Small-Axe Diaries

Lyrics Born: Fighting Without Martyrs

2006-07-12T13:10:00.001-07:00

Story by Mike Conway
Flix by Bayeté Ross-Smith

Lyrics Born is a straight-up dude. When conversating with this acclaimed emcee, what you see in him, you get from him—like a gallon of pure H2O; he carries very few abstractions. Forget for a minute that he’s of the Asian diaspora, which is something the media normally fails to do. Media portrayals of Asians run a thin gamut (more on that later). Regardless, Lyrics is one of the most legit cats I’ve met among all “diaspores.”

Like leaches, characterizations flock toward the slightest blood-drop from the Far East. I even caught myself expounding a geography lesson to Tom Shimura , a.k.a. Lyrics Born, about how Asia is everything east of Turkey, until LB interrupted with, “and damn near all of Daly City.” Like I said, he’s real like that.

Reality is lost many times on an entertainer’s appeal. It slowly separates performers from the general population. We see them first as friends, then as part fetish and part obsession, which are all very distracting reactions to our tastes. With his loungey baritone, LB defuses any misconceptions about his appeal, focusing rather on what is at hand—sight, sound, scents, as well as tastes:

When I look out from the stage onto the audience, I definitely see like a really broad range of people. I see a lot of women, which is not typical of most hip-hop shows [chuckles], a lot of women of color; I see a lot of people of color across the board. You know the more records that sell and the more popular the music gets, I just see that if the area has that kind of diversity, those people are definitely checking us out.

I’ve spoken to Lyrics a couple of times, and I don’t recall his voice ever being hoarse. For such a loquacious rapper, this dude’s got an unfailing vocal capability. Lyrics really started to roll when he and label-mate Lateef dropped their debut LP Latyrx in 1996. Their hit “Say That” is one of the sharpest joints of the ‘90s. I was seriously disillusioned with hip-hop back then, as it seemed the genre traded in its cajones and uhurus for a grip of glossy crap. Latyrx brought me right back with a simple punchline by Lyrics Born: “Suckers steer clear of me like feminists do car shows.”

LB now rocks crowds with wife Joyo Velarde and a live band. He’s rapped with the mac-daddies of all barbershop sextets, Jurassic 5, with Souls of Mischief, KRS ONE and E40. No matter what the configuration, his style always comes through, cordial and fresh. Even so, just like with white emcees, people try to tie him strictly to his ethnicity, and at times he’s tagged as “the Asian rapper.” It’s not so much racist as it is a rarity.

During our interview, he and I inevitably had to talk about the “race card.” To most of the mass media, Asian presence is as scarce as a nice set of gams in Mecca during Ramadan. “I mean I got satellite,” Lyrics adds, “and I can watch that shit for 24 hours, and I bet you I see two or three Asians. And we’re talking 500 channels now man... But we’re here; we’ve been here for a long time.”

Many Pacific-Rim literati concur with Lyrics Born. In her book I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight, spoken word performer Margaret Cho says when you actually do see Asians, they’re this small margin of stereotypes: fiery Jet Li ass-kickers, the math wizes, workaholic liquor store heads (a.k.a. crime victims), and lone field reporters narrating over drab, canned footage. Plotlines restrict them to exotic intrigues, like smuggling organs and fading the feds with help from ancient curses. This may be a far different order than sambos, yes. But like any stereotype, these roles place Asian characters just as far from fucking REALITY.

“The industry has a long way to go,” says Lyrics. “We’re gonna have to start our own shit and blow-up independently because no artist-&-repertoire entity is gonna say, ‘we need to go out there and find ourselves some Asian rappers.’”

LB’s already way ahead of them. Formerly Asia Born, he made the switch to “Lyrics” near the same point as his label Quannum changed-over from “Solesides.” LB made the personal transition from a focus on where he was from to an emphasis on where he’s at right now. And though he seems to have lost a little weight, LB is snow-balling a couple sizes above L, fame-wise. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving, persevering cat.

Though his appeal is rife with anomalies, it attests both to the flexibility of his sound and the transcendent honesty of his words. But don’t trip on the appeal. Buy the fucking shit and rock it like it’s hot.

The Age of Divisadero Soul (SHOUT Issue 2)

2006-01-17T19:31:00.000-08:00

Divisadero,-SF-1944, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

by Mike Conway

If I could travel anywhere, it would be back in time. I want to go back and see, hear and feel the places and moments we can only study now. Going back in time is not as hard as it seems; many backdrops of the past remain with us. All you have to do is go to those places and imagine the things you know about the past, and you’re there.

I just got back from such a trip, that I took after speaking with Ms. Josephine Robinson. From 1959 to 1977, she and her husband ran a nightclub and restaurant at 543 Divisadero Street in San Francisco. During this period, just four blocks east, the Fillmore Jazz Era was in full swing. Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and countless other gods of jazz played up and down Fillmore. The ‘Moe had a reputation as the Harlem of the West.

But along nearby Divis, a parallel surge of jazz and early soul was blazing. More than just a music scene, Divisadero was its own nation, its own economy, and its own revolution. History has mostly forgotten this street; Ms. Robinson has not.

Though she modestly insists her memory has faded in her old age, she lucidly recalled a lot about her tenure at Club Morocco. Her kind, grandmotherly voice spoke of the many patrons she would occasionally “po’liquor” for. Herb Caen ate there often, and called the Morocco the “Salt ‘n’ Pepper” because it drew both blacks and whites together in their mutual quest for good food, music, and fun. This was at a time when prejudice was the absolute status quo; even in San Francisco, a woman couldn’t serve alcohol in a bar unless she was on the liquor license. Never the less, the Morocco was a place where all kinds of folks could dress up and get some dinner, dance, and catch acts like Ike and Tina, Marvin Gaye, and BB King. Giants’ legendary ballers Willie Mays and McCovey might be eating at the table across from yours.

But the Morocco was much more than a happening joint. It was part of a whole scene. All along Divisadero, you had bars and nightclubs like the Both And, the Bird of Paradise, the Sportsmen’s, and the Half Note. Across the street, at the Harding Theater, Curtis Mayfield played one of his last shows in the city. Up until 1965, folks would dance and parley up and down Divis until 2:00am, then hop over the hill to the ‘Moe and famous places like Bop City, which carried the vibe until the break of dawn.

But more importantly, Club Morocco was one of the many African American-owned businesses. Ms. Robinson recalled that throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s on Divisadero, roughly 75% of all businesses were black owned. It was its own economy of beauty parlors, barber shops, boutiques and, of course, the nightclubs. You could get a haircut, eat a nice meal and dance your ass off to live music, all in a single block.

In 1955, just as the Robinsons were putting together the money that bought 543 Divisadero, the U.S. Supreme Court set the guidelines for desegregation in its Brown II decision. Yet oppression-by-segregation would not just end at the drop of a gavel. Brown II might have been a wonderful development in the Civil Rights Struggle, but it was also wonderfully vague. Blacks might have been free to then find work unimpeded by law, but they had been deprived of such opportunities for centuries. “Sure you can join our union, but—what’s this? No union experience? Sorry.”

That’s where the Robinson family stepped up. To help their community, the Robinsons hired waitresses, bartenders, and busboys—way more of them than they ever needed—so that black folks could get the necessary work hours and go on to get jobs, join unions, gain benefits and live better lives. So when you went to the Morocco, you weren’t just seeing Marvin Gaye or James Brown rock the house, you were seeing a subtle revolution against de jure racism. And with so much wait-staff, the service at Morocco must have been impeccable.

