LA'RAW SUMMER 2012

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RAWWATER.NET

Team EDITORS Efehi Ogbebor Kaymar Haye Christina Ledesma ART DIRECTORS Efehi Ogbebor Kaymar Haye ART DESIGNERS Efehi Ogbebor Chaz Dennis ART CURATOR Rachel Wright Kaymar Haye CONTENT MANAGER Christina Ledesma WRITERS Christina Ledesma Chaz Dennis Adam Daniel Martinez Kaymar Haye Efehi Ogbebor CONTRIBUTING WRITERS David Padilla Chris Maya Freeman PHOTOGRAPHY Kaymar Haye STYLIST Chaz Dennis ADVERTISERS’ INFO BFREESTYLE.BLOGSPOT.COM (pg. 15) ADVINTAGECLOTHING.COM (pg. 37) KUMARIVISIONZ.COM (pg. 48) IAMRADICATED.COM (pg. 72) HELLANDHIGHWATERCOLLECTIVE.COM (pg. 119) RAWWATER.NET For inquires on writing, modeling, ordering, advertising..etc contact us at: RAWMAG@RAWWATER.NET LOS ANGELES RAWWATER 849 South Oxford Avenue, Suite 402 Los Angeles, CA 90005

Editor’s Note

Every second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year, you are closer to the end of your life. Death defined by Webster’s dictionary is a permanent cessation of all vital functions: the end of life. Permanent is the resounding word in the definition, permanent it’s so damn permanent, death is the only thing that is 100 percent guaranteed and yet it is such an under the rug subject. We look forward to the future so much. Look at all the examples of statuses that are frequently on the walls of Facebook: “Next year I’m turning 21, can’t wait!”, “Vegas baby! This weekend!”, “This party tonight is gonna crack.” Everyone is living in the present. Why am I opening this magazine on such a gloomy and dark subject? For Evan D Gray, I recently watched him get put in the ground as a result of a piece of shit drunk 3

driver. One of the best dudes I have ever known, just taken away in a blink of an eye. He was coming home from a friend’s birthday party and was just driving thru an intersection when the piece of shit drove thru his red light and ended Evan’s life.“Live everyday like it’s your last”, I know it’s a cliché́ statement to say, but for real live everyday so that before you go to sleep you can look in the mirror and honestly say, “I’m proud of you”. Evan just turned 30; he always had a smile on his face and was looking forward for the future. He simply was at the wrong intersection at the wrong time. I guess that’s why this really hits home; it could have been me or anyone of you reading this. So many people nowadays complain about bullshit...

YOU ARE ALIVE! I’m sure there are countless people dead or dying that would trade places with you in a heartbeat. Life is truly a gift but it is unpredictable and only the lucky ones make it to be old and gray. So enjoy the magazine and remember to make every moment worth it. Spread Love & Peace. RIP Ev.

CONTENTS 7.

LA RAW SPRING RELEASE

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JANSPORT J

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13 JOINTS YOU SHOULD COP

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GALLERY - De Hai

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GALLERY - Carl Heyward

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GIRLS IN KENYA

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GALLERY - Rick Motzkus

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WHO’S BETTER MAN?

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LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

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OPEN EAGLE MIKE

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GALLERY - Samantha Cobb(Solaas)

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PRISON ART GALLERY

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SUMMER TRENDS

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JUDAH 1 & LA VOICE

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FASHION: LIFE/DEATH

81. 05-09-2012 83.

POMONA ART WALK

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KING FANTASTIC

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SUMMER ALBUM REVIEWS

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KAYMARS RANT

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RAWWATER + VINTAGE =

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JANSPORT Out of The Cov

(Covina, CA), resting between L.A. and the I.E., Cov Original Music’s Jansport J sat with us to talk about his music and how his experiences in college worked in his favor to becoming one of Southern California’s most promising and respected producers of the new generation.

Interview by Adam Daniel Martinez

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Explain your name.

Jansport J started off as a joke. Back in the Myspace days, when they had the Pharrell, In My Mind, marketing campaign. It seemed like everybody had that character and they were switching it to look like them. So, I made one that looked like me that had a backpack on because I always rocked a backpack. Pharrell goes by Skateboard P so I was like “Jansport J”, doing that shit, joking around.

