Los Angeles | Hip-Hop and Politics

LAPD was Never Spooked by Christopher Dorner..Something Don’t Smell Right

February 13, 2013 By mrDaveyd

Davey-D-purple-frame Over the past week, Southern Cali police had more than 1000 officers combing mountains, stopping traffic on major freeways where cars were held up for hours, they offered a million dollars making it the highest reward ever offered for a wanted person in state history and that’s just for starters…

During the past week, LAPD shot 3 innocent people without identifying themselves as police officers.. They set up 50 separate security details to protect the families of cops who were ‘threatened’ in the manifesto said to be written by former LA cop Christopher Dorner..

During yesterday’s shoot out in the San Bernardino mountains’ near Big Bear they allowed a cabin where Dorner was said to be held up to burn completely to the ground.LAPD spokesman Andy Smith was livid when it was suggested that police had identified the remains that are supposedly in the burnt down cabin.. He said that the building was too hot to enter and that it would take some time to ID the body.. Police as of this morning 2-13-13 are still on tactical alert ‘looking’ for Dorner…

I want folks to look at some of what I mentioned and really think about this..I know many who dislike the police would like to believe that one man had one of the most militarized and largest police forces in the world, was spooked over threats and subsequent actions from one man..Some have gone so far as to call Dorner a modern-day Django. Others have noted that Dorner with his military training gave him a tactical edge and made him the most dangerous suspect ever faced by LAPD…

Daryl Gates hired lots of military men to work for LAPD

While its true Dorner is a military guy, he’s not the only military guy. LA under past chiefs like Daryl Gates, and William H Parker before him, made it a point to hire military men to be on the force. Again LA is one of the most militarized police forces in the country..LAPD has long prided itself on having the latest tools and weaponry at its disposal. Many of the police practices we see around the country come from LA including SWAT Teams which originated in LA.. There are lots of former Navy Seals, Green Berets, Marines, Special forces guys etc..all up in the ranks of LAPD and So-Cal police forces in general. So yes, Dorner was a trained cat not to be messed with, but he was not the only one at the party who could get down. There are just too many cats with similar and superior skills on that force that would not be spooked by one cat..

Again let’s think about this..On the criminal tip, Southern Cali is home to some of the most ruthless, well armed and vicious organized gangs.. The Mexican mafia, Armenian mob, Aryan Brother Hood, Skin heads, Biker gangs like the Mongols & Hells Angels Russian mob, drug cartels of every stripe, Crips, Bloods etc.. This is gang land for real..and many of those gangs are openly hostile to LAPD, yet we have never seen the resources and all stops pulled up to confront them, the way they did Dorner…We never saw this much power even after some of those gangs were deemed domestic terrorists..and even after we’ve seen some of these outfits do everything from murk entire families to terrorize entire families or ethnic groups..

There have been several rebellions in LA over the years, the most glaring the 92 Rodney King Rebellion.. After the acquittal of the 4 officers accused of beating Rodney King, LA erupted as members of some of LA’s largest gangs that had recently formed a truce, sat on national TV and pretty much promised to go after LAPD.. We saw the Parker Center police headquarters destroyed by angry mobs.. We saw armed groups, many of them gang members take to the streets..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60jXGIEcw5I

During that rebellion we didn’t see LAPD spooked. Families weren’t protected.. a thousand cops were not on the streets ‘looking for any one man or even a bunch of men.. We didn’t see officers including Daryl Gates have 50 protection squad units.. At the end of the day LAPD wound up shooting and killing more than 20 people during the rebellion..During the height of hostilities we didn’t see LAPD spooked.

During the hey days of the Black Panthers, US and other Black and Brown militant groups that routinely mashed with LAPD and had shootouts we did not see the type of resources to track down and confront any of these groups, the way we saw with Dorner..and we know LAPD went pretty deep with those groups..as explained by former Panther Erika Huggins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIekry1oLKU

Some suggested LAPD went all out because Dorner was deemed a serial killer Cali has had more than its share of serial killers and we never ever saw massive manhunts like this. Not here, not anywhere.. Freeways weren’t shut down for hours, safe houses and protections squads weren’t assigned to everyone in danger.. I recall back in 200-2001 when the niece of former LA Police Chief Bernard Parks was killed by gang members we didn’t see this type of all out manhunt or even all out efforts to completely eradicate the gang. Nothing like what we saw with the quest for Dorner..So why now? Was it because he was a rogue cop?

For those unfamiliar with Southern Cali, there’s a few other things folks should know about how the police get down.. There have always been rogue cops.. For example, for a long time, LAPD and LA sheriffs had beef with each other and it was not unusual for squads to actually square up and go at each other like a gang..

David Mack LAPD was a rogue cop reporteldy a member of the Bloods

David Mack LAPD was a rogue cop reported to be a member of the Bloods

We also know that long before the Jump Out Boys, a rogue gang of cops recently exposed for shooting Black and Latinos leading to seven members fired the same day Dorner posted his manifesto, that Southern Cali police departments within their ranks had long had social clubs/ gangs many of them white supremacist.. But as we saw leading up to the Rampart Scandal and the saga behind Death Row records and the death of death of Notorious BIG, there were Peace officers of color who were associated with street gangs including the Bloods. The point I’m making there have long been rogue officers, some friendly, some not so friendly to the force, but still never this much manpower to quell…

Say what you want, but this situation with Dorner has the looks of police not scared of one man, because he made threats or had weapons. This had the look of someone trying to find something.. What that something is, one can only guess, but as I said last night when they let that cabin burn and then announced they couldn’t tell if the man reported inside was Dorner.. ‘something don’t smell right in the city of Angels ‘

What did that man know and was all this man power simply to stop him or retrieve something he had? Was the mission to make sure he went to his grave with sordid secrets? We may not get immediate answers to any of these questions, but we best keep asking.. LAPD no matter what they say was not spooked or felt they was in some sort of imminent danger as they would like us to believe..not with all those resources, man power and history.. Nn the words of Public Enemy Can’t Truss It..

Filed Under: 2013 Daily News Tagged With: Black Panthers, Christopher Dorner, Daryl Gates, Dorner, LAPD, LAPD was Never Spooked by Christopher Dorner..Something Don't Smell Right, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department

Jesse Jackson Pens an Open Letter to former LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner

February 9, 2013 By mrDaveyd

As the massive manhunt continues for former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, Reverend Jesse Jackson has stepped in and penned an open letter to him… I hope Jesse uses his clout and organization to investigate the allegations of corruption within LAPD.. Your thoughts on this?

Some of the controversies involving Reverend Jesse jackson has led to us questioning the state of the Black Church

Dear Christopher Dorner,

I understand your feelings of hurt and pain. I make this plea to you to stop spreading the pain, the hurt, and the fear. Please stop. Don’t take any more lives.

Christopher, your mother is distraught and deeply concerned for your safety. There are many good and credible people in Los Angeles who will help you. Danny J. Bakewell Sr. (The Los Angeles Sentinel’s Executive Publisher/CEO),

Bishop Noel Jones, Bishop Kenneth Ulmer and Rev. Charles Singleton are all individuals I know personally. I promise that they will gladly receive you.

I will do whatever I can do for you without hesitation. Please contact me through Danny Bakewell at the L.A. Sentinel at 323-299-3800

Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr.

Coalition-Keeping Hope Alive

Filed Under: 2013 Daily News Tagged With: Christopher Dorner, Danny Bakewell, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Pens an Open Letter to Christopher Dorner, Jesse Jackson Pens an Open Letter to former LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner, Los Angeles

Occupy Skid Row: Public Enemy’s Historic Concert Exposing LA’s Dirty Secret

January 24, 2013 By mrDaveyd

Chuck D Occupy Skid Row Los Angeles Community Action Network and Public Enemy came together last year for a historic event called Occupy Operation Skid Row. It was a musical festival featuring legendary hip hop acts like Cypress Hill, Kid Frost, YoYo, Mellow Man Ace along with General Jeff of Rodney O & Joe Cooley.

Jeff for those who don’t know is dubbed the Mayor of Skid Row, because of the work he’s done for years to try and alleviate the harsh conditions of one of the nation’s largest concentrations of homeless and LA’s dirty little secret..As Chuck D pointed out the overwhelming majority are Black and they are shunned and ignored.

Below is a short documentary that brings the event to life.. It also touches upon some of the challenges facing those on skid row as well as how this large homeless population gets used by police to manipulate crime stats. Many are arrested for petty crimes like sleeping on sidewalks, urinating or drinking in public.. Their arrests get entered into crime databases and help highlight favorable results.. This was a tactic former LA Police Chief William Bratton did when he was running the department.. He arrested over 27 thousand people in LA skid row in a 3 year period and gave out 36 thousand citations.. Skid row is home to 15 thousand people.