The ‘70s brought the notoriously scandalous “redevelopment” of the Fillmore district. Buildings that housed black families and businesses were being suspiciously condemned for “utility upgrades”; fires would mysteriously destroy others. By 1977, Divisadero was reeling from it all. Businesses folded as pimps and prostitution moved in full time. An ardent Protestant, Ms. Robinson could no longer stomach serving this new clientele. She convinced her husband to sell, just before the avalanche of crack and Reaganomics plowed through.

Tony Bennet is famous for leaving his heart in San Francisco; San Francisco itself often leaves its heart in the past. The forces of change have paved over many subtle charms of this city, leaving us with only the nostalgia for a bygone time. But just the other night, after I spoke with Ms. Robinson, I took a stroll down Divisadero, and imagined myself there, many years before I was born. The streets would’ve bustled with people of all backgrounds, the scents of dinner would be wafting out the Morocco and Curtis Mayfield would be sound-checking at the Harding. Maceo Parker just might drop in later on...

Then, as I steered my mind back to the present, I wondered, “is that type of thing so far off?” Bars and clubs have returned to Divis, why can’t the vibe? Hell, there’s streets like this all over the Bay, why can’t they have it too? We got the music, we just need the venues and events.

Just recently, the former Morocco, now Club Waziema, just got all the necessary permits to do what they always have at that address. Liquor, entertainment, operating ‘til 2:00am: licenses like these eluded the bar for years, until its customers and neighbors began to pressure city and state agencies to cough them up. It’s said over and over that a community working together can make a difference, and it’s true. When a community (hint!) collaborates to promote and support itself, in whatever way, what would it need of any outside help? Would a community then need corporations to create jobs for it? Not really. Would it rely on politicians to slowly dole out rights and privileges to it? Probably not. When we start to provide these things to ourselves, then maybe we could get serious about revolution and independence as a movement.

Azeem: Always Facing East

2006-01-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

by Mike Conway
flix by Matthew Reamer

“Writing is what I do no matter what, whether I was broke or not. I would always find a way to express myself,” says Ismail Azeem. Always in search of that “way,” Azeem’s been on a haj, seeking out different poetic locales through the blocks of Oakland and beyond.

Since his 1999 debut EP, Garage Opera, Azeem’s traveled through a lot of studios and stages. Then in ‘01 he completed his second outing, Craft Classic in 2001. This time an LP, Classic carried the work of seven capable, all-Bay producers. An emcee can get lost in the many different cuts of such a production; but Classic shows Azeem taking charge, his presence established in every beat. With tracks like “Duragz” (w/ DJ Spin) and “Rubber Glue” (DJ Zeph) on one end and “God’s Rolex” (Fanatik) on the other, Craft Classic is both hilarious and profound.
After Classic, Azeem was officially a talent to reckon with and the haj was on. Azeem’s talent is apparent. He rarely changes his pitch up to fit a rhyme in; rather he packs his verse into steady, tidy meters. But Azeem says talent alone gets you nowhere. “I can go around the corner right now and grab you ten guys that can all flow and freestyle for an hour. But when it comes time to go to school, work, raise a kid, then focus on your music for two/three hours a night, that’s where they fall short.”
Persistence is one thing, but getting approached by labels for it is better. When Gregory Howe of Wide Hive Records needed the right emcee for his Variable Unit--a loose group of jazz fusion instrumentalists, such as Matt Mongomery, and Kat Ouano and Max MacVeety of the Crown City Rockers--he tapped Azeem and the project culminated in the ingenious LP Mayhem Mystics. On this album, Azeem’s lyricism covers a wider range in both style and substance than on previous efforts.
Even as he was working on the Variable Unit project, Azeem kept on as a solo artist. Within months of the Mayhem Mystics release, Azeem also put out Show Business through Bomb Hip-Hop. Show Business was on the same tip as Garage Opera and Craft Classic, this time with 15 producers and 18 tracks.
For Azeem, taking on multiple collaborations is its own reward. “I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, but I don’t know too many emcees that can write a whole album with live jazz musicians and have it sound one way, and then go and have a hip-hop record and have that sound just as authentic.”
And now as we close in on 2006, Azeem’s lyrical haj gets deeper. He’s set to release many more projects, all equally unique. First up will be an LP with DJ Zeph, as Alpha Zeta. After that, he’ll release a grime album with the Switchcraft crew. He’s also collaborating with Reggie Graham, director of the Broadway production “Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk” for a musical adaptation of Azeem’s spoken word performance “Rude Boy,” which will run at the Marsh Theater in SF. Throw in some other collaborations with Om Records' artists Colossus and with an mix/mash DJ Child, and you get a good idea about how dedicated this emcees is to his art.
Armed with his craft, Azeem has traveled far and wide. But, he says he couldn’t have moved an inch without striking up a certain chemistry with each of his collaborators. “Music is chemistry,” he says. “You might have good beats, I might have good lyrics, but if our ethers don’t mix properly, it’s gonna come out in the music.”
Life, it is said, is a journey for all of us. Yet if we can’t vibe and meander with others on the way, it’s mostly an aimless wandering that gets us nowhere. For Azeem, it’s a haj with many destinations, each one different from the last and every one slightly closer to Mecca.

Jamaica

2006-01-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

Story of Dying Things

2006-01-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

Watching a Moth Die
I see you old and beaten,
Inside on a cold night
The wings which once you flew
So high in summer
Some thought you to be a butterfly.
But now are torn and rotten
As ugly autumn leaves.

You now bang your head
Against the dull lamp light
Thinking it's the sun, maybe
Hoping I might open a door
So you can fly to flowers once more

But I'd rather sit on my lonely chair
and watch you slowly die

moth, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

I then toook him and put him in my freezer. The next day I reconsidered if he was actually dead.

Is The Moth Dead?
Frozen moth, missing limb.
Wings wiggle in the wind,
Or does he thaw alive?

Hungry human, out of Eden,
Though at times he is naked,
Outside he's clothed in rags,
Strange like dusty scales.

Time has passed. No response.
He frames him in glass for sale
And sells him to pay for lunch.

An Early Assessment of Tooki's Execution

2005-12-14T17:13:00.000-08:00

San Quentin, CA: Yes, this was a vigil; it was swept like rain with sadness and anguish. I had to turn my back. I've been near men already dead many times, but I'd never been so knowingly close to a man dying. Tooki was executed behind a wall of thuggery that is miles deep. I saw grown men cry. I saw anger in women's faces that I don't care to see often. That said, I also saw a fucking circus with everything but the corndogs. Bearded-lady newscasters and radio personalities with more makeup than 5 drag queens. I saw them clowns too.

lawyers, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

I was an eyewitness, but also a journalist. Ethics of involvement simply recede at such times when a man is taken out by process. They might as well have hung the man like a witch from a high tree. That was a fact. Going there with a fellow writer, I expected the moment to be sombre. It wasn't. It was jovial on both sides: the Free-ers and the Fry-ers. But a man died that night and I found myself wondering if his spirit missed living yet. Each of us must go through such a longing when we die at first, I suppose.

1201am, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

There were young people everywhere. The young can't help but be a hearty parade in the name of Life. They were there, wide-eyed and raw. A crew of 6 early-twenties kids, going on forty, stormed off accosting every TV camera poor enough to be on.

priestess, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

Still, for those of you that might have found this grotesque affair cute, or saw it as some thing resembling justice, here's a survey I did of the crowd. I asked people their spirituality and then if they would ever justify killing anyone. Here's the data:

ATHEISTS: These insisted "never" generally
BUDDISTS: Most said "Yes. In many lives if necessary."
MUSLIMS: "Whatever Allah requires."
CHRISTIANS: "It's more a question of 'Whom wouldn't I kill?'."
HINDU: "If they rob my store one more time, I will kill all of them."
MISCELLANEOUS: "It definitely seems to be in our nature."

unblinking, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

On that note: know that you are blessed with every night you get away with alive. Some of the Clear Channel news-stooges that went talking smack to OG crips for sound-bytes won't likely be as fortunate, y'all.