My boy B. Water he was working on a mixtape and he knew Little Brother was my favorite group. He rapped over one of the Little Brother tracks and he shouted out “Jansport J”. He was like, “This is for Jansport J right here,” and when I heard that, I was like “Damn, I need to run with that!” and that’s kind of how it happened.

Where are you from?

I’m from Covina, California, which is about 20 minutes outside of L.A. “The Cov,” we call it.

When you think of The Cov, it doesn’t necessarily have its own identity to an outsider. Like many bordering cities, it gets clumped into L.A., what separates The Cov? That’s starting to happen now. We’re actually starting to have our own identity. People from L.A. are even starting to call it “The Cov” now. That was just some West Covina/Covina shit at first, that’s what we called it and just to hear other people embracing that now, its dope that it’s starting to be recognized as its own culture. It’s not so much that we were trying to set ourselves apart, it’s just—where we live, we’re in the Valley, so we’re in between L.A. and the I.E.— we’re not really either and people always clump you in one or the other but it’s a different culture there. It’s the San Gabriel Valley. It’s almost a different mindset too, it’s a little bit of the I.E. and L.A., it’s definitely a melting pot. Your homies will be Mexican or Filipino; it’s not too much of any one thing. I think it’s just a little slower than L.A. but we still get out there and do what we need to do. I love being from The Cov. I feel like it’s very much who I am as a person. There’s a lot of hometown pride starting to come out and its dope to be at the forefront of that with Cov Original Music and Trek Life and people that came before us. It’s dope to be a part of that history.

How long have you been producing?

I’ve been producing seriously since 2005; I started messing around with it in 2002, in high school. My friend got the Fruity Loops program and we would fuck around on there making Weird Al Yankovic style shit. We took that Project Pat “Chickenhead” and made a song called “Curry Chicken”. I would always make beats spoofing the shit and then I started making it seriously because I had always wanted to do it. First time I heard Timbaland when I was a little kid I was like, “I want to do what he does.” 2005 was the moment when I decided I was really going to do it. I think that when you’re doing something artistic that’s not the career path that everybody has set out for you, it’s kind of hard to fully embrace it and to really do it. My thing was, I don’t like telling people I’m a producer because everybody is a producer, everybody makes beats, everybody rappin’. 2005 is when I just owned that shit. I’m a producer. That’s when I started getting confident in my craft and networking and then we started putting out albums in 2008.

What was your life about prior to music?

Before I made music the real forefront, I loved basketball. I wanted to be a basketball player and a music producer. Eighth grade I was like 5’ 10’’. I have big ass feet. I wear size 15. Seventh grade I went from a 9 to a 12, eighth grade I went from a 12 to a 15. My knees were hurting and the coaches were like “He’s going to shoot up! He’s going to have a growth spur!” They put me at the forward position and I didn’t grow that much, I grew like four more inches.

I played in high school, I played for Glendora but once I got to college I was just burnt out on it and I knew I didn’t want to invest energy into something that I wasn’t really going to try to do.

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What was your college experience like? Explain how college has affected you as a person and as a producer?

I went to Pepperdine in Malibu. I studied advertising with marketing as an emphasis. It’s been huge, but not in a traditional way. I went to Pepperdine and I knew I kind of wanted to do music. I had good grades and my family was proud of that so I felt like the next step was, “Well, you go to college and get your degree and then you can do your music stuff or whatever.” I was in college skipping classes. I was in a fraternity and really that was the only thing that kept me there. After my sophomore year I was checked out but I stayed and did a senior year, did another senior year and it got worse. I just wasn’t going to class and I actually didn’t finish. I have like, a semester left. At the same time the financial aid situation was crazy. Everything culminated – it pushed me into a corner like “Well, you want to do music so, fuck it, do music,” you know what I mean? “You don’t have your degree. Now is the time to put 100% into that.” College for me, it did give me a lot of skills and taught me a lot of professionalism and how to market and stuff like that. I was definitely in college for a reason, but it impacted my life because I didn’t finish and that’s why I go so hard with music. Or I’m going to be working jobs all my life that I hate. I’d rather get 100% with music than to be doing shit I don’t like. College really showed me what I love, which is music.

You and I have a mutual friend who explained to me that you studied abroad together. What was that experience like for you? How does it play into your art?

That shit changed my life. I was in London for a semester. And it was funny because when I went to London it was a weird time.

