Friday, September 6th, 2002

BIGGIE KILLED TUPAC?

The Los Angeles Times ran a piece today saying Biggie Smalls ordered the killing of Tupac and supplied his personal Glock for the murder. Apparently, after Randall Sullivan’s hatchet-job book, LAbyrinth and Nick Broomfield’s documentary “Biggie and Tupac”–which both argued but failed to prove Suge killed Tupac–LA Times investigative reporter Chuck Philips of the LA Times. (Check the article here.) He argues that Biggie authorized the Southside Crips (Orlando Anderson’s set) to kill Tupac, and that they may have done so with Biggie’s own Glock. Pretty inflammatory stuff, indeed.

On my initial read, Philips’ timeline is viable, but extremely difficult to imagine. At 8:30 pm, Tupac and Suge were at the MGM Grand Hotel to check out Tyson fight. Between 8:45 and 9pm the fight was over and the entourage headed into the casino shortly thereafter where they spotted Crip Orlando Anderson and beat him down. The Death Row crew headed to the Luxor while Anderson staggered back to Treasure Island Hotel.

In Philips’ timeline, the Crips immediately held a meeting to decide to off Tupac, then sent a contact to see Biggie. Philips reports that Biggie was staying at the MGM Grand incognito, in the penthouse. A Crip emissary was dispatched to see Biggie to see if Biggie would pay for the hit. According to Philips, Biggie not only agreed to pay $1 million for the hit, he offered his own Glock to do so. Separately, Anderson and his crew of Crips planned the assassination. They allegedly decided to hit Tupac and Suge on the way back from the afterparty at Suge’s Club 662. Anderson and crew left the Treasure Island hotel sometime before 11pm (hitting mad traffic on the Strip). Sometime after 11pm, they were surprised to spotted the Death Row entourage, pulled up alongside Suge’s car and killed Tupac.

In under 2 hours, then, Philips has the Southside Crips deciding on the hit, planning the hit, soliciting Biggie in person for a million-dollar bounty, receiving the murder weapon, then actually doing it. In and of itself, this timeline is hard to believe.

But today, Biggie’s family and friends said Biggie was at home in Teaneck, NJ, thousands of miles away and called the report irresponsible. Russell Simmons will be responding with his own press statement shortly. Libel lawsuits will surely follow.

The report leaves a lot of questions open: what was Biggie’s motive? Where was he really? But they raise lots of questions about Philips’ own sourcing. The article cites police and Crips, but quotes none, not even anonymously. Were the sources paid? What are the sources’ motives?

Philips defends himself and his article on MTV.com,

here. He says he never bought into the Biggie stories until he began to investigate, and hints that Biggie may not have meant it when he told the Crips to kill Tupac, just was playing a game with them. To believe this, one would have to accept that Biggie was incredibly naive of the Crips he was allegedly working with. That’s pretty hard to do.

Another explanation is that Philips was desperate to rescue his reputation after Randall Sullivan personally ripped him in LAbyrinth, that this story is less about truth than about ego. Sullivan’s argument, of course, is that Suge and corrupt black cops conspired to kill both Tupac and Biggie. (Sullivan spends a lot of time bemoaning affirmative action and black police chiefs in LAPD, a fact which might give you an idea of how his reactionary politics distort the story he is trying to report.) In a Biggie-as-don scenario, then, Philips gets a made-to-use narrative to shut Sullivan up and put himself back atop the investigative reporting heap. Is it any mistake that both stories–which interchange Suge and Biggie as Black Caesars–both rely on ridiculously overblown stereotypes and belief-defying B-movie plotting?

Part 2 of Philips’ article runs tomorrow morning, and will reportedly be about why the police investigation faltered. Stay tuned.

posted by @ 1:19 pm | 0 Comments

Tuesday, August 27th, 2002

“DEMOCRACIES DIE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS”

Here are some extraordinary quotes from a case against Ashcroft decided yesterday regarding the custody of Rabih Haddad, a Muslim clergyman from Michigan held since last December.

