Keepingitreal

At Ailey, Stretching More Than Bodies

 The dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater are sleek, ferociously strong technicians. Audiences have ample evidence of this at every show of the company’s current New York City Center season.An emphasis on these dancers as artists, however, is often lost amid the physical feats and near nightly “Revelations” ritual. There was “Revelations,” Ailey’s signature hit, on Friday night, and there were those physical feats. But the program also featured “Dancing Spirit,” a premiere by Ronald K. Brown: finally, a vehicle that allows for the possibility of artistry. The work shares the title of Judith Jamison’s autobiography, and is intended as tribute to Ms. Jamison, Ailey’s artistic director. There is even a Jamison figure, the regal though somewhat stiff Renee Robinson. Yet the dance also suggests another path than the flashy, emotive, Broadway-esque style this company has cultivated during Ms. Jamison’s 20-year tenure. In its understated, inward intensity, “Dancing Spirit” requires that the audience lean into it. What a relief to do so, especially following George W. Faison’s sickly sweet “Suite Otis” (1971), a boilerplate mishmash of basic ballet and jazz. (Big kick! Run, spin, kick again!) The only thing less sophisticated than the choreography is Mr. Faison’s caricatures of couples, all dressed in lurid pink. Better to close your eyes and listen to Otis Redding’s rough and tender love songs. Matthew Rushing and Linda Celeste Sims somehow managed to make a little something of their cartoonishly hot and cold duet. But to see them again in “Dancing Spirit” was to see how much further they can go when not sinking into easy, long-ingrained performing patterns. Mr. Rushing in particular shone as the central male, digging into Mr. Brown’s complex rhythms so that you could actually follow their undulating progressions throughout his body. And what a delight to see Ms. Sims tearing through fierce, almost pugilistic material, as opposed to the lyrical roles she so often dances. The delicate but feisty Rachael McLaren also stood out, and all of the dancers were handsome in Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya’s white-and-blue, fabric-rich costumes. SOURCE:NYTIMES.COM

Conversation with Booker T. Mattison, author of UNSIGNED HYPE

There are few people who have achieved the success of Booker T. Mattison and managed to remain as humble and appreciative as he is. He is the author of the novel UNSIGNED HYPE as well as a filmmaker who wrote the screenplay for and directed the film adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's "The Gilded Six Bits," which aired on Showtime. His films have been screened at the Smithsonian Institute, the Library of Congress, the Directors Guild of America , and Harvard University . Music videos that he has written and directed have aired on BET, MTV Europe, and the Gospel Music Channel.

Mattison's novel UNSIGNED HYPE has been chosen as the Book of the Month for the Hip Hop and Books Club during September 2009. ( Listen to author Booker T. Mattison's recent interview with Conversations LIVE! Radio here.)Thank you, Booker T., for taking out the time to talk with us today. Before we talk about your debut novel UNSIGNED HYPE I want to talk about you. How would you describe who Booker T. Mattison is?
I am an author and filmmaker, but more importantly I am a professional husband and father.

You have been busy working in music and even film. What led you to writing the book?
Believe it or not, the opportunity to write this book kind of fell in my lap. A publisher friend of my literary agent asked her if she could find a story with a teenaged black male protagonist that wasn't all about sex, violence and drugs. My agent asked me if I could write it because all of her other writers are women. Even though we didn't wind up going with that publisher, once the story was birthed it was ready to find an audience.

Is reading something that you enjoyed growing up?
I have always enjoyed reading. I'm thankful that my mother and father emphasized the importance of reading, and education in general. It's difficult to develop an appreciation for books if you're not introduced to them at a young age.

You happened to weave together a story where the characters dealt with their own personal demons as well as external forces. What led to your writing this story?
Since I'm a former rapper, producer and ex-knuckle head, the story flowed out of many of my own personal experiences. I think that's why the characters in the book resonate with so many people. Essentially, each character in the book represents an aspect of my life or a particular part of my personality.

You talk about being a proud father. When we talked on Conversations LIVE! Radio not too long ago I didn't ask you about the legacy you wanted to leave for your children. When they read the book, what do you hope they think of when it comes to who wrote it?
I want them to remember that their father was a man of integrity, a man of character and a man who embraced truth no matter what the cost. I also want them to recognize the importance of using their God given talents to promote a point of view that is consistent with how God views the world.

