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*A quick note.. we are extending the 2Pac 'Lost Tapes' Contest to Sunday Night.. Come Monday morning all twenty winners will be announced. For those who don't know we are looking for a paragraph explaining where you think 2Pac would be if he was still alive today.
Please email all entries to mailto:kingdave@sirius.com
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As you know this is the big weekend when the Hip Hop spotlight focuses on Madison Wi.. Here is a run down of what will be going on. I hope to see everyone from the Chicago/Gary/Madison area to come out and represent to the fullest...

The Hip Hop Generation Conference will open on April 14 with a panel entitled Hip Hop 101 featuring Afrika Bambaataa, Professor Griff, dzine, Mtume Ya Salaam, Sally Banes, Craig Werner.

Friday will also feature a panel entitled Guerilla Radio- The Internet And The Music Industry featuring Greg Doby (Regime Records), Davey D and Chuck D.

Chuck D will give the keynote address at 7pm.

Sunday features a True School Panel at 7pm with Afrika Bambaataa and others.

The conference will feature performances by some of the hottest underground artists including Screwball (Tommy Boy), Dead Prez (Loud), Planet Asia (Ground Control/Nu Gruv), Bahamadia (Goodvibe), Zion I (Ground Control/Nu Gruv), and Rebel Lion (Black Panther Collective). Performance showcases of local talent will also be featured.

The Saturday concert will unite some of the most talented women performers in Hip Hop today giving the spotlight to an all-female line up. Saturday night performers are: the Anomolies, Medusa (Goodvibe), Shortee (Bomb Hip Hop), Neb Luv (Goodvibe), and DJ Kuttin Kandi (5th Platoon).

Other speakers and panelists include Davey D, Dan Frosch, Mtume Ya Salaam, Professor Craig Werner, Minister Abdullah Muhammad, Luis Cardona, Rachel Raimist, and Shaka Shakur.

For more info: www.hiphopgeneration.org
Promotions & Media ONLY: Greg DL grdalziel@hotmail.com
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For all you good people who are interested in getting a taste of the Bay Area.. Veteran DJ Billy Jam of Hip Hop Slam has teamed up with Amoeba Records to do a compilation CD entitled "All That Glitters Isn't Platinum: Amoeba Music Compilation Vol. I" . This is a 17 track collection of independent artists from the Bay who are definitely blowing up the spot. The CD includes detailed liner notes with bios and photos on each artist along with contact e-mail/web-site information for each. The artist featured include; (Various Blends feat. DJ Apollo, Foreign Legion, KNT feat. San Quinn, 75 Degrees, Mad Ill, & Joefinite the I.S.) to name a few. There are also some rock, Jazz, drum and bass and spoken word artist on the CD as well including; Venus Bleeding, Drop, Intrepid A.A.F., Dura-Delinquent, Merrick & the Sloppy MeatEaters), Balanceman, DMT, drum'n'noise-core Healamonster, r&b vocalist Yvette Pylant, and Oakland spoken-word artist Goldie the Poet. For more information on this compilation mailto:hiphopslam@aol.com Props to Billy Jam for putting this together and representin' the Bay...
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Q-Tip is continuing to make moves within the movie arena. He recently completed his major role in the upcoming 'Prison Song'. Mary J Blige is also featured in this as well. The flick should be out in the fall of 2000. Now Q-Tip is set to take on author Terri McMillian. He will play a prominent role in 'Disappearing Acts' which will also star Wesley Snipes who is also executive producer. The movie is based upon McMillian's novel about an aspiring song writer and music teacher breaking into the ruthless music business. Q-Tip will play the role of a record producer named 'Hitman'. Filming has already gotten underway in Brooklyn. My question is when will Q-Tip do a film and another song with his girl-Janet Jackson?
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Common continues to blow up the spot as he gets ready to touch down in the Bay Area this Sunday night at the Justice League [628 Divisadero] in SF. The show should be off the hook as people are totally feeling his album 'Like Water For Chocolate'. People are also excited about his community activism..Last issue I told you how he just launched up a new charity to help under privileged kids. Another area where Common is generating excitement is on the issue of Assata Shakur. She is the former Black Panther who was once known as Joanne Charismad who is currently in exile in Cuba. On his album Common does a song that pays tribute to her and folks are taking notice.. here's recent press release...