Michigan newspapers and John Conyers filed suit against Atty General Ashcroft to prevent the Bush administration from holding hundreds of deportation in secret, based only on the government’s word that the plaintiff was dangerous enough to warrant such treatment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided unanimously against the Ashcroft and Bush.

You can find the entire opinion here.

“In our democracy, based on checks and balances, neither the Bill of Rights nor the judiciary can second-guess government’s choices. The only safeguard on this extraordinary governmental power is the public, deputizing the press as the guardians of their liberty.”

“Today, the Executive Branch seeks to take this safeguard away from the public by placing its actions beyond public scrutiny. Against non-citizens, it seeks the power to secretly deport a class if it unilaterally calls them “special interest” cases. The Executive Branch seeks to uproot people’s lives, outside the public eye, and behind a closed door.”

“Democracies die behind closed doors. The First Amendment, through a free press, protects the people’s right to know that their government acts fairly, lawfully, and accurately in deportation proceedings. When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation.”

“The Framers of the First Amendment ‘did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.’ They protected the people against secret government.”

“Even though the political branches may have unfettered discretion to deport and exclude certain people, requiring the Government to account for their choices assures an informed public — a foundational principle of democracy.”

“The public’s interests are best served by open proceedings. A true democracy is one that operates on faith – faith that government officials are forthcoming and honest, and faith that informed citizens will arrive at logical conclusions. This is a vital reciprocity that America should not discard in these troubling times.”

posted by @ 7:31 am | 0 Comments

Monday, August 26th, 2002

The industry still sucks. [What took so long for everyone in the mainstream press to figure this out?] Check this piece in Slate by Mark Jenkins for the latest industry-bashing.

posted by @ 8:13 am | 0 Comments

Sunday, August 25th, 2002

The Justice Department reported today that the U.S. correctional population has hit a record high. If you want actual numbers, that’s about 6.6 million men and women in the correctional population, either incarcerated or otherwise in the system.

posted by @ 7:04 pm | 0 Comments

Thursday, August 22nd, 2002

Hey yall. I’m still settling into my place in Berkeley and missing Brooklyn. Also working with a dial-up until the broadband folks can link me up. In the meantime, here’s a fantastic piece from a good friend Todd Inoue on Yao Ming, Apolo Ohno, Ben Kim, and Asian Americans rooting for Asian athletes. Check it out!

posted by @ 1:51 pm | 0 Comments

Monday, August 5th, 2002

Hey everyone. I haven’t disappeared. Just in the process of moving back to the Bay Area. In the meantime, here’s the Open Society Institute’s website on our panel, move the crowd: the emergence of hip-hop activism two weeks back. Check it out and let me know what you think. Peace…

posted by @ 1:11 pm | 0 Comments

Wednesday, July 24th, 2002

Rev. Al Sharpton told WLIB today he’s suing HBO for a $1 billion for libel and slander because of their airing of a FBI surveillance video from 1983 in which he was shown speaking to an FBI agent attempting to entrap him in a drug deal. Nothing ever came of the attempt back then–but it is interesting the tape has resurfaced in the wake of Sharpton’s visit to Los Angeles on the Donovan Jackson case.

Sharpton says the FBI is trying to derail his presidential campaign. That’s probably just spin control. He hadn’t formally declared or even publicly floated an exploration campaign. But HBO may be kicking itself in a year if Sharpton wins a settlement–he’ll have dough and juice to really try to make a run, then.

On another note, there’s an excellent interview with Al Sharpton in the latest issue of Transition, in which he says, among a lot of other thangs, “White leftists are the biggest hypocrites in America. White leftists and young hip-hoppers: both of them have been missing in action; both of them are full of criticism, but there’s very little participation. They fight everybody who’s fighting the system, but they never get around to fighting the system themselves.” Check it.

posted by @ 5:10 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, July 24th, 2002

Two pieces from today’s Village Voice’s Chisun Lee illustrate the madness of the INS. The first, Sweep of Faith, describes the INS’ attempts to go after an aging Pakistani who simply overstayed his visa. In the second, Chisun speaks to Slick Rick.

posted by @ 4:11 am | 0 Comments

Friday, July 19th, 2002

Just got back from a reading at Nkiru Center by Bakari Kitwana from his new book, Hip Hop Generation. It’s a very important book (you can check my review of it here). Bakari is now getting a chance to take his message across the country, and is finding that the main question everyone is asking him is: “Where do we go from here?”