Read the entire interview here: http://authorstaketen.blogspot.com/2009/08/take-ten-author-booker-t-mattison.html

ART OF KINDNESS FOR ART OF HIP-HOP: Annual Festival Will Go on Because of Support from the Community

Buffalo, NY—It goes without saying that our country has fallen into tough economic times. With these hard times, many programs have had to be cut in order to compensate for lower budgets. Programs at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery have become victim to such budget cuts. All the “Free Friday” programs that have been a hit during the summer months with Albright-Knox patrons were unfortunately cut this year. The most successful and highest attended of these events, The “Art of Hip Hop,” was one program that lost its funding, but with the help and support of the community and various cooperative marketing partnerships this important community event will go on. The Art of Hip Hop will be celebrating its fourth year at the Albright-Knox on August 28, 2009, honoring the history, creativity, and culture of Hip Hop. This free event will highlight some of Buffalo’s most promising artists and performers. Headlining this year’s event with be Billy Drease Williams, recently awarded Best Hip Hop Act and Best Solo Act by the Artvoice and Buffalo Spree respectively. Billy Drease Williams will be performing songs from his highly anticipated full length album “Good Morning Amy.” This year’s event will also include DJ Lo Pro, DJ Cutler, B-Boy Depree and the DFC, Stockbridge, and Pseudo Intellectuals. Local artists will also be creating large graffiti pieces on-site, weather permitting. A slew of other community events will be presented throughout the weekend as the “Art of Hip Hop Festival”; the full schedule is available at www.dtr45.com. This community favorite event would not have happened if not for the generosity of sponsors who gave their support even in these tough economic times. Sponsors of this event include DTR45, New Era, UB Student Association, Buffalo First, The African American Cultural Center, Homespace, Sakura Art Supplies, Demone Smith, Dude Nice Shirt, and Tomatoes Pizza.

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Egypt's golden boy king back in S.F.

Renee Dreyfus fell under the spell of Egyptian art at the age of 3, when her parents took her to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Decades later, she's still enthralled by the power and mystery of those exquisitely carved statues and gilded funerary masks."I remember looking up at those monumental sculptures that seemed all powerful and strong. There was something haunting about them," says Dreyfus, the curator in charge of ancient art and interpretation at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She's installing the much-anticipated "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibition that opens Saturday at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum.It arrives 30 years after the first blockbuster Tut show dazzled crowds that packed the museum in record numbers to see the eye-popping objects from the tomb of the "boy king" who ascended the throne of Egypt around 1332 B.C., at the age of 8 or 9, and died mysteriously a decade later.Dreyfus installed that show, too, and its success led to her establishing the museum's department of ancient art. Over the years, she's put together a series of splendid Egyptian exhibitions, among them "Eternal Egypt" in 2002 and the 2005 show "Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh."The big Tut show that opens this month - organized by National Geographic and other cultural entities with the cooperation of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities - has been seen by 5 million people worldwide since it first hit the road in 2005. It features about 50 objects from Tut's tomb, which was discovered intact by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, and 80 from the tombs of his royal predecessors - among those of Amenhotep III and his in-laws, Yuya and Tjuya - from the 18th Dynasty, during Egypt's golden age.The objects range from the magnificent coffinette, made of gold, carnelian, obsidian, rock crystal and glass, that held Tut's viscera, to Tjuya's gilded funerary mask; a life-size gray-granite statue of Tuthmosis IV and his mother discovered at the Temple of Amun at Karnak; and an intricately carved and inlaid mirror case in the shape of an ankh, made of wood, gold and silver leaf, from the tomb of the boy king. SOURCE:SFGATE.COM

Raw Art Exhibit at the Uptown

RAW ART EXHIBIT Presented by THE UPTOWN
Friday April 3rd 2009 Oakland Art Murmur Featured:
Artists: Carly Ivan Garcia Participating
Artists: Craig Kendel, Jeff Ingram,Collin Harris, Christopher Dworin,
Amy Johnson, Ethen B. Luce & Michele Collier
After Party at Ave Bar & Resturant
Guest DJ’s Megablack & Malachi
Complimentary Libations

