I’m still thinking about the murder of Sean Bell. It’s eery listening to people in New York talk about the death and rattle off the litany of names, Eleanor Bumpers, Michael Stewart, two of the many that proceeded the most famous prior to Bell’s, Amadou Diallo.

It was also this week, that I received a link to this article by John Ridley appearing in Esquire, where Ridley announces “So I say this: It’s time for ascended blacks to wish niggers good luck.” Ridley’s article essay homes in on two events in 2001, one which he believes did not deserve the backing and attention it received by African-Americans, the death of Cincinnati’s Timothy Thomas at the hands of office Steven Roach. The other event, the immense power wielded by Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell during that same year, of course climaxing with the events surrounding September 11th and its aftermath.

I would agree with Ridley that Rice and Powell do not get enough credit for their impressive professional accomplishments. I have long argued that Rice is an intriguing example of the post-Civil Rights story because her accomplishments have been superb, but her politics have been surprisingly anti-thetical to those traditionally associated with the movement. Rather than banish her, I think her presence calls for more examination of Black conservatism in the 60’s.

However, it should also be noted that Powell participated in two of the most unpopular or at least controversial, and longest lasting wars in this nation’s history, Vietnam, and the fifteen year’s war in the Middle East. High ranking chiefs, Black or White in either of these wars, have managed to ascend to the status of their predecessors in WWI and WWII. But I digress….

Reading Ridley’s article in light of the Bell incident, brought up a question, do we remember a wealthy or upper middle-class Black person being murdered by Police?

There are testimonies by figures like Danny Glover and their bouts with racial profiling, but can someone recall when one of these random, unjust, police shootings involved a relatively affluent African-American. I can’t.

Some are reading this and saying a “Black person dead is a Black person dead,” and that’s true, but I would hope that we all could agree that class does matter. I’m not going to accept any arguments that rich Black folks stay above the fray that has to the death of our less affluent brothers and sisters, because if the police shootings are as random and inexpicably racist as we’d like to believe, then surely the cops aren’t thinking, “That’s Bob James, CEO of James Inc.”

There’s another reason that I bring this up. The Bell incident occured on the eve of the failed OJ Simpson interview and book release where he goes through a “hypothetical” reenactment of the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Correct me if I am wrong, but when Simpson interrupted broadcasts of the ‘94 NBA finals and my friends were set to watch him and Al Cowlings escorted by police through LA, weren’t they driving in a car? If I remember correctly, it was a big white Bronco wasn’t it? I could be mistaken.

Oddly enough, the deadly weapon that Bell and his friends were wielding was a car. Just yesterday a police lawyer was on the air saying that the authors were justified in shooting because there was a weapon involved, “a car.” A Nissan Altima to be exact.

No one should deny the fact that the officers involved in the Bell shooting believed there life was in danger when that car was put in gear. That said, we also recognize that shooting to impede the car also implies shooting to stop the passengers.

Of course it’s coincidence that Bell would dovetail behind Simpson in the national headlines, random even, but no less random then the fates of these two men when they tried driving off.

Now if Ridley wants to argue that “It’s time for ascended blacks to wish niggers good luck,” then I hope that he realizes that he’s at least a decade late in offering his greetings.

The Nightshift Chronicler

This past weekend on Saturday November 25th NY resident was murdered by undercover officers. The officers were allegedly investigating a Jamaica Queens strip club for prostitution and drug trafficking, when allegedly mr. Bell and his friends who were attending his bachelor party became involved in a dispute at the club. Along with Mr. Bell, two of his friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield were also shot, but they have survived. The number of bullets belted out in this shooting have evoked comparisons to the 1999 Amadou Diallo incident in which the Liberian born immigrant was shot 41 times by New York police officers as he reached for his wallet. This incident also bears a strong resemblance to the Patrick Dorismond murder of 2000 where the Haitian immigrant was murdered outside a manhattan club after a scuffle with undercover officers who tried selling him drugs. Sean Bell’s murder has brought the spotlight back on to the NYPD and the tactics employed by their undercover officers. On Sunday Al Sharpton led a march through Jamaica, Queens. The resistance struggle does not end there however, and as another series of events planned for this week attest, while all violent encounters involving police officers do not end with death like Mr. Bell’s murder, they are not as rare as many people believe.