The act of him holding dialogues in various cities itself is crucial–he is literally creating spaces to discuss and debate hip-hop activism, something folks both really want and need. Bakari admits he doesn’t have all the answers, but says the important thing is to begin to build networks. Maybe everyone’s answers to the little questions can add up to some answers to all of the big ones. He’s echoing the exact same sentiments we heard on Wednesday at OSI. If you get a chance to hear him speak, definitely do it. Either way, cop the book.

posted by @ 8:56 pm | 0 Comments

Thursday, July 18th, 2002

HIP-HOP ACTIVISM GETS PROPS FROM BIG FUNDERS

Last night, I was honored to moderate a panel discussion on hip-hop activism hosted by the Open Society Institute. It brought together a fiery crowd of about 150 people from philanthropy, community organizing, academia, the media and the entertainment industry. Hip-hop celebrities Russell Simmons, Fab 5 Freddy, Kevin Powell, Danny Hoch, Minister Ben Muhammad, and Fab 5 Freddy were also in the house to hear panelists speak to the context behind and the struggles being fought by hip-hop activists.

These people included:

*Kate Rhee, director of Prison Moratorium Project

*Toni Blackman, hip-hop educator, poet, and founder of Freestyle Union

*Marinieves Alba, activist-educator and founder of Hip-Hop LEADS

*Kofi Taha, co-founder and co-director of the Active Element Foundation

*James Bernard, executive co-ordinator of the Project on Race and Democracy and pioneering hip-hop journalist

OSI captured the entire event on audio and will be providing transcripts of the dialogue, which dove deep into issues hip-hop activists are facing on a day-to-day basis. I’ve included my introduction to the panel below, but these words mereley scrape the surface. I would highly recommend everyone check the OSI website in about 2 weeks to get a better feel for the range and depth of the conversation. Check here.

As everyone in the room agreed, although the dialogue was amazing, much more building and networking needs to follow. Many people are discussing that work even as I write this. For updates, just check the blog.

***************

HIP-HOP ACTIVISM IN A POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA

***************

7/17/02, New York City

Thanks very much to the Open Society Institute for hosting this panel discussion on hip-hop activism. And thank you for joining us this evening. Whatever field you are in–whether it be philanthropy, community organizing, youth services, academia, media, the arts, or entertainment—-we are very happy to have you here with us and we hope to have a very stimulating discussion this evening.

Our topic is hip-hop activism—-what is it? Who practices it? Where did it come from? Where is it going?

Hip-hop activism is a tag that young organizers, thinkers, cultural workers and activists have adopted to distinguish our generation’s emerging work for social justice.

Most visibly, we’ve seen hip-hop activism in the recent Hip-Hop Summit Action Network rally, which mobilized celebrity rappers, civil rights organizations and students in support of New York City teachers. We can also recall the extraordinary convergence of hip-hop activists from the anti-globalization and anti-prison movements on the streets of Philadelphia and Los Angeles during the Republican and Democratic Conventions in the summer of 2000.

But the term hip-hop activism describes a broad range of social change practices. For instance, it is applied to:

*organizers who convert rap lyrics into campaigns against corporate interests;

*cultural workers who use graffiti, poetry and theatre to raise political consciousness;

*peer educators who employ hip-hop media representations to enlighten youths about social issues;

*artists who organize transnational youth exchanges based on shared hip-hop culture;

*hip-hop celebrities who lend their names and money to important causes; and

*youth development advocates who speak of creating hip-hop leaders;

And even work that may not explicitly use hip-hop culture, like the delicate work of gang peace organizing, has been called hip-hop activism because it reaches the constituencies that only hip-hop culture can touch;

What everyone agrees is that hip-hop is the lingua franca of young people. You can’t work with this generation without being steeped in hip-hop culture.

Hip-hop emerged in the early 70s as a local Bronx youth subculture which included DJing, MCing, graffiti-writing and b-boying/b-girling. It could be said that the formation of the Zulu Nation in 1973, a group that drew former gang members into the new hip-hop culture, marked the beginning of hip-hop activism.

