The Colorful Times » Music

Michael Jackson – Thriller & Billie Jean

Staff — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:30:11 +0000

So Michael Jackson has sold over one billion dollars worth of music in the year since his untimely death. That must surely beat Elvis Presley hands down to the title of “King of Music.”

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Speaking of a Star, Robin Thicke Shines

Vera Kufuor — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:08:55 +0000

The voices of many musical stars have left great impact on the heart but I struggled to change the channel as Robin Thicke’s smooth sultry voice cried out “lost without you…”

Even as his name struck across the screen, fading out to nothing, as when a match is lit, I was still frozen on the spot. From that moment I was a fan. Just when I thought I had heard it all before, this musical sweetheart came and turned my world upside down. He continually delivers all his songs with such heart, such beauty. As though the song, would be his last to sing.

It’s in The Morning, Robin Thicke’s most recent ballad with Snoop Dog is so fresh and so clean--just like the video. Shot in what looks like a picturesque haven, you want to be there and bask in its poetic light. There in the big bright bedroom is Robin Thicke with his lady, both lovingly teasing, just enjoying everything about being in love one day in the morning. When you are in love everything about waking up seems great. You do not rush. You take your time with everything you do. Any flaws seem to go unnoticed. All things appear wonderful and you ask no questions.

It is so beautiful to see how a man takes notice of his woman enjoying the water. Is not being in love great? In between are cuts to Snoop Dog and his woman enjoying themselves outside in an open top car before a beautiful sunset and just shy of the ocean’s blue waters. A simple video that speaks so much. The video is one to watch. Speaking of love, good luck to his lady Paula Patton and the new addition about to come into their world.

Everybody has a special gift. Some are lucky enough to know it and own it from childhood. Others have no idea of their gift until something or someone brings it out in them. What is certain is that all of us have a specific gift. If you are not yet aware of yours, here is hoping you can receive the keys of blessings from Heaven to unlock your gift. For Robin Thicke, the gift is his song.

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Former Stars Boycott Plans for Hip-Hop Museum

Cordell Reaves — Sat, 22 May 2010 15:43:00 +0000

I remember the early days of Hip-Hop growing up in Brooklyn–the music, the clothes. It was the beginning of something unique. Today it is part of mainstream culture globally, whether it is Japan or Cuba Hip-Hop lives everywhere.

A new museum interpreting the history of Hip-Hop is set to emerge where it all began in New York City. A number of Hip-Hop stars are objecting to the creation of the museum in Harlem. Their objection is not rooted in the potential presentation of this history, or in the quality of any personal portrayal, it is money. These are past stars from the very beginnings of Hip-Hop that have fallen on hard times and feel that the new museum should pay them for their stories.

KRS-One (pictured) siding with the boycotters: Makes you wonder if some of these Hip-Hop pioneers really are thinkers.

There are several things wrong with this scenario. Museums are not record companies; museums are not for profit organizations. Museums hold their collections in public trust; they take care of it so one hundred years from now people will understand the cultural and historical impact of the past. Museum funds come largely from donations and are supplemented by grants, most museums that are fortunate enough to have an endowment fund (the fund is an investment account that earns interest annually, the museum uses this interest as part of their operating budget) are barely able to cover the cost of paying basic bills, employing staff, running programs and maintaining the facility. Museums are expensive to build and run. Many artefacts have to be kept in a stable environment to ensure their preservation; temperature and humidity must be maintained at certain levels, air quality tested. Proper care and storage of collections is expensive to create and maintain, so are exhibits and programs. These limited funds have to be used to keep the place afloat and serve the interests of the present and future public.

While many of these artists are partially responsible for the explosion of Hip-Hop culture worldwide, a new museum dedicated to Hip-Hop cannot be expected to pay the bill. Museums do not purchase stories from the public. Most people who share their history do so to preserve it, because they feel it is important and should be remembered far beyond their lifetime. This is not a case of a corporate entity seeking to bilk an artist out of their earnings; it is a museum honouring those who began a movement. Our collective stories shape how future generations will see us. We want our own personal truth to be known. Firsthand accounts from the people who were there at the beginning of a movement or an event are the very foundations of history. We are a part of history whether we like it or not. We cannot opt out, only allow ourselves to be glossed over or misrepresented. So how do you want your story to be told? In your own words or someone else’s?

These issues are very personal to me. As a member of this profession, I am constantly confronted with the issue of diversity and a lack of representation in museum programming. It is something I have discussed with my colleagues at length and have worked for years to address. When I first learned about the Hip-Hop museum, it struck me as an amazing way to tell this ongoing living, breathing history. Hip-Hop is another amazing art form developed by African Americans and it is worthy of being discussed, understood and chronicled.

