret, including in Jim Keith's book
"Secret and Suppressed").

Ochs actually now believed he was working for the CIA., writes biographer Marc
Elliot.( Ochs also referred to N.Y. Cornell Hospital in mysterious lists) "Train hinted
that if Ochs had been a commercial success "they"(CIA) would have killed his host
personality.. " Colby and Co. would have been more than happy to put a slug thru his head
at that point, "said Train, the alternate personality. Ochs committed suicide on April 9,
1976, by hanging. This was the same year of the book " the Control of Candy Jones" by
Donald Bain., ( a study of CIA mind control experimentation, Candy was also an MPD,
created personalities, who carried out covert assignments , a marionette with an inner
Nazi personality. She worked without her knowledge as a CIA op. for 12 years. Her final
post-hypnotic command was suicide, which was intervened by her husband, talk show host
John Nebel. ( the book is out of print, I have a copy) It is very probable that "John
Train" was programmed to kill Philip Ochs the host personality.

Another musician with repressed memory of child-hood trauma was Peter Townsend ("Who"
guitarist). In 1999 it occurred to him that certain phrases from rock opera "TOMMY" were
not fiction but his life. He filled in the blanks from his childhood amnesia.

CHAPTER 10 Who Killed The Kennedys And Sal Mineo (Rebel Without A Cause)

Actor Sal Mineo was stabbed to death in a parking lot after signing on to play Sirhan
Sirhan in an upcoming movie regarding JFK. (CIA assassination and post-hypnotic
programming were the major themes of the movie.) Elliot Mintz talk show host for ABC,
later Bob Dylan and the Lennon's publicist was buried in research with Mineo, regarding
JFK killing. They became convinced Sirhan was innocent. The movie production disagreed and
Mineo pulled out of the picture. After he was killed the media revealed in his secret life
of bi-sexuality, and the murder was taken as homophobia. Gay Bars were closing in fear,
and Hollywood stars took refuge behind locked doors.
Michael Ruppert a former LAPD officer left the department to expose his CIA trained
colleagues. He claims "Sirhan was hypno-programmed using hypnosis, drugs and torture by
Rev. Jerry Owen and CIA Mind-Control Specialist Wm. Bryan at the stable where he worked
months before the shooting. The LAPD concealed evidence implicating the CIA in shooting.
The channels of the intelligence world swarmed with crooks and killers.

Conservative Evangelist Billy Graham was Presidents Nixon's celebrated "spiritual
advisor". Then there was LA's gangster corrupt public servant and wealthy gambling czar
Mickey Cohen.(who "claimed "to be a friend of Sal Mineo) The former hit-man Cohen
contacted the press after Mineos death t o boost that he was his pal. Cohen was also
chummy with Nixon, and his entourage. In 1968, Cohen was coined the godfather of the West
Coast Mafia gambling ops. When Cohen was close to death he opened up to investigative
reporter Chuck Ashman, and he said, "Mickey Cohen told me the tale of his being paid off
to fake a conversion and dose of Christianity for Billy Grahams N.Y. crusade. Two of
Graham's staff had passed more than 10,000 dollars to Mickey and his family." We found the
dates and the amounts and even the checks" Cashmon said.

Cohen was the first bridge linking the killers of Robert Kennedy and Sal Mineo. He was
on friendly terms with Carlos Marcellos, mob boss, who ran with David Ferrie, CIA corrupt
ops., who was investigated by Jim Garrison in the connection of killing of JFK. Cohen was
also a chum with Jack Ruby. Cohen was also a friend of Melvin Belli, Jack Ruby's defense
attorney. He also controlled the Santa Anita race-track where Sirhan was employed. Mickey
Cohen's circle of friends and his appearance in the limelight after the Mineo killing begs
question on Hollywood power brokers. Sirhan and Cohen were close to Desi Arnez, (Producer)
of I Love Lucy .Arnez was an anti Castro Cuban exile leader. In 1966 Sirhan wrote in his
notebook that he landed a job at the stables Corona Breeding Farm co-owned by Desi Arnez,
Buddy Ebsen, Dale Robertson, ultra conservatives, and TV personalities were well
acquainted with Sirhan. Sirhan was known as a fervent anti-communist. Attorney, Russell
Parsons, Sirhan's attorney, showed no effort to make known that Sirhan was in the wrong
position to kill senator Kennedy, he was shot from behind and Sirhan stood in front of
Kennedy.

CHAPTER 11 Project Walrus: John Lennon

Mark-David Chapman chose to plead not guilty due to following the direction of his
voices.. His attorney J. .Marks, punctuated the plea "by reason of insanity". Chapman
testified "I can hear their thoughts, I can hear them talking, but not from the outside,
from the inside" Not one of the three psychiatrists at the trial explored the possibility
of Mind-Control. In 1977 Chapman lost his fundamentalist religion and became a Satanist..
At 19, 1n 1975,Chapman signed onto the YMCA,(international camp counselor program) and
was sent to Beirut where he allegedly received instructions in lethal arts at the CIA
training camp school of terror. (there was a known "experiment in Mind Control unit" for
the army in Lebanon.). In 1980 he surfaced in New York, and mailed a letter to an Italian
address. The Dakota (residence of the Lennon's) was given as a return address. There was a
reference to his" mission " in N.Y.. It was returned to New York, the address not found in
Italy, where it sat for three years in the dead letter bin, and finally delivered to the
Dakota. Yoko Ono glanced at the letter and dropped it in her deranged file. In 1983, head
of security, Mahoney, found the letter. This was evidence of premeditated murder and
conspiracy. The letter vanished and reappeared slightly altered, the post-date now was
1981. The "mission" statement was missing...

Elliot Mintz, friend of Sal Mineo ,was instrumental in exposing "Project Walrus" as a
conspiracy regarding Lennon. He had been Lennon's chum too and publicist since 1971 Mintz
recalls that some of Yoko body guards were at the time New York Police officers.. It is
very difficult for a private citizen to legally possess a weapon in New York. The people
who can are off duty officers. It is thus, a common celebrity arrangement. There were many
files with missing contents at Yoko's apt. after Lennon was killed. Listening devices were
planted at the Dakota and once swept clean would reappear. There had been numerous
attempts on Yoko's life. One man was arrested at airport who had made a call that he was
coming to finish the job and kill Yoko and Sean. There were also calls made to tell her
body guards were going to kill her. Sean Lennon said, "I grew up afraid my mother and I
were going to be killed".

After John's murder the first promoting of Project Walrus was the ruining of his
reputation. John had known he was wire-tapped and was paranoid. After Watergate he filed a
lawsuit for wiretap and surveillance and made some progress. Justice Dept. never would
admit it actually carried out the wiretap and blamed it on other possibilities. After he
got his green card he gave up the litigation. Lennon overcame his fear of federal
harassment and gave public statements that were anti-republican.

Killing Lennon was only the first step. All that he signified must be defaced. That was
the principle objective of Walrus. His diaries were stolen and returned later with extra
entries and some entries altered. Fred Seaman wrote a defamatory book on Lennon. Seaman
was to be executive of Lennon's archives, and much was feigned regarding their bond. He
told friends he was going to discredit Ono at all costs. The goal was to drive her to a
nervous breakdown and discredit her attempt to set straight the public record. The walrus
crew anticipated immense profits. Dead Lennon's money's The events at the Dakota began to
sound like the Movie "Gaslight"..( in which a husband tries to drive his wife crazy by
reality distortion) Yoko began sleeping badly. One of Yoko's assistants, wracked by stress
began packing a gun at all times. He said " you do not know how big this is. The people
doing this are too big to fight." To discredit Lennon and Yoko and the Peace movement was
a major part of Operation Walrus. (but it didn't and IT WILL NOT)

CHAPTER 12 What Cha Gonna Do? The Deaths Of Marley And Tosh

"Vampires do not come out to bite your neck anymore, instead they cause something
destructive to happen that will spill blood., and those invisible vampires will get their
meal " Peter Tosh.
Peter Tosh , like Marley was a widely influential civil rights agitator, and like other
black activists before him he was gunned down. He died in 1987 at age 43. He was upset
with the treatment of his people. Tosh went to Trench Town to live with an uncle after the
aunt he was living with died. It was there he met the young Bob Marley, and taught him to
play guitar. They got together with Bunny Wailer and the trio called themselves the Wailin
Wailers. They were drastically underpaid. Record producers are notorious for pocketing
money. (dem pirates and dem thieves). Peter Tosh always let his feelings be known. He
cared more about principles and morals than popularity and fame. He said "they know I do
not support POLITRICKS and games, my duty is to unify the people." He and Marlew had some
wrangling and he left the group, and went on his own. Destabalsation tactics were
employed, and political violence and sabotage etc. from the CIA with pernicious attempts
to wreck the economy of their country.. The new weapon and the new menace was
destabilization..

Bob Marley held onto the Wailer name and took on new members. The peoples National Party
asked them to play at Smile Jamaica concert. He agreed.

In Nov. a death squad came to Marley's home and started shooting. They shot bullets into
his manager, and one in his wife's' Rita's head , as she tried to get their 5 children out
of the house. They survived. The last bullet creased Marley's breast below his heart and
drilled deep into his arm. Marley would sing "Ambush in the night, all guns aiming at me."
This did not stop them performing at the Smile Jamaica concert.. ("War") "Until the
ignoble and unhappy regimes that now hold our brothers, in Angola, in Mozambique, in
subhuman bondage, have been toppled utterly destroyed...everywhere is war.

Carl Colby, son of CIA head Wm. Colby, came to the concert and posed as crew and got
back stage where he gave a gift to Marley, a pair of boots. Former black Panther Lee
Lew-Lee was close to Marley and he thinks Marley's cancer started with the boots He claims
there was a link of copper wire attached to the boots, which hurt his foot when he tried
them on and had to be removed..(it might have been treated chemically with a carcinogenic
toxin. Marley later broke his toe and found out it was cancerous, it spread. He did not
trust main-stream medicine and continued to perform. He knew by 1977 he was dying and
compressed a lifetime of music into a few years

Something of a Caribbean CIA POGROM was underway via Kissinger and Co. There was
emphasis on psychological Ops. which became arson, banking assassination disruption of the
now Manley's democratic socialist rule. Political violence was stoked and arsenal of
weapons supplied. This was all mostly financed by Hard Drugs, which disrupted the Rasta
movement and marijuana. They wanted it legalized. Their chosen weapon in the Rasta
Movement was free expression and they were crucified for it. Tosh was busted and beaten
almost to death and it made his music more vengeful.. Secret Police and the CIA tailed him
thru it all. Grotesque human rights violations were commonplace. Marley found out he had a
brain tumor. He sang " these songs of freedom is all I ever had, emancipate yourself from
MENTAL SLAVERY. "He was observed rubbing his forehead and grimacing while performing. One
woman explained "Hidden lasers were fixed to spotlights above the stage and burned out his
brain" Fellow
Rasta's heard about an alternative doctor in Jamaica, who advised Marley to talk to a
Doctor Josef Issels, a holistic immuno therapist in a Bavarian village. He went. The Dr.
said "I hear you are one of the most dangerous black men in the world." Issels medical
career did not hold up under scrutiny, during WW2 he had worked hand in hand with Dr.
Mengele (angel of death) in research in Poland, at the Auschwitz camp. The Wailers found
this out after his death.

Issels told Bob he could cure him and did sadistic procedures that left him in agony.
After visits the Wailor's said "he is killing Bob" He also cut off his dreadlocks. He was
in the hands of the doctor who had been the accomplice of Mengele in horrific Medical
experiments against what they considered "sub humans". His mother said " he was starving
and wasting away , and he would fall into fits of shaking, etc" Marley weighed 82 pounds
on the day of his death. May 11, 1980.(HIS MUSIC LIVES ON)

Peter Tosh found the bloodshed and hypocrisy of death squad justice in the Third World
unbearable He was obsessed with the hidden evil. By 1987 the year of Tosh murder Jamaica
musicians were censored by the prevailing politics. Witnesses and friends insist his
murder was a political hit. They were convinced Tosh was killed for his statements on
Human Rights , Black liberation and the legalization of Marijuana. Tosh was throwing a
small party at home when Mike Robertson, a local radio host answered the door. Leppo
Leppan, an old buddy from Trenchtown days stepped in. Behind him were two clean-cut
looking strangers, professional hit-men, they insisted on talking to Tosh at gun-point.
Shots were fired and three people were dead.

Shortly afterward the N.Y. City apartment of Tosh was entered and burglarized, (such as
the aftermath of Hendrix death). Two out of three of the Tosh killers remain at large.
One hit-man was said to be a policeman, (of course Leppan was convicted.)

CHAPTER 13 Gang War Sons Of Chaos

Rap artist Tupac Shakur was gunned down at a stop-light in Las Vegas in 1996. It will be
evident re: the police strategy of disinformation, ignoring of witnesses, and the presence
of undercover agents from L.A. and N.Y at the murder of rapper Notorious B.I.G.
This suggests that both rappers were murdered by hit squads under the sanction of
federal officers. Tupac's father said "It was clear to me form day one that the Las Vegas
police never had any interest in solving the case of my sons murder," it was said " we
dealt extensively with COINTELPRO (FBI) issues. We worked around a lot of political
prisoners and the black liberation movement over the years. This shaped Tupac into the
person he was. The family operated the "Center for Black Survival." They had a youth group
called "The New African Panthers" and Tupac became the chairperson for it."

The agony of the Rap industry was exacerbated in March 1997 by killing 24 yr. old
Brooklyn rap artist Notorious B.I.G. in L.A. This happened after he had attended the
annual 'Soul Train' Music awards, by an unidentified gun-man. Tupac's father said in a
letter excerpt:

"we do know that Brother Biggie was a part of an industry that has been under attack
from the highest form of government officials. They have targeted Tupac, Sister Souljah,
IceT, and Ice Cube, just to name a few. This is reportedly due to the content of the
lyrics. "IF" this was the case why would devil-worshippers (music-artists) not be hounded
out also? (They openly worship the devil in a so-called God fearing country.) Their lyrics
preach mayhem, destruction. death to parents, and even government; whereas our rapper
love-ones wanted to explain their pain and identify from where they came, with hopes for a
better tomorrow; if all things were fair.
We believe that history has demonstrated that the murders of black people(young and
old) who can have a profound impact, those who refuse to bow down, have been targeted by
government at its highest level.

What we must understand is that our warriors are needed when it has been proven beyond
contradiction that the C.I.A. were principal importers of Crack Cocaine and Cocaine into
the 'HOOD', with blatantly racist drug laws, to set into motion tactics of genocide to
destroy or lock away our brothers and sisters or the rest of their lives.

Pay attention to the game that is being played on/against us! Search for TRUTH! Don't
look at who shot them, but why? Don't be fooled by the media, that has never shown real
concern for our welfare." Dr. Mutulu Shakur

Mutulu Shakur's conviction that SECRET POLICE killed his stepson and Notorious B.I.G.
proves to be increasingly feasible.

CHAPTER 14 False God Syndrome

Death Of Michael Hutchene
1997, M. Hutchence was found tethered by his neck to a door frame. He too was an
activist, who willed the lion share of his fortune to Amnesty International and the Green
Party. He was found at the Ritz-Carleton in Sydney Australia. The media concocted scenes
of SM but he was found with a broken hand and lacerations and had taken a bad beaten. His
friends said he was not depressed and he was against suicide. There were rumors of the
"MOB" involved in his investments possibly unknown to him. He died penniless due to
investments and trusts and his family had to fight for his money.

He knew Gianni Versace, famous designer who was gunned down, and was also said to be
possibly mafia involved, although he denied it angrily (A dead mourning bird was found by
the Versace body, a symbol of a hit-man).

The funeral of Versace was attended by Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales, and a month
before her own death. As it happened another friend of Hutchence was Dodi Fayed , someone
said to have mob links. Dodi's uncle was arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi of the Iran-Contra
Fame.

Dodi and Diana were killed in a car accident four months before Hutchence died.

The Deep Politiics Of Music

Roger Bunn director of the Music Industry, Human Rights Association (MIHRA), in the U.K.
lives in the eye of the corporate music beast. These are excerpts from letters form Bunn:

"Re: M.Hutchene "so that's it, huh? Death due to hanging? Sort of unusual that, even for
the music industry. Those wonderful featured artist really light up the sky every now and
then. Maybe we should consider making the poor darlings an endangered species? When they
reach their peak it probably means worth more to the conglomerates dead than live. Think
about that next time you go out to by your conglomerate primitive/folk music, or a
well-known movie. Yyou add strength to the cartel Monopoly. The music industry turns over
120 billion dollars a year. In the music industry there is no such thing as "Real
Competition".

"Music Industry Is The Richest Industry On The Planet, by providing the public with a
marketing of False God Syndrome

When an artists "usefulness" to a conglomerate is over things can get a little sticky."

Beth's Notes and Comments
This Project Of Summarizing This Book Has Been One Close To My Heart, Since I Have Loved
Many Musicians (And World Of Fame People) Up Close And From Afar. I Have Seen How The
World Of Fame Works And I Think It Is Something The Public Should Know. They Are People
First And Foremost And Have All The Same Trials And Tribulations That We Have, As Can Be
Seen By Alex Constantine's Book.
MY GRATITUDE TO YOU ALEX.

what the "POWERS-THAT-BE" have done to MUSICIANS for decades and not all of them have
survived it. This includes mind-control and surveillance and murder by the alleged CIA and
FBI and other forces of destruction, on civil rights activists and others AWAKE people in
the WORLD OF MUSIC


COINTEL PRO AND RAP MUSIC
Last week we raised the possibility that an organized attempt had been and still is being made to destabilize the Hip-Hop industry and thus the community. We briefly looked at the murder of the Notorious B.I.G. and raised some unanswered questions surrounding his death; introduced some important background information regarding the FBI’s COINTELPRO which was dedicated to destabilizing Black and progressive organizations, especially in the 1960s and 70s; and posed a challenge to Black intellectuals to apply their knowledge of the tactics used by the U.S. government to oppose Black leaders, to Biggie’s murder in particular, and to the Hip-Hop Industry/Community in general. We also pointed you to a Brill’s Content article that shows how the L.A. Times has been involved in disseminating false information regarding Biggie’s murder. We also took pains to mention that it was this story and one prior to it that brought Suge Knight’s name into the mix as allegedly involved in Biggie’s death. We openly questioned that if the L.A. Times article is misinformation wouldn’t that point to Mr. Knight’s innocence and we asked who was the original source in the FBI/LAPD that fingered Suge Knight? What was their motive for doing this, through the media? I hope that some of you, in your study of COINTELPRO and other programs, are familiar with the manner in which the FBI and CIA used reporters and media outlets, print and TV, to plant stories, have articles written and spread malicious lies – much of which was directed at getting groups that otherwise could have worked together to fight one another.

Last week, I also openly stated that it was my opinion that the image and rumors of an East Coast – West Coast Hip-Hop “war” were a fabrication of the media and perpetuated by local and federal police departments prior to and during the investigations into Tupac and Biggie’s murders, in large part via information fed to reporters in various media outlets. We will conclude this series next week on this crucial point of the role of the media, in particular its role in COINTELPRO of yesterday and its possible continuation today. This week we take a very brief look at a more recent situation in Hip-Hop that again raises the possibility that the Federal Government has ill- intentions for the Hip-Hop Community.

A few weeks ago, the Village Voice published an article alleging that over the last year a white government informant was in some capacity representing members of the multi-platinum group, Wu-Tang Clan, while the group was under criminal investigation. After reading the article, it is readily apparent that it was a sensationalized story designed to reflect negatively upon Wu-Tang. The story also appeared to be crafted in great part because while the headlines emphasized the supposed connection between this white individual and Wu-Tang, the article deals more substantively with the individual’s alleged real connection to white organized crime figures in New York and Miami. The individual is reportedly a government informant in a case involving Mob figures in New York and Miami. So while real evidence allegedly links the individual to Mob figures, the Village Voice cover and headlines and subtitles focused on a very unclear connection between the “informant’ and the Hip-Hop group. Most of the information on that front is anecdotal in nature that informs the reader of little.

The real story is this individual’s relationship with white underworld figures and the feds yet the Village Voice markets the piece, which was picked up by news services all over the world, as quality reporting that somehow connects this individual’s relationship with the U.S. Government with his relationship with Wu-Tang. The piece doesn’t live up to that billing. It never connects the dots but to an unsuspecting and innocent reader, it does open the Clan up to suspicion not only in terms of a link to the feds but also in terms of criminal activity. I found that to be peculiar and yes, the deliberate intention of the Village Voice. In the weeks that have followed the piece, many people have spread more rumors, gossip and innuendo regarding the Clan over the Internet and many people seem to have only read the sensational headlines but have not analyzed the story or the motive behind it with a critical mind.

To me, the aim of the Village Voice and/or whoever may have helped them craft the story, was to discredit the Clan inside of the unforgiving world of the New York Hip-Hop community and to discredit them among their core group of fans. It also attempted to portray the group as unintelligent but it definitely did not seek to prove that the individual was really working on behalf of the government specifically against the Clan, though the article and headlines imply otherwise. This is one of the factors that makes me believe that someone bigger than just the Village Voice may have been behind the story – how else could the government come off clean and the Clan looking rather uncomplimentary. Remember, the story is supposed to be about feds, Wu and this informant but it ends up really only being about the informant and Wu. What happened to the feds?

The reason why I stress that point is because I believe the writer(s) could have proved or disproved whether the informant was working against the Clan if they so desired and from reading the piece, I believe that the writer(s) has discussed the government’s surveillance of Wu-Tang with enough people in the know, to be able to determine whether or not this government informant is directly working against Wu-Tang or if he is only with the group strictly for business purposes as he gives evidence on the alleged Miami/New York crime figures. The writer(s) simply asks why the informant was working with Wu-Tang in any capacity and spends the majority of the article lampooning and mocking the group. And again, he leaves the feds unscathed.

The Village Voice sought to harm the group’s reputation by negative implication and innuendo. The story, to me, seemed designed to destroy the Clan’s street credibility not prove any thing about this informant working for the feds against the Clan. If they had done that (proved the informant was working against the Clan) the Village Voice would have proved the existence of COINTELPRO. No, the informant angle is the hook that draws you in to read garbage about the Clan. And I found it very interesting that no one in the community that prides itself on its “consciousness” came to the defense of the Clan, even to intelligently alert the public to the possibility that the Village Voice article may point to something bigger than Wu-Tang.

This could have helped others even those who I know do not like Wu-Tang personally or what they represent in music or ideology. If you are in the Hip-Hop community, personal dislike of the Clan won’t cut it on this one. The Hip-Hop community owes it to itself to defend itself from what many people, more than just myself, know to be a deliberate attempt to destabilize and destroy the real and potential cultural, economic and political impact of Hip-Hop. From my limited vantage point, everyone seemed caught up in the sensational aspects of the story and not the potential threat it posed to the entire community. This is another aspect of the indolence of the Hip-Hop community that I referred to last week.

I personally served as management to Wu-Tang a couple of years ago. I no longer do so. To the best of my knowledge, which I think is pretty good, the Clan was never involved in any of the criminal activities that they were or are currently under investigation for. I do not and never have, for one moment believed that they are guilty. Of course, I did not see everything that everyone was doing but I am confident that I was certainly in a position to know whether or not a gun-running operation was being organized and ran by the group. I am not afraid to go on public record in defense of the group or the truth of what I know.

But the Federal Government wants to pin these charges on the Clan. What I can tell you that the Village Voice did not tell you, is that several individuals who have been arrested and/or charged with crimes in New York City and who have never had any affiliation with the group, have been offered reduced sentences or no time at all in exchange for either saying that they were connected with Wu-Tang when they committed their alleged crimes or in exchange for directly infiltrating the music group. This is a fact. A fact that the Village Voice should know about with all of its connections in the entertainment community and law-enforcement. And these individuals being approached are young Black males not an alleged white informant who is linked to some white mobsters in New York or Miami. That is the real story if the Village Voice is so interested.

The goal of the Federal Government, the FBI included, is to lie and link Wu-Tang and others to a supposed Hip-Hop industry- wide crime network. I know that as early as 1995, several young Black music executives, other than Wu-Tang, and their actual places of business were under surveillance and “investigation” by the Federal Government allegedly for committing various crimes. Not only have individuals under the supervision of the criminal justice system been approached in an effort to make cases against high-profile individuals in the industry but so have white lawyers and white music executives who deal with these individuals. This is common knowledge inside of a few circles in the music industry; even marketing plans of certain artists have been taken by federal investigators. We also know that the IRS has been and is unfairly targeting several Hip-Hop artists and their business enterprises for audits. One day, this will all come out.

For those who persist in wanting to see all crime-fighting efforts as above reproach and legitimate, I can tell you that for whatever illegal activities that may or may not have been perpetrated by various individuals in the music business, the Federal Government has gone above and beyond what is fair in their investigation of the Clan. Asking individuals to straight up lie and say that they are connected to crimes that never occurred and to make up affiliations and even to ask suspects to infiltrate Wu-Tang is not legitimate crime fighting. I also do not see it as simply a case of a “few bad cops”. I see it as a deliberate attempt to destabilize and discredit not only an influential group but also an entire industry and cultural force. To me, it is certainly reminiscent of COINTELPRO where the goal was not to arrest guilty individuals but to arrest a cultural and political movement. For those who have studied COINTELPRO, it is interesting to learn of all of the Black celebrities and entertainers who have/had government files. I hope everyone in the Hip-Hop community will become much more alert and those who have first-hand knowledge of what I am talking about will begin to compare notes with one another. This isn’t a game or fantasy although some will persist in doubting to the very end. Next week at http://blackelectorate.com/ we will look at some historical evidence that shows that the FBI and CIA used reporters to spread pieces of misinformation to the public and actually helped journalists write false stories. Could this be happening today?

Cedric Muhammad


PEOPLE, STOP LETTING THESE CONFUSED NIGGAZ GUIDE YOU.
IT'S RIDICULOUS.

i get headaches...maybe i'll print it out

Why Bush & the CIA Had John Lennon Killed -- The Beatles, the Montauk Project, the Tavistock Institute and Mass Social Control

© 1999 John Quinn/NewsHawk® inc.

All Rights Reserved

Today is the birthday of Beatle John Lennon.

In honor of the man and his wonderful music NewsHawk Inc. has decided to take a look at what was going on "behind the scenes" of the 1960's "countercultural revolution"; to explore a bit how the world's most popular and undeniably talented rock band was without ANY doubt "used" by New World Order social manipulators (as were MANY other pop music groups) in an ongoing project designed to control the development of human society in the most fundamental ways.

There are direct links which tie these activities to certain covert scientific projects of an extremely advanced, esoteric nature which were exploring the realms of (manipulation of) consciousness, time, thought and indeed "reality" itself, which were being conducted during the same period of time on Long Island, N.Y.: activities which were part of the Phoenix/Montauk Project.

In fact we are talking about two sides of the same coin here. On one side, the covert, subtle manipulation and control of not only thought and human consciousness but of the most fundamental, subatomic, electromagnetic matrix of (perceived) reality itself, using newly-developed electromagnetic/radio frequency technologies of extraordinary, unheard-of power and potential. On the other side, directly and overtly shifting the paradigm, changing the basic concepts, widening the parameters--the envelope, changing the playing field and all the rules of play by which society defines itself within an exceptionally short period of time.

Factor in what was happening on more political levels such as the civil rights and anti-war movements, stir briskly while at full boil, and STAND BACK!

What's rather amazing in fact is that society did NOT disintegrate/implode/explode in the way the social manipulators had apparently hoped. The higher qualities of human nature seemed to consistently float to the surface--with some notable exceptions--and certainly began to acquire a significant, if not nearly irresistible momentum of it's own; pulling in larger and larger segments, of "straight"', conventional, "moral majority" type elements of society. obviously, the big plan was backfiring severely and something "needed to be done."

The Beatles were also part of the mass experimentation that contemporary society was being subjected to by the CIA, Britain's MI6 and the Tavistock Institute utilizing extraordinarily powerful mind-altering psychedelic/psychotropic drugs.

More than most of the other boys in the band, John Lennon became increasingly aware not only of the extent of corruption, co-opting and infiltration of the counterculture -- most CERTAINLY including the rock music scene -- by these same covert government intelligence elements.

Lennon was also aware than one of the "big guns" in the CIA/Tavistock/MI6 arsenal, LSD, had been having effect upon the population groups to which it had been funneled so extensively that was most unexpected on the part of the social manipulators--and to a large extent the effect was rather positive and beneficial.

Shortly before Lennon's death at the hands of what beyond the faintest glimmer of a shadow a doubt was a mind-controlled, "Manchurian Candidate" type assassin deployed by Tavistock/CIA/MI6, Mark Chapman to terminate a "loose cannon", Lennon had the audacity to massively and blatantly "out" the aforementioned consortium in a Playboy interview -- in which he made note of LSD's completely unforeseen liberating impact upon human society and civilization--pretty much thumbing his nose at the whole bunch and their whole trip; AND indicating as well that he was aware of the extent to which he and other pop musicians had been set up--to be used as dupes in massive social manipulation schemes.

Shortly afterward, New World Order head honcho and Satanist, globalist, CIA chief and Tavistock underling vice-president George Bush had Lennon slaughtered on the streets of new York; where he died in the arms of someone that a number of sources claim was the monarch agent deployed by MI6/CIA to keep the exceptionally intelligent Lennon constantly gravitating toward the social fringe; thereby keeping his potential influence at least minimized -- Yoko Ono. That's NOT to say that even IF this last supposition is true, that genuine love and a fulfilling relationship did not exist between the two and that Yoko's "programming", just like John's, broke up and fell apart.

And what about those Beatles, anyway? Anyone who has heard the Beatles' live tapes recorded in 1961 and 1962 on the "Reeperbahn" in Hamburg, Germany realizes that this was an incredibly talented and energetic bunch of rockers who no matter what would have undoubtedly had a significant impact upon popular music and thus upon society itself, regardless of things which occurred subsequently in their saga.

And without any doubt being given access to state-of-the art audio and recording technologies and facilities stimulated their creativity quite a bit--for the benefit of all; "MR. KITE" included.

Personally I think the Beatles were definitely "the greatest"--or damn close to it.

STOP LETTING THIS CONFUSED NIGGAZ GUIDE YOU.
IT'S RIDICULOUS.

racism is the greatest tool created to confuse the masses and keep their eye off of the ball. the focus should be on rich vs poor. mlk knew this.

throughout history, different cultures, people, nations, etc. conquered other nations and subjected their people to atrocities foul and inhumane. all races perpetuated this sickness. the moors did it to spain and italy. the egyptians (pre-ptolemy) did it to the nubians. the japanese did it to the chinese. the driving force behind the 99% of wars is money, power, and control.

whites in general are not devils. blacks are not criminals. there is bad and good in every race... greedy people too. greedy people willing to sacrifice anything or anyone to maintain & increase their influence.

greed is what influenced the genocide of my people during colonial-times slavery. greed is why slaves were enslaved for 400 years. greed is why our leaders were killed. greed is why drugs were placed in our communities. racism is a product of this greed.

there is an obsession w/ labeling and categorizing. everything from music, to race, to food must be labeled correctly according to some asanine standard. this obsession prevents growth and promotes stagnation. only by thinking and functioning "outside of the box" can progress be made.

i am about solutions. not problems. if what has been said in this topic is true, i ask what is the solution?

the greedy money-hungry, power-hungry, control-hoarding folks are the ones who should receive our wrath, not whites. as long as we are divided, they will continue conquering.

i'll try to be back.

but like the nigger in me really doesn't want to read all that shit
at the price of a headache.

-+- The CIA and Mind Control -+-

In April 1950, the CIA began work on PROJECT BLUEBIRD, the
agency's fledgling attempt at mind control. "Within two years
this had progressed into the substantially enlarged PROJECT
ARTICHOKE. According to a later CIA internal memorandum, PROJECT
ARTICHOKE was intended to 'exploit operational lines, scientific
methods and knowledge that can be utilized in altering the
attitudes, beliefs, thought processes and behaviour patterns of
agent personnel. This will include the application of tested
psychiatric and psychological techniques including the use of
hypnosis in conjunction with drugs.' In turn, only one year
later, in April 1953, PROJECT ARTICHOKE became MKULTRA, the
generic name for a series of on-going investigations by the
agency's Technical Services Staff."

Some might object that pre-programming a subject to be a "killer
on command" violates the common wisdom that one cannot be
hypnotised to do something that is contray to one's individual
morals. Yet not all "experts" are in agreement on this. For
example Milton Kline, a New York psychologist and former
president of the American Society for Clinical and Experimental
Hypnosis believes it is *not* impossible to create a "Manchurian
Candidate." According to Kline, "It cannot be done by everyone.
It cannot be done consistently, but it can be done."

"There seems little doubt that sophisticated techniques have now
reached the stage where, if murder is desired, a killer, once
programmed and 'on hold', can be triggered into action."

-+- Sirhan Sirhan -+-

Bresler suggests that Sirhan Sirhan, the supposed lone assassin
of Robert F. Kennedy, was a pre-programmed killer. Seven years
after the RFK assassination, Sirhan was interviewed by
psychiatrists. These recorded interviews were analyzed with the
help of a Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE), a device which
measures micro-tremors in the voice. Based on the PSE, former
high-ranking intelligence officer Charles McQuiston stated: "I'm
convinced that Sirhan wasn't aware of what he was doing. He was
in a hypnotic trance when he pulled the trigger... Everything in
the PSE charts tells me that someone else was involved in the
assassination -- and that Sirhan was programmed through hypnosis
to kill RFK. What we have here is a real live 'Manchurian
Candidate.'"

After examining Sirhan's PSE charts, Dr. John W. Heisse, Jr.,
president of the International Society of Stress Analysis, agreed
with McQuiston: "Sirhan kept repeating certain phrases. This
clearly revealed he had been programmed to put himself into a
trance."


STOP LETTING THIS CONFUSED NIGGAZ GUIDE YOU.
IT'S RIDICULOUS.
SENSATIONALISM ONLY WORKS IF YOU LIKE SHINY OBJECTS.
LOL.

thanks for the inspiration

but

posting more shit is making it worse lol

-

but i'm skimmin hard lol

LOL!

lol

-

it's my duty.
especially when you don't know what the fuck your talking about.

Honestly I wish you had put this all out there slowly.... Like Sha pointed out it becomes overwhelming to look at and deters people from getting into it. But it's worth getting into. It's really worth getting into.

no offense.
haven't even started. Wait til I get to Bob and Tosh.

*smh* i'm with dude where's the info coming from
maybe where you got it from there's an easier format on the eyes

its about time, a good post.
they trying to destroy real hip-hop man.
they only promoting that faggot bullshit like,
"just bought a cadillac". foh!
fuck I need cadillac for, god?
with my mind, i can travel anywhere I want to go.
muthafuckers ain't understanding that shit.
back in '89, we had that essence to the music, b.
the gubment take away hip-hop
and they kept giving us that stale ass cheese.
fuck that wack shit on the radio,

i represent da real hip-hop (c) das efx.

"Bob Marley: Blunt Questions" By: I. Jabulani Tafari

“Rasta don’t work for no CIA”

Did the CIA really kill Bob Marley? How’s that for a Blunt Question? This is only one of many Blunt Questions that remain unanswered nearly 22 years after Bob Marley’s translation from this world into another dimension.

When the newz broke in Jamaica on May 11, 1981, that Bob Marley had passed on from this world at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, the immediate and initial response by politically savvy Rastafarians in Jamaica was that the Reggae Maestro had been murdered, or more correctly, assassinated! At the time, the Rastas didn’t know exactly who, when, where or how, but they knew enough to suspect foul play with extreme prejudice. Of course, anyone who heard that reasoning, scoffed at it. After all, everyone knows that cancer is a fatal disease, and Bob had it and died from it and that’s a great pity… but murdered? How ridiculous! Maybe, or maybe not. Not when you stop and really think about it. Who would want to? Who would be able to and how could it be done so skillfully without suspicion?

It’s almost like the classic scenario that Detective Lieutenant Columbo of TV fame, would stumble and fumble his bumbling way into. Only to find that the seemingly straight forward ‘death by natural causes’, was really the ‘perfect murder’ in disguise. After all, who ever would even suspect the possibility of something as bizarre as that occurring? So for the past 20 years, music lovers around the world have been mourning the ‘untimely’ passing of Bob Marley, accepting that the Reggae Legend died of ‘natural causes’ (really unnatural, because what’s ‘natural’ about cancer?) Thus, as we move swiftly into a new millennium and an impending New World Order, a mounting body of information is seriously suggesting that Bob Marley was the victim of an elaborate assassination scheme that resulted him being literally ‘taken out’ –right there in broad daylight on center stage before the eyes of the whole world.

Since the late 1970’s and on into the early 1980’s, the New York City and Houston, Texas, Police Departments have led the way in compiling official reports on the Rastafari Movement. The NYPD in particular, not only described Rastafarians as dangerous, gun-shooting, drug-dealing, criminal Jamaican Posse members, but actually profiled and described dreadlocked Rastas as “terrorists”. The largest police operation in the history of Washington DC, ‘Operation Caribbean Cruise’ back in the late 1980’s, was designed to prove once and for all the drug-dealing, gun-running connection between Rastafarians and the Jamaican criminal posses that were said to be even more ruthless and trigger happy than the Italian Mafia and Organized Crime. “Operation Caribbean Cruise’ never made the nightly news outside of DC, because the police dragnet came up empty…. But for about five guns (not the high powered automatic weapons anticipated) and a minimal amount of drugs.

Despite these failed attempts to tarnish and taint the reputation of the Rastafari Kulcha, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh continued leading the way for a world wide revolution in thinking and thought. Their militant brand of hardcore Rootz Reggae was revolutionary in its impact. The Word Sound & Power of their Muzik, inspired political, economic, social and religious changes all over the globe. The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa drew inspiration from Marley Muzik; the Zimbabwean freedom fighters engaged in a guerrilla struggle against Ian Smith’s colonial Rhodesian settler regime, drew inspiration from Marley Muzik; even young, rich White kids in America from name-brand families were starting to hang out at Wailers concerts, were starting to dig the message in Marley’s muzik and were becoming inspired to work for social change and to “Chant Down Babylon” That was motive enough for Marley’s murder.

Marley was succeeding in a rhythmic revolution that utilized music as a more efficient tool than guns and bombs. Bob Marley, his mere personae, his instantly and internationally recognized image and look, his use and promotion of the “Wisdom Weed’, his verbal and material support of global Pan-African Liberation, and the fact that Bob Marley had become a millionaire –a Black Jamaican-born, pro-African, independent-thinking millionaire Rastaman- who could now put his own money where his mouth was and finance whatever project he wanted to… All of these factors made Bob Marley a very serious threat to the North American status quo and to the hidden power brokers trying to implement their plan for a New World Order.

By 1980, Bob Marley was the most popular ‘Third World’ muzik star on the planet and his immense influence was growing geometrically. The final straw that prompted clandestine covert operations against Marley was probably when Bob put the immortal words of HIM Emperor Haile Selassie I to muzik in the brilliant composition entitled “War”. When they heard: “Until the color of a man’s skin makes no more significance than the color of his eyes, there will be war… Until there are no first or second class citizens of any nation - war… Until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, have been toppled and utterly destroyed - War. And until bigotry, prejudice and malicious and inhuman self interest have been replaced by tolerance, understanding and good will… everywhere is war.” When the CIA types heard that song, they brought in the heavyweights and the battle went to another dimension. Unfortunately, Bob Marley never really knew that he had already been “Marked For Death”. And as Del Jones chronicles inhis “Culture Bandits” series of books, Bob was soon eradicated as a revolutionary 3rd World Icon and replaced in the early 1980’s by an androgynous (blurred gender), surgically altered, cosmetically bleached Michael Jackson.

O.K., so now you agree that they had a reason and a motive to kill Marley, but now you’re wondering, how could they give him cancer? According to the popular version of events, Bob is supposed to have contracted cancer after bruising his toe and losing a toe-nail while playing soccer in France in 1977. In his revealing book, “Marley And Me”, former Wailers manager Don Taylor notes that an unknown doctor came and gave Bob a still unknown injection in his toe right after the ball game was interrupted Malignant cancer, originating in the same toe, was diagnosed some time after. But the origin of the melanoma (the most virulent and deadly kind of cancer found in Humans) that took Bob’s life, may be concealed in little known events that took place at an even earlier time.

In a very interesting cover article published in the February 2002 issue of High Times magazine, the authors disclose that in 1976, Carl Colby, son of ex-CIA Director William Colby, visited the Hope Road home of Marley and gave the Reggae Star a gift in the form of a pair of boots. The High Times article quotes eyewitnesses as saying that Bob cried out “Ow!” when he stuck a foot in one of the boots. Something had jucked (stuck) him in the toe(s). Talk about being aware or beware of “Greeks baring gifts”. Subsequent investigation of the boot by hand, retrieved a piece of copper wire that had been sticking up inside the footwear. Entitled, “Chanting Down Babylon: The CIA and the Death of Bob Marley”, the High Times article went on to pose another Blunt Question: had the copper wire found in Bob’s new boot been chemically treated with a carcinogenic toxin? There is no doubting that with today’s technology, carcinogenic (that is cancer-causing) substances can be introduced into the human body very easily by a variety of means. By food, drink, smoke, sex, a pin/wire prick, or with the spike of an umbrella.

As the High Times article also observed, 1976 was a time when Jamaica, under the leadership of the Democratic Socialist and pro-Castro Prime Minister Michael Manley, was known to be under direct destabilization efforts by the CIA. According to High Times, Marley and Tosh as Reggae musicians, were targeted in particular because they were using their music to alert the Jamaican people to the dangers of the ongoing CIA covert operations. The visit to Marley by Carl Colby, who was supposedly posing as a member of a foreign film crew, took place a week after the “Ambush In the Night” during which Bob and Rita Marley and Don Taylor were all shot and wounded during the first upfront assassination attempt. Most people took that attack as involving only local partisan politics, with the opposition JLP not wanting Marley & the Wailers to perform at the PNP-Government sponsored and free Smile Jamaica concert days before a hotly contested General Election in Jamaica in December 1976. Marley appeared and performed for a mostly inner-city, urban audience on the Smile Jamaica Concert in the National Heroes Circle, in spite of the gun attack.

At the other, final end of this melodrama, we find Dr. Josef Issels, the supposedly holistic immuno-therapist who treated Bob in Germany after his collapse in Central Park, New York, in late 1980. Information is coming to light that Issels is an ex-Nazi doctor who may be implicated in some of the more nefarious practices associated with German medical studies and practices from the Hitler era. This may explain the painful, starvation-diet based treatment program inflicted on Bob by Dr. Issels. So we want to know: Who exactly is this Dr. Josef Issels? Does he indeed have a Nazi past? And what precisely did his ‘unorthodox’ cancer treatment entail? These Blunt Questions also need Blunt Answers.

At the end of the day and at the end of this article, we’re basically at the same place we were when we started. Just like the following truism indicates: “There are more questions than answers”. Nevertheless, muzik fans and people of good will owe it to themselves and to Bob Marley, to continue asking these Blunt Questions, and should demand that answers be given by the powers that be and those in the know. In the meantime, the final Blunt Question for all of you reading this, is: Bob Marley was willing to get up and pay the price for Standing Up for his Rights and for seeking Liberation from political and mental slavery for his people. Are you?

"I fuckin' know you"

I like money..
he's just not on point about damn near anything.


all that post showed me was the answer to one question...

"how many houseniggaz can you get on one message board?"

>I like money..
> he's just not on point about damn near anything.
>
>
>all that post showed me was the answer to one question...
>
>"how many houseniggaz can you get on one message board?"
>

I was completely embarassed by the whole thing. Haha.

saying some punk shit like that.
It's time for all bitch niggaz to get off the mic.

you know... i tried to tell em before..
see I'm from Bmore.. we don't make those make and models out here...
namean...
word.

you ain't even gotta get THAT deep with the modern era.

A handful of companies owns both the radio stations and the record labels.

If you aren't an artist that falls within that axis of influence, you get NO burn.

as hell.
Embaressed? Please. I'm a man.

Cats be lookin at me funny and shit when I say, "I don't listen to WJLB"

but this one is a bit bewildering in terms of scope, focus, and some content.

btw, what is your definition of 'pro-Black music'?

if you wish to see your children live...
your community... your families...
if you wish good intentions for you and yours.

what's yours?

It's also a philosophy I don't necessarily see in a lot of Black music (though I generally do see it in music that I would consider 'pro-Black.')

It's a great philosophy for life, though.

everything. You may view music as a commodity..
and there in lies your problem.

Yes, it's a great philosophy for life...
if you are a sincere person in life... so is your music..
the reflection of it... therefore.

Cocaine Habit Blues?

Bed Spring Blues?

44-20 Blues?

Frankie & Johnny?

Stagger Lee?

I don't know if links are still active, but I did a 'Black roots music' post last month that had a fair amount of fun stuff that was about nothing more than getting high and getting laid, with occasional pepperings of misogyny, domestic violence, self-loathing, marital infidelity, and homicide.

Sure, people can make the argument that it's party music that is uplifting precisely because it is about relieving the stress of the day to day existence. But to me, that's like saying 'Gin And Juice' is about striving for social equality and promoting a healthy diet.

A lot of blues stuff is pretty much the opposite side of the coin from songs like Parchman Farm Blues, or even ballads like John Henry, which ARE about personal upliftment and fulfillment.

*shrug*

last poets
your point?

you do know Richard Berry wrote Louie, Louie in 1955?

So...

sort of.

period.

We are not discussing the authoring of Louie Louie, pay attention and learn something.

>We are not discussing the authoring of Louie Louie, pay
>attention and learn something.
>

Hold up... who brought up Louie, Louie?

on any level.
We know wassup and we don't need some white boy to validate.
So... enjoy the music?
Peace.

or 'invalidate' anyone's opinion.

All I wanted was for you to explain your stance more clearly, and it doesn't make sense to me that you have refused to do so while asserting that you have already done so.

If you just don't like me, or don't deem me worthy, that's cool. But say that instead of speaking in half-shades. It genuinely confuses me that you seem so salty and dismissive.


As far as the Louie Louie bullshit goes: you (confusingly) brought it up, and you got your information wrong. Then you criticise me for correcting you and straying off-topic? That's just weird.



>So... enjoy the music?

I always do.

it showed autonomy.

It spoke to a reality and lifestyle that was outside of the control of white folks, in a way, which made (and makes) it powerful as hell.

Black people simply living thier lives indepently is sometimes a revolutionary act in this culture.

exactly.

bob says it best...
"he who feels it
knows it"

to quote: "You see, blues was nothing more than conscious pro-black music."

I asked specifically what was "conscious" and "pro-black" about specific songs which are clearly a significant part of blues tradition, several of which I'm sure he knows.

"Stagger Lee shot Billy, he shot that boy so bad, that the bullet went through Billy and broker the bartender's glass." (said fight was overe a card game and a Stetson hat.)

"Frankie went down to the hotel. She didn't go there for fun; underneath her red kimono she carried a 44 gun, to shoot her man if he was doing her wrong." (he was, and she did.)

"Well, I love my whiskey and I love my gin, but the way I love my coke is an awful sin - hey, hey, honey take a whiff on me!"

There's nothing in these songs that to me says

"if you wake up in the morning and you wish to live...
if you wish to see your children live...
your community... your families...
if you wish good intentions for you and yours."

blues was the only voice we had at the time...
if your expecting them to give you a public enemy rant..
keep expecting it...
bottom line is black people didn't own their masters or the studios they recorded in and had to code their music...

besides...
that's one sentence out of all this information..
and you choose to harp on that?
What does that say of your agenda?
Just curious.

>blues was the only voice we had at the time...

blues
jug band music
country & old-time music
jazz
pop
shit, Paul Robeson was singing opera at the time
minstrelsy, even, was being recorded by black artists and sold to a black audience

>if your expecting them to give you a public enemy rant..
>keep expecting it...

All I asked was: what is 'pro-black' about those songs?

>bottom line is black people didn't own their masters or the
>studios they recorded in and had to code their music...

Okay. So what is the code in those songs? I mean, 'Follow the Drinking Gourd' I get, but not the kind of stuff I've asked about.

and as is clear, I pointed out that there are indeed plenty of uplifting songs within the blues tradition. I don't have a one-dimensional view of the genre or form either way.

> that's one sentence out of all this information..
>and you choose to harp on that?
>What does that say of your agenda?
>Just curious.

I chose to discuss blues because that's the area you addressed in which I'm best versed. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply about my agenda.

Frankly, the conspiracy theory stuff which is the main body of your post doesn't interest me all that much. Of course that doesn't mean there isn't any merit in it.

first off... paul Robeson... a man of dignity, multiple languages a trained actor... had to play SAMBO, complete with a loin cloth... to be exposed.

second.
I said the only VOICE we had.
Jazz... had no voice... that's what I pointed out earlier...
they chose to fight the system thru their music.

"blues
jug band music
country & old-time music
jazz
pop"

You must be kidding.
Jub band music?
Name one.
Country and Old time music?
Name one.
Pop?
Name one.