A decade later, in 1983, hip-hop was well on its way toward becoming global youth culture. It is now, of course, a multi-billion dollar commodity. And while its influence on music, fashion, and style has been well documented, hip-hop has also reshaped youths’ perceptions of race, power, and reality.

Hip-hop is multiracial, polycultural and local. It celebrates where you are from–your block or your ‘hood. And it has become global in effect. Young people now speak of having a hip-hop worldview. Hip-hop activists argue that ours is a worldview looking from the bottom up. Hip-hop has forced us to address where we all are at.

So to flip a famous phrase from the rapper Rakim Allah, hip-hop activism is all about where you’re from and it’s all about where you’re at.

And where we’re all at is in this post-civil rights era, where globalization has transformed traditional social relations, where national politics appears a less viable vehicle for change than ever, and where demographic change has transformed social life.

This era has been one of conservative reaction to progressive agendas and population shifts. Three interrelated trends have shaped the hip-hop generation:

*The first is the right’s attack on affirmative action, bilingualism, and multiculturalism.

*The second is the right’s culture war, which led both political parties to openly attack hip-hop culture and further widened the generation gap (especially in communities of color).

*The third is the War on Youth, the national move towards increasingly punitive juvenile and criminal justice laws and sentencing.

Many people have commented on how these trends have affected diverse communities. Young people also saw them as part of a larger attack on a rapidly browning generation.

So for this generation, hip-hop culture has offered the same kind of space to address the issues of our time that the civil rights movement did for a previous generation.

Since the civil rights movement, national politics has been more successful at rolling back reforms than at producing meaningful change. So the hip-hop generation is forced to engage a wide variety of struggles on a wide variety of fronts, all at the same time.

This is why the term hip-hop activism sometimes seems so broad and encompassing. It is also why hip-hop activism up until recently has been mainly local work, building outward from the ‘hood or the community. For example:

*In Chicago, the University of Hip Hop uses a graffiti mural program to involve youths in community-building work and political education.

*In Atlanta, the Youth Task Force works with rappers like Master P to advance environmental justice campaigns.

*In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Books Not Barscampaign creates and distributes their own music their own label to build their movement against the siting of a new juvenile detention facility.

Yet hip-hop activists also work in a world transformed by globalization. Hip-hop culture, it could be argued, is a product that has been advanced by globalization. But the culture has also created a critical space for progressive thought and action. From the anti-apartheid movement in the mid-80s to the prison-industrial complex movement now, hip-hop has taught global analysis and local practice. Hip-hop is a kind of cultural globalization, linking ghetto to ghetto, yard to yard, city streets to suburban streets, all around the world.

Fundamentally, hip-hop activism emphasizes cultural work and consciousness-raising as a crucial component of organizing for change. If our elders’ cultural movements–everything from the Black Arts Movement to the music of Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye–grew out of the radical politics of the era, the dilemma that hip-hop activists are now faced with is how we try to move cultural power toward political power.

This is where we are at now.

We are imagining and implementing a new set of practices and paradigms that will transform our new world.

-end-

SLICK RICK BEING HELD IN INS DETENTION

Last week, Alex Sanchez received asylum after an epic 2 year-battle with the INS. But the post-9/11 INS roundup continues, and this time they’ve snared a hip-hop legend…

Official Press Release:

SLICK RICK DETAINED IN FLORIDA BY THE INS

LEGENDARY RAPPER ARRESTED ON BOARD CRUISE SHIP, DENIED BAIL

July 17, 2002

Six weeks after his arrest in Miami by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the rapper Slick Rick was denied bail in a deportation hearing held in Bradenton, Florida on July 12. Asserting that the English-born rapper represents a “flight risk,” INS Officer in Charge David Wing told Alex Solomiany, Rick’s attorney, that Rick needed to remain in custody while his case is being adjudicated. Immigration Judge Kevin R. McHugh denied bail, noting that he had no jurisdiction in this matter. Mr. Solomiany immediately appealed the court’s decision and has asked the INS to reconsider Rick’s custody status.