You can peep the interview we did with Chuck D on the eve of the event...HERE

You can also peep the concert /documentary as well.. Enjoy and Reflect

http://vimeo.com/57948440

Filed Under: 2013 Daily News Tagged With: Cypress Hill, hiphop, Homelessness, Los Angeles, Mellow Man Ace, Public Enemy, Rodney O & Joe Cooley, Skid Row, William Bratton

Righteous and ready to burn: 20 years after LA

April 30, 2012 By mrDaveyd

It’s time to show the mothafuckin’ news how the streets feel /
Give ‘em a cup of this truth they need a refill…
Damn, that’s the life we live /
If a pig wanna shoot you than your life is his /
I guess the laws don’t know what bein’ righteous is
—By Any Means, Young Gully (2010)

Righteous and ready to burn: 20 years after LA

by Jesse Strauss

Twenty years ago this weekend, after four cops were acquitted for the widely publicized assault of Rodney King, communities in LA united in anger. In under a week, thousands showed through physical expression of their anger that the Dream of the U.S. was not working. In that time 53 lives were taken and more than 3,000 fires caused about a billion dollars of damage, according to reports. But let’s be clear: two decades after LA went up in flames, the anger still bubbles barely beneath the surface and the US remains in crisis.

Every April, I spend time finding accounts and analyses of the 1992 rebellions. For the 20th anniversary, some LA-based news organizations have put together spotlight websites highlighting the events of 20 years ago and what has changed since. A few things stand out.

First, there’s a heavy focus on ways the Los Angeles Police Department has improved in the past two decades. There’s a similar focus on how “race relations” have improved.

Fuzzy comfort

Rodney King

As evidence of how LA has “changed over the years”, the LA Times offers a short photo gallery of “then” and “now” images — for example, what a burning building looked like in the midst of rebellion, and what that same space looks like now — without any explanation of what the contrast is meant to represent. Buildings currently standing where others burned may look better now than they did while on fire. But beyond the fuzzy feeling that a modern lack of fire means peace, they’re irrelevant. LA continues to have decrepit buildings and abandoned overgrown lots, some in the same places where buildings burnt down in 1992. A photo series could have the exact same effect if it compared images from burning buildings in the 1965 Watts Rebellion to what those same places looked like on April 28^th 1992—the day before another round of rage-fueled fires ignited.

The anniversary coverage in 2012 tries to offer a warm-and-fuzzy comfort, but some of it seems pulled from thin air. This MSNBC article cites a Loyola Marymount University study reporting that “most say LA is unlikely to see a repeat of such riots in the coming years.” Butthe study doesn’t seem to say anything like that. Rather, it is entirely focused on people’s changing perceptions of police since 1997, and actually suggests that people are slightly more dissatisfied with the LAPD overall than they were when the study started.

The implied sense of calm or peace that the photos and bizarre survey reports offer is in a way representative of cultural change in the past 20 years. We haven’t seen uprisings to the scale of the LA rebellions since then, but the righteous anger that fueled those events has not been significantly addressed. Rather, it’s been reinforced.

Let’s be clear: a lot has changed since 1992. Globalization has affected us deeply: We now have a much more intensely consolidated media mechanism; “free trade” policies that encourage migration patterns moving north from Latin America; wars that have been fought and lost in our names for more than a continuous decade – which corresponds to the racial targeting of Middle Eastern, South Asian and Muslim people; and far more access to global communications (internet) than most of us could’ve imagined in ‘92. Racism has changed too, but rather than being at ease, it has adapted. “Free trade” with Mexico comes with legally- and racially-targeted limited freedom of movement for Xicanos/Latinos in the form of the Minute Men, laws like Arizona’s SB1070 and that same state’s elimination of ethnic studies curriculum. 9/11 and a decade of war corresponds to Islamophobia campaigns and religiously (and often racially) targeted violence towards Middle Eastern, South Asian and Muslim. And urban outbursts, kicked off by racially stigmatized events, still happens regularly.

Putting the PIC on blast

The famed video of Rodney King being attacked in the middle of a road by a crew of baton-wielding aggressor cops became the first incidence of “citizen journalism” (or according to media reports back then: “amateur photography”) that, when brought to a mainstream news source, demonstrated to the world what was already known to many in Black and Brown communities about racially-targeted police violence. But that didn’t tip off rebellions, as the video emerged in March of ’91: more than a year before the rebellions.

Neither was the tipping point caused by the emergence of a surveillance video that showed the killing of 13-year-old Latasha Harlins, shot by Sun Ja Du over a fear that Harlins may have been stealing an orange juice bottle from Du’s store (the video was released two weeks after the video of King’s beating). Or even when Du was sentenced to a mere probation term for the killing (which was contrasted on local Channel 4 news at the time with a man being sentenced for 30 days in prison for beating his dog).

What set people off was the complete acquittal, on April 29th, 1992, of all the cops who attacked King.

Together, the series of events displayed publicly the ways that the “criminal justice system” works on many fronts to enforce and defend racism. Rather than exposing a few bad apples, the events showed ways that racism is embedded in the functioning of the Prison-Industrial-Complex (PIC) , both on the streets and in courtrooms. The events catalyzed an expression of righteous anger about what had been happening under the mainstream radar for a long time: so long, in fact, that there was already a built-in soundtrack for the rebellions. Music that appeared in previous years that became anthems for the rebellion was not a causal factor of burning or looting. Rather, it reflected cultural experiences and attempts to name the realities that had been part of artists’ communities’ everyday experiences.

Original media coverage of the events seems to recognize some of those realities, at least superficially. One ABC news report from the time of the unrest says: “Civil rights organizations say the Los Angeles Police Department has a history of brutality and misconduct that goes back a quarter of a century, including one incident that sparked the Watts Riots. So far this year there have been 125 complaints of police misconduct filed with watchdog organizations.” While the expressions of anger in LA were largely reported as “riots” or “looting” in original news material, I don’t see as significant reference to histories and patterns of violence in newer coverage of relatable events.

In fact, a Sky9 news anchor, reporting during the uprising, referenced the local history of the Watts uprising, the present situation, and a warning for the future: “As you said, this has no boundaries. 1965, 1992, and from looking at the scores of children on the streets, you kind of hate to wonder what will happen 20 years from now.” The historicity of this comment seems almost too apt in 2012.

The LA Times’ initial report included a surprising quote from LA Mayor Tom Bradley: “The jury’s verdict will never blind the world to what we saw on the videotape.” Bradley also reportedly called the verdicts “senseless.” While this may not amount to a critique of the PIC as a whole, it offers recognition that the system can produce dysfunctional results.

Seventeen years later, on New Year’s morning of 2009, Oscar Grant, a young Black man and a father, was shot in the back by a cop while lying facedown on a subway platform, all caught on video. Afterward, bureaucratic inaction fostered impunity for the trigger-happy officer, along with his racist co-workers, leaving the people of Oakland to assume that Grant’s case would repeat what many had been seeing in their neighborhoods for a long time: official immunity from the PIC for those who benefit from it. That is, those whose job it is to enforce the PIC (police, ICE agents, judges, etc) as well as communities that are not targeted or extra-heavily policed (which happens in largely working class neighborhoods where mostly people of color live and experience in the forms of profiling and gang injunctions, for example).

The first public comment by Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums on the situation came more than a week after the killing, and after some property in the city’s downtown area had been damaged by people expressing rebellious anger. Unlike the comment from Bradley, Dellums directed his focus in a way that validated the PIC. He said he wanted the official police process “to investigate this homicide the way [they] would investigate any other homicide in the city of Oakland.” With this, Dellums missed the mark. Many in Oakland had experienced that the way official investigations operate leave more Black men in prison and corrupt cops on the streets.

Oakland’s 2009 unrest paled in comparison to LA’s in 1992, doing far less physical damage to the city. But rather than relating Oakland’s deep history of Black struggle to current events, the news slapped loaded labels like “rioter,” “outside agitator,” and “looter” on the people expressing their righteous anger in a disorganized way.

Righteous chaos

London Riots

Last summer, however, we saw collective expressions of anger more closely rivaling the LA rebellions—this time in the U.K.

At a rally to support “justice” for Mark Duggan, a Black man who had been killed by gun-toting cops in his own neighborhood of Tottenham, London, a few days earlier, police reportedly started a confrontation with a young woman, setting the crowd off from a growing sense that cops hadn’t earned the authority they were demanding. London became engulfed byrighteous chaos.