Katrina had just happened and Iraq was getting crazy. We would travel every weekend but you couldn’t go to certain countries because the American backlash at the time. We ended up going to Morocco and it was cool, but we were scared out there because we were like, “they don’t fuck with Americans right now.”

But being overseas, it showed me how big the world is. As a little kid I was always the little nerd, I couldn’t walk passed a globe, I would just look at that shit and look up countries, so when I went to London, it was an opportunity to see all these places I saw on the map or in magazines. We were able to go to Ireland, Greece and Amsterdam – that was crazy. It was just dope to get out and see different cultures and see different people. With that, the way my music is working out now, I have a pretty big following in Europe and so it’s that much more fuel just to get back out there. I encourage everybody to travel. That shit will change your life and it just opens up so much more for you.

What was your favorite country to visit?

The UK is my heart, London. It’s New York and its L.A. mixed together. I really can’t explain it but I just love that place. When we went to Greece we did a cruise of all the different Islands and we went to Santorini. That’s probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in my life.

Who’ve you produced for?

I’ve done tracks that have featured Dom Kennedy, AZ, Kool G Rap, Blu, some stuff in the works with Inspectah Deck. Planet Asia, Strong Arm Steady. It’s really been a variety of different artists that I’ve been able to work with and it’s a blessing.

How do you choose samples?

It’s an ebb and flow for me. I find myself going through different phases. There was awhile when I was going through all psychedelic music. I would look at cover art or be on YouTube finding the weirdest shit and I would just get that album and listen to it.

My favorite is soul music. There will be times when I want to just do some Black Ivory stuff or Dramatics or whatever. It’s really where I’m at.

You have a variety of styles but I feel that you’re very much rooted in soulful music, where do you feel that comes from?

What kind of music did you grow up listening to? What were the adults in your life bumping?

The soul side probably comes from my mom and my dad. What I remember as a kid is always having the family BBQs and that music playing in the background or jazz radio. It was always background. A lot of sounds that I use were background music as a child.

Even going away from the soulful stuff. If you think of records I’ve produced like, “You Ain’t Sayin’ Nada” or some dance/club type stuff that comes from my older sister. Growing up, my sister played N.W.A., Slick Rick, 69 Boyz, all this variety. If it was dope, it was dope. I apply that to my production.

What is your process, how do you go about crafting your beats?

If I’m doing sample-based stuff, I have a playlist of samples and I’ll just let it play through and if I hear some shit that I want to fuck with for the day then I’ll just five-star it and come back to it in my iTunes.

Pull it up in FL Studio, listen to the whole thing and chop it up at certain parts. Maybe I just want to do a loop. I feel like a lot of producers now, when making a record, they want the drums to bang and the sample to play. I feel like there’s a lot of over-producing going on. With soul music, I try not to do too much to it sometimes, or I’ll chop it up to where you won’t even notice that it’s chopped.

It’s chopped up in a certain way and the drums complement what it is and it doesn’t sound like this over-the-top Hip-Hop record, it sounds like some soulful shit that you could rap on.

How do you decide which beats are for an instrumental album and which will be for someone to rap over?

When I’m doing an instrumental album it’s a zone. This is what I’m doing. I feel like they have a sound or a concept behind them so I have to be in a certain frame of mind to produce for it. If the record doesn’t fit that but it’s a dope beat I could slang off to some rapper then it goes to the side. With the instrumental albums, usually I’m creating for that. It’s more focused.

What puts you in that zone to craft a complete instrumental album?

I think way too much. I’ll feel like, “Okay, I want to do a new instrumental album. It’s time to start workin’.” And I try and overthink it so much and create these grand ideas to where when I get into the groove of actually doing the project, it’s me waking up early in the morning with a full concept in my mind. The first MoveMeants, Save My Soul, and MoveMeants II were all me waking up at 4 am like, “this is it,” just randomly waking up. With the first MoveMeants album, I woke up and as soon as I had that concept, I made two beats. And they were the first two beats on the album, “The Loneliest Man in Sound” and the “Wake Up Intro”. I know when I’m really going to start working on an album that it’ll just hit me; it’s like an epiphany. I’m going through it right now. I think I want to do this and that but it’s kind of like basketball, you practice and go out and do your jump shots. I’m still making beats for something that I think is going to be a project, but then when it hits me, then I’m zoned out in that direction.

