500 Female Emcees: Meet Rapsody-The First Lady of North Carolina

RapsodyHailing from Wilson, North Carolina, Rapsody is the protégé of Grammy Award-winning producer 9th Wonder and is seen by many as new force in hip hop. Her lyrical mastery sets the bar high for all emcees, male and female alike as she is blazing a serious trail for a new generation of emcees.

Rapsody is the first lady of North Carolina super crew Kooley High where she first her teeth and one of the first artists signed to 9th Wonder’s Jamla Records/It’s A Wonderful World Music Group.

Paying homage to her hip hop godmothers MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, and Lauryn Hill, Rapsody represents much more than just the female side of hip hop culture; she is an emcee who represents hip hop culture beyond the lines of gender, proving that anything the boys can do, she can do, too, and better. Her virtuosity and dexterity behind the microphone highlight her presentation, and her humble demeanor attests to her constant pursuit of improvement with every beat and rhyme.

After proving her impeccable craftsmanship with features on 9th Wonder’s “Dream Merchant 2,” Skyzoo’s DJ-Drama hosted “The Power of Words,” and numerous Kooley High releases, Rapsody made her solo debut on December 7, 2010 with “Return of the B-Girl,” a 20-track project boasting production by 9th Wonder and DJ Premier among others, as well as features from Big Daddy Kane, Mac Miller, Skyzoo, Rah Digga, Phil Ade, and more. A published review praised the record: “A poet-turned-rapper, Rapdiddy (as she’s dubbed herself) has always possessed outstanding wordplay, but B-Girl finds her effortlessly nimble delivery — capable of both gritty and biting or sassy and sultry — continuing to improve.”

Rapsody has shared the stage with hip hop legends and rising stars alike, including Raekwon, J. Cole, Wale, Colin Munroe, Tanya Morgan, Suede of Camp Lo, Blu and Exile, and The Clipse, but it’s her ability to captivate diverse audiences with her explosively dynamic live performance that sets her apart and has earned her much-deserved accolades from major media sources including Vibe, XXL, HipHopDX, and more.

Her style is polished and distinct, and her wordplay and flow are unparalleled in both delivery and execution. As she continues to strive to contend with her hip hop predecessors like Jay-Z and Mos Def, Rapsody is already undeniably one of the strongest and most promising forces in today’s hip hop culture. Check out her album ‘She’s Got Game‘..

Rapsody – Believe Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kSoVSgWK9o

RapsodyThe Drums w/Heather Victoria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_eO3ytC-BU

RapsodyIn The Town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf9Rs9Stt8s

Rapsody Betty Shabazz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jGKHlD0cgg

500 Female Emcees: Meet Rinko A True Survivor from Japan

RinkoRinko Nagahisa aka Rinko hails from Kagoshima, Japan and now lives in Tokyo. She both sings and raps and has made a name for herself. What makes her stand out is  the realness of her music.  Coming up she was sexually assaulted and is a survivor of domestic violence.  She notes that music was her salvation.

Here’s what she noted in her bio

Parents were constantly quarelling, I was verbally and physically abused. I was fed up with it at all. The next thing I noticed, I was holding a knife against my mother.

Just as I thought my singing career started to progress, I was confined then sexually assaulted for 10 days. When I finally ran away for police , the officer told me ” go back to wherever you are , I don’t care you get killed”. I couldn’t believe anyone. After the incidents I was really alone, suffered from PTSD, depression, panic disorder which kept me down for 4 years.

I struggled to continue singing without looking away from severe realities. I had to be strong. I sing true to my experience so people like me who suffer inside can ease their heart.

My songs empowers listeners with truth and my way of life.

Rinko What u gonna do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvbRptodhz8

Rinko Tatakae

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSPUcSPvcpM

Rinko I know You want Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ggovyr1yhE

Rinko Spend Money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KcF2ophGrw

 

500 Female Emcees: Meet Akua Naru-World Traveler, A True Wordsmith

Akua NaruHaving begun writing and performing rhymes as a young girl, in her native New Haven, CT, Akua Naru, began crafting in her early years what would later reveal to be a great talent for profound lyricism and extraordinary musical performances.

Known as a traveler, as chronicled throughout her Jan. 2011 debut release, The Journey Aflame, this female wordsmith has garnered attention by trotting the globe, recording her experiences and fusing musical genres with her brand of hip hop.