Peace.

valleyofshadow, originally uploaded by smallaxe.

Through the Carpal Tunnel at SF GAME Convention

2005-12-04T23:09:00.000-08:00

Spent a good part of the weekend getting trash talked on, dunked on, butt-stroked and all-around SERVED by adolescent boys at the Game and Music Experience convention (compliments of XLR8R: you guys ROCK!!!). GAME (as it was called) was the first ever of its kind from the gaming industry. This 3-day extravaganza served to show the world how deep this industry is, and boy is it DEEP!

In addition to endless games from all corners of technology: sports, military, fantasy, urban (choose your world, playa)--there was also some fine showcases of the Bay's finest musicians. Lyrics Born, Pidgeon John (he's from Hawthorn in LA it turns out), Colossus, JBoogie, Keak Da Sneak, and most of Hieroglyohics.

The event kicked off to asubduedd handful of industry geeks, hyped-up kids of every age, hyped-up parents, the Army and hacks like myself who kept telling ourselves we were "working." On Friday night, Quannum recording artist Pidgeon John did the call-and-response to me, my wife and like seven other people that were hip. PJ treated us as if we were a crowd of thousands. Good work boyeee!!!

After hours of careful consideration, these are my faves and my dogs from the event:

50 CENT, "BULLETPROOF": Taking the "shot 9 times" lore to a new level, this game is the child of Tony Yayo. Use your knowledge of the rules and regulations of the motherfucking game to propel Fiddy through the dark underworld. Take out suckas with the help of Tony, Llyod Banks and some well-appointed chrome, or "bling." Worth playing to hear the voiceovers alone, the best part of this game was when I ran out of money, guns and, coincidentally, cred. I was forced to roam the streets unarmed, leading 50 through pawn brokers, ho's, and street hustlas who couldn't do no nothin fo' me. 50 was worthless without his flash, so play on playa!

007: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: DUDE! Go ballistic on the many Bond villains with classic sounding firearms and then bust some skulls open with an up-close-and-personal forward slash from an AK47. Take that Stalin!

CALL OF DUTY 2: Currently the hottest game out there, Call of Duty allows you to give Winston Churchill his finest hour through the sight apertures of the many WWII weapons. Nice innovations include the "Kill Cam" where you see those Nazi bastards actually buck back from the g's of a well-placed head shot. You are there and you are Gerry's problem now!

BEST CONTEXT AWARD: While the premises of some games like Black were lacking, Mark Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure is a sick insight into what an actuall all-out police state in America's cities would be like to fight. You're a graffiti artist named Trane (nice name too) running from militarized, homicidal police mutants and beating-down rival candy-ass writers for turf as you fight to protect the hip-hop family unit. Ecko was on hand, as was Flava Flave and Fear Factor's Joe Rogan, each hawking their swag and plenty of it.

HONORABLE MENTION: Our fighting men and women showed once again why they are America's sweethearts by manning a popular 1st person, non-violent shooter game w/ a simulated M6A1 replica service rifle or M9 Baretta. No recruiters in sight. With this kind of service from our military, think what they could do for a Four Seasons! Impeccable, disciplined service found nowhere else in the world. On second thought, let them keep serving All-Hayta in the iRaq. The pleasure is all theirs. The Army gets a big-ol' "KILL!!!" from this here marine.

YAYS VS NAYS: Big ups to Charlie Tate and Colossus for showing everyone exactly how cool the new instrumental Bay Area strain of Bohemian-Hop is. NAYS: Keak Da Sneak put on a tight show, albeit surprisingly typical. Something is wrong when your entourage is on stage standing around and not cruising the crowd for hotties for the afterparty. Fellas: study how when all 20 of Hieroglyphics take the stage, every swinging dick is working the crowd. It's all love, my brothers.

Joyo Velarde

2005-12-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

Joyo Velarde
Pic by Matt Reamer.

By Mike Conway

Joyo Velarde could have been anything she wanted. At UC Davis, she pondered being a TV journalist. But after an internship with NBC, she found the corporate culture of television too shallow and fickle. But Joy’s true calling wouldn't find her at college; it had been with her long before.

We enter life with very little, we leave with even less. Though naked, we are born with a certain something to help us along the path bestowed on us. That something is how we communicate destiny to the world; discovering it and using it is our highest purpose.

Joyo Velarde was destined to sing. She has developed her voice since childhood. As a junior in college, Joy was very much in a shell. She was disillusioned with her academic path in journalism, perhaps a little bit shy, and not entirely confident with her singing voice.

At the same time, however, she had a relationship with this guy named Tom Shimura. Captivated by her voice, Tom urged her to make something of it. She took his advice and formally studied singing at Davis and San Jose State. The San Jo’ program eventually landed her a role in a world famous opera, where she performed live, onstage in Rome, Italy as the sultry Gianetta, a supporting role in Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir D’amore (The Elixir of Love).

Now, Joyo Velarde’s voice is heard by millions and it’s clear to her it was all meant to be. “In my growth as a person,” Joy says, “it’s definitely solidified in me that there’s a reason for everything.” Tom became known as Lyrics Born. The relationship they shared was true love and became marriage. And together their talents became a fluid union between a baritone emcee and a soprano songstress.

In 1996, Joyo sang back up to Lyrics Born on the underground hit “Balcony Beach”. The song flows like a scene in an opera. Our hero Lyrics Born lays on the railing of a oceanside balcony, musing on life in general and preparing a soliloquy. But first, Joy croons in from across water; her tone surges in with each wave, like she is the sea herself echoing about how she moves the sand with her tides.

Cut to 2003: LB releases his debut solo effort Later That Day, off Quannum Projects. The album has since exploded beyond expectation, and Joy plays a major role in that success. She sings back-up on several tracks, including “Love Me So Bad” which still rides atop the charts on major radio stations like LIVE 105.

Joy says her vocals have a distinct purpose when backing up Lyrics Born. “When we write together, [we] just try to make sure that both sides are represented, that we both represent the characters that we wanted.” She’s not your typical songstress that unconditionally validates a male emcee. Joy is an independent, balancing perspective; her presence in the mix adds a voice of reason with her own prerogatives while her partner lyrically navigates the tensions and tribulations of a man on a mission.

From a well-studied, classical voice across to the Mary J. Blige school of deep soul, Joy’s signing covers a range the size of Mongolia. It’s no surprise then that some of the tracks from Later on which she appears have emerged from the underground and into the mainstream. In the taxi-flick Collateral, Jamie Fox listens to “Love Me So Bad” in his cab. You can hear Joy along with Constance Lopez in a Diet Coke commercial that plays a couple bars of “Callin Out”.

Some longtime fans are taken aback by this commercial success. After all, Joyo Velarde and her Quannum cronies are some of underground hip-hop’s greatest treasures, and hell-no do we want pop culture hijacking our jewels. Still, Joy aint trippin. The important things in her life—inspirations like family and friends—remain true despite any commercial success. “The fam thing never changes,” she confides, “People hear our songs on commercials and think everything that comes with that is in place as well, but it’s not. If our music can get through to other people, what’s wrong with succeeding at that?” Indeed, people in far-away suburbs are now receiving small doses of high-quality hip-hop, albeit through the medium of slap-happy soda ads.