So now, in its birthplace the legacy of Hip-Hop is being held hostage over money. What about the potential economic impact of an institution like this? What about the tourists it will draw…the small businesses that will benefit? What about inspiring the younger generation of Hip-Hop drowning in materialism? Without a doubt, some of these artists signed deals that were unfair and did not pay them their worth, which is part of this story. The unscrupulous practices of some in the record industry cannot be used against a fledgling museum, which may play a role in bringing these matters to light. There is no justice in sabotaging a new institution attempting to tell a largely ignored history. There is however an opportunity here greater than the profit margin of a few. This is a chance to solidify the legacy of Hip-Hop. This museum will be a record of the impact and evolution of Hip-Hop as a culture. That is larger than one check to one individual, this belongs to the world. It is ours. A part of how we define and know ourselves. In the words of Common, – “I start thinking, how many souls Hip-Hop has affected. How many dead folks this art resurrected.”

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David Mensah: Man on a Mission to Revive Soul Music

bendelite — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:04:18 +0000

Remember the name. David Mensah could well be a rising star for the future, if his current outing is anything to go by. He seems to be a man on a mission—to single-handedly revive modern soul music—back to its rightful place in our hearts.

His debut album, Music is The Food of Love, expresses a vocal maturity that belies his age. One can only assume that he’s been personally groomed by the likes of either a Luther or Teddy, or that he’s just a born natural!

David Mensah - Music is The Food of Love - Get it from Amazon (UK)

Not only does Mensah accomplish the near impossible by delivering a wonderfully soulful ‘back in the day’ album, but he also manages to avoid succumbing to the current trend among young ‘R n B’ artists who seem to adore auto-tune and upbeat club tracks!

The album is essentially made up of laid-back mellow tunes, and a number of skilfully sensual ballads. Most, if not all, grow on you instantly. The stand out tracks (for me) are, Love in The Morning, My Day, Daydreaming and of course, Food of Love. They all deliver an amazing wind-swept feel, tinged with a passionate, uplifting blend of smooth jazz, and even gospel.

With this first album, David Mensah’s voice has been given a platform to express itself, and he duly rises to the challenge with seemingly remarkable ease. With a slick production style and a clutch of competent songwriters—including Wayne Brown, Jonathon Butler, and Junior Giscombe—the album can hold its own.

He also attempts a few more upbeat funky numbers, with varying success—probably in an attempt to attract a more mainstream audience. However, this is not his strong suit, and it’s the soothing, jazzy, mellow flow, that ultimately refreshes the parts the upbeat tracks cannot reach.

Music is The Food of Love is certainly a worthy début from a new young British talent.

Watch this space!

David Mensah Rockstar!

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The Brief Life and Tragic Death of a Rare and Talented British Soul Singer

Staff — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:16:34 +0000

If things had gone to plan, Ephraim Lewis would have been a household name. Music execs spent millions trying to turn the boy from Wolverhampton into the British Michael Jackson. Then in 1994, Ephraim jumped from a balcony in Los Angeles. The secrets of his brief, troubled life only emerging a year after his death.

On Thursday, April 21, 1994, 500 people gathered at the Darlington Street Methodist Church in Wolverhampton for the funeral of Ephraim Lewis, a 26-year-old professional soul singer. Big funerals are a cultural tradition among Britain’s black community, but this one was unusual for reasons other than its size. Lewis had died more than a month before, in Los Angeles, in violent and mysterious circumstances, and it had taken that long to get his body back home for burial. Now, at the funeral, tensions erupted between members of the Lewis family and mourners from Lewis’s musical life.

Publicity shot for the launch of Britain's answer to Michael Jackson.

Annie Roseberry, the veteran record executive, was then head of the London office of Lewis’s record label, Elektra. “The family became very peculiar about the whole thing. I think they felt record companies and managers were evil people. I guess, when anybody dies young, you look for someone to blame, but it was outrageous.”

Kevin Bacon, co-owner of Sheffield’s Axis Studio, was one of the two men who discovered Lewis. “We went to the funeral and left straight away; there was so much negative stuff going on. People were going around asking, ‘How did Ephraim really die?’ and ‘Are you David Harper?’ in kind of a threatening way.” David Harper was Lewis’s manager. A well-known figure in the rock business, who also managed Robert Palmer and UB40, he had paid for Lewis’s body to be returned to England and for most of the funeral expenses, but he stayed away, aware of the family’s hostility toward him.