Formerly based in Philadelphia, there have been many stops along the way, from traveling West Africa to touring China, Naru moved to Cologne, Germany where she currently resides and creates music.

Naru has performed with the world renowned Afro Beat pioneer and Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen, toured with classic Hip Hop group Lords Of The Underground, & shared the stage/collaborated with artists Patrice, Tete, Ursula Rucker, Blitz The Ambassador, Angelique Kidjo and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of the legendary Roots crew to name a few.

Not just an emcee, Naru has also recently teamed up with one of the nation’s leading scholars, Dr. Tricia Rose, author of the classic book “Black Noise” & “The Hip Hop Wars”, to lecture at The Hip Hop Academy in Hamburg, Germany.

Akua Naru’s album ‘…The Journey A Flame’ has a rare depth, warmth, and honesty that has garnered international appeal. With her first official release, Naru reflects on her path with an intricate landscape of words that provoke thought, inspire, and soothe. With this album, Naru reveals that her journey has not only been  aflame: it has just begun.

‘‘I have written, sung, and performed since I can remember having my first thoughts. I have never discovered the music; the music and rhyme discovered me.‘‘ she noted

Akua NaruThe Backflip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb-wbEntrXI

Akua Naru The Block

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj6LLXtZPRY

Akua NaruThe Wound w/ Blitz the Ambassador

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aPClT6PCKI

Akua Naru Nag Champa Gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvoEVD6N2gI

Akua Naru -Tales of Two Men w/ African Footprint

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMLVgk7mTOk

 

 

 

500 Female Emcees: Meet Jean Grae-Iconic, Legendary-the Best

Jean Grae redOriginally known as What? What? Jean Grae (Tsidi Ibrahim) was born in South Africa, but says that she will always be a New Yorker by heart. She is the daughter of two jazz musicians where she learned an appreciation for all genres of music by age 9.

She attended the famed High School of Performing Arts as a vocal major and was later accepted to New York University as a Music Business major. She was recruited by a rapper named Ocean to form a group Natural Resources where Jean cut her teeth as a song writer and producer.

In 1997, Natural Resource founded their own record label, Makin’ Records, and released the 12″ single, “Negro League Baseball“, which became an underground hip-hop classic.

Natural Resource dissolved in 1998, after which Jean changed her stage name from What? What? to Jean Grae, which she was a reference to the X-Men character Jean Grey.  She released her first LP—Attack of the Attacking Things—in 2002, and followed it in 2004 with This Week.

She created a buzz for herself and which led to her recording tracks with artists like Atmosphere, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Da Beatminerz, Phonte, Masta Ace, Mos Def, Styles P, Pharoahe Monch and Immortal Technique just to name a few.

Jean linked up with producer 9th Wonder to record and album called Jeanius which was never completed after it was leakedon the internet. She went on to be signed to Babygrande Records where she released the critically acclaimed ‘This Week‘ and ‘Evil Jenius

Jean Grae micIn 2005 Jean signed to Talib Kweli’s Blacksmith Records. On April 28, 2008, Jean Grae posted a blog entry on her MySpace page saying goodbye to her fans.She later cited disenchantment with the music industry and desire to start a family as the reasons behind the “retirement” and said that she was working on new material and still wanted to continue in music: “You know what? I need that Grammy. I think I might be able to stop after that”.

According to her wikipedia entry…In July 2008, Talib Kweli posted a blog entry explaining Grae’s album, mentioning that she was not retiring. The blog ends encouraging fans to purchase the album, referring to Grae as “one of the last true MCs left.” Grae returned to doing live performances later that year.

On September 18, 2008, Jean Grae posted a Craigslist ad offering her creative services for $800/16 bars.[ On her MySpace blog entry, she states, “I don’t wanna complain anymore, I just wanna change some things about the way artists are treated and the way you guys are allowed to be involved, since it IS the digital age.”

On June 23, 2011, after an almost four-year hiatus, Grae released a free mixtape entitled Cookies or Comas, which features guest appearances from Styles P, Talib Kweli and Pharoahe Monch, it also includes the highly praised tracks “Assassins” from Monch’s W.A.R. album and “Uh Oh” From Talib Kweli’s Gutter Rainbows.