Who and/or what are your greatest influences?

My biggest influences, musically, are 9th Wonder, J Dilla, Pete Rock and Premier. Those are like the architects to me, for what I do. I think I still have my own sound and my own style now but they’re definitely the ones that I looked at and was like, “this is the shit, this is what you love, study these four.” Definitely Mad Lib is a huge in13

fluence. He’s incredible. Outside of that, just good music. One of my fraternity brothers is in the band, Local Natives, listening to their music and watching him come up is an inspiration. Just seeing people win, like Curtiss King, his whole rise. All that shit inspires me.

Art inspires art and I always live by that shit. Whether its music or your peers or seeing paintings or sculptures, a true artist is going to spark something in you to want to create.

Have you ever rapped yourself?

I started out in a larger group called Rhythm Warriors Crew in 2007.

Back then I was a producer and a rapper. I was writing to Jurassic 5 instrumentals in the back of my freshmen class. On the rapping end, Jurassic 5 and Lupe were huge influences on the style. I was good at writing; I just hated my voice. And I know every rapper says they hate their voice but I wouldn’t want to listen to me rap. That’s why I stopped rapping. That and I wanted to put 100% into what I was doing. I couldn’t rap and not produce anymore, that’s not fathomable to me, but I could be a producer and never rap again, I’m completely fine with that because even then, I’m still able to write hooks and able to do stuff here and there for that creative outlet.

What is your discography?

First album is The Carry-On Experience; I put that out in September, 2008. The next project was my first instrumental album, which is the 2 A.M. Tape; I put that out in January of ’09. Then I put out MoveMeants, which was in April of 2010. And then Save My Soul came out January 2011. The latest project, MoveMeants II: The Reprise, which was like a sequel to the first, came out in April 2012.

You’ve already worked with some acclaimed artists, what are some of your dream collaborations?

I want to work with MF Doom really bad. I want to work with DOOM and I want to work with Ghostface. There’s a stash of beats that I don’t play for people that I feel like it’s meant for DOOM. I would love to work with that dude. And Ghostface just because he’s dope and I feel like his voice would mesh very well. Those are my two dream ones right now.

If you weren’t a musician, what would you like to do with the rest of your life?

If I weren’t a musician I would probably be on the management end. I’d probably find a way to be around somehow. If not that, I’d probably end up teaching, I always find myself around kids. I work at the YMCA part-time while I work on my music. I’d probably end up being a history teacher because I’m a random-ass history nerd too.

What does the rest of this year have in store for you?

The plan is to do a lot of shows. We’re working on a short film for MoveMeants II. In this internet era it’s so easy for people to drop a project like every two or three months. That’s cool, maybe that’s how people have to do it, but for me, it takes me a long time to put out the projects. MoveMeants II took me a year and a half and so when you get it right, I’m not ready to just move off of it a month or two after. There’s always somebody new hearing your music so I definitely want to push that until the end of the year and start working on my next project at the same time. I’m looking forward to doing a little mini-tour in the U.K. at the top of next year.

Where can people find out more about you and your music?

On the internet, I’m all over that shit [laughs] http://JansportJ-

Music.com or http://jansportj.bandcamp.com.