The news repeated a statement by David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister: The actions were “criminality, pure and simple”, as opposed to any kind of thoughtful anger being expressed. To underline his point, Cameron said in parliament that “gangs were at the heart of the protests and have been behind the coordinated attacks.” Research by the U.K.’s Guardian showed otherwise: Not only were gang members inactive in a coordinated way during the rebellions, but that there was a de facto gang truce during that time—which also happened during LA’s rebellion.

The British government’s neglect of the underlying reasons for righteous anger leaves London unsure of it’s peaceful future. An official report on the London uprising leads to the same conclusion: “Will riots happen again? The answer is quite possibly ‘yes’.” This is because the report authors “noted a collective pessimism about the future. We were shocked by the number of young people we spoke to who had no hopes or dreams for their future.” In other words, London could reach another tipping point any day. Let’s remember that the killing of Mark Duggan wasn’t even recorded.

Globalization and adaptation

Former LAPD Chief William Bratton

London is just as far from LA geographically as it was in 1992, but the two cities’ police systems are less distinct. After the London uprising, the city brought in “gang expert” William Bratton straight from LA. Similarly, the Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain hired John Yates, a British assistant police commissioner, and John Timoney, a former Miami police chief, to help shut down the country’s yearlong unrest. This is not to equate the struggles in LA, London, and Bahrain, but rather to underline that as we begin to develop a global understanding of anger and its various and chaotic expressions, these and other governments recognize the value of practiced stifling of expression.

While righteous anger can be expressed in many ways, state responses to it appear to be growing more homogenized and standardized. The globalization of what we experience in the U.S. as over-policing or even systematic violations of our constitutional rights is becoming a valued trade technique for “experts” in crowd control.

But beyond recognized police misconduct (when cops break their own policies and the law), the expertise being imported to the U.K. and Bahrain is based on a strong handling of the PIC as a problematic and discriminatory system.

Moreover, unless a grassroots people’s movement of some kind gives the media no choice, these killings receive no attention. And this is lesson one: rebellions work. Without convincing videos or some kind of salacious sensationalism, police misconduct gains no public traction. We don’t see public beatings or killings, like those of Rodney King or Oscar Grant, every day, but that’s largely because our media mechanisms don’t care to focus on them.

That’s certainly the case in the Trayvon Martin police operation. After Martin was killed in February by a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer, national media couldn’t have cared less. It was a growing show of public anger, albeit very different in appearance from the LA or Oakland rebellions that brought Martin’s death into the spotlight. In his case, it was the same demonstration that the PIC is working just as it was designed, that catalyzed anger. The law supported police to allow an admitted killer to avoid arrest until a nationwide mobilization that included vigilante bounties and hoodie solidarity gave them no other choice.

But we’re still in the early stages of the Martin ordeal. Now that we have a global audience tuned in to killer George Zimmerman’s trial, what will happen if he is acquitted?

Righteous anger – 2012 remix

Twenty years after LA burned, tension stays heated. Police maintain repressive crowd control that is sanctioned by the PIC, but intensely organized policing promotes neither justice nor peace, let alone eases tensions. The experience of anger changes over time and adapts to societal changes, but the persistence of the PIC ensures a significant righteousness. On top of local experiences—as in the government’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, or school districts being shut down and sold to the highest bidders in New Orleans or Philadelphia—the root of righteous anger acted on in LA 20 years ago is being exacerbated nationally.

United for a Fair Economy’s State of the Dream 2012 report shows that already: “Blacks are six times more likely to be in prison than Whites, and people of color make up over 65 percent of the prison population.” The report offers evidence to suggest that in the next 30 years: “If we do not change course, we will continue on a path toward becoming a country in which the overwhelming share of the emerging non-White majority is economically insecure… If the trends in racial economic inequality of the last thirty years continue for the next thirty years, the racial economic divide in 2042 will be vast and devastating for communities of color and the nation as a whole.”

Let’s also not forget that as a remaining underlying construct for the PIC, slavery remains legal “as a punishment for crime” in the very document our entire legal system is based on, the Constitution.

Trayvon Martin

Of course, anger is not the only reaction we could have to these injustices, or to the case of Trayvon Martin, or of any of the 28 Black people killed by “police officials, security guards, and keepers of the peace” in the first three months of 2012. But expressions of righteous anger have not gone away. They will continue to show up in spurts and in different forms – and in potentially dangerous ways, if this is at all indicative. To be clear, I am not excusing the destructiveness, violence and rage that was expressed in LA’s, Oakland’s or London’s rebellions. Rather, this is a call to reposition responsibility for those actions on the legal sanctioning of targeting and killing people from certain communities (1) – that is, on the everyday function of the Prison-Industrial Complex.

An anger-fueled soundtrack continues to smolder twenty years after LA’s fires burnt out. With music as a reflection of socio-cultural experience, rebellious recordings are being produced out of studios and basements, and are easily accessible online. Time keeps our soundtrack moving forward, but it doesn’t erase samples from the past. While raw funk beats bumping on the radio might be replaced by the downloadable synth-heavy soundtrack of 2012, throwback references to NWA and Tupac anchor them in continued righteousness in the context of state-sanctioned injustice. Whatever actions today’s soundtracks accompany, they will reflect realities deeply rooted in local and global power structures—realities far more complex than tidy photographs of restored buildings.

(1) This piece focuses on rebellions sparked by the PIC’s targeting of people of color, and specifically Black men. This focus is intentional, in that the significant uprisings in the past two decades that share characteristics of LA’s ’92 rebellion have been sparked by the killings of Black men. These types of rebellions are characterized by the ejection or exclusion of a class of people from mainstream US culture, which is why it’s relevant to reference the PIC-sanctioned targeting of people who’ve been ejected like indigenous Americans, migrants, Muslims and queer people. In the past 20 years there have not been outright rebellions sparked by the targeting of those communities, but righteous anger from being targeted is easily accessible. But, for example, San Francisco saw the White Night rebellion in 1979 after the PIC handed the lowest possible sentence to Dan White, the killer of the city’s first queer and out elected politician, Harvey Milk, as well as Mayor George Moscone. All three of those men are white, and the uprising was acted on by righteous anger that had swelled in San Francisco’s queer and queer-supporting community.

written by Jesse Strauss

Filed Under: 2012 Daily News Tagged With: Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department, Loyola Marymount University, Rodney King

We Remember the Rodney King Uprisings and the Historic Gang Truce of 1992

April 27, 2012 By mrDaveyd

As we look back on the 20th anniversary of the Rodney King/ LA Uprisings there are a few things to keep in mind that’ll hopefully bring all that went down April 29th 1992 into a clearer perspective..

The vicious beating of unarmed motorist Rodney King which was caught on tape, March 3 1991 by bystander George Holiday angered many. But at the same time it gave people some sort of hope that things would change. The video tape was seemed the crucial piece of evidence that many had long been waiting for that would vindicate thousands of Black and Brown folks living in Southern, Cali who had long complained about the brutality of LAPD…Many felt it would lead to the arrest and criminal punishment of the 4 officers who were seen striking King over 50 times with batons and tasering him. The video tape underscored the long list of social and political conditions that were leading up to the 92 Uprisings. You can peep that infamous video HERE

The Sordid Legacy of Daryl Gates and LAPD

Rodney King

Prior to the Rodney King beating, many in the mainstream (whites) were dismissive of complaints from people in the hood about LA police brutality. In their minds they figured whatever was done by the police was justified, after all many had come to believe that areas like South Central LA, Watts, Compton and East LA to name a few, were ‘infested’ with out of control gangbangers who needed to be ‘suppressed’ at all costs.

I use words like ‘infested‘ and ‘suppressed‘ deliberately because that’s the dehumanizing language often used by the main antagonistic to Black and Brown communities in LA at that time, former Police Chief, the late Daryl Gates.

For those who don’t know, Gates was a media savvy, sadistic man who ran a well-heeled media campaign that convinced the world that his police force needed to be further militarized. Building off the legacy and policies of his mentor and predecessor LA’s police chief William H Parker, Gates started dressing his officers in military garb and supplying them with military weapons. He also got the department to adopt intrusive tactics more associated with Marine invasions vs protecting and serving the community which is the slogan seen on LA police cars.

Gates used the influx of crack cocaine and fights over drug turf as the rationale for ramping up his force. He even went out and got a tank that was modified to knock down crack houses. This tank was immortalized in the song Batter Ram by LA rapper Toddy Tee.. The Batterram garnered headlines when zealous officers knocked down the homes of innocent people thanks to faulty information or them being overzealous. Gates was unapologetic.