You do realize this is before Little Richard and Chuck Berry broke the popular music sound barrier.

I really question your intentions.

Did the CIA Poison Paul Robeson?







Paul Robeson, the black actor, singer, and political radical, may have been a victim of CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb's MK-ULTRA program. We have previously noted Gottlieb's death and outlined his career of infamy. In the spring of 1961, Robeson planned to visit Havana, Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The trip never came off because Robeson fell ill in Moscow, where he had gone to give several lectures and concerts. At the time, it was reported that Robeson had suffered a heart attack. But in fact Robeson had slashed his wrists in a suicide attempt after suffering hallucinations and severe depression. The symptoms came on following a surprise party thrown for him at his Moscow hotel.

Robeson's son, Paul Robeson, Jr., has investigated his father's illness for more than 30 years. He believes that his father was slipped a synthetic hallucinogen called BZ by U.S. intelligence operatives at the party in Moscow. The party was hosted by anti-Soviet dissidents funded by the CIA.

Robeson Jr. visited his father in the hospital the day after the suicide attempt. Robeson told his son that he felt extreme paranoia and thought that the walls of the room were moving. He said he had locked himself in his bedroom and was overcome by a powerful sense of emptiness and depression before he tried to take his own life.

Robeson left Moscow for London, where he was admitted to Priory Hospital. There he was turned over to psychiatrists who forced him to endure 54 electro-shock treatments. At the time, electro-shock, in combination with psycho-active drugs, was a favored technique of CIA behavior modification. It turned out that the doctors treating Robeson in London and, later, in New York were CIA contractors. The timing of Robeson's trip to Cuba was certainly a crucial factor. Three weeks after the Moscow party, the CIA launched its disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. It's impossible to underestimate Robeson's threat, as he was perceived by the U.S. government as the most famous black radical in the world. Through the 1950s Robeson commanded worldwide attention and esteem. He was the Nelson Mandela and Mohammed Ali of his time. He spoke more than twenty languages, including Russian, Chinese, and several African languages. Robeson was also on close terms with Nehru, Jomo Kenyatta, and other Third World leaders. His embrace of Castro in Havana would have seriously undermined U.S. efforts to overthrow the new Cuban government.

Another pressing concern for the U.S. government at the time was Robeson's announced intentions to return to the United States and assume a leading role in the emerging civil rights movement. Like the family of Martin Luther King, Robeson had been under official surveillance for decades. As early as 1935, British intelligence had been looking at Robeson's activities. In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services, World War II predecessor to the CIA, opened a file on him. In 1947, Robeson was nearly killed in a car crash. It later turned out that the left wheel of the car had been monkey-wrenched. In the 1950s, Robeson was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist hearings. The campaign effectively sabotaged his acting and singing career in the states.

Robeson never recovered from the drugging and the follow-up treatments from CIA-linked doctors and shrinks. He died in 1977. Robeson, Jr. has been pushing the U.S. to release classified documents regarding his father. He has already unearthed some damning stuff, including an FBI "status of health" report on Robeson created in April of 1961. "The fact that such a file was opened at all is sinister in itself," Robeson recently told the London Sunday Times. "It indicates a degree of prior knowledge that something was about to happen to him."

Robeson's case has chilling parallels to the fate of another black man who was slipped CIA-concocted hallucinogens, Sgt. James Thornwell. Thornwell was a U.S. Army sergeant working in a NATO office in Orleans, France, in 1961 (the same year Robeson was drugged), when he came under suspicion of having stolen documents. Thornwell, who maintained his innocence, was interrogated, hypnotized and harassed by U.S. intelligence officers. When he persisted in proclaiming his innocence, Thornwell was secretly given LSD for several days by his interrogators, during which time he was forced to undergo aggressive questioning, replete with racial slurs and threats. At one point, the CIA men threatened "to extend the state indefinitely, even to a point of permanent insanity." The agents apparently consummated their promise. Thornwell experienced an irreversible mental crisis. He eventually committed suicide at his Maryland home. There was never any evidence that he had anything to do with the missing NATO papers.


--Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn

NOW AGAIN, SIT BACK AND LEARN SOMETHING.

.
>
>second.
>I said the only VOICE we had.
>Jazz... had no voice... that's what I pointed out earlier...
>they chose to fight the system thru their music.

Jazz had no vocals? Is that what you're suggesting?

>"blues
>jug band music
>country & old-time music
>jazz
>pop"
>
>You must be kidding.
>Jub band music?
>Name one.

Jug bands:
Memphis Jug Band
Cannon's Jug Stompers
Jack Kelly & the South Memphis Jug Band
Earl MacDonald's Original Louisville Jug Band
Whistler & His Jug Band
King David Jug Band
Stovepipe No. 1 & Mississippi Sarah


>Country and Old time music?
>Name one.

Mississippi Mud Steppers
Mississippi Shieks
Jim Booker, fiddler for Taylor's Kentucky Boys
Jimmie Strothers

and plenty of guys I have field recordings of

gotta run, sorry...

Mississippi Mud Steppers
so this wasn't conscious music explaining the poverty of what was happening in the hills?
songs like 'the return of the northern starvers'? isn't conscious music?
haha...


Mississippi Shieks
songs like "Sales Tax" albums like "Stop and Listen"?

Jim Bookes version of People Get Ready isn't conscious music?

Jug bands:
didnt' explain the poverty and climate of racism in the south?
Sure they did..
and much of it was disguised... not to mention they were not ALLOWED the chance to voice there opinions.

Also... you do realize that AlB.Sure existed during the PE era don't you? So again...

Oh and nice job evading Paul Robeson.
I question your intentions.

Crazy Blues ... Perry Bradford, Traditional Mamie Smith (3:20)
I've Got Salvation in My Heart ... Sam Jones (3:06)
Lonesome John ... Sam Jones (3:19)
Fisher's Hornpipe ... Sam Jones (3:12)
Court Street Blues ... Sam Jones (3:19)
A Woman Gets Tires of the Same Man All the Time ... Sam Jones (3:14)
A Chicken Can Waltz the Gravy Around ... Sam Jones (3:09)
Bed Slats ... Sam Jones (3:08)
Cincinnati Southern Blues ... Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport, Ivy Smith (2:40)
Sixth Street Moan ... Kid Cole (3:00)
Hey Hey Mama Blues ... Kid Cole (3:05)
Hard Hearted Mama Blues ... Kid Cole (2:49)
Niagra Fall Blues ... Kid Cole (2:57)
Newport Blues ... Bob Coleman Cincinnati Jug Band (3:00)
George Street Stomp ... Cincinnati Jug Band (2:48)
Tear It Down ... Bobby Coleman (2:48)
Cincinnati Underworld Woman ... Bobby Coleman (2:58)
Sing Song Blues ... Bobby Coleman (3:06)
Mandd Blues ... Bobby Coleman (3:07)
Have You Ever Been Worried in Mind?, Pt. 1 ... Sweet Papa Tadpole (3:11)
Have You Ever Been Worried in Mind?, Pt. 2 ... Sweet Papa Tadpole (3:06)
Your Baby Can't Get Enough ... Sweet Papa Tadpole (3:12)
Keep Your Yes Ma'am Clean ... Sweet Papa Tadpole (2:40)
Black Spider Blues ... Sweet Papa Tadpole (2:50)
Weep and Moan When I'm Gone ... Sweet Papa Tadpole (2:45)


CD 2

Track Title iTunes Composers Performers Time
I Had to Smake That Thing ... Francis Wallace (2:25)
Can't Get Enough ... Clara Burston (2:37)
Mama Keep Your Yes Ma'am Clean ... Walter Cole (2:40)
Everybody Got Something ... Walter Cole (2:45)
What's That Tastes Like Gravy? ... King David's Jug Band (3:07)
Rising Sun Blues ... Traditional King David's Jug Band (3:02)
Sweet Potato Blues ... King David's Jug Band (3:21)
Tear It Down ... King David's Jug Band (3:04)
I Can Deal Worry ... King David's Jug Band (3:12)
Georgia Bo Bo ... King David's Jug Band (2:51)
Clair and Pearley Blues ... (2:55)
Tricks Ain't Walkin' No More ... (3:23)
Freight Train Blues ... (3:02)
War Dreams Blues ... (2:55)
George Street Blues ... Leroy Carr (3:07)
I'm Going to Cincinnati ... Walter Coleman (2:45)
Greyhound Blues ... Walter Coleman (2:55)
Mama Let Me Lay It on You ... Walter Coleman (3:02)
Smack That Thing ... Walter Coleman (3:04)
Carry Your Good Stuff Home ... Walter Coleman, Jesse James (2:46)
Mama Let Me Lay It on You ... Walter Coleman, Jesse James (3:01)
Sweet Patuni ... Jesse James (3:02)
Southern Casey Jones ... Jesse James (3:01)
Lonesome Day Blues ... Jesse James (3:07)
Highway 61 ... Jesse James (3:10

War Dream Blues
Hardluck Blues... so none of these explain...

poverty, racial climate, black man in America problems, and love?
Yeah right.
One of the reasons they made music was to express themselves...
there was no other voice to do that.
Black people didn't even have a voice to rep them until the 60's...
outside of cats like Marcus Garvey and WEB Dubois...

1. Low Down Blues - Whistler's Jug Band
2. Giving It Away - Birmingham Jug Band
3. Cocaine Habit Blues - Memphis Jug Band
4. Try And Treat Her Right - Ben Ferguson
5. Glad And Sorry Blues - John Harris
6. What's That Taste Like Gravy - King David's Jug Band
7. Newport Blues - Cincinnati Jug Band
8. Big Railroad Blues - Cannon's Jug Stompers
9. Fourth Street Mess Around - Memphis Jug Band
10. Banjoreno - The Dixieland Jug Blowers
11. Tear It Down - King David's Jug Band
12. Ticket Agent Blues - Noah Lewis's Jug Band
13. You Ought To Move Out Of Town - Jed Davenport & His Beale Street Jug Band
14. Cold Iron Bed - Jack Kelly & His South Memphis Jug Band
15. Bill Wilson - Birmingham Jug Band
16. Cash Money Blues - Kaiser Clifton
17. Minglewood Blues - Cannon's Jug Stompers
18. That's My Rabbit, My Dog Caught It - The Walter Family
19. Spider's Nest Blues - Memphis Jug Band
20. She's In The Graveyard Now - Earl McMonald's Original Louisville Jug Band
21. Please Don't Holler, Mama - Ben Ferguson
22. Vamps Of "28" - Whistler's Jug Band
23. Ruckus Juice And Chittlin' - Memphis Jug Band

if you want to hear it:

vol. 1 - http://www.sendspace.com/file/mcpkft

vol. 2 - http://www.sendspace.com/file/mix004

but I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve by posting up a bunch of song titles, as though that's indicative of what you were talking about before.

haha...
and it doesn't matter... if it's from the hands of black folks...
then it's from our similar experiences... regardless of how white people try to divide it up.

Bottom line..
when did you hear a jugband talking about killing each other?
Promoting pimping each other?
Exactl. Conscious music.
Uplifting music.

download that jug band compilation I posted the links to. Or go to the other post I linked up.

Or don't, and keep trying to make points about music you've never listened to.

this is your window of opporunity into our shit..
not the other way around.
White people are not complex. Bottom line poor people anywhere, any color have the same issues. Perhaps you should LIVE with the people you study... when I want to know how to play a jug, I'll holla.

Cause no matter how hard you try, you'll never have the power to seperate the struggle from the people..
whether a jug band, 2live crew, PE, or Living Colour... this is white america. PERIOD.

>this is your window of opporunity into our shit..
>not the other way around.

By 'this' I'm assuming you mean 'blues' as opposed to 'this thread on OKP.'

I may be wrong about that.

But yes, blues and old/traditional music in general is a window to history, both good and bad, and that is part of the appeal.

>White people are not complex.

Depends on the white person.

>Bottom line poor people
>anywhere, any color have the same issues.

Sure.

>Perhaps you should
>LIVE with the people you study...

Well, considering that the type of blues I enjoy the most is not really practiced anywhere as a living musical culture, that would be difficult in this case.

On a musically unrelated note, I did spend 4 years in Japan while I was learning taiko. Just mentioning that as a way of saying the concept is far from alien to me.

>when I want to know how to
>play a jug, I'll holla.

I'll be glad to help.

>Cause no matter how hard you try, you'll never have the power
>to seperate the struggle from the people..

Once again, I've no intention of trying such a thing.

>whether a jug band, 2live crew, PE, or Living Colour... this
>is white america. PERIOD.

Which is why I said below that IF your thinking on hip hop is consistent on your thinking with blues, then you would argue that all hip hop is also pro-Black conscious music.

Apparently you missed the conditional since you responded below that you hadn't said that.

But now you pretty much have.


Overall, even though I disagree with it I can work with you feeling like you're better versed to judge music because you're a musician (though we have nothing to go on for that except your word; I'm a trusting sort.) I can work with you discounting my opinion off the bat because I'm white.

But I can't work with you feeling as though you're entitled to comment on music you have never listened to. Considering various statements you've made ('blues was our only voice;' questioning why the CIA wasn't mentioned in 'Cocaine Habit Blues,' questioning the actual existence of non-blues/jazz forms of Black expression in the 1920s and 1930s) etc., it's pretty clear that you're not familiar with music of this era (outside of Robert Johnson), and that you don't feel that you need to be in order to voice any opinions on it.

And aside from how it afects the discussion, I think it's a shame because the music is great.

So I've said about all I can say. Thanks for the convo.

(Overall, even though I disagree with it I can work with you feeling like you're better versed to judge music because you're a musician (though we have nothing to go on for that except your word; I'm a trusting sort.) I can work with you discounting my opinion off the bat because I'm white. )

I didn't say I'm better versed... I never said that... what I said was to be clear... is that my insight counts...
and if your talking about driving a bus...
who do you speak to... a cab driver or a bus driver?
it's pretty simple homie.

(But I can't work with you feeling as though you're entitled to comment on music you have never listened to.)

Huge ASSumption don't you think?

( Considering various statements you've made ('blues was our only voice;' questioning why the CIA wasn't mentioned in 'Cocaine Habit Blues,' questioning the actual existence of non-blues/jazz forms of Black expression in the 1920s and 1930s) etc., it's pretty clear that you're not familiar with music of this era (outside of Robert Johnson))))

Actually that's not what I said... I listed various forms of black music... from jazz to blues...
you harped on one sentence cause that's all you had. And then you brought up Jug music... which depending on how you classify it...
haha... either way... My statement still stands.
Cause again, whether jug music or jazz... it was a reflection of the people who made it was it not? Are you telling me there was no racism or poverty in the south?

(, and that you don't feel that you need to be in order to voice any opinions on it.)

ASSumptions again?

(And aside from how it afects the discussion, I think it's a shame because the music is great.)

That's great. We are all glad to hear it.

(So I've said about all I can say. Thanks for the convo.)

Which honestly wasn't much.
Thanks.
LOL.

>I didn't say I'm better versed... I never said that... what I
>said was to be clear... is that my insight counts...
>and if your talking about driving a bus...
>who do you speak to... a cab driver or a bus driver?
>it's pretty simple homie.

Yes, but you don't have to be a race car driver to enjoy a NASCAR race.

Your analogy would at least make sense if you only brought up the fact that you play (again, without providing any evidence of this) when discussing technique, ability, performance, etc. But you frequently use it to justify your own opinions on music appreciation, which is a different beast altogether, and as proof of the extent of your knowledge, which it has squat to do with.

>(But I can't work with you feeling as though you're entitled
>to comment on music you have never listened to.)
>
>Huge ASSumption don't you think?

#61: me: "Jim Booker, fiddler for Taylor's Kentucky Boys"

#63, you: "Jim Booke's version of People Get Ready isn't conscious music?"

You didn't even get the right era, let alone the right guy.

>Actually that's not what I said... I listed various forms of
>black music... from jazz to blues...

#39: "Keep in mind... blues was the only voice we had at the time..."

When I mentioned other genres besides the obligatory jazz and gospel, you replied in #53: "You must be kidding."

>you harped on one sentence cause that's all you had.

As I said earlier, the concept of that one sentence was what caught my eye, and the only thing I found partiuclarly interesting in the initial post. If you didn't want to discuss that part of your thesis, you should have said so. Or not replied to me at all.

>And then
>you brought up Jug music... which depending on how you
>classify it...

Jug bands belnded all kinds of styles together. Sometimes they're classified as blues, sometimes as jazz, sometimes they played country.

>haha... either way... My statement still stands.
>Cause again, whether jug music or jazz... it was a reflection
>of the people who made it was it not? Are you telling me
>there was no racism or poverty in the south?

Why would I tell you that?

Of course it was a reflection of the people who made it... who frequently, like any other Americans at any time, ESPECIALLY poor ones, indulged in violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and infidelity, and this showed up in SOME OF the music. To me, those elements are neither "pro-Black" nor "conscious," so I wouldn't consider the songs they appear in to be so either.

>(, and that you don't feel that you need to be in order to
>voice any opinions on it.)
>
>ASSumptions again?

#349: "I don't have to listen..."

He/she never said those bands weren't "conscious". YOU were the moron that said blues was black people's only voice and he/she proved you wrong by simply pointing out other black musical styles of the time. Whether they were "conscious" or not is irrelevant!

-

amoungst other stuff...
either way.
I win.
lol.

autonomy is about as pro-LIFE as one can get. If black folk write and perform songs about their lives in an era that pretty much makes it illegal or improbable to learn how to read or write, let alone learn how to play an instrument, how much of a stronger argument for "pro-black conciousness" does one need?

Here is a read I recommend for everyone.
Especially confused niggaz.

The CIA's Cover War Against Rock

Table Of Contents

Acknowledgements xi
Foreword xii
Prelude Assassination Politics of the Vietnam War Period: Fascism, American-Style and the Rise of Richard Nixon 1 (8)
A (Killing) Field Day for the Heat
9 (10)
Time Machine: The Birth of Top 40 Radio and Alan Freed's Near-Death Experience (Early Cia and Mob Influences on the Rock Music Industry)
19 (5)
Parapolitical Stars in the Dope Show
24 (11)
The Death of Cass Elliot and other ``Restless Youth''
35 (7)
A Murder in the House of Pooh
42 (11)
Brian Jones

Portraits in Carnage: The End of the Rock Festivals
53 (7)
I Don't Live Today: The Jimi Hendrix Political Harassment, Kidnap and Murder Experience
60 (16)
When You're a Stranger: Fragrance de Chaos---Investigative Findings on the Death of Jim Morrison
76 (11)
Like Coffins in a Cage: The Baez Contras and the Death of Phil Ochs
87 (13)
Who Killed the Kennedys? (And Sal Mineo?)
100 (17)
``Project Walrus'' and Holden Caulfield's Warm Gun
117 (14)
What'Cha Gonna Do? ... The Deaths of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh
131 (18)
Gang War: Sons of Chaos vs. Thugs a Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. Assassination Digest
149 (16)
Dancing on the Jetty: The Death of Michael Hutchence, et al
165


Synopsis
Since the sixties, musicians have been outspoken and powerful proponents for social change, making them a threat to those eager to maintain the status quo. Typically fond of drugs, they also make easy targets for investigation and exploitation. In this comprehensive look at more than a dozen suspect rock star deaths, conspiracy researcher Alex Constantine delves into the secrets that the record industry, organized crime, and even the FBI and CIA don't want uncovered.
Unearthing recent -- and successful -- assassination plots against Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as well as new information on the tragic deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and John Lennon, this long-overdue report offers disturbing evidence that there may be more behind these deaths than accident, psychosis, and indulgence.

and that's fine.
However it's either you..

or I run with
Bob Marley
Peter Tosh
Frank Zappa
Prince
Chuck D
teh Last Poets...
I think I'll run with them thanks.

give me some book titles on this.

they looked at the stat sheet and saw that some Southern California cat named Eric Wright was worth a whole lotta fuckin' money. THAT'S how Eazy wound up there.

That shit happens everyday. and FURTHERMORE I would've gone too. Just to show those assholes that there's successful BLACK folks too. You KNOW a Republican function needed some color in there ( JC Watts doesn't count).

Him simply *going* to the White House didn't make him a sellout, but all that shit he was pumping to Black youth to build his fortune? THAT's what people should've been criticizing.

Stop with the Knee-jerk shit and do some analytical thinking, people..

black neighborhoods?
Put down your records and pick up a cause.
A mixtape aint never save anybody.


oh and as far as they didn't invite Eazy...
what regular nigga do you know getting invites to the white house?
you ever gete one for your groundbreaking dj skills?
exactly.
Stop confusing niggaz.

The CIA's Role in the Crack Epidemic
CIA and Cocaine: Truth and Disinformation Part 4
Revolutionary Worker #886, December 15, 1996
Journalist Gary Webb performed a useful service: Last summer, in a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News, he documented that a ring of CIA-linked contra mercenaries had created a pipeline of cheap Colombian cocaine. They introduced tons of cocaine into the Black communities of South Central L.A. and Compton during the early 1980s, just as the "crack epidemic" was taking off. Webb documented that the two right-wing Nicaraguans running this cocaine ring, Oscar Danilo Blandón and Norwin Meneses, were recruited by the leading CIA agent within the contra movement. Webb also documented how their operation was protected from police investigation for years. (See RW #873.)

Many people have heard (and believed) that the U.S. government was behind the so-called "crack epidemic." But at the same time, the story of CIA drug trafficking has been suppressed, denied and ridiculed in the media and courts. Instead, the rulers of this country have pointed their finger at the ghettos and barrios. They accuse the people of causing the drug traffic. They have packed their prisons with thousands of youth--who were just trying to make a living in devastated communities.

And then, last summer, it was suddenly documented in the pages of a mainstream daily newspaper that the CIA-organized mercenaries had financed themselves by selling cocaine in Black communities. At last, there was hard evidence that the U.S. government itself was deeply involved in creating the "crack explosion"!

Gary Webb has come under sharp attack. This has been the merciless, unjust, but predictable counterattack of a system that is determined to defend the CIA and the government from this devastating scandal. Virtually every part of Webb's series is being picked apart and challenged by the system's major newspapers: New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. His personal journalistic integrity has been questioned.

Most mainstream reports now insist that Webb's reporting has been "discredited" and "refuted." And it is said that there is still no credible evidence that the CIA was involved in cocaine trafficking or that their contras were funded by drug sales. And, the mainstream media claims, the Meneses-Blandón ring was just small fry. Blandón, they now claim, never gave more than $60,000 to the contras, and his South Central and Compton sales supposedly didn't play much role in the crack epidemic anyway.

Earlier in this RW series, we have documented that the CIA and its agents were deeply involved in cocaine trafficking--especially during 1981-1988, the years of their dirty contra war against Nicaragua. We documented that the CIA and other U.S. government agencies organized networks of airplanes to smuggle guns to the contras in Honduras and Costa Rica, and that these planes often flew back to U.S. airports and air bases loaded with drugs. We have documented that the CIA gave protection to major Latin American and U.S. drug traffickers--arranging to have charges against them dropped and to have their operations protected from investigations by the U.S. Customs and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). And we have documented that this trafficking was known and protected from high places within the CIA and the U.S. government, including Reagan's White House.

In this final installment of our series, we will assess what the CIA's role was in helping to create the so-called "crack epidemic," and we will show that large sums of money were created through the drug trade for financing the contra war.

It's No Coincidence--
It's an M.O. for Covert War
You don't really need secret documents or the testimony of drug smugglers to find evidence of CIA drug trafficking. You just have to compare the history of CIA covert actions and the history of drugs in the U.S. For 40 years, major waves of drug trafficking have coincided with secret CIA wars waged in the Third World.

During the 1960s there was the so-called "heroin epidemic." Cheap heroin flooded oppressed communities. Later it was documented that the CIA brought this heroin into the U.S. from the opium-growing regions of Southeast Asia's Gold Triangle.

The CIA was waging a secret mercenary war in northern Laos and Thailand--and was financing that war using heroin trafficking. CIA agents flew planeloads of opium out of the Gold Triangle on its cargo airline Air America. Once the opium was processed into heroin, it was sold to many different distribution networks, some operating within the U.S. military. One recently documented operation involved sewing large packages of heroin inside the bodies of U.S. soldiers killed in the Vietnam War, and then removing the drugs when the bodies arrived at air force bases within the U.S.

Twenty years later, during the 1980s, there was a new drug "epidemic" in the U.S.--this time involving cocaine. Cocaine had been available before the 1980s, but only at sky-high prices of $5,200 an ounce. It had been a prestige item among the wealthy. The L.A. Times estimates that in 1980 there were 400,000 cocaine users in the U.S., and only 10 percent of them were smoking cocaine.

Suddenly, after 1981, the price of cocaine started to drop. Within a couple of years it had been cut in half. A kilo of cocaine that cost $60,000 in 1981, soon cost $30,000, or even $20,000. The drop in price was caused by a rise in supply. One estimate is that supplies of cocaine within the U.S. rose to over 200 tons a year.

By 1983 cocaine was plentiful enough and cheap enough within the U.S. to become a common "street drug." The sale of cocaine shifted from upper-class enclaves to the ghetto. A new cheap, crystallized, and highly addictive form of cocaine appeared--crack.

This new trade in cocaine drew people in at the street level in the poor neighborhoods, because it provided income to pay rent, buy food, clothes and cars for people who had no other economic options. At the same time, it brought much bitterness to the people: young people often ended up dead or disabled. Capitalist competition over markets intensified deadly conflicts among the people.

The number of estimated cocaine users rose to over six million--with over two million using it at least every couple of days. Many thousands of new addicts lived and died in abandoned buildings, driven to desperate acts to feed their pipes. The L.A. Times reports that the number of crack-related medical emergencies in L.A. jumped from 40 in 1983 to 2,453 in 1989.

What fueled this "rise of crack" during the 1980s?

During those same years (surprise, surprise!), the CIA was waging a new secret war--this time in Central America. The staging areas of that war, in Honduras and Costa Rica, were halfway between the U.S. border and the major cocaine processing points in Colombia. The CIA was hiring mercenary pilots and airlines, flying secret flights to deserted airstrips, and trying to create a "self-financed" military operation--so that the war atrocities of the contras would be harder to blame on the U.S. government.

Once that contra war started to cool down after 1986, the use of cocaine started to decline in the U.S. But this did not mean that the U.S. government's attacks on the people also declined. In 1988, after years of promoting and protecting cocaine trafficking, the U.S. government announced a "war on drugs" that would take on the "demand side"--which meant targeting and punishing "street level" dealers and users. Since then, federal and local governments have used the drug economy as a justification to occupy whole neighborhoods with their police--harassing, accusing, brutalizing and imprisoning more and more people each year.

Protecting Drug Transport Was Key
"The Washington Post concluded that the CIA did not launch or play a major role in promoting the crack plague that swept America's largely black inner cities in the 1980s--but that the agency's support of the Contra rebels may have contributed to the drug influx. Available data from arrest records, hospitals, drug treatment centers and drug user surveys point to the rise of crack as a broad-based phenomenon driven in numerous places by players of different nationalities, races and ethnic groups."

From the Washington Post's
Internet website

"The force of the Mercury News account appears to have relatively little to do with the quality of the evidence that it marshals to its case...court documents, past investigations and interviews with more than current and former rebels, C.I.A. officials and narcotics agents, as well as other law-enforcement officials and experts on the drug trade, all indicate that there is scant proof to support the paper's contention that Nicaraguan rebel officials linked to the C.I.A. played a central role in spreading crack through Los Angeles and other cities."

The New York Times

These arguments dodge the key issue here: No one is claiming that CIA agents and contra officials personally went out on every street corner and peddled vials of crack. The CIA's role was not concentrated at the distribution end of the cocaine trade. The CIA agents opened key new channels for smuggling large volumes of cocaine. They granted protection for fleets of airplanes loaded with cocaine, including large cargo planes, to fly across the U.S. border and land at U.S. airports.

In some cases, the street-level cocaine distribution organizations were tied to the CIA's contra armies directly--certainly that seems to have been the case with the L.A.-based Blandón ring that Gary Webb exposed. In many cases, the mid-level networks distributing cocaine out of Miami to other cities were built by organizations of right-wing Cuban exiles--who had their own extensive ties to the CIA. But, overall, the flood of cheap cocaine hit the streets through many different street organizations--including the Crips and Bloods in Los Angeles.

In other words, the fact that many organizations were involved in the distribution of cocaine in the 1980s is hardly proof that the CIA didn't play a key role in sparking the crack epidemic.

In the 1970s, the transportation of cocaine from Latin America into the U.S. was a major bottleneck of the cocaine trade. According to available analyses, the "cartels" that emerged in Colombia developed their control over 70 percent of the cocaine trade by pioneering new ways of smuggling cocaine--but still had trouble moving the drugs in large volume. Before the 1980s cocaine had been brought in by a "mule system" (where individual couriers strapped packets of cocaine on their body) or by light planes air-dropping duffel bags of drugs.

Then, in the 1980s, the methods of cocaine smuggling took a major leap: Cocaine started arriving in the U.S. in planeloads and cargo containers--shipments as large as half a ton, a ton, or even larger. The cocaine trade started using larger aircraft--and for that they needed airstrips where the planes could land and unload without U.S. Customs interference.

As we documented in Part 1 of this series--this is exactly what the CIA offered major drug smugglers, in exchange for their help in laundering money and transporting weapons for the contras. There were undoubtedly smuggling operations that operated outside CIA channels--no one argues that all the cocaine entering the U.S. during the 1980s was under CIA protection. However, the available evidence indicates that large shipments and the networks of several big-time drug smugglers were under the protection of the U.S. government.

The CIA Alliance with the Largest Cocaine Traffickers
How much cocaine did the CIA sell directly? How much of the larger cocaine flow did they protect? It is hard to find any reliable figures to quantify this. Most of what is known comes from the testimony of drug traffickers in U.S. courts and congressional hearings. CIA officials insist that their accounts are lies.

Here is the overall picture of the CIA's involvement in the cocaine traffic--based on evidence gathered in the first three parts of this series:

At the start of the 1980s, there were two key centers for cocaine trafficking to the U.S. One was the alliance between the so-called Colombian "cartels" and Panama's military dictator Manuel Noriega. The other was the alliance between the Honduran military and the Honduran druglord Juan Matta Ballesteros.

Both of those operations developed extremely close ties to the CIA-contra supply operations. General Noriega was a life-long CIA agent. And the Honduran generals were U.S.-trained lackeys whose semi-colonial army had always crudely served the interests of U.S. companies like United Fruit. The CIA relied on these Honduran generals for setting up the main contra bases along the Honduras-Nicaragua border.

Inside U.S. borders, much of the early distribution of the cocaine was carried out by right-wing Cuban exiles based in Miami--many of whom had worked for the CIA in the Agency's many secret raids and invasion plots against Cuba.

CIA Alliances with the
Major Cocaine Operations
As the CIA war on Nicaragua grew, ever larger amounts of drugs and money were funneled through the Panamanian and Honduran operations.

In 1988, Ramón Milian Rodríguez, a leading money launderer for the Colombian cocaine operations, testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that he had moved about $11 billion in drug profits from the United States, through Miami to Panama--on behalf of the Medellín cartel. Most of these funds were not directly controlled by the CIA. Instead the CIA levied a kind of tax on these large drug operations. The cartel could protect their shipments from seizure and their apparatus from arrest by funneling money to the contras.

In April 1987 the Boston Globe reported that between 50 and 100 flights "arranged by the CIA took off from or landed at U.S. airports during the past two years without undergoing inspection" by the U.S. Customs.

"Narcotics proceeds were used to shore up contra efforts," Milian Rodríguez testified. "I have laundered money for that network. I made it possible to transfer funds." Asked by Senator Kerry how the money was moved to the contras, Milian Rodríguez said: "I had a liaison with the U.S. intelligence--let's not call him `U.S. intelligence.' Let's call him `whoever was running the resupply.' " That man was CIA agent Félix Rodríguez. Milian Rodríguez testified, "Félix would call me with instructions on where to send the money." Milian said he personally laundered $10 million from the Medellín cartel to the contras--using about a dozen Miami companies. For one of the companies, Ocean Hunter, he moved about $200,000 a month in cash by courier.

Carlos Lehder, one of the "pioneers" of the Colombian Medellín cocaine cartels, gave the same figure during testimony in a U.S. courtroom--saying that the Colombian cartel had donated about $10 million to the contras between 1982 and 1985. In exchange for these payoffs, the cartel got valuable contra air bases, fuel, transit points for their smuggling operations, information on radar surveillance, and "a little friendship" from the CIA.

Carlos Lehder described how he had developed the island of Norman's Key in the Bahamas as a base for large-scale smuggling between 1979 and 1982--before the contra war got started. Once he was in contact with the CIA, the U.S. government rented his island facilities for their smuggling operations and, in exchange, gave protection to the larger drug-smuggling operations he was running.

Meanwhile, General Noriega was making his direct financial contributions to the contras. Noriega also provided pilots and aircraft for CIA-contra drug-smuggling operations and set up his own ring, through pilot Floyd Carlton. The Noriega operation reportedly flew at least four tons of cocaine through CIA bases in Costa Rica in nine months. A Costa Rican legislative commission concluded in 1989 that Noriega helped install in that country at least seven pilots who ran drugs to North America as part of contra supply operations.

At the same time, the billion-dollar organization of Juan Matta Ballesteros in Honduras was hired--first by the CIA and then in 1984 by the State Department--to be the main supply airline of the contras. In 1985, Newsweek estimated that his organization supplied "perhaps one-third of all the cocaine consumed in the United States."

It is not clear exactly how much of Matta's organization was protected by the CIA--but Matta's alliance with the U.S. government appears to have played a major role in his emergence as one of the largest cocaine traffickers in the world. In 1983, just as Matta's contra supply operation was taking off, the DEA's office in Honduras was shut down. Matta remained protected from U.S. prosecution until 1988, right after the contra war finally stopped.

To discredit Gary Webb's articles, the mainstream press has been arguing that most cocaine entering the U.S. after the mid-1980s came through Mexico. What they neglect to explain is that the growing Mexican cocaine operations of the so-called "Guadalajara cartel" were themselves an outgrowth of Matta's organization and relied heavily on protection from both the Mexican federal police (the Dirección Federal de Seguridad--DFS) and the U.S.'s CIA.

Smaller Operations
In addition to these major CIA-drug alliances, the contra supply operations also provided an umbrella for many smaller smuggling rings. These operations became especially important during 1984-1986, when the CIA-contra operations was cut off from direct U.S. funding and was ordered to become "self-financing."

During that period, the CIA arranged for Miami-based smuggler George Morales to supply and finance the Costa Rican-based contra group headed by Eden Pastora--by flying guns and drugs from the CIA airstrip on land owned by John Hull in Costa Rica. Morales testified that he passed $5 million to the contras in 1984 and 1985. In exchange, legal charges he was facing in the U.S. were dropped and his operations were protected. Colombian pilot Ernesto Carrasco testified that he personally saw Morales pay more than $1 million to contra leader Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro in a Florida restaurant in 1985.

It was also reported that right-wing Cuban smuggler Frank Castro was giving the Pastora contra operation $200,000 a month.

Colombian smuggler Carlos Lehder estimated, in an ABC News interview, that Hull's operations were "pumping about 30 tons of cocaine into the United States" every year--that would mean an average of one or two half-ton shipments each week. Costa Rican authorities claimed that they had evidence of at least two tons of cocaine passing through the Hull ranch. One pilot, Fabiano Carrasco, testified in 1990 that he alone flew in at least a ton of cocaine for Morales between 1983 and 1986--with CIA protection.

One notation written by Reagan aide Lt. Col. Oliver North, gives a revealing picture of the role of drug profits. In Honduras, an operation run by Ronald Martin and James McCoy had accumulated between $15 million and $20 million in weapons for the Honduran-based contras headed by CIA agent Adolfo Calero. In North's diary, he wrote that $14 million of the money used to finance Martin and McCoy "came from drugs."

The Changing Story
of Danilo Blandón
Gary Webb's series documented how one contra drug dealer, Danilo Blandón, sold cocaine in Los Angeles to raise money for the FDN contra organization headed by Adolfo Calero. In 1994, Blandón testified before a federal grand jury that he sold between 200 and 300 kilos of cocaine for contra fundraiser Norwin Meneses. And in later court testimony, he said that all profits from those sales went to the FDN. He testified he was selling the cocaine for $60,000 per kilo--which means that the gross receipts for these operations were between $12 and $18 million.

Recently, Senator Arlen Spector, chairman of a Senate subcommittee, said that Blandón told the committee that he only passed between $60,000 to $65,000 to the contras. Blandón also denied having any contact with the CIA, and said the contras did not know about drug deals he was making. Blandón now claims that he was only working with Meneses for a few months, and that by 1982 or 1983, when his cocaine operation started to grow, he was totally independent of any contra ties.

In short, Blandón (who is now on the DEA's payroll!) has conveniently changed his story. Meanwhile, Meneses has told the L.A. Times that his contra contributions were often little more than $20 or $30 at a time. And the mainstream media has seized on this to claim that the Blandón-Meneses operations were not really selling drugs to fund the contras.

However, contra leader Eden Pastora contradicted Blandón's new story. Pastora recently testified before the same Senate subcommittee that Blandón gave Pastora's contras money after 1984. Pastora said he even lived in a house that Blandón owned in Costa Rica.

Let's Get Real
The U.S. government has responded to the reports of CIA drug smuggling with outraged protests. They say it is inconceivable for the U.S. government to allow, or profit from, drug sales. Who are they kidding!? This country was founded on profits from trade in drugs and stimulants--and the trade in slaves who were forced to grow those drugs and stimulants. The origins of New England's merchant capitalism are deep in the "triangle trade" where tobacco, coffee and rum from American colonies were delivered to Europe. The ships then went south to kidnap African people for the return trip. In England, the arrival of cheap, distilled alcohol had terrible effects on the masses of people. The profits from those deals financed the early wars that took land from the Indians of New England--killing many and selling the rest into slavery.

The Founding Fathers? Many of them were the early merchant capitalists and plantation owners who grew fat from this "triangle trade."

Two hundred years later, in 1996, oppressed people do not possess the planes, banks, airports and high-level contacts needed to conduct today's international drug trade. These operations have always been carried out in close alliance with governments--not just the corrupt pro-U.S. governments of countries like Bolivia and Peru, but the most powerful government of all--headquartered in Washington, D.C.

How much cocaine entered the U.S. under CIA protection? This much is known: Large amounts of cocaine--many, many tons--were passing through CIA-protected channels during the early 1980s. Tons of cocaine were being loaded and unloaded on CIA airstrips, by pilots working with CIA operations, sometimes onto the CIA's Southern Air Transport cargo shops, often under the direct supervision of CIA agents. Tons were sold in Los Angeles by the Blandón-Meneses cocaine ring, operating closely with the CIA agents Bermúdez and Calero. And this ring deliberately and specifically targeted the Black communities of Compton and South Central L.A. for their operations.

And beyond those direct CIA operations, the major Colombian cartels were themselves receiving various kinds of aid and protection during this period from CIA agents--starting with General Manuel Noriega in Panama, John Hull in Costa Rica, Félix Rodríguez in El Salvador, and ending with special CIA protection to drug shipments landing in U.S. airports and U.S. military bases. This protection of cocaine "pipelines" was carried out by the joint cooperation of the CIA, the Reagan White House, the Justice Department, the DEA, and U.S. Customs.

The CIA and the mainstream media are trying to shove these facts back under cover. They call people paranoid and gullible. They act like the only real shocker here is that people believe the stories of CIA drug-trafficking. But the secret is out, and these facts will not go away.

Did the CIA play a key role in triggering the so-called "crack epidemic" of the 1980s? After a close look at the available evidence, the answer is: YES!

Now we have some other questions: When do the people get justice!? When will they get the boot of police occupation off their necks? And what about all the brothers and sisters railroaded into prison during this "war on drugs"--When do they get their lives back? When do the cell doors open for the people? When do those doors slam shut to imprison our oppressors? When do the people of the world get freedom from the murdering hand of the CIA?

*****

"Everybody's talkin bout crime. Tell me, who are the criminals?"

Cocaine was first extracted from coca in the 19th cent. and was at first hailed as a miracle drug. By the 1880s in the United States it was freely prescribed by physicians for exhaustion, depression, and morphine addiction and was available in many patent medicines. After users and physicians began to realize its dangers and various regulations were enacted, its use decreased, and by the 1920s the epidemic had abated.

Another epidemic began in the United States in the 1970s and peaked in the mid-1980s; again the drug was at first considered harmless. With the latter epidemic and its accompanying crack epidemic (beginning in 1985 and peaking in 1988) violence in crack-infested neighborhoods increased dramatically. Young people with few other opportunities were lured by the power and money of being crack dealers; most carried guns and many were murdered in drug-gang wars that ensued. By the late 1990s the cocaine and crack epidemic had subsided as heroin regained popularity among illicit drug users.

Crack appeared in late 1984 and 1985 primarily in impoverished African-American and Latino inner-city neighborhoods in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Crack is smokeable cocaine. It gained its named from the "crackling" sound it makes when heated. It is easily produced in a pot on a kitchen stove by "cooking down" a mixture of powder cocaine, water, and baking soda. Crack is typically sold in tiny vials or envelopes that cost between $5 and $20. Crack was not a new drug; its active ingredient is entirely cocaine. Nor was it a new way of using cocaine; smoking cocaine freebase had been practiced since the 1970s.

Crack was a marketing innovation. It was a way of packaging a relatively expensive and upscale commodity (powder cocaine) in small, inexpensive units. So packaged, this form of smokeable cocaine (crack) was then sold, usually on the street by young African-Americans and Latinos, to a whole new class of customers: residents of impoverished inner-city neighborhoods. The marketing innovation was successful for at least two reasons. First, there was a huge workforce of unemployed young people ready to take jobs in the new, neighborhood-based business of crack preparation and sales. Working in the crack business offered these people better jobs, working conditions, and pay than any "straight" job they could get (and better than other entry-level criminal jobs like burglary or stealing car radios). Second, the marketing innovation succeeded because turning powder cocaine into smokeable "crack" changed the way cocaine was consumed and thereby dramatically strengthened the character of cocaine intoxication. Smoking crack offered a very brief but very intense intoxication. This inexpensive and dramatic "high" was much better suited to the finances and interest in immediate escape of the inner-city poor than the more subtle and expensive effects of powder cocaine.

Cocaine in any form is a stimulant, much like amphetamine or even caffeine. When powder cocaine is sniffed in small doses (as it usually is), it makes the user moderately alert and energized. Thus, the typical psychoactive effects of sniffing powder cocaine are subtle. Users report having to learn to recognize it. In the 1930s, songwriter Cole Porter wrote that he'd "get no kick" from cocaine about powder cocaine.

INFORMATION:

Cocaine is either snorted (sniffed), swallowed, injected, or smoked. Habitual snorting can result in serious damage to the nasal mucous membranes; shared needles put the user at increased risk of HIV infection. The street drug comes in the form of a white powder, cocaine hydrochloride. The hydrochloride salt and the cutting agents are removed to create the pure base product "freebase." Freebase is smoked and reaches the brain in seconds. "Crack" cocaine, also called "rock," is a form of freebase that comes in small lumps and makes a crackling sound when heated. It is relatively inexpensive, but must be repeated often.

Crack cocaine magnifies the effects of cocaine and is considered to be more highly and more quickly addictive than snorted cocaine. It causes a very abrupt increase in heart rate and blood pressure that can lead to heart attack and stroke even in young people with no history of vascular disease, sometimes the first time the drug is used. It also crosses the placental barrier; babies born to crack-addicted mothers go through withdrawal and are at a higher risk of stroke, cerebral palsy, and other birth defects.

STREET NAMES:

Big C, blow, "C", chick, coke, corine, dust, flake, girl, happy, dust, nieve, nose candy, nose stuff, snow, toot, uptown, white, white girl, roca, rock, crack, Roxane, and white pipe.


Now a little low end theory history on the invention of crack. Crack was started by a Los Angles legend named, "Freeway Rick" Ross. He was an illiterate ex-tennis champ, and got his first bag of yayo on Christmas Day in 1979. He started out selling white to wealthy Black clients. As he took on more users and expanded his coverage, he got his product cheaper. He started to make his competition work for him because he was offering them great prices on powder. They traded in what they were selling and then got up with Rick. He was even training L.A. Crips to do sales for him. Back then Freebase was the "upper class" way to use cocaine. It was only really done by the wealthy and upper class users. Ricks customers knew about freebase, but they were afraid of Richard Pryors lil experiment gone wrong. So Rick then learned how to make a simpler method of cooking cocaine, cutting it with baking soda and heating it to make "Ready Rock". With Ready Rock, the rocks were a lot more potent then powder and a lot more economically viable. By the end of 1982 Rick stopped selling powder, and just hustled rocks. Rock offered a much larger market, and was doubling the profits of powder cocaine. Which took on the masses. Anyone could afford a nick rock of crack compared to a gram of coke that would run upwards $50 to $100. And the addiction to crack made it the greatest product for a dealer to sling, cause one hit was all it took most of the time to have a customer on lock. After this, the shit hit the fan. Whole communities were devastated and destroyed. Families and friends turned into zombies. Fiends were robbing anyone and everything they could for pocket change to cop rocks with. It was a real fucked up period. This also left room for mad entrepenaur that could make $100,000 a week on the corner, compared to a 9 to 5 paying $150 a week. Kids saw dealers rolling around in expensive cars with expensive clothes with wads of cash. These dealers became there idols, and showed them that if u want some real money, sell crack. Cause the legit job cant touch the profits that hustlers were making. Fuck being a fireman or an astronaut when u could be a millionaire slanging rocks. This also brought on mad violence such as turf wars, police intervention, rivalries, and claimed thousands of lives. In the 90's these dealers transferred there illicit business into the rap game. Easy E was one of the first cats that turned his hustle biz into a record label. Cats saw that you could make more money slanging music, but still keep the mentality and ethics of the crack game. Tons of artists, from Biggie to Jay-Z to Snoop Dog to Masta P, all were hustlers at one time serving fiends on the corner. Some still are, such as Irv Gotti, most recently. A lot of rappers glorify crack and promote the selling of crack because of how lucrative it is. There is also the songs that discuss the down sides and the evils of the biz. But they are some what out numbered by the tracks that are in favor of the pure white and praise the virtues of selling rocks, such as status, assets, and just being a gangster. Crack has somewhat died down in the last couple of years, just due to fiends dying and people shifting more into heroin. But the impact crack made on society and even music, will be felt for decades. And with that, im going to show all the different angles of cocaine/crack within hip hop music.

1. Peruvian Cocaine - Immortal Technique
This tracks is a narrative about where the cocaine originates and the channels it comes from. Immortal Technique and pals each take turns with roles from the cat picking the leaf, to the political influences, to the cat slanging in the projects, and then even the law enforcement end of it. Its basically shows who is involved and how yayo travels.

2. Ghetto D - Masta P
This is how u make crack and hit the block. This song pretty much tells u how to cook up some crack and get your ass some work. Pretty much biting Eric B and Rakim's classic, Make Em Clap To This, Master P and pals spit the crack rock recipe. This song shows how to make the rocks and how to get your own crack business blooming.

3. Ten Crack Commandents - Biggie Smalls
Ah the classic crack track. This track deals with the crack dealers etiquette. A how to guide on successful crack dealings. Biggie lays down the rule book for slanging rocks on this joint. On a side note, its funny how Chuck D went after Primo for using his voice on this song without authorization for its negative content. What a dick.

4. Hardcore Hip Hop - Rawcoticks (Primo Remix)
This is a soldiers point of view on slanging rocks. A rugged primo track with the cats from Rawcotiks spitting about the everyday hustle. The cat on the second verse really gets into it and details his daily crack slanging biz.

5. Raw And Uncut - Beanie Sigel ft. Jay-Z
This song parallels crack and rap. Beanie goes over his street life, and how he got down on the block. The chorus pretty much sums it all up.

6. White Lines - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
This is the old school anti drug track. They rock over Liquid Liquid's Cavern break beat and talks about cocaine and how you got to stay away. The good ol' hip hop PSA.

7. P Is Still Free - KRS One
Damn another Primo track. Primo is the don dadda of this crack rap shit. This song is about skeezy crack hoes. This is basically a follow up to the old BDP classic, The P is Free. This song talks about the sleezy crack chasing hoes, that will do whatever for some rocks.

8. Jane Stop This Crazy Thing - M.C. Shan
Ah this classic talks more about a skeezy crackhoe named Jane. Jane is a base head that is all fucked up and Shan breaks down how wack she got from the glass dick.



Wise Intelligence of Poor Righteous Teachers got some hot, brand new music!
By Toure Muhammad

When Poor Righteous Teachers hit the national scene in 1990 with the release of their first album, it was clear they would become Hip Hop legends.

Now, of course they can boast respectable record sales and a loyal following, and they didn’t have record-breaking CD sales, but that has NEVER been the criterion for REAL Hip Hop. If that were the case, then MC Hammer, with 10 million copies, Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em sold, would be THE best rapper of all-time. And even Oaktown’s 357 know that’s not the case.

