Vay-Kay

Image courtesy of Moistworks

I may get a post in this weekend yet if not read as the sign reads...

Brothered by Jay-Z, Mentored by No ID

50 Cent: Part-Time Lover (addressing Lil Wayne & Baby)
From: Sabrina's Baby Boy

Kanye accuses Jay-Z of biting off of him in the form of a “cold collabo” with Chris Martin of
Coldplay. In the song called “Big Brother” he raps: “I told Jay I did a song with Coldplay, Next thing I
know he did a song with Coldplay.”
The banal precursor of September 11^th finds Singer Kenny Chesney Challenging 50 & Kanye.

+Kanye: Official site I MySpace I MTV I Rocafella I Art Born of Outrage in the Internet Age
+No ID: Discogs I NNDB I Wiki I Whudat
+Tim Westwood: Official site I BBC

King Blelvis

Living Colour: Elvis Is Dead
From: Play It Loud! (Sony, 1997)

Today's M-W Word of the day is rankle • \RANK-ul\ which is defined as: to cause irritation or bitterness in which is relative the below excerpts. If you taste bile salts while reading you can find the recipe to Elvis's favorite grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich and let the sandwich 's apoptotic prowess do to you what it in part did for him.

Below find an excerpt from the Washington Post article: King Blelvis - An Elvis Obsession Has His Life All Shook Up by Monica Hesse, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, August 14, 2007; C01 (an alternate version can also be located at Playahata):

Elvis recorded 1,112 songs.
Blelvis tells you this. He knows the words to them all.
Pick a song, any song, the more obscure the better. Pick a song that starts with Q - there's only one - "Queenie Wahine's Papaya," recorded in 1965, released on "Paradise, Hawaiian Style."
Please pick her papaya, put Queenie Wahine
In perfect perpetual -
Don't like that one? Pick another. Blelvis will sidewalk-serenade you with any Elvis song you can think of, and all the ones you can't. He says he knows the dialogue to every movie, too.
Now. Let Blelvis, the Black Elvis, tell you what he is not doing. He is not begging, and he is not homeless. But Blelvis would never dream of denying you the opportunity to donate to his favorite charity, which, incidentally, is named Blelvis. So he'll just turn around, nice and discreet, while you see what you can spare. The best nation in the world is a do nation, and that's the truth.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thanyavurramuch.

Below find an excerpts from Elvis & Racism - Elvis Presley Legacy is Cloudy Through Lens of Race by Christopher Blank, July 15, 2006:

