To the (consistent) readers of this blog: Fam, as of late, I’ve been focused on following through with the mission statement of this forum, especially in terms of honoring this site’s name—that being, “The ‘CINEMATIC SYMBOLISM’ Blog”. Meaning, I felt the need to explore other mediums that spoke in more of a “visual” language, than a “literal” one. Thus, I’ve been obsessing over my video editing, being that I went through the trouble of swapping out my older software for a newer program—but, I must confess that over the last few weeks, I’ve really missed the tactile sensations of typing out my feelings on a keyboard. So much so, that when I read about the topics of the “live-action”, “Little Mermaid” movie backlash, and the dismantled music distribution company J. Prince, Irv, and Suge attempted creating, I eventually decided, I need to get back to my writing.
Mind you, in keeping with the template of my last few “written” posts, this one’s gonna’ stick wit’ tha’ “mash-up” style I’ve recently adopted. Reason being, both these topics kinda’ hit me at once—so what I’ll write about here is how I was repulsed, but not surprised, by chez whitey’s negative reaction to a young sista playing the lead character in Disney’s, ”The Little Mermaid”, and how the thwarted corporate troika of Irv Gotti, Suge Knight, and J. Prince can answer the age ol’ question of why Black folks can’t seem to stick together. Now, since this post is gonna’ be bifurcated, for the most part, I thought I’d compartmentalize these goings-on by splitting this editorial into a “Part 1” and “Part 2”. So, with that said—let’s get into the first deciphering(s) of how these seemingly disparate subjects, actually fit together under the umbrella’d tyrannies of america’s white fascist social order.
Now family, last week, a young brotha from Africa, who I’d acquainted myself with, out of the clear blue, asked me this question: why haven’t Black men (Black american men especially) created organized crime networks, like the italian “mafia”?
Now, what the young brotha was really saying (or telling me) was “3” distinct things about himself. And those are: #1. He was saying, Black (american) men (especially) aren’t as smart as white men—and when I say white, I mean italians, irish, jew-“ish” men, etc. #2. He was telling me, he didn’t realize he’s Black himself, thus, he’s indirectly calling himself stupid, and #3. He let me know by asking this question, that he’d received the same kinda’ education I did to “subconsciously” make me hate myself and everyone who looks like me.
So, after I gave him a talking to in private, I told him the true story I’m about to tell you brothas, sistas—and the assortment of other ethnic enemies who’re reading this post. And when I use the term “enemies”, that’s NOT hyperbole. If you’re not one of us, then I really don’t want or need you to read this post, or blog, for that matter—cause now, more than ever, we’re seeing that there is not (and never will be) a “Black-brown” alliance, or any kind of other “alliances” forged between “US” and other people—and I’ll expound more on that in my next post.
So, with that said, let’s go in on this true story of what happened behind the attempted alliance forged between Suge Knight, Irv Gotti, and J.Prince, and the “Black power” move they initiated.
—MontUHURU Mimia
Part 1.
Suge attended Lynwood High School in California, where he was a football and track star. He graduated from Lynwood in 1983. And after high school, Suge attended El Camino College, and later transferred to UNLV (University of Las Vegas) where he played collegiate football. Now, at UNLV Suge not only made the “Dean’s List”, but he was such an outstanding athlete that he wasn’t only voted UNLV’s “Rookie of the Year”, but he was made a “defensive captain”, and won “first team ‘all conference’ honors” in UNLV’s football program. And what Harvey Hyde, who became UNLV’s football coach said about Suge was this: “Knight played his butt off…He was a ‘yes sir, no sir’ guy…the type of player any coach would want for his team.”