Nor did the ripples resulting from Lewis’s death end with the funeral. That summer, Elektra shut down its London office -- its main artist in its brief two-year existence had been Ephraim Lewis. And things changed dramatically at the legendary US parent label, Warner Elektra, which had signed The Doors and a host of other west coast acts in the sixties. Chairman Bob Krasnow, who had personally escorted Lewis around the US in Warner’s company jet to promote Lewis’s first and only album, left after a period of protracted corporate infighting, made redundant by the company.

Then, in September, the Lewis family, still muttering their suspicions about Elektra and David Harper, filed a claim against the Los Angeles Police for causing Lewis’s death.

But the public repercussions concealed a deeper private saga. Hidden from the view even of close friends and music industry professionals, Ephraim Lewis’s death was the latest act in a family tragedy and the final destruction of an extraordinary family drama -- the dream of creating a British version of the Jackson Five, with Ephraim Lewis as Britain’s Michael Jackson. Ephraim who? You’ve probably never heard of him, but everyone who knew him, from relatives and teachers to fellow musicians and top record executives, think you soon would have. They are unanimous in believing that, at the time he died, Lewis was on the verge of becoming a pop superstar. The comparison with Michael Jackson is not far wrong, although the two men didn’t look or sound alike. Lewis was a muscular, very black man with a big voice -- a ‘gospel voice’, according to his brother Terence -- and, where Jackson was a singer-dancer, Lewis was more of a singer-actor. What Lewis and Jackson had in common, they say, was the sheer scale of their talent.

“Ephraim had the qualities to be a massive star,” says Kevin Bacon. “This was somebody so brilliant at what he did he never thought about it. Most singers have tremendous egos based around their insecurity about their own singing. Ephraim didn’t have that kind of ego because it never occurred to him there was anything he couldn’t do.”

Annie Roseberry, who has worked with the likes of Bono, was just as impressed. “I’ve never worked with as good a singer and I doubt I ever will again. His voice was exceptional, and there was something about him, a quality that very successful artists have -- a sense of himself, a sense of what he wanted to be and what he wanted to sing.”

Richard Hawley, a Sheffield musician, knew Lewis well. “I thought I could sing until I heard Ephraim. He was as good as Sam Cooke, if not better. It was awesome.”

Ephraim Lewis was the youngest of eight children born to Jabez Lewis and his first wife. One of five brothers, Jabez arrived in Wolverhampton in 1955, in the early wave of Jamaican immigration to Britain. He married almost immediately, bought his house at the age of 21, and settled down to work on the factory floor at Goodyear Tires. The children came quickly, too -- six boys and two girls in 11 years. In 1962, Jabez followed his wife into a strict gospel church, the Wesleyan Holiness Church, which was devoutly opposed to smoking, drinking, and much else besides; it was, coincidentally, the same church to which Sam Cooke’s father -- himself a driven man -- also belonged. It was Jabez who formed the Lewis Five as a copy of the Jackson Five, with his sons; Derek, Tony, Sylvester, and Ephraim as lead singer. All the family were musical. Jabez himself played guitar with the Five. But he knew nothing about the music business and, with his new-found faith, confined the Five to playing religious music.

As the boys grew up, they broke away. Derek, Sylvester, and Tony formed a secular group called The Trimmertones, with a cousin and did quite well around the local clubs, releasing an independent single and touring as far afield as Holland and Ireland, with Jabez relegated to the role of part-time roadie. Then they too broke up, as innumerable local groups do, starved of sufficient money and success.

In 1984, Ephraim’s mother died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage. Her death marked the end not only of Jabez’s musical ambitions, but of his family itself. Ephraim was then 16, the last child still living at home. He promptly left and returned only for very rare visits.

Jabez Lewis is guarded about what happened. “Ephraim, he was very close to his mother and his mother loved him. But, with all the children, when they grow up and begin to rebel, they don’t want to go to church, you see. That’s how it begins. I tell them all they don’t need to go out in the tough world to make money, they can make religious songs and get money from it. But they want the limelight.”

Ephraim was the youngest, and of all the children, the one trying hardest to make something of his life. The rest of them, they finish school and unfortunately they never hold down a good steady job. Ephraim was the only one. What he doesn’t say is that the religious dispute was the tip of the iceberg. His wife’s death and Jabez’s rapid remarriage brought out deep and bitter divisions between Jabez and his children. In later years, Ephraim would join Terence and some of the others to “confront” Jabez about their upbringing. Of the eight Lewis children, two -- Sylvester and Ephraim -- died in their twenties. Two others are in and out of psychiatric hospitals. The rest survive as best they can. “An awful lot has been swept under the carpet in this family,” says Terence Lewis today.

