Man! It’s cold! It’s that bone chilling Michigan cold where the wind whips through you like a chainsaw. By most estimates, it’s the icy temperatures on this frigid February evening that have transformed Ann Arbor’s hottest hip hop night from a steamy, sweaty mass of bodies into a warm, intimate family affair.
Elevation Sundays at The Firefly was founded three years ago by two members of Ann Arbor’s Sky Children hip hop family. Martin “DJ Graffiti” Smith and Jackson Perry of hip hop phenoms Now On approached Susan Chastain, owner of the legendary A2 jazz hang out and asked for a Sunday night spot. Continue reading
Man! It’s cold! It’s that bone chilling Michigan cold where the wind whips through you like a chainsaw. By most estimates, it’s the icy temperatures on this frigid February evening that have transformed Ann Arbor’s hottest hip hop night from a steamy, sweaty mass of bodies into a warm, intimate family affair.
Elevation Sundays at The Firefly was founded three years ago by two members of Ann Arbor’s Sky Children hip hop family. Martin “DJ Graffiti” Smith and Jackson Perry of hip hop phenoms Now On approached Susan Chastain, owner of the legendary A2 jazz hang out and asked for a Sunday night spot. Continue reading
Everyone’s approach to life is just a little bit different than the next cat. Some of us need to isolate and conquer, one task at a time, in order to get where we’re going.
Don’t lump Nadir Omowale in that group.
To say that the East Tennessee transplant to Detroit is busy these days would be a serious understatement. Nadir juggles the responsibilities of running a company and involvement in various causes and organizations, all the while playing his award-winning music with his band Nadir’s Distorted Soul.
Topping it all off is his current stint with MTV as the Choose or Lose 2008 correspondent to the state of Michigan, which lasts until the presidential election in November.
DFP caught up with the ultra-motivated multi-threat himself to learn a little bit more about the man.
In January, the Detroit News reported that Michigan lost 90,000 residents in 2007. This was three times the population loss in 2003, the first year economists identified Michigan’s one state recession.
The city of Detroit has been steadily losing residents for years. Native Detroiters who love the city feel compelled to move in search of better opportunity elsewhere.
This is the first in a series that explores why so many residents who love Detroit feel they must leave Detroit.
In January, the Detroit News reported that Michigan lost 90,000 residents in 2007. This was three times the population loss in 2003, the first year economists identified Michigan’s one state recession.
The city of Detroit has been steadily losing residents for years. Native Detroiters who love the city feel compelled to move in search of better opportunity elsewhere.
This is the first in a series that explores why so many residents who love Detroit feel they must leave Detroit.
Whether you like it or not, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick IS Hip Hop. The 37 year-old chief executive was famously dubbed “The Hip Hop Mayor†at the beginning of his first term, and while the title was meant as an insult, he embraced the image, and the moniker stuck.
Though he stopped sporting a diamond stud in his left ear during his second mayoral campaign, the former captain of the Florida A&M football team still dons the style and swagger of the hip hop aesthetic. Even the scandals that follow Kwame around like members of his entourage – wild parties with strippers, SUVs, luxury resorts and spas in Cali, infidelity and text messages – seem more akin to the typical lifestyle of a platinum-selling rapper or an NBA All-Star, than it should the mayor of the nation’s 11th largest city.
But Kwame Kilpatrick is Hip Hop. He typifies the young Black man who came of age listening to the sound of the boom bap. As glass ceilings in corporate America begin to open for the men and women who were once called Generation X and those of Generation Y to follow, the nation’s corporate style is changing.
Apple’s Steve Jobs turned heads among the suits over a decade ago by striding confidently through the halls of power in blue jeans and a sport coat. In 2007 former drug dealer Shawn Carter resigned his post as CEO of hip hop’s most storied multi-million dollar brand, Def Jam. For better or worse, Kwame Kilpatrick is the brash, young political leader who has symbolized this shift for the past six years.
Those who have grown up with and love Hip Hop celebrate its triumphs, and are embarrassed by its missteps, and Kwame Kilpatrick is Hip Hop. He is applauded for helping to improve the city’s downtown, for encouraging economic development and working to attract much needed business to the struggling municipality. Beyond the lifestyle scandals, the mayor has been criticized for instituting a $300.00 fee for trash collection in the nation’s second poorest city. He has been accused of providing money for beautification projects in higher income neighborhoods while neglecting less affluent parts of town.
Still it is Kwame’s baller status that makes headlines in a materialistic, hip hop driven media climate. His policy decisions – both good and bad – are overshadowed by his love of bling, money and women.
To his detractors, Kilpatrick represents everything bad about hip hop and everything bad about Detroit. Comments on one message board label the lawyer and former state legislator “a thugâ€Â, “a goonâ€Â, “a street personâ€Â, and “a scum bagâ€Â. He is compared to another infamous figure in hip hop, Death Row Records chief Suge Knight.
Among many of his supporters, however, this pejorative language is nothing more than thinly-veiled racism, or still another dose of anti-Detroit Haterade. The animosity of outsiders adds to the feeling among Detroiters that the city is always being dumped on. “Kwame is one of usâ€Â, they say, and “good or bad, we’ll stand behind our own.â€Â
Kilpatrick matured during his second term as mayor. His attempts to keep his personal life on the down low have been thwarted by a media intent on digging up dirt that can sell newspapers, drive web hits and attract eyeballs in a competitive news environment. The text messages that were leaked to the Detroit Free Press were created during his first term. The aftermath, plotting to cover up a secret settlement with the cops who were fired for investigating his activities and lying about his affairs under oath, show an older, wiser man trying to hide the mistakes of his carefree youth.