His campaign was suppression of the Black and Brown folks, no matter what walk of life. Under an infamous policy known as Operation Hammer, everyone from those communities who came in contact with LAPD was seen as a gang member. Again this is not exaggeration. Part of Gate’s strategy was to establish an extensive gang database, hence anyone pulled over for a traffic violation or stopped and detained for minor infractions was most likely to be entered into the database.

Gate’s policy was simple; you were associated with a particular gang based upon the neighborhood you lived in. The result of this policy was aggressive and harsh treatment, suspicion & profiling and oftentimes arrest when police pulled you over or detained you and found your name listed in the gang database.

Any crime committed against you was tainted as ‘gang related‘. The implication was , you were a victim of a robbery, or assault because of gang ties. This resulting in many crimes not being taken seriously. On top of that, complaints against the police was put on the back burner, especially if it could be shown that you were a ‘gang member’ listed in the database. By the time the Rodney King/LA Uprisings kicked off, a whooping 47% of Black males between the ages of 21-25 in Los Angles were deemed gang members thanks to the database.

LAPD’s Unwritten Policy of Suppression

The unwritten policy of LAPD dating back to the 1950s under Chief William H Parker was to establish dominance send a strong message to the growing population of Black and Brown folks that the police were in charge. This was done two ways. First, Parker notoriously recruited officers from states throughout the South, which were still immersed in Jim Crow. Many of the officers harbored strong anti-Black sentiments and carried it with them to their new jobs in Los Angeles.

LAPD Chief William H Parker

Second, his officers would make it a point to stop and detain Black youth while they were pre-teens or in their early teens. This was Parker’s way of as a way establishing presence. He wanted certain residents of LA to know the police were always around and ready to roll and clamp down. Parker’s attitude was get to them while they’re young and put fear in them. The adults who were stopped by his men were treated even more harshly. Oftentimes they were talked to in a demeaning manner i.e. being called ‘boy’ or a racial epithet.

Parker’s cops were known to purposely embarrass adults in front of their kids or on husbands in front of their wives.. All this hostility was complicated by the fact that LA at that time was very segregated and had on its books housing covenants which restricted the areas that Black and Brown folks could live..

Watts was the main Black area was known among police officers as ‘the Duck Pond‘. Here officers who patrolled it, did so with the goal of containing Black residents and keeping them from entering into white sections of the city.

There was study done in the 60s that showed that 90% of the juveniles arrested by LAPD were not charged. This was essentially Stop-N-Frisk ala NYPD decades before it showed up as police practice in NYC. Many say Parker’s harsh policing policies led to the 1965 Watts Riots/Rebellions..

It’s important to understand this history when looking at the Rodney King uprisings. Its important for folks to know and understand how deep rooted and systemic police/ community relations were and the type of discontent that it caused. In the 1965 Watts rebellion, in spite of the resulting 39 dead and over a 1000 injured, conditions and policy didn’t change too much in LA. If anything they got worse.

By the 1980s LA’s first Black Mayor Tom Bradley continued that harsh policing when he famously ordered massive roundups and arrests via Daryl Gates, of Black and Brown men as LA hosted the 1984 Olympics. It’s reported that over 25 thousand were locked up. A few years later Gates implemented Operation Hammer which was a system of gang sweeps and massive arrests. One weekend he locked up over 1200 residents suspected of being ‘gang members’.

Gates said there was a war going on in the streets and his police force was determined to fight it. However, as we now know Gate’s war machine should’ve been directed at the government who supplied infamous drug dealers like Freeway Rick with the cocaine and not the community who were catching hell on both ends. On one hand, many in Black and Brown communities fell prey to crack addiction or crack related violence. While on the other hand, they also felt the the wide sweeping brunt of Daryl Gates and his brutalizing police force.

Latasha Harlins

Latasha Harlins

In looking at the Rodney King uprisings, many believe you can not overlook the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins at the hands of Korean grocery store owner Soon Ja Du. her death happened 2 weeks after Rodney King was beaten.. A video tape surfaced showing Harlin’s being shot in the back of the head as she attempted to leave a store where she was suspected of ‘stealing a soda.

According to court transcripts, what went down was; Harlin put a soda in her backpack and went to the counter to pay for it. Ja Du not seeing the money in Harlins’ hand grabbed her and a tussle ensued. During the struggle, Du threw a stool at Harlin, she in turn picked up the soda and threw it on the counter. Harlins then turned to leave the store at which point Du pulled out a gun and shot her in the head claiming she feared for her life.

Tensions between Black and Korean merchants exploded. Korean merchants felt that they were frequent victims to violent crimes at the hands of Blacks. Black customers felt they were always being far too often deemed suspicious and treated badly by Koreans who were getting money from the community yet didn’t live there or show respect. Harlins murder was the tipping point.

Verdicts Gone Wrong

The trials demanding justice for Harlin and King looked to be open and shut with convictions eminent. Many in the Black community were hopeful, after al,l both incidents were caught on tape. Unfortunately these trials were anything but simple.

In spite of the video and contradictory testimony Du was sentenced to 5 years probation at the conclusion of her November 1991 trial. A news report at the time showed a Korean man being sentenced around the same time for being cruel to a dog. He received 30 days.. That was contrasted with the Harlin’s verdict and caused widespread outrage. You can peep that video HERE.

Koon, Powell, Briseno & Wind

The Rodney King trial took a longer path. First, it was moved out of LA to Simi Valley which is home to a lot of police officers. defense lawyers claimed there was too much pre-trial publicity.

Second, there were no African-Americans on the jury. The trial to convict LAPD officers Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind was heard by a jury consisting of ten whites, one Latino and one Asian..

On April 29 1992, that Simi Valley jury acquitted all 4 officers. Once the word got out, all hell broke loose. The result? 53 people dead, about 2,500 injured and more than $400 million in property damage.

The sentiment was Black life didn’t matter and there would never be any justice for those who found themselves on the receiving end of oppression and abuse.People were angery and felt hopeless, as if nothing they did mattered or would be given a fair shot.

Mayor Tom Bradley visibly taken a back by the verdict publicly stated; ‘the jury’s verdict will not blind us to what we saw on that videotape. The men who beat Rodney King do not deserve to wear the uniform of the L.A.P.D.‘

Then President Bush sr stated; ‘viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I and so was Barbara and so were my kids’.

Daryl Gates defended his department and his decision not to have extra officers on hand after the verdict was read.. He claimed that his department would shut down any disturbance. After the uprising, Gates was asked to step down, by Mayor Bradley, he steadfastly refused and a huge public dispute between the two men emerged. Gates finally stepped down, two months later in June 1992.

6 months after the uprising Gates showed his true sadistic colors when he acknowledged that he made errors in judgement around handling the uprising. He said; “Clearly that night we should have gone down there and shot a few people… that’s exactly what we should have done. We should have blown a few heads off.’

The 92 Gang Truce

The LA Uprising brought to life a beautiful facet that had been in the works for a couple of years prior and had been cemented two days before the infamous Rodney King verdict.

Rival Blood and Crip sets in Watts signed historic Gang Truce on April 27th. More than 300 gang members showed up at City hall to mark the occasion. Many didn’t realize a truce had went into effect until all the turmoil jumped off and folks noticed that rivals gangs were working hand in hand, calling for unity and exuding a spirit of cooperation. There were signs painted all over the city that read Crip, Bloods and Eses Together. Many thought the lopsided verdict brought everyone together overnight. The truth of the matter was the ensuing rebellion underscored and accentuated the peace and healing work various cliques had been working toward…

What led to the truce was gang members tiring of senseless deaths. LA had its highest murder rate two years in row leading up to the uprising. Much of the violence was around drug turf. In response gang members in Watts began to wake up and start a process that would eventually lead to peace.

Landmark meetings with Minister Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam and later numerous gatherings at the home of former football legend Jim Brown played key roles in helping facilitate the various peace process gang members had undertaken..Its said Brown put almost half a million dollars of his own money into efforts to lay down a foundation for peace.

The 92 Gang Truce set off similar efforts throughout LA and around the nation. Its also one of the most under reported facets of what went down 20 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYm-dx_k0Jw

Aqeela Sherills

We recently sat down with Aqeela Sherrills who was part of that important process. In this interview he gives an indepth run down of what took place and what’s going on now in LA, 20 years later. He talks in great detail about the decrease in crime because of the Truce. He noted that LA has its lowest crime in over 40 years and that its currently in its 8th year of decreases. He also talked about how the 92 Gang Truce was an inspiration for the Million man march which took place 3 years later.