Ephraim was always the exception. He didn’t seem to have any problems. But then Ephraim had his talent. Barry Cade, headmaster of Ephraim’s old school, and himself a former actor, recalls Ephraim as “a boy of outstanding intelligence and tremendous sensitivity. In 27 years of teaching the performing arts, I’ve never seen such a talent. For a long time when he was with us, Ephraim was cooking his own means and washing his own clothes. He was the classic kid from a deprived background who you’d have thought would go the way of all flesh, but he seemed to have a courage that enabled him to stand back from all that.”

Ephraim took a while to find his way out. He lived in Stoke and London, supporting himself by working in fast-food joints and a gas station, while he searched for a way into the music business. Then, in 1990 (aged 22), he was finally taken up by Kevin Bacon and Jonathan Quarmby’s Axis Studio in Sheffield. Bacon and Quarmby were among the numerous small independent producers in Britain who acted as talent-supporters, nurturing and developing new artists for the big record companies.

Lewis moved to Sheffield, where Bacon and Quarmby became his producers, song-writing partners, and substitute family. For the next four years, Bacon and Quarmby made a huge emotional and professional investment in their discovery. When Elektra signed Lewis in 1991, it looked as if the trio’s work might pay off.

Lewis recorded his first album, “Skin” with Bacon and Quarmby as producers. “We’d imagined it as a small-scale album from a new artist,” recalls Kevin Bacon. “The first step on Ephraim’s career ladder. Instead, when Bob Krasnow heard it, he went berserk about it and put millions of dollars into promotion to make it happen.”

Annie Roseberry confirms this. “Ephraim was adored by the chairman, adored by the people in this company. Krasnow’s interest in him was very unusual. No artist I’ve ever worked with has had the exposure and the treatment Ephraim got from Elektra.”

But the big push, in Bacon’s words, “sort of backfired.” Despite some critical acclaim, “Skin” sold only modestly -- fewer than 150,000 copies world-wide. Elektra remained committed, but wanted more commercial songs. A tug-of-war developed between the record company and Bacon and Quarmby. By the time preparations for Lewis’s second album got under way in 1993, it was clear that Lewis was moving on and up, and that Bacon and Quarmby wouldn’t be going with him.

It’s a credit to all involved that things didn’t turn nasty at that point. Lewis was an attractive young man -- cheerful, optimistic, the sort of person other people put aside their own needs and ambitions to help. But Lewis was also a man with secrets; for instance, about his sexuality.

A year before he died, Ephraim broke up with his long-time girlfriend and began an affair with Paul Flowers, a Sheffield graduate student. “We met in Sheffield Botanical Gardens by chance,” Flowers remembers. “I was openly gay, but Ephraim wasn’t ready to call himself gay at the time. We arranged to meet again and just sort of fell in love. Ephraim had an incredible presence. He glowed with energy. I was always amazed at how people reacted to him. By early 1994, the affair had become “a life of domestic bliss,” says Flowers. By all accounts, Lewis was in a buoyant mood, which made his sudden death all the more inexplicable to family and friends. He had solved his sexual problems, becoming, as he told Flowers, “a whole person at last.” He had solved his financial problems, recently buying a black BMW with his Elektra money. He was also on the verge of solving his musical problem, which had always been to find the right material to match his voice. Lewis was not an experienced songwriter. Now Elektra had decided to send him to Los Angeles to work with top composer Glen Ballard, who has written hits for Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, and many others.

“Ephraim came to school to see me just before he left for the US,” recalls Bary Cade. “He seemed as if the world was finally opening up for him.” Six weeks later, he was dead.

Around 7:00am on March 18, 1994, LA police responded to reports of a “naked man acting crazy” at 1710 Fuller Avenue -- a typical, small Hollywood apartment building, four stories built around a courtyard, each apartment with a balcony facing inwards. The naked man was Ephraim Lewis, who had been living at 1710 Fuller Avenue while he was in LA, working with Ballard.

Lewis was due to fly home that day, and the previous night he had arranged a farewell dinner with Robin Fish (a mutual friend of Lewis and Flowers). But Lewis cancelled, saying he had to meet David Harper instead. There is evidence that Lewis, who had concealed his homosexuality from his manager, planned to “come out” to Harper. Lewis then cancelled Harper too, playing one appointment against the other.

“That was typical Ephraim,” says Kevin Bacon. “He wasn’t the most reliable person.” With Ephraim, “I’m definitely going to be there” meant “probably not.” Though no one knows who (if anyone) Lewis met that night, we can make an educated guess. While in LA, Lewis told Flowers, he’d been going around the West Hollywood gay scene. He’d been really enjoying that side of himself which he hadn’t been able to before. The West Hollywood gay bar scene is far more open and active than any British equivalent. Its casual sex and drug use are almost politically correct rites of passage for many young LA gays. And Lewis had become militant about his new sexual identity. “He wanted to be a positive gay black role model because there are so few in the black community,” says Flowers.

