Hip-Hop's Roots Celebrated in NY

Hip-Hop's Roots Celebrated in NY

By MARCUS FRANKLIN,

AP

Posted: 2007-07-23 23:36:10

NEW YORK (AP) - More than three decades after DJ Kool Herc planted hip-hop's seeds by spinning records in a Bronx apartment building, the pioneer returned Monday for some recognition and to highlight the issue of affordable housing.

Rep. Jose Serrano, whose district includes the building, presented Kool Herc with a copy of the statement the congressman has placed in the Congressional Record honoring him and the building's residents for their cultural contributions.

In August 1973, Kool Herc's sister, Cindy Campbell, organized the first party. Her brother spun vinyl from a wide range of musical genres - from Gary Glitter to James Brown - providing the grooves for the young partygoers. From that building, the culture eventually spread around the world.

"It's not for me," Kool Herc, whose given name is Clive Campbell, said of the props he received Monday.

It is, he said, about affordable housing - or the lack of it at the Sedgwick Avenue apartment building where his family lived in the 1970s.

Tenants of the building received word this year that the owner planned to leave an affordable housing program known as Mitchell-Lama. Property owners in the program, which operates at the state and local levels, receive incentives such as low-rate mortgages and tax breaks in exchange for charging tenants low to moderate rents for a certain period of time.

"It's about affordable housing," Cindy Campbell said, adding that her family lived in an affordable housing unit. "Thank God we had that. If these people lose their homes, where are they going to go?"

This month, the building was deemed eligible for listing on state and national historic registers by the state Historic Preservation Office because of its cultural significance, according to Cathy Jimenez, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

That means supporters now can apply to the state Historical Preservation Board, which decides whether to grant historical designation, Jimenez said.

A landmark designation, however, wouldn't necessarily prevent the owner from buying out of the Mitchell-Lama program. Landmark status would likely apply to the building but not necessarily its use.

But Serrano said a building with such cultural significance - and potential landmark status - would draw unfavorable attention to an owner trying to convert the 100 units to market rate.

"Throughout the city there are buildings and developments like this where people made their lives, and they shouldn't be pushed out," Serrano said. "It's not fair; it's not right."

A phone number could not be found the building's owner, listed in property records as 1520 Sedgwick Houses Inc.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, who was among the dozens of people gathered in the building's first-floor community room, along with Afrika Bambaataa, another early Bronx disc jockey, also said the building was more than "bricks and mortar"; it's "ground zero" for hip-hop's birth, he said.

"This building, which housed hip-hop's founding father ... is a New York treasure that must be preserved as a bastion of affordable housing," Schumer said in a statement. "But, now, with affordable housing under assault, even the birthplace of hip-hop is in danger of being lost for working-class New York families. We must preserve New York's affordable housing so that the future DJ Kool Hercs of this city will have every opportunity to succeed."

Kool Herc challenged those in hip-hop to take up the cause of affordable housing at the birthplace of hip-hop and elsewhere.

"They need to rep the birthplace of this worldwide phenomenon," said Kool Herc, who has lived on Long Island since leaving Sedgwick Avenue.

"The fight is not over," he said, referring to the battle to maintain affordable housing at the building. "If they have any respect for what they love so well, this is where it comes from. People in hip-hop should stand for affordable housing. They come out of it, and some still live in it. Don't forget where you come from. Affordable housing is needed."

07/23/07 23:34 EDT

Ja Rule, Lil Wayne Arrested for Guns

Ja Rule, Lil Wayne Arrested for Guns

AP

Posted: 2007-07-23 10:27:27

Filed Under: Star Scandals, Music

NEW YORK (July 23) - Ja Rule and Lil Wayne have been arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon in separate incidents, police said.

The best-selling rappers were arrested Sunday night shortly after Lil Wayne's concert at the Beacon Theatre. It wasn't immediately clear whether Ja Rule had also performed.

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Lil Wayne, left, and Ja Rule, right, were both arrested in New York City after police found both rappers with .40 caliber pistols in separate incidents.