But Joy and her crew don’t go into recording studios to think up jingles for Coca Cola, but to make music as they always have. “It should always be about doing the next project. I don’t think anyone should get complacent.”

That next project for Ms. Velarde is her very own solo album. “We’ve been chipping away at it for about four to five years,” says Joy. That time-span served as a lesson in patience as she waited until things were just right for the project. “I’m definitely more confident with the way my voice is now,” she says, “I know the kind of instrument I have to offer.” Lyrics Born will produce most of the material (as he did on Later) and manage all the A&R (Artist & Repertoire) aspects.

She classifies her solo effort roughly as a soul record, though not in the traditional sense of the soul genre. Joy modestly asserts that her voice is not a typical instrument of the neo-soul variety; still, the solo focuses on one of soul’s greatest topics: “Love and everything that accompanies love.”

When asked if she has any sad love songs, Joy scrolls through her mental catalog of lyrics and comes upon one song about the father/daughter dynamic. “That’s the blueprint for the relationships you have [with men] for the rest of your life.” Joy explains that when a father is not there substantially or flat-out abandons his daughter, often times a girl grows up thinking “Okay, fuck it. All the men in my life are gonna leave me, so why should I give you my heart?”

Joy is also pondering some political topics as well, but no matter what the topic that she writes and sings about, Joy is somewhat self-effacing about her music. “I don’t believe it’s us making it. I believe it’s God, it’s the universe using us as voices, instruments, emcees, producers, to get some message out there.”

The instrument of Joy is not so much a talent as it is a gift. One gift of the many bestowed uniquely on us all. For Joyo Velarde, it’s not a question of what that gift is, “but the journey of trying to figure out where we can take that gift.”

Joyo’s journey to this point is thus a familiar one. Just when she was disillusioned and uncertain, other people and forces were conspiring to brighten her future. Her future—hell, the future of us all is made in the present; because it is in that moment alone that we all play together as instruments of destiny.

Copyright Down and to the Left

2005-12-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

Image by Granger Davis

By Mike Conway

The creative landscape is changing. Technologies like Pro Tools, the iPod, and peer-to-peer networks have become mainstream in the digital age, creating a wild frontier of sorts in music. Rather than struggling to break into radio, musicians can find a mass audience without a major record deal. These technologies are fostering the rise of “semiotic democracy”—where more and more people are no longer passive consumers of mass media, but active participants in creating culture.

The music industry is part of a waning guard, and it fears it will be eclipsed by this new landscape. But the industry refuses to simply take a bow, or even roll with these changes. Instead, it has released the hounds of law onto the backbone of semiotic democracy: the internet.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is currently policing digital networks that distribute copyrighted material for free; and it is dead serious. It went after a deceased woman for downloading songs in her twilight years. The RIAA also has a case before the Supreme Court in an attempt to quash peer-to-peer networks. Just like 9/11 paved the way for the PATRIOT Act to “adjust” civil liberties, the RIAA is enforcing copyright infringement to tame the new creative frontier.

Sadly, one of the heaviest influences on copyright law is the lobbying power of the “creative” industries. William Fisher III is a professor at Harvard Law School and a leading scholar of copyright law. He attributes some of the major changes in copyright to “concentrations of economic power.” The life of a copyright is a classic example. In 1998, the copyright for Mickey Mouse was about to expire, making the Disney icon public property. Dr. Fisher says “Disney would have lost a lot of licensing revenue if Mickey Mouse had fallen into the public domain. [So] Disney and many other organizations prevailed upon Congress to extend copyright” from 50 to 70 years.

The RIAA qualifies copyright in lofty terms. Their website states that “to artists, ‘copyright’ means the chance to hone their craft, experiment, create, and thrive. It is a vital right, and over the centuries artists have fought to preserve that right.” But now, in the 21st century, copyright can also encumber artists in their creative process. Putting together mixtapes or samples continues to be tricky for a number of reasons. Dr. Fisher gives two. He says “sampling is one of those zones where the power of a copyright owner gets in the way of successive layers of creativity.” Secondly, Fisher says, “there doesn’t exist a comprehensive copyright registry; so even if you’re perfectly willing to pay for permission to use other people’s works creatively, you can’t find the owner.” The result, according to Dr. Fisher, is that copyright law “is closing off an entire source of new works [and] depriving people of the creative experience.” So despite what the RIAA says, copyright and creativity have yet to shake hands.

But the current copyright regime fits neatly into their ongoing litigation against certain peer-to-peers. Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA’s chairman and CEO says free peer-to-peers follow a “parasitical business model” that “robs songwriters and recording artists of their livelihoods, stifles the careers of up-and-coming musicians, and threatens the jobs of tens of thousands of less celebrated people in the music industry.” And that argument holds a lot of water with many musicians, who believe that for art to have any continuity, artists should be compensated for their work.

But within the recording industry lie several common practices that are quite anti-artist. Work-for-hire and controlled composition clauses can snatch the cheese right from an artist’s mouth. Plus, the artist and the copyright owner are usually two different entities, and they are often at odds.

Copyright is never as simple as “once you create it, it’s all yours.” In any given recording, there are two copyrights: one for the song as it is composed by the artist(s), and another for the song as it is recorded. Many times, neither copyright is held by the artist, or at best he/she will hold a fraction of one, leaving the artist with little control over their own work. In 1998, Public Enemy posted free MP3s of their forthcoming remix Bring the Noise 2000 on their website. The recording label, PolyGram, had considerable share in the album, enough to sue PE and force them to remove their own songs from their official website. PolyGram’s copyright had been infringed.

In theory, the RIAA is right to stand up for the artist and the “thousands of less celebrated people in the industry.” But its legal crusade is as consoling to artists as a crying crocodile. After all, the recording industry is a business like any other; it will do everything in its power to sustain itself. It’s more likely that the industry’s fight on filesharing is about keeping its monopoly relevant than it is about stopping illegal downloading.

Instead of marching on the halls of high government and patrolling fledgling technologies, the recording industry can ensure its own relevancy by bringing justice into the music business. Espousing contracts that empower artists with more say over their legacies is a start. If the RIAA extols copyright as a guardian of creativity, they should develop an accessible database of copyrights to stimulate new forms of creativity. American culture has always been a product of the people. Now that technology and new media has caught up with the diversity of our voices, the industry should step back and listen.

Police Union Pro-Pot?

2005-12-04T07:05:00.000-08:00

In an exclusive interview with SHOUT,
Inspector Delagnes speaks his mind:

CLICK HERE FOR ENTIRE INTERVIEW
{ border: solid 2px #000000; } Image by Granger Davis

My Interview with Elliot Wilson

2005-12-04T07:02:00.000-08:00

Mass props to Mr. Wilson for reaching out to the indy/undy media! Enjoy dominating the market, Elliot, and always keep an ear to the street. Click on image for interview...

How to Deal with Punk-Ass Metermaids in one easy letter...

