Sunday, December 31, 2006


It's not illegal YET.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Saddam Got Iced....

Silencing Saddam

Dec. 29, 2006

by Robert Scheer



The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime.


Monday, December 25, 2006

James Brown R.I.P.

Here's the song that got me into James Brown while I was in High School and made me go back and explore his music in depth..."I'm Real"

Thursday, December 21, 2006

New Year's Celebration...Dancehall Style

Check It Out....


Wednesday, December 20, 2006

$99.7 Billion MORE To Keep Killing???

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon wants the White House to seek an additional $99.7 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to information provided to The Associated Press.



Overall, the war in Iraq has cost about $350 billion. Combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and operations against terrorism elsewhere, the cost has topped $500 billion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.







The budget request includes:





• $2.7 billion for intelligence activities.







Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Vintage Dancehall Session....

This is when the dancehall vibes were cool....Wicked piece of footage.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Hustle Simmons & Blood Diamonds

Will someone please slap this fool?

By Davey D.


















Thus far I checked the following papers in South Africa
Business Day (Johannesburg)
Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg)
Sun Times (Johannesburg)
Sunday Independent (Johannesburg)











Something to think about…

Davey D

Friday, December 08, 2006

One To Ponder...

It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.--James Baldwin

Hip-Hop Can Be Grown Up Music Too...

Who The Hell Am I? Has Jay-Z Outgrown Hip-Hop?
by Andres Hale

November 21st 2006 marked the day that Jay-Z returned from his proposed "retirement." The expectations were set ridiculously high for Young Hova but if anyone could exceed expectations, the Jiggaman could….right? Apparently not. Although "Show Me What You Got" became a burner in the clubs, some predicted that this Jay-Z album just wouldn't be up to snuff. Then the reviews began to surface. Definitely not up to Jay-Z standards. The marketing push that Jay put behind the album was unprecedented (from Monday Night Football ads to Budweiser commercials and, of course, the Jay-Z Hangar Tour) and resulted in first week sales reaching close to 700k but the critics and the streets began to speak.

"But what may cause the most arguments is that S. Carter seems to be representing Park Avenue more than the Marcy Projects on this album. True, false, or irrelevant?" – (rating 3.5 out of 5)

"The material shows a lack of direction from an MC whose age and position put him in uncharted waters." – (rating 3.5 out of 5)

"Not to abuse the tired cliche of "grown folks music", but this is it, defined." – (rating 4 out of 5)

"…like athletes, we expect rappers to disappear when they turn 30. We have no use for them as they become older and more comfortable with themselves-- even if their minds are as sharp as ever…But that's Kingdom Come: Jay boringly rapping about boring stuff and being totally comfortable with it" – (rating 5 out of 10)

"Jay-Z is hip-hop, yes, but the dirty little secret that he likes us to ignore is that hip-hop is not Jay-Z" – (rating 7 out of 10)

Wow…look at that last statement and then plant it alongside the other clips. Does anyone see a recurring theme here? While most of the reviews couldn't argue with how Jay-Z is the "kingpin of the ink pen/monster of the double entendre" the problems arise about Jay's subject matter. Gone are the days of "Sex murder and mayhem romance for the street" and instead we get riddles of "good credit and such." Sadly, in Hip Hop this has become blasphemy. But why has the dream materialized become so incredibly out of touch? Why does Hip Hop have to be hustlin', pimpin' and slangin'? Although Kingdom Come didn't deliver the goods as expected (according to the general consensus), it did tear open a gaping generation gap question that needs to be addressed. Has Jay-Z and artists like him outgrown his audience?
What Jay-Z has become is a dream materialized. Hip Hop has been deeply rooted in the struggle to come up and achieve a dream. But when that dream is achieved does that mean the struggle stops? Obviously so, according to many. See, there's a big difference in struggling for food as opposed to struggling to maintain wealth and health. Hip Hop has never really seen a dream materialize, rather many dreams have been halted abruptly. Just when Tupac and Biggie were hitting their collective strides their lives were ended by a hail of bullets.