On October 22, 2012, Jean Grae performed with MeLa Machinko and DJ Mr. Len in New York City at WNYC’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, also recorded as an episode of Judge John Hodgman. During the episode the upcoming records “Gotham Down” and “Cake or Death” were named.

On January 2, 2013, she released a 10-track project called Dust Ruffle. Dust Ruffle features unreleased songs from between 2004 and 2010. Of the album she says: “It’s such an interesting retrospective project because I get to actually hear myself evolve from 2004-2010. Snapshots of life.”

Between October and November 2013 she self-released a series of EPs titled Gotham Down Cycle 1: Love in Infinity (Lo-Fi), Gotham Down Cycle II: Leviathan. Gotham Down Cycle 3: The Artemis Epoch. In December 2013 she combined the releases into one and titled it Gotham Down Deluxe. Jean Grae also released an online sitcom titled “Life with Jeanie”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjb5JnhmrFU

In January 2014 she also released The State of Eh, an audiobook. All are available for download on her website.

Jean Grae My Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFz6ECvaiqQ

Jean Grae Love Thirst

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9gE4ybCp_c

Jean Grae Kill Screen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzK-fn9NaCE

Jean Grae Supa Jean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXeMYZQRmXM

500 Females Emcees: Meet Lucia Vargas from Columbia

Lucia VargasColumbian based rapper Lucia Vargas Salinas is a citizen of the world, convinced that music and art have the power to generate a positive transformation in all aspects of human development. She believes in a proactive re -evolution,  loves music that inspires poets and whose rate is based on the rumbling sound of musical instruments and musical passion of beatmakers. For Lucia, the world moves on word of mouth, has the hidden force of the self-management done right.

She began her musical life accompanying traditional Colombian music groups who influenced the construction of her lyrics focused on the ancient wisdom. Combining this with the revolution influence concocted by HIP HOP, resulting in her first work entitled “RE- EVOLUTION LAND AND FREEDOM ” being  released in EUROPE in 2008.

After touring to many communities worldwide following and sticking firm in her conviction that music can generate social justice, she released a second album in 2010 entitled ” THE ESSENCE VIVA ” which launched a second European tour entitled ” POSSIBLE WITHOUT ANY DREAM FIGHT “.

Lucia Vargas – Mientras exista

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhLjX3mC3b4

Lucia VargasCondenados

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYpKfShmXkU

Lucia Vargas -Vuelo Entre Recuerdos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFTMMIXyV2s

 

500 Female Emcees: Meet Hime Holding Down Tradition

HimeHime hails from Japan and connected to famed Hip Hop icon DJ Honda.  She released her debut solo album Hime hajime in October 2003 which was notable because of  its use of Japanese cultural themes, including tanka metre and sampling of kabuki and bunraku narrations.

She has also been given props because her work  often touches upon themes of female empowerment. Hime  describes herself as the voice of the ‘Japanese doll. One example of the incorporation of traditional Japanese poetry and contemporary hip-hop can be heard in the song Tateba shakuyaku or Standing, she’s a peony

“this sound,
giri and ninjo
the spirit of harmony
will the surprise attack
come from the peony”

In the chorus of the song, as seen above, Hime writes in a thirty-one-syllable tanka

Hime’s embrace of the ancient form of poetry in her rapping, as well as her frequent use of Japanese cliche’s and traditional rhythms, show a trend in some Japanese hip hop to localize at the same time that they are embracing a global musical form. “Hime’s use of Japanese cliches is provocative in a club setting where the latest slang from MTV tends to be most valued”. Yet she also uses rhyme, something imported, since Japanese does not have much of a structure for rhyming.

At the same time that she is embracing aspects of Japanese culture into her hip hop, we also see how Hime presents herself. Often in her videos she is dressed in ways that are clearly taken from American, and specifically hip hop, culture as was the case when she appeared on the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards.

Hime’s songs “Black List”, “Himehajime 2006”, “In The Rain”,and “Fuyajo” are featured in The Fast and the Furious video games.

Hime Ukina’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUcQUBnzpjk

Hime ‘In the Rain’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFp9pl5EE5Q

Hime ‘Blacklist’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aWRzqZCbXg

500 Female Emcees: Meet Brier, Japan’s Strong Woman

BrierBrier hails from Japan and has one of the dopest flows around. Its been hard finding a lot of information on her and her careers. What we do know is that she released an album called ‘Colors’ a couple of years ago that was banging.