Yeah, what PRT represents is the BEST of the Hip Hop rap genre: lyrical excellence, powerful, thought provoking content, and some straight up head nodding beats. This trio put together a flavor that makes brothers like me proud of what hip hop means and can do when we have knowledge and love of self and knowledge of our enemy.

PRT’s music exposed the pain, poverty and destruction in the black community and always shed light on the hidden hands that fostered those conditions. They inspired me.

And now, the front man for PRT, Wise Intelligence is releasing a solo CD, Wise Intelligent is…The Talented Timothy Taylor. He recently gave an exclusive interview to Bean Soup Times. I told him the news of his new release was like water in the desert. Can you believe we haven’t heard from PRT since 1996 with the release of New World Order?

And After listening to A Genocide, it’s no doubt; the people are in for a cool and refreshing treat.

With this solo project, Wise is ready to stand once again, with the best Hip Hop has to offer. He knows how to put it together. "It’s about music, message, and flow all being up to a par," said Wise Intelligent. Wise brings it with "A Genocide" which has the melodic lyrical flow and head-nodding beat with some serious content, as he talks about the "birth" of the modern dope game in the black community.

In the rap, Wise talks about Freeway Rick and the whole CIA, Contra, Black community drug triangle that was exposed via the reporting of former San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb.

Webb was crediting with breaking the story and doing lot’s and lot’s of legwork in Central America to corroborate the story initially told to him by Freeway Rick which was that he was provided drugs by the Contras with the CIA’s knowledge. Since then, Webb reported committed suicide by putting TWO holes in his own head with a shotgun. Makes you go hhhmmm.

Wise wants to make a point with A Genocide. "I want black youth to know, they’re not the cause of the problem. When it was over, Freeway Rick felt like a strawberry. He wasn’t the king pin, he was a runner," said Wise.

"Lotta innocent lives are lost, black communities paid the cost…
All the drugs and guns we bought we financed CIA dirty wars…
I’m just a young boy born down in a ghet-to…
Hanging out on corners cooling with my fel-la’s…"
--A Genocide

To get a sample of A Genocide go to http://www.myspace.com/wiseintelligent.

Many Hip Hop historians will talk about how conscious rap took a fall in the early 90s as record labels moved to promote gangsta rap. "I’m a ghetto political MC," said Wise who witnessed the attack on political hip hop artist like X-Clan, Public Enemy, Brand Nubian, KRS One and others in the early 90s.

Record labels began very deliberately taking money from the promotion of conscious rap to gangsta rap. "I witnessed it happening," said Wise. "They cut the money for promotion of PRT to spend more money promoting people like DJ Quick."

"Did you know that Easy E was the FIRST rapper to be invited to the White House?" Wise added.

Word? Imagine that.

One goal Wise has in mind with this latest project is that, "these rhymes were about change and getting a brother to see himself in that brother he’s pointing the gun at," he said. As always, Wise is about self-love, respect and unity.

Citing the huge void in lyrical content, outside of current rappers Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Dead Pres, the "best thing about hip hop today is that poor kids from the hood are finally making some money," explained Wise.

Another must listen to cut on his myspace.com page is the classic Conscious Style featuring Boogie Down Productions’ KRS One. Both MCs remind you of what hardcore conscious rap should be.

Speaking on current events, Wise explained why black folks on roofs crying for help might be the best thing to happen in recent history. "When I saw it, I was like, hell yeah! That’s what needs to happen. Maybe we’ll begin to rely on self now! If nothing else, Hurricane Katrina will teach black folks to do for self."

This brother is deep. After you check out his new music on myspace.com, read his blog that gives and extensive list of books to read. It’s more than 100 books so before the interview concluded, I asked him which five would he recommend to Bean Soup Times readers.

"First, I’d recommend "A People’s History of The United States" by Howard Zinn

"Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys," Volumes 1, 2 and 3 by Jawanza Kunjufu," said Wise. "OK, that’s three (laughs). And the last one, this may surprise people, but the last one would be "No More Prisons" by William Upski, because in that book he tells you how to organize."

"The last thing I want to say is get knowledge, get wisdom but in all of your getting, get the understanding." Yes sir, brother Wise. Yes, sir.

I'll be back

true.

what I'm saying is Political fundraisers ( in BOTH parties ) invite people based on INCOME. They were probably just as shocked as WE were when Eazy showed up. Like I said, The invite was extended to Eric Wright...Eazy E showed up.



Quit trying to incite riots with these half-baked theories and READ something for a change.

that brought Crack into the US? circa late 1970?

That is what Aqua is saying.



Any person with half a brain will tell you that Black people didn't invent crack....

Do you know about the history of "legal" pharmaceutical drug companies?


Did you know that Xtacsy goes as far back as World War I

Did you now that Xtacsy is a drug that was manufactured by MERCK, during this same period (WWI)

http://www.merck.com/

the CIA under Bush and the southeast asia programs
Heroin
Crack
and used cats like Freeway Rick in LA to distribute
and Easy E to provide the soundtrack.

I guess you chose not to analyze the background info dude provided on Jerry Hellar.

so...

i will be printing this, i'll respond later on cuz i'm pretty sure this will be up for a while

"MC5 and the White Panther Party"




See most of you only know of Detroits rock legendary band as drugged out hippies during the movement. However most of you wouldn't know what being sincere about a movement is anyway...
MC5 is that group. Originally taking on the role of creating America's first White Panther Party during the height of the Black Panther Party movement. Putting thier neck on the line and risking it all despite a successful career was their agenda. I invite you to heavily familiarize yourself with their work.

From their album liner notes:
Original uncensored text from inside gate-fold of first album:
The MC-5 is a whole thing. There is no way to get at the music without taking in the whole context of the music too- there is no separation. We say the MC-5 is the solution to the problem of separation, because they are so together. The MC-5 is totally committed to the revolution, as the revolution is totally committed to driving people out of their separate shells and into each other's arms.

I'm talking about unity, brothers and sisters, because we have to get it together. We are the solution to the problem, if we will just be that. If we can feel it, LeRoi Jones said, "feeling predicts intelligence." The MC-5 will make you feel it, or leave the room. The MC-5 will drive you crazy out of your head into your body. The MC-5 is rock and roll. Rock and roll is the music of our bodies, of our whole lives- the resensifier (sic), Rob Tyner calls it. We have to come together, people, "build to a gathering," or else. Or else you are dead, and gone.

The MC-5 bring you back to your senses from wherever you have been taken to hide. They are bad. Their whole lives are totally given to this music. They are a whole thing. they are a working model of the new paleo-cybernetic culture in action. There is no separation. They live together to work together, they eat together, fuck together, get high together, walk down the street and through the world together. There is no separation. Just as the music will bring you together like that, if you hear it. If you will live it. And we will make sure you hear it, because we know you need it as bad as we do. We have to have it.

The music is the source and the effect of our spirit flesh. The MC-5 is the source and effect of the music, just as you are. Just as I am. Just to hear the music and have it be ourselves, is what we want. What we need. We are a lonely desperate people, pulled apart by the killer forces of capitalism and competition, and we need the music to hold us together. Separation is doom. We are free men, and we demand a free music, a free high energy source that will drive us wild into the streets of America yelling and screaming and tearing down everything that would keep people slaves.

The MC-5 is that source. The MC-5 is the revolution, in all its applications. There is no separation. Everything is everything. There is no thing to fear. The music will make you strong, as it is strong, and there is now way it can be stopped now. All power to the people! The MC-5 is here now for you to hear and see and feel now! Give it up- come together- get down, brothers and sisters, it's time to testify, and what you have in your hands is a living testimonial to the absolute power and strength of these men. Go wild! The world is yours! Take it now and be one with it! Kick out the jams, motherfucker! And stay alive with the MC-5!

more:

The White Panther Party (WPP) of Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan was a radical counterculture group which became a major target for the FBI's counter-intelligence (or "COINTELPRO") program between 1968 and 1971. 1 For a more detailed history of the White Panthers, as well as the Nixon Administration's focus on the group as part of a complex legal strategy to obtain expanded "national security" wiretapping authority, see the author's Ph.D. dissertation: Wiretapping and National Security: Nixon, the Mitchell Doctrine, and the White Panthers, (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms,Incorporated, 1995) . In October of 1970, the FBI referred to the White Panthers as "potentially the largest and most dangerous of revolutionary organizations in the United States." 2 FBI Memorandum, R.L. Shackelford to C.D. Brennan, October 8, 1970, 62-112678- 125. However, just three years earlier, the group's leaders hosted a "Love-In" on Detroit's Belle Isle, presided over by John Sinclair, whom the Detroit News proclaimed "High Priest of the Detroit hippies." 3 Detroit News, May 2, 1967, 18-A. In recounting the story of how and why the White Panther collective evolved from primarily cultural, avantgardist beginnings into one of the Midwest's influential "political" extremist groups, this essay will address an important (and largely unresolved) historiographical issue: why some segments of the counterculture progressed from strictly non-political ideologies to positions of radical extremism. A case study exemplifying this development, it is hoped, will contribute to an historiographical reassessment of the counterculture, documenting its diversity and complexity.

The White Panther Party grew to become a professedly political organization that was dedicated to the confrontational strategy of "a total assault on the culture by any means necessary." Its formation during the fall of 1968 owed much to both local and national influences. On the local front, Detroit and Michigan State Police surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of left-wing activists reached unprecedented levels in the wake of the Detroit Riots of 1967, as well as in reaction to the popular success of the WPP's "house band," the "MC-5." National influences, especially the allure of the Black Panthers and the Yippies, also played an important role in the politicization of the group. The dynamics of, and interplay between, these (and other) influences are of critical importance because the existing historiography of the 1960s, still dominated by former participants in the various struggles, offers no useful model for explaining the White Panthers' progression toward radical extremism. To cite just one example, former SDS leader Todd Gitlin explains the New Left's step-by-step evolution from "protest" to "resistance" and ultimately "Revolution" as emanating largely from the Movement's impatience and frustration with the continuing Vietnam War. 4 Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, (New York: Bantam Books, 1987), 229, 380-82. In dramatic contrast, the Vietnam issue was inconsequential to the evolution of the White Panthers; the forces and motivations underlying the group's "radicalization" are to be found elsewhere, as we shall see.

The White Panther story is, in many respects, synonymous with the life of John Alexander Sinclair, one of the Midwest's most influential sixties counterculture leaders. 5 The information concerning John and Leni Sinclair's early lives through the Artists' Workshop period comes primarily from the following sources: John Sinclair, Guitar Army: Street Writings/Prison Writings, (New York; Douglas Book Corporation, 1972), 7-9, 56-58, and 188- 200; The John and Leni Sinclair Papers, Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan ; Leni Sinclair personal interview, July 21 and 23, 1992, Detroit, Michigan; Bret Eynon, "John Sinclair: Hipster," unpublished biography, November, 21, 1977, Hunter College, American Social History Project, 9-18, located at the Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, "Contemporary History Project Papers : John Sinclair," box 1, topical file: John Sinclair ; and John Sinclair Interview with Bret Eynon, 1977, ASHP Interviews, box 239-J . Bret Eynon's work with the American Social History Project in Ann Arbor during the late seventies resulted in extremely thorough oral history documentation of the White Panthers (and other Movement participants). I am grateful to him for allowing access to these documents. He was born on October 2, 1941, in the town of Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors. His father was a career employee at the local Buick plant, starting on the assembly line in 1928 and eventually advancing to a mid-level management position; Elise, his mother, was a homemaker. John, his brother David, and sister Kathy enjoyed a comfortable middle-class upbringing in Davison, a small town located a few miles from Flint. The closest thing to radicalism that John experienced growing up was drinking beer on Friday nights, listening to rock and roll on a "black" Detroit radio station, and occasionally "crashing" all-black rhythm and blues shows in Flint with his friends. He graduated from Davison High with good grades, and attended Albion College, a small Methodist institution in southern Michigan. It was at Albion that he first came into contact with the beatnik culture that would later define his life. Befriending the college's lone hipster, Sinclair became an instant and obsessed devotee of avant-garde jazz (a la John Coltrane) and beatnik poetry (Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, etc.). He also discovered marijuana, which had been part of the black urban jazz scene in America since the twenties, before the beatniks introduced it to white culture. Sinclair believed that "weed" heightened his awareness of the world around him, promoted togetherness, and expanded his creativity. It is a credo from which he has never wavered. 6 Sinclair, Guitar Army, 185; ASHP-Sinclair Interview, 44; John Sinclair, "Musical Memoirs," 1991.

After two years at Albion College, Sinclair dropped out and moved back to Flint, where he continued his exploration of black culture in the jazz and blues clubs located in the town's North Side ghetto. Like his beatnik predecessors, Sinclair saw the expressive and communalist culture of urban African Americans as an appealing alternative to the individualistic dominant culture of the post-war United States. Some years later, reflecting upon Norman Mailer's book The White Negro, Sinclair asserted "I was a White Negro in a purer sense. By the time that came out, I was on the streets, I was hangin' in the barbershops, in the pool rooms . . . doing it." 7 ASHP-Sinclair Interview, 18; Norman Mailer, The White Negro, (San Francisco, CA: City Lights, 1957).



After completing a bachelor's degree at the Flint branch of the University of Michigan in spring 1964, Sinclair moved to Detroit, enrolling in the graduate school of Wayne State University (WSU). His drug connections in Flint, as well as his bohemian sensibilities, led to rapid acceptance in the city's small and exclusive "hipster" community, located near the WSU campus. Here, at beatnik hangouts like the "Red Door Gallery," John first came into contact with jazz musician Charles Moore, poets George Tysh and Allen Van Newkirk, and other hipsters. And through these new connections, Sinclair also met his future wife, Magdalene "Leni" Arndt, a gifted artist/photographer from East Germany who had emigrated to Detroit in 1959 and was also attending WSU.

During that fall, John and Leni and their friends and acquaintances began discussing the possibility of starting an organization of area poets, musicians, and other artists, with the immediate goal of providing a meeting place outside of the WSU campus. A "document of self- determination" was drawn up, which among other things preached the virtues of not succumbing to the dominant "square" culture. Soon afterward, the "Artists' Workshop" was established on the ground floor of a two-story house on the corner of John Lodge and Warren Avenue. Every Sunday, the Workshop held an open house, with poetry readings, jazz performances, exhibitions of photographs and original art, and screenings of avant-garde films. Sinclair and Charles Moore performed together in an experimental jazz quartet, known as the "DC-4," and Leni began experimenting with photography and film-making. 8 Leni Sinclair's enormous collection of photographs documents the evolution of Detroit's beatnik and counterculture community during the sixties. These materials are available for research and commercial use. Leni can be contacted as follows: P.O. Box 32929, Detroit, MI 48232; lenisinclair@hotmail.com.

Over the next two years, the Artists' Workshop flourished. The organizational skills of the group's leadership were immediately evident. The Artists' Workshop Press developed into an alternative publishing house, eventually producing first books by John Sinclair, George Tysh, Bill Hutton, J.D. Whitney, Ron Caplan, and John Kay. 9 Internationally-known author and National Public Radio commentator Andre Codrescu frequented the Artists' Workshop as a student at WSU in the mid-sixties. Members of the collective also published some of the first underground newspapers in the Midwest, including Guerrilla, a journal whose masthead read "A Newspaper of Cultural Revolution." Sinclair's activities were the most prolific of all; in addition to attending graduate school, he managed several area houses (sub-letting rooms to artists and micro-entrepreneurs), wrote jazz reviews for Downbeat, JAZZ, and other national music magazines, and wrote and published three books of poems: This is Our Music; Fire Music: A Record; and Meditations: A Suite for John Coltrane. 10 Sinclair, Guitar Army, 56-58, 188-91; Leni Sinclair personal interview, July 21, 1992, Detroit, Michigan.

The ideology of the Detroit hip community reflected a voluntary isolation from, and utter contempt for, the outside society. As John recalls: "Jazz, it's all we did. We used to sit around and smoke dope . . .You didn't want to go out too much, because, you know, people were a drag.

They might see you. . You weren't a pleasant sight to them. There weren't too many places you wanted to go . . . . Besides, this was what was happening." In its commitment to creating a totally new cultural existence, the Artists' Workshop exhibited elitist tendencies; flyers advertising their events were distributed only to those who "looked hip." 11 ASHP-Sinclair Interview, 6-7. The idea of turning on the masses of American youth to a cultural revolt -- the White Panther credo -- was antithetical to the group's analysis.

While isolating itself from the dominant culture in Detroit, the Artists' Workshop interacted regularly with other bohemian/hip communities on the two coasts. Attending the Berkeley Poetry Conference in 1965, Sinclair met Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, Charles Olson, and others -- an experience which led him to conclude that the Artists' Workshop was as hip as many of the other beatnik "scenes" in the country. And, by hosting numerous poets and avant-garde performers who toured the Midwest, the Artists' Workshop acquired hip credentials. 12 Leni Sinclair personal interview, July 21, 1992, Detroit, Michigan; Sinclair, Guitar Army, 191-92.

The spectacle of increasing numbers of beatniks congregating near WSU soon caught the attention of Detroit's police, who had a long history of aversion to nonconformity. 13 In a city that was 35 percent black, only 5 percent of police were African-American. Two-thirds of the police were from blue-collar families. Training in the handling of modern urban problems was lacking, and the end result was very poor police-community relations. See the following: Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution, (New York: St. Martins Press, 1975), 105, 186-87; Peter K. Eisinger, The Politics of Displacement: Racial and Ethnic Transition in Three American Cities, (New York: Academic Press, 1980) 57; James A. Geschwender, Class, Race, and Worker Insurgency: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 18, 25, 58- 64; and Sidney Fine, Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967, (Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. Of Michigan Press, 1989), 95. Frank Donner finds that, from the thirties onward, Detroit had one of the nation's most repressive police forces. The Detroit "Red Squad," or "Special Investigative Bureau" (SIB), was created in 1930, ostensibly to "work on the Bolshevik and Communistic activities in the city." This special unit quickly evolved into an abusive surveillance machine, monitoring all shades of political activity under the guise of hunting "radicals." A long-term ally for the SIB appeared in 1950, with the establishment of the "Security Investigation Squad" (SIS), a Michigan State Police counter- subversive unit, whose primary objective was discouraging employers from hiring suspected radicals. The two Red Squads established a close collaborative relationship, characterized by unprecedented information sharing and joint intelligence operations. 14 Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), 53-58, 290-95. By the mid-1970s, when the full scope of their activities was first made public in a landmark Michigan court case, the Red Squads had amassed dossiers on more than 1.5 million citizens. 15 Benkert, et. al. v. Michigan State Police et. al., No. 74-023-934-AZ (Wayne County Circuit Court, Michigan). The John and Leni Sinclair "Red Squad Files" , obtained via the case's "disbursement program" (and graciously made available to the author), contain hundreds of pages of documents spanning the years 1964 through 1974. See Detroit Free Press Magazine, November 4, 1990, 8-10, 16-21; and Detroit Free Press, September 14, 1990, 20.

In light of the Detroit police force's historical role as praetorian defender of the status quo, it is not surprising that it utilized many of the same surveillance and intimidation tactics against the Artists' Workshop (and its successor, "Trans-Love Energies") which it had successfully employed against suspected "subversives," since the turn of the century. A favored tactic employed against artists, beatniks, and leftist utopians was Michigan's draconian marijuana statutes, which listed possession of even trace amounts as a felony offense. John Sinclair's first marijuana arrest occurred on October 7, 1964, when he and two friends were "set up" in a Detroit Police sting operation. Given two years probation and a $250 fine, Sinclair continued his work with the Artists' Workshop, refusing to give the incident much thought. However, the bust was an important harbinger of future events: Detroit's Red Squad immediately opened files on him and his associates, and began to take special interest in the beatnik community. 16 Sinclair Red Squad Files. The Detroit Police "set up" involved a friend of Sinclair's from Jackson, Michigan, who had been arrested on drug dealing charges. In return for a reduced prison sentence, the friend-turned-informer arranged to purchase marijuana from Sinclair and a friend, in a sting operation orchestrated by the Detroit Police. See also Sinclair, Guitar Army, 189-90. The following summer, Detective Vahan Kapagian of the Detroit Police Narcotics Bureau infiltrated the Artists' Workshop, an assignment that was facilitated by the group's open invitations to the public for Sunday poetry readings. Dressing in street clothes and calling himself "Eddie," Kapagian repeatedly pestered Sinclair with requests for assistance in locating marijuana. On August 16, 1965, Sinclair finally relented, driving Kapagian to a friend's house for a "score." Upon returning to the Artists' Workshop, a detail of twenty-five officers from the Narcotics Bureau raided the house at 4825 John Lodge, arresting seven people, including John and Leni Sinclair. John was convicted of second offense marijuana possession on February 22, 1966, and later sentenced to six months in the Detroit House of Corrections ("DEHOCO"). Detroit's newspapers portrayed Sinclair as the leader of a WSU campus dope ring. 17 ASHP-Sinclair Interview, 19-20; Detroit Free Press, August 18, 1965, 3.

In addition to Sinclair's six month incarceration, the events of 1966 brought considerable change to the Artists' Workshop. The Detroit scene underwent a radical transformation, as a number of core members moved away from the city for a variety of reasons, including fear of the police and a desire to experience San Francisco's emerging hip community. Writing from inside DEHOCO, John advised them against abandoning Detroit: "You have it in your power now to create a vital living situation here in Detroit -- if you have the will and commitment to such a situation . . . we are all going to have to start working with each other and take advantage of what our local possibilities . 18 ASHP-Sinclair Interview, 18-19. Upon his release from DEHOCO on August 6, Sinclair immediately began acting on his commitment to local organizing. The fruit of these labors was the eventual creation of "Trans-Love Energies" (TLE), an attempted union of counterculture, student, and other alternative groups in Detroit, named after a line in a song by folk-rock artist Donovan, urging listeners to "Fly Translove Airways, get you there on time" (the song was later popularized in "live" performances by the San Francisco rock troupe The Jefferson Airplane). 19 Donovan's original studio version of "The Fat Angel" appeared on his 1966 album Sunshine Superman (Epic BN-26217). Subsequent "live" cover versions of the song have appeared on Jefferson Airplane compilations, including the 1987 release 2400 Fulton Street (RCA C-214830).

The creation of Trans-Love Energies during the first half of 1967 20 The Artists' Workshop existed for a time within the larger TLE collective. However, by late 1967 the Artists' Workshop closed and the group's energies focused almost exclusively on the TLE organization. owed much to two simultaneously occurring phenomena: the arrival of LSD and the flower children. A sea change had occurred in the WSU community during the six months of Sinclair's imprisonment, as large numbers of "Baby Boom" progeny, now coming of age, congregated in and around the campus.

Many became regulars at the Artists' Workshop. Facilitating the union between older beatniks and younger hippies was LSD-25, which had just arrived in Detroit. For both groups, "acid" ended pessimism concerning the possibility that American society would ever break out of its state of cultural stagnation. As Sinclair explained: "When beatniks started taking acid, it brought us out of the basement . . . . the fringes of society -- and just blew us apart. From being cynical and wanting to isolate yourself forever from the squares . . . . one was suddenly filled with a messianic feeling of love and brotherhood . . . . LSD made you realize that you had ties with the rest of humanity." 21 Ibid., 19-20. Beatnik elitism quickly disappeared, and a plethora of alternative organizations and micro-enterprises sprang up -- essentially creating a new alternative culture, with its own economy outside of mainstream Detroit society.

TLE tried to unify a diverse student/hip community into an umbrella organization, or "tribal council." Co-founders Sinclair and artist Gary Grimshaw attempted to get representatives from all of the area's hip organizations to meet on a regular basis, for the purpose of discussing how better to utilize their talents and services for the benefit of the hundreds of young people converging on the area. Some of the support services provided included free housing, job information services, concerts, transportation in and around Detroit, and a cooperative booking agency for performers and organizations. Although TLE never became the unified model of inter- organizational cooperation originally envisioned, "Trans-Love Energies, Unlimited," the central business unit, became quite successful, organizing local cultural events and hooking up with other hip enclaves across America to bring in well-known artists and performers such as Allen Ginsberg, the Grateful Dead, and the Ed Sanders' "Fugs."

The Trans-Love organization, like most other counterculture collectives, paid much lip service to the egalitarian "no leaders" concept. In theory, the organization was comprised of numerous avant garde and alternative groups, all possessing equal status on the tribal council; each individual was therefore encouraged to be his or her own leader. In reality, the core group within the Artists' Workshop was the driving force behind the TLE collective, due to its energy, organizational abilities, and commitment to making the experiment work. By the same token, Trans-Love Energies' embrace of hierarchical organization and charismatic leadership (namely Sinclair) contrasted dramatically with other elements of the evolving counterculture, such as San Francisco's Digger collective. These differences, viewed by many (then and now) as contradictions, would continue to characterize Sinclair's group through the White Panther period.

They underscore both the diversity of counterculture forms which emerged during the latter half of the 1960s and the continuing danger of stereotyping historical movements too narrowly.

As TLE underwent expansion, its core membership changed. John's brother David signed on, having passed up a full football scholarship at Dartmouth. Two additional 1967 arrivals who would later assume leadership positions in the White Panthers were "Pun" Plamondon and Genie Parker. Lawrence Robert "Pun" Plamondon was born in Traverse City, Michigan, the illegitimate son of a "half-breed Ottawa and a long-distance operator." He was adopted as an infant by upper middle-class foster parents, who were well respected in Traverse City. Despite his comfortable upbringing and excellent academic potential, Pun exhibited a rebellious streak from an early age. At sixteen he ran away from home, hitchhiking across the country, and eventually working with migrant farm workers in California. He moved to Detroit in 1967, was introduced to the Artists' Workshop/TLE, befriended Sinclair, and joined the group just in time to take his first LSD trip at the "Love-In" on April 30th (discussed below). With TLE he found an appropriate outlet for his enormous energy and increasing social consciousness. He and Sinclair soon became close friends; eventually Pun assumed a leadership position in the organization. 22 Kathleen Stocking, "A Personal Remembrance: Ann Arbor's Famous Radicals, Then and Now," Monthly Detroit, vol. 5, (February, 1992), 78 . Genie Parker, the daughter of an Army colonel with Vietnam combat experience, arrived at the TLE house shortly after the "Love-in." An "army brat" who had been raised in Texas, Georgia, and New Jersey, her attraction to the Sinclairs was immediate, and she moved in with the group her first day in Detroit. Within a few months, she and Pun became inseparable, and the two of them gradually became well known in radical circles throughout the country. 23 Genie Parker Interview with Bret Eynon, 1977, ASHP Interviews, box 239-J .

Two of Trans-Love Energies' most significant modes of cultural expression were the underground press and the rock band "MC-5." By early 1967, Sinclair was writing regular columns for the Fifth Estate, while also contributing to the sporadically-published Warren-Forest Sun, the "official" TLE newspaper. He and Fifth Estate editor Peter Werbe participated in a dialogue with alternative press editors from across the country, which would eventually spawn the "Underground Press Syndicate," a national system of alternative news acquisition and distribution, run primarily by college-age people. As a result of these connections, the Fifth Estate's coverage of the emerging New Left, Black Power, and counterculture movements became extensive.



The union of the MC-5 and Trans-Love Energies in mid-1967 contributed to major changes for the collective, including the rapid acquisition of mass youth appeal. Sinclair's association with MC-5 members Rob Tyner, Fred Smith, Wayne Kramer, Dennis Thompson, and Michael Davis began in 1966, when the band first utilized a TLE house for free rehearsal space.

At the time, only Tyner and Davis were out of high school. Over the next two years, the quintet would develop and perfect a unique, hard-driving rock and roll sound, widely credited with influencing (some say pioneering) later "punk" and "heavy metal" rock genres. 24 Goldmine, April 17, 1992, 16-22; Rolling Stone, no. 25, January 4, 1969, 7; see also no. 632, June 11, 1992, 35-36.

The MC-5 began as a collaboration between Kramer and Smith, two junior high school students from the blue-collar Detroit suburb of Lincoln Park. Things began to happen for the guitarists after Kramer hooked up with vocalist Rob Tyner, two years his senior. A devotee of avant-garde jazz and beat culture, Tyner had only recently "discovered" the potentialities of rock and roll. After adding drummer Dennis Thompson (who was the newspaper delivery boy in Kramer's neighborhood) and bass player Michael Davis (Tyner's friend) to their line-up, the group settled upon the name "MC-5," which Tyner, its author, believed sounded like an industrial serial number for a race car engine; only later did he realize the name could also stand for the "Motor City 5." Playing at local clubs and high school dances, the group gradually created a high energy electric sound, which reflected the combination of rock, R & B, and experimental jazz influences. One unique feature of their sound, its deafening loudness, was made possible by the acquisition of a $3000, state-of-the-art, Vox public address and amplification system. The group's experimentation with the new system resulted in the regular use of "feedback" in their performances, as well as several trademark Tyner stage antics, such as plunging a microphone into a loud-speaker for effect. By mid-1967, the MC-5 had built a substantial local following and cut its first 45 RPM single. 25 Wayne Kramer Interview, published in the online magazine Addicted To Noise (ATN), Issue 1.02, Parts I-IV, February, 1995, URL address: http://www.addict.com/issues/1.02; ; Goldmine, April 17, 1992, 16-22.

The marriage between the MC-5 and Trans-Love Energies was rooted in the many social and cultural changes occurring in Detroit, circa 1967. A strict jazz aficionado only a year before, Sinclair rediscovered rock music via the younger hip crowd, and rapidly recognized its potential for attracting youth to the TLE banner. The MC-5 saw in him an older, experienced artist with undisputable hip credentials. Thus, when Sinclair offered to manage the group, they accepted immediately. An additional contributing factor to the band's rapid acceptance was the opening of the "Grande Ballroom," a large Detroit rock club modeled after the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Russ Gibb, the club's "hip capitalist" owner, hired the MC-5 as the "house band," which guaranteed the group weekly exposure headlining for the top British and American touring acts of the day. Soon, the entire TLE commune became part of the act, providing psychedelic light shows, outstanding psychedelic concert posters and handbills by Gary Grimshaw, and even master of ceremonies duties from "Brother" J.C. Crawford. From this platform, Trans-Love Energies would recruit hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of followers. 26 Kramer ATN Interview.

The peak of this optimistic period for Sinclair and his group came on April 30, 1967, when they staged a "Love-in" at the large metropolitan park on Belle Isle, on the Detroit River. Influenced by San Francisco's "Human Be-In" the previous January, as well as the trend of similar counterculture celebrations happening in hip enclaves across the country, Trans-Love Energies promoted the event as a gathering of "peace and love," where hippies and straights could come together to celebrate a new vision of society. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press gave the Love-In significant coverage, and on the day of the event several thousand "freeks" were in attendance, smoking marijuana, dropping LSD, singing, chanting, and enjoying themselves with minimal disturbances. Although the police were out in significant numbers, they kept a low profile until dusk, when the arrest of a motorcyclist encouraged taunting and rock-throwing. The result was a full-scale riot, with numerous arrests, ostensibly for "damaging police vehicles." The resulting press coverage was almost unanimously on the side of the police, portraying Sinclair and TLE as mindless hedonists, more interested in picking a fight with police than with "peace and love." 27 Detroit News, May 1, 1967, A-1; see also May 2, 1967, 18-A.

The Belle Isle experience had a profound impact upon the later development of Trans-Love Energies. The hippie philosophy of getting high, creating alternative institutions, and waiting for the capitalist machine to rust away was proving to be an inadequate analysis. Sinclair later admitted: " a simplistic picture of what the 'revolution' was all about . . . . we said that all you had to do was 'tune in, turn on, and drop out,' as if that would solve all the problems of humankind . . . and what we didn't understand, spaced out as we were behind all that acid, was that the machine was determined to keep things the way they were . . . by this time there was a full-scale suppression campaign underway." 28 Sinclair, Guitar Army, 25-27. Sinclair struggled with the realization that the localpolice were responding to cultural revolt with political repression. Gradually, over the course of the next year, he came to the conclusion that the counterculture forms espoused and lived by Trans-Love Energies were actually political statements. In response, TLE's activities focused on educating youth regarding both the positive, liberating aspects of the new cultural forms, and also their potential risks. Sinclair began appearing at area colleges, high schools, and other youth gatherings, urging people to join in a "total assault on the culture" -- a William S. Burroughs phrase from the early sixties, popularized by New York poet/artist (and future Yippie) Ed Sanders. 29 Ed Sanders Telephone Interview with Author, May 10, 1998. The collective also stepped up distribution of its newspapers and other propaganda at MC-5 concerts, warning of police surveillance and hassles. Still another initiative involved assisting high school students with publishing alternative newspapers, activity which again earned Sinclair a hostile press response. 30 Detroit News, April 27, 1967, 17-C.

Although TLE was still a long way from advocating militant action against police and "the state," the group nonetheless delighted in taunting police and other symbols of authority with anti- establishment (often tongue-in-cheek) writing in its newspapers, "street theater" actions in public, and inflammatory rhetoric at MC-5 concerts. And in a city like Detroit, where racial tensions were always high and police rarely appreciated humor perpetuated by hippies at their expense, Trans-Love Energies' actions heightened police interest in the group. The end result was increasingly severe reprisals.

John Sinclair's third marijuana arrest occurred on January 24, 1967, when a force of thirty-four law enforcement officers, representing local, state, and federal agencies, raided the group's commune (still officially known as the Artists' Workshop), arresting fifty-six persons. The raid was the culmination of a four-month-long sting operation, once again facilitated by the wily (and newly bearded) Detective Vahan Kapagian, who infiltrated the organization posing as "Louie" the hip candle maker. Assisting him was fellow Narcotics Detective Jane Mumford, who faithfully wore mini-skirts in her portrayal of "Peg" the counterculture "chick." As helpful and friendly as "Louie" and "Peg" were, they remained unable to purchase any marijuana for several months. The police were ultimately forced to move with little hard evidence: two minor pot purchases from WSU students only peripherally associated with the Artists' Workshop and Sinclair's "gift" of two marijuana "joints" to officer Mumford shortly before Christmas, 1966. 31 Sinclair Red Squad Files, Detroit Police Department, Detective Division, Narcotics Bureau, Arrest Report, January 27, 1967; Leni Sinclair personal interview with author, July 23, 1992, Detroit, Michigan.

The impact of Sinclair's third arrest would be delayed for two and a half years, as his attorneys, Sheldon Otis and Justin "Chuck" Ravitz, skillfully fought the constitutionality of the state's marijuana statutes. Sinclair remained free to lead Trans-Love Energies through the most turbulent years of the 1960s. 32 It was also during this period that John and Leni, who had lived together since 1965, decided to get married. At the time, Leni was pregnant with Sunny, their first child.

A significant turning point in the history of Detroit was the bloody rioting of July 24-31, 1967, the worst in America's history. Following the riots, the attitudes of Detroit police moved farther to the right, reflecting the growing siege mentality prevalent among many of the city's whites. During the winter and spring of 1968, the situation became unbearable for Trans-Love Energies. Sinclair summarized his feelings during the period: "Nothing was happening but the police. They had everything covered, and if you moved after dark you were snatched up and taken to jail without bail. If you stayed inside they came in after you, kicking down the doors and ransacking everything in sight . . . . Detroit was Police City, baby, and you never forgot it -- not for a minute." 33 ASHP-Sinclair Biography, 48. The last straw came in response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, when Detroit's police, fearing another major riot, established a "protective curfew" in the city after dark. Since Sinclair's group earned most of its operating funds producing MC-5 concerts and related events, which usually took place during the evenings, the curfew threatened their very livelihood. Therefore, in May, 1968, TLE relocated some forty-five miles to the west, to the college town of Ann Arbor.

The new Trans-Love Energies commune consisted of twenty-eight people, including three children and the MC-5 members. 34 Eve Silberman, "The Hill Street Radicals," Ann Arbor Observer, May, 1991, 45-53. Together they occupied two old houses at 1510 and 1520 Hill Street, on the outskirts of the University of Michigan (UM) campus. Two new members of note were 19 year-old Ken Kelley, a UM student from Ypsilanti, Michigan, and Milton "Skip" Taube, a Detroit native who first attended UM in 1965 and had since become closely associated with SDS. Kelley edited one of the campus' first underground newspapers, the Argus, and immediately recognized in Sinclair a kindred spirit. Taube had recently become disillusioned with the split in the local SDS organization. Two of his closest friends, Bill Ayers and Diana Oughton, led the new SDS splinter group "Jesse James Gang," which would later evolve into the Weather Underground. 35 Ken Kelley Interview with Bret Eynon, 1977, Hunter College, NY, American Social History Project, 3, located at the Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, ASHP Interviews, box 239-J; Milton "Skip" Taube Interview with Bret Eynon, 1977, Hunter College, NY, American Social History Project, 14, located at the Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, ASHP Interviews, box 239-J.

Trans-Love Energies' immediate focus was music, which had recently become a local source of conflict. During the winter of 1968, the Ann Arbor City Council had passed an ordinance banning amplified music from city parks. When Sinclair decided to hold an MC-5 concert in defiance of the law, the small Ann Arbor Police force threatened to arrest all involved.

Sinclair did not back down. Thanks to press coverage from the Michigan Daily, the campus community got involved. Two weeks later the City Council relented, granting TLE permission to hold a series of free concerts at Gallup Park, on the outskirts of town. 36 ASHP-Sinclair Biography, 48-49. This was a big turning point for the group. Trans-Love Energies had stood up to the police and other "authority figures" and won. In Sinclair's view, the incident demonstrated conclusively the potential power of organized youth revolt. Henceforth, TLE's members pursued a recruitment strategy characterized by arrogant, militant posturing toward authority figures and flaunting (in print and on stage) the fact that they were "getting away with it."

Freed from the stifling, repressive atmosphere of urban Detroit and fortified by its success in the Ann Arbor free concert struggle, Trans-Love Energies initiated a "total assault on the culture" throughout the summer. The spearhead of its attack was the MC-5, which, thanks to Sinclair's managerial prowess, became a regionally-successful touring group. Each MC-5 concert was a multi-media event, with psychedelic lights, rear-screen projection, plus the spiritual rantings of "Brother" J.C. Crawford. The supercharged electric music of the MC-5 was punctuated by Sinclair's radical speeches, urging youth to pursue personal freedom to the utmost extremes. The MC-5's shows successfully fused two very new countercultural forms: alternative, electric rock and roll music and a rhetoric of youth culture liberation. Ken Kelley's recollections of his first MC-5 concert provide insight into the energy and excitement surrounding the band:

I'll never forget the first time I saw the MC5 perform that hot June night in 1968 at the Grande Ballroom . . . . The ozone scent of anticipation quickened my pulse as Rob Tyner jumped to center stage and shouted 'Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!,' the opening rant into The 5's anthemic underground hit song. As Tyner squirmed and sang, behind him were two sparkle-sequined guitarists who traded-off lead in a fervid fusillade of fiery notes . . . . When Fred played solo on his trademark-tune, 'Rocket Reducer No. 62', you knew why he got his name 'Sonic' -- the only word that packed enough 'G-force' . . . . He leaped up and down . . . in swirling orgiastic gyrations of musical frenzy . . . . When Fred played, sex itself exploded on stage. 37 Ken Kelley Interview, published in the online magazine Addicted To Noise (ATN), Issue 1.02, Page 2, February, 1995, URL address: http://www.addict.com/issues/1.02/Features/MC5/Kick_Out_The_Jams/index.html



Stephen Stills' anti-establishment lyrics from the previous year -- "There's something happening here; What it is ain't exactly clear" 38 Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" (a hit single), appeared on their 1967 debut album: Buffalo Springfield (Atco SD-33-200-A). -- seem equally appropriate for the unprecedented countercultural amalgamation which Trans-Love Energies and the MC-5 were forging in America's heartland during the year of the barricades.

TLE's political economy was far removed from that of most other hippie collectives. Earnings from MC-5 shows financed the entire Trans-Love operation, including two communes, several dozen core members, and a very active propaganda machine. This uniqueness reflected the history and evolution of the group; from the first days of the Artists' Workshop, Sinclair had juggled such seemingly contradictory tasks as organizing free "Love-Ins" and being responsible for collecting rent from tenants in several buildings he managed. And in much the same manner, the Trans-Love commune in Ann Arbor booked most MC-5 "gigs" for pay, while also playing many free concerts and benefits. Sinclair defended the group's political economy by asserting that the MC-5 was a true "people's band," which played as many benefits and free shows as possible. He added that the funds acquired from paid shows were used primarily "to spread the word that there was another way of doing things . . . to bring the new world order into being." 39 Sinclair, Guitar Army, 307-308.

The MC-5's growing popularity did not escape the attention of the local Ann Arbor Police, the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office, or the Michigan State Police. Throughout the summer, an increasing number of what Sinclair called "creep scenes" occurred, in which police presence at MC-5 shows led to arrests, near-arrests, and an intimidating "cat and mouse" surveillance and evasion game. Sinclair's biweekly Fifth Estate articles, titled "Rock and Roll Dope," chronicled both the MC-5's growing popularity and what Sinclair believed to be an escalating counterattack from the forces of the conservative establishment. The police response included marijuana busts in the parking lots, pressure on club owners (in response to the MC-5's desecration of American flags and frequent use of profanity on-stage), and a steadily increasing presence. On several occasions, the police turned off the electricity at clubs to prevent the band from playing; in one bizarre incident, the MC-5 was issued a ticket for being "a noisy band." In June, TLE leaders Gary Grimshaw and "Pun" Plamondon were charged by Traverse City Police with marijuana possession and sale in their community the previous March, an incident which sent Grimshaw fleeing to another state and resulted in the imprisonment of Plamondon (a $20,000 bond, far in excess of the group's resources, kept him in jail for three months awaiting trial). The unpredictability and insanity of the summer of 1968 peaked on July 23, when Sinclair and MC-5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith were arrested by Oakland County Sheriffs in Leonard, Michigan and charged with "assault and battery on a police officer." While in prison, the Oakland County authorities cut off most of Sinclair's long hair. Three days later, the MC 5 were arrested by Ann Arbor Police, and charged with "disturbing the peace" for playing at a free concert in West Park. 40 ASHP-Sinclair Biography, 50-51; Sinclair, Guitar Army, 73-95.

The harassment by law enforcement officials was undoubtedly motivated by several factors, including their repulsion at the sight of long-haired hippies using drugs, mutilating the nation's flag in public, and in the process influencing other young people to imitate their counterculture lifestyle. As had been the case in Detroit, police in the hinterlands of Michigan were ill prepared to face resistance and blatant anti-police hatred from rebellious, white, middle- class youth. However, the police overreaction was also influenced by TLE's provocations on stage and in the pages of the Fifth Estate and the Sun. Seeking to (in the terminology of the times) "expose the repressive nature of the mother-country system," Sinclair and MC-5 lead vocalist Rob Tyner regularly informed crowds of hyped-up youth about the various police (and club owner) hassles they were facing. Audience reaction often bordered on riot. In addition, Sinclair baited the police in article after article of the Fifth Estate. He realized that the newspaper was now required reading for many local police officers, as part of their intelligence gathering. The following passage is typical of Sinclair's invective that summer:

We matched our magic against the pigs' brute tactics and it worked -- any respect any of the people there might have had for 'law and order' as represented by the Ann Arbor police just disappeared, and their futile tricks were exposed to the light. All this bullshit was totally unnecessary -- we just wanted to do our thing and let the people do their thing with us, but the police just won't let that happen without trying to stomp us out one way or the other . . . . People are getting hip to all of the old people's lies and perversions, and they aren't going to stand for it much longer. We sure aren't. 41 Ibid., 86.

The defiantly "political" tone of Sinclair's writing was intentional, and demonstrated the continuing evolution of his ideology. He theorized that "our culture itself represented a political threat to the established order, and that any action which has a political consequence is finally a political action." 42 Ibid., 74. However, Sinclair also recognized that the typical MC-5 fan was largely uneducated as to the nuances of political versus cultural revolt, and generally despised "politics" of the conventional and/or New Left variety. Therefore, TLE began using its growing popularity to educate young people regarding the politics of their new culture and movement.

National events, such as the expansion and convergence of the New Left, Black Power, anti-war, and counterculture revolts into a single "Movement" for radical social change, also played a role in the increasing politicization of Trans-Love Energies. By virtue of their national underground newspaper connections, as well as their extensive touring with the MC-5, Sinclair and his cadre were better informed than more isolated counterculture groups about the Movement's increasing resistance to the establishment. Detroit's Fifth Estate, along with the Ann Arbor-based TLE papers Sun and Argus, gave extensive coverage to Black Panther shoot-outs with police, campus revolts, and the increasing numbers of street battles between police and "freeks" which were happening across the country. The importance of this process cannot be overstated, as members of Detroit's hip community would now begin relating the events in their lives (such as drug usage/acceptance, alternative institution building, and deteriorating police relations) with similar developments in other hip communities across the U.S. The national "underground" media network, a first-of-its-kind phenomenon, would become a catalyst for the future merging of radical movements.

Trans-Love Energies' previous interaction with counterculture enclaves on the east and west coasts also provided a platform for increasing national awareness. By 1968, Sinclair had befriended fellow avant-garde artist/poets Ed Sanders and Allen Ginsberg, and through them had met Youth International Party ("Yippie") activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. The "street theatre" antics of the New York Yippies had much in common with the MC-5's shocking stage antics. Therefore, when Ed Sanders invited Sinclair and the MC-5 to perform at the Yippies' "Festival of Life" in Chicago in late August, they accepted without hesitation. Sinclair recalled the band's Sunday, August 25th performance -- and the disturbance it provoked:

As it turned out, we were the only ones in the country who showed up to play . . . The Fugs wouldn't even come . . . . They were terrified! . . . didn't have a stage. They didn't have a permit. They didn't have power . . . . So we set up on the grass. We plugged into a hot dog stand. . . . We played one set on the grass, just like in Ann Arbor at the free concerts . . . Abbie Hoffman decides that this is the time to start the shit. He had this big flat bed wagon that was going to be used for the stage, but they wouldn't let him bring it in. So he decides, 'Fuck it, I'm going to bring it in.' He knows that this is going to provoke a confrontation . . . . He started to bring this wagon through and that attracted thousands of people. Then he comes up and takes the mike between sets and starts ranting and raving. . . . The police were already starting to advance on the park . . . . So I just got my equipment men and started to take down the equipment and pack it in the van . . . . The police were getting closer and closer . . . . When we pulled out, the police were swarming all over the area, and that's when the shit really started. We just drove straight back . 43 ASHP-Sinclair Interview, 41-42.

Sinclair came away from the Chicago debacle convinced of two things. First, the police responded vastly out of proportion to any real threat posed by the gathering of "freeks," New Leftists, anti-war activists, Black Power supporters, and others. For Sinclair, this meant that the Movement -- including the counterculture -- would have to get politically organized for self- defense purposes or face repression by law enforcement agencies. Secondly, after experiencing the Yippies' less than prolific organizational skills, Sinclair became convinced that Trans-Love Energies possessed the requisite organization, experience, and popular following to present a viable model for politicizing the youth culture on a national scale. The creation of the "White Panther Party" as the political wing of TLE, formally announced on November 1, 1968, represented the culmination of these "lessons."

The selection of the name "White Panthers," which demonstrated a close identification with the Black Panthers, might appear as something of a contradiction, considering TLE's mostly white membership and sparse record of attention to black causes in Detroit. However, Sinclair never strayed from his close identification with black culture (especially its music), and the Artists' Workshop had been a multi-racial organization. Most TLE members envied and respected the Black Panthers' armed self-defense strategy and disciplined organizational model. Yet, the most influential Black Panther advocate within the collective was Pun Plamondon, who spent the summer in a jail cell in Traverse City reading works by or about Black Panther leaders Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver. At this time, the Black Panthers were actively seeking alliances with "white mother country radicals" in the New Left, counterculture, and peace movements. For Plamondon, the Black Panthers' call for white allies, essentially white Black Panthers, was a revelation. Upon his return to Ann Arbor in September, he lobbied Sinclair to form a white support group for the Black Panthers. 44 Sinclair had also been deeply moved by a 1968 Huey Newton interview, in which the Black Panther leader mentioned that whites should support the BPP by organizing their own revolutionary cadres. Genie Plamondon recalls that, on John's recommendation, she took this newspaper article to Pun in prison. See ASHP-Genie Plamondon Interview, 9; and ASHP- Sinclair Biography, 57. The timing of Plamondon's request, just after Sinclair had returned from the "stomp scene" in Chicago, was crucial: the Black Panthers appeared to have just the sort of national model of political organization which TLE was seeking. In addition, the title "White Panthers" gave the group instant radical credentials and, they hoped, credibility as a "vanguard" white revolutionary organization.

