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April 12 1999
IN THIS ISSUE OF THE FNV NEWSLETTER 4-12-99 Send comments, questions and concerns to mailto:kingdave@sirius.com The FNV Newsletter written by Davey D c 1999 All Rights Reserved In case you don't know by now, there 3 people were arrested last week for the killing of The Lost Boyz' Freaky Tah. Kelvin Jones, Raheen Fletcher and Ryan Birth have all been charged with second degree murder. Thus far police are speculating that Kelvin Jones was the actual gunman. With all that being said the story behind Freaky Tah's killing takes on an assortment of strange turns and twists. The police were looking into the possible connection between the recent killing of rap star Big L and Freaky Tah. The two victims knew each other and as was the case with Big L there is speculation that Freaky Tah's murder was a revenge killing. Unofficial reports are speculating that the intended target may have been fellow Lost Boyz member Mr Cheeks. There have been stories circulating, noting that members of the Lost Boyz had some on going beefs with some kids from around their way {Queens New York}. Although Tah may not have been directly involved, his killing may have been in clear retaliation to the way kids down with The Lost Boyz had handled past problems. The word is, their crew could and would definitely bring the 'funk' and be heavy handed when confronted. In short, this was some street drama that played itself out publicly and resulted in a tragic death. In the meantime, The Lost Boyz new album 'LB For Life' will be released in June as scheduled.
I was sent an article from the Philadelphia News that talks about a tiger getting loose on the set of Nas' video 'Hate Me Now'. According to the story, Nas, Puffy and Funkmaster Flex literally ran for the hills when these tigers got lose and ran amuck. That's understandable, but what made this so interesting was that the trainers needed only some milk to calm the big critters down.. I guess all that shot calling big balling stuff went out the window in this case..For more info peep out http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/99/Apr/05/local/PEEP05.htm
Rap Activist Sister Souljah is back on the scene. If you may recall Souljah stirred things up a few years back with President Clinton who had the nerve to publicly criticize her and refer to her as a gangsta rapper. She was once a member of Public Enemy and kinda set things off with a song she and Chuck D did on Terminator X's album entitled 'Buck Whylin'. This was the cut where she yells out at the beginning 'We Are At War!'. Nowadays Souljah has been wrecking shop behind the scenes with her work with Puff Daddy. She runs his very successful Daddy's House program which helps out inner city youth. Now Souljah is about to step into the public eye again as she has just released her second book. Entitled The Coldest Winter Ever, this is a fictional story about a young woman who grows up in Brooklyn and is treated like a Mafia princess by her daddy who is a drug lord.. The book chronicles this woman's life and times as she moves from the projects and out into the suburbs. Souljah's first book 'No Disrespect' was her autobiography. Finally there is talk that Souljah may soon drop another album with the help of Sean Puffy Combs that should be an interesting combination. Hopefully these upcoming projects will thrust Souljah back into the spotlight and grant her some proper respects. I've always felt that for a woman as sharp and as insightful as she is.. she has never really gotten her props. Perhaps she's too powerful.
Folks are giving Lauryn Hill big props for speaking out and acknowledging the current police brutality crises that seem to be taking place all over this country. The other week during her concert in Madison Square Garden.. An attendee at the concert wrote me to say this.... "Lauryn addressed the whole Amadou Diallo and police brutality situation here in New York. She told the very racially diverse crowd that if they did not agree with the situation that was going on, they should make their voices heard not only at the protest but all at the ballot box by voting. She also stated that Black life was just as valuable as any other and that while they are good police officers and most probably are doing a good job, those that are brutal and mistreat people must face justice. It was great because she a is major voice in hip hop who people respect and she did it right before her last encore when her whole audience was listening. She is an example more major artists should follow. So when I wrote a while back that more voices in hip-hop should be heard on this issue, I did specify that it is especially important to hear from the more prominent stars." The author of this letter went on to question whether or not Redman, Method Man, DMX and Jay-Z would do something similar during their Hard Knock Life Tour. Ironically all four of those guys have had major run ins with the law. In the case of Meth and DMX they were most definitely wronged by the police. Meth was hemmed up back in October in Memphis while signing autographs.. and DMX was jailed and falsely accussed of raping someone last June. With regards to this whole issue of police brutality and in light of what happened with Dwayne Wiggins, I will be doing a radio show on this whole issue. It will be the second show we do this year and it will take place the day after the Millions For Mumia March here in SF which is April 24th..On the show we intend to alert people to what their rights are and aren't.. and hopefully get more folks active and involved with the going ons in their community.