But the singer's move to Hollywood struck many as an abandonment of his musical roots. Credibility with struggling black musicians faded when Elvis jumped to the big screen.
"When he first started out in his career, Presley blurred racial lines," Bertrand said. "But later on in his career he became, for lack of a better term, whiter. When he tried to become more middle class, he lost what people perceived were his black characteristics."
After Elvis' death in August 1977, white America's continued idolization of the singer didn't ride well with many black people who, particularly during the 1980s, saw their contributions to pop music overlooked and underexposed.
In 1990, anti-Elvis sentiment exploded from black artists. The group Living Colour lashed out against the music industry through their song Elvis Is Dead: "I've got a reason to believe / We all won't be received at Graceland."
Raging against gang violence, poverty and inequality, rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy shouted what have become some of the group's most enduring lyrics.
"Elvis was a hero to most / but he didn't mean (expletive) to me you see / Straight up racist, that sucker was simple and plain / Mother (expletive) him and John Wayne / Cause I'm black and I'm proud, I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped / Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps."
Recently, Chuck D explained that his attack was against the Elvis whose roots were whitewashed by his legacy.
"The Elvis that died wasn't the same Elvis that was coming up", Chuck D said. "They said he was king. Based on who and what? Based on the quality of the people judging or the quality of his music? What does 'King of Rock and Roll' mean growing up in a black household? My Chuck Berry records are still in my house. Little Richard is still in the house. Otis Redding and James Brown. The King of what?"
As much as singer Mavis Staples loved Elvis and his music, his unbridled legacy bothered her.
"What helped Elvis was that when he did interviews, he would tell that he got it from blacks," Staples said. "Now one thing that I could say for myself was that when I came back to MemphisMemphis should have remembered all of the music."
If ever there were a modern parallel, white rapper Eminem is a shoo-in.
Like Elvis, Eminem grew up poor and honed his gift by studying black music and culture. Like Elvis, he's popular with whites. Like Elvis, he's become one of the most successful in the business. And like Elvis, Eminem has caught the acting bug.
Eminem doesn't hesitate to point out the irony on his latest album The Eminem Show, produced by rapper and mentor Dr. Dre.
"I'm not the first king of controversy / I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley / To do black music so selfishly / And use it to get myself wealthy (Hey) / There's a concept that works."
Chuck D, a founding father of hip-hop and pop musicologist, said that accepting Elvis, and by extension other white crossover artists, might be easier for black Americans now that black artists are getting more credit and exposure.
Several years ago, the Fox TV network sent him to Graceland to do a black-perspective news story about Elvis. The assignment opened his eyes.
"Elvis had to come through the streets of Memphis and turn out black crowds before he became famous," Chuck D said. "It wasn't like he cheated to get there. He was a bad-ass white boy. Just like Eminem is doing today. The thing about today is that Eminem has more respect for black artists and black people and culture today than a lot of black artists themselves. He has a better knowledge where it comes from. Elvis had a great respect for black folk at a time when black folks were considered ni&&ers, and who gave a damn about ni&&er music?"

Elvis Legacy according to degenerate record collector's disease overmastered Ted Barron of Boogie Woogie Flu

+Elvis: "The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.": Snopes I Wikipedia
+Chuck D: Official site I IMDB I Public Enemy Official Website
+Eminem: Official site I IMDB I MySpace
+Living Colour: Official site I MySpace
+Mavis Staples: Official site I IMDB I MySpace

No Ratsoup-Eatin', Sucker-Punk-Bullschitt

Copied verbatim from MySpace My Bulletin Space (with the exception of the expletive respelling, italicization and heavy-faced type (boldfacing)):

Dolemite's badder than ever in his new sexational, controversial, monstrocious film: The Dolemite Explosion!

It's ready so put your weight on it!

Let the folk running the club know that you want the OG. Don't let ‘em give you no ratsoup-eatin', sucker-punk-bullschitt. If you crave satisfaction, this is the place to find that action.
-Dolemite!

+The Dolemite Explosion movie poster
+Dig Rudy's film company: Xenon Pictures
+Rudy Ray Moore: Dolemite I IMDB I Official Website I MySpace
+Petey Wheatstraw, The Devil's Son-In-Law (Generation International Pictures, 1977): video snippet and audio clip: "This ho is so ugly she can scare a hungry bulldog off the back of a meat truck."
+Rudy Ray Moore is featured on: Stones Throw podcast #15 Chrome X-Mas Compiled by Peanut Butter Wolf

Ego-Man: Himself Defender

Prick you ear for accompaniment and read retrospection of Buster Williams: Noble Ego from Pinnacle (Muse, Aug. 5, 1975) at Subtle Perfection.

RDNGS
+Buster Williams: All About Jazz l Free Form l Verve Records
+RDNGS: readings: articles

Harlem of the West

From left: John Handy, Pony Poindexter, John Coltrane and Frank Fisher jamming at Jimbo's Bop City, circa 1950; Johnny Mathis performs at Bop City in the 1950s & Dexter Gordon performs at Bop City in the 1950s. Photos by Steve Jackson, Jr.