ANNIE LENNOX RELEASES HER FIRST-EVER RETROSPECTIVE ON SALE FEBRUARY 17, 2009

(Los Angeles – CA – January 28, 2009) The Annie Lennox Collection paints a vivid portrait in song of the most successful female British artist in pop music history. Available on February 17 from Arista Records, this 14-song retrospective brings together the acclaimed artist’s finest solo work on a single disc for the first time, and includes a pair of new songs recorded exclusively for this release. Spanning 15 years, The Annie Lennox Collection also available in a limited deluxe CD/DVD edition includes hits from her four top-selling solo albums Diva (1992), Medusa (1995), Bare (2003) and last year’s highly praised Songs of Mass Destruction (2007). The timeless music selected for this collection uniquely reflects the essence of the singer’s instantly recognizable brand of soul music on tracks like “Why,” “Walking on Broken Glass” and “No More ‘I Love You’s’” — a song that earned Lennox one of her four Grammys. “It seems like the time has come to release the Collection,” Lennox says of her first best-of set. “I’m very proud of these songs. They are timeless and have become ‘classics’ in their own right.” The two new songs that Lennox recorded specially for this collection include “Pattern of My Life,” written by Tom Chaplin of Keane. The second is a cover of Shining Light, a song originally recorded in 2001 by Ash. “I first discovered this song by Ash about six years ago, and I simply couldn’t stop listening to it. It’s so exultant that it virtually shimmers,” Lennox says. “Shining Light” is the retrospective’s first single and hitting the airwaves of Adult Top 40 and hot AC formats February 9.  Look for the video to premiere exclusively on AOL Music this week. On February 10, Annie Lennox will perform songs from her new collection and interview with New York Times chief pop music critic, Jon Pareles at The New York Times Talk Live - An Evening with Annie Lennox. Her promotional tour continues with performances on Good Morning America (ABC) February 10 and Live With Regis & Kelly (ABC) February 11. On February 13, Lennox will perform on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (NBC) and the GRAMMY Museum at LA Live will host An Evening with Annie Lennox. The night will include an Audience Q&A session and special performance. A one hour 5-song performance and interview A&E Television Private Sessions will air March 8.During The 2008 American Music Awards, Justin Timberlake presented Lennox with the Award of Merit. In years past this award has been given to some of the industry’s most influential artists. Previous honorees include Prince, Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond and Gloria Estefan. During the show, Lennox give a special performance of Why which was her first appearance since having back surgery in August 2008.“There are certain musicians that other musicians love, and she is one of those special artists, held in the highest regard by her peers,” Timberlake said of Lennox. “I love that she's always been on the cutting edge of fashion, she's always looked so so cool and taught us how to look cool. Then there's her humanitarian work. She's been an activist for just causes all over the world, mostly in silent ways that you've never even heard about. She does this from her heart, motivated purely by love." Among the many highlights on The Annie Lennox Collection is “Sing,” a song that references The SING Campaign, a humanitarian organization Lennox founded to raise awareness and support for the AIDS/HIV pandemic in Africa. “We’re still in the early stages, but this is a lifelong commitment on my part,” Lennox says. “I’m coming out from behind my singing voice to express myself in broader terms and help give a voice to those who don’t have the same opportunities as I do.” A dynamic activist, Lennox recently received the Red Cross Services to Humanity Award, the YouthAids outstanding achievement award, was named the 2008 Glamour Inspirational Woman of the Year and sang for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday celebration this summer in London. In her 26-year career, both as a member of the groundbreaking Eurythmics and as a solo artist, Lennox has amassed sales of more than 78 million albums worldwide. Her towering achievements also include 34 hit singles, four Grammy Awards, 11 Brit Awards and five Ivor Novello Awards. The superstar has also won an Academy Award and Golden Globe. To Listen to the retrospective please click the following: The Annie Lennox Collection

CD/DELUXE CD Track Listing

1.             “Little Bird”
2.             “Walking on Broken Glass”
3.             “Why”
4.             “No More I Love You’s”
5.             “Precious”
6.             “A Whiter Shade of Pale”
7.             “A Thousand Beautiful Things”
8.             “Sing”
9.             “Pavement Cracks”
10.          “Love Song for a Vampire”
11.          “Cold”
12.          “Dark Road”
13.          “Pattern of My Life”
14.          “Shining Light”

 

LIMITED EDITION DELUXE DVD

1.             “Little Bird”
2.             “Walking on Broken Glass”
3.             “Why”
4.             “No More I Love You’s”
5.             “Precious”
6.             “A Whiter Shade of Pale”
7.             “A Thousand Beautiful Things”
8.             “Sing”
9.             “Pavement Cracks”
10.          “Cold”
11.          “Dark Road”