At first, the WPP was little more than a paper construct. The organization's "Ten Point Program" displayed a Yippie-esque mixture of counterculture themes and "fantasy politics." The platform included such things as: full endorsement of the Black Panther Party's 10-point program and platform; a "total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock and roll, dope, and fucking in the streets"; free food, clothes, housing, drugs, music, bodies, and medical care; and freedom from "phony 'leaders' -- everyone must be a leader -- freedom means free every one." 45 Sinclair, Guitar Army, 105. The tongue-in-cheek nature of the early White Panther slogans is something that few people outside the Movement, most importantly the police and FBI, realized. In fact, the WPP was originally conceived as "an arm of the Youth International Party." The naming of a "Central Committee" demonstrated Sinclair's penchant for Yippie-inspired theatrics, with positions such as "Minister of Religion" and "Minister of Demolition." 46 Ibid., 101.



Another feature of the early WPP which paralleled the Yippie model was its attempt to co-opt the straight (commercial) media. Just as the Yippies had attracted international press coverage for the Chicago Festival of Life, so too did Sinclair hope to recruit America's youth with both conventional and alternative media coverage of the WPP, generated by its own propaganda machine. "We can work within those old forms, infusing them with our new content and using them to carry out our work," he asserted. 47 Ibid., 116. Sinclair had also learned from the Yippies that there was a direct relationship between the level of sensationalism in the press/media message and the degree of coverage. Early White Panther press releases and propaganda were intentionally overstated: "If you make it outrageous enough," Plamondon later recalled, "the networks will pick it up." 48 Quoted in Silberman, "The Hill Street Radicals," 49.

All propaganda and wishful thinking aside, the White Panthers did possess one potential "ticket" to national visibility that fall: the MC-5. On September 26, 1968, Elektra Records signed the band to record a "live" album at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit. Elektra's young publicity director, Danny Fields, apparently recognized the potential commercial value of youth in revolt. The MC-5's debut album, "Kick Out The Jams," as well as a 45-rpm single (same title, with B-side "The Motor City is Burning") were released in early 1969, and immediately entered the Billboard Hot 100. The album went to number 20 on the Billboard charts; the single to number 82. 49 Joel Whitburn, Top Pop Artists and Singles, 1955-1978, (Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, Inc., 1979), 277; Goldmine, April 17, 1992, 16-22. Rolling Stone put lead vocalist Rob Tyner on its January 4, 1969, cover. Few at the time realized the significance of radical counterculture musical expressionism achieving popular acceptance.

For Sinclair, a national recording contract with Elektra, complete with $50,000 advance, represented neither a "sell out," nor a surrender to capitalist commodification of "the people's music." In his 1972 book Guitar Army, he provided an ideological justification for the action, focusing upon two key aspects of Trans-Love's "total assault on the culture" thesis. First Sinclair stressed that successful revolutions require the participation of the masses. He hypothesized that in order to reach the maximum number of pre-revolutionary youth the WPP should use as many of the "old establishment forms" as possible, including the media, radio stations, and of course record companies. Secondly, Sinclair believed that by disguising itself as a "simple economic force" like a rock band, the MC-5 could work parasitically from within the capitalist recording industry to challenge its dominance of national music distribution; he added " .

. . we're determined to change the structure of . . . the pop music scene -- and the people whose lives it shapes, as we pass through it on our way to building a whole new structure on our own." 50 Sinclair, Guitar Army, 125. Finally, Sinclair predicted that once the MC-5's record was released and gained national acceptance, the WPP, working with other radical groups and "people's bands" across the country, could establish an alternative recording and distribution system to rival, and eventually replace, the existing capitalist structure.

The details surrounding the MC-5's contract with Elektra would seem to support Sinclair's position that the WPP was in fact "putting something over on the old people," rather than selling out. The most obvious evidence for this are Sinclair's liner notes on the album, which boldly state: "The MC-5 is the revolution . . . . The music will make you strong . . . and there is no way it can be stopped now . . . Kick out the jams, motherfucker!" Equally significant, Elektra allowed the album to originally be released with an uncensored version of "Kick Out The Jams," complete with Tyner's use of profanity. Thus, while Elektra's primary motivation was undoubtedly record sales, i.e. an attempted commodification of the new counterculture music, by conceding to Sinclair's demands that the White Panthers' core philosophies be included in the record, the company became a willing accomplice in disseminating the WPP gospel to a national audience. And when one considers that the precise parameters of the relationship between record companies and hip rock bands were not yet established in 1968, it is therefore not unreasonable to ask "who commodified who?"

The first year of the WPP coincided with Richard Nixon's election to the presidency and an increasing atmosphere of confrontation nationwide. The FBI initiated a COINTELPRO (nationwide secret counter-intelligence initiative) specifically designed to disrupt and destroy the New Left and affiliated groups. In 1969, came the fragmentation of SDS and the first incident of National Guardsmen shooting unarmed hippies and students during the "People's Park" riots at the University of California, Berkeley. Other campus confrontations paralyzed universities across the country. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, a favored speaker on the college circuit, claimed that the police and National Guard were gassing and beating so many students "its like they're manufacturing violent radicals by the milliard." 51 Michael Schumacher, Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 541. Todd Gitlin accurately summed up the atmosphere of mounting social disorder:

In the year after August 1968, it was as if both official power and movement counterpower, equally and passionately, were committed to stoking up 'two, three, many Chicagos,' each believing that the final showdown of good and evil, order and chaos, was looming . . . . The once-solid core of American life -- the cement of loyalty that people tender to institutions, certifying that the current order is going to last and deserves to -- this loyalty, in select sectors, was decomposing . . . underneath grew a sublime faith that the old sturdy-seeming ways might be paper-mache and that the right trumpet blast -- the correct analysis, the current line, the correct tactics -- might bring them crashing down. 52 Gitlin, The Sixties, 342-45.

Nixon did not disguise his intent to utilize the full force of the nation's police, military, and intelligence establishments to smash all shades of dissent, including the counterculture. What is more, his Administration's willingness to define the enemy with ever-wider strokes of the brush empowered and emboldened the praetorian forces of authority. In this environment, the mere act of advocating "revolution" was looked upon by police and the FBI as tantamount to committing a violent, treasonous act.

The worsening relationship between police and the Movement in southeast Michigan paralleled the national trends. The cops might have acted with greater restraint if radical rhetoric and posturing had been all they were up against. However, memories of the riots of 1967 lingered and, in fall 1968, a wave of bombings took place, targeting unmanned police cars and other symbols of the establishment, including a clandestine CIA recruiting office in Ann Arbor. The individual responsible for much of the destruction was "hippie-turned-mad bomber" David Valler, whose philosophy had evolved from LSD to TNT over the course of a few months. 53 For press coverage of the Valler bombings in 1968, see Detroit News, September 2, 1- A; September 10, 1-A; September 12, 17-A; September 20, 1-A; September 30, 1-A; October 15, 3-A; November 12, 1-A and 18-A; November 20, 2-A; November 22, 4-A; November 24, 2-A; and November 27, 3-B. Not surprisingly, the Valler bombings influenced many local police and FBI to begin looking at all hippies as potentially violent.

In this atmosphere of mounting tensions the White Panthers presented their analysis of a pending revolution in increasingly militant terms. Plamondon emerged as the most radical of the group, issuing statements like: " . . . get a gun brother, learn how to use it. You'll need it, pretty soon. Pretty soon. You're a White Panther, act like one." 54 Fifth Estate, October 31 - November 13, 1968. For his part, Sinclair presented a "youth colony" thesis, which asserted that the hip youth of America were in fact a persecuted "colony," with similarities to both urban blacks and Third World anti-imperialist movements, such as the VietCong (National Liberation Front) in South Vietnam. "Our culture is a revolutionary culture," he stated, adding "we have to realize that the long-haired dope-smoking rock and roll street-fucking culture is a whole thing, a revolutionary international cultural movement which is absolutely legitimate and absolutely valid." Opposing the youth colony, Sinclair saw a "pig power structure," reflecting the "low-energy death culture" of American capitalist society, which he believed would even resort to "kill us if they can get away with it." 55 Sinclair, Guitar Army, 147-53.

The culmination of this increasingly militant posturing was the creation of a "White Panther Myth," by which the group portrayed themselves as genuine revolutionaries who would not hesitate to take the struggle to the next level -- violence against the state. The White Panther Myth contained both offensive and defensive components. Rhetorically, Sinclair and Plamondon promised to "attack" and "assault" the capitalist power structure; they boasted of their creation of "high-energy rock and roll bands," for the purpose of "infiltrating the popular culture." 56 Ibid., 48. Yet their propaganda also spoke of being "dragged into t

LAST POETS BIOGRAPHY

Last Poets were rappers of the civil rights era. Along with the changing domestic landscape came the New York City-hip group called The Last Poets, who used obstreperous verse to chide a nation whose inclination was to maintain the colonial yoke around the neck of the disenfranchised.

Shortly after the death of Martin Luther King, The Last Poets were born. David Nelson, Gylan Kain, and Abiodun Oyewole, were born on the anniversary of Malcolm X's birthday May 19, 1968 in Marcus Garvey Park. They grew from three poets and a drummer to seven young black and Hispanic artists: David Nelson, Gylan Kain, Abiodun Oyewole, Felipe Luciano, Umar Bin Hassan, Jalal Nurridin, and Suliamn El Hadi (Gil Scott Heron was never a member of the group). They took their name from a poem by South African poet Willie Kgositsile, who posited the necessity of putting aside poetry in the face of looming revolution.

"When the moment hatches in time's womb there will be no art talk," he wrote. "The only poem you will hear will be the spearpoint pivoted in the punctured marrow of the villain....Therefore we are the last poets of the world."

The Last Poets has brought together music and the word. Like Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee), they are/were modern day griots expressing the nation- building fervor of the Black Panthers in poems written for black people. As the great poet Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) says, "The Last Poets are the prototype Rappers... the kina nigger you don never wanna meet!" They teach what America does to its Black men, what Black men do to themselves, and WHY!

Novelist/essayist Darius James, in his book "That's Blaxploitation!" (St. Martin's Griffin, 1995) recalled the impact of the Poets at their birth.

In 1970 the Last Poets released their first album and dropped a bomb on black Amerikkka's turntables. Muthafuckas ran f'cover.

Nobody was ready.

Had em scared o' revolution. Scared o' the whyte man's god complex. Scared o' subways. Scared o' each other. Scared o' themselves. And scared o' that totem of onanistic worship -- the eagle-clawed Amerikkkan greenback! The rhetoric made you mad. The drums made you pop your fingers. And the poetry made you sail on the cushions of a fine hashish high.

Most importantly, they made you think and kept you "correct" on a revolutionary level.

We all connected. 'Cause it was a Black communal thing. Like the good vibes and paper plate of red-peppered potato salad at a neighborhood barbecue. The words and the rhythms were relevant. We joined together around the peace pipe and the drum. And when it came to the rhythms of the drums, the drums said, "Check your tired-ass ideology at the door."

With withering attacks on everything from racists to government to the bourgeoisie, their spoken word albums preceded politically laced R&B projects such as Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and foreshadowed the work of hard-hitting rap groups such as Public Enemy. Their classic poems Niggers are scared of Revolution, This is Madness, When the Revolution Comes (not to be confused with Oyewole's modern version linked above), and Gashman were released on their two record albums Last Poets (1970) and This Is Madnesss (1971). I, the maker of this webpage, learned the poems of both albums from the lyrics on the back.

During their late 60s and early 70s they connected with the violent factions of the SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), and the Black Panther party. They went through confrontations with the FBI and police, and went arrests for robbing the Ku Klux Klan and various other ventures with Revolution in mind. Abiodun Oyewole received a 12-to-20-year jail sentence, but served less than four years.

Like Oyewole, Umar Bin Hassan was able to overcome the urban social maladies of a broken home, child abuse, a musician-father doing jail time, the dog-eat-dog world of public housing in Akron Ohio, and his own crack addiction. Hassan dispenses with the eloquence of classic English verse, for the gritty, in-your-face cadence of the 'hood.

They also fought each other and split into two groups. One, including Jalal Nuriddin, who wrote Wake Up Niggers, and Suleiman el-Hadi, was known as "The Last Poets" and the other, including Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan, while also original members, was billed as "Formerly of the Last Poets." It was a legal dispute, fundamentally, and for years there was talk of reconcilation. Nuriddin and el-Hadi also were active, though mostly in the UK (Nuriddin has been based in London for some years). In an early 90's Paris where Umar Bin Hassan was preparing for a Last Poet concert, Jalal mysteriously appeared and stabbed Hassan in the throat. Attempting to learn their own lessons, at present only Oyewole and Hassan (shown at the top of this page) remain of the original Last Poets in the group, and have the right to call themselves that title.



The Last Poets made four albums. Oyewole, at times with Hassan, at time without, made a number of others. On the albums, there are many special guests. Bill Laswell has appeared with the group during much of the 90s. They participated in the 1994 Lollapalooza tour; performed in John Singleton's "Poetic Justice" film and Holy Terror has Senegalese drummer Aiyb Dieng and his longtime collaborator, former Coltrane protege Pharoah Sanders to add some fireworks on sax. Hassan has the CD Be Bop or Be Dead. Anyway, a mid 90s performance of Oyewole and Hassan can be heard on the Stolen Moments: Red Hot and Blue compilation, which also ran on PBS as a video. On the fourth album since 1993,Time Has Come, Chuck D, co-founder of Public Enemy appears.

he Duke of Prunes Frank Zappa 1940-1993
Monday, Dec. 20, 1993 By MICHAEL WALSH
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Frank Zappa surely would have appreciated -- indeed, relished -- the irony ! that his death last week was, as the old show-biz line has it, a shrewd career move. The musical iconoclast, best known for his work with the seminal 1960s rock band the Mothers of Invention, was in many ways the prisoner of his own raffish image: hirsute hippie freak; countercultural sire of prototypical Valley Girl Moon Unit Zappa and her siblings Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva; opinionated crank ("AIDS is a CIA plot"); and First Amendment scourge of Tipper Gore. With his death from prostate cancer, a few days short of his 53rd birthday, it may now be easier to appreciate an often overlooked fact about Francis Vincent Zappa: he was the most protean and adventurous American composer of his generation.
Yes, composer. "The only reason I went into rock 'n' roll," he explained, "is because I couldn't get anybody to play the classical music that I wrote." During a career that spanned three decades, Zappa never pretended or wanted to be anything else. On the first Mothers' album, 1966's Freak Out!, he quoted the maxim of his hero, the '20s avant-gardist Edgard Varese: "The present-day composer refuses to die." They were words he lived by.
In addition to his 12 albums with the Mothers and his numerous other rock recordings, Zappa collaborated with the likes of composer Pierre Boulez and conductor Zubin Mehta on such pieces as The Perfect Stranger, a collection of chamber music, and 200 Motels, an "opera for television." The self-taught Zappa was as prickly and puckish about his "serious" music as he was about rock. "I write," he declared, "because I am personally amused by what I do, and if other people are amused by it, then it's fine. If they're not, then that's also fine."
Born in Baltimore, Zappa was the son of a Sicilian-born meteorologist and metallurgist who worked for a poison-gas manufacturer -- the inspiration, perhaps, for his later Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask. The family moved to California when he was 10, and young Frank grew up in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles. "I developed an affinity to creeps," he recalled, "and I've surrounded myself with them ever since." At 15 he read a magazine article that referred to Varese's audacious compositions as "the ugliest music in the world," and he knew he had to hear them; for a birthday present, he cajoled his parents into letting him telephone the old man, then 72 and living in New York City.

Throughout his life, Zappa's music was both eclectic and uneven. At his worst he could be amateurish, as in the early Return of the Son of Monster Magnet. On guitar Zappa was no Eric Clapton, and as a band the Mothers were no match for Lou Reed's raw Velvet Underground, with whom they shared an in-your- face aesthetic that guaranteed zero radio play. At his best, however, Zappa fused two seemingly irreconcilable 20th century musical strains; his masterpiece, Absolutely Free (1967), is a dazzling merger of Stravinsky and Varese with rock and rhythm and blues. Who else would have thought to counterpoint the Berceuse from Stravinsky's Firebird with the doo-wop of Duke of Earl on a song called The Duke of Prunes? To quote The Rite of Spring and Petrouchka as a prelude to some of the hardest-charging, straight-ahead rock of the era? To use Varese's musique concrete, which alters conventionally produced sounds to create an electronic effect, in a paean to rock-groupie archetype Suzy Creamcheese?
His post-Mothers work, including Lumpy Gravy (1967), which Zappa called a "curiously inconsistent piece which started out to be a ballet but probably didn't make it," never quite reached the same freewheeling, free- associating level, although it became more ambitious and technically accomplished. In such works as The Yellow Shark, a 90-minute program of his instrumental music performed last year in Europe, his natural predilections for spiky, dissonant sonorities and unusual sound effects were fully in evidence, exemplifying his Cage-like motto of AAAFNRAA -- "Anything anytime anyplace for no reason at all."
By the end of his life, Zappa had all but abandoned rock; the '60s icon who had posed sitting naked on a toilet for a poster called Phi Zappa Krappa was instead encouraging young audiences to register to vote and battling censorship of rock lyrics. After cancer was diagnosed in 1990, he worked 14 hours a day in his home studio in the Hollywood Hills, composing a musical called Thing-Fish and contemplating an opera. With Suzy Creamcheese finally grown up, Zappa dropped the entertainer's mask, revealing the face of the artist beneath. "My music," he said, "makes the mind think."

-

right.

what Arabs are going thru today here in America with the Patriot Act, amongst other things.

They used the same type of propoganda on "us" that they are using on the Arab population today.

They used the same type of propoganda on "us" that they are using on the Arab population today<<<<<<<<<<<<

i've moticed this since 9/11, it's almost like a script reread.

and all the connecting dots in between...

and history repeating itself.

someone else on OKP noticed this (besides Aqua)

and these dudes have no idea why hiphop is so powerful... none.
or Malcolm for that matter.

I'm waiting for all the Toms to show up.
One is here...
I'm sure the rest are being informed.

and chose to pick cotton as oppossed to fighting for thier lives.

this whole contrarian movement is hilarious. all of a sudden "Art" is bad. being smart is bad. being ignant and dumb is whats in..if you dont at least act like youre dumb and ignant people will label you an elitist for just simply using your brain. oh heavens! oh no, dont use your brain, thats so not in.

I'm an ASCAP member....

i'm tagging this so i can read later

very interesting, cause i just caught "Bastards of the Party" last night and this clearly relates to the overall issue

It's hard though....

this post brings to mind my fav quote- "when you control a man's thinking, you don't have to worry about his actions" Carter G. Woodson

some of this i am up on and some i am not. i will print some of this out and read it later.

i posted not too long ago about nwa being the yin to public enemy's yang. they helped father all the crap in the game now.

i never put anything past the govt. they are the biggest gangsters around.

yes they did... Dr. Dre has sold nothing but DEATH.
Hence Death Row.

.

I mean if you want to talk about this shit for real lets talk about it man.

What about the fact that Suge Knight is a fed?

Pac & Big?

The Chronic as cointelpro?

4/4 as mind control?

Government weed?

While this may be new to some, I've seen all of this shit before. What I haven't seen is people ready to discuss the implications and then get into solutions. Let's talk bout that. Other wise what's the point.

I'm all eyes.

but who knows if it'll ever see the light of day.

the long and short of it is that the govt fueled money into us (United Slaves) for weapons and such to create a conflict between them and the bpp which while they may have had guns would not have been considered a militant group. us ended up killing a bunch of bpp, cats went to jail. other cointel opperations on bpp helped pull it a part, but in its wake rose the color gangs which interestingly enough were broken out the same way that us bpp was. all done to ensure that there was no unity in the community around upliftment.

blood burnin in him cuz this post is filled with too much truth. negroes have been conditioned to fear rebellion.

remember the plot of half baked. gubment making that potent potent shit. chappelle goes to steal and start selling it. hollywood fiction right. well the solitary nigga stealing and selling is cause you know somebody been making a profit.

60's 70's 80's were all about experimentation. which drugs could be best used for population control. acid.... nah. too unpredictable. heroine.... nah. too deadly. cocaine.... nah, we like it too much. crack cocaine.... well to a degree, but only in the tear apart the community regard. what about the keep them niggas in check regard. weed. well that's a good one if it only could be better controled. in its natural state the effects aren't really controllable. but if we could genetically modify a more potent variety there may be potential. few years in the lab and tadow. yeah this shit is potent. now all we need is a way to promote it.

pretty much every grade of marijuana today unless it is organicly grown outdoors, is a government strain or has cross polinated with a government strain.

I know your right, hence Bush, Freeway Rick... remember Bush ran the CIA southeast Asia programs and was responsible for Heroin flooding out streets again in the 70's...
but these also needs to come out of the mouth of someone else...
otherwise it will just look like aqua, aqua, aqua..
I know you know...
knowledge them...

the minute he said "aight my niggas, fuck all the bullshit, let's start the revolution" he had an army of over 5 million soilders behind him. before he got killed him and big were probably months from reconcilliation.

also the PHD version of the Thug code as put to Sunny Carson, his stepfather Shakur and a few serious cats out of the D, LA, ATL, and Miami... it was some serious shit..

they dicuss this on a DVD called Cocaine City, his stepfather breaks it all down..
days after their meeting he caught the rape charge
then the next day he got gunned down in Quad studios...

there are more dynamics at play...
did the same thing to Malcolm...

may have bought him a few years on his life. but at the end of the day...

crazy right...

That's why we're invading THE LESSON

invasion - Nas

>What about the fact that Suge Knight is a fed?

there he is.....

unfucking real.

>>>>>>>While this may be new to some, I've seen all of this shit before. What I haven't seen is people ready to discuss the implications and then get into solutions. Let's talk bout that. Other wise what's the point. <<<<<<<<<<<


nigguhz have a habbit of doin that a lot, for what reason i don't know. yeah we need solutions and ways to counter the bullshit, but damm let's at least digest this info fully. who's to say a solution may already be found in one of the responses.

anyway, i've actually been thinking suge has been cia for the last 5 or so years. just by the his actions and the what he represents, he is the perfect cia op.

obviously mad niggaz don't know and thought that shit was no different than say a pair of Karl Kani jeans...
put em on while their hot..
take em off when their not...

so it's best to lay it out first...
then we offer solutions..
however the solution to these problems should be obvious as hell.

Not to mention if niggaz was up on this..
how come it was never posted before?

'explain it to them' - older brother from Wierd Science

so it's best to lay it out first...
then we offer solutions..
however the solution to these problems should be obvious as hell


^^^ i agree with everything stated above, i said that in response to implvc dude.

oh, i saw this article on blackelectorate too, but decided not to read it, my bad.

every time i allude to this negroes look at me like i' just sayin some ole next shit. the record labels have been destroying all substance in hip hop as a whole for years, and i've always thought the gov has been behind this.

of course a couple or rap niggaz aint nothing.

but I heard it's a must see...
government issues heroin is a problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ6-FYAngvc

can't believe i just wasted like an hour reading this whole post.

some niggers sure love conspiracy theories, don't they?

and if your saying

John Lennon
Sun Ra
Fela
Bob MArley
Peter Tosh
Frank Zappa
Chuck D
Saul Williams
versus... an okayplayer who's embaressed of his Previous BLACKNESS and consciousness... then yeah.

Keep picking that cotton, it'll bring you back to Darkness.

OH and it's NIGGA.. .not NIGGER like you typed.

Lol.
Try harder.

just like: in my OPINION, you are full of shit.

now... on the other hand, if i were to say that you have a tendency to make posts that are full of lies and half-truths and then push them through with an aggressive, bullying style of posting... that would not be an opinion: it would be a FACT.

some of you negroes are just silly to me, for real... you have very little grasp of your own history. rather than studying up about your heritage, you go and "Stolen Legacy" or "Afrocentricity" and other tracts of extremely dubious scholarship.

i mean, shit... Aqua, aren't you the guy who tried to argue that fucking SOUTH AFRICA was in some way connected musically to Nigeria and Ghana... in the middle of APARTHEID?? hell, even now that South Africa is "free," it's still barely connected to the rest of Africa culturally.

but nope... couldn't nobody tell you nothing. no matter how many facts are presented, Aqua would rather hold fast to his own ridiculous beliefs.

i mean, lonesome_d - a WHITE GUY - just schooled you about the roots of American Negro music in this very post. but will you listen?

*shrug*

i'm not gonna argue with you funny-style negrroes no more.

i really don't care if you call me an Uncle Tom... shit, they called Booker T. Washington a Tom too, so i'm in good company.

keep on feeding your conspiracies there, Huey.

LOL

and there you have it.
WE have heard your opinion... you bitched up...
trust... we know all we need to know about your shook, stepnfetch it, afraid if your image, ass...

thanks... now it's time for the MEN to speak.
PEACE.


Yawn.. as far as Lonesome D... he doesn't understand why we coded our songs... hence songs by those same groups he mentioned like
Memphis blues

Cocaine Blues are not going to mention the CIA..
just the ills of economics, race...etc.
Ask ANY veteran blues player or jazz cat who LIVED it... he will agree with what I say... trust me on that.
Watch the documentary on Chuck Berry, he eloquently breaks this down to Jerry Lee Lewis..
just like I broke it down to YOU and the OTHER white boy.
Peace.

>Cocaine Blues are not going to mention the CIA..
>just the ills of economics, race...etc.

"Cocaine Blues" ain't gonna mention the CIA because the CIA didn't exist when the song was written.

LEARN YOUR HISTORY

shit... didn't we just come outta February?

it's a fucking shame, yo... i'm not even being facetious here. it breaks my fucking heart that this kind of Black ignorance can be flaunted so liberally. in 2007!

>Ask ANY veteran blues player or jazz cat who LIVED it... he
>will agree with what I say... trust me on that.
>Watch the documentary on Chuck Berry, he eloquently breaks
>this down to Jerry Lee Lewis..

Chuck Berry also filmed women going to the toilet. AND---???

and you chose to lift your skirt up.. .
for those of who ARE NOT EMBARESSED by the Problack movement...it's our turn to speak... thanks.

i ain't stoppin' you or studyin' you

babble on in your Babylon


MOST of the shit you're saying in this post can be discredited quite easily, through the most rudimentary research (mind you, SOME of what you IS in fact true... SOME of it) but if it makes you feel better to believe in this massive conspiracy theory keeping the Black man down... be my guest.

some Negroes really NEED to have fairy tales like this in order to wrap themselves in the comforting salve of perpetual victimhood.

other Negroes are just interested in ascending.

you are free to go.

:)

a certain someone said

he's embaressed about the PROBLACK period in hiphop..
the same nigga who said

when did black music become artsy...

yeah I have a problem with ANYONE
who continuously sees the same problems...
the same patterns
from the same people
against the same people
and defend it by saying I'm crazy... right...

I listen to Sun Ra, I read Miles, I read the words of Malcolm, I read the words of Sonny Carson, the Last Poets... I know what we are dealing with...
if you choose Jeezy... Choose Jeezy... that nigga looks and acts like Idi Amin... if that's you... do you...
but never tell me I'm crazy.
Cause there were thousands of niggaz on their roofs in New Orleans who will show you what crazy was...

"where art came into it"? wtf? I swear dude is braindead.

clowns man... I swear...
when we drink water we are art.... these niggaz.

its fucking amazing. I've always loved dudes music. I have that doc. where hes in his workshop as they're evicting him and hes talking, playing music, has his daughter around. Dude was so ahead of his time. Took art, jazz to another level. And we got fools like asskap on these boards saying black people dont create art? man.

Exactly... the very idea of God is art... hence creation.
Mingus would slap that nigga silly.
Not only did he completely understand art..
he and his woman worked to retain ownership during a time most niggaz couldn't see driving thier own cab.
he was a bad motherfucker. A real man, who regretted nothing.

My head hurts from reading these bitch niggaz go on and on about shit that aint real...
gossiping about shit that aint real...
and never ONCE dealing with the real issues.

Any man that tries to seperate black people from their art or being artistic... is a devil. PERIOD.

The bitchmade nigga is dead

hahaha... now that was funny as hell.

>i mean, lonesome_d - a WHITE GUY -

classified info!

thinking you were slick. Lol.

First off, this post isn't about Jubmusic... but the one thing I don't expect you to get is understanding why thier music was primarily uplifting, major key music.
That music came out of poverty...
racism...
and just the climate of the day. That is conscious music. Anytime you can deal with White America in thier foulest form and turn around and make music to uplift your spirit and those around you... nothing is more conscious.

that's cool.

And now that you've rephrased your argument to be more along the lines of Kayru's, I don't have any beef with it - even if songs that begin with "I wouldn't marry a Black woman, tell you the reason why..." ('A Black Woman Is Like A Black Snake') or "I got a girl and her name is Eve, ev'ry time I hit her she holler 'Police!" (Tear It Down) are hard to envision as being pro-Black or 'conscious' in any way.

They do jam, though. You should really listen to some of that stuff. My other post is still on the boards at

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=1091430&mesg_id=1091430&listing_type=search

and if you look at my reply's from yesterday I was saying the same thing...
I don't expect white people to get it cause they never do for the most part... with exceptions...
and because segregation divided people so that..
the poor lived in thier world
the non poor in theirs... all you would see are niggaz smiling.
:) and would think... 'wow, those niggaz sure are happy'.

Nah, I'm not sharing, who are you?

You having a problem with anything I say don't mean shit.
I don't need your validation. At all. By you or your peoples.
In fact you don't have that power. Ever.
Lol.
Arrogant ass people.
All that shit I posted about MC5, Frank Zappa, Marley, you find one sentence and try to exploit it? haha... typical.

>Nah, I'm not sharing, who are you?

But what does it matter who I am? You say you're a musician; I asked politely to hear some of your music.

>You having a problem with anything I say don't mean shit.
>I don't need your validation. At all. By you or your
>peoples.
>In fact you don't have that power. Ever.
>Lol.
>Arrogant ass people.
>All that shit I posted about MC5, Frank Zappa, Marley, you
>find one sentence and try to exploit it? haha... typical.

*sigh* As I said, I don't particularly care about them, and have read conspiracy theories on them in the past. I did read the White Panther stuff you posted over in Activist, and it's pretty interesting. I just don't like their music all that much.

I do, however, like blues. Very much. And I've gone waaaaaaaaay out of my way on these boards to encourage people to listen to historic blues recordings and draw their own conclusions about the music. But because I disagree with you, I'm arrogant?

however...
when you trivialize... yes you are.
however... I question anyone who doesn't see the genius of MC5. Are you buggin? Maybe I should hip you to their documentary/performance for more understanding.
They were and are the truth.

I've had Kick Out the Jams for 7 or 8 years. I don't listen to much rock overall anymore though, so tey're not exceptional in that regard... I probably would have loved them if I'd heard them in the mid-80s.

Being a musician I see the genius in them all day...
and then to know they risked it all for truth and righteousness just made me love them more.
I mean... I love Joy Divison too... completely different species and they toggle with unclarity as their purpose... even tho' Ian Curtis was a genius in my eyes. One of the few to come out of that scene actually. However...
there are serious blues elements with MC5 as that's how their guitarists learned to play. Mind you... I love electric blues... all day... have played with some of the best... and I love to get down...
so I understand that.
All I'm saying is... I also understand the element that produced it cause I was there.

but by the late 1980s I was fine tuning my tastes away from rock and toward roots music. I've since taken a few divergences, but mostly my tastes are firmly rooted in my love of traditional music of all kinds.

>Being a musician I see the genius in them all day...

And being a musician I acknowledge their innovation and influence, but prefer not to listen to it.

>and then to know they risked it all for truth and
>righteousness just made me love them more.

Yes, but by many accounts their version of truth and righteousness also included misogyny, drug abuse, and a cult-like environmnet, all of which contribute to the diminishment of their overall ideals in my eye.


>All I'm saying is... I also understand the element that
>produced it cause I was there.

You were in Trans-Love Enterprises? If not, I have no clue what you mean.

that's my point...
i bet you the other cats on here know exactly what I mean.

It's one thing to play music..
it's quite another to live it.

As far as your love for our music, and music in general that's great...
you do realize the same climate that produced blues...
is now producing hiphop and things of the like right?

That not much has changed at all actually...
I mean I love blues too... no question... however have you ever looked past the record, the sensational aspects and realized the poltical/social climate behind the people making the music... not the record per se... but the music?

yes, of course I try to look at the social context of music, whatever music I'm learning about. Have you checked out the post I referenced? I would hope if you'd read it and/or listened to the music I linked up in it, you'd recognize this.

The parallells between blues in the '20s and '30s and hip hop in the '80s and '90s are multitude. But if your thinking on hip hop is consistent with your thinking on blues, then you'd say all hip hop is positive, 'conscious' music, regardless of the actual subject matter, and I (along with many posters) can't get with that either.

>The parallells between blues in the '20s and '30s and hip hop
>in the '80s and '90s are multitude. But if your thinking on
>hip hop is consistent with your thinking on blues, then you'd
>say all hip hop is positive, 'conscious' music, regardless of
>the actual subject matter, and I (along with many posters)
>can't get with that either.

but the conditions that surrounded/created blues back in the 20s are still quite different to the ones that hip hop came out of in the 80s and 90s, despite the commonalities

And the same people, facing the same problems, as oppressed by the same white power structure... trust... WE understand this more than you ever could... so again, I'm not looking for your validation... cause you couldn't validate our experience if you tried...
you own the record
we own the skin.
there is a HUGE fucking difference.

keep it movin'

makes this nigga on par with Booker T.

His infamous
Pharell is better than Dilla posts.
or
The FourTops are better than the Temps.
Equates him to Booker T? See... when you expect less from your people... you provide less.

"I fuckin' know you"

and by the way, i'm definitely NOT ahshamed of my Blackness... though i AM a bit embarrassed by YOURS.

yea.
Besides.. don't discuss something that your embaressed about.
Namean.
Let us who are not discuss.

without following through with any thorough, conclusive reasearch.

to me, that shit makes you just as much of a sheep as an "ignorant nigger" selling crack on the corner.

you make these long-ass posts full of crap that you copied and pasted from the Internet (because, you know, if it's on the Internet it MUST be true!) anbd try to pass it off here as real scholarship, or journalism or fact?

yeah... i am QUITE embarrassed by that, and by the fact that so many people are tripping over themselves to cosign it and pump their fists in the air like they've scored some kind of real victory over AFKAP and the rest of the "Uncle Tom niggaz"

this is EXACTLY the kind of empty, anti-intellectual, dick-swingng academic thuggery that sometimes makes me embarrassed about the pro-Black era of hip-hop, AS WELL AS about the Black Studies programs in many of our universities.

it's really a shame.

we get it...
no worries, us street niggaz will deal with it...
lol. You have had your say... now it's our turn. Thanks.

problem is you can't prove in any type of satisfactory matter the truth trying to be got at in this post. trying to put it to words, is really bound to fail. even worse its bound to get twisted, distorted, all types of emotional shit thrown on top of it, not to mention the straight up lying, or the fact that the number one writer about cointelpro is cointelpro. shit one of bush's first actions after 911 was to make disinformation legal. but what all of this does is pit sides. whether its my schollarly theory is better than yours or, my blackness is realer than yours or whatever. its so easy to get an afkap who probably knows if not has seen a lot more about the 'struggle' than we know, and an aqua who despite all of it is likely motivated by love, and because of the word 'embarassed' they become sworn enemies. its sad, really.

and I never commented on his post..
he has said his piece... now I'm saying mine, thats all.

http://www.thethirteenthstep.com/stfu/conspiracy.jpg




...then....


http://tinyurl.com/9u9nm

appreciate it.
Yes the CIA and the Government loves black folks.
Just look at Katrina. Thanks fellaz. Keep pushing your coke.

John Lennon 1940-1980: History Professor Jon Wiener Discusses Lennon's Politics, FBI Files and Why Richard Nixon Sought to Deport Him
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
25 years ago today John Lennon died after being shot dead by a gunman named Mark Chapman. Millions mourned the death of perhaps the most famous Beatle. Today memorials are being held across the world.
On this anniversary, we pay tribute to Lennon’s life with historian Jon Wiener, author of "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files" and "Come Together: John Lennon in His Time."

We also hear Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono describe their Bed-In For Peace. We play excerpts of Lennon singing “Imagine” at the Apollo Theater in Harlem at a rally for the Attica prisoners and Lennon singing at the 1971 Free John Sinclair concert in Ann Arbor. In addition we air historic interviews with Pete Seeger discussing the significance of Lennon’s song “Give Peace A Chance” and Abbie Hoffman on Lennon, the political radical.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty-five years ago today, Howard Cosell broke into Monday Night Football with an announcement that shocked the country.

Howard Cosell, announcing John Lennon's death, December 8, 1980.

John Lennon had died at the age of 40. As soon as word of his murder was announced, hundreds of fans began gathering in Central Park near the Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived and was shot.
A day after he died, his wife, Yoko Ono, said, "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please do the same for him." Millions mourned his death across world. As a leader of the Beatles, John Lennon helped to transform popular music. But to his fans he was far more than just a musician.

While the highlights of Lennon's career with the Beatles is well known, Lennon is less remembered for his political activism and dedication to peace. Lennon wrote some of the most famous songs of the anti-war movement: "Give Peace A Chance", "Imagine" and "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)". He sang at political protests against the Vietnam War, in support of the radical John Sinclair and even for the prisoners of Attica. He and Yoko made international headlines simply by lying in bed as part of their Bed-In For Peace.

The U.S. government saw Lennon as such a serious threat that President Nixon attempted to have him deported in 1972. In addition the FBI closely monitored his actions and amassed a file on Lennon of over 400 pages.

Today -- on the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death -- we speak with historian Jon Wiener about Lennon's politics and his FBI files.


Jon Wiener, history professor at the University of California Irvine and the author of two books on Lennon: "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files" and "Come Together: John Lennon In His Times."

More information: John Lennon - FBI Files
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: 25 years ago today, Howard Cosell broke into Monday Night Football with an announcement that shocked the country.

HOWARD COSELL: Yes, we have to say, remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City, John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all of the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival.

AMY GOODMAN: John Lennon, dead at the age of 40. As soon as word of his murder was announced, hundreds of fans began gathering in Central Park near the Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived and was shot. A day after he died, his wife, Yoko Ono, said, “John loved and prayed for the human race. Please do the same for him.” Millions mourned his death around the world. As a leader of the Beatles, John Lennon helped to transform popular music, but to his fans, he was far more than just a musician.

While the highlights of Lennon's career with the Beatles are well known, Lennon is less remembered for his political activism and dedication to peace. Lennon wrote some of the most famous songs of the anti-war movement: "Give Peace a Chance,” "Imagine" and "Happy Christmas, War is Over." He sang at political protests against the Vietnam War, in support of the radical John Sinclair and even for the prisoners of Attica. He and Yoko made international headlines simply by lying in bed as part of their Bed-In for Peace.

The U.S. government saw Lennon as such a serious threat that President Nixon attempted to have him deported in 1972. In addition, the F.B.I. closely monitored his actions and amassed a file on Lennon of over 300 pages. Today, on the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death, we speak with historian Jon Wiener about Lennon's politics and his F.B.I. files. Jon Wiener is a history professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of two books on Lennon: Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon F.B.I. Files and Come Together: John Lennon and His Times. I talked to Jon Wiener and asked him for his thoughts on this 25th anniversary of Lennon's death.

JON WIENER: Well, you know, there's going to be a lot of media coverage about the lovable lad from Liverpool and about Beatle-mania, but I think it's important to remember that Lennon put a lot of work into fighting the war in Vietnam. He was an activist in the peace movement, and he paid a very heavy price for that. In 1972, Richard Nixon tried to deport him because of his peace movement activity. I think that is a legacy that's worth remembering today, more than Beatle-mania and more than “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

AMY GOODMAN: You wrote a book about the F.B.I. files and John Lennon called Gimme Some Truth. Can you talk about why you started on this quest to get the full F.B.I. files of John Lennon and how much you have learned. What was happening to him when he left Britain and came to this country under the presidency of Richard Nixon?

JON WIENER: Well, Lennon arrived in the United States in 1970, 1971, moved to New York. He wanted to be part of what was going on. What was going on in New York was the anti-war movement, and he became friends with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale and other activists, and he wanted to join in, basically, with the movement, which is pretty unusual for a superstar. Lots of superstars have causes, but he wanted to help end the war in Vietnam, and he tried various different strategies of doing that in different ways, at different times. That's what got him in trouble with the Nixon administration.

I filed a Freedom of Information request a really long time ago, in 1981, just after he was killed, just to see if the F.B.I. had any documents on him. I thought they must, since they tried to deport him in ‘72. At that time, they told us they had around 300 pages, but they weren't going to release most of them, because of their national security status. I was lucky enough to get the help of the ACLU of Southern California in taking this case to court. We filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act in 1983.

In 1997 -- that's what? -- 15 years later, virtually all of the issues were resolved by the Clinton administration. They released almost all of the pages we were seeking. They paid $204,000 of our legal expenses. But they still withheld ten pages, which they said were national security documents provided by a foreign government under a promise of confidentiality. We're still trying to get those ten pages. And just recently, a court ordered the F.B.I. to release them, and the F.B.I. has now told us they are going to appeal that decision. So, ten pages to go, national security documents.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you're saying, Professor Wiener, that John Lennon is still a threat to the national security of this country?

JON WIENER: Well, I'm not saying that, but the F.B.I. is telling us that they can’t release these ten pages, because they contain information provided by a foreign government under a promise of confidentiality. Now, we're not even allowed to know the name of the foreign government. My guess is that it's not Afghanistan.

And, in fact, there's a guy in England named David Shayler, a former employee of MI5, the British organization that corresponds with our F.B.I. He says he saw a Lennon file at MI5. He described its contents. It had information about Lennon's ties with the British New Left and the anti-war movement in London and the Irish movement. Shayler was prosecuted by the Brits under their Official Secrets Act and sentenced to six months in prison for revealing this information.

Our assumption is that's the information that the government of the United States is withholding today. It's provided by the foreign government of Britain. It concerns Lennon's political activities in London in 1969 and 1970. We don't see any reason why information about the political activities 35 years ago of a dead rock star need to remain classified today, but the F.B.I. is willing to go to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and try to convince a three-judge panel that this material can't be released.

AMY GOODMAN: Jon Wiener, can you talk about what John Lennon hoped to do in this country, joining up with the anti-war movement, registering voters, and how he was thwarted, specifically how he was dealing with the Nixon administration?

JON WIENER: Yeah. Lennon tried to figure out ways that he could use his power as a celebrity to help end the war. And the idea that he developed, along with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and other people, was that he should headline a national concert tour in 1972 that would coincide with the presidential election campaign. ’72, Nixon was still President and preparing to run for re-election. The war in Vietnam had reached a peak. It was clear that this was going to be a big issue in ’72.

The concert tour that Lennon was planning would have been quite a big deal, just because no Beatle had toured the United States since the lads waved farewell at Candlestick Park in 1966, but what Lennon had in mind was something different. He wanted to combine rock music with radical politics and use the tour to urge young people to register to vote -- 1972 was the first year that 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, so that was going to be an important project -- and vote against the war, and that meant voting against Nixon.

Nixon got wind of this plan and promptly began deportation proceedings against Lennon to try to get him out of the country to prevent this tour from ever happening. They were able to do one concert. It was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in December ’71, where they tried out this idea. It was the “Free John Sinclair” concert. John Sinclair was a local movement activist and leader who had been sentenced to ten years in the Michigan state prison for possession of two joints of marijuana. It was a big national issue in 1971, and Lennon headlined a fantastic show that involved political activists. Jerry Rubin spoke, Bobby Seale spoke, Stevie Wonder showed up to play. And we have tape of Lennon's appearance that night. It's in Ann Arbor at Chrysler Arena, December 1971, 15,000 people in the audience.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to John Lennon that night.

JOHN LENNON: Now, we came here not only to help John and to spotlight what's going on, but also to show and to say to all of you that apathy isn’t it and that we can do something. Okay, so flower power didn’t work; so what? We start again.

This song, I wrote for John Sinclair. Okay, John Sinclair, nice and easy now. Sneaky. “One, two, one, two, three, four -- It ain't fair, John Sinclair, in the stir for breathing air -- Won't you care for John Sinclair, in the stir for breathing air -- Let him be, set him free. Let him be like you and me -- They gave him ten for two, what else can Judge Columba do? -- We gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta set him free -- if he was a soldier man, shooting gooks in Vietnam, if he was the C.I.A., selling dope and making hay, he’d be free, they'd let him be -- free the man like you and me -- They gave him ten for two, what else can Judge Columba do? -- We gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta set him free – They gave him ten for two, and they got , too -- We gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta set him free -- Was he jailed for what he’d done or representing everyone? -- Free John now, if we can, from the clutches of the man -- Let him be. Lift the lid. Bring him to his wife and kid --”

AMY GOODMAN: That was John Lennon singing at a “Free John Sinclair” rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1971. This is Democracy Now!, DemocracyNow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Our guest is historian Jon Wiener, the author of two books on John Lennon, including Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon F.B.I. Files. I asked Jon Wiener what happened to John Lennon after he performed at the “Free John Sinclair” rally.

JON WIENER: The first thing that happened was that John Sinclair got out of prison two days later on appeal. It was quite an amazing victory that nobody had really expected. When I got the John Lennon F.B.I. file, the first stuff in there is a report from an undercover agent who was one of the 15,000 people at Chrysler Arena that night. He wrote down every word John Lennon said, including all the words to the song, including “gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta set him free.” He sent those to J. Edgar Hoover. They were promptly classified as confidential and kept secret for the next twelve years. But this formed the -- this got the Nixon administration concerned that there really might be some potential here to affect the election.

Now, in retrospect, it seems very unlikely, since Nixon won by an overwhelming landslide in 1972. Only Massachusetts voted for George McGovern. Remember the slogan, “Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts.” But, you know, back in December 1971, no one was sure what was going to happen in the election. No one was sure who the Democratic candidate was going to be. No one was sure how significant the youth vote was going to be. And it was – you know, Nixon did a lot of things that I didn't like, but he was also an astute judge of American politics, and I think if Nixon was concerned that Lennon's political plan to register young voters might play role in the ’72 election, I'm willing to accept Nixon's judgment that there might have been something to that.

AMY GOODMAN: The issue that Nixon held over John Lennon of deporting him over drug charges, even those drug charges questionable, is that right? They were brought when he was in Britain?

JON WIENER: Well, the Nixon administration's claim for deporting Lennon was that it was just a routine administration of the then-existing immigration law, which held that you could not be admitted to the country if you had any conviction for drugs, no matter how insignificant, no matter what the circumstances. And Lennon had pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of cannabis possession in London a couple of years earlier. So, the Nixon administration said he had just been admitted improperly, and therefore, he had to leave. Lennon claimed this was motivated by a desire to silence him as a spokesman for the peace movement, and I think the F.B.I. files show Lennon was right about that. Everything in the file is about Lennon's political activism, the people he was hanging around with, the plans he was making. Virtually none of it is about his status of his immigration visa.

AMY GOODMAN: Another major political event he was involved with was in 1971: the Attica uprising, upstate New York, the prisoners who were protesting prison conditions. Can you talk about what John Lennon had to do with that?

JON WIENER: Yeah. In September, 1971, there was an uprising at Attica Prison in upstate New York. Something like a couple of thousand, mostly black, inmates seized the prison, had a whole list of demands, most of which were completely reasonable: decent health care, religious freedom for Muslims, alternatives to pork in the diet, uncensored reading materials. The prison administration agreed to virtually all of the demands, but then one horrible morning, 1,400 New York state troopers stormed the prison.

They killed 32 prisoners and ten guards and injured something like 80 more. This was, you know, a complete outrage, and the next month, December 1971, there was a protest meeting and a benefit concert for the families of the prisoners who had been killed in the uprising. That was held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. And John Lennon went, because this, you know, disturbed him. He hated what had happened at Attica. We have tape, very unusual rare tape, of Lennon speaking on stage live at the Apollo, 1,500 people who had gathered to protest the murders at Attica Prison.

AMY GOODMAN: John Lennon in Harlem.

JOHN LENNON: I would just like to say it's an honor and a pleasure to be here at the Apollo and for the reasons we're all here. Some of you might wonder what I'm doing here with no drummers and no nothing like that. Well, you might know, I lost my old band, or I left it. I’m putting an electric band together. It's not ready yet, and these -- things like this keep coming up, so I have to just busk it. So I'm going to sing a song now you might know. It's called "Imagine." Two, three, four -- “Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us; above us, only sky -- Imagine all the people, living for today --”

AMY GOODMAN: John Lennon, at the Apollo in Harlem, after the Attica uprising. Of course, then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, right after the prisoners rose up – it was another September 11 -- September 11, 1971 (September 9, it began). On the 13th, he called out the New York state troopers, and they opened fire, killing 39 men, including guards, critically wounding more than 80 others and injuring hundreds. Jon Wiener.

JON WIENER: Yeah, it was a terrible day, and it’s interesting that Lennon wanted to be part of that protest, too. So, you know, New York was very important to him, and he wanted to be part of the political life of New York and part of the movement in New York, and that's one of the reasons why it was particularly horrible that he got killed in New York, which was the city that he thought of as the center of the world, the home the free.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of freedom, there is a very famous image that will be no doubt played throughout today, and that was the Bed-In. John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Canada. Can you talk about this?