The question has always been asked "What If…" and the answer is "Jay-Z."

Jay-Z has become the only artist that has allowed his growth to be caught on record. There were no voids where Jay grew and we didn't see it. Jay-Z has always been in the spotlight. So as he matured, so did his music. And now he's at a point where we have witnessed his growth into a successful black man with more money than you can shake a stick at.

There are two lines in "30 Something" that encompasses the "grown up" part of Jay-Z…

"I don't buy out the bar, I bought the nightspot"

"Young enough to know the right car to buy/Yet grown enough not to put rims on it…"

The former is about just being flat out rich. Nothing more, nothing less. Jay-Z has more money than you (or he) has ever thought of and can now do things that were out of Hip-Hop's collective reach. Instead of purchasing from someone, wouldn't it be better to own it? It's as simple as "why buy a drink for 'x' amount of dollars when I can own the club that has the bar that sells drinks for 'x' amount of dollars?" The math is so simple, yet so complex. Many of us love basketball, so why not own a team? Jay-Z did it, now you see how many others have followed in his footsteps. But wait…don't you need "good credit and such" to own a team?
The latter is about knowledge of wealth. As simple as the line is perceived to be, it speaks in volumes about Hip Hop culture today. Excess, materialism, etc. Jay-Z understands that rims look nice but have no added value for a vehicle and thus can be disposable. But how many of us understand that? I mean seriously…how many of us understand that owning a house is far more important than having a Dodge Magnum on 24's? Rather ironic that we are entrenched in a culture so obsess with money yet has no idea what to do once we have it.

But in a consumer driven economy, the truth is that we are supposed to like rims and spend our hard earned dollars on bullshit. We've all been through it one way or another. So when someone like Jay-Z flips the script and talks about "good credit" do you think that this is what the economy wants to hear? Better yet, do the old owners of rims, jewelry and other excess want you to consider saving your money and your credit so you can one day own a business or a team or a corporation or even them? Hell no!

Mass Media has done a helluva job convincing us that the glass ceiling is closer to our heads than we originally thought. By using Hip Hop as a tool to promote hamburgers, GAP clothing and cars instead of fighting against sexism, racism and other numerous forms of oppression, they powers that be have beaten us at our own game.

So back to this statement…

So who dictates what is Hip Hop and what isn't? Why is Hip Hop not Jay-Z? Is that saying that good credit and financial responsibility are not Hip Hop? It has to obviously be scary to concede to the fact that it isn't Jay-Z and people that look like Jay-Z who make Hip Hop, rather it be the old white CEOs who sit atop their thrones while throwing to us what they think is hip hop. But we are no better because we believe what they tell us.
As much as we would like to believe that we are trendsetters and "exclusive", we are mere followers to the bigger machine. A machine that feeds us these vices and fills our little heads with pipe dreams and such to the point that achieving them isn't even important anymore.

The name of the game today is to go out there and try while looking good without actually achieving. Because if you do in fact "make it", you'll be labeled a sell-out. There's nothing flashy about a jump shot…except that its worth two points (and last time I checked the team with the most points wins). Instead we would rather dribble off of your head, do a cartwheel, and try a 360 layup with nobody defending us. We'd rather bask in the glory of oohs and ahhs and miss the fuckin' rim completely rather than sink a boring ol' jump shot. We love the journey but don't want to see the ending. Because when the proposed "end" comes…what is left? Winning the game is not an option. And this is what they feed to us thru Hip Hop. Scary isn't it?

"I came into a little bit of a revelation recently. I turned 31 and I'm starting to realize that a lot of this Hip Hop/rap thing is for kids. It's a young people's movement. And I know we as adults try to hang onto our youth as long as possible but my point is you gotta know when to let go because when you're 36 and you dress like you're 15 you look fuckin' stupid!" – Aries Spears

While that line is laugh out loud funny, it does make you rethink where you are as a hip hop fan. If you are young then I guess this may not apply to you (yet). But if you are an 80's baby you have to wonder how true this statement is. While Hip Hop may be rooted in the kids and the young people, it is the old man sitting up there getting his belly fat off of our work. You don't have to "look" rich to "be" rich. Rock & Roll used to be considered a "kids" movement but now you have artists like Aerosmith and U2 still making incredible and timeless music. Do they look like every other rock star?