Website:

http://www.annielennox.com/

HAPPY VALENTINE

Hollywood's Most Valuable Actors: Will Smith Tops the List

Will Smith won't take home anything shiny at this year's Academy Awards, but members of the entertainment industry say he's tops at mining real gold, a more critical skill given the current economy. Smith ranks first in our inaugural Forbes Star Currency survey, an exclusive look at what the business side of Hollywood really thinks of more than 1,400 working actors when it comes to ensuring the financial success of film projects.Smith was the only person to receive a perfect score of 10, edging out Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie, who all tied for second with scores of 9.89. Others in the top 20 include Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon. Results For All 1,400 Actors: See Forbes Star Currency Site In Pictures: The Top 20 Most Valuable Actors It's an all-star cast that shows consistent muscle in attracting financing and generating global box office revenues. They also have hefty celebrity personas that grab press attention, creating valuable awareness for their projects. There's a considerable amount of acting talent there, too. Consider that, of the top 20 names alone, 16 have been nominated for an Academy Award in the acting categories. Collectively, they have a combined 69 nominations and 15 wins, pending the outcome of the Feb. 22 ceremony, which sees Pitt, Jolie and Streep up for honors. Are the names in the upper reaches absolute guarantees for box office performance? Of course not. (Just ask George Clooney about Leatherheads). But they will help you get a film made. The Forbes Star Currency survey was sent to entertainment industry members globally asking them to use a provided scale in ranking 1,400-plus actors as individuals on a range of attributes regarding their participation in a film, including the actor's ability to attract significant financing to a project with their involvement; if their presence guarantees theatrical distribution; if they significantly drive theatrical box office performance; and if their involvement is an essential component in securing rights deals for revenue streams including DVD, pay/free TV, etc. SOURCE: FORBES.COM

Theater review: 'A Song for Coretta' at Brava

Early on in his presidential campaign, in March 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama spoke to a congregation at Brown Chapel in Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 1965 voting rights march. In front of civil rights pioneers, including Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, Obama gave a stirring address on the tension between what he called the Moses and Joshua generations.Noting that the Moses generation steered his generation "90 percent of the way there," Obama said, "So the question, I guess, that I have today is what's called of us in this Joshua generation? What do we do in order to fulfill that legacy; to fulfill the obligations and the debt that we owe to those who allowed us to be here today?"That question is at the heart of "A Song for Coretta," a sharp, funny play about Coretta Scott King, widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., written by Pearl Cleage and being performed at Brava's intimate 2nd Stage. The play takes a sharp turn in the final third, becoming as heavy-handed as it had been nuanced at the start, but the all-female cast is gripping until the end.The action jumps between various points in King's life and the interactions of a few strangers waiting in line to get into her 2006 memorial service; the actors play dual roles.At first, there's only Helen (Marjorie Crump-Shears), a proper churchgoing lady who actually met King, and Zora (Shanique S. Scott), a striving journalism student recording people in line for what she hopes will be a story on National Public Radio. Their exchange draws out one of Helen's primary concerns: the decline of values among youths today. She, as part of the Moses generation, has no patience for the Joshuas who don't seem to know or care about their history.Enter Mona Lisa (Khamara Pettus), a Hurricane Katrina survivor who drove up to King's funeral on a whim and had the good sense to pack some "cheap bourbon" for the wait. She's an artist who lives in her car, someone who fell through the cracks after the cameras moved on from New Orleans.She is soon joined by Keisha (a standout performance by Ashanna Andrews), a seemingly vacant girl from the neighborhood who riles Helen immediately. The look of disgust on Helen's face pretty much says it all, as Keisha sticks her fingers into an empty bag of potato chips, digs around, licks her fingertips and then casts the bag onto the ground. Late in the play, Iraq war veteran Gwen (Jocelyn Truitt) joins the bunch, with a horrific story to tell.As "A Song for Coretta" shows, the legacy of King is bittersweet: The movement's successes seem as hard to bear as its failures. However, this work, conceived as a memorial to King, brings a measure of hope.It's the little pieces of conversation in which the generations meet and begin to understand each other - more than the bombastic ending - that are the most moving. As Obama noted, Moses may have brought the people up to the edge of the promised land, but it was Joshua who actually led them over. It's time for the Keisha generation to rise. SOURCE:SFGATE.COM