COMMON GETS PROPS FROM HOA ( HANDS OFF ASSATA)

Everybody gotta rap
Everybody gotta beat
Everybody gotta rhyme

But nobody but Common got Assata In the lyrical mix that combines rap beat and rhyme!

SO WHATCHA SAY? WHO IS THAT?
AND WHY DOES THAT MAKE COMMON'S RHYME SO PHAT?

Common, in his newest and hottest CD, Like Water for Chocolate, knows you
not only got to keep it real, but you got to speak to the reality that got
us locked up, profiled, lined up and sidelined. He has been to school and
knows that the best way to get props is to give them. And so in Common's
new CD he has sampled and given props to Assata Shakur, a legendary sista
who stood up against the system in the 60s and 70s-- someone who refused
to bow down to the idea that Black and poor people had to accept the beat
down. Then, like Malcolm, because she said NO, she became an enemy of the
state. Like other members of the Black Panther Party, she came into the
sights of Big Brother-the FBI's Counterintelligence Program-- and was
tapped, watched, harassed and finally framed. Assata was no criminal but
they wanted to make her one so that no one today would know or care who
she is or what she fought for, but It did not work. You cannot stop the
Spirit. And this is the spirit that Common has called on in his rhyme
that is in with the circle of time.

Today Assata is alive and well and living in Cuba, where she fled in fear
of her life after escaping from prison more than 20 years ago. She
received political asylum because another country accepted her claim that
she could not be treated fairly here in the US. Since then she has gone
to college, published an autobiography, written poetry and essays, and had
a movie made about her. She has kept contact with her daughter and
grandchild when they have been able to come and see her. She has not
tried to come into the United States for fear of inprisonment and death.

SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE YOU ASK? It is because Assata did not
die or sell out, it is because she is a symbol that you cannot kill the
spirit -- that to this day there are illegal efforts to try to force her
return, including putting a bounty on her head-like was done with runaway
slaves.

We at the HANDS OFF ASSATA campaign want to give all due respect to Common
for making the music the message. This is our song, our rhyme, our beat:
We are not going to let not one other of our sistas or brothers who fought
so hard for us, to be harassed, persecuted or kidnapped. The law says
Assata is a political exile entitled to remain where she is. So we say to
Governor Christine Whitman of New Jersey, call off your $100,000 bounty!
Maybe you should use that money to see what the troopers are doing to
brothers and sistas on the turnpike today. We say to those members of
Congress that supported a call to Cuba to expel Assata , don't be no
fool--take it back. We say if you really want to know the truth about
what happened with Assata, and many of the too strong crew, call for
public hearings on the FBI's Counter intelligence program. Ask why she
was targeted, why her phone was tapped. Ask why in five cases brought
against Assata after she was arrested in 1973 , the charges were dismissed
for lack of evidence or she was acquitted in trials before largely white
juries. Ask about the facts behind her arrest in 1973 when she and her
companions were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike. Ask why there was a
shootout in which one policeman and one of her companions were killed and
she was shot in the back. Ask why she was chained to her bed, and
not given adequate medical attention. Ask why even though the evidence
showed she had not fired any weapon she was convicted and given a life
sentence plus 33 years. Ask why this case was put on her. We all want to
know. We know that what the FBI carried out has not seen the light of day
because if it did, a lot of cases besides Assata's would show up shaky.

We at HANDS OFF ASSATA want to raise our hands in the air and wave them
like we DO care. We care about what Common cares about which is what
Assata cares about - we care about what happens to our youth, our fathers,
our mothers, our sistas, our brothers. We believe that by struggling for
ASSATA we struggle for the best in ourselves.

Come check us out at www.afrocuba.web; email main@afrocuba.web or send
requests for info to HOA Campaign P/O/ Box 438731, Chicago, IL 60643.

Contact: L. Brock (773) 794-5158

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