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Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeff Atkins, lives in Saddle Brook, N.J. Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Carter, is from Miami.

Contact information for their managers could not be found early Monday, and there was no immediate response to messages left with their record company, Universal Motown.

It also wasn't immediately clear whether they had attorneys.

Officers spotted Carter, 24, and another man smoking marijuana by a tour bus near 61st Street and Columbus Avenue at about 11:30 p.m., police said. The officers took the two men into custody, finding a .40-caliber pistol. Both were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and marijuana.

Atkins, 31, was arrested about an hour earlier on West End Avenue. Police said he was in a luxury sedan that was going too fast. Officers stopped the car and arrested the occupants - Atkins, the driver and another man - and found a .40-caliber gun, police said.

Atkins rose to fame in the mid-1990s after appearing on a hit song with Jay-Z and later going on to record platinum-selling solo albums.

Carter's albums include "Tha Block Is Hot," "Lights Out," "Tha Carter" and "Tha Carter II."

"Uh Oh" is the name of a new song by the rappers.

A Southern Rapper With a Lot of Friends

A Southern Rapper With a Lot of Friends

 

Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Lil Wayne was arrested for possessing marijuana and a handgun in his tour bus after his performance.

By JON PARELES

Published: July 24, 2007

The New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne didn’t make one of his regular boasts — that he’s the “best rapper alive” — when he played his first headlining concert in New York City on Sunday night at the Beacon Theater. Maybe that’s because New York is the home of Jay-Z, who hasn’t fully retired. Or maybe it was because he had plenty else to brag about. The concert was sold out, its surprise guests included Kanye West (who recently played Giants Stadium as part of the Live Earth concert), and the eager audience knew every rhyme from Lil Wayne.

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RelatedAudio of Lil Wayne (from Myspace)

In some ways, Lil Wayne is a prototypical Southern rapper. A decade ago, he and his fellow New Orleans rappers the Cash Money Millionaires popularized the term “bling,” and on Sunday night he arrived glittering with diamonds: in his teeth, around his neck, on his hands. The priorities in his songs are money — made through hustling drugs — and the sex it helps get.

His lyrics are full of gun toting and dope smoking, and Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was arrested after the show and charged with possession of a weapon. The police said that officers smelled marijuana from his tour bus after it left the Beacon, stopped it and found Mr. Carter with a .40-caliber pistol.

In his music, Lil Wayne goes well beyond the basics of “dirty South” hip-hop. His hoarse voice gives his songs a texture that’s both weathered and slyly amused, for a glimmer of New Orleans R&B. He regularly changes up his delivery, borrowing Jamaican dancehall inflections or landing syllables on unlikely offbeats. He also has some quirky fixations: on food, on 1980s movies and on punning wordplay. Over the last few years, he has been ubiquitous, not only on his own albums but also on mixtapes and as a collaborator. He let the women in the audience enthusiastically sing the melody of “You,” a 2006 single by Lloyd that had a guest rap by Lil Wayne.

Unlike some rappers, Lil Wayne can work a stage as effectively as a studio. He arrived wearing a Run-DMC T-shirt — an homage to New York City hip-hop roots — though by the time the set ended, he was bare-chested, showing off his muscles. With a disc jockey supplying the ominous chords, deep bass throb and electronic blips of his tracks, he declaimed nearly two dozen songs — usually the first verse or two before moving on.

The deep-growling Ja Rule joined him for their new collaboration “Uh-Oh” and went on to perform his own “New York,” which boasts about being armed. (Ja Rule, whose name is Jeffrey Atkins, was arrested in a separate incident on Sunday night and charged with criminal possession of a weapon, a .40-caliber handgun.) A sidekick, Mac Maine, the rapper Juelz Santana and Lil Wayne’s mentor, Birdman, also joined him onstage. And to prove he didn’t need electronic help, Lil Wayne sang his new ballad “Prostitute Flange” (actually a love song) and rapped a cappella.