Ailey Wraps Up Season With Sampler of Classics and Newcomers

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater closed its 50th-anniversary season at City Center on Sunday night with a program of the season’s highlights. It ended, of course, with “Revelations,” topped off with an encore of its “Rocka My Soul” finale. After this encore the artistic director, Judith Jamison, and the associate artistic director, Masazumi Chaya, joined the dancers onstage but did not stay.And that was perfect. Ms. Jamison, surely the most stellar and admired artistic director of any repertory dance company in America, made several marvelous appearances onstage at the start of the season, but she knows just when to give the applause back to the dancers, and never more than on the closing night of a long run.The popularity that the Ailey company now enjoys is phenomenal. City Center does better business at most performances for these five weeks of Ailey than for American Ballet Theater or San Francisco Ballet in their two-week seasons or the Kirov in its three-week one. No work in Ailey’s repertory seems to occur without warm audience cheers.In between these annual New York seasons the troupe has a tour schedule that almost every other dance company must envy. I am only surprised that there are still two states (South Dakota, West Virginia) in which it has yet to appear. It’s worth noting that the word “American” in the Ailey company’s name has a significance quite different from that, say, in American Ballet Theater. A Ballet Theater season tries to be a kind of ballet National Gallery, combining some of the best international classics with some of the foremost national choreography. But the America we see in the Ailey repertory is a “Yes we can” vision, and it has a great deal to do with aspects of transcendence. Some of the dances, though specific to African-American heritage and music (the blues of “Blues Suite,” the gospel of “Revelations”), proclaim these things as glories to be shared. The casting has layers of transcendence too. You can’t miss this when the curtain rises on the opening of “Revelations”: as the dancers stand there for “I Been ’Buked,” you see a marked variety of skin tones and ethnic types. Dances to gospel music aren’t just for African-Americans; here are white and Hispanic dancers too. (This layer of the Ailey experience never seems to go too far, admittedly. The featured roles in “Blues Suite” or “Revelations” seem chiefly reserved for African-Americans, perhaps because some of the non-African-American dancers tend not to be the company’s best.)CONTINUE READING...

Happy New Year 2009

What Black Men Think

Teaser Trailer for upcoming Book “101 Things Every Boy of Color Needs to Know” by Lamar Shields of the Urban Leadership Institute, and accompanying Documentary:

Vital Signs Under the Viaduct

 RIGO HERASME sipped a cocktail of Johnnie Walker Blue and Red Bull on the rocks. He was standing next to a long white couch in the upstairs V.I.P. room of Body, the sleek club he and a partner opened in a former warehouse in the shadow of the Riverside Drive viaduct on 12th Avenue near 135th Street in West Harlem. “We used to play stickball on this street,” he said, shooting the cuffs of his white shirt. Three decades removed from his stickball days, Mr. Herasme, who grew up in this predominantly Dominican neighborhood and eventually flourished in the trade-show business, is becoming a player in another game.“This is going to be the premier location in the city,” he said. “We’re going to make downtown come uptown.”His bravado would seem like that of any other self-inflated impresario, if not for the pulsing scene outside his club: long lines of curvy women squeezed into shiny dresses and men in sharply pressed pants; a fast-talking promoter stepping out of a tooth-enamel-white 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville; massive steel arches that support Riverside Drive soaring above it all. Even as longtime patrons of downtown nightlife grumble that the club scene has run out of new ideas, something fresh is happening way, way uptown on 12th Avenue, where Body and three other nightspots have recently opened.Everything seems to be coming together to create a fertile nightlife microclimate. Some local businessmen, many of them Dominican-American, who spent their young adult years club-hopping downtown during a golden era of nightlife in the mid-1990s, have acquired the experience and the means to open their own clubs.At the same time, a derelict warehouse was cleaned up and offered for lease to three of the new nightspots. The local community board is friendly, and there are few residents nearby to complain about any noise. Amid some familiar trademarks of downtown — florid cocktails; V.I.P. areas where ice buckets await orders for top-shelf bottles — the Latin vibe is strong. There are Flamenco nights and kitchens that serve Latin-influenced dishes late into the night. The commitment to cuisine is a departure from many downtown clubs, whose community-soothing promises of being “supper clubs” seem to vanish once their liquor licenses are approved. SOURCE: NYT.COM

DREAMGIRLS NATIONAL TOUR HOLDING AUDITIONS: Musical sets tryouts for next month at Harlem's Apollo Theatre

Open auditions have been scheduled for the three leading roles in the forthcoming national tour of Dreamgirls, according to an announcement from producer John F. Breglio, reports Broadway.com. The production is seeking actresses in their 20s to play the Dreams: Deena Jones, Lorrell Robinson and Effie White. Auditions will be held at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem on Nov. 1, with sign-in from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.The national tour of Dreamgirls is directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom (Broadway's The Scarlet Pimpernel), with co-choreography by Shane Sparks and music direction by Zane Mark.Dreamgirls, the story of a young female singing trio from Chicago and their rocky road to superstardom, features music by Henry Krieger and lyrics and book by Tom Eyen. Directed by Michael Bennett, the original Broadway production opened on Dec. 20, 1981, at the Imperial Theatre and ran for 1,522 performances, winning six 1982 Tony Awards including one for Jennifer Holliday's performance as Effie. Jennifer Hudson received an Academy Award for her performance as Effie in the 2006 feature film adaptation.