Just because we grow up does that mean we have to leave hip hop alone and look for the nearest Celine Dion or Earth Wind & Fire album? Or can Hip Hop grow and mature with us instead of without us? Can Hip Hop become rich and successful while taking the struggle to new heights (Sudan Crisis, Water Shortage, AIDS, Electoral Politics, Racism, etc)? I think we can…I can't just leave my culture behind and look for a new one. I'd rather use it for a tool to educate and elevate.

But because of our mere willingness to settle for a dollar and a dream (and a plethora of other reasons) it is enough reason for me to suggest a ban on hip hop. Oh you don't know what I mean by "destroy and rebuild"? Well I guess you won't until the next editorial…and I'm just a critic…Who The Hell Am I? But the better question is…Who The Hell Are You?


Wednesday, December 06, 2006

One Day Closer...

To my own mortality. My Earth Day was yesterday and I must say that these things (birthdays) seem to be coming faster each time. As I get closer to the big 4-OH, I'm noticing little aches and pains that I never dreamed of experiencing. I suppose that I'm supposed to say something profound about growing and maturity and crap like that, but I'm not there yet. LOL

Tuesday, December 05, 2006


By Chuck D. (courtesy of

November 30, 2006

Excuse me while I rant I'm gonna be all over the place with this one... Well, I turn and look at these times surrounding us and count the years. Forty One years after civil rights has seen the 'We' dissolve into the 'me' error - um, era. Someone told me recently that athletes and entertainers were the gods of the black community. If that is the case, it's the base of our tragedy, because the 'godmakers' remain anonymous amongst the idol worship.

What makes a person rebel against a situation, only to end up being the same cat they started off rebelling against? I never totally understood the flip. LA REID, initially a musician/songwriter, ends up siding with the UNIVERSAL legals to sue Myspace and threaten Youtube with similar sht. These are the best tools, as yet provided, in leveling the field for artists to get their music heard and seen, being endangered by the corporate greed monster. It's like screaming at the clouds on a rainy day. I've never understood when enough is enough. If a cat got fifty million in the bank, why the drive for one hundred million if you ain't sharing with anybody or building anything? I Hear that UNIVERSAL was blaming Myspace for the JAYZ ' Kingdom Come' leak, and I wonder if some of these cats are in the real world? As the domination of the record game business is over. As in JAY'S HP commercial, I'm wondering if they know it? JAY seems to understand it, as he said himself two years back that the music business was healthy while the record business was not. He need not worry as people will buy ROCKAWEAR, HP, and 25,000 cups of BUD sold at every sporting event in America.

The attitude of selfishness has seeped so much into society that the literal has almost totally obscured the sublime. Michael Richards resorts to calling his hecklers 'niggas' about six times. Across America it seems White liberals are the ones most pissed off, because smart Black folks know the treatment in Amerikkka runs way deeper than just hearing the damn word. Individual notion put the word in motion with some thinking that its power would be lessened. Coupled with the confusion triggered by rap, comedy, and unwritten social codes saying only black folks can flip it to use it as a word of love; As confusing is understanding someone trying to even sit through a Michael Richards' set. Yeah let's blame it on Kramer.

A Black man gets shot fifty times in New York, and a comedian saying 'nigger' on stage gets more media heat. A call going out to the hip hop community figures to result in a 'nigga please' from it. There are organizations set in place to lead hip hop into this discussion without the percussion. ZULU NATION, TEMPLE OF HIP HOP, POCC with Fred Hampton Jr. and a host of others. Folks like Rosa Clemente, Yvonne Bynoe, Kevin Powell, Davey D, etc. have been busting their asses with the 'We' concept of getting our sht together collectively in mind. The 'We' was born from the fact that our visual characteristics threw us all into the same racial box for hundreds of years, even if the box had certain areas for hue preference, it was nonetheless... a box.

