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Davey D's FNV Newsletter
In Today's Issue: September19 2000
*Nelly Goes To The Movies
*Rappers Do Their Civic Duty
*Jay-Z Is Back
*DMX Has A New Book On Life
*Mos Def: Right Set-Wrong Time and Place
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mailto:kingdave@sirius.com
The FNV Newsletter
written by Davey D
http://www.daveyd.com
http://www.rapstation.com
c 2000
All Rights Reserved
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 This has been shaping up to be quite a year for St Louis's golden child Nelly. Over the past year he has but St Louis squarely on the Hip Hop map by exceeding everyone's initial expectations. His hit song and album 'Country Grammar' has blew up and landed him the top position on the Billboard charts for 5 weeks. People are eagerly awaiting the album from Nelly's partners the St Lunatics..
Now Nelly is set to take things to the next level by showcasing his acting prowess on the silver screen.
He is set to star in an urban thriller called 'Snipes' which will feature actors Dean Winters from the HBO series Oz and Mpho Koaho who was featured in the movie 'Down In The Delta'. Rappers Fat Joe, Kool Moe Dee and Schoolly D will also star in the flick. The movie is about about a teenager named Snipes who works at a rap label. He accidently witnesses a kidnapping and a murder of an up and coming rap star. This thrusts Snipes into the shady underworld of the music business. Nelly will play the role of Prolifik who is the up and coming rap star who gets kidnapped and later murdered. Why do so many rappers have to die? Filming starts October 2. Let's hope its a lot better then that new flick by Pras and Ja Rule..
 Looks like Hip Hop artist are stepping up and being civic minded. First up we have Coolio who recently appeared before Surgeon General in Washington DC to talk about the respiratory disease asthma. Coolio who suffers from the disease is a spokesperson for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. He will soon be appearing in public service announcements aimed at kids from the hood. Asthma is likely to kill African American kids 4-6 times more then white kids..
Meanwhile rappers YoYo, CED and Professor Michael Eric Dyson swung through Congresswoaman Maxine Waters annual Young Gifted and Black panel during the Congressional Black Caucus to represent. For folks who are unfamiliar Congresswoman Waters hosts this panel as a way to showcase young talent and also demonstrate that Hip Hop and politics aren't that far apart.
Lastly we have Sean Puffy Combs who stepped up and delivered more then 100 computers to Adam Clayton Powell Jr Academy in Harlem. Puff has teamed up the good folks over at Hookt.com and will talk about the need to bridge the Digital Divide.
* While Mos was having problems getting San Francisco to love him and his band, Michael Franti of Spearhead had no problem at the 911- Mumia Free Concert in the park the following day. More then 6 thousand people descended upon Delores Park in SF's historic Mission District for an afternoon of spoken word and slamming music. Tre from the Pharcyde came through with his band Legend of Phoenix and received a rousing ovation.. During Michael's incredible set Talib Kweli came through and hit a few verses with the band and the crowd went bananas..No doubt this was the crowd Mos needed to be in front of with his band...But at least Talib represented...
* Jay Z is set to to drop his 5th album on October 31st. Its entitled The Dynasty Rock La Familia 2000 and looks to be the bomb. His first single is a cut called Parking Lot Pimpin' featuring Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek. The group just shot the video for the track in LA. While Jigga is putting the final touches on his album, he also working hard to complete another film entitled 'Paid In Full' . This flick chronicles the life of real life gangstas from New York.. It will be starring actor Mekhi Phifer who was featured in the movie Soul Food.
*While Jay-Z is doing his film thing, DMX is set to do an autobiography. He will be teaming up with Source writer/editor Smokey Fontaine to pen a book called 'DMX: A Dogz Life'. It will include passages taken from DMX's personal notebooks which will hopefully offer much insight into a a very complex guy.. The book is due out next fall..
 The Lyricist Lounge show in San Francisco was absolutely incredible. Everyone who took to the stage brought serious lyrical heat. Bahamadia got busy and threw down. Slum Village came through and did their thing. Major Figgas were definitely major.. Talib Kweli went the hell off. He brought the crowd to an absolute frenzy. It was with great anticipation that everyone eagerly awaited the arrival of Mos Def who was headlining the event. If everyone got down, then there was no doubt that Mos would take the show to the heights of Hip Hop heaven. One of the things that everyone was looking forward to was the fact that Mos had a back up band which included Bernie Worrell of Parliament/ Funkadelic and prior to that James Brown. He also had Doug Winbush who was another long time funkateer who once played in the house band for Sugar Hill Records.. Mos was coming with the funk and it was gonna be all good..
I was mad as heck when I had to leave the show during Slum Villages set.. I had to go on air and do my radio show and was scheduled to chop it up with Talib. Imagine my surprise when the reports came pouring in the next day about Mos doing a 'wack' show.. This was hard to phantom.II've seen Mos rip crowd on at least 5 occasions and he's never not come through and represent. But folks were adamant in their opinion. Mos was straight up booty during his set. A fellow radio head noted that people left in droves during Mos Def's set.. So I made few calls and found up what went down..
Mos had lost all his music which was stored on a computer hard drive.. Someone had left it next to a speaker and it demagnetized its contents. They had a back up drive, but it was taking way too long [40 minutes] to transfer all the information. Rather then keep the crowd waiting, Mos went out and did his set sans the hard drive tracks and just with the band. He ripped things acapella. He showed off his singing prowess.. had he been in a jazzy night club or doing an MTV unplugged set, Mos would've been off the hook. But this Friday more then 3 thousand people came through and apparently wanted to hear Mos sound like his records. They didn't wanna hear no back up band play their rendition of Ms Fat Booty or any of his other tracks. The crowd wanted to jump around and be all energetic as they were during the previous acts.. "We don't want no goddamn experimental Hip Hop" is how one young lady bluntly put it..
And while I'm old enough to appreciate the collaboration between superstars of different eras.. The Hip Hop generation meets the P-Funk era, many in the crowd was way to young to fully understand. Many of the cats on hand were just being born or weren't born at all when songs like Flashlight and Knee Deep first came out.. All they know is unless you're the roots you best sound like your record.. Needless the say, it was disappointing. Mos Def gets high marks for showmanship and for being innovative and for trying to turn a bad situation into something good. He also gets props for pushing the envelop. I hear so many people within Hip Hop always complaining that folks aren't coming original. Well Mos sang songs, he rapped and brought out a band.. He got original.. I guess the crowd wasn't worry.. Nice set wrong time wrong place..
 Hearing about Mos Def reminded me of a similar incident involving Too Short several years ago. Short headlined our Summer jam concert and decided to come through and bring a brand new band which featured many of the players from Digital Underground.. he had rehearsed for several weeks and was excited about his new venture. When Short hit the stage he got a hometown welcome from 22 thousand fans.. When the band started playing people lost their minds and started booing and walking out.. Short was totally upset.. The next night he returned to headline and brought just his DJ and two turntables and the crowd went nuts.. I guess Hip Hop isn't always ready for the changes we're ready to bring them..
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