From the intestines of NPR comes the below book review:

Books
'Harlem of the West': Memories of S.F. Jazz
Day to Day
May 25, 2006
By Karen Grigsby Bates

The Fillmore is the legendary concert venue that put its namesake, the Fillmore District in San Francisco, on the rock 'n' roll map. The club's walls are lined with vintage concert posters and photos taken during performances by 1960s icons such as the Allman Brothers, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane.
But before that era, the Fillmore was known as the "Harlem of the West" - a mostly black neighborhood, known for its jazz clubs. Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era, a new book by documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin and photographer Lewis Watts, charts the emergence of the neighborhood's jazz scene and its demise during the "urban renewal" wave of the 1960s.
For the Fillmore, the "renewal" meant bulldozers and wrecking balls. Lots were leveled to make way for high-rise apartment buildings. Businesses and venues such as Jimbo's Bop City -- a legendary jazz club where Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Lionel Hampton and Dexter Gordon once played - disappeared almost overnight.
Lewis Watts compares the Fillmore at its cultural height in the days after World War II to the Harlem Renaissance in Manhattan. The photographic record of those moments was almost lost, preserved by a lone barber in the neighborhood.
"In his back room were ... framed photographs, some of them just in supermarket bags - amazing photographs, some of them torn, some of them water-stained, but just amazing photographs," he says.


+Harlem of the West' Exhibit at the Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum

45 King: Cut's Flavor

Latee: This Cut's Got Flavor (Prod. DJ Mark the 45 King)
From: Puttin' On the Hits/Ego Trip's The Big Playback: The Soundtrack to Ego Trip’s Book of Rap Lists (Wild Pitch/Rawkus, 1987/2000)

“Charts: 1987”, pg. 321:
Latee’s This Cut Got Flavor on the other hand, brings the party to a gradual boil thanks to producer DJ Mark the 45 King’s typically tight dissection of Fatback Band guitar scratches, horn stabs and vocal moans. In fact, so flavorful was the cut, that it was later adopted by Mark and Latee’s talented New Jersey-based Flavor Unit clique (rounded out by Queen Latifah, Latee’s brother Apache, Chill Rob G, Lakim Shabazz, Lord Alibaski and Double J), as its official anthem. But the song might have languished forever as a raw demo recorded in disco producer Vaughn “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll” Mason’s East Orange, NJ studio basement had Mark (who was a tenant in Mason’s building at the time) listened to Apache’s “it needs something else” -critique of the song. Undaunted, 45 King brought it to the attention of airwave mixmaster Kool DJ Red Alert. Red immediately took to the tune and “This Cut’s Got Flavor became a popular exclusive on his KISS FM weekend show for close to a year before eventually being picked up by struggling indie Wild Pitch Records. The song then garnered a second life when it broke on mix shows nationally, thus putting the Flavor Unit and Wild Pitch on the map.

My yester-year remembrance is vivid. Most of my memories are palpable, serving real-time on-call. I still have my ’80 KISS FM Kool DJ Red Alert cassettes in a Nike shoe box awaiting their digitized maturation.
Latee’s TCGF was and still is one of favorite Hip-Hop embodiments of Occam’s Razor whereby: entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. The 45 King truncations and sequencing exposition unsophistication quintessence; furthermore, my production style for Sunny Day in Harlem was leadenly influenced by 45 King.

+The 45 King: Official Website l YouTube
+Get 45 King's 'Break Beats for Dummies' mixed LP for just $20 bucks including shipping and handling. This is the record that 45's mixing in Japan: Movie clip
+Queen Latifah

Crown Royal on Ice

Download or click above image
Jill Scott gets “Real” this fall:

• Third solo album “The Real Thing” due out Sep. 25th
• Big screen debut in Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married?” Oct. 12th

First Single "Hate On Me" Impacts Radio July 9th

(June 25, 2007 – New York, NY) Grammy-winning soulstress Jill Scott gears up for a busy fall, which will see the release of her third solo album The Real Thing (Hidden Beach/Universal Records) on September 25, 2007, and her big screen debut a month later with the release of Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married?” (Lionsgate) releasing October 12th. Jill will also be busy this summer, as she’s tearing the stage down everywhere, from the stage at the Jazz Festival in Hampton, VA June 23rd to New York City’s world famous Radio City Music Hall on June 13th and 14th, giving fans a taste of The Real Thing.