He also goes into detail explaining the attempts to break the Truce.. The main culprit? LAPD. He noted that the police had strong economic incentive to keep the chaos going due to the huge amount of income they were generating via overtime pay and the formation of specialized task force. It was in their interests to play up the fear and downplay the truce.

In our interview Aqeela also talks about the Black/ Brown conflict. He explains how a lot of the beef has been rival gangs (one Black one Brown) going at it and not so much due to racial hatred..

Here’s a link to this insightful interview..that aired yesterday on our TRadioV show

Below is an incredible clip just days after the Rodney King Uprising..It aired on Nightline w/ Ted Koppell and features gang members Bone and Lil Monster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60jXGIEcw5I

We went digging in the crates to pull out an insightful interview w/ former Gang member Twilight Bey who was the inspiration for the PBS show Twilight LA…He gives a solid breakdown of the 92 Gang Truce and what led up to LA Uprisings.. Much of what he said 10 years ago holds true today.. Below pt 1 of the 4pt conversation..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byUzkkMav74

The Role of Hip Hop

As we close out we have to acknowledge the role music and Hip Hop played in the Rodney King/ LA Uprisings.. First a bit of history… Back in 1965 during the Watts Rebellion, the media and the police blamed popular African-American disc jockey Magnifigent Montague for setting it off. Montague was heard on KGFJ where he frequently peppered his on air banter in between the hottest R&B and Soul songs of the day with tidbits about African American history. He would often have guest on his show including Malcolm X. Martin Luther King name checks him in a couple of speeches praising him for his activism.

Montague had a slogan that he used whenever he played a hit record.. That phrase was ‘Burn Baby Burn‘. Listeners would call up when he played a dope song and repeat the phrase. During the Watts Rebellion in 65, folks in the streets adapted the phrase. Some flipped it and said Burn Whitey Burn..

Montague was on the air encouraging folks to go home, but that didn’t stop Chief William Parker from publicly calling for Montague to be fired. LAPD also stepped to him to stop using the phrase. Montague kept his job, but dropped the slogan and changed it to Learn Baby learn as he committed himself to working with youth and calling for peace.

Ice Cube

The scapegoating of Montague should be noted because years later during the 92 Uprisings, folks blamed rappers like Ice Cube for setting a tone that would lead to social unrest. Folks looked at songs like Black Korea, which Cube did in homage to Latasha Harlin 7 months before the 92 unrest where he warned Korean merchants to respect the Black fist or get burned to a crisp.. When folks went after Korean stores during the rebellion, Cube was called to task and accused of being racist..

What was overlooked was that Cube and many others were soundtracking the emotions and sentiments held by many at that time.. We could look back to Toddy Tee doing Batterram and Ice T doing 6 N the Morning as giving us early glimpse into what Black folks in LA were struggling with..

NWA‘s Fuck tha Police took it to a whole other level and became an anthem, which netted response from police departament and the FBI.. Police in cities throughout the country pressured venue owners to not allow the song to be played.. An FBI member sent a letter to the group condemning the group.

After the uprisings Cube shunned his critics and turned up the heat with songs like We Had to Tear This Mother Up Here he talks about going after the Simi Valley jury and personally assaulting the 4 officers who were aquitted. He name checks each of them and drops a line explaining the violent manner he would like to see befall them.

Meanwhile, his then newly signed artist Kam who was apart of the Gang Truce documents and celebrates it in his song Peace Treaty . His video brings to life the beauty of unity that was unfolding in Watts.

In the wake of that dozens of songs emerged referencing the 92 Gang Truce, the LA Uprisings and anger toward the police.

Conclusion

As we look back on the 20th anniversary, lets allow what occurred to be an inspiration. Lets learn lessons from the historic gang truce, lets try to bring similar efforts in our own communities. Lets also learn the lessons of a police force that refuses to change. 20 years after the Uprisings we seen the police departments get worse. It was just last week that we saw the investigation into LA sheriffs about a group of rogue cops calling themselves the Jump Off Boys.. The struggle continues..

written by Davey D

Filed Under: 2012 Daily News Tagged With: Aqueela sherills, Batterram, Bloods, Crips, Daryl Gates, Gang Truce, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department, Operation Hammer, Police brutality, Rodney King, Rodney King rebellions, Rodney King riots, Rodney King Uprising, Twilight Bey

Is the Guy Who set the Fires in LA a Terrorist? Imagine if He was Mexican as Opposed to German

January 4, 2012 By mrDaveyd

Harry Burkhart, a German national upset about the immigration status of him and his mother was said to be in court the other week for his mother’s hearing yelling “F— the United States!”

This same Harry Burkhart was just arrested, accused of setting more than 50 arson fires in Los Angeles including one at the popular Hollywood and Highland Entertainment Complex.

In typical fashion we are now hearing news story after news story talking about the mental illness Burkhart may be suffering. We’re hearing stories about how he was agood man gone bad. We should show some sort of sympathy because he’s upset about having his family torn apart….

Harry Burkhart

Oh yeah three other facts y’all should note.. 1-Burkhart just arrived in the US on October of 2011.. His visa is set to expire at the end of January.. 2-He’s wanted for questioning in Germany for arson fires he’s accused of setting there..3-Burkhart’s mother is wanted for 19 counts of fraud back in Germany.

Is this a case of a distraught young man who loves his mother and acted out? is this a case of a young man who momentarily lost his way? Should we really be upset after all he didn’t kill anyone he just lit a few fires? Damaged property can be replaced. The love a man shows for his mother is universal and should be embraced and upheld-right?

Imagine if you would for one second, if those 50 arson fires was set by an undocumented Brown man-lets call him Julio. Let’s say 50 arson fires were set by Julio Gonzalez, upset that his wife, parents or kids were immigration legal limbo and set to be ousted from the United States. Could you imagine the outrage? Could you imagine the scorn that would come across every news station about the ‘evil ways of Brown folks?

We would have law makers climbing over themselves demanding we build more walls along the border and we would be empowering the police and any other law enforcement officer to check the papers of anyone fitting the description. Brown and immigrant communities would be under siege and sadly far too many of us would cheer. We would be asking are there any more Julio’s out there setting fires?We would be looking into Julio’s background trying to see if he was gang member and if his actions were part of a larger plan.

Brown students or farm workers from immigrant communities are always seen as criminals even if they are lawfully here..

No one would dare suggest that we show sympathy and understanding to Julio for ‘monetarily losing his way because immigration laws were tearing his family apart.. And don’t let us discover that the object of Julio angst was wanted in her home country for criminal activity like Burkhart’s mother. Don’t let us discover Julio or his family member was wanted in Mexico or El Salvador for 19 counts of fraud.

Terrorism? Yes, Julio would be considered a Domestic terrorist if he set 50 fires in a big city like Los Angeles and you could bet some overzealous Congressman like a Peter King would be demanding we hold hearings about the community Julio came from and whether they represent a threat to society.

In the case of Burkhart.. No one is asking aloud if Burkhart’s actions are connected to a larger plot? After all, we had the firebombing of Mosques in NY at the same time as LA was being set ablaze-coincedent or connected?

Burkhart is a German national.. Can we connect him to the growing Neo-Nazi movement here in the US? Can we connect every German both here and abroad to Nazism? Should German Americans be concerned that the heavy arm of the law will see each person of German decent as potential arsonist? Do we start looking at Germans as Anti-American?

As this case unfolds one should keep in mind the way we have come to view the case of Burkhart and hows its being isolated and framed. He’s a troubled young man who has mental problems. Contrast that with the words we’ve heard used to describe undocumented farm workers, street vendors or undocumented students pushing for the Dream Act to be passed-They and anyone who even looks like them are seen as lawbreakers who should be swiftly and harshly punished removed from our land. They are seen as threats to society while Burkhart is not..

Something to Ponder..

Davey D

Filed Under: 2012 Daily News Tagged With: Arson, Burkhart, Harry Burkhart, Los Angeles, Nazism

The Los Angeles Times royally screwed up a big story about Tupac’s 1994 robbery and shooting. What else did it get wrong?

April 10, 2008 By mrDaveyd

The Los Angeles Times royally screwed up a big story about Tupac’s 1994 robbery and shooting. What else did it get wrong?

By Eric K. Arnold

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=678909
April 9, 2008

The unsolved murders of Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur were the subject of the documentary Biggie & Tupac.

It may have been the biggest f-up in the history of mainstream media hip-hop coverage.

