BIG IDEAS

Writer/musician/auteur Greg Tate is curating a very interesting musical performance, FIRE & FIRE, a collaborative examination of the parallels between Black Americans and The Rom of Romania and Hungary (aka gypsies). It’s a fascinating subject as societal study alone but the manifestation of that it into music takes it to another level. From the Fire & Fire Facebook page:

The story begins in Hungary when three New Yorkers: Eisa Davis, Melvin Gibbs and Greg Tate take a summer field trip to Budapest with Jakab Orsos, Director of the Hungarian Cultural Center New York. They are in search of the Hungarian Gypsy experience, with a mind to investigate the synergies between the Black diaspora and Gypsy culture. For three days and nights they wine, dine and jam with fellow performers and musicians, discovering new territories of expression. Back home in New York, these encounters continue to percolate, creating Fire + Fire.

Fire + Fire features an historic meeting of musical sympathies when nine Hungarian Gypsy musicians meet with seven of their Black American counterparts to interrogate a history of mutual oppression and silences. Part of the yearlong Extremely Hungary Festival, Fire + Fire delves into the synergies of two cultures, melding musical and political expression—this taking the shape through the story of star crossed lovers caught in a weft of cultural clash and political dialogue. The ensemble employs an experimental fusion of spoken word, movement and full on “jam sessions” to create a brand new vernacular that will spring this tale of two cultures to life. Fire + Fire will be presented at Symphony Space on November 19 and 21.

“There are compelling parallels between the Gypsy and African-American experience, that energy and struggle is reflected in jazz and Gypsy music—both are intense, explosive, individual and raw.”
–Greg Tate, Co-Curator FIre+ Fire

A cosmic victory for all funkheads upset about the deteriorating state of modern music.

From reports:

The phrase “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea” belongs exclusively to funk legend George Clinton, a panel of federal judges ruled this week.

Bridgeport Music, the company that administers Clinton’s work, sued Universal Music Group for copyright infringement over those words in 2001. At issue: the 1998 release of “D.O.G. in Me,” a song by hip-hop and R&B group Public Announcement, one of Universal’s artists. In the song, Bridgeport claimed, Public Announcement wrongfully used the words “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea,” as well as a repetitive use of the word “dog” in ways that infringe on Clinton’s copyright.

Clinton and two other songwriters first penned the phrase in 1982 while writing “Atomic Dog,” one of Clinton’s best-known works.

A federal jury agreed with Bridgeport and awarded the company about $89,000 in damages. The amount was based on the sales of Public Announcement’s album All Work,No Play, which included the song. Universal Music appealed the ruling, but this week the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the original decision.

Editor’s Note: There is no standard agreement on the spelling of “Yippee” or “Yay”

While I’m talking about the Latino community, I want to turn you on to a great magazine that’s celebrating its one-year anniversary. It’s based in Chicago and called CAFE.

The managing editor, Gina Santana, and I sat on a panel a while ago and struck up a friendship. It’s been enlightening to hear how they are addressing a whole new generation of professional Latinos, most of whom don’t speak Spanish but still embrace their culture in unique and wholly different ways than their parents.

The parallels to the Black community are amazing, but it’ s still a very singular and unique story. I’ve been reading the latest issue closely and been circling every cultural reference that I’m not familiar with. I’m missing all kinds of nuances and I love that I am, because it just goes to prove the need for ethnic media and voices that reflect the culture in the way the culture speaks.

It also makes me wonder how white kids can listen to hip hop and assume they are now experts on Black culture. I admit I’m an idiot when it comes to Latino culture, but I want to know more. We’re going to be working with CAFE to do a series on the “Blacktino” experience. I hope you’ll tune in. In the meantime, check out Gina and crew on their site.

I was intrigued by a recent article comparing the ratings for CNN’s “Black in America” to CNN’s “Latino in America”. It may have been a surprise to some, given the demographics, that Black in America did much better than Latino in America. Part of it, as Geraldo Rivera suggested, may have been the Hispanic community’s reaction to Lou Dobbs strident attacks on immigration and what was viewed as CNN’s hypocrisy in saluting the Latino impact on America while paying the salary of a guy trying to keep them out. I can’t speak for that community so I can’t say if that’s true or not, though it certainly makes sense.

