Music Fiend Magazine

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

"Lost in Music"...Found in France by Rachel Walker

"Lost In Music"...Found In France.

Merci Beaucoup! (Thank You Very Much)

Hello Everyone!

I have just returned to NYC after an amazing 10 City Disco Funk Tour with Kool & The Gang, performing as 1/3 of the legendary disco funk group Sister Sledge with none other than Joni Sledge herself. The crowds in France were on FIRE!!! I have grown so much and gained a number of life long friends in the process. There are a few key people that I have to thank for playing such an instrumental role in making this dream a reality:

Joni Sledge: Your grace, beauty, strength and talent are admirable. Thank you for being so kind and for being an amazing teacher and mentor.
Deb Brown aka "The Deb": Thank you for taking me under your wing and being such an amazing tour manager. And you know "I'm so serious right now!" (smile)
Jaye Watts: Thank you for your friendship and sisterhood during this trip. I couldn't have picked a better person to experience this with. (STRONG shoulder shake)
Shout-out to all the members of Kool & The Gang, All The Musicians, Stage Crew, Tour Managers, Catering, Bus Drivers. You guys rock!
Dawn West, Jarard Isler and Tonia Bellamy: Thanks for your words of wisdom and for challenging me to step out on faith with conviction. No regrets.
Erika Correa, Sonia Hunte, Peridot Smith, Kadian Langlais and Amanda "Paradyme" Stockham: Ladies, thank you so much for your encouragement and unwavering support.
My Family: Mom, Dad & Zee, Thank you for your love and support. I hear you cheering me on no matter where I am in the world.
Special shout-out to all The Fans and people of France who showed the most amazing love, warmth and hospitality.

I had the time of my life getting "Lost In Music". I found out so much about myself along the way. I'm looking forward to future opportunities...the journey continues...Stay Tuned.

A Bientot! <3 Rae. (See you soon)

The Story is too amazing to capture in one email...I will be blogging and posting pics on:
www.rachelwalkeronline.com & www.facebook.com/rachelwalkeronline

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Importance of Research & Studies in Entertainment

Dacloak

Importance of Research & Studies in Entertainment

by DaCloak (Rapper, Producer, Owner of Deepsea Ent. Inc)

The reason that I’ve chosen the title that I have chosen for this particular article is that the common mistake that every new artist, producer, song writer, and etc. make is that they don’t do the proper research before they decide to become apart of the entertainment industry. It’s vital that you do this research for whatever position you decide to choose as a career. Take at least an hour out of your day to study the history, requirements, and amount of pay that you are supposed to receive. You don’t want to be one of THOSE who have a story of being taken advantage of because you didn’t do your proper research and studying.

Now granted with the help of the internet google.com, askjeeves.com, and business.com you can acquire any information that’s needed about your desired field of entertainment. Will you just be able to go on careerbuilder.com and find companies just posting random jobs for the entertainment business? PROBABLY NOT. Many companies are, however, still using interns and temps to hire employees for those of us who are currently attending college and need experience in their desired field. Not ALL interning jobs pay, but the experience definitely makes a difference in your choices of career opportunities in entertainment. Stay on top of your game whatever your destination in the entertainment whether it’s marketing, promotions, artist management/development, public relations, attorney, consultant, and music production

Other Need To Know Information

For those of you that are artists, producers, and song writers I urge you to do these specific things before you sign any contracts, sale, or lease any material. If you own the company that you’re working for the following steps should be taken.

Register your material with the library of congress @ www.copyright.gov . Each form is for different aspects of copyrighting your material.

Register your material with either ASCAP (www.ascap.com) or BMI (www.bmi.com). Register as both a publisher and a song writer. Believe me you want to own 100% of both if you want to make money from your material.

Peace & Blessings

Gregory DaCloak James

Deepsea Entertainment Inc.

Founder/CEO

http://www.reverbnation.com/dacloakmusic
http://www.thatshiphop.com/dacloakmusic
http://www.myspace.com/dacloakmusic
http://www.facebook.com/DaCloak
http://www.facebook.com/dacloakmusic
http://twitter.com/DaCloakAKATha1
http://www.datpiff.com/DaCLOAK
http://www.youtube.com/DaCLOAKTV
http://www.showcaseyourmusic.com/dacloak...
http://www.stereofame.com/dacloak

The Spot Welcomes the Queens of Poetry/ Open Mic October 21st @ 10 pm est!

Click here to listen live at 10pm est.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Thump Domestic Violence Project!

The Thump Domestic Violence Project video, was created by DL Thumpdomesticviolence Davis, and features Huniie TheMessenger, Briana Lucero, and Jose Velazquez. THIS IS SOMETHING WE SHOULD ALL FEEL VERY STRONGLY ABOUT!!!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Rap or Spit coming back to airwaves! Stay tuned!

Rap or Spit with PBS will be hitting the airwaves soon. Please send any Independent Artist and Spoken Word tracks to raporspit@gmail.com!

Check out our Visual Artist of the Month -Karama Sadaka

Karama Sadaka

Click here to go to Visual Artist of the Month Page.

Monday, October 11, 2010

A Paradyme Shift in Radio

Publish Post

Pick up the August issue of Soul Response at www.thesoulresponse.com

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Gabbie McGee: "Oak Tree" , from the album "Mississippi's Daughter"

FOR COLORED GIRLS - Trailer

The movie is based on Ntozake Shange's play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf." Unlike the original play which featured only 7 women known by colors performing the collection of 20 poems, the movie has given each of the 20 characters names. Each of the poems deal with intense issues that particularly impact women in a thought-provoking commentary on what it means to be a female of color in the world.