In case you haven’t heard, the Los Angeles Times was caught red-faced when website TheSmokingGun.com out-reported – and more importantly, out-fact-checked – the daily newspaper a couple weeks ago on what seemed to be an important story detailing new evidence in the 1994 shooting and robbery of the late Tupac Shakur. Times reporter Chuck Philips, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, revealed that an incarcerated and unnamed informant had confirmed the involvement of Sean “Diddy” Combs, Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, hip-hop manager Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond, and Mafia wanna-be James Sabatino in the incident. Philips did not name the shooter(s) but presented alleged FBI case files and court transcripts. One of the robbers, Philips wrote, still had Shakur’s purloined medallion, fourteen long years after the fact.

The Times article drew more than one million viewers to the paper’s web site, making it the newspaper’s most heavily trafficked article this year.

Blogs followed suit. “Sometimes a reporter comes to a story, and sometimes the story comes to him,” wrote blogger/author Jeff Chang in a post. Other outlets, however, were skeptical. As MTV News noted, Philips has sparked controversy before with his reporting methods. “His allegations are at times hard to believe, and he has drawn criticism for largely citing unnamed sources,” wrote reporter Jayson Rodriguez. “And many question why an older white man is the one pursuing the case of two murdered black hip-hip icons.”

Philips initially defended his reportage. “I’m not gonna write it just because someone says it,” he told MTV News. People have tried to set him up in the past, he added, “But in this case, I [didn’t] write anything until I feel it’s confident, it’s true.”

The only problem was the story was apparently completely fabricated by Sabatino, a chubby, boyish-faced scam artist with a long rap sheet who has boasted of his alleged ties to both La Cosa Nostra and the hip-hop elite. After the Smoking Gun meticulously dissected Philips’ account, pointing out several glaring inconsistencies – among them evidence that the FBI documents were typed on a typewriter, not a computer (the bureau hasn’t used typewriters for approximately thirty years) and, most tellingly, that Sabatino wasn’t in New York when Shakur was shot – the Times admitted its error. “I got duped,” Philips told the Associated Press, which is basically the journo-speak equivalent of “Oh shit. My Bad.”

There’s also the matter of potential litigation both from Diddy and Rosemond. In a statement, Rosemond’s attorney said the Times and Philips should “Print an apology and take out their checkbooks or brace themselves for an epic lawsuit.” Since the Times issued a formal apology within 21 days as required by law, any potential lawsuit would face an uphill batle, considering the strength of California’s media protections.

Perhaps most interesting is speculation on how this doozy of a boo-boo will impact the future of entertainment reporting and, specifically, coverage of rap and hip-hop. “Mainstream publications have been letting a lot of people who aren’t connected to hip-hop do major stories,” says author Adisa Banjoko. “Stories on Tupac, B.I.G., or any other dead rapper [are] seen as easy filler and hype for a boost in sales.”

From a mainstream media perspective, rap music is often associated with crime just like famine is associated with Ethiopia. High-profile incidents of violence involving rappers have long been fodder for newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news; sensationalistic, tabloid-style reporting has become par for the course. After with this latest blunder, the Times look like opportunists willing to print anything, as long as it draws traffic.

Meanwhile, Philips is starting to seem like a G-Funk version of the morally twisted paparazzo Danny DeVito played in L.A. Confidential. His past stories on the B.I.G. and Tupac killings were questioned by African-American journalists and hip-hop-identified outlets, yet his methodology largely remained sacrosanct despite these complaints. His 1999 Pulitzer for exposing corruption in the entertainment industry gave Philips a lot of credibility, but that now seems as dubious as the purported FBI case files Sabatino apparently wrote from behind bars.

This latest incident only renews suspicions about the veracity of Philips’ past work. In particular, Philips has been accused of deliberately misreporting key evidence in the 2005 wrongful death suit against the city of Los Angeles by B.I.G.’s mother, Violetta Wallace. He also claimed that B.I.G. paid a member of the Crips $1 million to kill Shakur in 1996 – which was denied by both Tupac and Biggie’s camps – and has drawn suspicion away from Suge Knight by discrediting ex-LAPD detective Russell Poole, whose investigation of B.I.G.’s 1997 murder led to a tangled web of corrupt cops, music industry gangstas, and city officials.

In 2005, Front Page magazine speculated that Philips was an apologist for Knight and Death Row Records: “By fingering two dead men … as Tupac’s killers, Philips’ story took the focus off Suge Knight, whom many believe had Tupac killed because Tupac planned to leave Death Row. Philips’ story also claimed that Biggie was later killed by the Crips for stiffing them – again taking the heat off prime suspect Suge Knight.”

Webmaster/journalist Davey D says he dismissed Chuck Philips a long time ago. “Now it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s wrong and he was wrong in the past,” he says.

Perhaps, but to many hip-hop insiders, digging up Tupac’s 1994 shooting seemed like a red herring in the first place. At the end of the day, Davey D says, Philips’ stories “don’t really connect the dots in any kind of meaningful way.”

Still, he adds, “A lot of this stuff has run its course. … If you look at the top news that’s going on in hip-hop, it’s all arrests. … People are talking about Remy Ma crying in court. That’s what I’m hearing.”

The bottom line in the assassinations of Tupac and Biggie remains that both murders are still unsolved. If and when the truth is ever uncovered, it’s probably safe to say it won’t be the Times or Chuck Philips who’re responsible.

Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner

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Filed Under: 2008 Daily news Tagged With: Biggie & Tupac, Death Row Records, eric K Arnold, FBI, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Notorious B.I.G, suge Knight, The Los Angeles Times royally screwed up a big story about Tupac's 1994 robbery and shooting. What else did it get wrong?, Tupac Shakur

Meet the Godmother of LA Hip Hop-Medusa the Gangsta Goddess

March 8, 2008 By mrDaveyd

Every once in a while I feel compelled to do my duty as a productive citizen and generously give back to the community. Sometimes I volunteer my time. Other times I give money. Still on other occasions I give sound advice. Today I wanna take some time out and give some sound advice to anybody who is an aspiring artist as well as to those who have been around the block a few times.

My heartfelt advice to you is as follows; If you happen to be booked for a show and the promoter has you coming on AFTER this LA based artist named Medusa… DO NOT DO IT. Have your manager re-negotiate your contract, but do not go on stage right after her. You may be able to get by if they let the deejay play an hour long set or something or you have an artist like KRS-One performing alongside you… Maybe if you’re a bit sadistic and like pain then following Medusa might be the thing for you to do. This woman is not to be followed.

Check our Breakdown FM Intv w/ Medusa

If you are a battle emcee who has won a few contests and you’re feeling good about yourself and your looking for new challenges-Be warned! DO NOT set your sites on Medusa. Don’t let your homies or an over ambitious promoter set you up.

If you find yourself on the bill and they schedule you to go one on one with her, the best thing for you to do is call in sick. Go on vacation.. leave the building. A true friend does not let their good friends get in the ring and trade lyrical jabs with Medusa. She will cause you extreme embarrassment, lots of pain and is likely to end your career if its in front of a large crowd. This woman who is often dubbed the Angela Davis of Rap or the High Priestess is no joke. Please Believe that.

When we look back on Hip Hop history one name that we simply will not be allowed to ignore is the Gangsta Goddess, The Angela Davis of Rap, the Top Cat of the clique Feline Science, the Godmother of West coast Hip Hop-the High priestess-Bow down to the one and only Medusa.

Most people know Medusa the ‘Top Cat’ of the clique Feline Science as colorful engaging pioneering sista who has been rocking packed houses here on the west coast for the past 15 years. This skilled emcee hails from the legendary night spot-The Good Life Cafe which gave birth to legendary groups like Jurassic 5, Freestyle Fellowship, Volume 10, Kurupt, WC and many many more. Anybody who was anybody paid their dues at the Good Life back during LA’s Golden Era of Hip Hop in the late 80s/early 90s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQAKXrJ5N5k&feature=relmfu

Medusa was a regular to this haunt and later Project Blowed, where she not only held her own but would routinely surpass her male counterparts. As she explained during our recent sit down, that there were many a days she had to step into the arena and battle her Good Life comrads.

One memorable bout involved Peace from Freestyle Fellowship who she took out during a Source Magazine battle at the House of Blues. Many who know Medusa and hear about her past wins are not surprised, this is a woman who once she gets on stage -all eyez on her and you can feel her energy down to the core. Like I said before, if you can beat a cat like Peace or even just hang with him, then you are truly-no joke…

Medusa has always been known as a cutting edge, fierce emcee who is always willing to push the envelope. This was best illustrated on another memorable evening when she first performed what is now her signature song. ‘Power to the P’ is a spoken word piece that pays tribute to the female’s private parts. Medusa wanted to see how far she could go in terms of kicking up dust while adhering to the Good Life’s strict ‘no cursing’ policy. She laughingly recalled how it shocked everyone senses because it was very descriptive, very provocative and yet still ‘clean’.