2005-11-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

dpt_street, Pic by Kirk Clyne

One thing I love about this job is getting the colorful letters from you, our readership. This one was particularly good (names were changed to protect the guilty):

To: Director of Fucking Over Citizens

From: Law Abiding Citizen

Dear Director Schmuckatelli,
It is truly a good thing that words can not always express emotions, because I am FURIOUS over the treatment, no, harassment I suffered from one of your meter minions today. On the corner of Larkin and O'Farrell, I was helping a friend jump-start and charge his car. This friend of my mine's car died across from a drug rehabilitation clinic which he religiously attends across the way on Geary. Once DPT got on scene, we explained our dilemma, that the car needed to charge to ensure he would get home in South City with no fuss. The official understood, but insisted we had to do this somewhere else. We respectfully obliged him and moved to the aforementioned corner.
Shortly thereafter, the very same official arrived and began writing ticket. I was a little perplexed, and asked him why. His response was, "because you and your friend got to do your," and this is his exact words, "DRUG THING right here so I 'm writing you a ticket." (Caps mine). That has to be the most pigheaded, ignorant, arrogant and insensitive thing I have heard from a city official EVER!
I will pay the ticket to the city. We were in a loading zone, the only space we could find, and we were in a known drug area. But go figure they put the rehab clinics there too. And go figure, the same official that we had only minutes before yielded to in all humility comes steaming and huffing at us because we made him get out of his Cushman in the rain, or what ever. This person had not one tactful bone in his demeanor. Then he had the NERVE to tell me my friends are fucked up and I need new ones.
What kind of outrage is that? Is the DPT teaming up with the police to wage a harassment policy on recovering addicts? Are you teaching your 'maids social intervention policy too now? If so, I got an intervention for him to attend: So you're a Meter Maid and an Asshole. We Can Help.
I seriously recommend you enroll this dude in some sort of sensitivity training before he mouths off to the wrong person. There are a lot of wrong people in the Tenderloin. But he needs to learn that there are good ones too, mostly, helping each other out in times of need that de-prioritize proper parking etiquette. That is not a grounds for punitive measures.

Bill O'Reily Promoted to Al Hayta Press Secretary

2005-11-17T22:06:00.000-08:00

WARNING: FOLLOWING IS VERY GRAPHIC, AND RIGHTFULLY SO. LEAVE YOUR P's AND Q's AT THE DOOR AND ENJOY, SF:

Check the SF Chronicle article

Thanks Bill, for motivating me to WEAR YOU FUCKING FACE into my punching bag. I got to buy another bag now because I put about 12 holes where your head should be. Right now, I hope you are on your rickety knees praying to whatever it is you pray to that SF don't get messed with now. Otherwise, think timeshare in the lovely Afghan mountains. Closer to your boss. YOU FUCK! If any of our 'Frisco children die because you went ahead as a forward observer for the enemy, IT IS ON. I got many dark alleys here picked out where I would LOVE to leave you BLEEDING and GAGGED, 'Frisco style with a gang of "sissies" queued up to do battle on your ass.

Maybe, as the Free Slightly Left People's Republic de San Francisco will follow the attack you are requesting with a little falsified documents about you keeping ladies underwear in your dresser, present it to the UN (which is here in SF, cunt), and do a little invasion of O'Reily's space. We are One Nation. You are a minion of lies.

Utterly and Sincerely,
Mike Conway,
SHOUT Magazine.

PS: Notice how Bush "assails" Iraq war critics, but Bill O'slimy's cum dumpster goes unchecked...

Cops vs Lawyers: American Civil Liberties Union

2005-10-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

Image by Granger Davis

Interview by Mike Conway

The City of Richmond recently found its culture of street crime under intense media scrutiny. Headlines spoke nightly of "Richmond’s renewed state of gang violence." But in all memory, blocks in the 948's were always hot. Inspired by the hype, citizens lobbied for a state of emergency: curfew, checkpoints, perhaps the National Guard—drastic stuff. Luckily, it was ruled a "bad idea."
It all begs the question "how far would folks go for security?" We spoke with both Richmond's Public Affairs Officer, Lieutenant Mark Gagan, and the North Cali ACLU's Police Policies Director Mark Schlossberg about emergency states and so-called "gang violence." Here's what Director Schlossberg told us...

Is declaring a state of emergency the right way to go?
No. It strikes me that a lot of communities plagued by violence generally have underlying problems that give rise to violence. Those problems include lack of economic opportunity, poor schools, and generally unstable environments. It doesn’t take a lot to see that people want to look for something more. In order to address the issues that give rise to violent crime, you need to look at those underlying problems. Law enforcement alone will never be able to solve problems of gang violence without a broader social approach to those underlying causes. You can’t solve criminal problems with a purely law enforcement approach. Police officers can’t enforce jobs, they can’t enforce schools, so they can’t enforce broader stability.

How are police identifying gangs and gang activity?
Without talking about a specific community, [detecting gangs] ties into the issue of racial profiling where officers will view certain members of a community as more likely to be a gang member, more likely to be a criminal. Then you get disproportionate interactions with law enforcement. And even if they don’t rely [solely] on race, they may use it in combination with other factors. [However] police should investigate gang activity like they investigate any criminal activity. You employ all the kinds of investigative tools that you do generally.

How do you discern between gangs and civilians?
Community policing and outreach is important. [But] community policing is only effective when you have the trust of that community. And if law enforcement stops people of color at higher rates, it undermines that trust and ultimately makes it more difficult for police to solve crimes. There needs to be strong accountablity systems to make sure that if there is police misconduct, that it’s dealt with swiftly and a community can have confidence that its police department is held to high standards.

What tools are officers given to develop this approach to gangs?
Police are like everyone else. They’re drawn from a society that has a problem with race. When you get people from society generally and you give them the power of the badge—in some instances you put them in a police department that traditionally has had problems with race—then those attitudes are reinforced through discussions and comments. That’s not to say that police officers are constantly thinking “There’s somebody who’s African American; I’m gonna pull them over.” But if you have unconscious bias, you’re gonna probably pull over more people of color. It’s a problem of law enforcement, but it’s clearly a problem of race and society that goes way beyond that.

Parting thoughts: what’s to be done?
Richmond has a police commission that is really a de-fanged entity. The Police Commission in Richmond really needs to be strengthened in a way that allows more open access to records, and that gives the commission more power to give policy recommendations. Generally, police departments and police unions resist independent oversight. The police unions have a powerful lobby in Sacramento because they have a lot of money and their endorsement is valuable. In the last 15 years, not one proactive police accountability measure passed in the legislature. Yet there have been several measures that have whittled away at police accountability.

Cops vs Lawyers: Richmond Police

2005-10-25T07:03:00.000-07:00

Image by Granger Davis

Interview by Mike Conway

The City of Richmond recently found its culture of street crime under intense media scrutiny. Headlines spoke nightly of "Richmond’s renewed state of gang violence." But in all memory, blocks in the 948's were always hot. Inspired by the hype, citizens lobbied for a state of emergency: curfew, checkpoints, perhaps the National Guard—drastic stuff. Luckily, it was ruled a "bad idea."
It all begs the question "how far would folks go for security?" We spoke with both Richmond's Public Affairs Officer, Lieutenant Mark Gagan, and the North Cali ACLU's Police Policies Director Mark Schlossberg about emergency states and so-called "gang violence." Here's what Lieutenant Gagan told us...

Is declaring a state of emergency the right way to go?
No. Funding was already given to us by voters, regardless of whether we created a state of emergency [or not], that was sufficient enough to create 15 additional officer positions. We divided [them] into three groups. The first and most visible would be officers on uniformed patrol, focused on the high-crime areas, doing what is called self-initiated activity. Another component would be an intelligence unit. These will be undercover detectives who will work with probation and parole officers to follow people involved in criminal activity. The third component is a bit longer commitment, which is officers in schools having a different type of relationship with the youth. Those officers will then be able to identify which kids are behaving in a way that leads to serious criminal activity.