After graduating from UNLV, Suge played briefly on the Los Angeles Rams football team during the 1987 NFL strike. After the NFL, Suge found work as a concert promoter and a bodyguard for celebrities such as Bobby Brown, before he opened his own music publishing and management companies. And behind these, one of the first moments when he saw any real profits of his labor, was when Robert Van Winkle, a.k.a. “Vanilla Ice”, agreed to sign over royalties to Suge for his hit, “Ice Ice Baby”. Mind you, the person who wrote the song was a brotha named Mario Johnson, a.k.a. “Chocolate”. Now, I can’t very well write about Suge’s first monetary windfall without addressing the rumor that Suge robbed Vanilla Ice for these royalties, by holding mr. Ice Ice Baby over a balcony by his ankles, until the white rapper forked over the publishing rights to that song. So, the truth is, after this alleged incident, Suge had to sue both the music company “EMI” and Vanilla Ice to reclaim those monies—and it wasn’t until a couple of months to a year later, that Suge and “Chocolate” were paid for those songs.
And thereafter, Suge’s management company signed the artists “DJ Quik” and “The D.O.C.”—and it was the D.O.C. who introduced Suge to Dr. Dre. And when Dre talked to Suge about his being robbed for royalties at “Ruthless Records” behind Jerry Heller’s chicanery, they both decided to form “Death Row Records”.
Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr., a.k.a. “Irv Gotti”, was born in Hollis, Queens, New York City on June 26th, of 1970. In his teenage years, he was known as “DJ Irv”, and became one of the most revered “turntablists” in his neighborhood, especially after garnering the coveted honor of being the official DJ for block parties in “Jamaica Park”, which was the nucleus for the burgeoning Hip-Hop culture in Queens. Once Irv got his first taste of being a “local celebrity”, his music career evolved to the point of him beginning to DJ for mainstream Hip-Hop artists like a young “Jay-Z” (and we’ll talk more about ‘Jay’ later), and this predated Irv’s producing records for artists and beginning to think about forming a management company of his own.
Irv’s music industry cred, and his seeing how he could affect more change in the industry from the “inside out”, got him an “A&R” executive position at “Def Jam” records where he was responsible for signing and producing songs for DMX, and Jay-Z. Now, once Irv felt he’d developed a “formula” for making mainstreamed (or at least “cross-over” eligible) hits, he created his own record company, “Murder Inc.” in 1988 with his brother Chris, and the first artist he signed was a young, up and coming rapper from the “Woodhull projects” in Hollis, Queens named, “Ja Rule”.
James Prince, also known as “J. Prince”, was born in Houston, Texas on October 31st, of 1964. Now, James started out being a “used-car” salesman as a young man, and years later, he became the owner of a “car-lot” himself. And while James was busy running his business, he saw how much trouble his younger brother was getting into on the means streets of Houston’s “fifth ward”. And what James also recognized, was his brother’s passion for rap music. Now, James’ brother went by the emcee name, “Sir Rap-a-Lot”, thus, James founded the music company, “Rap-a-Lot Records”.
Now, I’ve detailed all that to say this, between the years of 2001 and ’02, Suge, Irv, and J. Prince spoke of creating a Black music distribution company. Reason being was, at some point they realized our people were the ones providing not only the majority of the best talent in the industry, but we were also setting the musical trends nationally, and globally. Moreover, their artists were the ones doing the marketing and promoting of their products—thus, the only service(s) white execs could offer these brothas was distribution, and even that perceived fact was now (complete) fiction with the advent of the internet (and we can thank brotha Dr. Phil Emeagwali for that invention, and I’ll leave a link for my post about him). So, it was between the above mentioned years that these brothas had a meeting, where they drew up plans and put up monies to make this company happen.
But there’s even more to this story—turns out, these “3” Black men not only wanted to create a music distribution company, they were gonna’ create a full-fledged “union” for Black music artists, regardless of genre. Or as Irv Gotti stated in Rob Markman’s article titled, “Irv Gotti and Suge Knight planned to unionize artists”, for “MTV News”: “It wasn’t a ‘distribution’, it was a union. In the music business, the artists, we have no union. There’s no health care, it’s nothing like that. It should be done…” said Gotti, crediting Suge with devising the plan.