The Real Thing is marked by the same inspired creative energy that made Jill Scott’s first album Who Is Jill Scott? an enormous breakthrough hit, but where in the past Jill Scott has been a romantic, she is now a realist, here to tell it like it is. That realness informs first single “Hate On Me,” a powerful self-affirmation in the face of doubters, showcasing Jill’s raw emotion and energy. The single will hit airwaves July 9th, and the acclaimed Nzingha Stewart video will hit TV formats that week also.

While her music is all Jill, Jill Scott’s been trying on some new clothes. Just a month after releasing her third solo album, Jill Scott will make her big screen debut with a starring role in Tyler Perry’s ensemble drama “Why Did I Get Married?” out October 12th. The movie centers around a group of couples who happily vacation together every year until a flirtatious single woman is thrown into their midst and wreaks havoc. Jill plays Sheila, a heavily overweight woman (Jill dons a prosthetic suit for the character) in an already unhappy marriage who is pushed to the limit by the arrival of the sexy single. Tyler on Jill commented "like she's born to do this. Her acting is so natural, I was shocked. When this woman smiles, she lights up a room."

Acting has become a new joy for Jill, who made the scene at Sundance earlier in the year in support of her role in the Dakota Fanning movie “Hounddog,” in which she plays Big Momma Thornton, the artist who originally sang the Elvis Presley hit. Jill is also currently in talks to star in several upcoming films.

Music continues to be Jill’s passion with the release of The Real Thing, the follow up to 2004’s Beautifully Human: Words & Sounds, Vol. 2, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B Album and won the Best Urban/Alternative Performance Grammy for the single “Cross My Mind.” Jill Scott made a huge splash in the music industry when she release the critically acclaimed Who Is Jill Scott? Words & Sounds, Vol. 1, which earned Jill four Grammy nominations, including a Best New Artist nomination. Earlier this year, Jill Scott release the effortlessly cool genre-hopping Collaborations, a compilation of all Jill’s best collaborations, including the Grammy-winning “God Bless The Child” with George Benson and Al Jarreau.

Click to join

*Jill Scott: Official website l Myspace

MdCL: The Politik

Mark de Clive-Lowe (MdCL) Myspace blog entry: Thursday, July 26, 2007:

Yo Fam:
The Politik album drops in a week's time! Bembe and I are well excited about finally having the album see the light of day (and dark of night!) and getting the sounds out there ... Check out the sneak preview mixtape ...

Bembe Segue/MdCL collabo project The Politik - album preview mixtape:
Download

About MdCL:

'... the man behind a million great tunes' - Gilles Peterson/Radio 1 Worldwide [UK]

'Call it nu-jazz, call it nu-house, call it future-jazz, in fact call it what you want, I'm sticking with the words awesome and genius' - Wax Magazine [UK]

'... a Herbie Hancock for the new millennium' - Montreal Jazz Festival [CANADA]

About MdCL by MdCL:

I'm a producer, beat maker and keys player, one half from NZ and the other half from Japan living in West London. Music's been my thing the whole way since starting on the piano when I was 4 - growing up through classical, then jazz and the beats. Now it's all come full circle and the music keeps on getting twisted up more and more - broken beat, spacefunk, 21st century soul, cosmic hip hop, whatever you want to call it :) I've been fortunate to collab in different forms with a lot of great producers and artists - Restless Soul, DJ Spinna, Dego (4Hero), Jody Watley, Lauryn Hill, Bugz in the Attic, Kenny Dope/MAW, Wajeed/PPP, Pino Palladino, Bembe Segue, Omar, Jazzysport, Joe Clausell and plenty more... people who all have great beat and music sensibilities and we can knock heads and come up with something unique together.

