by Paul A. Moore
They fall with regularity, in a rhythm of death. The youth of Overtown and Liberty City and all points of poverty in are rushed to their graves to the accompaniment of beats and rhymes that profit the few and lock the many in a dance of death. “All of us grown folks who sit and watch you die one after another failed you.”
Miami's Young are Dying
by Paul A. Moore
“Many young African-American men know that you can rap about and glorify the drug trade and the accompanying gun play and mayhem and violent massacres and birthday parties sprayed with assault weapons fire.”
Anthony Smith has died nearly a week after being shot.
Anthony was a young man of 17-years and a student at Miami's Booker T. Washington High School. He played football and would have been a Senior this year if not for the gunshots that killed him. The fatal bullet penetrated his chest and collapsed his lungs.
The beginning of the end for Anthony was a birthday celebration. It was uncharacteristic of him but he went to the big party staged in the Overtown section of the city over the July 4th weekend. The party went strong into the early morning until it was sprayed with assault weapons fire. Anthony was one of twelve people hit.
It happened just a stone's throw from where nine young people were shot in January. In both mass shootings two of the wounded did not make it. A few days before Anthony Smith died, Michelle Coleman succumbed to three bullet wounds. She was 21-years-old and a nursing student at Florida A&M University and a graduate of Miami Central High School. Michelle was pregnant when she died.
Miami Carol City High is a school very much like Anthony's Booker T. Washington and Michelle's Central High. Once you've been there for 26-years it is little surprising as you pull out of the faculty parking lot on a Friday to see the utility poles and the fences surrounding the school plastered with posters. The sight is a not uncommon form of the street marketing of rap.
“The party went strong into the early morning until it was sprayed with assault weapons fire.”
And in the rap game Carol City High has some standing. William Roberts is a 1986 graduate of the school. He is now internationally known by his stage name Rick Ross or as "The Big Boss." His choice of show business personas is an homage to the drug trafficker some say introduced crack cocaine to the United States, Freeway Ricky Ross from Los Angeles. For the video “All I Really Want” from his latest recording, Deeper Than Rap, he made a pilgrimage to Medellin, Colombia. According to a New York Times story, "In footage from the trip, available on YouTube, he stands outside the house where Pablo Escobar was killed, sunglasses off, soaking in history."
Sometime after Rick Ross' Port of Miami and after Trilla and before Deeper Than Rap the posters advertising an aspiring young rapper who calls himself Eady appeared around Carol City High. In the posters at a distance it is clear Eady is a young man with long dreadlocks and that he has created a work he calls Dope Pusher. And from a distance he appears to be starring out from the poster holding a book in his hands. Upon moving closer the book is rather two fists full of cash. For the passerby who equates money with goodness and success, Eady hovers over as a saint.
You can listen to Eady's Dope Pusher on the Internet web site:
“Rick Ross' choice of show business personas is an homage to the drug trafficker some say introduced crack cocaine to the United States.”
The street marketing of Eady's product around Carol City High and elsewhere is done by Big Bank Music Productions. The fledgling local record company's philosophy is expressed on their web site. They say, "There are two types of hard core rappers among mankind. You have your mainstream rapper, who appears to be rigid and tough at all times, never smiles. He's always spitting heavy rhymes about his struggle as a child or how many innocent individuals that he or she may have killed or done bodily harm to. This '24-hour Thug' is usually a phony, that lives in Beverly Hills, attended private school, and believes that spotlighting hardship and poverty is a marketing strategy for his music career. On the other hand you have your boyish, rapper that was a statistic of a not so pleasant neighborhood, and grew up against all possible odds, but finds a resource to tap into their musical talent and shares their inner most secrets through music and introduces their story of how you can take a bad situation and turn it into a good situation. This spark of hope is none other than Southern rapper EADY. EADY has come to breathe 'fresh air' into the current rap game.”
“For the video 'All I Really Want' from his latest recording, Deeper Than Rap, Ross made a pilgrimage to Medellin, Colombia.”
And Eady describes himself thus: "As a rapper from the ghetto, I don't want to highlight my struggles and upbringing like other rappers, instead I want to rap about working towards the future and showing communities around the world that if you work hard at something, good things will come to you. I am the voice of the hood. I am here to inspire."
Sumner Redstone recently paid a visit to Miami. He was just across the causeway from Booker T. Washington High at Jungle Island. He came as the featured speaker at the scholarship fundraiser for the Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy. It was the school's 60th anniversary dinner celebration. Tickets were $136.00 per person. The private school's annual tuition is quite steep, from $8,000 for the early childhood program up to $16,000 for the high school, and so nearly half their 600 students are helped with financial aid.