How are police identifying gangs and gang activity?
We see territorial behavior as well as graffiti and even certain criminal activity that indicates an area is a gangland. The ironic thing about that is being able to prove gang-related crime is more difficult. Guys may be loitering and congregating in a gang area that they also happen to live in, but that doesn’t always mean they’re engaged in criminal activity. We don’t always know the motivations for a homicide, but there are times we suspect gang activity based on location, number of shooters, or the fact that other gang members were shot the night before.

How do you discern between gangs and civilians?
You don’t want to alienate civilians. And that’s where our intelligence officers put the most effort into: learning how to deal with the community and re-evaluate our interventions. Just because teenagers are hanging out in certain areas or listening to certain types of music does not mean they’re involved in gang activity, and it would be a huge mistake to treat them as such. And now you have a situation where [we’re] trying to clean up the streets and protect people, but we’re actually alienating those people we’re trying to protect.

What tools are officers given to develop this approach to gangs?
The most valuable tool I think our officers are given is the daily roll call, where officers interact with one another and expand upon certain situations and experiences from the day/shifts before. This is where the real specific and sophisticated techniques are given. We don’t have specific courses we give our officers. However, we have daily briefings where detectives and and others with insight into the community address the patrolmen that work the area and explain the crime trends. We have an elaborate crime analysis, and detectives track specific individuals known to be involved in criminal activity.

Parting thoughts: what’s to be done?
I have to say that if you asked me this question a couple of months ago, I wouldn’t know for sure. But now, I am certain that it has to start with the community and the family members of these people that commit crimes. There needs to be more honesty about what some of the youth in our community are doing. We’ve had homicides where kids have been murdered with $1500 cash, rock cocaine and a gun on their person, and family members tell us that the child wasn’t doing anything illegal. It doesn’t mean that is was okay that they were killed; it’s not okay. But we have to look at what behaviors contribute to this violence. Violence continues to exist because the community as a whole has not sent the message that we will not accept this. The police can not do this alone.

Hurricane Media and the Press Disaster

2005-09-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

image AFP/Getty Images/Joe Raedle

Hurricane Katrina has been one of the most intense and tragic of all real-life dramas. Ironically, from a mass culture obsessed with "realityTV," the true realities of this disaster were largely hidden or poorly presented in the media. It's emblematic of the wider dissonance between the people and the press. Yet, there were a few shining examples of what journalism is all about that deserve some props. Here's a few:

NPR's "All Things Considered" broadcasted this hard-news gem.

Jeff Chang is right on point, and has been, calling out the politics of abandonment. It's a dead-on denouncement of the Bush administration's legacy of criminal negligence—a variation of one of the themes he articulates in his book Can't Stop Won't Stop.

Or better yet, I think a Bush speaks best of how outrageously ignorant the Bush is.

And finally, —my personal favorite: —leave it to The Onion to level this dis on what has typified the deplorable biases revealed in language usage by the news:

White Foragers Report Threat Of Black Looters
NEW ORLEANS: —Throughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have reported seeing African Americans "looting snacks and beer from damaged businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already looted a fortune in diapers." Radio stations still in operation are advising store owners and white people in the affected areas to locate firearms in sporting-goods stores in order to protect themselves against marauding blacks looting gun shops.

And in a parting positive note, I just got back from Red Cross training today, where I am working to get deployed to the affected areas. There, it struck me; the people in that room with me, all rarin to go and help, that is America. While our government prefers to show its true colors in the rockets red glare from bombs blazing half a world away, this true America -- the America of its people -- is found in countless rooms like these: where ever people come together to give time out of their own lives for the aid of total strangers that have lost everything. Yes, this is the worst disaster in a century; and yes, this is by far the most colossal example of a for-profit government fosaking its constituents. But there is also a great, mounting concern among Americans, of a magnitude no less potent than of the tragedy itself. That is the America I defended as a Marine, and it is that one I hope to serve through the Red Cross.

Cops vs Lawyers: SF Police Officers Association Pres. Gary Delagnes

2004-10-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

{ border: solid 2px #000000; } Image by Granger Davis

By Mike Conway

On April 10, 2004, police officer Isaac Espinoza was killed in the line of duty in San Francisco. When a suspect was brought to court, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris refused on principle to pursue the death penalty. Police officers across the country were outraged, and no cop was more vocally opposed to her decision than Inspector Gary Delagnes, president of San Francisco’s Police Officers Association. Inspector Delagnes joined the police force in 1978, & was a narcotics officer for over 12 years.

SHOUT: Inspector Delagnes, explain your position on prosecuting the murder of Officer Espinoza.
INSPECTOR DELAGNES: 'It is our belief that when you kill a cop, it’s the same as killing a politician or anyone that represents the community and works to keep that community safer. We feel when someone like that is murdered, it goes beyond a normal crime. Especially due to the fact that we’re dealing with more and more dangerous criminals that all seem to have assault weapons. A message needed to be sent that if you kill a cop, you face the ultimate penalty.
'We understand that Kamala Harris is against the death penalty, but we felt this was so extraordinary that she needed to reverse herself. We’re moving on, though. At one point we tried to get the Attorney General on the case, that didn’t happen. The DA is going to proceed, she did not take the death penalty and we just got to live with that, and we also understand that we have to live in concert with the DA and we have to work together on a lot of different issues and we have to get to work. We can’t exist as enemies.'

How is Kamala Harris different from former DA Terrence Hallinan?
'I would characterize the Hallinan tenure as a bad joke. He obviously didn’t understand–in my opinion—the role of the DA, what a DA does. No matter how liberal you are, no matter if you’ve been a defense attorney your whole life, once you become a DA, your job is to prosecute criminals. I don’t think he ever grapsed that.
'I worked narcotics before I took this job, and here’s the point the cops are trying to make: if you don’t want to prosecute quality-of-life crimes, then you get what you pay for. You have street dealing of heroin, crack, meth-amphetamines, or for that matter marijuana going on up and down Market (mostly by people from the East Bay). So when the tourist from Iowa, Arkansas, or Texas comes to San Francisco and sees this and asks “why is it such a mess here?” don’t expect people to come back here for vacation. That’s what we’re hearing more and more—”this city is a mess; we’re not coming back.” So what happens? The economy goes bad, hotel tax and tax revenues go down.
'If you talk to politicians from New York, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, they made a concerted effort to be aggressive on quality of life crimes. If you want people to visit our city and feel safe, you’d better do something about things like drug sales and aggressive panhandling. That’s not to say we throw offenders away in prison for ten years.'

How will you work with the DA's office going forward?
'Despite what occurred on the death penalty issue, we’ve always maintained that Ms. Harris is a career prosecutor that understands what needs to be done as a prosecutor. Is the philosophy gonna change in regards to quality of life crimes? I don’t know; it’s still early. We’re in a wait-and-see mode, but it’s gonna take time to change an inherent philosophy that’s occurred eight years under Terrance Hallinan.'

Lessons learned about media relations from the Espinoza murder case:
'I don’t give interviews to the Bay Guardian because what are they possibly gonna say that will make my people look good?'

What is your stance on quality-of-life-crimes?
'San Francisco finds itself in these tough situations because they wanna be liberal, they wanna boast about their liberal views politically. So when a situation comes up—that is homelessness, prostitution—they don’t really know what to do.
'If people don’t mind somone walking into the New Century Theater, or Mitchell Brothers, and paying money to sit in a booth, you know what? We don’t care, but then don’t have a vice crimes division. Because the vice division gets complaints, and we’re supposed to go out and investigate those complaints.
'The vice unit would never go into these places unsolicited. The people we get complaints from are usually tourists that go in for a show; they don’t understand what’s going on and the next thing you know, they get propositioned for sex in a booth and they get offended. And before the guy leaves town back to Iowa, he calls the cops and we have to respond.
'I’m in the personal belief that prostitution should be legalized and controlled. I think marijuana should be legalized. If it’s sold in a controlled setting, like sex, these are victimless crimes. If someone wants to go smoke a bunch of doobs, that’s [their] business. If you’re gonna legalize alcohol, I don’t see why you can’t legalize marijuana.'