Dreamgirls: Ready To Return, Starting With Apollo Call

By Karu F. Daniels, BlackVoices.com -- Don't think the legacy of the hit Broadway musical, 'Dreamgirls,' stops at Jennifer Hudson winning the Academy Award for her break-out role in the crafty movie adaptation of it.No.A fully-funded national tour of the legendary tour-de-force is underway, and the world's famous Apollo Theater is serving as its starting point.Theatrical press agent Wayne Wolfe confirmed that a production of the show, directed and choreographed by Bobby Longbottom with music direction by Zane Mark, is underway for 2009. Produced by John Breglio for Vienna Waits Productions, open auditions for the show's lead characters of Deena Jones, Effie White and Lorrell Robinson will take place the Apollo Theater on the morning of Nov. 1. Casting directors are looking for women in their 20's.As many know, 'Dreamgirls' is the story of a young female singing trio from Chicago, and their rocky road to superstardom. The original Broadway production of 'Dreamgirls' opened December 20, 1981 at the Imperial Theatre and won six 1982 Tony Awards. Sheryl Lee Ralph, Jennifer Holliday, and Loretta Devine comprised the original roles in the acclaimed musical directed by Michael Bennett and choreographed by Michael Peters. For close to four years, it played 1,522 performances– making it the most successful and most celebrated black-focused show on The Great White Way. Continue Reading...

Museum of Tolerance stays on message

SINCE THE Museum of Tolerance opened in 1993, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and Darfur have been inscribed in the book of mass extermination. Clearly, there is no lack of work to do for an L.A. institution dedicated to documenting the human race's blood lust while fighting prejudice in hopes of remaking homo sapiens in a more humane image. "I was not that naive to think that evil would be expunged," says Rabbi Marvin Hier, looking back on the 31 years since he founded the museum's parent human rights and Holocaust remembrance organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "But I never thought that so soon after the world became aware of the ovens of Auschwitz we would have places like these . . . that people would have the chutzpah to say, 'So what? We can do what we want,' and get away with it." CONTINUE READING...