“It took a minute before everyone realized what I was doing. Once people caught they started cheering and flicking their lighters”, Medusa noted. She said the sexually suggestive content prompted the owner B Hall to rise up and make her stop but that brief performance got everyone talking to this day.

Long before many groups were on the scene with a live band Medusa and Feline Science were out and about in LA breaking ground. Medusa explained that she’s a child of the funk era and came up at a time when Hip Hop was still unklnown in many parts. Groups like; Parliament/Funkadelic, The Barkays, Confunkshun, Brass Construction to name a few were the order of the day.

She noted that she always wanted to fuze Hip Hop and funk and bring those two experiences to a new heights. She explained that using band allows for so much more freedom of expression. And yes her band includes a DJ. But as she noted, it was wrong for so called music critics to place limits on what Hip Hop should ultimately be. She scoffed at those who claimed Hip Hop was ONLY two turntables and an emcee with a mic. It’s so much more.

Long before it was acceptable to sing while you rapped, Medusa was out in the fore-front alongside artists like Lauryn Hill,Queen Latifah and the Force MDs who came before them who were paving the way by including harmonies and melodies with their raps and re-introducing that style to the Hip Hop audience.

During Hip Hop’s pioneering days groups like Crash Crew, Cold Crush Brothers and Grandmaster Flash frequently incorporated singing with their raps. It was considered Hip Hop back in those early days and then seemingly overnight it was a practice that was seriously frowned upon. It seems like some high brow, out of touch music critics got it in their heads that singing ‘wasn’t real Hip Hop’ and they went straight to the bank with that high profile distorted definition. During the period that Medusa included singing with her group Feline Science, it was ground-breaking. Today its commonplace today as we now have everyone from Mos Def to Snoop Dogg singing as well as rapping.

For all of us who know Medusa the emcee, there are many who recall that long before she rocked the mic she was a dancer. We didn’t call those who pop-locked, strutted, tutted, robotted and all that good stuff b-boys or b-girls back in the days. But let the record note that Medusa’s been popping since the 70s. She hooked up with a dance crew called the Groove-A-trons and been dancing ever since. During our recent sit down, Medusa went into detail about what the scene was like during those early days.

She explained how she first got exposed to emceeing via the song ‘Rapper’s Delight‘. Later on she was inspired by watching Ice T do his thing at the now defunct Radiotron which was made famous in the movie Breaking.This Godmother of west coast Hip Hop took us down memory lane and spoke in great detail about west coast Hip Hop’s early days. She also went into detail about the difference between spoken word and emceeing. We later morphed into a discussion about emceeing techniques including the skill it takes to truly ride the rhythm. Medusa also spoke about the challenge many emcees have in terms of keeping their egos in check. Far too often emcees overshadow the beats that are provided to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaG25NR2xL8&feature=relmfu

Medusa also broke down the challenges one faces doing the independent hustle. She feels the grind is necessary but a good thing in the end. She said the trick to being successful is to be consistent. We also talked about the challenges she faced as a woman in the male dominated industry.Medusa started off by explaining that one needs to first love themselves in order to gain confidence.

She revealed that she was once incarcerated in a woman’s prison called ‘Civil Brand‘. It has since closed down. For her it was a wake up call and she came out determined to never ever go back, but she was also made aware and tuned into the plight of women who were starting to come into prison in increasing numbers.

She talked about this experience and how it made come out stronger and the end result was Medusa becoming how she came to form Feline Science. She said that came about after she felt she was being rejected to be a member of a group called ‘Masked Men’. Years later she realized she wasn’t being rejected, but instead being encouraged to start her own group which would and did become an entity on to itself. Everyone who got down with Feline Science both men and women all took on cat names with Medusa being ‘Top Cat’.

Medusa talked about how the music industry has seemingly only given a platform to one female emcee at a time. She recalled a conversation with Rah Digga who expressed the same concern about how only one female at a time ‘gets their run’. Much of this has to do with so called critics claiming that listeners can’t really tell the differences between female emcees. It’s an idea that Medusa soundly dismissed.

Medusa concluded our interview with Medusa talking about how women need to go about striking a balance between maintaining control of their art, but being willing to confidently work with folks and giving way to other ideas and perspectives when working on a project. Medusa talked about how being so rigid and controlling may have led to her not being able to work with Dr Dre. In retrospect there was a way to maintain ones credibility and still turn over control to a dope producer.

Medusa is currently set to drop her new album Gangsta Goddess. You can check her site at http://www. myspace. com/medusa

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Filed Under: Artist Interviews, Breakdown FM Interviews Tagged With: Breakdown FM, Davey D, Freestyle Fellowship, Gangsta Goddess, Good Life cafe, Grandmaster Flash, Hip Hop, Los Angeles, Medusa, medusa the Gangsta Goddess, Project Blowed, This Pussy is Gangsta

An Open Letter From Mos Def About Amadou Diallo

February 25, 1999 By mrDaveyd

Mos-Defhoodie-225 An Open letter From Mos Def…

Diallo was a West African immigrant with no prior criminal record who was shot and killed by police in the dark of night for simply being black. He was unarmed and shot at 41 times! No unarmed man should be shot at even once! One of the police officers involved in the Diallo shooting was involved in the killing of Patrick Bailey no more than a year and a half ago! Tyesha Miller was shot in her car in Los Angeles while she had a seizure! I could go on and on with the names of black people who have been killed at the hands of police just this year. But the list is so long that it would turn this letter into a statistic sheet.

Most of the people that got killed by police this year and in the past have probably been some of your fans; fans of some of your favorite artists. They are black people who love us, who defend us, who protect us, who put us in our comfortable homes an dour luxury sports utility vehicles and our well kept hotels suites and our oversized tour buses. They’re the people that buy our records, our t-shirts, our concert tickets, and so on, and so forth. They’re the same people that are getting murdered, harassed, maimed, and beaten in streets all over the world everyday!

The only people in our community who have not responded to this incident are us. Hip-Hop made one hundred billion dollars last year!… A lot of those dollars came from the ‘Comptoms’, the ‘Brooklyns’, the ‘Crown Heights’, the ‘Chicagos’, the Detroit ghettos, the St. Louis ghettos… the same ghettos where police run around literally hunting black folks to murder… then cruise the streets shortly thereafter with impunity and arrogance.

We are the Senators and the Congressmen of our communities. We come from communities that don’t have nobody to speak for them. That’s why they love us. Because we talk about what nobody else will talk about. We represent them. And they need to know that we really represent them. Not when it’s just a romantic notion or a paycheck attached to it. When something happens to them it matters to us, because when something happens to them it’s happening to us. Because Amadou Diallo is your brother, your cousin, your man… Tyesha Miller is your sister, your aunt, your girl, your wife, your daughter… All of these people are you! You are no different! And just because we’re at the top of the Billboard charts, seen on MTV daily, livin’ comfortably doesn’t mean that we can’t get shot, we can’t be harassed, we can’t be maimed and mistreated.

I hope this is as important to you as it is to me cause when I pass by the projects and when I pass by the hood I don’t see nobody but me. I see everybody who looks like me. I see me many years ago as I’m sure many of you do. So it’s time for us to come together from the ‘jiggy’ to the ‘hardcore’; from the ‘backpacker’ to the man with the Lexus and really unite and show the world that we got strength. Show the world who we are. Represent who we are. Who we really are and where we really come from. Let’s show people where our heart is… that we haven’t forgotten.

Now I’m askin’ you and anybody who looks on this letter to come forward and show your heart, to show your love, to love the people who love you back by speaking out against the injustices that they suffer. Because believe me, if the clock was turned backwards we’d be those same people.

Please stay mindful of this. Please be considerate of this letter. Pass it around! Talk about this! Think about it! Keep it on your mind because if you don’t… it’s going to keep its mind on you.

I wanna thank everybody for taking time out to read this letter. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time. All of the contact information and other information you need to know is enclosed.

I want to wish everybody, each and everyone of ya’ll peace, prosperity and love.