Redstone is 85-years-old and a multi-billionaire but still working. He is the executive chairman or CEO of the Viacom Corporation. Viacom is a media giant and the company owns both Black Entertainment Television (B.E.T.) and Music Television (MTV).
“Sumner Redstone will push your rhymes like weight on his B.E.T. and his MTV and make you the new Big Boss.”
Redstone's B.E.T. and MTV networks have not deemed Eady's Dope Pusher worthy of airtime yet. But the young self-described "voice of the hood" has not given up on that possibility because he knows the story of Carol City High's William Roberts b.k.a. Rick Ross.
Eady has tweaked the title of his seminal work. He now calls it The Pusher. Eady and many young African-American men know that you can rap about and glorify the drug trade and the accompanying gun play and mayhem and violent massacres and birthday parties sprayed with assault weapons fire. And if you do it at just the right pitch and in the right tenor. And if you aim it at the young people like Anthony Smith late of Booker T. Washington High and Michelle Coleman late of Florida A&M University and away from the young people at Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy. Then Sumner Redstone will push your rhymes like weight on his B.E.T. and his MTV and make you the new Big Boss.
R.I.P Anthony Smith, you were a fine young man who deserved a better United States to grow up in. R.I.P. Michelle Coleman, in a better nation we would have known you as a nurse and mother and gotten to hold your baby in our arms. You were our son and our daughter and we failed you. All of us grown folks who sit and watch you die one after another failed you. But we pledge to both of you that this time we will find the courage to straighten our backs up and go after and stop those people who profit, who make huge fortunes, who count the blood money after your deaths.
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According to a New York Times
According to a New York Times story, "In footage from the trip, available on YouTube, he stands outside the house where Pablo Escobar was killed, sunglasses off, soaking in history."
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Diary of a People Gone Mad!
This article is devastatingly sad. Not such for the highlighted story but, because the story is replicated ten times per week nationwide. A people of such great ability, African Americans have proven to be considering our history over the last 500 years. We have used our seemingly natural relationship with the drum and our ability to story tell toward our detriment. We once wrote songs and banged our drums for revolution and a common call for progress and change. Now our music is mass marketed and much of it is nothing more than pollution.
I reluctantly say that but, I cannot deny it even though I am a child of the hip hop generation. While we see some glimmers of hope and consciousness alive and well within some rappers, the industry promotes the freak show. 70% of the consumers of rap are European Americans. A handful of rappers have sold their soul to their oppressors for 30 pieces of silver.
Many of the rappers only want to imitate the sad, and savage cycle which caused their misfortune. Once we sang the glorious songs of the righteous who were pushing towards their day of redemption, In our current state, we have been seduced by the temptations of the modern Babylon.
Rick Ross is a perfect example of the cowardice and selfish attitude that is plaguing our community. What is he pushing to the limit? His strings are controlled. What is he doing in Medellin, when Haiti is suffering? Crack killed us and it was purposely distributed for our oppression much like what the English did to the Irish and the Chinese with liquor and Opium. I do not see how we could in one generation produce such tunes as "Move on Up (Curtis Mayfield)," and "Be For Real (Harold Melvin & Blue Notes), " and within two generations later produce salutes to drugs and drug dealers. We are championing our pain and destruction.
There are many in my generation who are so hypnotized by the prospect of making money yet, they have lost dignity, pride, and respect. It's hard in America for too many African Americans but, it has never been hard enough for us to walk with our heads slumped.
The obvious question arises; where do we go from here? Unfortunately, I tend to think we may have to trim the weeds in order for the flowers to bloom and blossom. However, we must agitate our entertainers for responsibility, in their presentation of themselves and responsibility to their communities. We should begin civil groups aimed at monitoring and protecting our communities from both rogue police officers and those that promote violence and drug dealing. I think one of the most important areas for the rehabilitation and redemption for our community and our people must come from economic development. We should be lobbying for more SBA loans, increased grants for home ownership in our communities, agitate for localized Affirmative Action. This is a theory put forth by Claude Anderson of the Harvest Institute. For instance, take cities like Balitimore, Washington DC, and Richmond, VA. All three of these cities have a majority African American population yet, the government contract and employment process is handled as if African Americans, and Latino Americans are minorities, therefore with contract distribution we are only guaranteed 10% of the annual contracts.
Since we are majorities in cities like these, why should we not carry the weight of the majority. Our government and contracting process must reflect our population numbers. We have got to bring African American small businesses back to the forefront of our fight against the destruction of our community. We can also empower Latino Americans through this sort of legislation as many of their situations mimmick that of ours.
At the end of the day people like Rick Ross, represent our communities failure, and not our strength. We are living in Babylon and within Babylon, calamity is championed. We have got to be bigger, and it starts within our community in support online magazines like BAR. Many people get their opinons and ideas from this journal and I know, I will be making my donations this week. I hope many more do the same.