What’s one thing you’d like the Hip-Hop Community to understand about your organization?
'The community needs to understand that the police department is on their side. We’re not in there to racially profile or abuse people. We’re there to give people the opportunity for a law-abiding, peaceful life. Having said that...
'Police work is a contact sport. If you see a cop in an altercation, it doesn’t mean the cop’s beating the person up. There’s fights, there’s physical contact, there’s people that go down. When that happens, it doesn’t mean the cop is being brutal.
'Our officers are governed by the Office of Citizen Complaints, and when people make complaints about excessive force or any other unwarranted action, they are investigated and reviewed by the OCC. The OCC takes in about 1,000 complaints a year, and they’re only able to sustain 60 of those one thousand. Most sustained complaints involve things like inappropriate language or attitude. Incidents of excessive force against a citizen are extremely, extremely rare. In 15-20 years there’s been no shooting by one of our officers that was deemed unlawful or illegal by the courts or by the OCC. It doesn’t happen.
'Until there’s an understanding in a community that we’re there to help, then what are we doing there?'

Cops vs Lawyers: SF DA Kamala Harris

2004-10-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

Image by Granger Davis. Interview by Mike Conway.

Kamala Harris is San Francisco’s first female DA, and California’s first African American woman to hold the office.

On April 10, 2004, police officer Isaac Espinoza was killed in the line of duty in San Francisco. When a suspect was brought to court, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris refused on principle to pursue the death penalty. Police officers across the country were outraged.

Several news media and alternative publications insist that this dispute has struck a gaping rift between the respective offices between the DA and the police. This rift only seemed to widen into other areas of law enforcement such as prostitution, where the DA’s office is working to change the police’s approach.

SHOUT: Explain your position on prosecuting the murder of Officer Espinoza.
District Attorney Kamala Harris: I am outraged by the cold-blooded murder of 29-year-old Officer Isaac Espinoza. He was a dedicated young police officer who voluntarily put himself in danger to protect the innocent. I must admit that I, too, felt an immediate desire for revenge. I have been a member of law enforcement for my entire career, and so I take personally the outrageousness of violence against a police officer. Wanting an eye for an eye is also one of the oldest and most natural of emotions. But as one of America’s greatest teachers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, “the old eye for an eye philosophy leaves everyone blind.”
The district attorney is charged with seeking justice, not vengeance. From my career in law enforcement and the law, it is clear to me that the death penalty is deeply flawed. [Instead] I have charged this case as a special circumstance homicide, which automatically carries a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. And, let’s be clear about that sentence: It means exactly what is says. People who receive this sentence will never see the light of day again.

How will you work with the police going forward?
KH: The police are like anybody else: they want to know what’s going to happen when they put in the long hours. If you have a bunch of police out working the streets, arresting people for certain crimes and then the DA doesn’t charge those crimes, they’re going to be frustrated. It’s irresponsible to not deal with that dynamic. We’re giving clear guidelines about what we will charge, and what we won’t charge, and in that way, everybody is on the same page.

Lessons learned about media relations from the Espinoza murder case:
KH: The media and the public has been conditioned to respond to bells and whistles—there’s a lot of guns and violence, and that’s what sells.

How ar you different from former DA Terrence Hallinan?
KH: I like to think of it not just as differences between me and my former opponent, but also as a new era and a new direction based on the current issues and problems to be solved.
For example, I’m thinking a lot about what we are doing about quality of life crimes—what can we do to have a drug policy that is appropriately strict when we’re seeing repeated sales of drugs, but at the same time, [a policy] that is appropriately compassionate when we’re talking about things like Medical Marijuana. I don’t see these things as being mutually exclusive; I don’t think we have to talk about the criminal justice system in a way that being compassionate means being soft on crime.
I came to the office and we had a backlog of 74 homicide cases, some as old as four years, and in my first six months in office, we were able to put a dent in that backlog and reduce that number by 36%. Within six months, we tried as many cases as we did all last year. It took making those cases a priority. I talked with judges and police letting them know we’re going full speed ahead on these cases, and everyone got on board. It was a welcome change. Anybody would admit there should be consequences when you commit a crime to harm someone. Those consequences should not be retaliation in the streets; it should be the consequences that result from the criminal justice system working, which means prosecutors working.

What is your stance on quality-of-life-crimes?
KH: With prostitution, consenting adults should be given certain latitude. [But] it’s a very complicated issue and I’m not prepared to say it should be legalized. When you talk about prostitution, there are many related issues: exploitation, violence and other crimes that surround prostitution. There is the issue of what prostitution does to a community. When it starts to harm individuals and communities, then something has to be done.
Kids are developing at a younger age; there are girls as young as 11 that are fully developed, but as soon as they open their mouths, you know they’re kids. I have instituted policies in this office basically to say that if an adult is having sex with a youth that is being prostituted, we can charge that person with child abuse. It’s literally changing the way we are looking at this issue.
I meet with Market Street merchants and families that live in the Tenderloin—and there are a lot of families that live there—and they can’t walk to the corner, their kids can’t walk to the park without being harassed by drug activity. So that concerns me. They have a right to live in a safe community. So I am taking quality-of-life offenses more seriously.

What’s one thing you’d like the Hip-Hop Community to understand about your organization?
KH: The point of my work is to not only ensure consequences to crimes, but also to protect the most vulnerable people in the community. And often, the people who are most vulnerable may also be people that aren’t the poster-child for sympathy. But that doesn’t mean I buy into that version of who we should care about. I’m prepared to go after people who victimize others which may live a lifestyle that is disliked by society at large.
One of the things that makes populations vulnerable to crime is if they don’t trust law enforcement and if they don’t have the means to communicate with law enforcement. That is just a fact. So the way we have to deal with that is to be present in these communities and to speak to them in their language and also recognize the experience they have traditionally had with law enforcement.
If someone is beating up or kills your brother, shouldn’t you be standing up? Shouldn’t you be saying, “he did it.” We have to dispel the perspective that whoever cooperates with law enforcement must be a snitch. That’s ridiculous. Can you imagine if everyone would come forward? I cannot as a DA charge somebody with the crime of murder without any evidence.

The Gift of Gab and Lateef the Truthspeaker

2004-06-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

pic by Bayeté Ross-Smith.
story by Mike Conway

Hip-hop is rarely the story of individuals. It’s more often the chronicle of crews. These tight social units come together over time, become family and sometimes emerge as dynasties. Over thirty years and counting and who knows what’s next for hip-hop?

One crew that will give you a good idea is the folks from Quannum collective. They have been hip-hop for well over a decade. And in 2004 Quannum has emerged with guns blazing as both a crew and a recording label LLC.

The crew formed in the early 1990’s, at UC Davis. Known then as the Solesides, the crew consisted of The Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel (collectively Blackalicious), Lateef and Lyrics Born (Latyrx), DJ Shadow, and DJ Zen (aka Jeff Chang). Joyo Velarde is never listed as a part of the crew in the Davis days, but she should be; she studied opera in Rome and influenced the Solesides’ breath control that is their signature rap technique.