Since we brought up the name Lauryn Hill, folks will want to know that her good friend Wyclef Jean announced that there will definitely be a Fugee album coming out in the new Millennium. He says he wants to put all this bad talk and speculation about him Lauryn and Pras not getting along, behind him. Right now he says he has put his next solo project on hold and that everyone is waiting for Lauryn to get off tour so they can meet and work things out. Wyclef promised that the next Fugee album will be a return to their hip hop roots. Lauryn's other good friend, Pras has been doing the whole movie thing.. He will be featured in a new flick called Mystery Man and he's about to start filming Ghetto Superstar which is being produced by Madonna. Considering all that you've heard and seen by Pras, Wyclef and Lauryn, how do think a Fugee album would be at this time? Do you think they can get back their chemistry? Would it be a waste of time? Hit me at mailto:kingdave@sirius.com
 How many of y'all saw Jay-Z on the Fox Files news show last week? I thought it was a pretty good piece. They seemed to make a point of showing that Jay-Z goes back to the notorious Marcy Projects where he grew up in Bed Stuy and tries to help out the folks from around the way. That cool that he does that. I could've used Jay-Z' help 15 years ago when my crew went out to Marcy Projects to do a gig and got stuck up for all their equipment.. But that's another story..:) Anyway, Jay-Z doesn't appear to be one who flosses his success in people's faces at least according to the folks who were interviewed. He seemed determined to set an example to folks that they too can make it.. I wonder if Fox Files intends to do more pieces spotlighting hip hop stars? It will certainly garner them an audience. Unfortunately, Fox has a bad habit of using Hip Hop and then discarding it after it reaches a certain level of success. Case in point.. 'In Living Color, New York Undercover and Living Single. These were all popular shows that had some facet of hip hop as a key element. As the shows began to grow then Fox would come along and pull the plug. We'll see what happens with Fox Files..
Tears of a Clown proves that Andre Nikatina is no gimmick rapper. His rhymes are methodical, clever and most of all, original. From true grit of "The Rap Gods", and "Last Breath of an MC", to the wicked instrumental "Even Pimps Get Broken Hearts", onto story rhymes like "Classified", a love story about a man and his car - this is a first rate record from front to back. Without dropping one ad as of yet, local record stores in across the Bay are having a hard time keeping it in stock. And he's meticulous when it comes to keeping his business in order. To get closer to hearts of his fans he has just launched http://www.nickatina.com. He promises "This web site is gonna be something special. I'm gonna be sellin' a lot of unreleased material, shirts, photos from my tours. It's gonna be real live in the next couple of months". For an interview contact Shin-Ken Entertainment at mailto:Shinken@pacbell.net.
Last week I dropped this gem of a riddle: WHO AM I?For those who don't know... The person is none other then Joe Cooley.. of the Rodney O and Joe Cooley fame.. They were once down with the Egyptian Lover and his Egyptian Empire record label which was one of hip hop's first successful record labels. For those who never seen Joe get down on the turntables.. He is by far one of the fastest I've ever seen.. and trust me I've seen them all.. His battles with DJ Cash Money were legendary. I recall seeing the two go head to head at the Scottish Rite Temple here in Oakland.. Joe had an edge over Cash who seemed to more creative, but was no match for Joe's incredible speed. I'm not quite sure what Joe is doing these days since Rodney has decided to go solo.. Here's another Hip Hop Riddle to ponder... Who Am I? The record that bears my name wasn't supposed to be included on my group's first album. But due to sample clearance problems, mainly from Kraftwerk, I was put to work and asked to come up with a song. Being the great rap star that I am, my song completely overshadowed the concept my group had originally developed for their album. In fact my song sold over 2 million units. At the time it was the most for a 12 inch single.. I made my group famous.. Absolutely famous I tell ya. Oh well just so ya know my groups concept had something to do with sex. People like to call Biz Markie a clown, but trust me folks I'm just as funny.. Also I started a dance craze with my song... Who Am I/ And What was my song..? Hit me back at mailto:kingdave@sirius.com
Send comments, questions and concerns to mailto:kingdave@sirius.com The FNV Newsletter written by Davey D c1999 All Rights Reserved Go Back To Hip Hop News Directory
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