The new album JOURNEY 2 THE LIGHT will be out Summer 2007 on Freedom School Records out of Japan... hope you get to check it, hope you dig it. My other main projects at the moment are THE POLITIK with Bembe Segue, FREESOUL SESSIONS - a fully improvised beat head experience and UNIVERSAL SUN with Chris Cox . Check them out (and other friends n fam) in my Top 8.

Free Download - The MdCL album Six Degrees. Written, recorded, produced in New Zealand Dec 1998 - Feb 1999 after a year long trip around the world visiting the musical hotspots of Cuba, NYC, London and Tokyo. Released in NZ May 1999 and worldwide on CD and 2LP May 2000. Just a shame it's so damn hard to find now... Enjoy! :) Read the story behind the album...

Free Download - The only official remixes from the Six Degrees album were handled by Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and DJ Spinna. Spinna's mix was licensed to the Cafe Del Mar series and sold over 700,000 copies worldwide.

REMIXERS: Download the vocal and flute parts for Day by Day from Six Degrees and post your remixes online!

Click the tapes for downloads:

+ MdCL I Chris Cox I Antipodean Records

Yodelling: Umbo Weti

Pharoah Sanders: The Creator Has A Master Plan (Co-Composed by Leon Thomas)
From: Karma (Impulse!, 1969)

Norman Connors: The Creator Has A Master Plan
From: Saturday Night - You Are My Starship (Buddah/Sequel, 1976/1992)

‘Karma’ is Sanders’ third recording as a leader, perhaps the most famous of a number of spiritually-themed albums released on the Impulse record label in the late 60s/early 70s, which have ensured his reputation today. Although it is followed by the brief ‘Colors’, the album is most often remembered for one track, the 32-minute long ‘The Creator Has a Master Plan', co-composed by Sanders with vocalist Amos Leon Thomas Jr. (born 1937, died May 8, 1999 due to heart failure).

Below is an excerpt from an interview with Leon Thomas that appeared in Straight No Chaser #33, Autumn 1995. Straight No Chaser is a really groovy English jazz magazine, covering the resurgence in interest in great music (Acid jazz, jazz funk, kozmigroov, Latin & Brazilian) that those of us in the States wish was happening here on the same scale. It's available in most big record stores. The interview was conducted by Damian Lazarus.

"I was playing in Brooklyn with Randy Weston when Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders came by. They began to visit regularly and often jammed with us.

"Pharoah had this song called 'Pisces Moon,' which he was playing every night as a theme in New York and he asked me if I could put some lyrics to it. I came up with 'The Creator Has A Masterplan.' A classic was born..."

The yodelling trademark first materialised in the late 1960s and came as a result of somebody owing him money. "I'd been trying to reach this cat for ages with no luck. I was at home and thought 'I'm gonna make this cat pick up the phone'--mentally. I began my yoga exercises and got to the head stand. With one intake of breath, I planned to walk to the phone upside down, dial his number, and make him answer with this mental projection.

"As I crossed the threshhold of the bedroom, I transcended. I was one place and my body was another. I dropped to the floor, right on my face and my teeth went into my bottom lip. There was blood everywhere...

"So I couldn't do my own show with Pharoah. I had eight stitches in my mouth. I couldn't do anything. Pharoah came by to see me [and he said] you can't pull out."

Leon decided to play the gig, a church benefit for a group of anti-police activists in New York. "I couldn't smile. I could hardly open my mouth...but I went along anyhow. I got up on the stage and when it came time for me to scat, this sound just came out. It shocked me. I didn't know where it was coming from.

"I realised it was me and I realised that the ancestors had arrived. Pharoah, standing beside me on stage just raised his eyebrows at me. The ancestors had given me what we call throat articulation and they said to me 'You will sing like this with your mouth CLOSED.' And that was the first time it presented itself to me, in a church. My God! Thank you....It surprises me, it does everything of its own volition. I call it Soularfone. The pygmies call it Umbo Weti....This voice is not me, my voice is ancient. This person you see before you is controlled by ego but my voice is egoless."

*Sources: The Leon Thomas Page I Wikipedia

Norman Connors:
+ Skip Drinkwater