If you want to have your voice heard, there are two events taking place today in Manhattan in which you can participate:

Public Hearing on Police Brutality at 4pm

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard New York, NY 10037-1801 http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html

This above event is done in conjunction with the Abyssinian Baptist Church

at 6:30pm

The Audre Lorde Project, a LGBTST People of Color Center for Community Organizing FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 29, 2006 Communities of Color and Social Justice Activists mobilize for Picket Line & Press Conference

6th Precinct Wednesday, Nov 29th 6:30pm – 7:30pm (233 West 10th Street)

Media Contacts: Dustin Langley 646-354-8056 dustin@action-mail.org

or Imani Henry 646-342-9673, ikhenry@alp.org

The Triple Helix “Building Blocks” Album will be reviewed by acclaimed columnist Isabelle Esling from the Eminem Blog. We were fortunate to be reviewed by Ms. Esling shortly after the launch of our MadMaestro.com website in April. To view the article please click here. Please keep a look out for this review and more to come as the word is out about Triple Helix.

P.S. Click here and see how Triple Helix is doing it big in Japan. We’re International Baby!!!

God Bless, Javon

I was set to write this piece a few days ago, but opted against it because I didn’t think it was worthwhile. Then yesterday I saw a clip of 5’9” Nate Robinson blocking a dunk attempt by 7’6” Yao Ming, and I realized that it was in fact long overdue.

NBA fans everywhere will hopefully join me in saying this, but it’s time that the league retired the plodding seven-footer concept—it’s fetish for the “big man” and teams focus on putting their five best players on the court. The idea that you need a dominant seven-footer to win a championship has been inaccurate for over a decade, if not longer.

Yes teams with dominant seven footers such as Olajuwon’s Rockets, Tim Duncan and David Robinsons’ Spurs and Shaquille O’Neal’s Lakers have won championships, but that’s because they were dominant big-men, not because their teams needed them to win. In other words Olajuwon, Duncan and O’Neal were undoubtedly the best players in the league during their title runs, and like Jordan’s Bulls’, their teams were built around them. Another way of saying this is that they were the most dominant big-men, because they overpowered other players such as Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutumbo and each other in order to win their respective titles. However, if you look at the league today, the majority of teams are spending an unbelievable amount of money preparing to play a game that has long ended. Of course, the best case-study is my home town NY Knicks who have almost seventy-million dollars in salary tied to Eddy Curry and Jerome James alone. Meanwhile, they could have easily taken their lumps last year and saved millions of dollars with a center/power-forward rotation of Jackie Butler, Channing Frye, and David Lee.

You’d think that after watching the Knicks overpay for Curry and James and the Cavaliers over-value the presence of Zydruna Igauskas, other teams would have learned their lessons. Nope, instead, the Denver Nuggets gave 60 million dollars to Nene, a player who not only has been able to earn a starting spot, but who sat out the previous year with an ACL tear. Of the thirty teams in the league, only fifteen have a player over 6-10 and over currently playing up to their contract, and whose presence one can unequivocally say does not take anything away from the team. 1. Tim Duncan 2. Dirk Nowitzki 3. Kevin Garnett 4. Pau Gasol 5. Yao Ming 6. Dwight Howard 7. David Lee 8. Jermaine O’Neal 9. Chris Bosh Honorable Mention 1. Rasheed Wallace 2. Mehmet Okur 3. Andrew Bynum 4. Marcus Camby 5. Nenad Kristic 6. Emeka Okafor That means half the teams in the league are paying players who are not only expendable, but who undermine their teams chances of winning games. Players like Bosh, Garnett, Gasol, Nowitzki and Wallace who are as comfortable playing on the perimeter as they are in the post defy the conventional logic about seven-footers.

Other athletes such as Elton Brand and Amare Stoudemire also show that small ball is a misnomer because if a team were to put either of these players at center, they might be shorter than seven feet, but they’re far from small. In fact, having more agile players currently occupying the power-forward position for many teams slide over to center would likely reinvigorate the gracefulness of post-play in the league, while also enabling more teams to play an up-tempo game a la the phoenix suns.