Nevertheless, the results are not a surprise to me at all. There’s a precedent for all this, also at Time Warner, and in which I was personally involved. 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the publishing of AMERICANOS, a book you may or may not know about. The book, a photo essay using 30 prominent Latino photographers, documented over a Summer, the breadth and depth of the American Latino experience. It was also an exhibit that opened at the Smithsonian and traveled to 20 cities in the States. A documentary version launched the HBO Latino cable channel. The actor Edward James Olmos was the most visible lead on the project, but the concept was guided initially by journalist Manny Monterrey. It did OK numbers, but not off the charts, at least not in comparison to its inspiration, SONGS OF MY PEOPLE, a similar book on black life in the US.

The connection here is that both were sponsored by Time Warner (which owns CNN) and that I worked on both, on the latter as a creator and on the former as guru/editor/project director. But to the point of this post, here’s why I think there was a substantial difference in the results both times.

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CHICAGO (August 26, 2009)—“I am very saddened by the news of Senator Kennedy’s passing.  I knew him for over 40 years. He was an incredible leader whose effectiveness and consistency in the realms of civil rights and heath care made him loved and respected by all.

He was a leader with substance.  He molded opinions and did not simply follow opinion polls.  Ted Kennedy was a change agent and headwind leader. No one of his wealth ever reached further back to the poor or exulted them higher.

I remember coming out of jail one time in Greensboro, North Carolina and I heard him say something I had never heard before by a Caucasian leader at that time.  He said the struggle in the south is not just a legal struggle; it’s a moral struggle.

He chose hope over fear and never looked backward.   I cannot help but think of him standing with Cesar Chavez in the field, Dr. Martin Luther King on the road, Mandela in South Africa and President Obama during this election.  His contributions to American politics and our society will forever be admired.”

From Entertainment Sources:

Warner Bros. has hired Malcolm Spellman to write a feature based on the classic TV show “Soul Train.” Darryl Porter and Aaron Geller of Porter/Geller Prods. will produce with Don Cornelius, the host and producer of the famed show, which ran from 1971-2006. Spellman said that he’s writing a film set in the 1980s. “All of the hip-hop street dances you see today were born during that time period and were first seen on that show, and I remember doing all of them when I was a kid,” said Spellman, whose credits include “Dead Presidents.” Protag comes from the L.A. hood, and his ticket out is his gift for “popping,” a street dance that became popular in the period. Cornelius told Spellman he’d always wanted to mount a tour with bands and dancers, and the writer will make that fictional tour a centerpiece of the film. “This guy is a serious popper, with street edge, and he wants to get on that tour, with the hottest of the hot,” Spellman said. “Writing with Don involved is quite an experience. He’s still the godfather of cool.”

I think I’m less stunned that Reverend Ike passed away than I am that he was only 74 at death. It seems like he’s been around forever. Rev. Ike’s star burned brightest eons ago ago, peaking when Flip Wilson had a TV show, Redd Foxx was the King of Prime Time and Richard Pryor was lampooning him in the movie Car Wash.

The mention of comedians is no accident. Rev. Ike never appeared to take himself that seriously. as a result, he never came under some of incredible scrutiny that some of today’s most popular televangelists experience. The man was an innovator of sorts, though certainly not the first to preach prosperity. He was in the direct lineage of Daddy Grace and others who saw money as a gift –and birthright- from God.

He did, however, come up with ingenious money-wrenching programs like “prayer cloths” and “prayer coins” - premiums for prayer. His greatest legacy, and the thing that kept investigators and critics off his back is that Rev. Ike was obvious. There was no healing, no unwieldy promises. He wanted to be rich and he wanted you to be rich. and the quickest way to make him rich was for you to send him money so he could pray for you to be rich. Pretty simple, really. Not necessarily a two-way experience, but at least you couldn’t say he was lying.

Can’t say anyone’s going to miss the guy, but he is well remembered.