Lewis family members and friends are adamant Ephraim was not an habitual drug user. Indeed, they say he was strongly and vocally anti-drugs. But that is not the whole story. Terence, his brother, saw him smoke pot, and Kevin Bacon, when asked if he and Quarmby ever saw Lewis use amphetamines (speed), preferred not to answer. The postmortem found a small amount of speed in Lewis’s body, but not enough to account for his naked, bizarre behaviour on March 18th. However, it is now clear Lewis had been on a metamphetamine binge for several days, which can produce metamphetamine psychosis, a state of paranoid derangement.

Lewis was also terrified of the police, who repeatedly stopped him in Britain in his BMW -- “A black man in a posh car. I’ve never had so much police attention as when I was with Ephraim,” recalls Flowers. When the LA cops arrived at 1710 Fuller, Lewis became more paranoid and, according to a report by the LA District Attorney’s Bureau of Special Operations, began climbing the outside balconies, “leaping from balcony to balcony, both horizontally and vertically, moving up and across the building.”

Lewis was singing to himself and shouting at the police to shut up. Reaching the top floor, he broke an apartment window and began stabbing himself repeatedly in the thigh with a shard of glass. By now, Robin Fish had turned up, looking for Lewis, who had broken a second breakfast date with Fish. He tried to talk Lewis down, but Lewis didn’t seem to recognize him and the cops pushed Fish away.

What happened next remains in dispute. But within minutes, Lewis had fallen or jumped from the top balcony, crashed through a ficus tree, and hit the courtyard, sustaining massive head injuries. He lingered, brain-dead, in a local hospital until, at 11:55pm that night, they turned off the respirator. Death is supposed to bring people together. More often, and especially if the death is violent and mysterious, it does the opposite. When the news reached Wolverhampton, most of the Lewis family went into shock, but Terence, the closest to Ephraim among his brothers, and Lewis’s cousin Naomi Hobbs went into action (among the extended Lewis clan, Hobbs is one of the ones who made it, became a barrister in her thirties entirely by her own efforts -- it was Hobbs who mobilized the family and spearheaded their attempts to question the LA police’s account of Ephraim’s death).

Unfortunately, in those early, confused days, Hobbs’ dynamism had other consequences. Ugly misunderstandings arose.

Eager to investigate for themselves, the Lewis family asked Elektra and David Harper for money to fly to LA. To Elektra and Harper, both of them knew of Ephraim’s equivocal relationship with his family, the requests sounded like greedy demands backed by insinuations that they had somehow been responsible for the death.

The Lewis family were out of their depth, treating the music business as an all-powerful establishment which should have done more and now ought to pay. For their part, Elektra and Harper were also at fault. They failed to tolerate the understandably turbulent emotions of the moment or to imagine themselves in the place of ordinary Wolverhampton people faced with a shocking, distant tragedy.

Communication was cut off. Silences were misinterpreted. Ironically, as Kevin Bacon notes, “the only mistake David Harper made was trying to protect the family” by withholding the full details of Ephraim’s behaviour that morning.

Other ripples from Lewis’s death also turned out to be misunderstandings. When Elektra closed their London office and Krasnow was made redundant, these events had nothing to do with Lewis. They were fallout of a brutal corporate battle among top New York executives at Warner Music.

But there still remains a question mark over the behaviour of the LA police. According to police, Lewis actually entered the top-floor apartment at 1710 Fuller where, fearing he was about to attack them with broken glass, the cops shot him twice with a “taser”, the electronic stun gun they use as a non-lethal alternative to real guns. Police say the taser had no effect. Lewis turned, ran back out on to the balcony, and either jumped or fell to his death.

However, some witnesses say Lewis never went inside, but remained on the balcony throughout, leading to the suspicion that it was the impact of the taser which knocked him over the edge.

“That’s the big discrepancy,” according to John Burton, the LA lawyer who represents the Lewis family. But it may not be enough for a case unless witnesses can be found who actually saw the taser hit Lewis.

There are other discrepancies in the police account, which is not unusual in LA. According to another LA lawyer who deals with similar cases: “I’ve always said, give me any police shooting or in-custody death and I can make it look like a conspiracy, no matter how clear it was. The police are so used to covering stuff up, they look like they’re doing it even when they’re not. They’re just not trained to tell the truth.”

Nor are they trained to deal with deranged people. “It’s a common problem here,” says John Burton. “The police don’t have the patience and they also see it as a macho thing, a challenge to their authority. Ephraim wasn’t hurting anybody. He was going to come down eventually if they’d kind of backed off and let Robin Fish talk to him. But they’ll never change.”