JON WIENER: 1968. Well, the first Bed-In was in Amsterdam. John and Yoko got married in 1968. A lot of things happened in 1968, and one of them was John and Yoko got married at Gibraltar, near Spain, as they said in the song, "The Ballad of John and Yoko." But even as early as 1968, they were thinking about the war and what they could do to join the anti-war movement. And they decided to declare that their honeymoon would be a weeklong protest against the war in Vietnam. But instead of marching outside the American embassy at Trafalgar Square in London, they decided that they would stay in bed to protest the war. This outraged the mainstream media and a lot on the left, too. We have tape of Lennon explaining the logic behind the Bed-In.

JOHN LENNON: What we're really doing is sending out a message to the world, mainly to the youth, especially the youth or anybody, really, that's interested in protesting for peace or protesting against any forms of violence. And the things are, the Grosvenor Square marches in London, the end product of it was newspaper stories about riots and fighting. And we did the bed event in Amsterdam and the bag piece in Vienna just to give people an idea that there's many ways of protest, and this is one of them. And anybody could grow their hair for peace or give up a week of their holiday for peace or sit in a bag for peace. Protest against peace, anyway, but peacefully, because we think that peace is only got by peaceful methods, and to fight the establishment with their own weapons is no good, because they always win, and they have been winning for thousands of years. They know how to play the game violence, and it's easier for them when they can recognize you and shoot you.

AMY GOODMAN: So this was in Amsterdam, is that right, Jon?

JON WIENER: That's -- no, he was referring to -- Amsterdam is in the past there. He's saying ‘We did this in Amsterdam.’ He is explaining why they did the Bed-In in Amsterdam. Here, they're, you know, adopting a pacifist position, and they’re criticizing what they regarded as kind of the stereotyped forms of protest -- the protest march, the protest speech -- and they wanted a movement that was more innovative and more imaginative in its tactics. As I said, this outraged a lot of people on the left, as well as a lot of people in the mainstream. But I think it did accomplish their main goal. They got worldwide publicity as opponents of the war in Vietnam.

AMY GOODMAN: "Imagine" is a song that has tremendous power through the decades, through the ages. After 9/11, it was reported that Clear Channel had it on a list of songs that would not be allowed to be played on their stations, and that was significant, because Clear Channel owns more than 1,200 radio stations in this country.

JON WIENER: Yeah. Well, he does say, “Imagine no more countries. It isn't hard to do.” And he also says, "Imagine no religion. It's easy if you try." Of course, the Christian right in the United States finds that a completely outrageous statement, and they have been campaigning against that song ever since he recorded it in 1970.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, Jon Wiener, there's "Give Peace a Chance." Talk about the story behind that.

JON WIENER: Well, you know, Lennon wanted to -- basically, Lennon is a musician, a songwriter, a performer. He wanted to write a song for the movement, and he did. It was "Give Peace a Chance." It did become the anthem of the anti-war movement. Half a million people sang "Give Peace a Chance" in a demonstration at the Washington Monument in the fall of 1969. Do we have time to listen to my interview with Pete Seeger, talking about what it was like that day?

PETE SEEGER: Well, in November 1969, I guess I faced the biggest audience I had ever faced in my entire life. Hundreds of thousands, how many, I don't know, but it stretches as far as the eye can see, up the hillside and over the hill, past the Washington Monument. And Brother Kirkpatrick and I were singing together and tried to get them singing with us, but the crowd was too big to get the rhythm. After two songs, I looked over to the chairperson of the day, said, “Okay if we try one more?” and she nodded her head. And I said to Kirk, “Follow me on this.”

He had only heard it once before, but I had, in the back of my mind, I might have to try it. I had only heard the song myself a few days before. And I confess, when I first heard it, I didn't think much of it. I thought, ‘Well, that's kind of a nothing of a song. It doesn't go anyplace, does it?’ I heard a young woman sing it at the peace rally. “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” She gave it a kind of an oom-pa-pa oom-pa-pa waltz, like a German band. I don't know if John Lennon's record had that or not. I never heard his record. As a matter of fact, I’ve hardly ever heard any of his records. I admired the guy, the little I heard. I had never heard this song, except as the young woman sang it to me a few days earlier.

JON WIENER: And did you have the impression that everybody who was there already knew it?

PETE SEEGER: I didn't know if they had ever heard it before, but I decided to try singing it over and over again until they did know it. Well, Kirk and I started singing this, and after about a minute or so, I realized that it was still growing. Sure enough, Peter, Paul and Mary jumped up to our left and started joining in on another microphone and giving us a little more instrumental and harmony background. Couple of more minutes, Mitch Miller hops up on the stage to our right and starts waving his arms. And I realized it was getting better and better, as more and more people were able to latch onto it, because it was so slow.

And then, they started swaying their bodies in time, and banners and flags would sway to the left and right in a big slow ballet. If you can imagine several hundred thousands of people moving their bodies. Parents had their small children on their shoulders. And it was a tremendously moving thing to realize his song was finally getting through, where not a single other song of the day had really gotten people to join in on it.

JON WIENER: Pete, what do you think about the politics of "Give Peace a Chance"?

PETE SEEGER: Well, undoubtedly, some people wanted to say a lot more than that. On the other hand, history gets made when people come to the same conclusion from many different directions. And this song did hit a common denominator. There's no doubt about it.



AMY GOODMAN: That was John Lennon, singing "Give Peace a Chance." Jon Wiener, can you talk about John Lennon in the Beatles, and their political views and how the U.S., how the Nixon administration dealt with them, overall?

JON WIENER: Well, you know, the Beatles -- there was a tension within the Beatles that we only found out about later, where Paul McCartney basically was an entertainer who wanted to sing songs that would delight and thrill people. John Lennon, and also George Harrison, were much more interested in the world and what was going on and how they could be part of what was going on. I mean, it was an exciting time to be young. So, the Beatles struggled with this internal debate they were having.

In 1966, when they came to the United States, at their first press conference, they said, “We hate war. War is wrong. We think about it every day.” They had been advised not to do this by their management. This was something -- taking a political stand like that in the United States at the time was something only for folkies like Joan Baez or Bob Dylan or something like that. Rock groups never said they were against the war in Vietnam, especially in 1964. I think probably most Americans hadn’t even heard of the war in Vietnam. And for the Beatles to say, “We think about it every day,” was a truly remarkable thing. I don't think most people noticed it at the time. But, obviously, they were already wrestling with the issue of what they could do, and especially Lennon, and to a lesser extent Harrison, also.

If you look at Lennon's songs, a lot of them are about what's going on around them. And, you know, they were spokesmen for the counterculture. They were spokesmen for psychedelic drugs. And they were spokesmen for youth rebellion against authority, in general. You know, the most important thing was that their songs were so great. I think that's -- if the songs weren’t so great, we wouldn't be talking about them today. But there was more to the songs. There was an interest in engaging with the political spirit of the times that we don't see very often in the history of pop music.

AMY GOODMAN: Jon Wiener, can you talk about Abbie Hoffman?

JON WIENER: Well, Abbie Hoffman was one of the people that John and Yoko sought out when they arrived in New York in 1971. He was one of people who developed this plan for a national concert tour, where they would try to register young people to vote against the war and vote against Nixon. After Lennon was shot and killed, I interviewed Abbie Hoffman, and I asked him what it was like working with John and Yoko at that time.

ABBIE HOFFMAN: John and Yoko did come and look up myself and Jerry Rubin, and they wanted it known around the New York scene that they had political side to them. They -- before they even got here, they had a lot more political consciousness than just say the bed-ins or other things that they were kind of involved in that might appear a little flaky.

We must have met at least a dozen times, and we started to organize demonstrations at the Republican Convention, which at that time was still in San Diego. And it was -- of course, all of these conversations were monitored by the F.B.I. and God knows who else, you know. And it was these conversations that, number one, forced the convention to move to Miami, and number two, got the immigration service on John Lennon's back. And you know, it's -- I think it's wise to remember that for six years, he was hounded, not just because of some pot possession charge. I mean, there's probably 100-200 people a week that want to come into this country with much more, you know, many more charges, but because that he was both political and was forming alliances with radicals.

He had -- he talked sheer poetry. I mean, you totally hung on every word, and he was extremely dramatic and ran the gambit from, you know, manic excitation to sad depressive, moody states. And he just pulled off one night and just went over to the corner and in three minutes wrote a song, came back and sang it. It was quite a thing to witness.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Abbie Hoffman. Of course, Abbie Hoffman later, himself, committed suicide. Jon Wiener, this is the 25th anniversary of the death of the murder of John Lennon. Any thoughts on that, on his murder?

JON WIENER: Well, you know, the first thing we think of is who gets assassinated in America? It's Martin Luther King, and it's John Lennon. It’s a scary thing about America. And for people who grew up in the ’60s, you know, that day, December 8, 1980, was one of the very worst days, because, you know, the dream really was over at that point. Lennon was a guy who you never knew what he was going to do. He was willing to embarrass himself. He tried out things that often didn't work, but he was always interesting, and you know, we had the feeling that sort of he was part of us, and so, today, we miss his spirit. We miss his adventurousness. We miss his music. And, you know, it's a sad day.

AMY GOODMAN: Jon Wiener, author of Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon F.B.I. Files. You can visit his website at LennonFBIFiles.com or go to our website at DemocracyNow.org. We will link to all. In 1981, Jon Wiener produced a two-hour documentary for Pacifica Radio called John Lennon: The Political and the Personal. Special thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archives.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.

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i just wanted to post a quote made by Malcolm X shortly before his death:

"I did many things as a Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then - like all Muslims - I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years."

think about how that applies to (what passes as) pro-black thought most of the time these days (and the post i made)


okay... now i'm gone.

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ya that really sums it up.

you should use some more hyperbole like "facism" and shit.

when he was alive...

see your brand of negroe is interesting...
you love to talk about the past...
but your scared of the here and now..
you love to say a nigga like me is a conspiracy theorist...
yet niggaz keep dying who are trying to bring the message
your a trained nigga...
the type of nigga who despite us seeing the parallels in the deaths of Malcolm and Marley
will tell us it's not there..
I know how they get down... I know how they think..
ur the type of nigga who is sensational..

remember your words... you were all into that black 'shit'...
and now you feel embaressed about it...
those of us who were and is in the struggle... never had time to feel embaressed cause this was and IS never a GAME.

I'm not here to win a popularity contest...
I could give fuck about sensational, scared, opinionated niggaz...
or those who love King's English niggaz...
not at all... cause none of that shit will save us...
so please... be my guest... brother.. share your OPINIONS
cause everything you said is an opinion...
EVERYTHING. Your opinions were fucked up and off point then... and is now. Fuck a history lesson... go outside... take off the man's jersey and go outside. Join the people you love to sensationalize over.
Re-connect.


Thanks for you input Kap. NOw back to your opinions.

I'M HARRIET TUBMAN... AND YOUR THE NIGGA WHO SAID THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS CANADA.
PEACE.
BROTHER?

Tupac Shakur

and anyone ready to stand up for anything other than pop music and wallowing in their own misery.

Again, this isn't about destroying anyone..
let's just get down for our crown on why we are here...

Tupac & the Cops: Tale of Death & Distrust
By Joel Domhoff, Scott Menscher & Joe Stevens

NEW YORK -- Shortly before midnight on Nov. 30, 1994, rap star Tupac Shakur and three members of his entourage pulled up in a car along glitzy Times Square in the heart of Manhattan. Fresh from a party in Harlem, Shakur fit the image of the glamorized "gangsta rapper" depicted in his songs and movies.

Around his neck hung several gold necklaces. On one finger was a diamond ring. A gold-studded Rolex watch adorned his wrist. At the base of his 5-foot-8-inch, 150-pound muscular frame, hidden beneath the leg of his pants, was a pistol.

Shakur had gone to Times Square to record a song with rapper Little Shawn at Quad Studios. Shakur had a reputation for recording with other artists for free. But that night, short of cash, he agreed to help only after a man called Booker offered the rap star $7,000.

As Shakur stepped to the curb, Times Square's colorful whirl of lights whipped around him. Taxis honked. Voices shouted. His entourage opened the doors to the lobby and strode toward the elevators. Suddenly, three black men approached from behind and ordered Shakur's group to lie on the floor. One of Shakur's associates, "Stretch" Walker, flopped immediately. Shakur hesitated and shots rang out.

In a flash, Shakur lay groaning, his body riddled with bullets: two in the head, two in his groin and one in his hand. Shakur reached for his gun but didn't fire. According to newspaper accounts and interviews with Shakur, the attackers then stripped Shakur of his jewelry and made off with an estimated $40,000 in loot. Shakur, who recovered, called the shooting an ambush with him the target.

But the New York Police Department brushed off the shooting as a simple robbery. After a month of lackadaisical investigation with little cooperation from the victims, the police closed the case. There were no arrests and no serious leads ever pursued.

Less than two years later, on the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur was the target of another ambush, this time along the Las Vegas strip. He and Marion "Suge" Knight, the controversial owner of Death Row records, were driving from a Mike Tyson heavyweight fight to a nightclub when a car pulled alongside and gunmen opened fire. This time, the popular singer and aspiring actor did not recover.

After six days in a coma, Tupac Amaru Shakur, the son of a female Black Panther who named her child after a legendary Inca warrior, died. He was 25 years old.

In the months following Shakur's murder, a new legend began to rise around the handsome rap star. His kerchief-covered head dominated the covers of magazines popular with black youth. His last album -- released posthumously under the pseudonym, Makaveli -- jumped to No. 1 on the Billboard charts in its first week. His last movie role in "Gridlock'd" drew strong reviews for his portrayal of a hapless junkie. "The List" -- The Washington Post's snobbish ranking of who's "in" and who's "out" for 1997 -- put Shakur in the "in" column, opposite the late grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, who fell among the "outs."

But Shakur was not just another pop star who died tragically and young. His fans saw him as a ghetto-born genius whose life and death symbolized the harsh reality of race in today's America.


Cops & Rappers
A three-month investigation by The Consortium also discovered that police nonchalance toward internal gangsta rap violence -- and antagonisms between police and rappers -- contributed to the circumstances surrounding Shakur's death. The New York Police Department appears to have made only a half-hearted attempt to catch the Times Square assailants, despite the fact that an internationally known celebrity had been gunned down in the center of Manhattan.

Police did little to locate and interview independent witnesses. Police also displayed little interest in possible motives for an attempted murder of Shakur. When questioned about the case two years later, NYPD detectives were ill-informed, even about basic details of the 1994 shooting. On police reports, the NYPD listed the stolen items as "assorted bracelets or rings with no value," in contrast to press accounts placing the jewelry's worth at $40,000. Police were not even sure how many times Shakur was shot or how many gunmen there were.

Months after the shooting, as new details appeared in pop music magazines, including Shakur's speculation about who was responsible, NYPD took no steps to reopen the case. In one Vibe interview, Shakur expressed amazement that Craig McKernan, a police detective who had testified against Shakur in a then-ongoing sex-crime case, was one of the first officers on the scene.

"First cop I looked up to see was the cop that took the stand against me in the rape charge," Shakur said. "He had a half-smile on his face, and he could see them looking at my balls. He said, 'What's up, Tupac, how's it hanging'."

The Las Vegas investigation of Shakur's 1996 murder has followed similar patterns, with police always moving a step too slow to take advantage of possible breaks in the case. For instance, Las Vegas police had wanted to interview rapper Yafeu Fula, who was in a car behind the one carrying Shakur when he was shot. Fula saw the killers and offered to help the police identify the gunmen.

Over the next six weeks, Las Vegas police tried to negotiate with lawyers for Death Row records to arrange a time and place for a full interview with Fula. But Fula stood the police up a half dozen times. Yet, instead of taking aggressive action to bring Fula in, the police continued using Death Row lawyers as intermediaries -- despite suspicions that Death Row and its alleged ties to organized crime might have been a factor in Shakur's murder.

In November 1996, after another Mike Tyson fight, this time in New Jersey, Fula was shot and killed. The police had lost their best potential witness. "We're at a standstill," Las Vegas police Sgt. Kevin Manning told The Consortium. "Our last good hope was killed in New Jersey. He was our number one witness."


'Open Season'?
Given this bumbling behavior, some of Shakur's friends blame the police of creating something like an "open season" on Shakur. Shakur's lawyer, Michael Warren, said Shakur himself saw the police reaction to the 1994 shooting in Times Square as "a real conspiracy" against him or at least an invitation to other assassination attempts.

For its part, NYPD denied any prejudice. Police insisted that they treated the Shakur-Times Square shooting as a "high-priority" case, throwing significant manpower at the case for the first two weeks. Their professionalism was not affected, they said, by Shakur's reputation as a "gangsta rapper" who sang on one of his albums, "fuck the coppers." The NYPD blamed the dead-end investigation on the failure of Shakur and his friends to cooperate.

"Any detective is basically only as good as the complainants," explained NYPD robbery detective Joseph Babnik, who was in charge of the case. "Besides the initial statement Tupac gave us in the bus , we had nothing." As Shakur was being rushed to the hospital, he managed to describe the clothes worn by the assailants, but he did not give names or other details. Distrustful of police, Shakur and his friends volunteered little more. "I did the best I could, considering the circumstances," insisted detective Babnik.

Still, the police did little to investigate the growing violence that was enveloping the world of rap -- and closing in on the talented rapper, Tupac Shakur. The unspoken police attitude seemed to be that it wasn't so bad if these troublemakers took care of each other.

That cynical view -- and black-youth distrust of the police -- were two factors that led a frightened, fatalistic Shakur to conclude in chilling lyrics that his days were numbered. In one of his last music videos, he posed in heaven surrounded by dead black musicians. He expected a violent end, almost from the beginning.


Shining Serpent
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, named after the words "shining serpent" in the Inca language. Tupac Amaru also was the name of an Inca leader who was murdered by the Spanish conquistadors in the 18th Century, a legendary figure who inspires Peruvian revolutionaries to this day. The guerrillas who stormed the Japanese Embassy in Lima on Dec. 17, 1996, called themselves the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

The choice of her son's name was a political statement, too, by Shakur's mother, Afeni, a former Black Panther once jailed -- and later acquitted -- for conspiring to blow up several buildings in New York City. Afeni had two different lovers when she became pregnant with Shakur and insisted that she didn't know who was the father. During her pregnancy, Afeni spent time in prison on the conspiracy charge. But she held extraordinary hope for her unborn son. "This is my prince," she told friends. "He is going to save the black nation."

After winning acquittal on the bombing charges -- acting as her own attorney -- Afeni continued her struggle for social justice, as a paralegal representing tenants in rental cases. According to a Vanity Fair profile of Shakur, his mother would punish her bright young son by forcing him to read The New York Times front to back. She also enrolled him in a Harlem theater group where he excelled as a 13-year-old actor in A Raisin in the Sun.

But poverty dogged the family. After Afeni gave birth to a second child (a girl) and after the imprisonment of Shakur's step-father, Mutulu Shakur, for a armored-car robbery, the family landed in a homeless shelter in the Bronx.

In 1986, hoping to find work, Afeni moved the family to Baltimore. She placed Shakur in the Baltimore School for the Arts where he showed a natural talent in ballet and acting. But two years later, the family moved again. "Leaving that school affected me so much," Shakur later told Vibe. "I see that as the point where I got off track."

The family settled in Marin City, California, a poverty-stricken neighborhood near Oakland. There, the troubles only worsened. Afeni drifted into a crack addiction and lost hope. At 17, Tupac moved out of the house and soon was hustling drugs. By then, a near-decade of Reaganomics had alienated many urban black youths. Their fury began pouring out in nihilistic rap lyrics.

In 1988, rapper Ice-T released "Cop Killer," a heavy-metal song about a young black man repeatedly pulled over and beaten by police until his anger drove him to murder the next police officer who stopped him. President George Bush denounced the song as "sick." Soon, this new rap genre had its own name: "gangsta rap." And it was raking in millions of dollars.


Life Imitating Art
The gangsta rap genre and its money appealed to Shakur as the strong-headed youngster honed his skills as a dancer and rapper. "He was a little bit crazy, a little bit crazier than the rest of us," said childhood friend Danyel Smith. "But he had a way about him."

In 1990, Shakur hooked up with Digital Underground, a modestly successful hip-hop music group. But his career took off a year later, when he signed with Interscope Records and released his first solo album, 2Pacalypse Now. Shakur used violent and often graphic language to describe the frustrations of life in the ghetto. But the album was a commercial hit, generating more than $100 million in record sales. It won an audience among many young whites and garnered a Grammy nomination for the single, "Dear Moma," a touching tribute to his crack-addicted mother.

Shakur's good looks and charisma brought him opportunities in Hollywood, too. In his first film, Juice, Shakur played a chilling inner-city youth lured by the power of murder. In July 1993, he starred with Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice, a John Singleton film about a young black man undergoing a personal transformation. In 1994, in the movie Above The Rim, Shakur was a gangster bullying young playground basketball stars.

But Shakur's real life often imitated his art. In 1992, police departments all over the country were outraged when a 19-year-old shot and killed a Texas state trooper while the teen-ager played Shakur's 2Pacalypse Now album on his tape deck. Vice President Dan Quayle declared that the album "has no place in our society."

Danyel Smith recalled Shakur telling her about a run-in with Oakland police over a jaywalking incident. "You're not fucking with me because I jaywalked," Shakur yelled at the police. "You're pissed with me because I'm with a white girl." The encounter allegedly ended with the police spitting on him, Smith said.

Violence and notoriety had become part of the price for Shakur's riches and fame.

Tupac & the Cops: Death & Distrust, Part II
By Joel Domhoff, Scott Menscher & Joe Stevens

NEW YORK -- By 1992, the career of 20-year-old rapper Tupac Shakur was zooming upward into the stratosphere of entertainment mega-deals and stardom. But Shakur's personal life was spinning out of control.

"He was never one to back down," recalled childhood friend Danyel Smith. "Even with people he should be afraid of. And he's stupid, because he should have done so. He didn't have that conversation with himself, at least in terms of back off."

"He wasn't anyone different than a lot of clients of his age," observed Shakur's lawyer Michael Warren. "He had his own problems, which were unique to his earlier childhood experiences."

Shakur's childhood as the son of a single mother who first battled the System as a Black Panther activist -- and who later battled poverty and a crack addiction gave Shakur a politicized viewpoint hardened by a life on the lower rungs of American society. He saw the police as his enemy, but knew, too, that he had other enemies in the ghetto.

The violence all around him was brought home by his appearance at a Marin City, Ca., community festival in August 1992. Shakur was back in the poverty-stricken neighborhood where he had spent his teen-age years. Typically, he was flaunting his new-found wealth by arriving at the wheel of a sparkling Jeep.

But Shakur was surprised by the hostility of some of the young blacks who confronted him with unwelcome shouts. Then, they began battering his car and throwing punches at him. A gun slipped out of Shakur's belt and skittered across the road. Someone picked it up and a bullet discharged. It hit six-year-old Qa'id Walker Teal in the head and killed him. According to friends, Shakur was inconsolable about the boy's death, which he memorialized in one of his rap songs, Something 2 Die 4.

Despite his grief, Shakur continued to court trouble. In March 1993, he scuffled with a Hollywood limo driver who accused Shakur of doing drugs in the car. Shakur was arrested, but the charges were dropped. A month later, Shakur was arrested in another incident, for swinging a baseball bat at a local rapper during a concert. This time, Shakur went to jail for 10 days.

In October 1993, Shakur found himself in another shooting incident with two off-duty Atlanta police officers after they stopped and accosted Shakur's entourage. But a hearing found the officers primarily at fault and one of them was charged with aggravated assault. No charges were filed against Shakur.

Less than three weeks after that confrontation, Shakur met a woman in a New York City dance club and had sex with her off the dance floor. Later, she visited Shakur's suite, where she was set upon by several of Shakur's friends. Shakur said he was making phone calls in an adjoining room at the time. But the woman filed rape charges and included Shakur in her complaint.

As Shakur's troubles deepened, the movie studios grew nervous over the adverse publicity. Columbia Pictures forced director John Singleton to drop Shakur from the cast of "Higher Learning." Shakur was also expelled from the set of "Menace II Society," leading him to punch director Allen Hughes. Shakur landed in jail again, for 15 days.

In February 1994 at a music awards show, Shakur made more enemies when he and Death Row records owner Marion "Suge" Knight scuffled with Sean "Puffy" Combs, chief executive officer of Bad Boy Entertainment, and rapper Notorious B.I.G. In one song, Shakur had boasted about sleeping with B.I.G.'s wife. Shakur seemed on the way to becoming the real-life "gangsta" that his music glorified.

On Nov. 30, 1994, Shakur was back in New York City for the sex-abuse trial. Earlier that day, the jury had gotten the case and that night Shakur received an offer to join in a rap recording for $7,000. He needed the money and headed with three friends to Quad Studios in Times Square.


Times Square Mystery
After Shakur and his entourage entered the building's lobby, they were attacked from behind. Shakur was shot five times and robbed. After the attackers fled, Shakur and his friends struggled into the elevator and ascended to the ninth floor. A bloodied Shakur staggered into Quad Studios and was surprised to find rival rappers Combs and B.I.G. there.

Though Shakur was badly wounded, "nobody approached me," Shakur later told Vibe magazine. "I noticed that nobody would look at me. ...Puffy was standing back, too." Because of other odd behavior that night, Shakur also suspected that one of his three companions, "Stretch" Walker, might have betrayed him.

Shakur was convinced that he had been the target of a hit, not a robbery. When an ambulance was rushing him to Bellevue Hospital, he told the attendants, "He wasn't going to rob me, he just wanted to shoot me. I know what I saw, and I saw it in his eyes."

Shakur's lawyer, Michael Warren, told The Consortium that Shakur believed that the conspiracy also might have involved police officers who considered him a black troublemaker. Shakur's suspicions deepened when he discovered that a police detective, Craig McKernan, who had testified against him in the sex-crime case, was at the scene of the shooting. Shakur claimed that McKernan taunted him about the bullet wounds to the groin.

According to Warren, McKernan was in a police car outside the studio before Shakur was shot. McKernan "was the first officer on the scene," Warren said. "The question I have is why he didn't see leave. He was there before the shooting took place. Sitting there in the squad car. No pursuit to apprehend them. Why?"

Warren advised Shakur not to cooperate with the police. "They have an adversarial relationship with people of color," Warren said. "I urged him not to go."

New York police detective Joseph Babnik, who directed the 1994 investigation, confirmed that McKernan was at the building, but claimed that McKernan arrived after the shooting. Babnik also rejected any suggestion of police negligence or complicity. "I don't care what your religious or political views are or your color," Babnik said. "To me, you're a victim, and I have your case."

But Babnik said lack of cooperation crippled his investigation from the start. "What we did with this case is what we do in any case we have problems where the complainant doesn't want to speak with us," the detective said. "We do whatever we can. We do the investigation, and we go as far as we can with it without their help. But you always reach that point where you need the complainants' help -- whether it's to view photos, to view line-ups -- because in a case like this, you'd have to do one of those."


'Tupac Tips'
Still, NYPD never independently pursued the theory that Shakur might have been lured to Quad Studios as part of a murder plot. According to a review of police records by The Consortium, detectives neglected to pursue any motive other than robbery. At the Midtown North precinct, Babnik did set aside a large black notebook for "Tupac Tips," but only two were volunteered and neither checked out. After a month with no progress, the case was closed.

Meanwhile, a day after the shooting, while he lay in Bellevue receiving treatment for his wounds, Shakur was convicted and sentenced to four-and-a-half years for his part in the sexual assault. While in jail in April 1995, Shakur detailed his account of the shooting for Vibe.

Babnik said he did not see the Vibe story and didn't believe it would have changed much. "Those articles are allowed to deal with allegations," Babnik explained. "I can only deal with fact."

But another development with a possible connection to the Times Square shooting was the execution-style murder of Shakur's suspect companion, "Stretch" Walker in Queens on Nov. 30, 1995, exactly one year after the Times Square ambush. Babnik said he talked to the detective in charge of that case, but concluded that the only connection between the two cases was that rappers were involved.

To some civil rights activists, however, the NYPD's reaction to the Times Square shooting of Shakur and the disinterest in later clues were disturbing. "They have an obligation to reopen a case if a clue comes up," complained Fred Brewington, a prominent New York City civil rights attorney. "This is untracked bureaucratic negligence."

Brewington believed the police were little concerned about solving the Times Square case because of the race and history of the victim. "To put the Tupac investigation into perspective, suppose a cop got shot and no one talked. They'd surely pressure people to talk. Some investigations have priority. Tupac was a young black man that was not respected by the cops, so they think, 'Who cares if he's dealt with? He deserves it.'"

After serving nine months, Shakur left prison and resumed his musical career. He signed with Suge Knight's Death Row records, placing him at the center of the West Coast rap industry, with Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Snoop Doggy Dogg. Shakur also continued his fast-pace life and a public anticipation of an early death.

In a music video for one song, he performed a scene set in heaven with famous dead black musicians. But Shakur's real-life actions were less fatalistic. He surrounded himself with beefy bodyguards, carried a walkie-talkie and often wore a bullet-proof vest. He knew he was in danger, but didn't know whom to trust.

On Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur attended a Mike Tyson fight at the plush MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Tyson quickly finished off his little-known opponent, Bruce Seldon. But as Shakur was leaving that fight, a Crip gang member taunted the rap star. Suge Knight and other Shakur associates, who were close to the rival Bloods gang, retaliated by beating the heckler.

Shakur was unsettled by the altercation, but agreed to accompany Knight to his night club, called Club 662. Shortly after 11 p.m., Shakur climbed into Knight's black BMW 750 with Knight behind the wheel. Knight spun the car toward Club 662. The Las Vegas strip was teeming with excitement and traffic. Others from Knight's entourage followed.

Only a few blocks from Club 662, Knight's BMW stopped at a red light. A white Cadillac with California license plates pulled up along Shakur's side of the car. Without warning, four gunmen opened fire through the Cadillac's windows. The bullets riddled Knight's car. Four hit Shakur in the chest. Knight was unhurt. The Cadillac sped off, its tires squeeling. Shakur was rushed to yet another hospital. There, as Shakur had foreseen in another rap number, All Eyez on Me, surgeons labored over his body. But the damage was too severe. Six days later, with his mother, Afeni, at his side, Tupac Shakur died.

Like the New York police before them, Las Vegas police struggled to get clear leads from the hostile rap community. Knight bluntly told ABC News that he would not cooperate with the police. A Las Vegas detective did contact NYPD about the Times Square case. But NYPD had little information to share, and the Las Vegas police concluded there was no connection between the two shootings.

In the ensuing months, Afeni Shakur discovered that Death Row records controlled nearly all of Shakur's property, including valuable master recordings of his songs. She charged publicly that Death Row had cheated her dead son. Federal investigators also began probing whether Knight's Death Row records was being run as a criminal enterprise, with alleged links to street gangs, money-laundering, extortion and gun-running.

Knight, who went back to jail in Los Angeles for violating a 1992 assault probation, rejected the allegations. "A black brother from Compton creates a company that helps people in the ghetto, so what does the government do?" Knight asked in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "They try to bring him down."

Amid the death and distrust, the murder of Tupac Shakur -- and his 1994 ambush in Times Square -- remain unsolved mysteries.

(c) Copyright 1997

so they should be aware of his activist roots..

Most people forget Tupac was an activist before he became a martyr emcee

and have no idea how Hoover got down either...
it amazes me..
in a country where they lynched black babies for even calling a white woman 'baby'... why wouldn't they kill a nigga who could organize the masses thru words...

Malcolm X never shot anybody
Neither did MLK...
of Bobby K...

yet they killed them... and why?

The Problack era of hiphop is a very interesting footnote in our rich musical history... cause this wasn't coming from the lips of battered old men... but from the mouths of babies. Even if they weren't terribly accurate with what they were saying... they were saying something. They were learning and challenging themselves to learn more. Sure... people didn't know XClan was doing coke...
and still dropping knowledge about what they could.
But that movement wasn't about being a perfected man... no matter how much we think it was...
it was about pushing the message... saying "something is wrong here"
and finally having a unmuffled voice in a system that has killed anything we ever had.

ten niggaz can congregate on the corners right now.. .
and do nothing.. just build.. and the cops will come and break that up. This same plan was on the plantation.

Why is this post relevant? Cause we have a lot of dumb niggaz on this board.. .and instead of bitching about them... it's time we up the ante and educate them...

sure it may hurt to read (that's my dog who wrote that... haha... some real shit)... but if I turn the light on...

>ten niggaz can congregate on the corners right now.. .
>and do nothing.. just build.. and the cops will come and break
>that up. This same plan was on the plantation.
>
>Why is this post relevant? Cause we have a lot of dumb niggaz
>on this board.. .and instead of bitching about them... it's
>time we up the ante and educate them...
>
>sure it may hurt to read (that's my dog who wrote that...
>haha... some real shit)... but if I turn the light on...
>

blindly.
but i don't think he regreted what he thought the noi stood for on a level.
he was just sincere in it and a lot of the members (including elijah muhammed) weren't.

it's like the problack era of hip hop.

do we discount the whole era because many of them failed to be saviors
we can't discount the influence the noi had on black people in america
because it brought about certain minds.
so we certainly can't discount the impact that that era of hip hop had
on our people.

as a member of the nation of gods and earths there are things
i question of the philosiphy as it is written but the main goals and philosophies i can most certainly clap to. but i could never be embarassed of any affiliation to it. no what i do is build on top of that.
to be embarassed of that era of hip hop i wouldn't be rhyming now.

i know now that i didn't know...'cause i know now. it helped to bring me where i am today. i'm still earth. am i ashamed of the wutang clan
when they rhyme about smoking dust and everything else...no. 'cause they're human beings. even our favorite freedom fighters, they all had flaws.

what we're supposed to do is take the best part.

the problem is with the music is that they have completely taken the best part of hip hop (it's ability to uplift) in the u.s. and in a huge way taken away the voice of young black people in america and in a big way crippled us culturally. our culture is now their culture is now our culture and the only distinction is our slang and where we live. the principles of greed and lust and all of the rest of american culture is the only thing prevailing in hip hop right now.

right now we are literally forced to disengage ourselves from any real happenings in the world through our own music. our own images are show to us doing unspeakable things but it's in a way that we're supposed to accept it as norm. this is what we're supposed to aspire to. rims and bitches. oh yea and grills and diamonds and so on and so forth.

the crack rap now isn't like C.R.E.A.M. it's more like a celebration of the crack game. like this is what makes it! and crack isn't even what's popping in the drug game right now but it WILL get a nigga years still. and on top of that wutang was such a swerve from brand nubian. they were Gods but they were all on some next shit that Gods are essentially not supposed to be on.

do i become embarassed then of the nation of gods and earths? or father allah? these are individuals who aren't me. they hold a philosophy similar to my own and the goals are clear. i can justify my own affiliation with what they 'promote' through my own ways and actions and what i know the nation of gods and earths is supposed to stand for. or i can be embarrassed that not everyone understands 120 and it gets misinterpreted by wanna be pimps and earthy chicks.
as long as i'm still doing my part like i was doing through every 'phase' of my life. still the main thing is freedom justice and equality. still the main thing is peace. the main thing is family. and so on and so forth.

i don't know i started rambling a while back in this reply. but i just feel like there are mad forces working against us and we can't keep
pretending they're not. and we can't stop our cause because some people who were down with the same cause slightly differed in opinion (or didn't care at all) it's not about them it's about you (general).

-

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>i don't know i started rambling a while back in this reply. but i just feel like there are mad forces working against us and we can't keep
pretending they're not. and we can't stop our cause because some people who were down with the same cause slightly differed in opinion (or didn't care at all) it's not about them it's about you (general).<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

turning the other cheek
looking the other way
or not noticing the pink elephant in the room.

excellent.

from after his haj? because i have and i stand behind what i said.
if you understand pan africanism and his stance behind that you wouldn't say i left anything out. you're right it's not about color it's about racism.

sha mecca = rosie ruiz

true he wanted to expand the civil rights movement to be recognized as part of a global issue of human rights. true.

civil rights.. .
to first questioning the UN and addressing Human Rights.
That was one of the first statements he gave upon returning with his new ideology...

and also notice that he spoke of himself as 'a Muslim' IN THE PAST TENSE



what did he mean by that?


(i'm seriously asking that question, by the way... these gremlins really aren't into real discussion and exchange of ideas. they're more interested in firing off at bogeymen, whether they be The Whyte Man or just House Niggaz like myself)

haha.. wow.
Try reading the articles I WROTE on MY POST... and then get back at us.

You wanna discuss some basic Malcolm X shit?
Nigga I read his autogiography 7 times in college. Your buggin.
Your wayyyy behind. However I would expect you to quote Malcolm or Booker T...
be that.
I'll be Mumia/Kwame Nkrumah.


Oh and I thought you were done with us lowlifes?
Lol.
Also... try commenting on the post.
Not jugbands... or Malcolm. The post.

being full of 85ers who don't garner any real free thought
he was one of them
he was sharper than most of them but he at one time
was just like them in that he took elijah muhammed to be god
but he learned later that no one man can be god above everybody.

he felt as though there should be a separation between religion
as it pertained to the struggle because people's ideas of god are
always going to differ but you can't have one group like the noi
save everyone because, as he said, its zombies following one man's
ideas. no liberation struggle will survive like that because not
everyone believes in god the same way.

from my understanding of reading his final meetings for his pan-african org(the name of the pan african group escapes me right now) it seemed to me that he was still 'muslim' but just not a black muslim (n.o.i.). he announced his own mosque separate from the n.o.i.
(that would also be completely separate from the pan african org)

also he was cool with father allah. even after father allah left malcolm's mosque. i'm sure they built on many things before he died.
3 years later father allah was dead.

so his calling himself 'muslim' in the past tense could also be a sign of an enlightening he had too. they were on to something the cia doesn't want the masses to get a hold of correctly.

i hold them directly responsible for releasing 120 and the supreme math and alphabet on line. while banning it from prisons as 'gang' siht.
it's all in the tradition of creating chaos among us.

certain shit bout music..
you know he aint gonna know the real on that.

>from my understanding of reading his final meetings for his
>pan-african org(the name of the pan african group escapes me
>right now) it seemed to me that he was still 'muslim' but just
>not a black muslim (n.o.i.). he announced his own mosque
>separate from the n.o.i.
>(that would also be completely separate from the pan african
>org)

this is very important to a point that i would like to discuss further, but not here.

Talk about saving face.
lol.

this is exactly why i'm not gonna even *attempt* to have any valid discussion in this post. because you guys make it pretty clear that youare not even gonna *pretend* to be objective in any way. anything i say is instant fodder for ridicule with y'all... hell, if i turned around now and started arguing in favor of the points in this posts, you guys would probably clown that, too. there's really no need for me to waste my time in exchanges where the standard retort is "you are a fucking idiot."

what's more interesting is how cowardly some of you are... yesterday, i came into this post (against my better judgment) because it was quite clear that it was at least partially thrown up as a challenge to me. when i came in here and tried to question some of the logical foundation of the post, the response i got was "get out of here, leave our post, you had your chance to talk in your post... 'street niggaz' are talking... no Unca Toms allowed!"

fine.. y'all want to have your private little coffee-klatsch where you could share conspiracy theories... i'll leave you to it; obviously it's got nothing to do with me.

i come back to the post today and my name is all over the place, with people singing "ding dong the witch is dead" and shit!

it's funny to me... it's kinda... bitchmade, i guess, the way that my absence from the post was requested just so y'all could talk about me when i'm not there to defend myself.

(that IS, of course, the NOI's patented style of discourse, so i can't say i'm surprised)

*shrug* i dunno... if this is what makes you guys feel good, go ahead and do you.

and Aqua... look, if you want to insult me, be a man and just call me a motherfucker or something. all that "AF is a good brother" shit... save it, dude. i don't need your backhanded compliments.

is useless..
you said all we needed to see... it's not about YoU or your opinions... you are a good brother... a good confused negroe...
Im saying... just cause a slave is afraid to run doesn't mean he's foul...
period.
If you wanna discuss the contents of this post... let's get down...
but this aint your ship potnah.

there is mad content in this post... and yet you thought you were coming in here to school us? Yo.. we don't respect your movement.. .understand that... you have been loud and clear about your stance... and it's wack. I'm sayin... you gave your opinion, now we giving ours... what was your point in coming... no one asked you. Your better judgement? Haa..unreal. You can dip whenever you need to, we'll be fine. Trust.

and coming in my post yelling 'Conspiracy' to everything isn't a good look. Especially after cats done plucked that card.

i came in here yesterday and you asked me, repeatedly, to leave.

is that a lie?

I said you were free to go whenever you felt like it...
I mean... I can only speak for me.

I read the exchanges and added on, no conspiracy to talk behind your back player, nothing I've said has not been said to you directly.

namean.
Again, you don't have to explain anything to that cat..
he's just another poster and nothing more.

and the Letter "L"...

get at me!

you will.

come back in a couple months 'B

I mean don't get me wrong...
again... Kap is a good brother...
just off point.
Severely. So that changes the game.
Not to mention a self appointed voice.
No one placed that nigga there... that's up to him and the cronies.
haha... time for that nonsense of disrespecting our culture to change.
Criticizing? Sure. Cooning? Gotsta go.

but Explizit was a genius for that one...

LOL!

I had to do it. Dude was getting on my nerves talking about no art in this music. shit I guess he never heard jazz before.

lol.

Mr. "I Visited Ghana for Two Weeks and That Makes Me an Expert on Nigerian Music" himself!


LOL

this is rich!

AGAIN NIGGA STOP LYING...
a Confused nigga like you I question your logic on everything.

Like Lying... you don't know me potnah... hahahaha.. .
and we sure as hell know your ass...
and YES... I question your knowledge on everything cause judging from all your posts...
even when you have facts, you don't have enough nigga in you to know better.
You might be from Africa... but you must be chillin with them in Demoines Iowa or some shit... hahaha...
reniggerize your self and holla back at US black folks.
When your not being insecured and ashamed.
Peace.

leave already gotdamnit

the 'fuck you's or 'go home'...
it's as dumb as 'the courtesy of the red, white, and blue' or "iraq and roll' ... haha.. dumb mfs.

Here I posted all this information... and that's all they could say?
lol.

Whatever is hot at the moment it's obvious that is what dude is on...

the anti-art shit etc., etc., how you gone have a Malcolm quote that speaks to "blind" alligience when you are the proverbial moth seeking the flame, just looking to be down with whatever is hot at the moment...

You sir are the definition of a bitchmade nigga...*closes eyes and wishes this bitch nigga away*

so for the few who are... we have to call this shit out.
White folks aint used to us holding community the way we do...
so to them it's all a shock. "what, there is some critical thought... that can't be... I'm watching a Weezy video right now that says otherwise" or what have you. I'll be damned if a mufucka is going to say black people need to make formula music... that we shouldn't concern ourselves with art or an artistic approach. I mean yo...
is this the nonsense they leaving for our babies?
They embaressed about the so called problack era?
About our art.
It's the ultimate in skirt moves.
Crazy dissapointed in that cat.
He's a good brother at heart...
but ya know... I'm sure Chicken George was too.

again, you ain't even really got to get that deep at all.

The pont of TV is advertising revenue. Same with radio. If marketers have figured out what shit works to get the public out and buying shit thru 30-second commercials, how the hell is it not possible that people can/will be trained thru songs/tv shows/movies?

I think america sells the populace the individualism sooo hard, that many mufuckas forget basic concept of human nature - people become what they see, often.

>again, you ain't even really got to get that deep at all.

but you do 'cause it is.

>The pont of TV is advertising revenue. Same with radio. If
>marketers have figured out what shit works to get the public
>out and buying shit thru 30-second commercials, how the hell
>is it not possible that people can/will be trained thru
>songs/tv shows/movies?
>
>I think america sells the populace the individualism sooo
>hard, that many mufuckas forget basic concept of human nature
>- people become what they see, often.

yep.

unfortunately, this is too deep for even the most intellectual negroid okp...im @ work so i'm gonna have 2 get all up in this later on 2night though...

but i will say this: agree or disagree with this "theory", you've got to be a brain-dead egg plant not to see that SOMETHING went awry within hip hop somewhere around the early-mid 90's...and i refuse to believe it was just the "climate of hip hop changing"...

Exactly.
And when I bring up the pain we went thru as a people...
'others' wanna discuss jug music.
When I wanna sit down and discuss the economics of our community.
'others' will say I'm crazy.
When I wanna discuss why are leaders, prophets are being killed...
'others' will say they weren't prophets... just people.
Then turn around and sell me some punk with long hair and a softspot for dudes as my saviour.
Yessir... same as it ever was.
Whether the plantation or the hood... they don't want you thinking critically about your art, the state of our existence, our real history or our real future.

.

WWW.TYPEILLYPRESS.COM <-- buy product
http://blog.myspace.com/mtorez <--- recent exploits

<--- SOUTHSIDE NEFERTITI # 3
art by PENCILISM (ye'en ready!)

-

after all the information I posted...
from everything from Zappa to Lennon to Marley..
that's his response?
Lol. Unreal.

Keep in mind Rock music is black music...
but everyone used it to express the ills of society and the chance of alternate thought.
If they did it with Rock, they definitely did it to Hiphop.

FBI Rock Criticism

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1971, the FBI began a campaign of harrassment against John Lennon which included wiretapping, surveillance, and orders for him to leave the United States due mainly to President Richard Nixon's fear that Lennon's political activism may prevent Nixon's re-election. The excellent book "Come Together: John Lennon in His Time" by Jon Wiener chronicles Lennon's political activism and his harrassment by the US government. Dr. Wiener has kindly allowed Bagism to re-publish the introductory chapter.

Buried deep in the twenty-six pounds of files the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Immigration and Naturalization Service gathered on John Lennon, there is a report to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover describing John's 1971 appearance in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at an antiwar rally. The FBI informers who watched him knew what no one else in the audience did: John considered his appearance at the rally a trial run for a national anti-Nixon tour, on which he would bring rock and roll together with radical politics in a dozen cities. He had been talking about ending the tour in August 1972 at a giant protest rally and counterculture festival outside the Republican national convention, where Richard Nixon would be renominated.

The undercover source began his report by explaining, "Lennon formerly with group known as the Beatles." You had to begin at the beginning with Mr. Hoover. "Source advised Lennon prior to rally composed song entitled, 'John Sinclair,' which song Lennon sang at the rally. Source advised this song was composed by Lennon especially for this event." Informers typically exaggerate their own value to their employers. "Source" here was "advised" the same way fifteen thousand other people in the audience were, by Lennon's announcement onstage.

The Reagan administration refused to release the rest of this report in April 1981. The FBI cited its authority under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold "information which is currently and properly classified ...in the interest of the national defense or foreign policy." I filed an administrative appeal. In January 1983 the Justice Department Review Committee declassified the FBI report on the John Sinclair concert, and the assistant attorney general for legal policy released eight more pages of it.

The portion that had been withheld "in the interest of national defense or foreign policy" began with a complete set of the lyrics to the song "John Sinclair." They had been classified "confidential" by the FBI since 1971, even though they were printed on the back cover of John's 1972 album, Some Time in New York City: "Was he jailed for what he done / Or representing everyone?" (Sinclair had been jailed on a Marijuana charge.) Copies had been forwarded to the FBI offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Perhaps the FBI thought that John planned to bring a tour to these cities. Along with the lyrics sheet, the FBI sent a report from its files on the performance itself: John's wife Yoko Ono "can't even remain on key"; John's "John Sinclair" "probably will become a million seller...but it is lacking Lennon's usual standards."

Here was FBI rock criticism: J. Edgar Hoover's middle-aged men in dark suits trying to figure out whether John Lennon would succeed in bringing rock and revolution together. No other rock star aroused the government's fears this way. No other rock star was ordered deported, as John was, in a government effort to prevent a concert tour.

Was the FBI justified in regarding John Lennon as a significant political force? Or was it only acting out Nixon's paranoia, his desire to remove every obstacle to his own reelection, no matter how insignificant?

The experiences of anger and exaltation that rock music provided for countless young people were not in themselves political experiences. Lennon knew that. He also knew that rock could become a potent political force when it was linked to real political organizing--when, for example, it brought young people together to protest the Vietnam war. In 1971 and 1972 he made a commitment to test this political power. The twenty-six pounds of files reveal the government's commitment to stop him.

John's appearance in Ann Arbor was his first concert in the United States since the Beatles' 1966 tour. He shared the stage with the most prominent members of the "Chicago Seven," who had led the antiwar protests outside the Democratic national convention in 1968: Jerry Rubin, founder of the Yippies, Bobby Seale, chairman of the Black Panther Party; Dave Dellinger, the veteran pacifist; and Rennie Davis, the New Left's best organizer. Stevie Wonder made a surprise appearance. All of them called for the release from prison of John Sinclair, a Michigan activist. Sinclair had led the effort to make rock music the bridge between the antiwar movement and the counterculture, and between black and white youth. He had already served two years of a ten-year sentence for selling two joints of marijuana to an undercover agent.

On the proposed tour Lennon and his friends planned to raise money to revive local New Left organizing projects and to urge young people to come to the "political Woodstock" outside the Republican national convention in August. John had been talking to Bob Dylan, trying to get him to join the tour. None of these plans had been made public.