Now in 2007, Black folks once considered 3/5 of a human life in the nations holy document. A people who were told that one drop of black blood (I thought blood was red as ketchup, then again that red is artificial) makes you automatically black in this land. Therefore making a separate racial category excluded from the one true race - human. This social bludgeoning still has us scattered, dysfunctional, and plain ole crazy... especially when we drink the 'We' Kool Aid of Amerikkka without any chaser.

Too many of us have abused our area of 'style' forsaken substance almost entirely, busily worried about getting our look on a bit too much. Visual stereotypes we're swearing by; programmed to choose prototypes instead. Hair, makeup, fashion, and face are paramount to artists, athletes, politicians and actor's careers, while ability takes a backseat and no one seems to care for what real people think. We are back to first grade judging too many books by their respective covers.

It's one thing to enhance the eye by enhancing the 'I'. But where does the 'We' come into play? As Black Folks our collective status has dipped to the powerlessness of children. Our topics are shallow and disconnected from the concerns of the rest of the planet because in a nation of Black and While our level is only buoyed by the collective Whiteface of this country. Yeah, like we're still handpicked (for slavery) chosen Negroes, thus continuing to flaunt across to the diaspora the same ways and means of the Amerikkka affluent illusion.

Toys satisfy us to silence. Our production of soul here is even owned and compromised like the diamond and gold mines of Africa. Where with the majority being African working and living around the mines, has anybody guessing how the hell did White ownership happen? Maybe 'mines' is exactly what it says, like the daffy duck cartoon claiming found treasure he couldn't carry. Like the audacity to claim a billion year old mountain and name it from a so called discoverer's perspective. Like the nerve to wipe out millions of people in wars, just because they don't share philosophies.

The 'We' is a civil rights understanding when the consensus was that even when someone characteristically among us made it 'big', that their toys, noise, and praise didn't raise their status far above the 'Them'. The 'I' age can only result in toys, platinum pacifiers, and temporary heat. What goes up must come down, and the individual thuds are silenced by the noise of false praise. As long as 'We' is tucked to the back of achievement, 'the masses' of us will always be treated as 'them asses'.

50 shots........damn....should take them guns away from scared dudes in foreign neighborhoods with badges , and job benefits.

Stay @ me. New slang I've come up with stay@me, which means I'm moving quickly at the speed of thought. Soon I'm to be on The Wendy Williams' Show and the producers wanted to ask what I was up to and I couldn't tell them quickly enough. So I had to write it down. Starting with the December tour of the USA... The Public Enemy comic book is headed into its third issue. The transition of PE's twentieth year, my second book - 'Lyrics Of A Rap Revolutionary'. Our fourth album project in the past two years as well as the fourth upcoming DVD (not including the two DVD's that appear with New Whirl Odor and Beats and Places) called 'Where There's Smoke'. The SLAMjamz label with thirty artists and fifteen CD/DVD releases plans to be a model standard for both licensing and technology. My sixteenth year of college lecturing from the Howards to the Harvards. 'Chuck D Mobile' hopes to magnify new media forms. The small screen. Air America radio where the show ON THE REAL is held down by myself and my co-host Gia'na Garel every Sunday night at 11 PM to 1 AM. My ELEMENTAL monthly writings have been sidelined by a selling of the magazine to a major publishing house My AOL Worldwide Hip Hop Countdown Show moves on to mobile.

RIP Gerald Levert , Ed Bradley, and the great Ruth Brown.

Heard Don Rumsfeld immediately is set out to speak at universities and businesses at 100k a lecture/speech or whatever it is. The games governments play on the people, eh? War is a silly game where old men usually sit around sending young people to die for their beliefs. It's old men's version of Playstation 3 with very graphic results. As said on Bum Rush The Shows subtitle '..the governments responsible'.