Under the Solesides banner, the crew forged a dedicated underground following, with jams like “Deep In the Jungle” (1995), “Burning Hot in Cali...” and “Balcony Beach” (both 1996). The vibe was playful but edgy; lyrically the Solesides blend swift-lipped bravado with graceful word-play, and their production is all about potent, driving beats. In 1998, the Solesides changed their moniker, becoming the Quannum Projects LLC.

As if to show how tight they continue to be, the Quannum crew just finished a road-show last April on a bill titled the Quannum World Tour; it read like a P-Funk All Stars show: The Gift of Gab, Lateef, DJ Chief Xcel, Mr. Lyrics Born and Mrs. Joyo Velarde, DJ D-Sharp, the Lifesavas, and DJ Shadow.

Shadow played what might the hottest deejay item this Xmas: DVD turntables. He dropped visual cuts, and even spun up video alter-egos that did battle raps with the real Lifesavas onstage. He managed six turntables alongside deejays Chief Xcel and D Sharp. Joyo was a one-girl I-Threes. The crowd knew every word to Lyrics Born’s latest album, Later that Day. Lateef, rocking the A’s gear, had the whole hometown crowd waving its hands. And Gab was clearly the head Master of Ceremony.

Every one of them were onstage, in various combinations and all together, tight like DNA. They had no hollow agenda; their message was sincere: Have Fun and Change the Fucking World! It was a live definition of the Quannum collective ethic: you never get just one shining star; it’s always a family affair.

Quannum is an interesting name. Coined by Chief Xcel, it is derived from quantum physics. Physics suggest mind-boggling equations with formidable symbols representing matter and energy. In the Quannum equation, each integer says a lot about the crew’s energetic work ethic.

Take a look at two integral parts of the crew: The Gift of Gab and Lateef the Truthspeaker. They’re the kind of rappers that make you feel sorry for a lot of other emcees. The volume of raps and skills they kick is enough to swell your brain. These two bring an endless range of rhymes that span from battle raps to social commentary to spirituality to some damn good advice; and they do it with a simple clarity, sometimes all in a single song. They’ve worked together on most of Quannum’s projects, and toured together across the world. Each are now driving new projects down uncharted paths. Gab completed his premier solo flight, and Lateef is putting together his first full-length outside of Latyrx.

The Gift launched his solo Fourth Dimensional Rocket Ships Going Up back in May. Gab envisioned this project four years back when he was working with Chief Xcel on Blackalicious’ Nia album. But he’d only found the time to do it over a year ago. In between Blackalicious tours, he would trek to Seattle to develop and record the album with producers Jake One and Vitamin D. Though Gab’s neck-snapping raps may sound familiar, his production team features beats that are laid-back like a late-night discussion between sounds. Fourth Dimensional is Gift of Gab as his own element, apart from Blackalicious. Apart, but not separated: “It’s always healthy in any group to reach out and work with other people as well because that’s how you grow; that’s how you bring back strength to the group,” Gab says.

Meanwhile, Lateef kept Blackalicious deejay Chief Xcel busy in the form of the Maroons; they’ve just released the EP Ambush with a long-player on its way this September. “X don’t like me giving out secrets,” ‘Teef says about the project, “but there’s some EPMD stuff [on it] that’s like Brazilian and you wouldn’t know it unless somebody told you.” Also, Lateef will bust his most overtly political rhymes to-date, building on social commentaries heard on tracks like “The Last Trumpet” and “Kalakuta Show”. But while labelmates Lyrics Born and The Gift of Gab went in more pioneering directions with their solos, the Lateef-and-Chief combo is taking it back the roots of hip-hop for a more classic, “straight-up-the-middle” sound, says Lateef.

It might be hard to imagine exactly what Lateef means by “straight-up-the-middle” until you check the lyrics deacon on stage. Doing his signature track “The Wreckoning”, for example, Lateef definitely keeps one foot firmly in the old school. “The stuff that I do is in keeping with what hip-hop is all about. We’re all really students of this,” says Lateef, fondly recalling how emcee PhD’s like Chuck D and KRS ONE respect his scholarly approach. “It’s really all the appreciation that I need.”

The Truth Speaker sees the same reverence for hip-hop’s origins in much of the music that has emerged from the Bay Area. “One thing about the Bay Area that is unique is over how it has evolved; it was always very open to all kinds of music from all kinds of different places. Of all those differentiations in hip-hop, they all exist right here, within a 100 mile radius.” Bay Area crews have embraced every style hip-hop has given them, and made it new time and again.

Gab concurs. He therefore cautions against using labels divisively: “A lot of times, people get it twisted, like these are the conscious rappers over here and those are the gangster rappers over there. It’s like divide-and-conquer, like because I’m considered a conscious rapper, I’m not supposed to feel 50 Cent. To me, some of the dopest hip-hop ever made was gangster. What makes the music dope is it’s a circle of all different people in life.” Though he may have a different aesthetic than a bona-fide ballaholic like E-40, Gab none-the-less credits E-40’s style as a major influence, on him and all of hip-hop.

Labeling the music of Gift of Gab and Lateef, or the rest of the Quannum ensemble, is especially impractical. Every project they put out defies categories and opens hip-hop wide every time. Labeling music into types can never truly explain the avante-garde. “Because we can’t be packaged in a box,” Lateef says, “that hinders us when it comes to major [media] outlets. Even if the producers enjoy the music, they still have a hard time selling it to venues like MTV... If you’re locked into what media says hip-hop or rap is right now, you might not be able to hear what we’re doing.”

Yet while mass media may have a hard time wrapping their brains around quality independent hip-hop, major record labels won’t hesitate to pick up an underground artist. Blackalicious already signed with MCA for Blazing Arrow, which Gab explains as a “positive experience”. He notes that independent artists struggle to get on the radio and television. But if it’s done right, as was the case with Blazing, partnering with major labels can get artists over that hump to reach a wider audience. Just because artists may be “independent” doesn’t mean they can’t walk on a bigger stage. On Blazing’s track “4000 Miles” Gab explains it in a question: “who said that underground is only just one mode?”

However, while working with majors like MCA can be positive for the artist, the business end can get complicated. Take the example of royalties—the means by which an artist is compensated for their work. As an industry rule, artists are paid 12% of the total album sales in royalties. So if you cut 12 songs on an album, each song adds a point to that 12%. But for a group like Blackalicious, whose projects consistently yield 17+ songs, the value of each song then drops. And once you factor in collaborations with side-artists and sampling, all of which the artist has to pay, royalties become even less majestic. Under that royalty system, an artist has no incentive to do those extra songs, to sample this or that, or to collaborate with him or her.

But that’s where independent labels like Quannum Projects have a leaner advantage; they may have smaller appetites but bigger tables to seat creativity. Lateef puts it this way, “I don’t have to worry about my label flip-floppin around all the time and having that absorb my mental space. I always have a way that I could put out the records that I’m working on.” Together with that freedom, plus the resources Quannum has built as a crew, Lateef can collaborate with whomever on whatever. And at the end of the day, he can rest assured that Quannum has his back.

Creative-friendly environments such as this help to draw a circle of creative friends. That circle is the foundation of any crew worth its battle raps. Crews are a source of strength and support for its members. That support is vital, especially nowadays when the music industry at large is not inclined to develop the artists that they make millions on. Apart from being a very basic affiliation of friends and colleagues, the crew is just a better business model for creative individuals.

But all the complexities of business and media aside, Gift of Gab qualifies the music the Quannum crew creates as something higher: “We’ve been blessed by the opportunity to create, and I feel it’s my responsibility to utilize that blessing to the fullest.”