In all honesty, I do not care about winning and losing. Okay, that’s not true, I really care about winning and losing. But for the purposes of this argument, let’s suspend that concern for a moment. If as a consumer you want to get the best for your buck, then it behooves the company providing the product to ensure that they put out their best material. Which is why I will never understand why the NBA commissioner would waste his energy worrying about how the players dress, changing the basketball and fining owners and coaches for complaining about the officials, but year after year allow teams to put the subpar players on the floor? Yes, the NBA player’s association has rightly worked out guaranteed contracts for their members. Still, the league could figure out other ways to rid itself of dead weight, without hampering player’s ability to get their cash. For example, every year the league could have a supplemental lottery where teams can expose any players from their roster who don’t crack the top fifteen at their position. If this player is selected, then they’d go to the other team but not be counted toward either teams salary cap. If they’re not selected then their team could decide whether to buy them out, or continue holding on to them. Additional rewards such as draft picks could be thrown into the mix as well, but the league office needs to do something to save most of these general managers from themselves.

Next time you watch your local big man get posterized by a 6’3” guard, read the box-scores and see that your centers are trailing your guards in rebounds, then maybe you’ll realize like I have, it’s time for the league to say goodbye to the big man.

When I heard this weekend that Ruth Brown passed away, joining Gerald Levert as the second musical legend in as many weeks to join the ancestors, I was noticeably touched.  I was a late arrival to Ms. Brown’s music, and may not have gotten put on were it not for the fact that I once dated a woman by the same name. 

“You don’t know who Ruth Brown is,” I remember her as me as she cocked her head to the side, giving me her trademark, “negro what,” look.  She had a habit of furrowing her brow, her cheeks practically enveloping her nose.  When she broke this look her gold leaf nose ring would sparkle out from beneath her cheeks.   

I left her apartment that afternoon to find out who Ruth Brown was–or at least her music.  What I heard, I definitely liked.  Ms. Brown’s renditions of; “If I can sell it, I’ll Keep sittin on it,” “Mambo Baby,” “I’ll Wait for you” and “Good ship lollipop” as well as her versions of classics “When I fall in love” and “God Bless the Child,” showcase one of the finest voices of the twentieth century.  Her casmere soft vocals are as comforting as the fabric they evoke memories of and the feeling of your girl’s head resting on your shoulder, or the two of you walking arm in arm late at night through Rockefeller center during the holidays long after the crowds have dissipated.  Ms. Brown’s voice brings to mind memories of long nights on the couch or at the Blue Note when the music says everything you ever wanted to. 

With Ms. Brown in mind and “I’ll Wait for You” playing in the background I sat down on Saturday to write this elegy for her.  “I’ll Wait for You” is one of the few songs that I can remember where a baritone sax plays the lead in the horn section.  The trumpets and trombones trail the big daddy of saxophones like a pack of cubs following the chief of their pride. The song itself is about a woman proclaiming her desire to wait for her man, if he’s so inclined to ask her. 

Before I started writing I knew some of the basic info about Ms. Brown, she was born in Virginia and like most soul sirens she grew up singing in the church.  And I remember that later on in her career she became a activist to help older musicians recover lost royalties from their unfair contracts.  She was instrumental in starting the Rythm and Blues Foundation, the organization that acted on behalf of these elder statesmen and women of the music industry, and which one day will undoubtedly be helping some our rap legends pay their bills.  

But little did I know that when I slid over to Wikipedia to check out their stub on Ms. Brown I’d discover this golden nugget about Ms. Brown, she’s Rakim’s aunt.  Now when the “god” said he had soul, I didn’t realize he had it like that.  I guess that’s people mean when they say it runs in the family.

Ms. Brown, I pray that you rest in peace, and that your soul keeps running.

One,

The Nightshift Chronicler 

Alright you guys, its 44 degrees in NYC and I’m Homesick.  Thanksgiving is coming up and I am longing for home.  Fortunately I’ll be traveling to the Good Ol’ West Coast this Tuesday to hook up with family and friends and make sure that the Mad Maestro Entertainment Movement is still going strong on the Westside.  Although I am looking forward to a little rest and relaxation, the feeling will be short lived as Triple Helix will be shooting a video for “The Resistance” next week in LA with a little cameo from yours truly (I think they should do a video for Vagabond’s theme, mainly because I produced it, but what do I know).  I’ll also have the chance to hook up with our star producer Kallisto as he works like a Mad (sorry about the pun) to complete the upcoming Chen Lo album.  Guys, I heard some of the new tracks and all I can say is “Oh My God!!!”  Mad Maestro Entertainment will definitely have some great music for you in 2007.  Thanks for all of the love and support.