"Spoken Word" The Movie

From acclaimed director Victor Nunez ("Ulee's Gold"), SPOKEN WORD tells the story of Cruz Montoya (Kuno Becker, from the "Goal!" trilogy and "From Mexico With Love"), a rock star on the West Coast poetry circuit, where audiences from San Diego to Seattle gather to hear him perform. Just off the road from a successful tour, Cruz gets an unexpected call alerting him that his father, Senior (played by Rubén Blades), is fatally ill.
Cruz rushes home to his dying father, a reclusive former schoolteacher still leading a traditional life in their once bucolic mountain valley, now ravaged by poverty, drug abuse, and violence. After years away, Cruz quickly begins to retreat into his troubled former life, managing a Santa Fe hip-hop club owned by a local crime boss, Emilio (Miguel Sandoval, "Bottle Shock" and "Clear and Present Danger"), who Senior used to run with back in the day. Seduced by the fast action and easy money, Cruz loses his poetic voice, his identity, and almost his life, before he finds a way to heal his relationships with his family, his community, and himself.
A nuanced depiction of an evolving father-son relationship, SPOKEN WORD depicts the edgy collision of old and new worlds in a rare, authentic portrait of Latino culture in the Southwest, illustrating how cultural roles and machismo can give way when families can move beyond words, both spoken and unspoken, to share the language of their hearts.- from www.spokenwordmovie.com/synopsis.html

Spotlight on Nikki Giovanni

Yolanda Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on June 7, 1943, and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1960, she entered Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she worked with the school's Writer's Workshop and edited the literary magazine. After receiving her bachelor of arts degree in 1967, she organized the Black Arts Festival in Cincinnati before entering graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

In her first two collections, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968) and Black Judgement(1969), Giovanni reflects on the African-American identity. Recently, she has published Acolytes (HarperCollins, 2007), The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 (2003), Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not-Quite Poems (2002) Blues For All the Changes: New Poems(1999), Love Poems (1997), and Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni(1996).

A lung cancer survivor, Giovanni has also contributed an introduction to the anthology Breaking the Silence: Inspirational Stories of Black Cancer Survivors (Hilton Publishing, 2005).

Her honors include three NAACP Image Awards for Literature in 1998, the Langston Hughes award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996, as well as more than twenty honorary degrees from national colleges and universities. She has been given keys to more than a dozen cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, and New Orleans.

Several magazines have named Giovanni Woman of the Year, includingEssence, Mademoiselle, Ebony, and Ladies Home Journal. She was the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award. She has served as poetry judge for the National Book Awards and was a finalist for a Grammy Award in the category of Spoken Word.

She is currently Professor of English and Gloria D. Smith Professor of Black Studies at Virginia Tech, where she has taught since 1987.

Nikki-Rosa

Childhood rememberances are

always a drag if you're Black

you always remember things like

living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet

and if you become famous or something

They never talk about how happy

you were to have your mother

all to yourself and how good the

water felt when you got your bath

from one of those

Big tubs that folk in chicago barbeque

in and somehow when you talk

about home

it never gets across how much you

understood their feelings as the

whole family attended meetings

About Hollydale and even though you

remember your biographers never

understand your father's pain as he

sells his stock and another

dream goes

And though your're poor it isn't

poverty that concerns you and

though they fought a lot

it isn't your father's drinking that

makes any difference but only that

Everybody is together and you

and your sister have happy birthdays

and very good Christmasses and I

really hope no white person ever has

cause to write about me

because they never understand

Black love is Black wealth and they'll

probably talk about my hard childhood

and never understand that

all the while I was quite happy

Written by Nikki Giovanni

FOR MORE INFO GO TO NIKKI.GIOVANNI.COM

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Lupe Fiasco speaks out against Atlantic

Monday, October 4, 2010

If you don't know, NOW YOU KNOW-Mahogany Dust!

Mahogany Dust "Experience"

Recently on The Spot it was briefly discussed how musicianship is now forgotten. To be more precise, the 'instrument' in mainstreem music has left us. To find the sound, the raw vibe of artists using there talents to accentuate the other, sometimes you have to look. I am however, fortunate that this husband and wife explosive team came to my show.

From Atlanta, GI'Twice (singer, guitar) and DNA (spoken word, guitar) have been doing their thing since 2007. Both eventually left their jobs as Microbiologists to pursue music their own way, with their own sound they like to call "Spoken Soul."

Gi-Twice's jazz inspired leads give way to song after song of finger snappin hooks that will massage your brain for hours. DNA is razor sharp, his spoken word gets to the heart of the matter with an aggression of that Uncle that has been there and done that. Together the fusion creates a friction that brings the heat track after track!

"Experience", the follow up to their debut cd "Livin" is solid music. It's deliberate, it takes you places. It reminds me of what I have been missing in newer artists today. The Experience of listening to a cd that you truly enjoy. That you can listen to from begining to end and keep on repeat.

The title track "Experience" is an uptempo track where Mahogany Dust gives you the options, learn from your mistakes and get on the right path, or keep bumpin your head. You might chose wrong, but you can't say they didn't warn ya!

I have quite a few fav's from the album, "Friday" will have you singing all night long. "Chillin at the Bar" is a short track that takes you back in the day, it's a smooth groove boy meets girl story, that will have you smilin and dancin' in your seat. "Goodbye" is a beautiful song in which Gi-Twice expertly pulls you into the pain of letting go to move on. DNA hits hard with the truth about those of us who are too afraid to 'turn to the next chapter.

I could go on and on. All the songs on the "Experience" cd are carefully crafted from the spirit of these two dynamic and talented people. You will not be disappointed.

Mahogany Dust will be featured on The Spot w/Paradyme on Oct. 14th at 10pm est. Click here to go to the show page.