He segued “1000 Degreez” into “Scarface” and did a raunchy new song over an associate’s vocal beat-boxing. He repeatedly proclaimed his humility, profusely thanking the crowd, but he earned the applause. Afterward, the arrest made his mischievous songs slightly too realistic.

Debussy’s Ghost Is Playing, So What Can a Critic Say?

Debussy’s Ghost Is Playing, So What Can a Critic Say?

 

By BERNARD HOLLAND

Published: July 24, 2007

Debussy left behind piano music in the form of black marks printed on a page. He also left behind a little of himself: piano rolls of Debussy playing Debussy. So elegantly conceived is the first part of this legacy that we sometimes wish the second part did not exist.

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A new CD captures Debussy’s own performances of his piano pieces.

Related Audio clips of Claude Debussy playing Debussy from the Pierian Recording Society

 Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum (mp3)

 La Plus Que Lente (mp3)

The scores imply a “this is it” permanence. The composer’s playing of them (now on a CD from the Pierian Recording Society) could just as well be the impulse of a moment. Copyright laws, in other words, are pretty clear about who owns what has been written. The rights to what it means are another matter.

James Joyce said that he took credit for all the interpretations by every “Ulysses” scholar in the world, whether any of them had occurred to him personally or not. The same idea coming from the opposite direction suggests that publishing something — laying it out before an audience — is an act of surrender, a loss of control that puts composers or writers at the mercy of interpreters. One can only appeal to good sense and good will.

This surrender of power is not the ghastly assault on artistic integrity that it seems. Letting go can do all sides a lot of good. In slow pieces like “Danseuses de Delphe,” Debussy the interpreter confirms the elegant classicism of his score-writing: simple movement without gimmicky flourishes, rhythm observed with a dignified precision.

When the tempos go up, so too do the pianist’s impetuosity levels. At one point in “La Cathédrale Engloutie,” Debussy nearly doubles the written tempo in relation to the note values around it. He throws himself at “La Danse de Puck” and “Minstrels.” “Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum” is a mad rush, perhaps intended as a comic portrayal of young pupils feverishly engaged in finger exercises. I don’t think the piece is a mad rush but rather a wistful, deftly accented and, above all, slightly slower bit of nostalgia. And if I can play it this way without contravening the written score, who says I can’t love the piece and declare its composer wrong?

In weaker moments, I even think I could get Debussy to like my way just fine, although I admit to feeling a little queasy every time I hear him play the piece for himself. The rolls were made in 1913, when the thought of performances frozen in time to be repeated verbatim and at will had scarcely occurred to anyone. The recording as snapshot was an idea that continued as far as the 1930s, when Artur Schnabel, recording Beethoven sonatas in Paris, declined to redo questionable takes. Dinu Lipatti’s recordings 10 years later were among the first to recognize that permanence without impregnability was not very permanent at all.

The Welte-Mignon mechanism used in the Debussy recordings represents an extreme sophistication of the player piano’s perforations on paper and pumping feet. Sensors measure the pressures exerted on individual notes. Other systems, the program notes for the Pierian CD say, added musical nuances after the rolls were made. Unlike Ampico and Duo-Art, Welte recorded them in real time. Listening, one looks over the shoulder for ghosts. One is at a séance, with the great man rapping on the table from a distance to make his presence known.

Kenneth Caswell of Austin, Tex., refurbishes these early performances and the machines to reproduce them. This CD has five of the Book 1 “Préludes,” the “Children’s Corner,” “La Plus Que Lente,” “La Soirée dans Grenade” and “D’un Cahier d’Esquisses,” all reperformed on a restored Feurich Welte piano in Mr. Caswell’s home. Also included are acoustical recordings of Debussy and the soprano Mary Garden in 1904 performing the “Ariettes Oubliées” and a snippet from “Pelléas et Mélisande.” Both sound significantly remote, the equivalent of ruins.

For the player piano pieces, Mr. Caswell says, he has adjusted piano and mechanism to the style and character of the piece at hand. But are the fast tempos here simply mechanical aberrations that misrepresent Debussy? Do we trust a reproductive process that has gone through so many middlemen and so much time? In any case, a listener not knowing that a machine was at work could easily be convinced that these performances come not from a ghost but from flesh and blood at the piano. Don’t underestimate the power of the mind to talk its owner into anything.