Now, here’s where the wild card comes in folks…
Dame Dash of Rockefeller Records was rumored to also be at this meeting (and if you don’t know who he is, I’ll leave a link for a post I wrote on him). And supposedly, he had Shawn Carter, a.k.a. “Jay-Z” with ‘em. Now, once again, rumor has it that Jay-Z decided to tell his white fascist buddy, Lyor Cohen (he’s a high-ranking music exec. working for “YouTube” y’all) what the brothas were up to—and long story short, “3” things happened…
#1. In late 2002, the L.A. Police Department raided Suge Knight’s offices in Las Vegas and L.A. Mind you, they said they weren’t directly targeting Knight, but someone associated with him.
#2. In 2003, the Feds raided Murder Inc.’s offices in New York City, and arrested Irv Gotti. Federal investigators alleged that Irv’s seed money for Murder Inc. came from Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, and his criminal enterprise—a few years later, Irv was acquitted of these charges.
#3. J.Prince talked about how the Feds seemed to be stalking him, and how they pulled him over in Dallas, Texas. He hired a private investigator and found out that one of the federal agents assigned to him had killed 8 people previously—so this man was essentially an assassin for the federal gov’t. Thereafter, J. Prince took it upon himself to go to Washington D.C. and tell authorities that this “hitman” wasn’t gonna’ get a chance to murder him without him hiring security in his own defense.
Now, I’ve said all that to say
this, when people—especially (indigenous) Black people, ask the question: How
come Black folks don’t stick together? The answer is, when we do, THIS is
what happens. Meaning…WE WILL ALWAYS COME UP AGAINST MORE OPPOSITION THAN
ANYONE ELSE WHEN IT COMES TO THE TOPIC OF OUR UNITY!
AND I SAY AGAIN, WE’LL COME UP AGAINST MORE OPPOSITON THAN “ANY”
OTHER KIND OF PERSON!
For “3” reasons—and those are…
#1. We have the most genetic power(s) to breed these inbreds outta’ existence, #2. white birth rates have fallen below replacement levels, and #3. whitey’s committing suicide and overdosing on drugs in droves, thus, now more than ever, they’ve literally got more bullseyes on our backs ‘cause of reason #1.
Now, for the indigenous Black persons reading this, not only don’t
you ever have to ask yourselves this question again, but you can tell other
folks, especially other Black folks, who ask you this question, to STOP
ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS!
Part 2.
Moreover, as depicted (right)
you can see that Yemaya was the inspiration for the “Starbucks” logo—who’d a thunk
it? And again, you can click on the pic to enlarge it.So, here’s what I wanna’ really say directly to tha’ sistas reading this post—you NEED to understand that a white woman’s MOST valuable asset, when it’s all said and done, is her STATUS AS THE WORLD’S PRETTIEST WOMAN! And mind you, she’s called that behind “european” standards of beauty.
And that means what? It means
that while trailer trash Tina (3T) is selling sistas on “feminism”, she’s liable
to get spittin’ mad whenever she feels you’re takin’ this title from
her. Or, let me say this another way—3T feels that the tale of “The Little
Mermaid” speaks to the kind of exquisite femininity, that’s ONLY RESERVED
FOR HER—and that’s why she’s showin’ her true colors (pun intended) when it
comes to this Disney flick. But, like I’ve showed you with YEMAYA, EEERRRYTHANG—AND
I MEAN EVERYTHING, IN THIS WORLD BEGINS WIT’ US! And like I’ve said in the
past—ultimately YOUR “FEMININITY” IS WHAT’S GONNA’ SAVE YOU SISTA—NOT
FEMINISM!
And like Sam L. Jackson said in Spike Lee’s classic film, Do the
Right Thing, “That’s the double truth, Ruth.”
Later…
—MontUHURU Mimia
P.S.
Here’s a video detailing the controversy over Halle and her lead
role in Disney’s, “The Little Mermaid”
P.P.S.
Now, I was tryna’ find a longer video to explain what happened
to the triumvirate of Suge, Irv, and J. Prince—but this short clip from a J.
Prince radio interview just says it all.
*Addendum: 7/25/2019—Family, the link I promised to post about Damon Dash you can read HERE.
*Addendum: 7/25/2019—Also, you can check out the post I wrote on the ingenious brotha who created the internet, Dr. Phil Emeagwali, HERE.