Prior to that she did a few tracks with a Peruvian born artist named El Nando. Many were anticipating her to drop some more music, but  she kinda dropped out of sight. It’s been hard to both track down the album except for a few cuts that were uploaded on Youtube as well as any in depth articles on her…

Brier ‘Strawberry Punch”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24ncuaAHH14

Brier ‘Strong Woman’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK18P1k595M

Brier ‘Street Cude’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm36eK6ED4M

Brier ‘Happy Birthday’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9JOSpdo_QY

500 Females Emcees: Meet Lecca from Japan

LeccaOne of Japan’s most popular artists is Lecca. She’s half Latina-half Japanese Jamaican inspired, reggae, hip hop, dance hall singer, songwriter. She’s considered a major ambassador for reggae inspired music in Japan.

She cut her teeth and got what she described as ‘warrior’ training in 2002 when she graduated from college and decided to spend close to a year living in New York and Toronto so she could attend open mics, work with local artists and be a part of showcases. The experience was invaluable.

When she returned to Japan in 2003 she joined she joined a Hip Hop group Legnis.  A year later she left and hooked up with popular reggae performer Pang where she found her groove and calling.It wasn’t long before Lecca went solo and the rest they say is history.

Her indie debut, Recca (2005), featuring guest appearance by Pang, was delivered in 2005; it was acclaimed as one of the best reggae/ska releases of the year, allowing Lecca to play festivals along with the greats like Gregory Issacs and Marcia Griffiths and bringing her a contract with Cutting Edge, where she debuted in 2006 with the EP Dreamer, followed by Urban Pirates (2006), which charted at number 57.

Her most recent album ‘Zoolander‘ came out in 2012 and is still making noise all over the world. Stand out songs include ‘Golden Lion‘ and ‘Clown Love

 

Lecca ‘Sky is the Limit’ w/ Rhymester

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jtnpBgKc1Y

Lecca ‘Lets Begin’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EIMU-h_8oE

Lecca ‘Start Line’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B36VveqGqzU

Lecca ‘Golden Lion’

When White Happens: Gentrification, Drug Dealing, and the American Dream

Was film maker Spike Lee right or wrong when he addressed the issue of gentrification? Below is another insightful article from authors, educators and racial justice activists J-Love Calderon and David Leonard that tackle this question and shows how gentrification manifests itself with those entrusted to protect and serve and their long standing policies… -Davey D-

Spike_Lee_(2012)Intended to be a celebration of Black History Month, Spike Lee reminded an audience at Pratt Institute that February was not simply about speeches and celebration but demanding justice and accountability, spotlighting white privilege and persistent forms of violence.  Asked about the “other side of gentrification,” Lee scoffed at the premise, making clear that racism sits on all sides:

 I grew up here in Fort Greene. I grew up here in New York. It’s changed. And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the South Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better? The garbage wasn’t picked up every motherfuckin’ day when I was living in 165 Washington Park. P.S. 20 was not good. P.S. 11. Rothschild 294. The police weren’t around. When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o’clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something …. I mean, they just move in the neighborhood. You just can’t come in the neighborhood. I’m for democracy and letting everybody live but you gotta have some respect. You can’t just come in when people have a culture that’s been laid down for generations and you come in and now shit gotta change because you’re here? Get the fuck outta here. Can’t do that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKDtVF8aog8

John Mcwhorter

John Mcwhorter

While many dismissed his “rant” as “self-serving,” “hypocritical, or “Spike being Spike,” John McWhorter took the opportunity to celebrate gentrification (“a once sketchy neighborhood is now quiet and pleasant”) and to castigate Lee as a racist.  To McWhorter, Lee’s analysis and criticism of gentrification has nothing to do with the displacement of Black and Brown families, the eradication of communities of color, or white privilege, but Lee’s own bigotry toward whites.

“What’s really bothering Lee is that he doesn’t like seeing his old neighborhood full of white people,” noted the associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University.  “Or whitey, perhaps. Just as ‘thug’ is a new way of saying the N-word in polite society, Lee’s ‘m—–f—– hipster’ epithet for the new whites of Fort Greene is a sneaky way of saying ‘honkey.’