Fifteen thousand people cheered in Ann Arbor's Crisler Arena as John and Yoko finally took the stage at three a.m. "We came here to show and to say to all of you that apathy isn't it, that we can do something," John said. "Okay, so flower power didn't work. So what. We start again." More cheering. Then he sang his song: "John Sinclair."

John's appearance at the Free John Sinclair rally marked the culmination of a personal, political, and artistic transformation that had begun much earlier. He had taken his first steps toward radical politics in 1966, when he defied Beatles manager Brian Epstein and publicly denounced the Vietnam war. After that, he went through several phases in an effort to link pop and politics:

Rock against revolution: In 1968 John argued that the path to liberation lay through psychedelic drugs and meditation rather than through radical politics--that genuine liberation was personal rather than political. He expressed himself in rock and roll, in the song that began "You say you want to a revolution."

Avant-garde peacenik: After John got together with Yoko in 1968, he realized that to transform himself he needed to join in transforming the world. With this discovery he took on the project of sixties radicalism as his own: a simultaneous struggle for personal and political liberation. With the 1969 "bed-ins for peace" John and Yoko launched a bold campaign of New Left media politics. They staged pop events, seeking to convey a radical message through the establishment media, to use them to undermine the system of which they were a part.

Personal/political artist: Moving to the left in 1970, John began working as an artist to discover and expose the social roots of his personal suffering, to make music that revealed the painful and bitter truth about his life as a "working-class hero."

Songwriter for the movement: In New York in 1971 and 1972 John eagerly joined the struggles against war, racism, and sexism, and wrote what he called "front-page songs" to spread the word. He was taking up the topical songwriting that Bob Dylan and even Phil Ochs had given up. The album he recorded during this period, Some Time in New York City, was denounced by critics and ignored by fans.

Defeated radical: The Nixon administration tried to deport John because of his political activities. In the ensuing three-year legal battle he lost his artistic vision and energy, his relationship with Yoko disintegrated, and he gave up his radical politics. In this period Lennon became a defeated activist, an artist in decline, an aging superstar.

Feminist father: John could not rest with this betrayal of the most active and creative period of his life. He worked his way back to Yoko and to feminism, a strand of sixties radicalism that had grown in the seventies. With Double Fantasy John linked pop and politics once again, now as the feminist househusband and exemplary father.

Those who find satisfaction in squalid "revelations" about Lennon's life face a problem: John revealed his own weaknesses and failings ruthlessly. He spoke publicly about his heroin use and his drunkenness, and about the feelings of envy and bitterness that intermittently overwhelmed him. He also spoke publicly about his dream of peace and love. But it wasn't his dream that made him a hero; it was his struggle to expose and overcome his anger, misery, and pain.

John's growing self-consciousness in the late sixties was part of a wider cultural phenomenon in which rock critics and antiwar writers began to think seriously about the relationship between the counterculture and the antiwar movement, began to examine the political status of rock music and the cultural dimension of New Left politics. When John Lennon released a new record, it wasn't simply consumed by a passive audience; when he announced a new political project, it wasn't simply observed. People argued about his projects.

His openness to new ideas, his eagerness to try new things and take risks, his willingness to appear foolish, made him an appealing person, especially in contrast to most superstars, who never strayed from their media images. But John also posed a problem for his fans. Often it was hard to decide whether to be embarrassed by him or proud of him. He won both enthusiasm and ridicule. Writers filled the underground and alternative press and the rock magazines with these arguments. This growing self-consciousness of a new generation must also be examined and understood in order to understand Lennon's significance.

John was not the only figure to receive this scrutiny, and he knew it. The counterculture and the antiwar movement constantly measured him against two others: Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger. John regularly glanced over his shoulder at their projects. Sometimes he tried to top them, sometimes he challenged one or the other with a radical change in direction. They did the same to him. At a few rare moments the work of all three converged. To understand Lennon one must also understand the achievements and limitations of Dylan and Jagger.

The phases of Lennon's development that earned the most publicity, and the most ridicule, were his involvement with LSD and then with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In fact, each of theses phases lasted approximately eight months. John started taking a lot of LSD in the fall of 1966 and stopped in August 1967; he met the Maharishi that same month and broke with him the following April. The period of his most intense political activism lasted almost five times as long, beginning with the bed-in in March 1969 and ending with his last antiwar demonstration in May 1972. This accounting ignores the fact that his withdrawal from activist politics was forced on him by the Nixon administration's deportation proceedings. The three-year deportation battle was also political. John's defense went beyond legal technicalities, as he challenged and sought to expose the Nixon administration's abuse of power.

But in a larger sense, political and social questions were central to John's work as a musician and his thinking about himself in every phase of his life-- from his inchoate teenage rebellion against respectability, and his identification through music with the oppressed, to his repeated posing of questions of personal liberation and its relation to political and social issues. He changed his mind more than once, but he never gave up his commitment to face the questions.

As John's efforts to link pop and politics developed, he worked on a series of problems, which he summarized as "becoming real": how to understand the oppressiveness of rock stardom; how to bring together the struggles for personal and political liberation; how to create art that is both radical and popular, how to tell the truth with rock and roll; how to survive political persecution; how to renew commitments; how to return to music. To understand John Lennon is to understand this struggle to be real.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7574288480731470534

will hip-hop artist be the next so called "black messiah"? I don't think so.

Will the cultural movement engender a sense of political awareness and activism in the black community? definetly.

has the FBI done this before? yes.

precisely. Anyone who calls that a conspiracy is working for the wrong team. PERIOD.

THE SOLAR MYTH APPROACH

I never saw Sun Ra in the physical body. Perhaps I was a little afraid, anxious that the radiance of his Solar Myth might be diffused by the close encounter of a gig, that the Arkestra's rites might not fully embody the infinite enigma of Mister Ra's recorded sound-world. Or maybe it was my mismanagement of space/time. Briefly in New York in 68, I tried to catch him at Slug's - on the wrong day. I was always a light-year behind the Man from Saturn.

And my only experience of Space is the Place prior to this Plexifilm release was a murky nth-generation bootleg video which had twenty minutes excised. The film never had proper distribution and after a few screenings in the seventies, it became an underground legend, only appearing occasionally in truncated form as a backdrop lightshow for the Arkestra's concerts. Now according to director John Coney we have the definitive cut, restored to its full eighty-two minutes from a bright print. It's not Ra's only appearance on film. There's The Cry of Jazz, Edward Bland's 1959 polemical documentary and the quasi-abstract short Magic Sun aka Magic City, from 1966, as well as numerous concert videos. But this work is unique.

Space is the Place exists in a multiverse of genres - a militant blaxploitation free-jazz absurdist sci-fi cosmodrama. It seems to have begun as a double homage, Jim Newman's desire to document Ra's visionary music merging with John Coney's love of fifties low budget science fiction movies like First Space Ship on Venus. Ra's lifetime vision of expanding the cosmic consciousness of African Americans was superimposed on the street life of the early seventies Oakland 'hood . "It was a time of dislocation, " recalls Coney, placing the film in the context of the Black Panther movement and the radical paranoia of the Vietnam years. Afro-Futurist ritual drama blended - explosively - with the iconography of Shaft.


TRANSMOLECULARISATION

The title sequence shows Sun Ra's space ship among the stars. It's a curious yellow vehicle with blazing solar eyes painted on its twin hulls. a kind of interstellar catamaran. June Tyson's voice intones:"The End of the World" , introducing the film's apocalyptic premise. We pan across a painted backdrop of an Edenic garden to find Ra, robed and pharaeonic, musing in a glade as alien inflatable life-forms float around him. "The music is different here - not like Planet Earth - we could set up a colony for black people - bring them here through transmolecularisation - or teleport the whole planet here - through music..." Ra is accompanied - or stalked? - by a hooded figure whose face is a blank mirror. Then there's a glimpse of Ra prone and entranced, floating in the void.

We move from dreamtime to earth time, 1943, Chicago. We're in a funky night club (perhaps like the Club de Lisa where Herman 'Sonny' Blount was once MD, in the years before he became Le Son'y Ra). The chorus girls shimmy to Ra's boogie piano as a regal black dude in a white suit sweeps in with a clutch of young women.

This is the Overseer. "If he sees something he wants, he gets it." His name suggests the slavery-era supervisor who takes care of business for white folks while his style reflects the stereotype of the big-shot ghetto operator in films like Superfly , the Mack who runs the rackets, shifts the drugs and pimps the girls. He has literary antecedents, like the mysterious white-suited B.P Rinehart in Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man, an elusive shape-shifting figure, part crook, part preacher, controlling the action in the chaos of Harlem. If you want to put a neo-Gnostic gloss on it, the Overseer is the Archon who keeps the people enslaved in their sensual addictions; while Ra is the Divine Spark of the Pleroma who strives to lift them to a higher plane.

The Overseer sneers at Ra's playing and exhorts the club owner to bring on more girls. Ra responds by playing freakish riffs and menacing chords. His deep space vibe causes a massive release of energy, which shatters glasses, tears down the drapes and destroys the piano. Audience and perfomers flee in terror through the smoke.



The two antagonists face each across an altar-table in the desert, like Death and the Knight in Bergman's Seventh Seal, and begin a game with futuristic Tarot cards. The Overseer flashes the Chariot (a Cadillac) but Ra trumps him with Judgement (Ra's space ship) which takes us into footage of the Arkestra in full cry.

"I played a gig with Sun Ra in San Francisco around 1967-68. The auditorium was full of pot smoke and the groove was on. The music was fierce, fun and free... one of the memorable moments was the sax section (Marshall Allen etc.) chasing me throughout the room when I began raining sheets of multiphonics from my tenor against them in defense. It was thrilling and electrifying. " (John Celona)

The energy music of Ra's "tone scientists" drives his ship. In the control room he boots up his Moog over rumbling baritone saxes and percussion. The band members are a swirl of robes and hieratic helmets - Nubian or Neptunian? - as they churn up the polyrhythms. The ship heads earthwards, eyes flashing, transmitting its message across California:

CALLING PLANET EARTH

Initially the landing site scene has generic elements that have been familiar ever since Klaatu and Gort opened the hatch in The Day the Earth Stood Still. There's a frenetic commentator, DJ Jimmy Fey, and an anxious crowd clustering around the ship. As in Close Encounters, the ship emits pulses of light and music - but the sounds are harsh, compelling, a barrage of horns and synths.

When Ra emerges from the ship, he's accompanied by an entourage of Egyptian deities - hawk-headed Horus, Anubis, and Thoth, the ibis-entity scribe-god who teaches science and the arts of communication. Robed dancers glide around him, their mysterious grace contrasting with the mechanical routines of the night club. As John F Szwed has shown in his masterly biography Space is the Place Ra's years of immersion in Egyptology and esoteric mysticism encouraged him to re-present the ancient pantheon and its mythos in a radically Afro-centric way: "I come from a dream that the black man dreamed long ago..."

Ra's logos , as transmitted to Jimmy Fey via a perspex "translation helmet" is a cryptic challenge to the status quo of the Overseer: "I am the altered destiny... the presence of the living myth..." "What is the power of your ship?" "Music..." His procession crosses the skyline in silhouette (another allusion to The Seventh Seal?) as we move through montages of the void, the Arkestra and dancing gods.

"GREETINGS, BLACK YOUTH!"


Jimmy Fey, overwhelmed by Ra's revelation, is taken off to hospital, with the Overseer in pursuit. The mysterious Game continues, and then the action moves to the streets, where a wino sprawls on the sidewalk outside a ghetto youth centre. Two of the youth steal his shoes and swagger inside, to join a confused throng of pool-players, young militants and an acapella vocal group.

The scene has acquired a strange period quality, partly because of the early 70s fashions (vast afros, flares, dashikis) and the music - choral Philly soul a la the Delfonics. Rap avatars like Afrika Bambata and Grand Master Flash have yet to materialise. Sun Ra, however, does manifest in the midst, wearing golden astronautical boots. The kids snicker at his "moon shoes" and take him for "some old hippy" but he suggests that they are mere myths themselves, marginalised, ill-disciplined and therefore excluded from space. "NASA takes frequent trips there - none of you are invited..."

After a blast from the Arkestra, with Ra orchestrating the cosmos from his keys, while the Overseer gambles with the young street dudes, the film moves back to the hospital room where Jimmy Fey lies entranced. Doctor Overseer wakes him with a high five and offers him the possibility of "partying " with two nurses in return for co-operating in controlling Ra. The girls strip (to distant piano boogie) but just as Jimmy is about to make a move he's ordered out into the corridor where he peers, indignant and bare-assed , through the keyhole - a sudden lurch into low farce, not dissimilar to the dire British sexploitation comedies of the seventies... Apparently Ra initially found this scene amusing , presumably as a comment on the absurdities of sexual obsession, but the whole soft-porn strand in the film was cut in the first video edition.

SIGN UP WITH OUTER SPACEWAYS INCORPORATED

Meanwhile white men in suits, agents of NASA and/or FBI. crouch over a tape deck in a basement, like clones of Gene Hackman or the Agents of Burroughs' Nova Express. They're bugging the Man from Saturn. Synths drone as the camera dollies up the sidewalks towards the store front of the Outer Spaceways Employment Agency, where Ra interviews prospective cosmonauts. A white NASA engineer is discouraged by Ra's warning that "we creators never receive money" - an accurate enough account of Ra's struggles over decades to sustain the Arkestra - while a blonde temptress who wants to "get high" with him is told sternly that "space is not only high - but low...." The street winos huddle on the corner but their laughter is overlaid with the high harmonic scream of Marshall Allen's alto.

Meanwhile the plot against Ra thickens and curdles like alien soup. The Agents plan a stake-out in the desert, where Jimmy, acting as an agent of the Overseer, offers Ra the ultimate Temptation in the Wilderness for an avant-garde big band leader - the chance of a major record deal and PR campaign.

Now Ra sits in an ancient Packard convertible with Thoth and Horus as his masked minders, making a royal progress through the streets of Oakland. The bemused population stares. Jimmy, in radio reporter mode, asks him why he's talking to ghetto blacks. "The black man needs to feed upon the food of discipline and research and science... the people have no music that is in coordination with their spirits..."

Cut to the street boys in the youth centre, listening to the show, as Fey plugs a new Sun Ra album. An angry young blood decides that Ra has sold out to the capitalist neo-colonialist establishment! At one level the notion that Ra's avant sounds could be top-40 fare is a joke; but the scene also underscores the ambivalent relationship that he had with the political rhetoric of the Black Power movement and specifically the Oakland Black Panthers, who at one stage had housed the Arkestra - and then evicted them for being ideologically unsound.

ALTERED DESTINY

The Overseer and Ra still play their games, wagering their bets on "Earthly Delights" versus "Altered Destiny." In a pool hall a drunken pimp describes how he beat up his "bitch" for not turning enough tricks. This, says the Overseer, is the human material that Ra has to alter. Ra isn't deflected from his mission. He plays his Joker and demands a live concert.

The Overseer and his girls arrive at an up-market brothel where he has arranged rest and recreation for the NASA agents. Once again the women seem ready to entertain Jimmy and again the Overseer excludes him from the bedroom. When the agents arrive and clumsily try to start partying , Candy (the black girl) jokes about "rocket experts that can't get it up." The farce turns ugly as the enraged agents give all the women a savage bloody beating.

But Ra is raising the vibe with the Arkestra, then symbolically raising the dead. "Forces have been set in motion..." In a rite that recalls the Adeptus Minor Ritual of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a grey-faced figure (perhaps Ra's chief acolyte Marshall Allen) lies in a coffin. Ra gestures, hooded figures dance in front of a hieroglyphic mural to empower a resurrection. Appropriately the scene was shot in the Pyramid Vault of the Rosicrucian Society in San Jose.

Then we're suddenly back on the street as Ra is bundled into a van, kidnapped by the agents in order to sabotage the concert. The street boys hot-wire a Studebaker and set off in pursuit. Meanwhile in a empty warehouse Ra is tied up and urgently interrogated by the agents. "There's an African Space Program, isn't there?" Anticipating the psy-ops techniques of the CIA in Panama and elsewhere, they bombard him with music - in this case a tinny brass-band recording of Dixie. But when they go off to a burger bar, the boys mount a rescue. Now there's another generic element in the narrative mix, a staple ingredient of rock'n'roll movies - will Ra make the big gig on time?

At the packed auditorium, Jimmy Fey is out front, trying to pacify a restless crowd with bad comedy routines. The Overseer orders him to send the people home. But Ra arrives, with more capes and cloaks than James Brown, to an Apollo-type reception. He leads the Arkestra into a slow call-and-response chant with June Tyson, punctuated by screeching horns and mystery chords, a deep space sermon. The agents, waiting in the wings , try to take Ra out with a pistol shot. One of the street boys blocks it, saving Ra, but losing his own life. It's time for Ra to go but it's also time up for Planet Earth. Inviting a small group of the youths and girls aboard the ship , he takes off. On the control room monitor, he watches the Earth explode.

Some critics, despising the low budget production values and/or disturbed by the music, suggest that the film is only a sci-fi spoof, an Ed Wood style freakshow, and that Sun Ra is merely a comic turn dispensing loony-toon metaphysics . But Ra's screen presence, his combination of composure and gnomic wit gives it an odd centre of gravity. The pre-digital blue screen FX - perhaps because they are so obviously a convention - seem to allow a greater suspension of disbelief than the elaborate CGI confections of blockbuster sci-fi while its conflation of clashing genre expectations and sudden shifts of tone only reinforce its subversive effect. "Surreal" is an over-hyped marketing term these days but the film is truly surrealist (in Andre Breton's sense) in its vision of a heightened dream-like reality breaking through daily life on the streets.

And the conundrums of the movie match the paradoxes of Ra's life and work. He explored the ancient heritage of African percussion while pioneering the use of synthesizers and electronic keyboards. An icon of radical black culture, he questioned some of the assumptions of progressive black politics , especially as the mass black audience ignored the challenge of his music. Regarded by the media (when he was regarded at all) as prophet of " the new thing" and " free jazz'" he was steeped in the lore and craft of pre-war big bands like Fletcher Henderson and rehearsed his players for hours at a time, demanding a mastery of complex scores that often stretched them to the limits of their technique. The Arkestra were kings of infinite space but there was never much bread working with Sunny...

While I was in San Francisco, one of the bass players I worked with, Joe McKinley, played with him on a permanent basis until Sun Ra missed a couple of paydays. Joe said he was cheap and tight. I don't remember any pay from my stint... when he came to San Francisco State with the large band and entourage of wives and girl friends, during solos, the women would go out into audience and sell their paintings, art, batiks, etc.. (John Celona)

His concept of discipline extended beyond the purely musical, to demand a personal commitment and even a monkish communal life-style for core members of the band. Drugs and booze were banned. Neophytes earned the chance to play through performing mundane chores like carrying instruments or guarding the door during all night rehearsals. The brief grainy "home movies' of The Arkestra on tour show them in procession up the slopes of the Great Pyramid or dancing across a bridge in the twilight, following Ra on his mystic pilgrimage into the unknown.

The aspirational drive in Ra's music is perhaps an overlooked aspect of his legacy. Since Space is the Place was made, black American astronauts have crewed the Space Shuttle (two of them, Ronald McNair and Michael Anderson, have died in flight) but much of black American popular culture over the last decade seems to have drifted into a routine commodification of violence and misogyny. Ra has been called "the missing link between Duke Ellington and Public Enemy" and there's a clear connection between Ra's affirmation of blackness and Chuck D's assertion of black autonomy. However, one can't imagine Ra being very impressed by Snoop Dogg or Fifty Cents or the whole "bling" sub culture of consumerism that surrounds newer mutations like gangsta rap. Following the mythic logic of the film, the Gangsta with his guns, hos and bitches is the Overseer in new threads. Sun Ra's constant motivation was force people to look beyond the stereotypical role they had been given and create new identities for themselves - just as he, Herman Poole "Sunny" Blount from Alabama, had done.

Since his death in 1993, Ra's influence has been identified everywhere, from Coltrane to the MC5, from Sonic Youth to George Clinton. I've even done my own one-man tribute. Space is the Place inevitably doesn't do justice to the range of his output (across seventy albums) or to the full perplexity of the Sun Ra mindscape. But this Unclassifiable Filmic Object repays close Contact...

Waylon Jennings:
An Honest Outlaw
By Jeffrey St. Clair

"To live outside the law you must be honest," sings Bob Dylan in Absolutely Sweet Marie, a tune that has always struck me as kind of comic rejoinder to Leadbelly's great prison song Midnight Special. But those lines could also be an epitaph for the life and career of Waylon Jennings.

Jennings was an outlaw in all the right respects, not least as an outlaw to a corrupt industry that was exploiting him and his cohorts. At great professional risk, Jennings defied the pious and rigid lords of Nashville, the country purists of the Opry, who sneared at pop sounding songs and banned full drum sets from their stage. He fought as fiercely as Chuck D or Pearl Jam against the bosses of the record biz, who rip off songwriters, defile the sound and content of recordings, and treat performers as chattle.

When you look back on Jennings' life and music you're struck by his honesty, his courage and, as Dave Marsh points out his "humor."

Jennings was born in Littlefield, Texas in 1937 and moved to Lubbock in 1954, where he worked as DJ and played in rocakbilly bands. He was to develop an inimitable rough-edged and rumbling sound, a voice as arid and tough as a west Texas wind. But he got his start working for one of the smoothest voices in rock history, Buddy Holly. From 1958 to 1959, Jennings toured as Holly's bassplayer in Holly's band, the Crickets.

In his book Country, Nick Tosches writes that of all the great rockabilly artists Holly was the only one never to top the Country charts. It's a savage indictment of Nashville and it was message that certainly wasn't lost on Jennings. " had a dose of Nashville where they wouldn't let him sing it the way he heard it and wouldn't let him play his own guitar parts," Jennings wrote in his autobiography. "Can't do this, can't do that. 'Don't ever let people tell you you can't do something,' he'd say, 'and never put limits on yourself.'

There is of course a star-crossed aspect to Jenning's life, that lends to his career the hint of myth, as if he were as close as country would ever come to a kind of Robert Johnson legend. Jennings didn't sell his soul to the devil at the crossroads in return for blazing guitar licks, but he did at the last possible moment offer his seat on a plane on frigid night in Clear Lake, Iowa to J.P. Richardson, the Big Bopper.

Shortly after midnight on February 3, 1959 that small plane took a nosedive into the frozen badlands outside Mason City, Iowa. Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper were gone and Jennings was left behind to pick up the pieces and roll on.

"I remember the last time I saw Buddy," Jennings said last year. "He had me go get us some hot dogs. He was leaning back against the wall in a cane-bottom chair and he was laughing at me. He said, 'So you're not going with us tonight on the plane, huh? Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up. It's 40-below out there and you're gonna get awful cold. So I said, 'Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes.'

"I was so afraid for many years that somebody was going to find out I said that. Somehow I blamed myself. Compounding that was the guilty feeling that I was still alive. I hadn't contributed anything to the world at that time compared to Buddy. Why would he die and not me? It took a long time to figure that out, and it brought about some big changes in my life -- the way I thought about things."

In the 70s Jennings came into his own with songs like Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love), I've Always Been Crazy, I Don't Want to Get Over You and Waymore's Blues. His music (and his collaborations with Willie Nelson, who was also breaking loose from the shackles of Nashville) gave grit and substance to American music at a time when rock had flatlined into the likes of Journey and REO Speedwagon. The elemental spirit of rocknroll thrived in Jennings' country music, the sound was at once old and new. The Outlaws (which included featured Jennings, Nelson, Tompall Glaser and Jennings' fourth and last wife, Jessi Colter) made the so-called country-rock being offered up by groups such as The Eagles sound processed and purile by comparison. Next to Waylon Jennings the perfectionist posings of Don Henley seem like Donny Osmond.

Jennings embodied that strange alchemy of American music, a music that was both popular and uncompromising. A sound that paid allegiance to Hank Williams, Son House and Buddy Holly and yet was unmistakeably original. "I've always felt that blues, rock 'n' roll and country are just about a beat apart," Jennings said. In his music, at times, they blended into one.

I had the undeserved fortune to meet Waylon Jennings in the summer of 1978, when he came to Indianapolis to play at a fundraiser for Senator Birch Bayh, the perennially embattled Democrat. I was working as gopher for the Bayh campaign, shuttling bigwigs around in a rented big black Lincoln. God knows how he got hooked into doing a gig for Bayh, one of the more unappetizing politicians of his time. Most likely it was as a favor to Bayh's charismatic and brilliant wife, Marvella, who was to die of breast cancer a few years later.

I was supposed to drive Jennings from the concert to his hotel, about a mile away. But he wasn't quite ready to endure an entire night in a downtown Indianapolis. He wanted to drive around. After a while, he turned to me, grinned and said, "Man, what are you doing working for these assholes?"

"Huh? We don't want the Republicans to take over the country again, do we?"

"Not a dime's worth of dime's worth of difference between them." He was right of course. But I'm a slow learner and it took me another decade to figure that out on my own.

Jennings pulled a cassette from the pocket of his black vest. "Stick this in that machine," he said.

It was a country blues, featuring a guitar as clear as a bell and a voice as ragged as a crosscut saw. "Oh the Rocky Mountains, they's a mean and terrible place."

At that time, it was my misfortune to know less about music than I did about politics. "Who is that?"

He shook his head in amazement, convinced he was talking with an imbecile. "That's Sam Hopkins, son. Now just kick this damn Lincoln into to gear and drive."

As we rolled through the night, Jennings sat next to me, tapping his booted foot to the beat, working his way through a fifth of George Dickle, Tennessee's finest sipping bourbon.

We drove 30 miles west of the city on Route 40, the old National Road, into the heart of the heartland. "This'll be fine," he said. "Pull down that gravel road there."

I stopped the car in what was little more than a tractor lane, hemmed in by 12-foot-tall walls of sweet corn.

"What are we doing?"

"Come on out here and join me, Hoss," Jennings growled. "Let's take a piss in this cornfield and watch those damn meteors. Now don't they look just like the rebel angels falling down from the heavens."

Overhead the Perseied meteor shower was in full bloom--one meteor after another slashed across the August night.

To this day I've rarely missed a chance to escape from the city lights in August and watch those rebel angels fall from the sky, with my favorite bluesman, Lightnin' Hopkins, providing the soundtrack. Thanks for that Waylon and for everything else.

what of today's reggae scene?
sizzla's peculiar turn to almost slackness full time from being the most brilliant culture artist to bust in years strikes me in a way.
i wish i knew more about the dude besides what i see on dvds and hear
from his music.
i still enjoy his music but i seriously do wonder about him.
him signing to dame was a big move/turning point in his career.
when i look at it and listen to the music it sounds to me like he's
just trying to reach as many people as possible but he's trying to
hard to fit the frame of what is out there right now
i don't know. i wouldn't judge him if i didn't think he was such
a prominent figure.
even though he doesn't get any real play in america
he's a huge voice world wide
so many rastas are crying for him to let go of all the slackness and get back to the culture full time.
i don't know he's a great artist to me
the great ones are always a lil crazy

also culture/roots reggae seems to be the only music creatively surviving
the attack on black on culture (atleast in recent years)
there are a lot of new voices that genre
making incredible music
i often wonder what type of fight they may or may not get when
trying to promote their music.

just a ramble.

and we talked about culture vultures, the state of dancehall... and really how it's been robbed of his value as well down to the lowest common denominator... these Wayne Wonder cats... Sizzla... quite a few cats are just purely making music for the sake of airplay and not for the sake of the struggle...
now mind you... everyone cannot make conscious music...
but the bigger concern is the conscious man behind the music...
hiphop and dancehall have suffered greatly from

people who are nonmusicians constantly giving thier critiques
pushing the idea of formula music
concerning one's self with chart positoning versus quality work...
choosing a quick fix record versus the solid deal...

what has saved our artforms? Mixtapes. It's unregistered, uncensored ground to get it all out. Now of course this comes with a price... cause that means no censorships for those foul niggaz either.
However... it has certainly operated outside of the corporate scope...
this same scope is what sent Luther to the 'pop tart charts'
this same scope is what limited Prince from releasing some of his greatest efforts..
this same scope is what took a Shabba... Shabba... to Shabba Ranks radio voice...
or even a Sizzla...

This is the same scope that feared a Robert Johnson while he was here... but will allow Eric Clapton to do a tribute to him on the Grammy's once he's gone. you dig?

Anytime James Brown makes "Living in America" you know we got a problem.

Hip Hop Cops
Law enforcement conflates rap stars with gang members merely because most of them are young black men.
by Salim Muwakkil
In These Times (original post 7.08.04)
7.13.06- "Police Secretly Watching Hip-Hop Artists" read the headline of the Miami Herald article that put the spotlight on a practice that has grown more ominous at the same time that hip-hop has grown more popular.

As Nichole White and Evelyn McDonnell reported on March 9, "Miami and Miami Beach police are secretly watching and keeping dossiers on hip-hop celebrities like P. Diddy and DMX and their entourages when they come to South Florida." Police officials told the Herald they photographed rappers as they arrived at Miami International Airport and staked out hotels, nightclubs and video shoots. The reporters explained that dozens of major and minor rappers are listed and tracked in a "6-inch thick" binder supplied by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

Rap artists and others associated with hip-hop culture have long complained of being targets of police harassment. New York, the birthplace of hip-hop music, has become the de facto center of hip-hop intelligence. A special NYPD unit is dedicated to hip-hop surveillance, according to The Village Voice. Police officials downplay the reports. They insist hip-hop cops are a small part of the intelligence division's gang unit and that they simply try to preempt the kind of violence that seems to follow hip-hop artists.

But the NYPD's response sparked more questions: Why is hip-hop associated with gangs? Why the intelligence division?

Those preemptive strategies apparently are being adopted by police forces in other cities. The Herald noted that the NYPD hosted a three-day "hip-hop training session" in May 2003 attended by officers from "other major cities like Los Angeles and Atlanta."

Miami officials said they were compelled to do a crash course on hip-hop after realizing their city was becoming a favorite destination. But just like their big-city mentors, Miami cops' actions are being driven by stereotypes. "A lot of, if not most, rappers belong to some sort of gang," Miami Police Sergeant Rafael Tapenes told the Herald. Law enforcement conflates gangs and hip-hop because young black men are at the core of both – the same black youth who have had problems with American law enforcement since the days of the slave patrols.

Even before recent revelations of hip-hop surveillance units, in March 2003, The Source declared in a headline: "State of Emergency: Hip-Hop Under Attack." The magazine, the country's largest hip-hop oriented publication, sounded the alarm about attacks from the increasingly influential cultural right and more intrusive police scrutiny. It featured an interview with a New York City cop who admitted that a special unit existed specifically to monitor, even harass, hip-hop figures. The unidentified cop told The Source that these efforts were aided by an increased focus on security after 9/11, which "opened up avenues for the government to change laws and violate public rights."

Some see motives that are even more nefarious. Cedric Muhammad, publisher of the webzine BlackElectorate.com and former manager of the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan, ran a series linking police harassment of rappers to the infamous COINTELPRO programs of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Muhammad recently wrote a public letter to the Miami Herald, suggesting that reporters should shift the focus of attention beyond police harassment and racial profiling, "properly placing it where it belongs – at the federal level."

The feds already have used antiterrorism strategies to crack down on domestic street gangs, and some officials have even linked such gangs to terrorism. Muhammad writes that linking gangsta rappers to genuine gangsters allows a COINTELPRO-like program to continue under the guise of homeland security, thus preempting the potential for a militant mass movement of black people.

Of course, hip-hop made itself an easy target. A large part of the genre's appeal is its flamboyant roguishness. The ghetto-centric sensibilities and crime-laced narratives that dominate so much of the genre offer a vicarious escape for some and, perhaps, a how-to manual for others.

Hip-hop artists often project images that skirt the edges of respectability, posturing a hard, "no sell-out" image, even as they rake in mainstream bucks. And then there are the "beefs" – the feuds that too often have jumped off records into reality. What's more, critics increasingly complain that rap lyrics go beyond promoting violence and crime to self-hatred and misogyny. And these complaints are most strenuous within the African-American community, not the FBI.

Issues like these were addressed at the National Hip-Hop Political Convention in Newark, N.J. The mid-June event gathered activists, politicians, scholars and hip-hop artists from across the country to discuss ways to empower the so-called hip-hop generation. I'm sure the police were watching.

>and we talked about culture vultures, the state of
>dancehall... and really how it's been robbed of his value as
>well down to the lowest common denominator... these Wayne
>Wonder cats... Sizzla... quite a few cats are just purely
>making music for the sake of airplay and not for the sake of
>the struggle...

true. i mean from listening to even the dame dash mixtape i don't know if i could totally accuse sizzla of trying to just get radio play for the sake of radio play. i really think he has certain managers in his ear about what can hit in the states and what can't. i think he's tryin to sneak in on the american market on a level and in the process he's selling out in a lot of ways. i found out the other day he's supposed to be doing a song with lil' wayne. all i could do was shake my had. it's really crazy what money and the industry can do to people.

>now mind you... everyone cannot make conscious music...
>but the bigger concern is the conscious man behind the
>music...
>hiphop and dancehall have suffered greatly from



>people who are nonmusicians constantly giving thier critiques
>pushing the idea of formula music
>concerning one's self with chart positoning versus quality
>work...
>choosing a quick fix record versus the solid deal...


YES. this is my whole beef with the whole industry which includes the media outlets like radio and the magazines and everything.
the mind control is so heavy. thats why i say on a song of mine 'i rather a chorus than a hook' a chorus we sing together, a hook just grabs you and in the process hurts you. this hook driven music is
the biggest tool in music right now. got people singing ANYTHING.


>what has saved our artforms? Mixtapes. It's unregistered,
>uncensored ground to get it all out. Now of course this comes
>with a price... cause that means no censorships for those foul
>niggaz either.
>However... it has certainly operated outside of the corporate
>scope...


true indeed. i'm an advocate of completely independent music. right now having a deal would be like winning the lottery so i probably wouldn't turn it down if i could find a way to flip it in my favor. but honestly if the people i worked with were more concerned with
just putting out our own music than making strides in the industry (they are making strides though so i really can't hate) we could do really big things.

we still can though so it's all about having that plan.

>this same scope is what sent Luther to the 'pop tart charts'
>this same scope is what limited Prince from releasing some of
>his greatest efforts..
>this same scope is what took a Shabba... Shabba... to Shabba
>Ranks radio voice...
>or even a Sizzla...
>
>This is the same scope that feared a Robert Johnson while he
>was here... but will allow Eric Clapton to do a tribute to him
>on the Grammy's once he's gone. you dig?

true

>Anytime James Brown makes "Living in America" you know we got
>a problem.

i'm not sure i know exactly what you mean by this. sounds interesting though can you explain?

planet earth... in my opinion...
and he'd never so much as had a top ten hit... which was the agenda along with providing a song for the horrible Rocky franchise..
hence, the unfunkiest record ever Living in a America was recorded..
now mind you James was always pro America... which I often found to be an interesting twist on Politics... he would always say "how can a man sell out, if he's never been sold in"... which I would always laugh and say 'nigga please... you were friends with Nixon'..
so the confusing dynamics of his political scope was there...
and mind you... he's not christ...he's just a musician as we are all just men and women at the end of the day.
However, Living in America to me hit a huge sour note...
cause you see this isn't a new take...
in the 50's and 60's horrible dance/doowop records were made soley to garner success and char positioning... for example...

my issue was that James had already have one of the most profound musical careers ever... but the powers that be must have convinced him to make a pop record... not sure...
either way he got his chart positioning... but it was the complete end of his true following... mind you by 1980 it had already pretty much fizzled out... but there were still die hards buying the current crop of work... like that Full Force record he did.
I love James more than anyone... but to me that just showed me anyone could get taken by the machine.
Anyone.

>planet earth... in my opinion...
>and he'd never so much as had a top ten hit... which was the
>agenda along with providing a song for the horrible Rocky
>franchise..
> hence, the unfunkiest record ever Living in a America was
>recorded..
>now mind you James was always pro America... which I often
>found to be an interesting twist on Politics... he would
>always say "how can a man sell out, if he's never been sold
>in"... which I would always laugh and say 'nigga please... you
>were friends with Nixon'..
>so the confusing dynamics of his political scope was there...
>and mind you... he's not christ...he's just a musician as we
>are all just men and women at the end of the day.
>However, Living in America to me hit a huge sour note...
>cause you see this isn't a new take...
>in the 50's and 60's horrible dance/doowop records were made
>soley to garner success and char positioning... for
>example...
>
>my issue was that James had already have one of the most
>profound musical careers ever... but the powers that be must
>have convinced him to make a pop record... not sure...
>either way he got his chart positioning... but it was the
>complete end of his true following... mind you by 1980 it had
>already pretty much fizzled out... but there were still die
>hards buying the current crop of work... like that Full Force
>record he did.
>I love James more than anyone... but to me that just showed me
>anyone could get taken by the machine.
>Anyone.

right. i hear you yo

>and he'd never so much as had a top ten hit...

Actually that isn't true. "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," "Cold Sweat," "I Feel Good," "I Got The Feeling" and "It's A Man's World" all hit the top 10. Even "Say It Loud" somehow reached #10 on the Billboard pop charts....but white radio wasn't fucking with him after that. 1968 to 1984 was a long time to go without the pop audience ....

>hence, the unfunkiest record ever Living in a America was
recorded..

I wouldn't say it's the unfunkiest ever, but it's certainly the definition of cabaret-style funk and messed up his image/legacy for many years. Outside of I'm Real (the Full Force joint), almost all his shows and records were in that style. I blame it on Dan Hartman, who at least did his job of boosting JB's career at that point in time.

> mind you by 1980 it had already pretty much fizzled out...

I was watching Democracy Now shortly after he died and the guest (can't recall the name, he was a film maker) pulled out some footage of a documentary he and James were making in 1979-80 about corruption in the music biz. James was breaking down the politics of radio and how he was basically blacklisted from the industry. He came thisclose to calling out the Mafia about their role in distribution and airplay. Al Sharpton was in it, and it showed them rolling through Harlem getting love from the kids, even though his records weren't selling.

For some reason, the movie never was completed. But that clip is worth seeing on the DN archives.

it's a question I wrestle with.

explain?

had to be touched.

I would say yes they are in the sense that they are contributing to the destruction of Black people.

I dont know everyone's story and really dont think its releveant I feel that as a young black youth we all have choices to make. We oviously dont have the wide range of choices but you still have a choice never the less. Some cats make the dumb choice pretty much.

I cant really just cast all of the blame on these individuals away as enemies because its bigger than them. I would say that crack- dealer- gloricication- rap niggas are probably more of uncle toms than the dealers themselves.

They have a very large effect on young people.

Like Sha mentioned earlier these trends have sucked the ability to uplift completely out of hip hop. A young dude listens to his parents for the most part but music they listen to 1000 x more than their parents. So its like psychological warfare. (Fred hampton said that he believes to this day that Huey Newton was one of the first casualties of this method of warfare. When he got out of prision his whole idealogy changed. check out the doc: "all power to the people") They got young niggas thinking its being real to cop a package. Its real to get work pack heat and shit and go to prision.

I can remember when I was at the barber shop this weekend and I saw a young cat like 9 with a snowman tee on. I just shook my head.

IMO all of these trends and imagery and mysoginy and subject matter are nothing more than the system pushing an agenda on us (What else is new). Its the prision advertisement campaign they are doing nothing more than marketing to their target audience. Us.

I'll chime in more specificlly later..

but for now I'll say this...

I think we are really past the point where it's even up for debate that there were government efforts to thwart certain "speech"...whether it be through music or whatever..during various times in history..... The evidence of these efforts are pretty volumous.....I mean, if anyone where to ever deny that Cointelpro existed...that would be a person that simply has no desire to deal in facts......

now a person could disagree with the impact of it...but to simply dismiss it as a "conspiracy theory" is again someone who is not dealing in facts...

further...sometimes things things are part of actually plans, like Cointelpro.....but even more often...they are "consequences" of the Sociological existence we have here in America......A group seen as the dominant culture....yet whose distinctive characteristics are recessive..cannot continue to be the "dominant culture" unless their treatment of those people subjugates them....Those efforts take on a variety of manifestations.....some from the conscious mind of the oppressor.....some from their subconscious......It is just simply not possible for White people to rule over people people of color unless actions like this take place....again..it's completely impossible, and it's also the part of the "racial debate" that has continued to be ignored...and thus continues to be a problem.

part of that subjugation manifests itself in attack people whose communication increases the humanity..and manhood of those people of color....Paul Robeson was attacked....Malcom X ..The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad was attacked....Dr. King was killed.......

and it's global.....and sometimes the attackers are manifested by Black people who lived recently under colonization, and thus their model for humanity is their oppressor...so thus Lumumba is killed....Fela Kuti is beaten...Peter Tosh is beaten...Bob Marley is shot..

these are the consequences of Black men attempting to challenge the rule of the oppressors....and the attacks against them..whether they be done by Blacks, or by Whites...is simply "SELF DEFENSE" to maintain the rule of the regressive over the dominant...

there is simply NO OTHER WAY TO RULE OVER PEOPLE WHOSE CHARACTERISTICS ARE DOMINANT.....when YOUR characteristics are regressive...and you are so GLOBALLY outnumbered like that...

When you understand this...you can counter these things, because you are dealing in the reality of the situation as it is...not some pie in the sky rhetoric that never gets to the real crux of the problem.

I would also say that the current state of Black music is also related to this, because what you have is basiclly an uninformed impotent group of artists....who rarely utilize their voice to speak to self-definition ...or any societal issues that are hindering Black people functioning as a healthy community.......and now that there is a level of comfort in their irrelevence....all the powers that be have to do is limit the opportunities to those meaningless forms....

there's more I'll say specificlly to some of the other posts later...

gotta go.

he's simply the fucking man. I have always stood by and let AFKAP, Jambone and other cats on here speak without ever interferring...
even though I didn't always agree (with Kap i never agreed.. just arrogant... and arrogance and no musical talent equates what? armchair A&Risms).

Warren is the most well rounded, well balanced cat on this board...
using not only a full understanding of what actually happened in the past... he's never assumptive, presumptuous... or arrogant.
He's the real deal.

"now a person could disagree with the impact of it...but to simply dismiss it as a "conspiracy theory" is again someone who is not dealing in facts..." WC

my man good look.

monumental task you took on making this post...

>even though I didn't always agree (with Kap i never agreed..
>just arrogant... and arrogance and no musical talent equates
>what? armchair A&Risms).

as usual, you fall back on your standard contempt for the audience "i'm a musician and you're not" stance.

what exactly does that prove, though?

the funny thing is that you *assume* that i have no musical talent. i may not be a great "professional musician" like yourself, but i play, partner... i actually play a couple instruments.

the thing is: unlike yourself, i don't bring it up in order to bolster myself during arguments on this board. you know why?

BECAUSE IT AIN'T GOT SHIT TO DO WITH SHIT.

lol!

am i confident in my opinions? yes.

am i occasionally snarky and abrasive? yes.

do i have the tendency to rub some people the wrong way and to be outright disrespectful to people i don't like? definitely.

but other than that, most will testify that i am a pretty open-minded cat who takes the time to listen to people's view, think about them as carefully as i can, and give them my honest opinions in return. i'm respectful to people who are respectful to me.

also, i'm pretty quick to discard my opinions and adopt other people's if i think that their arguments/ideas are more solid than my own.

so would i categorize myself as "arrogant"?

no... i wouldn't. but hey, what do i know? maybe i am and i don't know it.

you claim black music doesnt/shouldnt be art but wtf you think jazz was?

>you claim black music doesnt/shouldnt be art but wtf you
>think jazz was?

first of all: i NEVER said that.

in fact, from the beginning, i said that Jazz (starting from the bebop era, anyway) WAS "Art" in the self-conscious sense... and that i found that a double-edged sword.

on one hand, it was good that Black musicians were standing up and demanding the respect accorded to European composers and refusing to be regarded as "naturally entertaining" buffoons.

on the other hand, the emphasis on *self-conscious* art (mind you: the "self-conscious" part is very important here) ended up alienating musicians from the audience (see: MIles turning his back to the audience at concerts) and turned Jazz into a cottage industry full of musicians playing for themselves and their peers.

(over the weekend, i made a post explaining this more fully since so many people misinterpreted my intentions the first time. i would respectfully ask that you refer to that post... it's called "My Final Statement on the Whole Art/Entertainment/Commerce" thing)

you see, explizit... my point was NEVER that Black people cannot or should not make Art, but it was more against certain "highfalutin ideas" concerning Art... for example, "Art for Art's sake"

if you know anything about Black musical/artistic traditions, you will be aware that "Art for Art's sake" is usually considered anathema. Black Art is usually *functional*... whether in Africa it's a sculpture made to signify the stimulation of fertility, or in Depression-era Mississippi when music was made for sharecroppers to dance away their frustrations at the end of the week.

also, you probably know that in Black music, there is usually not a sharp dochotomy between Artist and Audience. in Africa, you had the master drummer, but the audience actually participated in the performance by clapping, stomping, or contributing other small percussion sounds.

it's the same thing in hip-hop when the MC tells the audience to say "HO!"

the same thing existed in Jazz, too.

the point is that the primary function was to *entertain* the audience... and in the process they created enduring Art.

when the beboppers decided that they wanted to self-consciously create High Art, they were actually more influenced by the standards of European concert music than they were by the Black tradition (this is true: look it up)

my point was that these "highfalutin" attitudes towards Art were actually foreign to the Black experience.

NOT that Black people cannot, could not, did not, or should not create Art.

i hope that clears it up for you...?

>>you claim black music doesnt/shouldnt be art but wtf you
>>think jazz was?
>
>first of all: i NEVER said that.
>
>in fact, from the beginning, i said that Jazz (starting from
>the bebop era, anyway) WAS "Art" in the self-conscious
>sense... and that i found that a double-edged sword.
>
>on one hand, it was good that Black musicians were standing up
>and demanding the respect accorded to European composers and
>refusing to be regarded as "naturally entertaining" buffoons.
>
>on the other hand, the emphasis on *self-conscious* art (mind
>you: the "self-conscious" part is very important here) ended
>up alienating musicians from the audience (see: MIles turning
>his back to the audience at concerts) and turned Jazz into a
>cottage industry full of musicians playing for themselves and
>their peers.
>
>(over the weekend, i made a post explaining this more fully
>since so many people misinterpreted my intentions the first
>time. i would respectfully ask that you refer to that post...
>it's called "My Final Statement on the Whole
>Art/Entertainment/Commerce" thing)

I'll check it out.
>
>you see, explizit... my point was NEVER that Black people
>cannot or should not make Art, but it was more against certain
>"highfalutin ideas" concerning Art... for example, "Art for
>Art's sake"
>
>if you know anything about Black musical/artistic traditions,
>you will be aware that "Art for Art's sake" is usually
>considered anathema. Black Art is usually *functional*...
>whether in Africa it's a sculpture made to signify the
>stimulation of fertility, or in Depression-era Mississippi
>when music was made for sharecroppers to dance away their
>frustrations at the end of the week.
>
>also, you probably know that in Black music, there is usually
>not a sharp dochotomy between Artist and Audience. in Africa,
>you had the master drummer, but the audience actually
>participated in the performance by clapping, stomping, or
>contributing other small percussion sounds.
>
>it's the same thing in hip-hop when the MC tells the audience
>to say "HO!"
>
>the same thing existed in Jazz, too.
>
>the point is that the primary function was to *entertain* the
>audience... and in the process they created enduring Art.
>
>when the beboppers decided that they wanted to
>self-consciously create High Art, they were actually more
>influenced by the standards of European concert music than
>they were by the Black tradition (this is true: look it up)
>
I know all about this homie. don't trip. Charlie Parker actually would play classical records and solo over them.

>my point was that these "highfalutin" attitudes towards Art
>were actually foreign to the Black experience.

I don't agree. I don't think you can pinpoint the black experiences relationship to art and music completely within a box of stomping your feet or call and response. but hey do you.
>
>NOT that Black people cannot, could not, did not, or should
>not create Art.

ok but you did frame it within that context. just wanted to clear that up.
>
>i hope that clears it up for you...?

cool.

"I don't agree. I don't think you can pinpoint the black experiences relationship to art and music completely within a box of stomping your feet or call and response. but hey do you. "
the gospel of AFKAP... lol.

i mean, isn't it cool when knowledgeable adults can have a civilized discussion?

i have to admit that i was a bit pissed off by the response my last couple of posts got because people chose to ignore any facts i presented and proceed directly to calling me "a fucking idiot" just for having the audacity to post.

you and i don't know each other too well, explizit... i think you came to the boards relatively recently. i think you should know that there are a lot of people here who dislike me just because i have unconventional views that make them uncomfortable, and so they are quick to attack anything i say.

please... i beg you: do not join in with these people. you may disagree with my opinions, but you'd be hard-pressed to prove that i am stupid or ignorant when i speak.

we can disagree, but let's be civil about it, you know?

anyway... enough of that "The More You Know" moment. let's get back to the subject!