Rick’s problems with the INS are longstanding. Although he moved from England to America with his family when he was 11 years old and has been a legal resident since 1976, Rick never became a naturalized citizen. This oversight complicated his legal woes when he committed a felony in New York in 1990 and went to prison in 1991. The INS moved to have Rick deported to England upon the completion of his sentence in America. Rick’s family and friends fought to have him stay here. (He has no remaining family ties to England.) In June of 1995 Rick was granted the right to remain in America. When the INS appealed that decision to the Board of Immigration in November of 1995, their appeal was dismissed. When the INS appealed again, in March of 1997, their appeal was sustained. The Board of Immigration Appeals then ordered Rick to be deported.

Meanwhile, in January of 1996 Rick had been released from prison — he served exactly five years and 12 days — and promptly returned to his home in the Bronx. Informed in 1997 of the deportation order against him, Rick hired an attorney and appealed. He was never informed that there was a standing INS warrant for his arrest.

During the last six years Rick got married, resumed his recording career, and met all the obligations of his parole. He is a property owner and the supportive father of two children.

On May 28th of this year, Rick was hired as an entertainer on the Tom Joyner Foundation’s Fantastic Voyage 2002. The floating show cruised the Caribbean — including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — on a ship called The Explorer of the Seas and featured such other well-known performers as Erykah Badu, Angie Stone, Yolanda Adams, Earth, Wind & Fire, the O’Jays, the Gap Band, Third World, and the Baha Men. When the ship docked in Miami on June 1, Rick was arrested by the INS. The agency charged Rick with deporting himself and illegally re-entering the United States.

Incarcerated at the INS center in Bradenton, Florida, Rick applied immediately to the INS for bond but was denied. In court on Friday, July 12 he renewed his request for bond and was again denied because the immigration judge at the hearing had no authority to grant bond. In fact, in April of 1996, bond-granting authority was removed from immigration judges and given directly to the INS itself in an effort to strengthen America’s internal security following Timothy McVeigh’s attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Mandy Aragones, Rick’s wife, has decried the INS’s decision to keep Rick in jail. “Ricky presents absolutely no ‘flight risk,’” she says, “I can guarantee my life on that. Ricky is a man of good character, he is hard-working, honest and humble and he would never jeopardize his life again. All his loved ones are here in America. His home is here and his family needs him, especially his daughter and son. He should be allowed to return to his family in New York while sorting out this matter with INS.”

Rick “Slick Rick” Walters was born in London in 1965 and moved with his family to the Bronx in 1975. As a 19-year-old in the summer of 1985 he scored his first big hits, “La Di Da Di” and “The Show.” Three years later Def Jam Recordings released Rick’s first full-length album, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. Hailed as a showcase for Rick’s extraordinary writing and rapping skills, it quickly achieved “platinum” status for sales in excess of one million copies and has since established itself as a rap classic.

At the height of his fame in July of 1990, Rick shot and wounded two people in an ill-advised attempt to protect himself against a violent predator. Convicted of attempted murder in the second degree, he began serving his sentence of three-to-ten years in 1991. While he was in jail, he released “The Ruler’s Back” (1991) and “Behind Bars” (1994). In 1999 he released “The Art of Storytelling.” All three albums were certified gold.

Letters of support for Slick Rick have poured in from entertainers, activists, and politicians alike, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, New York State Senator David Paterson, Russell Simmons, and comedian/actor Chris Rock.

In a letter to the INS in Bradenton, actor and rapper Will Smith wrote, “I have known Rick for over 15 years, not just as an artist, but as a friend. He has always been professional, reliable and trustworthy. While I am aware of his past problems, I’ve also had the pleasure to watch him develop into a good person. His many ties to this country, and his family in particular, assure that he will not flee. I respectfully ask that he be allowed to stay in this country and released to his family as soon as possible.”

For more information, call Bill Adler at 212.645.0061 or Kymberlee Norsworthy at 201.985.8892.

To subscribe to the highly irregular Can’t Stop newsletter, mailto:cantstopwontstop@mindspring.com

posted by @ 11:40 am | 0 Comments



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