God Bless, Javon
 

So I rhyme and rhyme and still don’t get the time to shine.  I’m not sure if the world is really mine.  Maybe I’ll have to call my man Nas up and talk to him about that whole World Is Yours, mine, ours, etc.  Shit’s not adding up son.  Either way, I think the lack of me making rap dollars has lead me to what will soon be my real passion, that’s right…..Lights, cameras, let’s get ready to rumble…… maybe it’s time I took my shot at spilling my guts in front of a camera vs. el mic.  I mean, acting is suppose to be one of the truest forms of art, ” I think”.  Well regardless, it aint like I’m going on tour any time soon unless the “Mad Maestro” steps up his promo game and gets us on the Chitlin Circuit (Look out…. “Out House Alabama”).  So be on the look out as Triple Helix starts shooting a series of videos at the end of this month.  While pyrotechnics aren’t in the budget, theres sure to be some fire works if people fuck up my close up.  I’m talkin Michael Jackson / Pepsi Cola hot!  So get ready as we prepare to premiere the first of the videos here on MadMaestro.com real soon… Now I gotta get to the liquor store before it closes, my Ripple is runnin low.

One,

Rexx Banner

 

I was too young to enjoy the inception of hip hop, but I was around for most of it (think “Square Dance Rap” and “Ladi Dadi” on KDAY…that’s about when I got in). For the most part, I don’t remeber there being many labels and different genres of music… there was just rap/hip hop.

Then sometime around the mid-late nineties, with artists crossing over into the commercial & pop culture world, was probably the first real split that was worth mentioning - the line in the sand was drawn between Rap and Hip Hop. Rap being the popularized version of a few of the “elements”, that Hip Hop claimed to embody.

Honestly, that line was fuzzy in itself, and grew even harder to determine with more and more artists crossing back & forth across the line and “messing up the sand”. Then you had the “coastal” bullshit, along with several other attempts at distinguishing genres that would lead us to where we are today. All these different niche’s can either put you in a box, or leave you in an undefinable limbo (something Triple Helix is discovering…but I digress).

I personally don’t care if you’re banging, robbing, gettin crunk, being concious, backpacking, thugging, booty shaking, balling, praying, hustling, abstracting, preaching, ghost writing, crooning, or anything else that will derive from hip hop. This is the music maturing and I’d like to see it split into MORE definitions if possible. The more options the better.

It’s okay to love what you love. And honestly, it’s okay to HATE what you HATE. Problem is that we hip-hop fans spend too much time looking in each others lunch box and dissin’ what someone else has to eat. If that kid loves to eat egg salad sandwich, who are you to question his taste? “Sit down, eat your slice of pizza, and be quiet”. (c) Bush Babees.

Damn near EVERYBODY takes shots at Country music and how much they hate it. I’m sure they fire back in kind, but do you see them getting all in a tizzy and beefin’ with anyone else?

We have the door wide open for hip hop right now. WIDE OPEN. Instead of complaining to each other about the imbalance of music being played out there, we need to direct attention towards the source (pun intended).

- Bamm

I’ve been out of town for the past few days and I must say that it is good to be home.  Hopefully I can get a quick breather before the holiday season has me on a plane again.  The whole time I was away, I couldn’t get Triple Helix’s Vagabonds Theme out of my head.  Hopefully you’ll pick up the Triple Helix Building Blocks LP at www.madmaestro.com/MME_Presents so you can be enchanted by this tune and many others as well. 

Thank you and God Bless, Javon

We were lucky to be contacted by Majestik & Just Listen Radio recently to have some of our songs included in their new November lineup.

The show is definitely real hip hop, but not to the point of “tunnel vision” which is an easy misstep for radio shows. The styles/sounds you’ll get in this mix is of a wide variety, but the message in every song is the same - “we represent real hip hop”. Period.

Do us and yourself a favor, and check out JLR! Costs you less than the lint in your pocket!

- Bamm Tronics