>>my point was that these "highfalutin" attitudes towards Art
>>were actually foreign to the Black experience.
>
>I don't agree. I don't think you can pinpoint the black
>experiences relationship to art and music completely within a
>box of stomping your feet or call and response. but hey do
>you.

explizit, you are free to object, but it's not enough to simply say "i disagree"

in order for your disagreement to hold any weight, all you would have to do is just show me a few examples of situations prior to the bebop era in which Black musicians (not working in the European tradition) thought of themselves as "Artists" in the self-conscious way that European composers did.

all you got to do is show me that, and i will consider it... if it turns out that i am wrong, i will admit that.

but i would ask you to consider this: Jazz music, up until this time was considered the music of whore houses. the cats playing were not thinking about Art per se... they were thinking about playing some music that got people in the mood to fuck. (i'm sure you know that the very word "jazz" is believed to be derived from "jizz")

first and foremost, it was music about ENTERTAINMENT. sweaty, good times. NOT about "serious" Art like Beethoven and Mozart where they wanted the audience to sit erect and silent and absorb their genius.

which is not saying that the music was NOT Art... it WAS Art, but not self-consciously.

it's like... some of the street signs in Mexico and places like that. they might be brightly-colored and beautiful, and they ARE Art, but the person who made them was not thinking "I want to make a work that will be hung up in a museum." he was trying to make a sign that lets you know where the barbershop is!

it IS Art... but first of all, it serves a function. in the case of Black music, that function is ENTERTAINING AN AUDIENCE. when people like Miles turned their back on the audience, they were cutting themselves off from the root functions of Black American music, and starting the chain that led to Jazz being respected in the museums, but most regular folks don't give a fuck about it.

in the other post, i asked whether anybody had thought about why so many early blues musicians were blind men. it was because music was a TRADE that a blind dude could do, since he couldn't do manual labor. cats were not becoming musicians because they had high aspirations about "Art"... they became musicians because they had to survive.


anyway... i really have to go now and i might not be online again until tomorrow. i'll read whatever response you have then, or you can just inbox me since Aquaman doesn't want me in his post.

it was you who came here calling everyone
dumb niggaz, spooks, etc... it was you who walked in saying it's all a conspiracy...

don't get mad cause cats can see right thru your type?
you have been very vocal about your opinions?
and your opinions have been full of shit.
We don't agree... it's OUR opinion...

you have always tried to act like your better than niggaz...
and your a clown.
We see it... we know it... and no one dislikes you the person... we don't give a fuck about you the person... however you the poster.. .nigga your NOT on our level... just accept that and deal with them niggaz you used to dealing with...

if I recall correctly originally you said this post was too silly for you to come in...
yet you have been here everyday...
you have been called out on your lies and foolishness...

I mean just go back to being ashamed homie... stand behind YOUR words...
see that just it... we don't have to insult you or say anything...
you do it yourself.
hi-tek cooning.

>i mean, isn't it cool when knowledgeable adults can have a
>civilized discussion?
>
>i have to admit that i was a bit pissed off by the response my
>last couple of posts got because people chose to ignore any
>facts i presented and proceed directly to calling me "a
>fucking idiot" just for having the audacity to post.
>
>you and i don't know each other too well, explizit... i think
>you came to the boards relatively recently. i think you should
>know that there are a lot of people here who dislike me just
>because i have unconventional views that make them
>uncomfortable, and so they are quick to attack anything i
>say.

no Ive been here for a while. Ive been here since the website started but I took a hiatus for a few years and came back to the boards about 2 yrs ago.
>
>please... i beg you: do not join in with these people. you may
>disagree with my opinions, but you'd be hard-pressed to prove
>that i am stupid or ignorant when i speak.
>
>we can disagree, but let's be civil about it, you know?
>
>anyway... enough of that "The More You Know" moment. let's get
>back to the subject!
>
>>>my point was that these "highfalutin" attitudes towards Art
>>>were actually foreign to the Black experience.
>>
>>I don't agree. I don't think you can pinpoint the black
>>experiences relationship to art and music completely within
>a
>>box of stomping your feet or call and response. but hey do
>>you.
>
>explizit, you are free to object, but it's not enough to
>simply say "i disagree"
>
>in order for your disagreement to hold any weight, all you
>would have to do is just show me a few examples of situations
>prior to the bebop era in which Black musicians (not working
>in the European tradition) thought of themselves as "Artists"
>in the self-conscious way that European composers did.

so anything post bop is not african and is therefore not black? I don't get it. You're discounting anything made up post bop becuase it deviated from normal call and response music? huh?
>
>all you got to do is show me that, and i will consider it...
>if it turns out that i am wrong, i will admit that.
>
>but i would ask you to consider this: Jazz music, up until
>this time was considered the music of whore houses. the cats
>playing were not thinking about Art per se... they were
>thinking about playing some music that got people in the mood
>to fuck. (i'm sure you know that the very word "jazz" is
>believed to be derived from "jizz")
>
I know all this homie. Ive played jazz trombone for over 10 yrs. I have extensive knowledge of the history of jazz.

>first and foremost, it was music about ENTERTAINMENT. sweaty,
>good times. NOT about "serious" Art like Beethoven and Mozart
>where they wanted the audience to sit erect and silent and
>absorb their genius.

I guess you never heard mingus because he was all about that sweaty good times youre talking about.
>
>which is not saying that the music was NOT Art... it WAS Art,
>but not self-consciously.
>
>it's like... some of the street signs in Mexico and places
>like that. they might be brightly-colored and beautiful, and
>they ARE Art, but the person who made them was not thinking "I
>want to make a work that will be hung up in a museum." he was
>trying to make a sign that lets you know where the barbershop
>is!
>
>it IS Art... but first of all, it serves a function. in the
>case of Black music, that function is ENTERTAINING AN
>AUDIENCE. when people like Miles turned their back on the
>audience, they were cutting themselves off from the root
>functions of Black American music, and starting the chain that
>led to Jazz being respected in the museums, but most regular
>folks don't give a fuck about it.
>

bop was functional for many people for people who loved it and didnt know how the fuck parker came up with the shit. it was a release, a fuck you to all these white people that wanted to hear smooth shit. it was an intelligent response to glen miller and all that shit. Functional does not just mean "a sign" or something.

>in the other post, i asked whether anybody had thought about
>why so many early blues musicians were blind men. it was
>because music was a TRADE that a blind dude could do, since he
>couldn't do manual labor. cats were not becoming musicians
>because they had high aspirations about "Art"... they became
>musicians because they had to survive.
>
>
>anyway... i really have to go now and i might not be online
>again until tomorrow. i'll read whatever response you have
>then, or you can just inbox me since Aquaman doesn't want me
>in his post.

see this is my point...
he just runs his mouth... and then declares it law...
even when he don't know what the fuck he talking about...
great job as always explizit...

>no Ive been here for a while. Ive been here since the website
>started but I took a hiatus for a few years and came back to
>the boards about 2 yrs ago.

after i typed it, i realized that i was actually thinking about someone else when i said you were new, but i was in too much of a hurry to edit it.

my bad.

>so anything post bop is not african and is therefore not
>black? I don't get it. You're discounting anything made up
>post bop becuase it deviated from normal call and response
>music? huh?

nope. i never said that.

what i said is that bebop introduced certain attitudes towards the idea of self-conscious art that did not really exist in Black (American) music before that.

that doesn't mean that the music that came after that was not Black...

remember: my original post said "WHEN did Black Music become infected with highfalutin ideas about Art?" and i concluded that *my opinion* was that it started with bebop. i then asked the readers to chime in with their takes on it.

but i never said that these "highfalutin ideas" meant that the music was "not Black"... do these ideas come from a non-Black source, though? yes, they do.

*my opinion* is that i find these ideas dangerous to the spirit that has kept Black music vibrant for many centuries. other people might feel differently, though.

>I know all this homie. Ive played jazz trombone for over 10
>yrs. I have extensive knowledge of the history of jazz.

okay... but are you going to give me counter-examples of "highfalutin" ideas of self-conscious art prior to bebop music, or are we just going to agree that i *might* have a point in that particular area?

>I guess you never heard mingus because he was all about that
>sweaty good times youre talking about.

oh, he was.

a lot of bebop actually DOES maintain that sweaty feeling... i'm not trying to say that it was an absolute case of "bebop appears and overnight, the music becomes sterile."

but the point is that what started then was the beginning of certain ideas about the relationship between Artist and Audience that slowly grew over the years until Jazz became thought of as music for the museum.

>bop was functional for many people for people who loved it and
>didnt know how the fuck parker came up with the shit. it was a
>release, a fuck you to all these white people that wanted to
>hear smooth shit. it was an intelligent response to glen
>miller and all that shit. Functional does not just mean "a
>sign" or something.

like i said, there are different degrees to it.

but the more the boppers got into their thing, the more they phased out elements that were conducive to dancing and socializing: less repetition, more irregular rhythms and odd chording, more deconstruction of melody.

from the point of view of a musician, it's fascinating sonic science... but it DOES become increasingly alienating for the casual listener.

what was it that Louis Armstrong allegedly described it as? "weird chords which don't mean nothing...no melody to remember and no beat to dance to".

obviously, he was overstating the case, but his statement does kinda reflect the reaction of some of a lot of the less avant-garde leaning populace to this New Wave of Jazz.

but to say black art begins with africa and ends with bebop is really some simplistic shit. Thats basically discounting the idea of growth within the art form. Self concious? I dont know about that. I dont think parker was really that self concious when he was getting bjs from white women in the back of limos and pissing in white racist clubs and playing music high off heroin to people that had no idea what the fuck he was playing. Self concious? I would think someone playing "to" and audience is much more self-concious. I guess its semantics but I think art is art. expression is expression and if you wanna define whats black and white within music go ahead. Some of us just call it growth. I dont think the beboppers thought they were being less black or less african or more white or any of that shit when they were playing. Quite the opposite.

'but to say black art begins with africa and ends with bebop is really some simplistic shit. Thats basically discounting the idea of growth within the art form. Self concious? I dont know about that. I dont think parker was really that self concious when he was getting bjs from white women in the back of limos and pissing in white racist clubs and playing music high off heroin to people that had no idea what the fuck he was playing. Self concious? I would think someone playing "to" and audience is much more self-concious.'

Bingo... Charlie Parker was the man... and he knew it...
they literally called him God and he fucked everything he wanted... the only thing he was self conscious about was money and his heroin fix... see the film Bird for details... great movie btw...
I mean we are talking about a man during one of the biggest concerts of his life... had pawned his sax.. .and played a PLASTIC SAX FOR what is still considered to be the greatest jazz concert of their day... and today for that matter.


'I guess its semantics but I think art is art. expression is expression and if you wanna define whats black and white within music go ahead. Some of us just call it growth. I dont think the beboppers thought they were being less black or less african or more white or any of that shit when they were playing. Quite the opposite.'

Exactly... if anything they were conscious of... again... was money.

>but to say black art begins with africa and ends with bebop
>is really some simplistic shit.

but i never DID say that.

i just explained to you that i NEVER said that the music that came after bebop was NOT "Black Art."

what i DID say is that the music that came after that started promoting certain ideas that *i personally* think are dangerous to the vital spirit of Black Art.

please, explizit... i am really trying here. i don't know how much more i can repeat or explain myself.

Thats basically discounting
>the idea of growth within the art form.

who says that is "growth," though?

or if it IS "growth" is it necessarily the BEST growth? sometimes it's quite possible to grow in a "bad" direction.

personally, i don't like the idea of thinking of it as "growth"... to me, that is reflective of the idea that Black music is inherently primitive, and in order for it to "grow" it must be infused with theories from the more "advanced" European tradition.

i reject that idea.

Self concious? I dont
>know about that. I dont think parker was really that self
>concious when he was getting bjs from white women in the back
>of limos and pissing in white racist clubs and playing music
>high off heroin to people that had no idea what the fuck he
>was playing.

all of that stuff refers to things that happened in Charlie Parker's personal life... NOT his attitude to his music. it's essentially gossip and really irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Self concious? I would think someone playing "to"
>and audience is much more self-concious. I guess its semantics
>but I think art is art. expression is expression and if you
>wanna define whats black and white within music go ahead. Some
>of us just call it growth. I dont think the beboppers thought
>they were being less black or less african or more white or
>any of that shit when they were playing. Quite the opposite.

actually, a lot of the beboppers considered their music much MORE Black than the mainstream of Jazz at the time, because bebop encompassed a semi-obscure set of expressive codes and a degree of difficulty that was inaccessible to a lot of the white post-swing bands of the day.

but ultimately, it WAS more self-conscious. it WAS *trying* to be Art much more than something like "Take the A Train"

"Take the A Train" doesn't have to *try* to be Art... it just is.

i really hope it doesn't sound like i'm disparaging bebop here because i actually LOVE that music. but the fact is that it *tried* much more... and when you think about it, that's a fundamental thing about Black music: not looking like you're trying too hard... not biting your lip when you're dancing... not looking like you're concentrating that much... being carefree, you know?

not to say that ALL Black music has to exhibit that trait... but i think you'll agree that most of the BEST Black music does.

EDIT: again, i'll say that this is not an absolute thing, because bebop also did exhibit a high degree of carefreeness and humor.

>>but to say black art begins with africa and ends with bebop
>>is really some simplistic shit.
>
>but i never DID say that.
>
>i just explained to you that i NEVER said that the music that
>came after bebop was NOT "Black Art."
>
really? how so? so you define what is and isn't "black art." wtf? you know how many black artists would laugh at you for saying that? thats a hilarious opinion man.

>what i DID say is that the music that came after that started
>promoting certain ideas that *i personally* think are
>dangerous to the vital spirit of Black Art.

dangerous? how so? things grow and evolve homie. you cant do call and response forever. theres a reason why louis armstrong eclipsed bix biederbeck and why miles eclipsed him etc. etc.
>
>please, explizit... i am really trying here. i don't know how
>much more i can repeat or explain myself.
>
>Thats basically discounting
>>the idea of growth within the art form.
>
>who says that is "growth," though?

uh it is.
>
>or if it IS "growth" is it necessarily the BEST growth?
>sometimes it's quite possible to grow in a "bad" direction.
>
huh? thats some tricky waters your treading with that statement.

>personally, i don't like the idea of thinking of it as
>"growth"... to me, that is reflective of the idea that Black
>music is inherently primitive, and in order for it to "grow"
>it must be infused with theories from the more "advanced"
>European tradition.
>
>i reject that idea.
>
Well a lot of people reject the idea that black art has to be defined by call and response or just merely entertaining people or just being functional as making quilts. its bigger than that.

>Self concious? I dont
>>know about that. I dont think parker was really that self
>>concious when he was getting bjs from white women in the
>back
>>of limos and pissing in white racist clubs and playing music
>>high off heroin to people that had no idea what the fuck he
>>was playing.
>
>all of that stuff refers to things that happened in Charlie
>Parker's personal life... NOT his attitude to his music. it's
>essentially gossip and really irrelevant to the discussion at
>hand.
>
it is relevant if you realize where he was coming from in creating the music. he lived his music. you need to read up on some bios of jazz players. Im almost finished with this book on Mingus and Ive read miles autobiography and a lot on coltrane and parker and dizzy, etc. You would realize how important their personal lives were in affecting their creativity.

>Self concious? I would think someone playing "to"
>>and audience is much more self-concious. I guess its
>semantics
>>but I think art is art. expression is expression and if you
>>wanna define whats black and white within music go ahead.
>Some
>>of us just call it growth. I dont think the beboppers
>thought
>>they were being less black or less african or more white or
>>any of that shit when they were playing. Quite the opposite.
>
>
>actually, a lot of the beboppers considered their music much
>MORE Black than the mainstream of Jazz at the time, because
>bebop encompassed a semi-obscure set of expressive codes and a
>degree of difficulty that was inaccessible to a lot of the
>white post-swing bands of the day.
>
thats what Im saying.

>but ultimately, it WAS more self-conscious. it WAS *trying* to
>be Art much more than something like "Take the A Train"
>
>"Take the A Train" doesn't have to *try* to be Art... it just
>is.
>

ugh. this is real bad analogy. I gotta flag you on this bs. Ellington was an artist. miles was an artist. Coltrane never tried to be more white or european or distance himself from being black when he started doing free jazz. You wanna define black art by restricting its exploration and growth. Thats not progressive nor accurate. Your opinion is shared by who? I dont know anyone except a few contrarians on message boards like this one.

>i really hope it doesn't sound like i'm disparaging bebop here
>because i actually LOVE that music. but the fact is that it
>*tried* much more... and when you think about it, that's a
>fundamental thing about Black music: not looking like you're
>trying too hard... not biting your lip when you're dancing...
>not looking like you're concentrating that much... being
>carefree, you know?
>
I think youre trying to simplify music. Sometimes being carefree is intelligent and anti-pop as well. This might be a frightening idea to you but it's true. Seriously read up on more jazz artists. I swear if you read "Myself when I am Real" about mingus you would change this simplistic way of thinking. If you are already a certain way that will come out when you are carefree. If you already are of a certain political thought then you can be carefree and still express these ideas without overthinking things. People like you think anything outside the realm of pure physical expression or surface emotion is overthinking. It isn't. I'm sorry to burst your bubble.

>not to say that ALL Black music has to exhibit that trait...
>but i think you'll agree that most of the BEST Black music
>does.
>
eh...no.

>EDIT: again, i'll say that this is not an absolute thing,
>because bebop also did exhibit a high degree of carefreeness
>and humor.
>
I would say much more than a lot of jazz. In your synopsis of highfalutin ideas of art I think you're overthinking these subjects. It's kinda ironic as well as your overthinking about people that you are accusing of overthinking. Sometimes art is just art. It's exploration and growth. Ideas upon ideas. If you think africa and african music existed within a bubble and that was completely transferred to american blacks then you really are mistaken. And if you think black american art is only music that was made to entertain people on a surface level then you are really mistaken.

i've tried here, explizit... i've really tried.

it's funny that you're telling me that i am not making a good argument, when you have not even offerred even the *beginning* of a counter-argument. all you keep doing is telling me that i am wrong, but not ONCE have told you me *why* i am wrong.

not ONCE have you offerred a *shred* of evidence to back up your opinion (or rather, to invalidate mine).

all you say is "this opinion is laughable" "your argument is shaky" "you're still not making a good argument."

i mean, i EXPLICITLY asked you to bring forth certain evidence in order to debunk a statement that i made (about whether Black musicians considered themselves self-conscious artists prior to bebop) and you avoided doing this.

yet you tell me "you are wrong."

i'm sorry... that is not how grown folks conduct an argument, and that's how you intend to play, let me know so i can bow out gracefully and spend my time doing something much more productive... because otherwise, this is a total waste of my time.

come to think of it, this is exactly what you did in my "pro-Black hip-hop" post... you kept complaining that i didn't support my argument about fascist tendencies and when i pointed out the Ice Cube video i linked, you started saying "oh... so all you can do is say Ice Cube is fascist! you're so stupid!"

but through all that, you never ONCE even addressed the issue of whether or not the Ice Cube video contained content that could be construed as fascist. not ONCE did you actually tackle the argument based on facts rather than emotions.

all you did was tell me "you are wrong."

why am i wrong?

"because i say so."

ooooookay....

what i find MOST frustrating, though, is the fact that you seem almost DETERMINED not to get the point, regardless of how many times i explain myself. i really hate having to repeat myself endlessly, so how do i deal with something like this:

>>i just explained to you that i NEVER said that the music
>that
>>came after bebop was NOT "Black Art."
>>
>really? how so? so you define what is and isn't "black art."
>wtf? you know how many black artists would laugh at you for
>saying that? thats a hilarious opinion man.

that's a hilarious opinion?

the only hilarious thing is that i JUST SAID that i was NOT saying that bebop and the music that came after it was NOT Black art, and you're responding asking me if i'm the one who defines what is or isn't Black art.

WTF?

what language do i have to speak to understood here? obviously, English isn't working... i NEVER said that ANYTHING was or wasn't Black art. i NEVER said that i am the arbiter of what is or isn't Black art?

so, really... what the FUCK are you even talking about?

>dangerous? how so? things grow and evolve homie. you cant do
>call and response forever. theres a reason why louis armstrong
>eclipsed bix biederbeck and why miles eclipsed him etc. etc.

oh really?

and what exactly is that reason, pray tell?

>>who says that is "growth," though?
>
>uh it is.

why?

explain yourself, please.

>>or if it IS "growth" is it necessarily the BEST growth?
>>sometimes it's quite possible to grow in a "bad" direction.
>>
>huh? thats some tricky waters your treading with that
>statement.

oh really? can you provide some elaboration upon that statement or is it just something cool to say?

>>personally, i don't like the idea of thinking of it as
>>"growth"... to me, that is reflective of the idea that Black
>>music is inherently primitive, and in order for it to "grow"
>>it must be infused with theories from the more "advanced"
>>European tradition.
>>
>>i reject that idea.
>>
>Well a lot of people reject the idea that black art has to be
>defined by call and response or just merely entertaining
>people or just being functional as making quilts. its bigger
>than that.

you're free to reject whatever you want... but at least provide some SEMBLANCE of evidence to support your objection.

>it is relevant if you realize where he was coming from in
>creating the music. he lived his music.

*sigh*

STOP IT.

stop it RIGHT NOW.

i really, really hope that we're not gonna start wading into the realm of murky statements like "he lived his music." that shit is a bunch of semi-poetic abstraction that really has NO meaning when you think about it

i mean, seriously: so licking a white woman's pussy in a taxicab is what made Bird play so good?

see... it's exactly bullshit like "he lived his music" that led hundreds of college students and hipsters to start shooting dope in the 1950s because they thought that if they lived the kind of life that Charlie Parker did, that they would play with the same depth of feeling as him.

it's a bunch of nonsense.

"he lived his music"... bah! that's nothing but mythology, son. let's stick to talking about music.

you need to read up on
>some bios of jazz players. Im almost finished with this book
>on Mingus and Ive read miles autobiography and a lot on
>coltrane and parker and dizzy, etc. You would realize how
>important their personal lives were in affecting their
>creativity.

i've read them already, thanks.

can we get back to talking about actual MUSIC though?

>>actually, a lot of the beboppers considered their music much
>>MORE Black than the mainstream of Jazz at the time, because
>>bebop encompassed a semi-obscure set of expressive codes and
>a
>>degree of difficulty that was inaccessible to a lot of the
>>white post-swing bands of the day.
>>
>thats what Im saying.

no, actually that's what I'M saying. i'm still waiting for you to say something other than "you are wrong."

>>but ultimately, it WAS more self-conscious. it WAS *trying*
>to
>>be Art much more than something like "Take the A Train"
>>
>>"Take the A Train" doesn't have to *try* to be Art... it
>just
>>is.
>>
>
>ugh. this is real bad analogy. I gotta flag you on this bs.

okay... WHY is it a bad analogy?

you gonna flag me and not tell me WHY?

>Ellington was an artist. miles was an artist. Coltrane never
>tried to be more white or european or distance himself from
>being black when he started doing free jazz.

Ellington was an artist... who ever said he wasn't?

my question was whether or not someone like Ellington *presented* himself as an artist in the "self-conscious" sense. which you still haven't answered, by the way.

i mean, you've read so many jazz bios, so it should be pretty easy for you to retrieve a quote or two just to provide SOME substantiation to your statements, right?

as for the other thing you're talking about... it ain't got jack shit to do with anything i said. search this entire board... go into the Archives even ad search every post going back to 1999 and tell me where i said that.

i NEVER said that Coltrane or anybody else was trying to be more white or European of distance themselves from being Black.

i never said anything even CLOSE to that, so i have NO fucking clue where you even got some bullshit like that.

what i DID say that they were drawing on traditions outside of the traditional Black experience, including the European avant-garde and (in Coltrane's case) Oriental tonalities.

are you gonna deny that's true? of course not.

so why not just accept that and stop making up shit that i didn't even say. that shit is foul, dude... it makes me not even wanna talk to a person when they pull shit like that.

You wanna define
>black art by restricting its exploration and growth. Thats not
>progressive nor accurate. Your opinion is shared by who? I
>dont know anyone except a few contrarians on message boards
>like this one.

actually, my opinion is shared by many people, including some quite reputable musicologists. but that is irrelevant either way... it is MY OPINION.

MINE.

you are quite free to disagree with it, but the fact that many people disagree with me does not automatically make me wrong either. when Columbus said the world was round and not flat, it's not as if most people agreed with him then, right?

>I think youre trying to simplify music. Sometimes being
>carefree is intelligent and anti-pop as well.

who said anything about pop or intelligence, though? or even simplification?

all i'm talking about is the attitude of the musician towards his audience and his work.

how simple or complicated the music is is quite irrelevant here... Jelly Roll Morton's music was much more complicated than Prince's is, but Jelly Roll didn't call himself an "artist" and Prince does.

so... what's your point here?

please: again, i am going to ask you to stick to things that i have actually SAID rather than fabricating views and attributing them to me.

This might be a
>frightening idea to you but it's true. Seriously read up on
>more jazz artists. I swear if you read "Myself when I am Real"
>about mingus you would change this simplistic way of thinking.

i've read it. and guess what? it actually SUPPORTS my point of view.

>If you are already a certain way that will come out when you
>are carefree. If you already are of a certain political
>thought then you can be carefree and still express these ideas
>without overthinking things.

oh... so it's about POLITICS now. i thought it was MUSIC we were discussing.

okay... so what exactly IS this political view that you are talking about?

because, you know... i'm sure that ALL Black musicians in history have shared the exact same political view, more or less.

>People like you think anything
>outside the realm of pure physical expression or surface
>emotion is overthinking. It isn't. I'm sorry to burst your
>bubble.

LOL again: stick to shit that i actually say, alright?

>>not to say that ALL Black music has to exhibit that trait...
>>but i think you'll agree that most of the BEST Black music
>>does.
>>
>eh...no.

explain. saying "no" is not enough, man.

>I would say much more than a lot of jazz. In your synopsis of
>highfalutin ideas of art I think you're overthinking these
>subjects. It's kinda ironic as well as your overthinking about
>people that you are accusing of overthinking. Sometimes art is
>just art. It's exploration and growth. Ideas upon ideas. If
>you think africa and african music existed within a bubble and
>that was completely transferred to american blacks then you
>really are mistaken.

what does that even mean?

And if you think black american art is
>only music that was made to entertain people on a surface
>level then you are really mistaken.

dog... believe me: i seriously doubt that you are in a position to school me about any aspect of Black American art. and i swear to God, i don't mean that in a disrespectful way.

i asked you before to simply cite for me some instances of self-consciousness in Black American art (specifically in popular music, anyway) and you have still failed to do this.

at some point you have to put up or shut up.

i think i'm really wasting my time. i'm gonna have to retire from further discussion of this topic with you until you demonstrate that you are willing to have an adult conversation where the participants back up their statements with soem kind of evidence.

peace.

i've tried here, explizit... i've really tried.

it's funny that you're telling me that i am not making a good argument, when you have not even offerred even the *beginning* of a counter-argument. all you keep doing is telling me that i am wrong, but not ONCE have told you me *why* i am wrong.

not ONCE have you offerred a *shred* of evidence to back up your opinion (or rather, to invalidate mine).

I KNOW THIS ISN’T MY ARGUMENT… BUT PLEASE SHOW ME KAP WHERE YOU HAVE OFFERED A SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO
ANY OF YOUR OUTSTANDING CLAIMS
TO COUNTER ANY OF MY ARGUMENTS (ESPECIALLY THE ONES WITH FACTS AND INFORMATION IN THEM)

all you say is "this opinion is laughable" "your argument is shaky" "you're still not making a good argument."

NO DIFFERENT THAN YOU CLAIMING SHIT IS ‘SPOOKY’ OR A ‘CONSPIRACY’ NOW IS IT?
POT CALLING THE KETTLE WHITE AGAIN?

i mean, i EXPLICITLY asked you to bring forth certain evidence in order to debunk a statement that i made (about whether Black musicians considered themselves self-conscious artists prior to bebop) and you avoided doing this.

THIS IS A SUBJECTIVE ARGUMENT AND STATEMENT.. .’SELF CONSCIOUS’? WHO WILL YOU USE AS A MARKER? THAT’S RIDICULOUS TO EVEN TRY TO DELVE INTO ONE’S MINDSTATE IS IT NOT?

yet you tell me "you are wrong."

i'm sorry... that is not how grown folks conduct an argument, and that's how you intend to play, let me know so i can bow out gracefully and spend my time doing something much more productive... because otherwise, this is a total waste of my time.

PLEASE SHOW US HOW …ER… GROWN FOLKS CONDUCT AND ARGUMENT ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT RANT AND MOAN WHEN COUNTERING MINE? I CAME WITH ARTICLES. YOU CAME WITH INSULTS.

come to think of it, this is exactly what you did in my "pro-Black hip-hop" post... you kept complaining that i didn't support my argument about fascist tendencies and when i pointed out the Ice Cube video i linked, you started saying "oh... so all you can do is say Ice Cube is fascist! you're so stupid!"

UM.. DO WE REALLY WANT TO SPEAK ON THE WEAKNESS OF THAT POST?

but through all that, you never ONCE even addressed the issue of whether or not the Ice Cube video contained content that could be construed as fascist. not ONCE did you actually tackle the argument based on facts rather than emotions.

all you did was tell me "you are wrong."

why am i wrong?

"because i say so."

ooooookay....
BUT YOU DO REALIZE THIS HAS BEEN YOUR MANTRA THROUGHOUT YOUR OKPLAYA CAREER?

what i find MOST frustrating, though, is the fact that you seem almost DETERMINED not to get the point, regardless of how many times i explain myself. i really hate having to repeat myself endlessly, so how do i deal with something like this:

>>i just explained to you that i NEVER said that the music
>that
>>came after bebop was NOT "Black Art."
>>
>really? how so? so you define what is and isn't "black art."
>wtf? you know how many black artists would laugh at you for
>saying that? thats a hilarious opinion man.

that's a hilarious opinion?

the only hilarious thing is that i JUST SAID that i was NOT saying that bebop and the music that came after it was NOT Black art, and you're responding asking me if i'm the one who defines what is or isn't Black art.

WTF?

what language do i have to speak to understood here? obviously, English isn't working... i NEVER said that ANYTHING was or wasn't Black art. i NEVER said that i am the arbiter of what is or isn't Black art?

so, really... what the FUCK are you even talking about?

>dangerous? how so? things grow and evolve homie. you cant do
>call and response forever. theres a reason why louis armstrong
>eclipsed bix biederbeck and why miles eclipsed him etc. etc.

oh really?

and what exactly is that reason, pray tell?

>>who says that is "growth," though?
>
>uh it is.

why?

explain yourself, please.

>>or if it IS "growth" is it necessarily the BEST growth?
>>sometimes it's quite possible to grow in a "bad" direction.
>>
>huh? thats some tricky waters your treading with that
>statement.

oh really? can you provide some elaboration upon that statement or is it just something cool to say?
SOMETIMES IT IS POSSIBLE TO GROW IN A BAD DIRECTION. CHARLIE PARKER DIED YOUNG. END OF ARGUMENT.

>>personally, i don't like the idea of thinking of it as
>>"growth"... to me, that is reflective of the idea that Black
>>music is inherently primitive, and in order for it to "grow"
>>it must be infused with theories from the more "advanced"
>>European tradition.
>>
>>i reject that idea.
>>
>Well a lot of people reject the idea that black art has to be
>defined by call and response or just merely entertaining
>people or just being functional as making quilts. its bigger
>than that.

you're free to reject whatever you want... but at least provide some SEMBLANCE of evidence to support your objection.
WAIT.. WHERE WAS YOUR BALANCE IN THE ORIGINAL STATEMENT? HAVEN’T WHITE FOLKS (FUCK THAT EURO SHIT) BEEN LEARNING ALL THINGS ART FROM US FROM JUMP? IS THAT EVEN AN ARGUMENT?

>it is relevant if you realize where he was coming from in
>creating the music. he lived his music.

*sigh*

STOP IT.

stop it RIGHT NOW.

i really, really hope that we're not gonna start wading into the realm of murky statements like "he lived his music." that shit is a bunch of semi-poetic abstraction that really has NO meaning when you think about it

BUT IT’S TRUTH… AGAIN… YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE A MUSICIAN TO KNOW HOW WE LIVE.

i mean, seriously: so licking a white woman's pussy in a taxicab is what made Bird play so good?

see... it's exactly bullshit like "he lived his music" that led hundreds of college students and hipsters to start shooting dope in the 1950s because they thought that if they lived the kind of life that Charlie Parker did, that they would play with the same depth of feeling as him.

it's a bunch of nonsense.

I THINK YOUR TAKING HIS STATEMENT OUT OF CONTEXT HERE… HE NEVER SAID IT DID.

"he lived his music"... bah! that's nothing but mythology, son. let's stick to talking about music.

HOW IS A LIVING AND BREATHING MAN, STRUGGLING, PUSHING, DOING ANYTHING TO KEEP HIS ART ALIVE AND MOVING… A MYTH?

you need to read up on
>some bios of jazz players. Im almost finished with this book
>on Mingus and Ive read miles autobiography and a lot on
>coltrane and parker and dizzy, etc. You would realize how
>important their personal lives were in affecting their
>creativity.

i've read them already, thanks.

can we get back to talking about actual MUSIC though?

>>actually, a lot of the beboppers considered their music much
>>MORE Black than the mainstream of Jazz at the time, because
>>bebop encompassed a semi-obscure set of expressive codes and
>a
>>degree of difficulty that was inaccessible to a lot of the
>>white post-swing bands of the day.
>>
>thats what Im saying.

no, actually that's what I'M saying. i'm still waiting for you to say something other than "you are wrong."

>>but ultimately, it WAS more self-conscious. it WAS *trying*
>to
>>be Art much more than something like "Take the A Train"
>>
>>"Take the A Train" doesn't have to *try* to be Art... it
>just
>>is.
>>
>
>ugh. this is real bad analogy. I gotta flag you on this bs.

okay... WHY is it a bad analogy?

you gonna flag me and not tell me WHY?

>Ellington was an artist. miles was an artist. Coltrane never
>tried to be more white or european or distance himself from
>being black when he started doing free jazz.

Ellington was an artist... who ever said he wasn't?

my question was whether or not someone like Ellington *presented* himself as an artist in the "self-conscious" sense. which you still haven't answered, by the way.

OF COURSE HE WAS AN ARTIST… TO A MAN LIVING AND CREATING DO YOU THINK HE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THE SEMANTICS OF HOW YOU DEFINE HIM? IT IS HIS MUSIC THAT DEFINES HIM… NOT PEOPLE WHO READ ABOUT HIM.

i mean, you've read so many jazz bios, so it should be pretty easy for you to retrieve a quote or two just to provide SOME substantiation to your statements, right?

as for the other thing you're talking about... it ain't got jack shit to do with anything i said. search this entire board... go into the Archives even ad search every post going back to 1999 and tell me where i said that
i NEVER said that Coltrane or anybody else was trying to be more white or European of distance themselves from being Black.

GOOD TO HEAR, I’LL WAIT FOR THE VERDICT … LOL.

i never said anything even CLOSE to that, so i have NO fucking clue where you even got some bullshit like that.

GOOD TO HEAR. AGAIN. BAILIFF?

what i DID say that they were drawing on traditions outside of the traditional Black experience, including the European avant-garde and (in Coltrane's case) Oriental tonalities.

THAT’S TRUE.
are you gonna deny that's true? of course not.

THAT’S JUST THE HUMAN ELEMENT… THAT’S TRUE.

so why not just accept that and stop making up shit that i didn't even say. that shit is foul, dude... it makes me not even wanna talk to a person when they pull shit like that.

HMMM… THE MAN WHO HAS DONE THIS THE ENTIRE POST… DOESN’TLIKE IT WHEN IT’S DONE TO HIM.
HMM. YOU ARE A WHITE KETTLE. LOL

You wanna define
>black art by restricting its exploration and growth. Thats not
>progressive nor accurate. Your opinion is shared by who? I
>dont know anyone except a few contrarians on message boards
>like this one.

WELL SAID.

actually, my opinion is shared by many people, including some quite reputable musicologists. but that is irrelevant either way... it is MY OPINION.

AND THESE MUSICOLOGISTS WOULD BE WHOM? CAUSE STUDYING A NIGGA (NIGGAOLOGIST) IS NOT BEING A NIGGA.

MINE.

you are quite free to disagree with it, but the fact that many people disagree with me does not automatically make me wrong either. when Columbus said the world was round and not flat, it's not as if most people agreed with him then, right?

YAWN. COLUMBUS? REALLY DUDE.

>I think youre trying to simplify music. Sometimes being
>carefree is intelligent and anti-pop as well.

who said anything about pop or intelligence, though? or even simplification?

all i'm talking about is the attitude of the musician towards his audience and his work.

WAS WHAT? SPELL IT OUT. I WANNA KNOW.

how simple or complicated the music is is quite irrelevant here... Jelly Roll Morton's music was much more complicated than Prince's is, but Jelly Roll didn't call himself an "artist" and Prince does.

THAT IS ACTUALLY A FOOLISH, SUBJECTIVE STATEMENT. BROAD BRUSH STROKES ANYONE?

so... what's your point here?

please: again, i am going to ask you to stick to things that i have actually SAID rather than fabricating views and attributing them to me.

YOU NEED TO DO THE SAME HOMIE.

This might be a
>frightening idea to you but it's true. Seriously read up on
>more jazz artists. I swear if you read "Myself when I am Real"
>about mingus you would change this simplistic way of thinking.

i've read it. and guess what? it actually SUPPORTS my point of view.

HMM… PLEASE SHARE.

>If you are already a certain way that will come out when you
>are carefree. If you already are of a certain political
>thought then you can be carefree and still express these ideas
>without overthinking things.

oh... so it's about POLITICS now. i thought it was MUSIC we were discussing.

ACTUALLY I THOUGHT THE POST WAS ABOUT MUSIC VS. POLITICS. WAS IT NOT?

okay... so what exactly IS this political view that you are talking about?

because, you know... i'm sure that ALL Black musicians in history have shared the exact same political view, more or less.

WHAT? RIGHT CAUSE THEY ARE ALL CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH? THE SAME MANUFACTURER?
ACTUALLY, THAT NOT ONLY SIMPLIFIES BLACK MUSICIANS… BUT BLACK PEOPLE. SIGH. NEGROES.

>People like you think anything
>outside the realm of pure physical expression or surface
>emotion is overthinking. It isn't. I'm sorry to burst your
>bubble.

LOL again: stick to shit that i actually say, alright?

UM… I THINK EXPLIZIT IS RIGHT ACTUALLY. YOU DO DO THAT.

>>not to say that ALL Black music has to exhibit that trait...
>>but i think you'll agree that most of the BEST Black music
>>does.
>>
>eh...no.

explain. saying "no" is not enough, man.

>I would say much more than a lot of jazz. In your synopsis of
>highfalutin ideas of art I think you're overthinking these
>subjects. It's kinda ironic as well as your overthinking about
>people that you are accusing of overthinking. Sometimes art is
>just art. It's exploration and growth. Ideas upon ideas. If
>you think africa and african music existed within a bubble and
>that was completely transferred to american blacks then you
>really are mistaken.

what does that even mean?

IT MEANS THE MAN WHO YELLS ‘THIEF’… IS THE ONE WHO STOLE IT.

And if you think black american art is
>only music that was made to entertain people on a surface
>level then you are really mistaken.

dog... believe me: i seriously doubt that you are in a position to school me about any aspect of Black American art. and i swear to God, i don't mean that in a disrespectful way.

UM… SEE … THIS IS HIS POINT. GET OFFYOUR BAR STOOL AND JOIN THE REST OF US…
YOU MIGHT FIND OUT THAT PEOPLE CAN UNDERSTAND YOU BETTER… AND THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN FULL OF SHIT. BAR STOOLS HAVE A WAY OF NOT LETTING YOU KNOW THAT. BARKEEPS ON THE OTHER HAND… WILL TELL YOU.

i asked you before to simply cite for me some instances of self-consciousness in Black American art (specifically in popular music, anyway) and you have still failed to do this.

at some point you have to put up or shut up.

i think i'm really wasting my time. i'm gonna have to retire from further discussion of this topic with you until you demonstrate that you are willing to have an adult conversation where the participants back up their statements with soem kind of evidence.

THAT’S RIGHT… YOU DON’T GET WHAT YOU WANT TO SO TAKE YOUR BALL AND LEAVE THE PLAYGROUND.
SIGH. NEGROES. ON BAR STOOLS.

but still...

>not ONCE have you offerred a *shred* of evidence to back up
>your opinion (or rather, to invalidate mine).
>
>I KNOW THIS ISN’T MY ARGUMENT… BUT PLEASE SHOW ME KAP WHERE
>YOU HAVE OFFERED A SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO
>ANY OF YOUR OUTSTANDING CLAIMS
>TO COUNTER ANY OF MY ARGUMENTS (ESPECIALLY THE ONES WITH FACTS
>AND INFORMATION IN THEM)

i told you that i would get back to you on that, did i not?


>all you say is "this opinion is laughable" "your argument is
>shaky" "you're still not making a good argument."
>
>NO DIFFERENT THAN YOU CLAIMING SHIT IS ‘SPOOKY’ OR A
>‘CONSPIRACY’ NOW IS IT?
>POT CALLING THE KETTLE WHITE AGAIN?

actually, it is a LOT different.

one of the major differences being that you try to connect a lot of completely disparate facts into an over-arching tapestry where no empirical connection exists.

at that point, the burden of proof rests upon YOU to demonstrate that there is a connection much more than it rests on me to prove that there isn't.

believing that there is no connection is actually the DEFAULT, you see.

>i mean, i EXPLICITLY asked you to bring forth certain evidence
>in order to debunk a statement that i made (about whether
>Black musicians considered themselves self-conscious artists
>prior to bebop) and you avoided doing this.
>
>THIS IS A SUBJECTIVE ARGUMENT AND STATEMENT.. .’SELF
>CONSCIOUS’? WHO WILL YOU USE AS A MARKER? THAT’S RIDICULOUS
>TO EVEN TRY TO DELVE INTO ONE’S MINDSTATE IS IT NOT?

it's not subjective at all... there are scores and scores of interviews featuring Black musicians talking about themselves and their attitudes towards their work and their audience.

if what i am saying is wrong, it should be very easy to debunk it with a quote or two.

>PLEASE SHOW US HOW …ER… GROWN FOLKS CONDUCT AND ARGUMENT
>ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT RANT AND MOAN
>WHEN COUNTERING MINE? I CAME WITH ARTICLES. YOU CAME WITH
>INSULTS.

Aqua... we have been through this before. let's not go down that road again.

i explained quite clearly that when i replied to this post with insults, i was responding to the fact that there were people in this post who were insulting ME first.

if my name had NOT been brought up, i would have never replied to this post in the first place, as the subject matter holds little interest for me.

>come to think of it, this is exactly what you did in my
>"pro-Black hip-hop" post... you kept complaining that i didn't
>support my argument about fascist tendencies and when i
>pointed out the Ice Cube video i linked, you started saying
>"oh... so all you can do is say Ice Cube is fascist! you're so
>stupid!"
>
>UM.. DO WE REALLY WANT TO SPEAK ON THE WEAKNESS OF THAT POST?

go ahead and speak on it if you want... but make sure that you specifically address the content of the post.

because out of the almost 200 replies that post got, only ONE person actually addressed the content of the video i posted (and interestingly enough, that person agreed that i was right).

everybody else just called me stupid and an Uncle Tom.

which was extremely weak.

>but through all that, you never ONCE even addressed the issue
>of whether or not the Ice Cube video contained content that
>could be construed as fascist. not ONCE did you actually
>tackle the argument based on facts rather than emotions.
>
>all you did was tell me "you are wrong."
>
>why am i wrong?
>
>"because i say so."
>
>ooooookay....
>BUT YOU DO REALIZE THIS HAS BEEN YOUR MANTRA THROUGHOUT YOUR
>OKPLAYA CAREER?

i don't even have to debunk that, Aqua...

a random search through the Archives will show that that statement has no basis in truth whatsoever.

you may or may not agree with what i have to say, but you cannot deny that 90% of the time, i DO back my shit up.

that's just laughable, man.

>>>or if it IS "growth" is it necessarily the BEST growth?
>>>sometimes it's quite possible to grow in a "bad" direction.
>>>
>>huh? thats some tricky waters your treading with that
>>statement.
>
>oh really? can you provide some elaboration upon that
>statement or is it just something cool to say?
>SOMETIMES IT IS POSSIBLE TO GROW IN A BAD DIRECTION. CHARLIE
>PARKER DIED YOUNG. END OF ARGUMENT.


didn't i already say that?

WTF is going on here really?

>you're free to reject whatever you want... but at least
>provide some SEMBLANCE of evidence to support your objection.
>WAIT.. WHERE WAS YOUR BALANCE IN THE ORIGINAL STATEMENT?
>HAVEN’T WHITE FOLKS (FUCK THAT EURO SHIT) BEEN LEARNING ALL
>THINGS ART FROM US FROM JUMP? IS THAT EVEN AN ARGUMENT?

and that has WHAT to do with the subject at hand?

either you agree with me that they bebop musicians were drawing on Euro... WHITE musical traditions or not.

what White people might have or not learned from Black people ain't got shit to do with the subject.

>i really, really hope that we're not gonna start wading into
>the realm of murky statements like "he lived his music." that
>shit is a bunch of semi-poetic abstraction that really has NO
>meaning when you think about it
>
>BUT IT’S TRUTH… AGAIN… YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE A MUSICIAN TO KNOW
>HOW WE LIVE.

LOL here we go again...


>i mean, seriously: so licking a white woman's pussy in a
>taxicab is what made Bird play so good?
>
>see... it's exactly bullshit like "he lived his music" that
>led hundreds of college students and hipsters to start
>shooting dope in the 1950s because they thought that if they
>lived the kind of life that Charlie Parker did, that they
>would play with the same depth of feeling as him.
>
>it's a bunch of nonsense.
>
>I THINK YOUR TAKING HIS STATEMENT OUT OF CONTEXT HERE… HE
>NEVER SAID IT DID.

what DID he say then?

dude... unlike some people, i read other people's posts very carefully before i reply.

if that's not what he said, please tell me what he DID say.

>"he lived his music"... bah! that's nothing but mythology,
>son. let's stick to talking about music.
>
>HOW IS A LIVING AND BREATHING MAN, STRUGGLING, PUSHING, DOING
>ANYTHING TO KEEP HIS ART ALIVE AND MOVING… A MYTH?

better question: how does licking a white woman's pussy have anything to do with the quality of music?

>my question was whether or not someone like Ellington
>*presented* himself as an artist in the "self-conscious"
>sense. which you still haven't answered, by the way.
>
>OF COURSE HE WAS AN ARTIST… TO A MAN LIVING AND CREATING DO
>YOU THINK HE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THE SEMANTICS OF HOW YOU
>DEFINE HIM? IT IS HIS MUSIC THAT DEFINES HIM… NOT PEOPLE WHO
>READ ABOUT HIM.

you still have not answered my question.


>so why not just accept that and stop making up shit that i
>didn't even say. that shit is foul, dude... it makes me not
>even wanna talk to a person when they pull shit like that.
>
>HMMM… THE MAN WHO HAS DONE THIS THE ENTIRE POST… DOESN’TLIKE
>IT WHEN IT’S DONE TO HIM.
>HMM. YOU ARE A WHITE KETTLE. LOL

please... by all means, SHOW me where i have made up some shit that someone didn't say in this post and say they did.

don't bring up the thing about Yacub either, because i explained that already and i apologized to Warren if i made it seem like he literally said it.

>>I think youre trying to simplify music. Sometimes being
>>carefree is intelligent and anti-pop as well.
>
>who said anything about pop or intelligence, though? or even
>simplification?
>
>all i'm talking about is the attitude of the musician towards
>his audience and his work.
>
>WAS WHAT? SPELL IT OUT. I WANNA KNOW.

man... i have spelled it out innumerable times already. i'm tired of repeating myself. the words are still on the page... go back and read them. or don't. it's not that big of a deal.

you either get it... or you do not.

>how simple or complicated the music is is quite irrelevant
>here... Jelly Roll Morton's music was much more complicated
>than Prince's is, but Jelly Roll didn't call himself an
>"artist" and Prince does.
>
>THAT IS ACTUALLY A FOOLISH, SUBJECTIVE STATEMENT. BROAD BRUSH
>STROKES ANYONE?

nope... it's a completely objective statement, actually.

and there's nothing foolish about it, either.


>oh... so it's about POLITICS now. i thought it was MUSIC we
>were discussing.
>
>ACTUALLY I THOUGHT THE POST WAS ABOUT MUSIC VS. POLITICS. WAS
>IT NOT?

no... it wasn't.

YOUR post might be about music vs. politics, but THIS particular discussion that i was having with explizit (NOT, i repeat, with YOU) was actually a continuation of a post that *I* made.