Boston WGBH is an incredible public TV hub, where I had the honor and pleasure of being a keynote speaker for their conference. There were a lot of innovating filmmakers and new media people that have realized the need to take advantage of emerging outlets. As I tell artists today, I haven't witnessed a better time than now. Myspace is a phenomenon. Youtube at the press of a button can be a better distributor than any television. Given these, will emerge with SLAM TV using a stream from on a loop system. Expect new systems I'll be discussing, soon delivering to you. Also featured there was Byron Hurt's 'Beyond Beats And Rhymes'. Meanwhile speaking of Boston... my second trip in a month has me lecturing at Berklee school of music. I've been looking forward to this event, I hope to bring a serious timeline discussion along with myself and hope to return with some information I can add to future discussions.

Best book and guide I've bought these past months is basketball legend Walt 'Clyde' Fraziers....... it's a great read and layout of how to adapt some old school values and tactics to not only make the game better, but how to parallel some of those thoughts in life. Personally I keep this book with me, as Clyde is privy and witness to the flow of generation 0 everyday. It all goes back to the schooling and teaching, how can we blame the young for what they do if the teachers and mentors don't hold their ground? Clyde holds his turf, and the NBA should head their schooling department with at least this book's values. Part of the problem is that there's so little common sense that the art of comparative analysis is low or lost. I've drawn parallels to the rap game, and most recently even JAY Z was heard calling for a hip hop board or council, calling out all wackness. He was sparked by his back and forth recent battle with Dipset's Jim Jones, accusing Jones of not having enough credentials to speak his name.

Also on television coming quite sooner is ALI RAP, a celebration of Muhammad Ali's sixtty - fifth birthday. It will be on ESPN December 9th, Yours Truly is the host, added to the fact that a video and song called ALI RAP THEME is done for December release to promote the program. Again here’s the point of sports being on the organized front and never being sloppy with their timing. Damn , why can't the rap game be the same?

Can't look to VIACOM for the answers, although VH1's HIP HOP HONORS totally makes the BET Awards look like a high school talent show. All hype aside there are nuances and statistics that seem to elude these broadcasts. It seems that actual facts have given way to hyperbole.

Public Enemy's fifty-sixth tour starts off on the Western side of the country. Alternating as PE DJs will be DJ LORD and hall of famer DJ JOHNNY JUICE. LORD will be doing a month of DJ residency in CHINA and ASIA and JUICE, who has been with PE since day one, will man the decks at the start of the tour. Also JUICE will debut with the baNNed, the backing musicians behind PE. Their album will debut on SLAMjamz early March 07. As for now there is no second band to the ROOTS. Hopefully the baNNed can get all those gigs the ROOTS don't want. Brian Hardgroove, Khari Wynn, Michael Faulkner respectively come with bass, guitar and drums, with Lord and Juice manning turntables. Add the possible occasional Professor Griff a percussionist as with JUICE and FLAV, and KASUF on keyboard, trumpet, sax ... is the making of something very sonically interesting and funky. I say JUICE is a hall of famer for his essential cuts and scratches on our two benchmark albums YO and MILLIONS, as with AL KOOPER when he played organ on Dylan's 'Like A Rolling Stone in 1965. Juice will be on his first PE tour, long overdue and fitting.

It's funny catching millennium commentary when explaining the recorded vocals behind early PE performances, such as the 1987's London gig at Hammersmith Odeon. Again I add that we stayed true to tradition in the beginning, using records instead of tape. It was the blessing and curse as a shaken stage resulted in a needle jumping across the disc. We were a very active act. We had special instrumentals but when they jumped, it was nearly impossible to pick up the spot where the disc jumped to. To alleviate much of this, the recorded vocals were EQ'd lowest as much as possible coming from the turntable, with myself an Flavor shout rhyming over the top. Lucky we had the voices that sounded just like the recordings. It wasn't until 1999, we did perform on hard disc rather than live turntables, although we do it in selected instances. But no, our attempts were the complete opposite of much for tradition.