Just as Lewis’s personality brought people together while he lived, so his death divided them. It destroyed not only his own dreams but also those of others. Like many of the people in this story, Kevin Bacon is “angry because Ephraim acted like a brat and threw it all away.” Richard Hawley, whose own band, The Long Pigs, was signed to Elektra, adds, “The music that guy had in him! He was like a guiding light for local musicians who are serious about what they do.”

But it is Paul Flowers, who loved Lewis last, who puts it best: “Ephraim Lewis changed the lives of everybody he met. He certainly changed mine. It was incredibly liberating and now he’s gone, it’s incredibly painful. And none of it needed to have happened. If one little thing had been different that night…it was all like these stupid circumstances came together that ended up with him dead.”

This is a slightly edited version of an article that appeared in Mail on Sunday (London), January 8-10, 1995 © Associated Newspapers Limited. For more information on Ephraim Lewis (1968 -- 1994), visit the unofficial fanzine.

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We Are Africans (Review)

Cyril Husbands — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:16:43 +0000

There are many reasons to like JJC’s We Are Africans; a positive, inclusive and unhesitatingly pan-Africanist message, contributions from several rappers, including women rappers and a music video for the remix featuring the wonderful Femi Kuti that was made in Lagos, that could have easily been made in London, with less complexity and almost certainly at lower cost.

So, everything works about this creative endeavour, except for one vital detail: the song. Much of the music from ‘Anglophone’ West African nations (in other words, those formerly colonised by the British) has developed into a generic, heavily American influenced sound. This recording in its various versions is no exception. The Femi Kuti remix amply demonstrates the folly of this. His characteristically fluid saxophone solo is drowned in a poor mix and sounds like the afterthought it most likely is; a sad waste of great talent.

I have no doubt that the various versions of this recording will be played by many people for many years to come. This is a good thing, because the message contained in the music is a worthy one. However, I cannot help wishing that the music matched the message.

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Kindred the Family Soul: The New Old School

Dani — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:25:08 +0000

Our grandparents had Ruby and Ossie. Our parents had Ashford and Simpson. Our generation…Well, we have Will and Jada, Beyonce and Jay Z, and Aja and Fatin. Aja and Fatin you may ask? But outside of Philadelphia, they are better known as Kindred the Family Soul.

Kindred brought a fresh sound to the radio in 2003 with their début album Surrender to Love. Their sound, indicative of classic Philly soul, is rare in today’s music industry where misogyny, violence, and money dominate the airwaves. They are even more of a rarity when you consider that they have maintained their relationship, which seems to be temporal in today’s entertainment industry, and…are you ready? They have six children. No Brad and Angelina here; all six of their brood were born to the couple.

I first saw Kindred at The Black Lilly, the place to be at the time in Philadelphia to see up and coming artists like Floetry, Jazmine Sullivan or Kindred. It was also the place to see household names in the music industry like the Roots, Musiq, and Jill Scott. The Black Lilly is no longer, but the music still thrives. Kindred is not only a household name in Philadelphia, but a name that is recognized across the globe. To date, Kindred have put out three albums with Hidden Beach Recordings; the label that is also responsible for Jill Scott.

Surrender to Love
By far the album with the most success was the first, Surrender to Love, an album that deals with love on all levels, personal growth, family, and the hang-ups about everyday life. Bright spots on the album include the smash hit, Far Away, Surrender to Love and a cameo by a young Jazmine Sullivan and Ursula Rucker, legendary spoken word artist.

In This Life Together
They followed up Surrender to Love with the highly anticipated, In This Life Together (the same title as the autobiography of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis). This album gave us the hits Where Would I Be (the Question) and Struggle No More featuring India Irie. As I listen to this recording, I get a better glimpse of the Family that comprises Kindred the Family Soul; the struggles of maintaining a relationship and dealing with a growing family as well as an emphasis on the familial ties that extend beyond the household--community.

The Arrival
In 2008, the duo put out their third album, The Arrival. This didn’t get the same commercial success as their first outpouring, but it was classic Kindred: a new kind of old school. Again the couple play on their relationship and the songs are indicative of an enduring and renewed love. The album also expands on their level of consciousness and the need for us to get our minds free despite the hardships we face. My personal favourites are Alright and Just the Way You Are.

Six is It
Their latest project is a reality series called Six is It, a real-life look into Kindred’s life over the past few months leading up to the birth of their sixth and final child (according to them). After watching the first webisode, I’m highly anticipating the rest of the season. As I watched, I pondered why there isn’t more of this kind of material on TV stations like BET, TV1 or VH1. Instead, we are fed with train wrecks like Franki and Neffe, Jersey Shore, Flavor of Love, or I Love NY.

