We lost one of our great legends. Bebop Jazz legend Donald Byrd died earlier this week and with him went an important era.. Here’s some music and a quick interview to look back upon..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkXh4kRTBVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgCSMxyXIDY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwW3Nmr-_pI


Dear 

Today February 6th is Bob Marley‘s birthday… It’s interesting to note that as folks will lionize Ronald Reagan who shares the same birthday, they will overlook the fact that Marley not Reagan was the one under surveillance by the CIA. Reagan was all up in the Iran Contra Scandal, yet our government considered Marley and other Rastas threatening..His message of love which was empowering to folks was in conflict with those who did not like to see bridges being built and communities coming together.. Many folks don’t realize this.. and when you take this into account, it may shed some light as to why Marley in spite having world-wide popularity, never really had a home on Black /Urban radio here in the US….
This past Monday, Spinderella of Salt-N-Pepa, Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and myself among others, participated in a panel discussion at UCLA that focused on the business workings and current state of Hip Hop. Before we launched into Q&A from the audience all of us were asked ‘What CD we were listening to in our ride?’ The audience seemed a bit surprised when I mentioned that in my CD deck was the 1981 album ‘JuJu’ by new wave/punk act Siouxsie & the Banshees. Songs like ‘Spellbound, ‘Monitor’ and ‘Into the Light’ brought back fond memories. More importantly the whole early new wave/punk scene was a very much apart of my early Hip Hop experience.



It’s one sided in the sense that you have rock oriented outlets with a predominantly white audience embracing Hip Hop. Yes, you can tune into a radio station like KROQ and hear rap alongside the usual rock offerings and lastly we have all the mash up projects, with the most noticeable being Collision Course with Linkin Park and Jay-Z. However, you will not see similar attempts in many urban outlets that target African American audiences. Yes believe it or not groups like Linkin Park as popular as they are are still relatively unknown in many Black circles where BET and commercial radio are the main conduits to things outside the community. I’m not sure what needs to be done to change that or if it even needs to be changed.


Today is 
Conservative talk show host , Sean O’Reilly hated Hip Hop with a passion. Yet, there he was, sitting in front of his flat screen watching the Grammys, anxiously , waiting for the rap song of the year to be announced . When the winner was finally revealed ,he jumped off his recliner like this favorite team had just won the Superbowl. No , he hadn’t become a converted Kanye West fan, he was just happy that he could announce to his millions of listeners the next morning that the best rap song was “N*ggas in Paris…”
The only other thing to come close to this monumental event is, perhaps, Nas and ex -wife Kelis sportin’ the N*gger T-Shirts on the Red Carpet at the 2008 show.
For instance Philadelphia social worker, Abena Afreeka , who recently started a “N*gga Recovery Program” to help those addicted to using the word, opposes it because it acts as a psychological trigger to subconscious memories of slavery which results in negative behavior. Thus creating the perfect Manchurian candidate.