Sunday, March 30th, 2008
Live From Berkeley
Home. If only for a nanosecond…
posted by Jeff Chang @ 12:41 pm | 0 Comments
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
Whoops…Phillips’ Story on Pac and Diddy Isn’t True?
Chuck Phillips’ investigative report in the LA Times last week on Diddy, Pac, and Biggie is now being investigated internally, after The Smoking Gun website called the new information Phillips used for his story a hoax.
Turns out Phillips’ main source all along was James Sabatino, who the Smoking Gun pretty much calls the ultimate Forrest Gump wannabe of hip-hop disasters:
The con man, James Sabatino, 31, has long sought to insinuate himself, after the fact, in a series of important hip-hop events, from Shakur’s shooting to the murder of The Notorious B.I.G. In fact, however, Sabatino was little more than a rap devotee, a wildly impulsive, overweight white kid from Florida whose own father once described him in a letter to a federal judge as “a disturbed young man who needed attention like a drug.”
Um, whoa.
No word on how the media will deal with the new rumor alleging the corpses of Biggie and Tupac both had red ribbons tied on their right wrists when they were found dead.
posted by Jeff Chang @ 12:53 pm | 3 Comments
Monday, March 17th, 2008
Planet B-Boy Opening Across The U.S.
Hey fam, sorry for the radio silence. I’m now in the middle of a lecture tour, and have been encountering weather as cold and grimy as the people and hospitality have been warm and wonderful. I shouldn’t have left you without a strong beat to step to.
Here’s the movie I wrote about in last year’s Foreign Policy piece and have been talking up in my talks, an incredible celebration of hip-hop’s global impact and a bracing shot of visual adrenalin. Director Benson Lee has been traveling around the country showing the flick, and now he’s cut a deal to show it on Landmark Theatre screens around the US over the next month. Just click the poster above for more info, and don’t miss it. It’s everything it promises.
posted by Jeff Chang @ 11:47 am | 1 Comment
Monday, March 17th, 2008
Chuck Phillips On Pac & Diddy
Sometimes a journalist makes the story and sometimes the story makes him. For the better part of the past decade, Chuck Phillips, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times whose beat included the music industry, has been pursuing the Tupac and Biggie murders. Today’s bombshell has been promised for a while, and now it’s here:
a front-pager claiming the FBI has evidence that Diddy’s henchmen plotted the ambush of Pac at Quad Studios in 1994.
The stories of Lil Shawn, his manager Jimmy Henchman, and mob-connected industry insiders James Sabatino and Haitian Jack have been circulating for years, and Cheo Coker discussed Haitian Jack in some detail in Unbelievable, his essential bio of Biggie. What’s new is that Phillips seems to have confirmed the story with a number of witnesses as well as an FBI informant. One, now in prison, even promised to produce the medallion snatched from Pac on that night for a price.
This morning, Diddy issued a terse press release, saying, “This story is beyond ridiculous and is completely false. Neither Biggie nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during, or after it happened. It is a complete lie to suggest that there was any involvement by Biggie or myself. I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story.”
posted by Jeff Chang @ 11:07 am | 2 Comments
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s The Break/s Opens This Week!
So I’m in the Dirrrty Dirrrty this week to do some talks–stand up Arkansas and Elon!–and to see my man Bamuthi Joseph open his play “The Break/s” at the Humana Festival, the premier American showcase for young playwrights.
It’s gonna be off the chain, with two turntables and video by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi to support Bamuthi’s incredible spoken word text and movement. Bamuthi tells me it was partly inspired by Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, but when you check this I think you’ll agree with me that he’s on a whole nother level of the game that CSWS couldn’t reach.
Here’s a piece in Playbill that talks a little about the piece.
If you’re in the area, get tickets right now. If not, Bamuthi comes to the Walker in Minneapolis next month and the Yerba Buena Center in SF this summer.
Trust me, I’m not gonna miss any of the performances.
posted by Jeff Chang @ 12:06 pm | 0 Comments
Previous Posts
- Who We Be + N+1=Summer Reading For You
- “I Gotta Be Able To Counterattack” : Los Angeles Rap and The Riots
- Me in LARB + Who We Be Update
- In Defense Of Libraries
- The Latest On DJ Kool Herc
- Support DJ Kool Herc
- A History Of Hate: Political Violence In Arizona
- Culture Before Politics :: Why Progressives Need Cultural Strategy
- It’s Bigger Than Politics :: My Thoughts On The 2010 Elections
- New In The Reader: WHO WE BE PREVIEW + Uncle Jamm’s Army
Feed Me!
Revolutions
- DJ Nu-Mark :: Take Me With You
DJ Nu-Mark remixes the diaspora…party ensues! - El General + Various Artists :: Mish B3eed : Khalas Mixtape V. 1
The crew at Enough Gaddafi bring the most important mixtape of 2011–the street songs that launched the Tunisian & Egyptian Revolutions… - J. Period + Black Thought + John Legend :: Wake Up! Radio mixtape
Remixing the classic LP w/towering contributions from Rakim, Q-Tip + Mayda Del Valle - Lyrics Born :: As U Were
Bright production + winning rhymes in LB’s most accessible set ever - Model Minority :: The Model Minority Report
The SoCal Asian American rap scene that produced FM keeps surprising… - Mogwai :: Hardcore Won't Die But You Will
Dare we call it majestic? - Taura Love Presents :: Picki People Volume One
From LA via Paris with T-Love, the global post-Dilla generation goes for theirs…
Word
- Cormac McCarthy :: Blood Meridian
Read this now before Hollywood f*#ks it up. - Dave Tompkins :: How To Wreck A Nice Beach
Book of the decade, nuff said. - Joe Flood :: The Fires
The definitive account of why the Bronx burned - Mark Fischer :: Capitalist Realism
K-Punk’s philosophical manifesto reads like his blog, snappy and compelling. Just replace pop music with post-post-Marxism. Pair with Josh Clover’s 1989 for the full hundred. - Nell Irvin Painter :: The History of White People
Well worth a Glenn Beck rant…and everyone’s scholarly attention - Robin D.G. Kelley :: Thelonious Monk : The Life And Times Of An American Original
Monk as he was meant to be written - Tim Wise :: Colorblind
Wise’s call for a color-conscious agenda in an era of “post-racial” politics is timely - Victor Lavalle :: Big Machine
Victor Lavalle does it again!
Fiyahlinks
- ++ Total Chaos
The acclaimed anthology on the hip-hop arts movement - ARC
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