Lee is less a social analyst than a reincarnation of George Jefferson with his open hostility to whites.” So much wrong here; so little time.  But let us say that whereas the commonplace stereotype of Black youth as “thugs,” as “criminals,” as “dangerous,” as “destructive” and “toxic” leads to racial profiling, mass incarceration, and #every28hours, being “m—–f—– hipster” leads to a new brownstone, a new yoga shop, and a triple shot latte.  It leads to more of the same: privilege and opportunity.

El Puente muralBut is the fight against gentrification a lost cause? Some say yes, some say no, and  others are not pausing to engage in that conversation because they are busy being in action.  El Puente is  a 30-year old human rights organization sitting in the heart of Williamsburg Brooklyn, founded by Luis Garden Acosta, with Gino Maldonado and Frances Lucerna.  Their latest initiative is their response. “The Green Light District seeks to flip the disempowerment of gentrification by putting long-time invested residents at the forefront of change in their communities,” explains Anusha Venkataraman, Director of the Green Light District.

“The Southside of Williamsburg has changed radically but is still 46% Latino, but the narrative of ‘gentrification’ leaves out the stories and lived experiences of folks that have been here, invested in this community, and are still here. Through arts and cultural programming in public spaces, such as our annual ¡WEPA! Festival for Performing Arts, our organizing work with artists, and even through community gardening, we collectively amplify the visibility of the Latino community and culture. We also create safe spaces for newer residents to build bridges, relationships, and common ground with those there before them.” This organization with indigenous leadership continues to help sustain and empower the local community residents against the tide threatening to uproot their culture, contribution, and home.

Whiteness not only allows “hipsters” to claim space, transforming communities, but to be immune from the very same forces that have enacting violence for decades: the police.  We need to look no further than a recent piece on The Huffington Post to understand the privileges resulting from gentrification and whiteness.

I spent a day deliverying weedIn “I Spent A Day Delivering Weed In New York City,” Hunter Stuart celebrates the gentrification of Williamsburg and its drug market.  Chronicling the story of “Abe” and “Brian,” Stuart reminds readers over and over again that these are not your “normal” drug dealers: they drink “French-pressed coffee,” they wear suits, deliver drugs on bikes, and are “exceedingly well-mannered.”  Whereas others enter the drug trade because of  – a) single mothers; b) poverty; c) pathological values; d) all of the above – Abe and Brian took up drug dealing (the article actually calls them “couriers”) because they are “risk takers.”

As with their non-drug dealing counterparts that have gentrified neighborhoods throughout New York and communities across the nation, Abe and Brian are imagined as “good” since they are different type of drug dealers.  They are changing the way marijuana is delivered and the stigmas associated drug use/dealing.  According to Abe, they want to show, “That you can be a successful, active, social person, that you can affect people positively and that you can still smoke weed.” They are different.  “Even though what we do is illegal, we’re both morally sound people.  We try to do right by people. That’s what I always tell my mom, anyway.”

Not surprisingly, Abe and Brian (and all their employees) have built up their business without any consequences.  Noting how “things have gone smoothly” and that “no one’s been robbed, and no one’s been arrested,” Stuart makes clear that they can deal drugs without any of the associated the problems that seem to follow others.

“Working for our former boss, I saw around a dozen people get arrested,” Abe says, referring to the three years he and Brian spent as couriers for another New York City cannabis delivery service. “I don’t think we’re going to have that problem. We screen our riders and our clients really well.”

NYPD Weed ArrestsYes, the reason why nobody been arrested or charged with crimes that could lead to up to 15 years is about “screening.”  Not whiteness; not white privilege; not institutional racism, not the ways that racial profiling, and stop and frisk contribute to a racially stratified war on drugs.

As Jessie Daniels notes, New York is the “marijuana arrest capital of the world.” Notwithstanding an almost 40-year old decriminalization law, NY police arrested 50,000 people in 2011 for “possessing or burning marijuana in public view.”  Neither Abe or Brian could be counted amongst those arrested, a fact not unexpected given that 84% of those arrested were people of color.

From 2002-2012, the NYPD arrested about 440,000 people; 85 percent were Black and Latino. Whiteness has its privileges. The Huffington Post profile, not surprisingly, never acknowledges this context or Abe and Brian’s whiteness; the message is that their intelligence and cultural differences rather than racism and white privilege that has made their “business” successful.