What differentiates this show from other reality TV is the format--the web--and there is no camera crew or network calling the shots. The show is shot by the couple themselves or friends and is edited by yet another friend. In essence, it’s a slightly edited, raw, home video. While watching, I could feel the love between Aja and Fatin as they dealt not only with everyday issues, such as inserting a car seat, but also preparing for shows on the road together. As a woman, Aja made being pregnant something to look forward to rather than a 9-month plague. She carried her pregnancy well and still belted out those tunes as if a new life wasn’t almost fully grown inside her.

You can watch their webisodes here. Enjoy!

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HAITI: Judgement Coming on The Land?

Staff — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:20:25 +0000

JUDGEMENT COMING ON THE LAND by Misty In Roots from The John Peel Sessions (1979-1986) is perhaps my favourite John Peel moment.

MISTY IN ROOTS’ status in the canon of British Reggae is unparalleled; not just because of the band’s longevity (still going strong) but also because they have stuck to their original brief of playing spiritual, rootsy, African fusion reggae, and preaching a message of unity, one love and understanding as relevant today as in the glorious heyday of ‘Rock Against Racism’ in the late 1970s.

Photography © Newton U. Brown (2010).
One bad-bwoy photographer.

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Hip-Hop Mozart

Paul Boakye — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:54:20 +0000

Voted the 3rd Best Classical Moment of 2003 by the New York Times, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is by no means your average classical musician and composer.

As one of the few African-Americans to have danced with Bill T.Jones, played with Philip Glass, and jammed with DJ Spooky, his fusion of classical and hip-hop music has been embraced by orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the United States and he is quickly developing a new and diverse audience for his music elsewhere.

In fact, Daniel was the first artist to perform hip-hop music at Carnegie Hall. I caught up with the boy wonder to discover what it means to be a young, black man in an older, complex, multi-coloured world.

What sparked your interest in classical music and the violin in particular?

I was five years old and my elementary school had an orchestral programme, very rare these days in the States, and it was just something that I wanted to do. I was fortunate enough to have a family that was very supportive, specifically of playing the violin. My mother and father came to every concert I did as a young child. So I had the support of my family, school teachers, and my community in a way. These things combined to have a big influence on propelling me forward in my career.

You’ve won countless awards. Is there an award that you would most like to win, and why?

A Grammy! I’ll tell you why. I’m not gonna lie. I admire so many of those musicians who win Grammies and a lot who don’t by the way. And again it would be a huge international validation of what I’ve been trying to do my whole life. So, we’ll see if that happens. And actually, I’ll tell you even more than that, I would love to win a BRIT Award, man, and be on that live show you guys do. I’m an American so I’ve got to say a Grammy. But I’m not lying: number two would be a BRIT Award. Seriously, I was even talking to Ben Harper about this as you know, and London right now musically is where it’s at! If I could find a way to spend the next two years of my life in London, I would do it. Not only for the music but for political reasons too.

Is race still an issue in the classical arts today?

Absolutely! And there are two ways to look at it. One way would be anger: for many years I was an angry young man rallying against the forces, if you will. Now that I’m older, I’m probably just as angry but a little wiser about it in my approach. I’m not as interested in alienating the very people I’m trying to reach. But sure, racism, sexism, still exists in classical music. And it is changing at the same time. My work is supported. I am Assistant Composer in residence with the Orchestra of Saint Luke, specialists in world class chamber music, and at the very same time I’ve had a lot of critical success in the classical music world. My application and responsibility as a black composer is now to create opportunities for other composers, not only black and minority composers but women composers too. In fact, anyone who is good, that’s the bottom line! Here’s the thing, right now classical music, generally speaking, is still consumed with the notion of white men writing music. Now that’s 90% if not higher of most orchestras’ repertoire. It’s kind of ridiculous if you think about it because, look, that’s not the totality of the human experience. Obviously not!

You’ve worked with a range of musicians and composers including Cassandra Wilson and DJ Spooky. You’ve even been described as the hip hop Mozart. What fuels your desire to merge different musical genres?

That’s the notion in which I grew up in South Florida. South Florida is very diverse. You’ve got Haitian, Bahamans, Dominican Republicans – you just don’t have black Americans alone. And all of these different types of people have their own music they listen to. And, children are children, so in my neighbourhood when we were forming our little rock bands, or whatever, everybody was bringing in their own musical influence. I grew up surrounded by great local musicians, and I mean, great local musicians. Everybody played every instrument and that’s just the way it was. If we needed a drum player, and we didn’t have a drum player, then you played the drums. If you were going to do a gig and they needed jazz music then you’d learn to play jazz. If the next week they wanted rock then you’d do the same again with rock. More recently in my work, I’ve narrowed it down to specifically hip hop and rock music combined with a classical instrument form.