I’ll trust my old Durand editions, despite the misprints. Good Debussy players today begin as literal readers of these scores. Play the rhythms as if they were Mozart’s, and you are on the way to making them sound like Debussy. But written music can also tell us too much, the victim of overly possessive and micromanaging composers.

Mahler was one of those, but then he was a practicing conductor whose job it was to manage details. Paradoxically, Mahler the conductor continually rewrote the standard repertory to suit his needs and tastes. Interpreters make a mistake when they see written music as a kind of instruction book. (“Read this manual carefully, and put this wire there.”) Scores tells us what the listener can expect to hear. They are a kind of contract waiting to be signed.

So what part of Debussy’s “Gradus ad Parnassum” belongs to him and what part to me? A good question. Artistic property cases are starting to show up in the courts. I hope lawyers don’t get ahold of this one.

Radio Listeners Seem to Buy Less Music

Radio Listeners Seem to Buy Less Music

By ALEX MINDLIN

Published: July 23, 2007

During the past month, musicians and record labels have resumed their decades-old fight to make AM and FM stations pay royalties to performers. A new group, the MusicFirst Coalition, has publicized a six-month-old study that suggests that radio play hurts record sales.

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The study, written by Stan Liebowitz, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, compared record sales and music radio listening in some 100 American cities from 1998 to 2003. It found that, very roughly, an hour’s worth of radio listening per person per day, over the course of a year, corresponded with a 0.75 drop in the number of albums purchased per capita in a given city. Professor Liebowitz has proposed that people use radio listening as a substitute for buying music.

The broadcast industry has pointed to radio’s power to create top-selling songs. But Professor Liebowitz said that while radio could elevate some songs above others, its overall effect was to depress the market for albums.

Police Called to Church After Dispute Over Bishop G. E. Patterson's Property

Police Called to Church After Dispute Over Bishop G. E. Patterson's Property
from The Belle Report

Memphis, TN.-- Police were recently called to the Temple of Deliverance after a dispute over the property of the late presiding Church of God in Christ Bishop G.E. Patterson. Patterson's things were packed into boxes and the locks were changed on the door to his office.

Bishop Jerry Maynard, the regional leader of COGIC, is behind the changes. He said he needs to use the space as a study. Patterson's widow Louise objected to the move and the authorities were called.

Sister Louise Patterson was surrounded by family and friends for support. She went to the office of her late husband of nearly 40 years and found that the locks had been changed.

Maynard changed the locks and packed Bishop Patterson's belongings into boxes, according to his Nashville P.R. representative. She said everything was done respectfully.

Louise Patterson said she thinks the matter can be resolved within the church.

"It's a thing that's quite emotional, but I am hoping that the church can resolve the matter and everyone can go away peacefully, but I ask for the prayers of everybody," she said.
   
Maynard said he planned to use Patterson's office as a study when he's in town on Sunday's to deliver sermons.

But this Sunday, COGIC member Felecia Moore says there will be some disappointed people in attendance.  "We just don't need the confusion at this time," she said. "We need to pull it together and go forward. That's what Bishop Patterson would have wanted."
   
Moore said members are still grieving with the church's first lady. Patterson herself said she feels weakened by the ordeal.

"The church is doing fine," she said. "We're awaiting a pastor. I'm not doing so good, but I will be fine."

Maynard will be in town Sunday to act as pastor for the Temple of Deliverance.

Elder C. H. Mason Patterson has also just released a statement on the incident. It said in part: "Since his funeral, Bishop G. E. Patterson's widow has been battling physical illness. Despite this, Mrs. Patterson was assembling a trusted team to prepare the office for the new permanent pastor's arrival in September. .... We were shocked to discover that the office locks were changed and Bishop Patterson's massive collection of personal effects removed from the office without Mrs. Patterson's knowledge or input."