Their ability to carry and sell with relative impunity reflects the privileges of whiteness; their ability to be reimagined as “moral” drug dealers, as “righteous” and ultimately beneficial to this gentrified community, tells us all we need to know about whiteness in America.  Their ability to move into neighborhoods like Williamsburg, displacing families and communities of color, generating wealth that they will pass onto the next generation, highlights the value of whiteness; their ability to “get rich with limited possibility of dying” is the personification of whiteness.

Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander

Speaking about the shifting economic landscape of drugs in America, Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, notes, “After 40 years of impoverished black men getting prison time for selling weed, white men are planning to get rich doing the same things,” she added. “So that’s why I think we have to start talking about reparations for the war on drugs. How do we repair the harms caused?”

White privilege, gentrification, the media choosing who to admire and who to criminalize are all part of the ways that white supremacy plays out in our day to day.  It’s time to speak up and act, to demand justice and opportunities for all people. We must keep the fight up until Black and Brown life is truly respected and treated as valuable and important as white peoples lives. In the end, this will be the ultimate victory.

Stand up for what’s right

JLove and David

See, Judge, ACT for Racial Justice:

Speak Up

Speak Up to Media: the Huff Post article we referenced is a perfect opportunity for you to point out the obvious mis-step not naming white privilege. Talk about it, blog about it, help people see why white privilege and racism must be named for us to create more justice.

Spike Lee: whether you like him or not, the media circus had a great time calling him out because he spoke the truth about race and gentrification with no sugar coatin’! People of color are often demonized when speaking out about racism. Step up your game and support the truth of the argument! Don’t let Black and Brown people become scapegoats to the larger system of racism.

Knowledge

Check out El Puente’s groundbreaking Green Light District initiative in response to rampant gentrification in Brooklyn.  Donate to them! Spread the word of how this powerful community is proactively working toward sustainability of the residents of color in Williamsburg. http://elpuente.us/content/green-light-district-overview

Action Ideas from El Puente’s GLD Team

  • Get involved in community institutions, and recognize and get to know the culture and community that was there before you arrived
  • Get comfortable with discomfort! Building community with those from different backgrounds and life experiences isn’t easy, but it is important. Tasks the risk of stepping outside your comfort zone, talk to your neighbors, and LISTEN!
  • Invest in public spaces, like community gardens, where community building can happen
  • Invest time and energy in your neighborhood! It builds collective ownership

Join—Calling white folks who want to stand up for racial justice!

Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Become a member and get involved directly: http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/

About the Authors

David Leonard is a professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race at Washington State University. http://drdavidjleonard.com/

JLove Calderon is a conscious media maker, social entrepreneur, and author of five books, including her latest: Occupying Privilege; Conversations on Love, Race, and Liberation. www.jlovecalderon.com

Who Within LAPD Killed the Notorious BIG? That’s what we should asking today?

Screen Shot 2014-03-09 at 8.46.01 AMWho within LAPD shot and killed Notorious BIG is a question not only all of us should be asking on the ‘anniversary’ of his death March 9th 1997… But its also something with all the money, fame and political access folks have in 2014, we should be aggressively pursuing. Heck his  boy Jay-Z is buddies with the most powerful man on the planet, President Obama. At the very least why not ask him to launch some sort of special investigation into his death.

When Cynthia McKinney was in Congress she held several hearings on the death of 2Pac and put forth her own investigation on modern day Cointel-Pro. She even proposed a bill to look into his death. That was years ago and she came up with a lot of disturbing info..With all that we know now and and theoretically who folks know, the proverbial envelop should be pushed.

At the same time we all should be seeking to find out who really knocked down those twin towers sitting in the background of this picture of Notorious BIG.  We know it wasn’t some fools running around with box cutters…

Anyway the ‘Brooklyn Way‘ is such that folks should not let any of these unsolved atrocities slide. We should not get comfortable with unsolved Black deaths even if its become a profitable industry onto itself for some within the music biz.  Perhaps in vigorously pursing the circumstances surrounding his death, it’ll move the ball of justice a bit closer for all those other deaths of Black and Brown folks at the hands of a corrupt state that has never been held accountable…

Lastly we need to find out who killed ‘Do or Die Bed-Stuy‘, Biggie’s home. The man who many deemed the King of NY old stomping grounds  is over run with hipsters who probably could care less about his legacy much less who killed him…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFylz0zo2qg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xixhs9hvGeU