Have you any plans to tour the UK or Europe and why would a European audience connect with your music?

Ooh! I was in Italy in September with Bill T. Jones and company. Man, I’ve got to get to London somehow – maybe you can help me do that? I’d like to hope that I have a European persuasion, I really would. Well, look, my parents are from Haiti and Haiti is such a mix of the Caribbean and the French and the Spanish. You really see that in the culture and in the dialect, even the philosophy identifies much more with European culture than with African-American culture for sure. I think that my music in its use of specifically strings and notation, everything is written down in one way or another, but also in the fact that so much of my music follows classical music forms. Even the funkiest thing that I’m doing will pay a lot of attention to form and those forms are classically based. In so many ways, classical music is much more a European art than not. The other thing is that I’m doing things which for a lot of people are still, believe it or not, kind of radical.

As an African-American of Haitian descent do you spend much time in Haiti and what do you think of the current political situation there?

Actually, I’ve never been to Haiti. It’s something that I didn’t plan, it just happened that way. Now because of the political tensions there, it’s going to be at least another few years before I can realistically go. There are so many very easily understood reasons for what’s going on there: it’s no different from a lot of Pan-African countries. The vacuum in their political leadership combined with a really backward take on an economic structure is just devastating. As an artist what can you do? I’ve written at least a few pieces using Haitian folk melodies in their construction; Haitian Essays is an orchestral piece that I wrote. It’s ironic that whenever Haiti comes to the forefront of our mainstream media here these pieces get played a lot. In that sense, maybe, it brings some consciousness to the arena. One thing I do struggle with as a black American composer of Haitian descent is that America is very compartmentalised, and at the same time the most pervasive part of our life is television and the media. In other words, if it’s not on Billboard’s ‘Top 100′ most people in America won’t even know you exist. They will never have heard of the music or the musician. And you could say the same thing across the board about dance, theatre, television, the movies, books and writing; and I think that is something very different certainly from what’s happening in England. Ironically, in America one of the things we always talk about is free press; it’s our big flagship, we fly that flag high, but it’s not really true.

Do your dreadlocks symbolise anything more profound than a possible liking for reggae?

I’ve been growing my hair long for years, it’s loxed now, but for me it was always like a crown. I’ve a lot of Rastafarian friends and even some family who are very religious and spiritual people. For them, it may be about power, identification and identity, and being able to connect with a shared, I guess, cosmetic aesthetic or a love of reggae. If you suddenly grow your hair long you start to acknowledge and notice other men and women who have grown their hair long. There is an instant bond. I imagine that if I lost an arm I would suddenly have that bond with someone I met who had lost their arm. I’m working on a record right now called Dread Violin and, you know, it reminded me that the locks are something I actually started as a diary believe it or not. When I first moved to New York nine years ago I had shaved my head, and I said, well, you know, I’m gonna start growing my hair again. And in a way the end of my hair is always gonna be the beginning of my life and career here in New York City. So it really just started on that very simple premise. Now, it’s grown–no pun intended–it’s something that I think is a good thing for classical music. I can walk into the Buffalo Philharmonic with tattoos, piercing and dreadlocks and without having to say anything, I’m saying something. And it is something that needs to be said in classical music and it’s something that the younger people who come to these concerts gravitate towards anyway.

What has been the greatest challenge in your life to date?

Balance – probably throughout my life that’s been the through line. When I was younger, trying to balance just having fun with my music lessons. As I got older I tried to balance and reconcile what I wanted to do to make a living against what I could actually do. The only thing I could actually do really well was being a musician. Now that I’m older still, I’m balancing all the things that go behind the career with the actual career itself. Of course, you know, personal life, relationships, got to think about family and all of these things. Yet my life has largely been unbalanced. I haven’t figured it out. I say that proudly, and although music has changed my life, it’s also saved my life.

That’s one thing I try to get people to understand about the arts. Despite all the things people hear about the arts having a therapeutic quality, like they can help you become a smarter person or do better in school, for me, the arts is like a religion. It’s like this friend, literally, that I’ve had all these years. I still have and play the same violin I played when I was five years old twenty-six years ago. I’m thirty-one. This inanimate object, the violin, has been the one constant thing in my life. And look, you can be forty years old and begin a relationship with the piano, and I can tell you that piano will never leave you; will never not stroke you or call you back. I know it sounds a little silly, but it’s not just a piano of course, it’s music. I mean, look, I had the flu the other day and I could do nothing else but listen to some CDs, and I still am constantly amazed at how instant those healing powers are; just listening to a great piece of music or even your mother’s voice, can help you feel just that little bit better.

www.dbrmusic.com

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