An email going around has one figuring out the spelling of s-a-g-g-i-n backwards ....yeah check that out.

Also speaking of the N word I'm so tired of hearing about who has the right to use it, like its some savored term. Michael (Kramer) Richards goes berserk and spits the N -word six or seven times. I wonder what Jerry Heller, Jimmy Iovine think about it, since those are two white guys who've profited off it; not on the endorsed name but the attitude with it as well. When Kramer went off in a comedy club, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the first time uttered in that building. Different context yeah, and I'm definitely ain't defending him. But I think it was a 'white guilt' thing happening as well as a black wake up call. As said before, I do believe it's a word, any way you spell it, or smell it, but not a word of love. A fighting word I've maintained. The comedians make a living of walking the line of dangerous rhetoric. He said it with venomous anger, thus that's where he's guilty, but also saying it with a smile is both just as harmful and ignorant.

Similes and metaphors were a hot enemy board topic, as I choose to stay away from using rhymes with the, 'The word' like in them.

Calling for retirement I saw on some site that some rappers should quit. Will somebody tell somebody that artists never stop making art. The business of commerce is entirely another thing. Rappers need to think of themselves as artists and less on a hustler tip.

Air America is supposed bankrupt, but it's for restructuring purposes. The general public totally misunderstands that term. MC Hammer and LUKE are still alive and doing well, and Delta is still flying while expanding to cities across the entire planet.

The Sundance Channel could be the home of a show called the Chuck D Musician's Studio, which is a takeoff from the Actor's studio on Bravo. In the pilot my first guest will be the likes of Quincy Jones, Others like Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan ... yeah those types of giants are planned. Well, past the jitters this looks to be a natural televised fit for me. Taping pilot the day before tour , wish me well, if not, oh well. stay@me

Brigadier Jerry Live Pon Sound System....

The legendary Brigadier Jerry doin' the thang live 'pon Jack Ruby Sound....

Friday, December 01, 2006


How much did Beenie Man's album really sell?

What's the deal with Beenie Man's album sales? There has been a lot of debate about the sales of Beenie Man's album especially since last week when we reported on the website that Beenie Man claimed his album had sold over 300,000 copies. Well, our checks reveal that he may have shipped that amount, but to date, according to the Nielson Soundscan figures reported by the Billboard Reggae charts, he has sold 52,507 copies of 'Undisputed'

Sean Paul leads the pack of reggae artistes on the Billboard chart with impressive sales of 1,228,148 of his 'Trinity' set while Damian Marley has sold 596,946 copies of 'Welcome to Jamrock'. Matisyahu's 'Youth' album has sold 497,256 copies and his 'Live at Stubbs, Austin, Texas' set has sold a muscular 616,623. Dancehall act Baby Cham has sold 46,914 OF 'Ghetto Story' while Buju Banton has sold 10,081 copies of 'Too Bad'. Bounty Killer's 'Nah No Mercy - Warlord Scrolls' sold 862 copies after three weeks of release.

After 13 weeks, Beenie Man's 50,000 plus sales mark has not set the world on fire. His previous albums fared much better. 2002's "Tropical Storm," which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Reggae Albums chart and No. 7 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums tally, spawned the hit "Feel It Boy" featuring Janet Jackson, and moved 272,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. 'Art And Life', widely considered a commercial disappointment for executives at Virgin Records, did not move mega units even after Beenie Man teamed up with then-pop sensation Mya (on Girls Dem Sugar) and Wyclef Jean (on Love Me Now). It sold 386,000 copies in the United States, again according to sales tracker SoundScan.

Remember that Beenie Man broke through in the US market in 1998 with the 'Many Moods Of Moses' set for VP Records which contained the hit dance song, Who Am I, which had a strong run on the Billboard Rap chart and leading urban radio stations like Hot 97 in New York City. That album and song actually gave Virgin administrators the impetus to sign him in 2000.

Posted by yardFlex at December 1, 2006 08:44 AM