>okay... so what exactly IS this political view that you are
>talking about?
>
>because, you know... i'm sure that ALL Black musicians in
>history have shared the exact same political view, more or
>less.
>
>WHAT? RIGHT CAUSE THEY ARE ALL CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH? THE
>SAME MANUFACTURER?
>ACTUALLY, THAT NOT ONLY SIMPLIFIES BLACK MUSICIANS… BUT BLACK
>PEOPLE. SIGH. NEGROES.

it's called sarcasm, buddy.

>>People like you think anything
>>outside the realm of pure physical expression or surface
>>emotion is overthinking. It isn't. I'm sorry to burst your
>>bubble.
>
>LOL again: stick to shit that i actually say, alright?
>
>UM… I THINK EXPLIZIT IS RIGHT ACTUALLY. YOU DO DO THAT.

right.... because you're in my head and know what i think.

again: stick to shit that i actually say and don't worry about speculating about what "people like me" think

>dog... believe me: i seriously doubt that you are in a
>position to school me about any aspect of Black American art.
>and i swear to God, i don't mean that in a disrespectful way.
>
>UM… SEE … THIS IS HIS POINT. GET OFFYOUR BAR STOOL AND JOIN
>THE REST OF US…
>YOU MIGHT FIND OUT THAT PEOPLE CAN UNDERSTAND YOU BETTER… AND
>THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN FULL OF SHIT. BAR STOOLS HAVE A WAY
>OF NOT LETTING YOU KNOW THAT. BARKEEPS ON THE OTHER HAND…
>WILL TELL YOU.

LOL

>i asked you before to simply cite for me some instances of
>self-consciousness in Black American art (specifically in
>popular music, anyway) and you have still failed to do this.
>
>at some point you have to put up or shut up.
>
>i think i'm really wasting my time. i'm gonna have to retire
>from further discussion of this topic with you until you
>demonstrate that you are willing to have an adult conversation
>where the participants back up their statements with soem kind
>of evidence.
>
>THAT’S RIGHT… YOU DON’T GET WHAT YOU WANT TO SO TAKE YOUR BALL
>AND LEAVE THE PLAYGROUND.
>SIGH. NEGROES. ON BAR STOOLS.

no... it's just that i really have a lot more important things to do than sitting here having silly convos with no head or tail.

if we have a conversation in which people back up their shit with evidence and then retract their statements when they're arguments are objectively proven to be flawed (as i have done), THEN i could feel that i was not wasting my time by posting here because at least we're all learning something.

but as it is, all i am doing is repeating myself over and over and over and over because people refuse to address things that i am actually saying and make up shit that i never said.

that really is NOT a worthy use of my time.

on this entire post.
Just one.
Exactly.
All opinions.
Again.
Yet you call others out for their opinions? How does that work?
and niggaz called you a Tom on YOUR post (not me btw) because that post was weak. Videos and opinions?
weak. Try harder. match your argument with your emotion and you may have something. sometimes.
I'll be back to break this shit down... it's just too fucking ez.

>on this entire post.
>Just one.

JUST one?

okay...

"AQUA'S RESPONSES ARE ALL CAPS..."

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=1126346&mesg_id=1126346&page=#1133700

"what i DID say that they were drawing on traditions outside of the traditional Black experience, including the European avant-garde and (in Coltrane's case) Oriental tonalities.

THAT’S TRUE.
are you gonna deny that's true? of course not.

THAT’S JUST THE HUMAN ELEMENT… THAT’S TRUE."

so-ooo... obviously that was ONE fact, since you eagerly co-signed it, n'est-ce pas?

>All opinions.
>Again.
>Yet you call others out for their opinions? How does that
>work?
>and niggaz called you a Tom on YOUR post (not me btw) because
>that post was weak. Videos and opinions?
>weak. Try harder. match your argument with your emotion and
>you may have something. sometimes.

let me give you a brief lesson on how "opinions" and "facts" and "emotions" and "good arguments" and "bad arguments" work, since you seem to be just a little bit confused about that.

you see... make no mistake: just about EVERYTHING that ANYbody writes on this board is basically an OPINION.

but unless you are a completely non-rational, over-emotional person, you probably have a good REASON for arriving at a particular opinion.

when you are expressing your opinion on a board like this, it is important that you follow it up with some sort of evidence that allows people understand the REASON you hold that opinion. after all, none of us can look into your mind and know why we should accept this opinion, so there has to be some sort of evidence that we can see for ourselves. this evidence can't be based on your pesonal emotions either, as nobody else shares your emotions... they are subjective.

the difference between a good argument and a bad one is that in a GOOD argument, one offers an opinion and backs it up with SOME degree of objective evidence (as opposed to subjective emotions) that other people can easily see, or check and confirm for themselves.

when you state your opinion, you also state WHY you have that opinion, or why other people should accept it. for example:


AFKAP: i think some pro-Black hip-hop was kinda fascist and i am embarrassed to be associated with such ideas.

WHY: Look at this Ice Cube video that shows him attacking Black people who are minding their own business just because he disagrees with the fact that they are living their lives the way they want to. look at him kidnapping them at gunpoint, tying them up and attempting to reprogram their minds to force them to think the exact same way he does. those are indeed the actions of a fascist.


now, a few GOOD approaches to combating this argument include:

a) prove that the actions Ice Cube enacts in the video are NOT fascist.
b) demonstrate that the Ice Cube video is really an exception to the rule and that MOST pro-Black hip-hop did not express similar fascist views.

a really DUMB way to combat this argument is to reply "you are a fucking stupid, ignorant Uncle Tom. NIGGAZ HATE YOU!"

(mainly because not only is it a BAD argument, but it actually serves as SUPPORT for the original statement about the fascistic leanings of some pro-Black hip-hop thinking: one of the first refuges of fascism is to say "anybody who holds a different opinion from us is a traitor (i.e. an "Uncle Tom") and they are an enemy of our people! ATTACK THEM!")

if you look at what i have been posting here, you will see that i HAVE, in fact, been supporting my opinions with evidence. for example:


AFKAP: Bebop was music by musicians for other musicians, and it alienated a lot of the average audience.

WHY: i) because the rhythms were too complex and not regular and repetitive enough to encourage dancing

ii) because the melodies were deconstructed

iii) because even Louis Armstrong said that it is "weird chords that don't make sense and it gives you no beat to dance to and no melody to remember."

iv) because Miles Davis literally turned his back on the audience and faced his fellow musicians when he played


in order to discredit my statement, the LOGICAL thing to do would be to address my points of evidence i), ii), iii) and iv) and

a) offer counter-evidence demonstrating that ANY or ALL of the statements are either false or problematic (eg taken out of context)
b) illustrate that the points of evidence are not sufficient to fully support the statement

if you successfully do that, at that point i will have no choice but to

a) come up with new evidence to support my opinion, or
b) admit that my opinion was wrong/uninformed, and withdraw my statement

and mind you: there's no shame in withdrawing your opinion when it is disproved and it should not be held against you, as long as you admit that you were wrong and move on with the discussion.

i often DO withdraw my statements when people prove that my evidence is faulty in a logical manner. for instance:


AFKAP: I think the Four Tops were better than the Temptations.

WHY: Because if you listen to records like "Bernadette" and "(Reach Out) I'll Be There," their harmonies are much more thick and layered than the Temptations... and it was just FOUR of them vs. the Temptations' FIVE!

and then OKPs reply:

1. DETROIT DEFENDER: I do not agree with you.

WHY (counter-evidence): there were more than just four people singing on the Four Tops' records. listen to those records... can't you hear FEMALE voices on them?

2. NUKKAPEDIA: I do not agree with you.

WHY (counter-evidence): the Four Tops' harmonies were not REALLY that thick and layered. they were jazz singers who didn't know how to sing pop-style harmony so Berry Gordy added additional singers on their records.

AFKAP: Oh shit... You're right! My bad! I didn't know! Okay... I was wrong. (I still prefer Four Tops records, though, regardless of WHO is really singing on them!)

(note that sometimes it is acceptable to state an opinion without providing evidence, when the the supporting reasons are assumed to be well-known enough as to be indisputable. for instance, if i say "Marvin Gaye was a troubled man," i am safe in assuming that most people on this board will already know his story.

however, if someone nonetheless disputes this and demands evidence, i need to be ready to support the statement: "well... he had a serious drug problem. he had a volatile relationship with his father and issues with his father's sexuality. he often had low self-esteem and ran and hid when confronted with criticism, etc.")

see the way it works?

but instead, this is the way that you guys are mostly arguing:


AFKAP: Bebop introduced certain Eurocentric ideas of the relationship between the performer and the audience that didn't previously exist in Black music.

WHY: prior to bebop, Black musicians did not refer to themselves as "artists" in the self-conscious sense.

EXPLIZIT: i think you are wrong.

WHY (counter-evidence): because you just ARE! dude, how dumb are you? if you don't know, then you must be really ignorant!


or this:


AQUAMANSWRATH: Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa were all part of the same musical circuit in the 1960s.

WHY: Because I am a professional musician and you are not! shut up, white boy!

AFKAP: i do not agree with you.

WHY (counter-evidence): i) South Africa was in the middle of apartheid and was isolated from the rest of the continent (and the world). it was very hard to get in or out of that country for a Black person.

ii) South Africa is on the other side of the continent from Nigeria and Ghana, and this was a time when most African countries had no regular and affordable airlines and there were no good roads or railway networks stretching that far across the continent. so HOW would musicians travel to and fro between Nigeria and Ghana to South Africa on a regular basis?

iii) even now in 2007 that South Africa is "free" and there is MTV in Africa, the country is mostly culturally and musically isolated from the rest of the continent. how much more so would it have been in the 1960s at the height of apartheid?

AQUAMANSWRATH: Shut up, i'm a MUSICIAN and you're just a music LISTENER! I'll be damned if i ever let a non-musician tell me something about music! END OF ARGUMENT! Hahahaha! You got ethered, ASSkap! scienced out! haha! keep listening to those records, chump! I am a musician! this is why niggaz play the blues and white people just listen to it! Hahaha! SONNED, you dumb LISTENER!

***

so obviously, you can see why arguing in this fashion is a waste of time for me. it's really impossible to reach people who argue in this anti-rational fashion. it's like we're speaking different languages. what's the point?

>i've tried here, explizit... i've really tried.

and I've tried. really tried to get you to be specific to actualyl explain what you are talking about then just making a blanket statement like ice cubes song is facist..???in what way? you won't say.
>
>it's funny that you're telling me that i am not making a good
>argument, when you have not even offerred even the *beginning*
>of a counter-argument. all you keep doing is telling me that i
>am wrong, but not ONCE have told you me *why* i am wrong.
>
I have told you fuck, do you not read? I swear I'm making this plain as day man.

>not ONCE have you offerred a *shred* of evidence to back up
>your opinion (or rather, to invalidate mine).
>
>all you say is "this opinion is laughable" "your argument is
>shaky" "you're still not making a good argument."
>
>i mean, i EXPLICITLY asked you to bring forth certain evidence
>in order to debunk a statement that i made (about whether
>Black musicians considered themselves self-conscious artists
>prior to bebop) and you avoided doing this.

I have given evidence, but what have you given? Nothing but blanket statements. You won't explain any of your opinions but you just say its your opinion? wtf? Get the fuck off your highhorse man. Explain yourself.
>
>yet you tell me "you are wrong."
>
>i'm sorry... that is not how grown folks conduct an argument,
>and that's how you intend to play, let me know so i can bow
>out gracefully and spend my time doing something much more
>productive... because otherwise, this is a total waste of my
>time.

Oh gawd. Grown folks huh? You are talking to the wrong person trying to slang those insults. jeez.
>
>come to think of it, this is exactly what you did in my
>"pro-Black hip-hop" post... you kept complaining that i didn't
>support my argument about fascist tendencies and when i
>pointed out the Ice Cube video i linked, you started saying
>"oh... so all you can do is say Ice Cube is fascist! you're so
>stupid!"
>
no you said its facist. I said how so? you wouldnt tell me. you just told me if you dont already know you wont get it. You said you already said why but wouldnt repeat it to me after I searced for the answer and couldnt find it in any of your replies.

>but through all that, you never ONCE even addressed the issue
>of whether or not the Ice Cube video contained content that
>could be construed as fascist. not ONCE did you actually
>tackle the argument based on facts rather than emotions.
>

you post in typical buildingblock shockpost fashion. you make some contarian argument like bb would do like "pharohe monch should retire" then I try to make the dude explain himself and he really doesnt mean he should retire that he wants him to do better music but that wouldnt make for a shocking post. Quez makes a post about lryicism and the mid 90s rappers but all it boils down to is his hate of kweli and him saying "wack rappers." Its funny you guys make these huge blanket statements when really you have only a gripe with an ice cube video. You still wouldn't explain to me how x-clan was "baiting" whitey. It shouldn't be that hard to explain yourself.

>all you did was tell me "you are wrong."
>
>why am i wrong?
>
>"because i say so."
>
>ooooookay....
>
>what i find MOST frustrating, though, is the fact that you
>seem almost DETERMINED not to get the point, regardless of how
>many times i explain myself. i really hate having to repeat
>myself endlessly, so how do i deal with something like this:
>
>>>i just explained to you that i NEVER said that the music
>>that
>>>came after bebop was NOT "Black Art."

you said explicitly that!! fuck you man. you can't keep backtracking on this shit. jeezus.
>>>
>>really? how so? so you define what is and isn't "black art."
>>wtf? you know how many black artists would laugh at you for
>>saying that? thats a hilarious opinion man.
>
>that's a hilarious opinion?
>
>the only hilarious thing is that i JUST SAID that i was NOT
>saying that bebop and the music that came after it was NOT
>Black art, and you're responding asking me if i'm the one who
>defines what is or isn't Black art.
>
>WTF?
>
>what language do i have to speak to understood here?
>obviously, English isn't working... i NEVER said that ANYTHING
>was or wasn't Black art. i NEVER said that i am the arbiter of
>what is or isn't Black art?
>

so what then are you saying? you said it was deviating from traditional black/african art form. right? you basically discounted it as being black art.

>so, really... what the FUCK are you even talking about?
>
>>dangerous? how so? things grow and evolve homie. you cant do
>>call and response forever. theres a reason why louis
>armstrong
>>eclipsed bix biederbeck and why miles eclipsed him etc. etc.
>
>
>oh really?
>
>and what exactly is that reason, pray tell?
>

uh exploration within the artform? ever hear of that. or should we not explore borrow different ideas?

>>>who says that is "growth," though?
>>
>>uh it is.
>
>why?
>
>explain yourself, please.
>
>>>or if it IS "growth" is it necessarily the BEST growth?
>>>sometimes it's quite possible to grow in a "bad" direction.
>>>
>>huh? thats some tricky waters your treading with that
>>statement.
>
>oh really? can you provide some elaboration upon that
>statement or is it just something cool to say?
>

you're saying its bad to take ideas from european musicians..why? Are you saying people should be contained in this ethnocentric box? or can you not explain yourself again?

>>>personally, i don't like the idea of thinking of it as
>>>"growth"... to me, that is reflective of the idea that
>Black
>>>music is inherently primitive, and in order for it to
>"grow"
>>>it must be infused with theories from the more "advanced"
>>>European tradition.
>>>
>>>i reject that idea.
>>>
>>Well a lot of people reject the idea that black art has to
>be
>>defined by call and response or just merely entertaining
>>people or just being functional as making quilts. its bigger
>>than that.
>
>you're free to reject whatever you want... but at least
>provide some SEMBLANCE of evidence to support your objection.

if I have to provide you with evidence of black american music being more than call and response or functional art..well then you are really ignorant man.
>
>>it is relevant if you realize where he was coming from in
>>creating the music. he lived his music.
>
>*sigh*
>
>STOP IT.
>
>stop it RIGHT NOW.
>
>i really, really hope that we're not gonna start wading into
>the realm of murky statements like "he lived his music." that
>shit is a bunch of semi-poetic abstraction that really has NO
>meaning when you think about it
>
>i mean, seriously: so licking a white woman's pussy in a
>taxicab is what made Bird play so good?
>
>see... it's exactly bullshit like "he lived his music" that
>led hundreds of college students and hipsters to start
>shooting dope in the 1950s because they thought that if they
>lived the kind of life that Charlie Parker did, that they
>would play with the same depth of feeling as him.
>
>it's a bunch of nonsense.
>
>"he lived his music"... bah! that's nothing but mythology,
>son. let's stick to talking about music.
>

oh god. You really need to know what you're talking about before you start trying to dismiss parts of artists lives. Do you even know what the titles of some of these jazz songs were referring to? Do you realize what "Alabama" was about? God you can't be this fucking dumb..can you?

> you need to read up on
>>some bios of jazz players. Im almost finished with this book
>>on Mingus and Ive read miles autobiography and a lot on
>>coltrane and parker and dizzy, etc. You would realize how
>>important their personal lives were in affecting their
>>creativity.
>
>i've read them already, thanks.
>
>can we get back to talking about actual MUSIC though?

oh god. ya cause their music and their personal lives were so separated right? OMG. I can't believe you are claiming to know so much about these artists yet believe this shit. wow.
>
>>>actually, a lot of the beboppers considered their music
>much
>>>MORE Black than the mainstream of Jazz at the time, because
>>>bebop encompassed a semi-obscure set of expressive codes
>and
>>a
>>>degree of difficulty that was inaccessible to a lot of the
>>>white post-swing bands of the day.
>>>
>>thats what Im saying.
>
>no, actually that's what I'M saying. i'm still waiting for you
>to say something other than "you are wrong."

Ive said it. please read.
>
>>>but ultimately, it WAS more self-conscious. it WAS *trying*
>>to
>>>be Art much more than something like "Take the A Train"
>>>
>>>"Take the A Train" doesn't have to *try* to be Art... it
>>just
>>>is.
>>>
>>
>>ugh. this is real bad analogy. I gotta flag you on this bs.
>
>okay... WHY is it a bad analogy?
>
>you gonna flag me and not tell me WHY?

why dont you tell me why take the a train was just art and other songs werent? you still can't explain a lick of that hole-filled argument can you?
>
>>Ellington was an artist. miles was an artist. Coltrane never
>>tried to be more white or european or distance himself from
>>being black when he started doing free jazz.
>
>Ellington was an artist... who ever said he wasn't?
>
>my question was whether or not someone like Ellington
>*presented* himself as an artist in the "self-conscious"
>sense. which you still haven't answered, by the way.

self concious? I love your buzz words you use to not have to explain yourself. its precious. So you can just throw out "self-concious" and feel like you've explained yourself and rail on me for actually providing examples of people that were just being theirselves? expressing theirselves in a raw form and maybe that form is political, mad upset at the world and that is not just art to you? Its being "self-concious"? wtf? Its quite the inverse actually the more you play for a crows the more you are self-concious wouldnt you think? Or is that still too deep for you to comprehend?
>
>i mean, you've read so many jazz bios, so it should be pretty
>easy for you to retrieve a quote or two just to provide SOME
>substantiation to your statements, right?
>

keep up the insults buddy.

>as for the other thing you're talking about... it ain't got
>jack shit to do with anything i said. search this entire
>board... go into the Archives even ad search every post going
>back to 1999 and tell me where i said that.
>
lol.
>i NEVER said that Coltrane or anybody else was trying to be
>more white or European of distance themselves from being
>Black.
>
>i never said anything even CLOSE to that, so i have NO fucking
>clue where you even got some bullshit like that.
>
>what i DID say that they were drawing on traditions outside of
>the traditional Black experience, including the European
>avant-garde and (in Coltrane's case) Oriental tonalities.

and thats a bad thing? they took classical chords, sensibilities and fucked them up.
>
>are you gonna deny that's true? of course not.
>
>so why not just accept that and stop making up shit that i
>didn't even say. that shit is foul, dude... it makes me not
>even wanna talk to a person when they pull shit like that.
>
>You wanna define
>>black art by restricting its exploration and growth. Thats
>not
>>progressive nor accurate. Your opinion is shared by who? I
>>dont know anyone except a few contrarians on message boards
>>like this one.
>
>actually, my opinion is shared by many people, including some
>quite reputable musicologists. but that is irrelevant either
>way... it is MY OPINION.
>
>MINE.
>
>you are quite free to disagree with it, but the fact that many
>people disagree with me does not automatically make me wrong
>either. when Columbus said the world was round and not flat,
>it's not as if most people agreed with him then, right?
>
>>I think youre trying to simplify music. Sometimes being
>>carefree is intelligent and anti-pop as well.
>
>who said anything about pop or intelligence, though? or even
>simplification?
>
>all i'm talking about is the attitude of the musician towards
>his audience and his work.
>
>how simple or complicated the music is is quite irrelevant
>here... Jelly Roll Morton's music was much more complicated
>than Prince's is, but Jelly Roll didn't call himself an
>"artist" and Prince does.
>

jell roll didnt? how the fuck do you know? this is hilarious that you know how artists felt about themselves.

>so... what's your point here?
>
>please: again, i am going to ask you to stick to things that i
>have actually SAID rather than fabricating views and
>attributing them to me.
>
> This might be a
>>frightening idea to you but it's true. Seriously read up on
>>more jazz artists. I swear if you read "Myself when I am
>Real"
>>about mingus you would change this simplistic way of
>thinking.
>
>i've read it. and guess what? it actually SUPPORTS my point of
>view.
>

no it doesnt. you are truly dense man.

>>If you are already a certain way that will come out when you
>>are carefree. If you already are of a certain political
>>thought then you can be carefree and still express these
>ideas
>>without overthinking things.
>
>oh... so it's about POLITICS now. i thought it was MUSIC we
>were discussing.

haha! wow you are really exposing yourself. so music and politics can't be intertwined? LOL! omg. you are really a facist then!!!!
>
>okay... so what exactly IS this political view that you are
>talking about?
>
>because, you know... i'm sure that ALL Black musicians in
>history have shared the exact same political view, more or
>less.
>
I never said that. but keep putting words in my mouth.

>>People like you think anything
>>outside the realm of pure physical expression or surface
>>emotion is overthinking. It isn't. I'm sorry to burst your
>>bubble.
>
>LOL again: stick to shit that i actually say, alright?
>
stfu.

>>>not to say that ALL Black music has to exhibit that
>trait...
>>>but i think you'll agree that most of the BEST Black music
>>>does.
>>>
>>eh...no.
>
>explain. saying "no" is not enough, man.
>
>>I would say much more than a lot of jazz. In your synopsis
>of
>>highfalutin ideas of art I think you're overthinking these
>>subjects. It's kinda ironic as well as your overthinking
>about
>>people that you are accusing of overthinking. Sometimes art
>is
>>just art. It's exploration and growth. Ideas upon ideas. If
>>you think africa and african music existed within a bubble
>and
>>that was completely transferred to american blacks then you
>>really are mistaken.
>
>what does that even mean?
>
> And if you think black american art is
>>only music that was made to entertain people on a surface
>>level then you are really mistaken.
>
>dog... believe me: i seriously doubt that you are in a
>position to school me about any aspect of Black American art.
>and i swear to God, i don't mean that in a disrespectful way.
>
uh why? you have given me nothing but generalities and simplification of music. you are a nincompoop. a simpleton. really you are.

>i asked you before to simply cite for me some instances of
>self-consciousness in Black American art (specifically in
>popular music, anyway) and you have still failed to do this.
>
>at some point you have to put up or shut up.

at some point you will have to explain yourself or you can just throw out the words facism or self concious to cover up any explaining.
>
>i think i'm really wasting my time. i'm gonna have to retire
>from further discussion of this topic with you until you
>demonstrate that you are willing to have an adult conversation
>where the participants back up their statements with soem kind
>of evidence.
>
>peace.

you're such a simp.

>and I've tried. really tried to get you to be specific to
>actualyl explain what you are talking about then just making a
>blanket statement like ice cubes song is facist..???in what
>way? you won't say.

how does saying "Ice Cube's song is fascist" equate to a BLANKET statement? it was a comment made about a SPECIFC song/video.

do you know what a "blanket statement" is? it's kinda the OPPOSITE of a "speecific" reference.

so unless i posted a whole range of videos and painted them with the same "fascist" brush, then it's quite impossible for me to have made a "blanket" statement.

or is your problem the fact that i didn't initially EXPLAIN to you what made the video fascist?

well... sorry about that, but you see, unlike a lot of pro-Black hip-hop, i actually like the encourage my audience to THINK with their own brains. i don't like forcing ideas into their heads. i wanted people to watch the video for themselves and see if they could identify the fascist elements independently.

obviously, i expected WAY too much of some people, huh?

well... if it helps you any: Ice Cube's video featured him putting on a mask to kidnap other Black people whose lifestyle he didn't agree with and then tying them up and forcing them listen to Nation of Islam rhetoric.

when you forcibly make someone else accept your ideas or try to reprogram them mentally, that IS fascism.

i thought that would be self-evident, but i guess it was just easier for respondents to insult me. which, in an interesting way, showed the problems of the kind of thinking fostered by a lot of pro-Black hip-hop.


>>it's funny that you're telling me that i am not making a
>good
>>argument, when you have not even offerred even the
>*beginning*
>>of a counter-argument. all you keep doing is telling me that
>i
>>am wrong, but not ONCE have told you me *why* i am wrong.
>>
>I have told you fuck, do you not read? I swear I'm making this
>plain as day man.

dude... i quoted your post throughout my post. all you ever said was "that opinion is hilarious" and "eh...no" and "your argument is shaky" or "if you think that, you are crazy."

never once do you come forth with any objective, factual evidence to rebuff me.

i'm not making this up... it's all right there in the post you made, man.

>I have given evidence, but what have you given? Nothing but
>blanket statements. You won't explain any of your opinions but
>you just say its your opinion? wtf? Get the fuck off your
>highhorse man. Explain yourself.

LOL

what evidence did you give that i somehow missed?

seriously?

i've explained myself over and over and you still miss the point and you're telling me you provided evidence? where?
'
>>yet you tell me "you are wrong."
>>
>>i'm sorry... that is not how grown folks conduct an
>argument,
>>and that's how you intend to play, let me know so i can bow
>>out gracefully and spend my time doing something much more
>>productive... because otherwise, this is a total waste of my
>>time.
>
>Oh gawd. Grown folks huh? You are talking to the wrong person
>trying to slang those insults. jeez.

it ain't an insult, man.

if you HAVE indeed presented any evidence to rebuff me and i somehow missed it (i don't have my glasses on today), i will gladly apologize for falsely accusing you.

so yeah... show me where you brought evidence.


>>come to think of it, this is exactly what you did in my
>>"pro-Black hip-hop" post... you kept complaining that i
>didn't
>>support my argument about fascist tendencies and when i
>>pointed out the Ice Cube video i linked, you started saying
>>"oh... so all you can do is say Ice Cube is fascist! you're
>so
>>stupid!"
>>
>no you said its facist. I said how so? you wouldnt tell me.
>you just told me if you dont already know you wont get it. You
>said you already said why but wouldnt repeat it to me after I
>searced for the answer and couldnt find it in any of your
>replies.

did you bother to watch the video?

like i said: when i make posts, i like to assume that i am talking to intelligent adults. i don't have to explain EVERYTHING. some things should be self-evident, even if you don't necessarily agree with my opinion on them.


>>but through all that, you never ONCE even addressed the
>issue
>>of whether or not the Ice Cube video contained content that
>>could be construed as fascist. not ONCE did you actually
>>tackle the argument based on facts rather than emotions.
>>
>
>you post in typical buildingblock shockpost fashion. you make
>some contarian argument like bb would do like "pharohe monch
>should retire" then I try to make the dude explain himself and
>he really doesnt mean he should retire that he wants him to do
>better music but that wouldnt make for a shocking post. Quez
>makes a post about lryicism and the mid 90s rappers but all it
>boils down to is his hate of kweli and him saying "wack
>rappers." Its funny you guys make these huge blanket
>statements when really you have only a gripe with an ice cube
>video.

don't compare me to Quez, buildingblock or anybody else.

my post was quite specific.

i said that SOME pro-Black hip-hop embarrasses me.

i said that in SOME SELECT CASES, it bordered on the fascist.

and then i posted ONE such "select case"

it's simple English, man.


> You still wouldn't explain to me how x-clan was
>"baiting" whitey. It shouldn't be that hard to explain
>yourself.

you're right... i DIDN'T explain that.

because by that time, it was quite clear that most of the people in the post weren't even TRYING to listen to anything i had to say. it was turning into a fucking pile-on, with everybody lining up to abuse me. at that point, the best i could do was try to fend everybody off.

but if it makes you feel better, i can make a separate post to address the X-Clan thing later on. deal?

>>>>i just explained to you that i NEVER said that the music
>>>that
>>>>came after bebop was NOT "Black Art."
>
>you said explicitly that!! fuck you man. you can't keep
>backtracking on this shit. jeezus.

if i DID say that, all you have to do is directly QUOTE me saying it... or LINK to the post in which i said it.

simple as that.

that's all you have to do to make me look like a liar or a retard.

LINK the post where i said that.

*waits*

in the meantime, i'll link to the post where i explicitly said the OPPOSITE of what you claim i have said.

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=1126346&mesg_id=1126346&page=#1132186

*waits*


>so what then are you saying? you said it was deviating from
>traditional black/african art form. right? you basically
>discounted it as being black art.

don't talk about what i "basically" said. talk about what i DID say.

i said that it introduced some new, European-derived concepts that i personally find troubling. i didn't say that it was not Black art.

the original post was called "When did Black Music become infected with Highfalutin ideas about Art"... i EXPLICITLY referred to it as "Black Music" (not "Black MUSICIANS") so it should be quite obvious that i DO consider it Black Music/Art.

>>oh really?
>>
>>and what exactly is that reason, pray tell?
>>
>
>uh exploration within the artform? ever hear of that. or
>should we not explore borrow different ideas?

okay... fair enough. you answered that question, but it still doesn't address the root question.

i'll give you that, though.... you are making progress.


>you're saying its bad to take ideas from european
>musicians..why? Are you saying people should be contained in
>this ethnocentric box? or can you not explain yourself again?

LOL don't get surly... i've been doing nothing BUT explaining myself since we startedthis particular exchange started, regardless of whether you agree with me or not.

i never said that it was wrong or bad to take ideas from Europeans. obviously, Black American music right from the beginning has been a fusion of African and European musical traditions (in fact, for years i have maintained the unpopular opinion on this board that Blues draws very heavily on "White" music. and so does Jazz)

the point is not whether or not it is wrong to take ideas from Whites. it's just that there are some ideas that i think are better than others... and there are some ideas that end up stunting some of the special character of Black music.

but this is just MY OPINION. you don't have to agree with it.

>>you're free to reject whatever you want... but at least
>>provide some SEMBLANCE of evidence to support your
>objection.
>
>if I have to provide you with evidence of black american music
>being more than call and response or functional art..well then
>you are really ignorant man.

no... you are making a statement. BACK IT UP like a man.

if i am so ignorant... if what you are saying is SO transparently obvious, then it should EASY to prove your point.

so assume that i AM ignorant and explain to me. go ahead.

>oh god. You really need to know what you're talking about
>before you start trying to dismiss parts of artists lives. Do
>you even know what the titles of some of these jazz songs were
>referring to? Do you realize what "Alabama" was about? God you
>can't be this fucking dumb..can you?

are we talking about the titles of songs or music itself.

Bird and them took titles off things they saw on soup cans sometimes... the title does not directly mirror the content of the music that way. jazz - and particularly bebop - tends not to be LITERAL in that way.

(in any case, what does "Alabama" have to do with licking a white woman's poussy... i mean, YOU were the one who brought that up like it meant something)

oh shit... i got to go again. i'll have to finish replying to this tomorrow or something.

>>and I've tried. really tried to get you to be specific to
>>actualyl explain what you are talking about then just making
>a
>>blanket statement like ice cubes song is facist..???in what
>>way? you won't say.
>
>how does saying "Ice Cube's song is fascist" equate to a
>BLANKET statement? it was a comment made about a SPECIFC
>song/video.
>
>do you know what a "blanket statement" is? it's kinda the
>OPPOSITE of a "speecific" reference.
>
>so unless i posted a whole range of videos and painted them
>with the same "fascist" brush, then it's quite impossible for
>me to have made a "blanket" statement.
>
you really are a tard aren't you? wow.

>or is your problem the fact that i didn't initially EXPLAIN to
>you what made the video fascist?
>
>well... sorry about that, but you see, unlike a lot of
>pro-Black hip-hop, i actually like the encourage my audience
>to THINK with their own brains. i don't like forcing ideas
>into their heads. i wanted people to watch the video for
>themselves and see if they could identify the fascist elements
>independently.
>
wait you're telling us what you think yet want us to find out why you think that? huh? dude what the fuck are you smoking. its pretty fucking simple, not everyone sees the cube video as mussolini himself would see it. fuck. that wasn't too hard now was it? to actually explain yourself? wow. you really took that video too serious with your facist reference. talk about some hyperbole. wow.

>obviously, i expected WAY too much of some people, huh?
>
>well... if it helps you any: Ice Cube's video featured him
>putting on a mask to kidnap other Black people whose lifestyle
>he didn't agree with and then tying them up and forcing them
>listen to Nation of Islam rhetoric.
>
>when you forcibly make someone else accept your ideas or try
>to reprogram them mentally, that IS fascism.
>
>i thought that would be self-evident, but i guess it was just
>easier for respondents to insult me. which, in an interesting
>way, showed the problems of the kind of thinking fostered by a
>lot of pro-Black hip-hop.
>
>
>>>it's funny that you're telling me that i am not making a
>>good
>>>argument, when you have not even offerred even the
>>*beginning*
>>>of a counter-argument. all you keep doing is telling me
>that
>>i
>>>am wrong, but not ONCE have told you me *why* i am wrong.
>>>
>>I have told you fuck, do you not read? I swear I'm making
>this
>>plain as day man.
>
>dude... i quoted your post throughout my post. all you ever
>said was "that opinion is hilarious" and "eh...no" and "your
>argument is shaky" or "if you think that, you are crazy."
>
>never once do you come forth with any objective, factual
>evidence to rebuff me.
>
>i'm not making this up... it's all right there in the post you
>made, man.
>
>>I have given evidence, but what have you given? Nothing but
>>blanket statements. You won't explain any of your opinions
>but
>>you just say its your opinion? wtf? Get the fuck off your
>>highhorse man. Explain yourself.
>
>LOL
>
>what evidence did you give that i somehow missed?
>
>seriously?
>
>i've explained myself over and over and you still miss the
>point and you're telling me you provided evidence? where?
>'
>>>yet you tell me "you are wrong."
>>>
>>>i'm sorry... that is not how grown folks conduct an
>>argument,
>>>and that's how you intend to play, let me know so i can bow
>>>out gracefully and spend my time doing something much more
>>>productive... because otherwise, this is a total waste of
>my
>>>time.
>>
>>Oh gawd. Grown folks huh? You are talking to the wrong
>person
>>trying to slang those insults. jeez.
>
>it ain't an insult, man.
>
>if you HAVE indeed presented any evidence to rebuff me and i
>somehow missed it (i don't have my glasses on today), i will
>gladly apologize for falsely accusing you.
>
>so yeah... show me where you brought evidence.
>

go read my replies dude. besides the burden of proof is on you. you are the one coming with this dumb ass theory. shit. It sucks when you have to abide by the same standards you place on others when debating huh? the whole burden of proof..one video. ya facism..its all over that video. wow you are really out of touch man.
>
>>>come to think of it, this is exactly what you did in my
>>>"pro-Black hip-hop" post... you kept complaining that i
>>didn't
>>>support my argument about fascist tendencies and when i
>>>pointed out the Ice Cube video i linked, you started saying
>>>"oh... so all you can do is say Ice Cube is fascist! you're
>>so
>>>stupid!"
>>>
>>no you said its facist. I said how so? you wouldnt tell me.
>>you just told me if you dont already know you wont get it.
>You
>>said you already said why but wouldnt repeat it to me after
>I
>>searced for the answer and couldnt find it in any of your
>>replies.
>
>did you bother to watch the video?
>
>like i said: when i make posts, i like to assume that i am
>talking to intelligent adults. i don't have to explain
>EVERYTHING. some things should be self-evident, even if you
>don't necessarily agree with my opinion on them.
>
>

oh gawd. how about you just give the disclaimer in your posts that "I will be making general statements, will use 1 video to provide evidence and then completely exaggerate it to make a point but I won't try to explain that point" That will work better man. you're getting played.

>>>but through all that, you never ONCE even addressed the
>>issue
>>>of whether or not the Ice Cube video contained content that
>>>could be construed as fascist. not ONCE did you actually
>>>tackle the argument based on facts rather than emotions.
>>>
>>
>>you post in typical buildingblock shockpost fashion. you
>make
>>some contarian argument like bb would do like "pharohe monch
>>should retire" then I try to make the dude explain himself
>and
>>he really doesnt mean he should retire that he wants him to
>do
>>better music but that wouldnt make for a shocking post. Quez
>>makes a post about lryicism and the mid 90s rappers but all
>it
>>boils down to is his hate of kweli and him saying "wack
>>rappers." Its funny you guys make these huge blanket
>>statements when really you have only a gripe with an ice
>cube
>>video.
>
>don't compare me to Quez, buildingblock or anybody else.
>
>my post was quite specific.

no it wasn't. Basically I got to the bottom of this and you were embarrassed about 1 cube video and x-clan "baiting whitey." other than that I have no idea how you were embarrassed about the pro-black movement.
>
>i said that SOME pro-Black hip-hop embarrasses me.
>
>i said that in SOME SELECT CASES, it bordered on the fascist.
>
>and then i posted ONE such "select case"

ya 1, thats pretty key here because you've had a million more chances to provide more than 1 example. Usually when grown folks debate they use more than 1 freaking example to make such a sweeping statement.
>
>it's simple English, man.
>
and you are from another country and are really out of touch with american music and the history of america.
>
>> You still wouldn't explain to me how x-clan was
>>"baiting" whitey. It shouldn't be that hard to explain
>>yourself.
>
>you're right... i DIDN'T explain that.
>
>because by that time, it was quite clear that most of the
>people in the post weren't even TRYING to listen to anything i
>had to say. it was turning into a fucking pile-on, with
>everybody lining up to abuse me. at that point, the best i
>could do was try to fend everybody off.

good cop out.
>
>but if it makes you feel better, i can make a separate post to
>address the X-Clan thing later on. deal?
>
just say it right here. it shouldnt be that hard. fuck man is everything so hard to explain for you? you use so many words to explain nothing. it's amazing.

>>>>>i just explained to you that i NEVER said that the music
>>>>that
>>>>>came after bebop was NOT "Black Art."
>>
>>you said explicitly that!! fuck you man. you can't keep
>>backtracking on this shit. jeezus.
>
>if i DID say that, all you have to do is directly QUOTE me
>saying it... or LINK to the post in which i said it.
>
>simple as that.
>
>that's all you have to do to make me look like a liar or a
>retard.
>
>LINK the post where i said that.
>
>*waits*
>
>in the meantime, i'll link to the post where i explicitly said
>the OPPOSITE of what you claim i have said.
\
>
>http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=1126346&mesg_id=1126346&page=#1132186
>
>*waits*
>\

omg you're an idiot. you just linked this post. why dont you link the post we're actually talking about, where this originated? lol! hilarious.
>
>>so what then are you saying? you said it was deviating from
>>traditional black/african art form. right? you basically
>>discounted it as being black art.
>
>don't talk about what i "basically" said. talk about what i
>DID say.
>
>i said that it introduced some new, European-derived concepts
>that i personally find troubling. i didn't say that it was not
>Black art.
>
>the original post was called "When did Black Music become
>infected with Highfalutin ideas about Art"... i EXPLICITLY
>referred to it as "Black Music" (not "Black MUSICIANS") so it
>should be quite obvious that i DO consider it Black
>Music/Art.
>
>>>oh really?
>>>
>>>and what exactly is that reason, pray tell?
>>>
>>
>>uh exploration within the artform? ever hear of that. or
>>should we not explore borrow different ideas?
>
>okay... fair enough. you answered that question, but it still
>doesn't address the root question.
>
>i'll give you that, though.... you are making progress.
>
>
>>you're saying its bad to take ideas from european
>>musicians..why? Are you saying people should be contained in
>>this ethnocentric box? or can you not explain yourself
>again?
>
>LOL don't get surly... i've been doing nothing BUT explaining
>myself since we startedthis particular exchange started,
>regardless of whether you agree with me or not.
>
>i never said that it was wrong or bad to take ideas from
>Europeans. obviously, Black American music right from the
>beginning has been a fusion of African and European musical
>traditions (in fact, for years i have maintained the unpopular
>opinion on this board that Blues draws very heavily on "White"
>music. and so does Jazz)
>
>the point is not whether or not it is wrong to take ideas from
>Whites. it's just that there are some ideas that i think are
>better than others... and there are some ideas that end up
>stunting some of the special character of Black music.

better huh? how so? or am I asking too much again?..for you to explain yourself that is.
>
>but this is just MY OPINION. you don't have to agree with it.
>
>>>you're free to reject whatever you want... but at least
>>>provide some SEMBLANCE of evidence to support your
>>objection.
>>
>>if I have to provide you with evidence of black american
>music
>>being more than call and response or functional art..well
>then
>>you are really ignorant man.
>
>no... you are making a statement. BACK IT UP like a man.

you argue like some pseudo intellectual. You really are highfalutin. loL!
>
>if i am so ignorant... if what you are saying is SO
>transparently obvious, then it should EASY to prove your
>point.
>
>so assume that i AM ignorant and explain to me. go ahead.
>
>>oh god. You really need to know what you're talking about
>>before you start trying to dismiss parts of artists lives.
>Do
>>you even know what the titles of some of these jazz songs
>were
>>referring to? Do you realize what "Alabama" was about? God
>you
>>can't be this fucking dumb..can you?
>
>are we talking about the titles of songs or music itself.
>
>Bird and them took titles off things they saw on soup cans
>sometimes... the title does not directly mirror the content of
>the music that way. jazz - and particularly bebop - tends not
>to be LITERAL in that way.
>
oh wow. you really never played jazz then. And you are really ignorant of those peoples lives. wow.

>(in any case, what does "Alabama" have to do with licking a
>white woman's poussy... i mean, YOU were the one who brought
>that up like it meant something)

what? where did I say that? and where did I say parker was eating out a white woman? he was getting a bj from one. Read miles autobiography man. Jeezus.

>oh shit... i got to go again. i'll have to finish replying to
>this tomorrow or something.
>
>
ya you do that chief. you and your pseudo intellectual self.

"ya you do that chief. you and your pseudo intellectual self. "

Exactly.
He got the books.
He just don't have enough nigga in em to know how to read the books.
Not to mention he just makes up shit.
LOL.

Thanks for taking the time to science out this cat Explizit.

into this either or shit. you either make music to make people dance or turn your back like miles..wtf? dude claims to know so much about music yet tells me bebop was all about taking names off soup cans? dude is a simp.

see this is what I'm sayin...
you have a lot to offer... don't allow ego to get in the way of that...
well done.

and ego has got nothing to do with it.

i've told you: if cats come at me sideways, i'm coming at them th exact same way.

approach me with respect and respect will come back to you.

it's the least we can do for one another as humans.

all the bullshit you have said...
don't play the victim card... you do not come straight man...
even when cats try your EGO is the problem...
cause you think it gives you a license to be the voice on everything... and I will be damned if a NONMUSICIAN like yourself... will be filling me in on anything...
PERIOD>
Yes I SAID NONMUSICIAN...

>part of that subjugation manifests itself in attack people
>whose communication increases the humanity..and manhood of
>those people of color....Paul Robeson was attacked....Malcom X
>..The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad was attacked....Dr. King
>was killed.......

The Honorable Elijah Muhammed was a fake and deserved to be attacked.

just thought i would mention that.

>and it's global.....and sometimes the attackers are manifested
>by Black people who lived recently under colonization, and
>thus their model for humanity is their oppressor...so thus
>Lumumba is killed....Fela Kuti is beaten...Peter Tosh is
>beaten...Bob Marley is shot..

LOL

so basically, before the white man oppressed us and taught us wickedness, Black people were completely perfect and knew no inhumanity against their fellow men?

we were innocent like babes until the big bad white man came and gave us a bite of that forbidden fruit and taught our eyes to see Evil?

oh, grow the fuck up, will you?

i am SO tired of Black people refusing to take responsibility for ourselves and to realize that there are certain things that happen because they are the consequences of human nature... not of some fiendish Yacubian plot.

it's just silly is what it is.


grow up. right now.

yawn.

it's people who spend time trying to connect shit together into a massive conspiracy who are desperate...

desperate to concoct a boogie man who skillfully orchestrates all the problems in the world so that they don't need to look inwards and figure out how to fix things...

desperate to avoid doing actual scholarly research so that they can fall back on cracker-barrel wisdom and barbershop phiosophy.

THOSE are the people who are desperate... not me. i'm not even trynna prove anything to you here. my only point is that you HAVE no point, and that you can't even provide any substantial evidence to back up most of the shit you say, except for the fact that you're a professional musician.

which of course, makes you an expert on social history, philosophy, ethics and economics.


riiiiiiiiiight.

so now you telling us it's a conspiracy...
you see nigga, we were never ashamed...
we know wassup...
you had your little chance to talk about the issues...
you did your thing...
I never came to your post and bothered you not once...
now give us the same respect...

your opinions mean absolutely NOTHING here..
I think over 200 hits and everyone has shown that...
so hey... respect.

you're right about THAT much.

>you had your little chance to talk about the issues...
>you did your thing...
>I never came to your post and bothered you not once...
>now give us the same respect...

so basically you're asking me to leave, right?

i mean, let's get that clear so that you don't turn around and say that you DIDN'T request my absence (or silence) in this post.

so... it's yes-men only, right? post only if you agree with this nonsense?

just let me know.

>your opinions mean absolutely NOTHING here..
>I think over 200 hits and everyone has shown that...
>so hey... respect.

LOL not that it really matters, but i usually get 200 replies when i *sneeze* on the boards.

and i'd actually reckon that more people on this forum agree with me than with you.

but like i said, that shit don't even matter no how.

>
>so basically, before the white man oppressed us and taught us
>wickedness, Black people were completely perfect and knew no
>inhumanity against their fellow men?
>
>we were innocent like babes until the big bad white man came
>and gave us a bite of that forbidden fruit and taught our eyes
>to see Evil?
>
>oh, grow the fuck up, will you?
>
>i am SO tired of Black people refusing to take responsibility
>for ourselves and to realize that there are certain things
>that happen because they are the consequences of human
>nature... not of some fiendish Yacubian plot.
>
>it's just silly is what it is.
>
>
>grow up. right now.


i know you know better than what you just said. this post IS taking responsibility.

obviously black people aren't perfect. (allow me to speak in rhetoric) if the white man is grafted from the original he had to get his wickedness from somewhere right??? that doesn't negate anything that's been proven. that there are ways in which this system maintains its power and those ways are at the detriment of black people globally (and any yt not down with it can kiss the systems ass too). it wouldn't work if there weren't any wicked black people. but if that's all you want to hear that black people can be bad too then who knows what to tell you.
it's obvious that that's where the hate of the uncle tom comes from. the sell out.

its like how can one look at the whole 'instance' of slavery and not see some 'vast yacubian plot' THATS WHAT THE FUCK IT WAS!!! you can't just roll up on a people and start snatching them up and selling them
and you're in the minority AND on their soil. years of planning went behind that shit. but anyway i'll stop here 'cause you probably stopped reading @ the white man is grafted from the original.

i'm not even playing, girl... i do.

we don't know each other that well, but you fucking know me so well.

>but anyway i'll stop here
>'cause you probably stopped reading @ the white man is grafted
>from the original.

i didn't stop reading, but i DID roll my eyes and groan very loudly!

maybe we should stick to discussing music, because we are NOT gonna see eye-to-eye on issues like slavery. OR Yacub.

you know i love science fiction... and if you go to PTP, you'll see that i have been an avid, almost religious reader of comic books all my life. i have an active imagination, and i've been told that i probably live half my life in the realm of dreams.

but even i know the difference between fantasy and reality.

when people start taking comic-book notions like "Dr. Yacub" and transposing them to real life... i'm sorry, but that way lies madness.

even as a metaphor, that shit don't make any sense.

and slavery was NOT a Yacubian plot in the way you think of it... it was an abomination upon humanity, yes... one of the largest, most flagrant and shameful crimes against humanity in the history of our species. but it was not a "fiendish plot" that they planned in the way you think of it.

man has been enslaving other men since the beginning of time... the YTs, of course, just happened to take that shit WAY more extra than had ever been done since the days of the Egypt. because, you know, that's kinda how the white man rolls.

tell me, sha: you probably believe that the Willie Lynch letter is real too, huh?

>tell me, sha: you probably believe that the Willie Lynch
>letter is real too, huh?

willie lynch letter is as real as the bible.

story may be fake as hell but its truth in it.

question: what in your opinion is MY view on yacub?

but if you subscribe to the idea of Yacub on any literal or even metaphorical level, it's likely that i find your opinion lucicrous.

evil is not the invention of any one race.

>but if you subscribe to the idea of Yacub on any literal or
>even metaphorical level, it's likely that i find your opinion
>lucicrous.
>
>evil is not the invention of any one race.

evil isn't an invention.