iPHONE Daily Blog Buzz 09.12.08

For an actor still trying to learn the game and gain respect, especially when coming in from another industry, it doesn't get any better when you are cast opposite two of the biggest actors ever, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. It doesn't matter what the part is. If you have an opportunity to be on the set with these two giants, you take it and that's exactly what Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson did. Together, the three are starring in the crime drama 'Righteous Kill', which opens on September 12. This is the first reunion for Pacino and De Niro since they had a memorable turn in Michael Mann's Heat. Continue Reading...  Kanye West and his road manager, Don Crowley, were arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism Thursday morning after a violent run-in with paparazzi at Los Angeles International Airport. [View footage here.] The New York Post is reporting that Mariah Carey is attempting to stop a planned tell-all book by former record producer Damion "Damizza" Young that aims to expose their "intimate" relationship and their struggle to keep it a secret.The Kenyan grandmother of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is safe and sound today after thieves attempted to break into her home early Wednesday, the candidate's uncle told The Associated Press T.I.'s new single "Whatever You Like" spends a third week atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and also has the distinction of being the fastest-growing track at radio. As immigration officials in Australia continue their character assessment of Snoop Dogg and his worthiness to be granted a visa, an Academy Award-winning actor from Down Under has come forward to offer the rapper support. Prince has gathered a collection of glossy photos from his 21-night stand at London's O2 Arena last year for his first-ever coffee table book, "21 Nights," due in stores next month...Continue Reading America's hottest British import, singer/rapper Estelle leads in nominations for the MOBO Awards (Music of Black Origin).Continuue Reading Besides being a mom to two kids, who are all in the acting field now, and a wife to Will Smith, she really has her plate full. The fact that she can manage all of this and keep it together is astonishing. With 'Madagascar: Back 2 Africa' set to open in November, her latest film that comes out this Friday (Sept.12) is 'The Women'. The film is a remake of the 1939 George Cukor film, but has been modified slightly with Pinkett-Smith playing a lesbian character. Continue Reading Michelle Williams has been reaching out to the gay community like Barack Obama has been reaching out to the right. The former Destiny’s Child diva has endless YouTube.com videos shouting out the gays, and there’s even a Michelle look-a-like contest, which will surely bring in the drags. She also performed during Pride weekend at NYC gay club Splash with a dance troupe of shirtless, hunky men. Yes, Miss Williams wants our support, and she’s willing to lose her breath for it! Continue Reading... Spike Lee visited a World War II cemetery near France’s D-Day landing beaches before presenting the European premiere of his film about the forgotten contribution of African-American soldiers to the war that freed Europe from Nazi tyranny. “I was surprised to find African-Americans buried there too,” he told reporters after his trip to one of the many cemeteries on the Normandy coast where lie thousands of Allied soldiers killed as they stormed ashore in 1944....Continue Reading Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday that African-Americans are better served by colorblind programs than affirmative action. Thomas, addressing leaders of historically black colleges, said affirmative action “has become this mantra and there almost has become this secular religiosity about it. I think it almost trumps thinking.” Continue Reading... Random Pics: Janet Jackson Kicks off Tour...Continue Reading It's official. One month after announcing the annual number of HIV infections is about 40 percent higher than previous estimates, the Centers for Disease Controls confirms young black gay men are the demographic hardest hit by the epidemic. Continue Reading.. KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces killed more than 10 militants and detained two during operations in eastern Afghanistan that also targeted the network of veteran Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, the U.S military said on Friday. Continue Reading... According to The New York Times, Simels was taken-in by authorities yesterday (September 10) after a federal investigation claimed he worked as the middle man for Khan, known for operating an international cocaine ring with a paramilitary group called “phantom squad” in Guyana. Simels’ allegedly had an active role and duty to “neutralize” witnesses who were willing to testify against Khan and other clients. Continue Reading.. 'Journal' Says Black Unease is Growing'...Continue Reading  Speaking to MTV News in the U.K. in Wednesday, Nick Jonas, 15, said, "I don't know if there is really a positive" to come out of Brand's comments, adding, "He was kind of running out of material after a little while."The boys, who said earlier that they had no hard feelings over the British comic's comments, expressed even more affection for him. "I'd give him a hug," Joe said. "I think he needs a hug!" Continue Reading...  

A Hot Conceptualist Finds the Secret of Skin

Is Kehinde Wiley a Conceptual subversive who happens to paint or yet another producer of pictorial fluff that makes him our latest Bouguereau? Do his big, flashy pictures of young African-American men recast as the kings, dandies, prophets and saints of European portraiture subvert the timeworn ruses of Western art and its hierarchies of race, class and sex? Or are they just a passing art-market fancy, with enough teasing irreverence, dollops of political correctness and decorative punch to look good for a while above the couches of pseudoliberal pseudocollectors?The answers to all these questions may be, Try again. “Kehinde Wiley, the World Stage: Africa, Lagos-Dakar,” a show of 10 of his most recent paintings at the Studio Museum in Harlem, proposes another possibility: Mr. Wiley is a young artist whose intellectual ambition and Photo Realist chops have allowed his career to get ahead of his art.His stats include 15 solo shows in galleries and museums around the world since 2003, studios in New York and China and assistants who help him turn out scores of paintings that sell briskly. And yet at 31 Mr. Wiley is only now beginning to make paintings that don’t feel mostly like campy, gaudy shams. This show — which would be more appropriate in a commercial gallery than in a museum, by the way — could mark the end of his first 15 minutes of fame and the beginning of his second, with an option to renew.Until now the Conceptual rationale behind Mr. Wiley’s paintings has tended to overpower their visual presence, which helps reduce them to illustrations. Like Norman Rockwell’s paintings they look better in reproduction than in reality.His portraits initially depicted African-American men against rich textile or wallpaper backgrounds whose patterns he has likened to abstractions of sperm. Some of the subjects were famous (rap and sports stars), others not.Their silken running suits, carefully creased jeans and bling reflected the sartorial codes of hip-hop, but their poses and props (thrones, scepters, rearing horses, religious attributes) were lifted from the portraits of Velázquez, David and Gainsborough or Renaissance images of saints. The substitution of black for white faces and low for high culture created all kinds of mind-bending twists and turns, especially since Mr. Wiley, who is gay, often brought out the homoeroticism implicit in much European portraiture and used it to undercut the machismo bluster of his subjects.But the paintings’ slick surfaces usually felt dead and mechanical, despite having been painstakingly handmade; their compositions were often fussy and unstable, and the men’s posturing, however undercut, could seem defensive, if not misogynistic. Mr. Wiley’s work also seemed overly indebted to artists and photographers working with issues like identity and celebrity, including Andy Warhol, Barkley L. Hendricks, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annie Leibowitz, Catherine Opie, Kerry James Marshall, Yinka Shonibare, Malick Sidibe, Yasumasa Morimura and Seydou Keïta.A lot of these problems are receding in the Studio Museum show because Mr. Wiley is doing what all painters have to do: developing a surface of his own. To do so he is starting where most figurative painters have started, at least since the invention of oil paint: with the rendering of human skin. He is beginning to paint skin in ways you can’t stop looking at. And other things are falling into place too. The compositions are consistently calmer, and the spatial play between the figures and their backgrounds is more tightly controlled. SOURCE:NYT.COM