Peace,
Mos Def
Feb ’99

Filed Under: 2012 Daily News Tagged With: Amadou Diallo shooting, An Open letter from Mos def, An Open Letter From Mos Def About Amadou Diallo, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, mos def, Open letter, Patrick Bailey

Notorious BIG Killed in LA

March 13, 1997 By mrDaveyd

Notorious BIG Diddy Last Tuesday March 4 1997 Notorious BIG rolled through KMEL’s Breakfast Club and did his last radio interview. I recall him being upbeat and playful… He was in good spirits and he seemed to have an air of optimism about him. He mentioned that he was ready to take the rap world by storm. He spoke about how he had put a lot of hard work into his upcoming album ‘Life After Death‘. The album was recorded over a 9 month period.

Biggie spoke very passionately about the importance of putting God in your life… ‘A lot of people are surprised to hear someone like me say that.. they think it makes you soft’, he said.. ‘But if God is with you no one can be against you..no one is stronger then God’.

He mentioned that it was his good friend and the man he managed Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs who introduced this drug dealer turned rapper to God. It was a Biggie Smallz most have rarely seen or heard. It was an introspective Biggie who seemed to have matured…The Biggie I recall in his last radio interview was a Biggie who spoke emphatically about the hell he had been through with the this whole East/West Coast civil war within hip hop. He spoke frankly and earnestly about what it was like being in the middle of this whole drama…

2Pac in the movie Juice

He told our audience that most people didn’t really understand the relationship between him and 2Pac.. He spoke on the fact he and Pac were nothing more then rappers and that a lot of things were blown out of proportion by the media. However there was one comment that was a bit disturbing.. When asked directly as to whether or not he had a hand in the killing of his arch rival 2Pac Shakur, Biggie responded in a coy type of fashion that ‘he wasn’t that powerful yet’. When asked again he responded the same way. He didn’t put forth that unequivocal, undeniable answer of ‘No’. It was almost as if Biggie wanted to keep some mystery about him. It was as if he wanted people to somehow think that he was somehow capable of carrying out such a heinous crime’. Personally it wasn’t a very constructive thing to do… considering there were still so many people here on the West Coast that were both still grieving and somehow thought that Biggie had something to do with PAC’s demise.

This is not to say that his answers which incidentally were said on the Wake Up Show in LA the week before had anything to do with him being killed…but it leaves one to wonder…why he would go there.. Why not permanently put all those rumors to rest.According to witnesses, Notorious BIG was hanging out at an after party for the Soul Train Music Awards. The party was being thrown by Vibe Magazine at the Automotive Museum in downtown LA and Biggie was in full swing with an entourage of about 30 people including Lil Caesar, and Lil Kim.

Notorious BIG Gangster Many claim Biggie and company had been ‘flossin’ big time [steppin’ out]..by adorning fancy ‘gangster outfits’ and showing little concern for their safety in LA. Biggie and most of his entourage had been chillin’ in LA for the past couple of weeks laying down the groundwork for the promotion of his upcoming album. From the outside looking in, Biggie’s visible presence in LA indicated that everything was squashed and there’s was no longer any more bad blood between LA based Death Row and the New York based Bad Boy record companies who had embarked on a new and more peaceful direction for hip hop. A lot of this was reinforced by the recent ‘coming together’ of Snoop Dog and Sean Puffy Combs.. on the Steve Harvey Show. Folks simply felt it was all good…Industry insiders said such was not the case.The word on the streets was there were still a number of individuals angry at Biggie.. His high visible in Los Angeles was viewed by some as a smack in the face to 2Pac. People holding such sentiments may have been small in number…but they were nevertheless dangerous enough that Biggie should’ve been concerned and aware of his surroundings…

The actual shooting occurred when a drive by assailant let loose at Big as he sat in his Suburban. Biggie was on his way to 92.3 The Beat to do an interview. Lil Caesar was apparently with him but was unharmed. Nearby was a vehicle with Foxy Brown inside… The windshield to that vehicle was shattered… After the shooting, many of the NY based artist became very concerned.. Most left the LA area the next day [Sunday] as opposed to Monday when they were scheduled. The word was out that NY rappers best beware..

DJ Quik

The fallout of this tragedy has left many within the hip hop community shocked and despaired. Rumors immediately began to surface. Witnesses claim that Notorious BIG has earlier that evening engaged in a heated argument with DJ Quik.. The rumors speculating that Quik had something to do with the shooting immediately circulated around the Bay Area.. Other rumors surfaced saying that Suge Knight was the mastermind behind the shootings.. It was a message from his jail cell to let Biggie and everyone else know that he was very much in control despite being handed a 8 year prison sentence.. Another theory was that Biggie was gunned down by LA Crips because him and Bad Boy refused to pay an extortion fee to members of the LA Based gang. Other speculated that it was a Mafia hit. The most outrageous and yet persistent rumor is that it was someone connected to 2Pac… perhaps even Pac himself was involved if you believe the rumors about him being alive. Ironically Biggie was killed 2 weeks before the release of his lp like 2Pac… It also occurred 6 month and a day after 2 Pac’s untimely demise. Another disheartening speculation is that there would be retaliation from the East Coast… Artist like Ice Cube and Mack 10 have been said to be next on the hit list of this on going saga. Whatever the case the shooting took place in front of a lot of people within the music industry.. and that Biggie was the intended target… Many are refusing to talk..

The Vibe on the streets out here in the Bay Area has been one of frustration.. Many have gotten fed up with a situation that has gotten totally out of hand.. Many have pledged to help bring about some substantial changes.. Still others have sadly celebrated Biggie’s death claiming that it was just revenge for PAC’s death.. ‘Now folks back east know how it feels’ was what many said. In San Francisco Fillmore district there were folks actually getting drunk and partying over the fact that Biggie got shot.. Things have definitely gotten bad within some circles.What’s so sad is that Biggie at age 24 leaves behind two children, a wife and his mom.

Harry Allen

Hip Hop based radio station around the country immediately addressed this issue. Here in San Francisco on KMEL’s Street Knowledge Show, Public Enemy‘s Harry Allen and Christopher Mohammed from the Nation Of Islam… help set the tone and bring about a proper perspective on this scenario. As tragic as this even was.. many within the hip hop nation have taken a stance to recommit themselves to uplifting and bringing about redirect people down a more positive path.

Christopher Mohammed spoke about the influence of outside forces. He reminded people about the counter intelligence programs of the 60s in which African American organizations were deliberately pitted against one another. Through media manipulation the so called East/West Coast war has been brought to new and dangerous heights.. Brother Chris let it be known this whole incident was bigger Biggie and 2Pac and that the whole East/West coast war is an attempt to keep Black folks from uniting..

Harry Allen spoke about many people being left to feel powerless and how hip hop has become something that they no longer control. He stressed the importance of folks getting some sort of spiritual grounding and to resist the temptation of trying to fit into this whole East West War just to garner a reputation.

Sway and King Tech

The following morning… Dr. Dre and Red Alert appeared on KMEL’s Breakfast Club morning show as did Chuck D from Public Enemy. The main topic at hand was parental responsibility and the role those of us in media play in helping solve or bring about problems. Red Alert noted that its important that the lines of communication between East and West be kept open.. The result has been the calling a radio summit… Currently Sway of the Wake Up Show and program director Michelle S of KMEL and others are trying to assemble key hip hop djs and artists from around the country for a soon to be announced on air town hall meeting/ hip hop summit. The plan is to have it air live in as many markets as possible simultaneously. Most important of course is Cali and New York.. Dr Dre took things a step further and insisted that this summit be televised as well as aired on the radio.. People are working to see if this can happen.. We will keep you posted as this on air summit develops.

In another strange twist of events…Suge Knight has reportedly been stabbed seven times while on lock down yesterday… The weapon was sharpened chicken bones…There has been no official report on his condition and who the assailant was…Death Row Records as of today 3/12/97 has issued a statement denying such an event has taken place…. Check out their official press release… [editor’s note]

Also KRS-One who is scheduled to do a concert here in the Bay Area has supposedly expressed some concern about being here out west…

Here at KMEL a commitment and a pledge of sorts have been taken by the on air staff to help foster a new change.. The station is getting ready to start accentuating positivity within hip hop.. The challenge has been issued to listeners to try and make a difference.. The underlying goal is to help increase consciousness amongst the hip hop generation.. Things are getting ready to change… Hip Hop is at a turning point… Either we’re gonna turn things around.. or we’re gonna continue down a path of destruction with the worse yet to come…

written

by Davey D

3/10/97

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Filed Under: archive articles Tagged With: Biggie, Biggie smalls, KMEL, Los Angeles, Michele S, New York City, Notorious B.I.G, Sean Puffy Combs, Soul Train Music Awards, suge Knight, Tupac Shakur

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The Los Angeles Times royally screwed up a big story about Tupac’s 1994 robbery and shooting. What else did it get wrong?