This latest Kilpatrick scandal won’t automatically end the mayor’s career as many of his critics hope, but it has added another layer of tarnish to his tailored Teflon suit. Kwame may survive this row because many of his constituents and supporters are hip hop just like he is. The question that remains is: Will the Hip Hop Mayor chill out and stop flossing so much as he matures, or will he continue to live large like the baller he is?
Whether you like it or not, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick IS Hip Hop. The 37 year-old chief executive was famously dubbed “The Hip Hop Mayor†at the beginning of his first term, and while the title was meant as an insult, he embraced the image, and the moniker stuck.
Though he stopped sporting a diamond stud in his left ear during his second mayoral campaign, the former captain of the Florida A&M football team still dons the style and swagger of the hip hop aesthetic. Even the scandals that follow Kwame around like members of his entourage – wild parties with strippers, SUVs, luxury resorts and spas in Cali, infidelity and text messages – seem more akin to the typical lifestyle of a platinum-selling rapper or an NBA All-Star, than it should the mayor of the nation’s 11th largest city.
But Kwame Kilpatrick is Hip Hop. He typifies the young Black man who came of age listening to the sound of the boom bap. As glass ceilings in corporate America begin to open for the men and women who were once called Generation X and those of Generation Y to follow, the nation’s corporate style is changing.
Apple’s Steve Jobs turned heads among the suits over a decade ago by striding confidently through the halls of power in blue jeans and a sport coat. In 2007 former drug dealer Shawn Carter resigned his post as CEO of hip hop’s most storied multi-million dollar brand, Def Jam. For better or worse, Kwame Kilpatrick is the brash, young political leader who has symbolized this shift for the past six years.
Those who have grown up with and love Hip Hop celebrate its triumphs, and are embarrassed by its missteps, and Kwame Kilpatrick is Hip Hop. He is applauded for helping to improve the city’s downtown, for encouraging economic development and working to attract much needed business to the struggling municipality. Beyond the lifestyle scandals, the mayor has been criticized for instituting a $300.00 fee for trash collection in the nation’s second poorest city. He has been accused of providing money for beautification projects in higher income neighborhoods while neglecting less affluent parts of town.
Still it is Kwame’s baller status that makes headlines in a materialistic, hip hop driven media climate. His policy decisions – both good and bad – are overshadowed by his love of bling, money and women.
To his detractors, Kilpatrick represents everything bad about hip hop and everything bad about Detroit. Comments on one message board label the lawyer and former state legislator “a thugâ€Â, “a goonâ€Â, “a street personâ€Â, and “a scum bagâ€Â. He is compared to another infamous figure in hip hop, Death Row Records chief Suge Knight.
Among many of his supporters, however, this pejorative language is nothing more than thinly-veiled racism, or still another dose of anti-Detroit Haterade. The animosity of outsiders adds to the feeling among Detroiters that the city is always being dumped on. “Kwame is one of usâ€Â, they say, and “good or bad, we’ll stand behind our own.â€Â
Kilpatrick matured during his second term as mayor. His attempts to keep his personal life on the down low have been thwarted by a media intent on digging up dirt that can sell newspapers, drive web hits and attract eyeballs in a competitive news environment. The text messages that were leaked to the Detroit Free Press were created during his first term. The aftermath, plotting to cover up a secret settlement with the cops who were fired for investigating his activities and lying about his affairs under oath, show an older, wiser man trying to hide the mistakes of his carefree youth.
This latest Kilpatrick scandal won’t automatically end the mayor’s career as many of his critics hope, but it has added another layer of tarnish to his tailored Teflon suit. Kwame may survive this row because many of his constituents and supporters are hip hop just like he is. The question that remains is: Will the Hip Hop Mayor chill out and stop flossing so much as he matures, or will he continue to live large like the baller he is?
Enjoy! This is funny…not like we haven’t all found ourselves in this situation. I’ve heard MLK the 3rd speak and I had exactly the same reaction only it wasn’t on stage behind the preacher on MLK day.
Enjoy! This is funny…not like we haven’t all found ourselves in this situation. I’ve heard MLK the 3rd speak and I had exactly the same reaction only it wasn’t on stage behind the preacher on MLK day.
Watchdog group Judicial Watch recently released their Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politician list for 2007. Though I’m a bit perturbed that George Bush and Dick Cheney aren’t included (presumably because they are in the all-time hall of infamy), you may be surprised to see who made the list.
Take special note of how many presidential candidates made the cut. Here they are in alphabetical order:
1. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): In addition to her long and sordid ethics record, Senator Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat in 2007 – and rightly so – for blocking the release of her official White House records. Many suspect these records contain a treasure trove of information related to her role in a number of serious Clinton-era scandals. Moreover, in March 2007, Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint against Senator Clinton for filing false financial disclosure forms with the U.S. Senate (again). And Hillary’s top campaign contributor, Norman Hsu, was exposed as a felon and a fugitive from justice in 2007. Hsu pleaded guilt to one count of grand theft for defrauding investors as part of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme. 2. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): House Judiciary Chairman Conyers of Detroit reportedly repeatedly violated the law and House ethics rules, forcing his staff to serve as his personal servants, babysitters, valets and campaign workers while on the government payroll. While the House Ethics Committee investigated these allegations in 2006, and substantiated a number of the accusations against Conyers, the committee blamed the staff and required additional administrative record-keeping and employee training. Judicial Watch obtained documentation in 2007 from a former Conyers staffer that sheds new light on the activities and conduct on the part of the Michigan congressman, which appear to be at a minimum inappropriate and likely unlawful. Judicial Watch called on the Attorney General in 2007 to investigate the matter. [Is it possible that Conyers’ failure to press for the impeachment of Cheney and Bush has something to do with the skeletons in his own closet?] Continue reading