JOE SAYS R. KELLY TRIED TO SABOTAGE HIS CAREER: Singer vents exclusively to EUR's Lee Bailey.

He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but R&B artist Joe felt something wasn't quite right with his situation at Jive Records. So after 11 years on the label and six albums, the singer decided earlier this year to bounce and give the independent route a try.& It wasn't until after he left the label that Joe says he found out what was behind his perceived stalled progress. He says his own label mate, R. Kelly, put pressure on Jive execs and radio stations to fall back on promoting his records when the singles appeared to be getting too much attention."R. Kelly was very instrumental in making a lot of decisions when it came to my records being played on the radio," Joe told EUR's Lee Bailey Tuesday. "He would make a call to the radio station or to the label and say, 'Hey, this Joe record is too hot right now. Yall need to pull that back.' And they would oblige." Joe says there were a lot of shady things that went down at Jive and he's happy to finally be able to vent his frustrations freely, now that he's off the label. "It's incredible that now I get the opportunity to, I don't know, maybe pay [R. Kelly] back in some sort of side bar kind of thing."The 35-year-old Columbus, GA native said R-ruh did not succeed in sabotaging his career, which includes seven Grammy Award nominations, three gold albums and two platinum discs."I'm still very relevant in the game. But yeah, he did try to make some decisions when it came down to my records being on fire, and climbing up the charts and on the radio stations," Joe said of Kelly. "He felt like they should pull back because he felt he was more important. And with their loyalty to him, they obliged." SOURCE:EURWEB.COM

Rappers, athletes, actors seek to end youth violence

CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) - Nationally recognized actresses, athletes, local activists assembled at Harold Washington Cultural Center on the south side of Chicago to make a clarion call to “Silence the Violence” among the youth in our communities. Several hundred enthusiastic students packed the auditorium to hear from Atlantic recording artist T.I., Fox News anchor Robin Robinson, actor and comedian Michael Colyar, entrepreneur, community activist and former high ranking member of the Gangster Disciples Noonie “G” Ward, actress and fitness trainer A.J. Johnson, NBA star Quentin Richardson, Pastor Phil Jackson of The House Covenant Church also known as “The House” on Chicago’s west side, and hip hop recording artist Shawnna. The panel was moderated by 107.5 WCGI’s Tony Sculfield and simulcast live on the station for the entire 2-hours of the session. “You all are beautiful people but you are your own worst enemy,” said Mr. Ward. “If you take time and think, everything you do is a thought before you do it. Before you go and shoot somebody, before you do something wrong, it is a thought,” he added.Alluding to his recent run-ins with federal law enforcement officials, T.I. told the crowd that he has grown and matured and the mistakes of the past will not be repeated.“I think there were a lot of necessary adjustments that needed to be made,” said the platinum selling rapper. Many people were around that didn’t necessarily need to be around, and my behavior—I was really running wild. I had to develop a lot of patience and really just assume another responsibility,” said the rapper, actor and father of six. “I have been blessed to make it this far through so many different adverse situations. I have done things before you all knew I was even T.I. that could have gotten me under the jail. I just pray to God for even allowing me to be before you today a free man, a living man,” said T.I. as the crowd took it all in.In one testy exchange during the panel discussion, Fox News anchor Robin Robinson, raised the subject of street credibility to the audience and to T.I. challenging the idea that some rappers and those who emulate them a real history of criminal behavior makes them authentic tough guys and establishes their credentials in ‘the hood.’ “I have to be the devils advocate here, trouble also makes money. This thing we talk about ‘street cred’ and rappers who have the real rap sheet are the ones that you all follow. That is crazy! So don’t you think that by being good now you are afraid that it might hurt your career, because people like to listen to the real thugs, rapping real thug stuff,” said Ms. Robinson. SOURCE:FINALCALL.COM