Temple of Deliverance's 5,000 seat sanctuary in Memphis, completed in 2000
  

 

Mrs. Louise Patterson,widow of the late Presiding Bishop of The Church Of God In Christ International G.E. Patterson went to her husbands office this morning and found out that the locks had been changed and that the bishop's belongings were in boxes.

The order to evict Mrs. Patterson from her husband's office came from Bishop Jerry Maynard the interim pastor,and a man who could never stand in the shadow of the founder of Temple Of Deliverance. It has been expected for Maynard to make a power play and try to destroy the legacy of Patterson to create a place for himself.

Maynard stated that he needed the office for his "study" when he's in Memphis to preach,as if in this massive church there was no where else for him to study. And from what I hear about his preaching ability the "study" isn't doing him any good.

Saints from around the country read this site, in fact there is a story I wrote several months ago that is no longer on this main page that has over 600 comments on it. So Saints what do you think about Louise Patterson being evicted from the church that her husband built? What do you think about Maynard, is he a power hungry demon? Did Bishop Patterson own the land and building and if so how can Maynard change anything with out her okay?Will the saints just pray or get off there knees and demand that Maynard be removed? 

Televangelist Tammy Faye Messner Dies

Televangelist Tammy Faye Messner Dies

Former Wife of Jim Bakker Suffered From Inoperable Cancer

By STEVE HARTSOE,

AP

Posted: 2007-07-22 06:23:05

Filed Under: Nation

Frederick M. Brown, Getty Images

Tammy Faye Messner, here in 2005, died Friday after battling colon cancer for over 10 years. She had frequently spoken about her medical problems, saying she hoped to be an inspiration to others.RALEIGH, N.C. (July 22) - Tammy Faye Messner, who as Tammy Faye Bakker helped her husband, Jim, build a multimillion-dollar evangelism empire and then watched it collapse in disgrace, has died. She was 65.

 

Messner had battled colon cancer since 1996 that more recently spread to her lungs. She died peacefully Friday at her home near Kansas City, Mo., said Joe Spotts, her manager and booking agent.

A family service was held Saturday in a private cemetery, where her ashes were interred, he said.

She had frequently spoken about her medical problems, saying she hoped to be an inspiration to others. "Don't let fear rule your life," she said. "Live one day at a time, and never be afraid." But she told well-wishers in a note on her Web site in May that the doctors had stopped trying to treat the cancer.

In an interview with CNN's Larry King two months later, an emaciated Messner -- still using her trademark makeup -- said, "I believe when I leave this earth, because I love the Lord, I'm going straight to heaven." Asked if she had any regrets, Messner said: "I don't think about it, Larry, because it's a waste of good brain space."

For many, the TV image of then-Mrs. Bakker forgiving husband Jim's infidelities, tears streaking her cheeks with mascara, became a symbol for the wages of greed and hypocrisy in 1980s America.

She divorced her husband of 30 years, with whom she had two children, in 1992 while he was in prison for defrauding millions from followers of their PTL television ministries. The letters stood for "Praise the Lord" or "People that Love."

 

Jim Bakker said in a statement that his ex-wife "lived her life like the song she sang, 'If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade.'"

"She is now in Heaven with her mother and grandmother and Jesus Christ, the one who she loves and has served from childbirth," he said. "That is the comfort I can give to all who loved her."

Messner's second husband also served time in prison. She married Roe Messner, who had been the chief builder of the Bakkers' Heritage USA Christian theme park near Fort Mill, S.C., in 1993. In 1995, he was convicted of bankruptcy fraud, and he spent about two years in prison.

Through it all, Messner kept plugging her faith and herself. She did concerts, a short-lived secular TV talk show and an inspirational videotape. In 2004, she cooperated in the making of a documentary about her struggle with cancer, called "Tammy Faye: Death Defying."

"I wanted to help people ... maybe show the inside (of the experience) and make it a little less frightening," she said.

More recently, Tammy Faye kept in the public eye via her Web site.

"I cry out to the Lord knowing that many of you are praying for me," Messner wrote in a July 16 post in which she indicated she weighed 65 pounds. "In spite of it all, I get dressed and go out to eat. ... I crave hamburgers and french fries with LOTS of ketchup! When I can eat that again, it will be a day of victory!"

In 2004, she appeared on the WB reality show "The Surreal Life," co-starring with rapper Vanilla Ice, ex-porn star Ron Jeremy and others. She told King in 2004 that she didn't know who Jeremy was when they met and they became friends.

Messner was never charged with a crime in connection with the Bakker scandal. She said she counted the costs in other ways.

"I know what it's like to hit rock bottom," she said in promotional material for her 1996 video "You Can Make It."

In the mid-1980s, the Bakkers were on top, ruling over a ministry that claimed 500,000 followers. Their "Jim and Tammy Show," part TV talk show, part evangelism meeting, was seen across the country. Heritage USA boasted a 500-room hotel, shopping mall, convention center, water-amusement park, TV studio and several real-estate developments. PTL employed about 2,000 people.

Then in March 1987, Bakker resigned, admitting he had a tryst with Jessica Hahn, a 32-year-old former church secretary.

Tammy Faye Bakker stuck with her disgraced husband through five stormy years of tabloid headlines as the ministry unraveled.

Prosecutors said the PTL organization sold more than 150,000 "lifetime partnerships" promising lodging at the theme park but did not build enough hotel space with the $158 million in proceeds. At his fraud trial, Jim Bakker was accused of diverting $3.7 million to personal use even though he knew the ministry was financially shaky. Trial testimony showed PTL paid $265,000 to Hahn to cover up the sexual encounter with the minister.

Jim Bakker was convicted in 1989 of 24 fraud and conspiracy counts and sentenced to 45 years. The sentence was later reduced, and he was freed in 1994. He said that his wife's decision to leave him had been "like a meat hook deep in my heart. I couldn't eat for days."

While not charged, his then-wife shared during the 1980s in the public criticism and ridicule over the couple's extravagance, including the reportedly gold-plated bathroom fixtures and an air-conditioned doghouse.

There was even a popular T-shirt satirizing her image. The shirt read, "I ran into Tammy Faye at the shopping mall," with the lettering on top of what look like clots of mascara, traces of lipstick and smudges of peach-toned makeup.

In a 1992 letter to her New Covenant Church in Orlando, Fla., she explained why she finally was seeking a divorce.

"For years I have been pretending that everything is all right, when in fact I hurt all the time," she wrote.

"I cannot pretend anymore."

In the end, there wasn't any property to divide, her attorney said. The Bakkers lost their luxury homes in North Carolina, California and Tennessee, their fleet of Cadillacs and Mercedeses, and their vintage Rolls-Royce.

Her autobiography, "I Gotta Be Me," recounts a childhood as Tammy Faye LaValley, one of eight children of a poor family in International Falls, Minn. Her biological father walked out. She was reticent about her age, but a 2000 profile of her in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis said she was born in March 1942.

She recalled trying eye makeup for the first time, then wiping it off for fear it was the devil's work. Then she thought again.

"Why can't I do this?" she asked. "If it makes me look prettier, why can't I do this?"

She married Bakker in 1961, after they met at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis. Beginning with a children's puppet act, they created a religious show that brought a fundamentalist Protestant message to millions.

A secular TV talk program, the "Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show" with co-host Jim J. Bullock, lasted just six weeks in early 1996. Shortly after it went off the air, she underwent surgery for colon cancer.

She said afterward that she endured bleeding for a year because she was embarrassed to go to a male doctor. And she wore her makeup even in surgery.

"They didn't make me take it off," she said. "I had wonderful doctors and understanding nurses. I went in fully made up and came out fully made up."

Survivors include her husband and her two children, Jamie Charles Bakker of New York City and Tammy Sue Chapman of Charlotte.

Spotts said that the family is considering a public memorial service for the coming weeks, but that nothing had been finalized Saturday.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2007-07-20 04:55:39