B FREE STYLE bfreestyle.blogspot.com

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Joints You Should Cop

KILLER MIKE - R.A.P. MUSIC AVAILABLE @ DATPIFF.COM

FLY UNION - ZENITH AVAILABLE @ 2DOPEBOYZ.COM

KING FANTASTIC - SOCIOPOLITICALPIMPTALK AVAILABLE @ iTUNES

YANCY DERON - ARACHETPHOBIA AVAILABLE @ YANCYDERON JOEY BADA$$ - 1999 AVAILABLE @ RAPDOSE.COM 17

BREEZY LOVEJOY - O.B.E. VOL. 1 AVAILABLE @ BREEZYLOVEJOY.BANDCAMP.COM FRANK OCEAN - CHANNEL ORANGE AVAILABLE @ iTUNES

G.O.O.D. MUSIC - CRUEL SUMMER AVAILABLE @ iTUNES

ODDISEE - PEOPLE HEAR WHAT THEY SEE AVAILABLE @ iTUNES

KARDINAL OFFISHALL & NOTTZ RAW ALLOW ME TO RE-INTRODUCE MYSELF AVAILABLE @ DATTPIFF.COM

CHICK INGLISH - WRKOUT AVAILABLE @ DATTPIFF.COM

JADAKISS & DJDRAMA - CONSIGNMENT AVAILABLE @ DATTPIFF.COM

NAS - LIFE IS GOOD AVAILABLE @ iTUNES

GALLERY

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De Hai

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GALLERY 27

Carl Heyward

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See more at LARAW.net

Help Support Refugee Girls in Kenya

By Christina Ledesma

Annet Kiura, the founder of this program has been working in the Kakuma Refugee Camp to help raise money to support higher education for refugee girls. It is the second largest refugee camp in Kenya and hosts more than 85,000 refugees. Recently, some of the students have tested into the most prestigious high school in Kenya. Many of these young girls have fled from their homes do to conflict in their countries.

And some have lost their parents and take care of their siblings while also attending school. Regardless of their circumstances, these girls have excelled in their studies and have been accepted to a very prestigious high school. However in Kenya, high school education is not free due to budget cuts. And it is very important to help raise money for these girls tuition, so they can continue their education. At La Raw, we think it is very important to acknowledge programs and people who are making a difference in our world. That is why we interviewed Annet to learn more about this program, spread the word and help do our part.

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What is the goal of this program?

To provide refugees an opportunity to attain secondary school education and join institutions of higher learning. The broader objective is to bring up a generation of women leaders who will play a crucial role globally in the plight of refugee girls/women and develop Africa.

Who is involved in this program?

Beneficiaries are the young refugee girls between 13 to 22 years from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan, Somali, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda. The program is supported by the former refugees resettled in Canada through WUSC (World University Service of Canada) pursuing education, humanitarian staff who worked in the refugee camp(s) and well wishers (anyone who supports the program with the donations).

How did this project get started?

The program started in February 2012 after announcement of national exams results: Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (K.C.P.E) in Kenya.

There was improved performance in the national exam. A number of girls passed and got admissions letters to very good boarding secondary schools. There were not enough funds to support them to study in schools outside refugee camps.

One of the former humanitarian staff that worked for Windle. Mobilized the students in Canada to raise funds to support girls to join secondary school. The target was to support at least three girls, but raising funds was a challenge. The group managed to raise fees for one year to support one girl. The target was to raise USD 4,000 for one girl to complete secondary school for four years. Windle Trust

Kenya is a NGO (non-governmental organization) in Kakuma Refugee Camp; we choose it to implement our project. It liaises with WUSC to prepare bright refugee students who have done well in high school pursue their study in Canada.

How much have you raised so far?

We managed to raise USD 1,200.

How many of these girls have been accepted into Kenya’s most prestigious high school?

Five.

Have any of these girls started their education in high school? If so, how many?

Yes. 4 are already in school. This group supports one, and others were given scholarships by the Windle Trust Donor.

What are the benefits and outcomes of this program?

The girls who manage to join these prestigious schools will be in boarding schools, therefore will not be exposed to challenges related to early marriages, early pregnancies, house hold chores, taking care of their younger siblings, sex and gender based violence and related problems.

In a boarding school, they are in an enclosed environment which provides them with conducive atmosphere to study and shield them from distractions in the refugee camps where houses are close to each other.

In such a competitive school, they are encouraged to work harder and face stiff academic competition and it is expected that they will get very high grades which will allow them to get enrolled in universities in Kenya or join the WUSC program in Canada.

If they get resettled abroad, they will

have a better window of opportunity to join universities abroad in the country they get resettled in.

Why is it important for people to do their part and donate?

It will help to raise the remaining USD 3,000; we will achieve the objective of assuring our first beneficiary, Bipean Nyaoth completion of secondary school education. Bipean Nayaoth is the girl (refugee from Sudan) who we are supporting in this project. She is about to complete her first year in Turkana Girls High School.

Why is public high school in Kenya not free?

It’s a policy by the ministry education / the government. The government is not able to support secondary school. As a developing country, the Kenyan government is still struggling.

Besides, the refugees are under the umbrella of UNHCR and the humanitarian programs rely on donor funding which is not enough. UNHCR is in charge of offering protection of all refugees and other NGOs partner with UNHCR to implement humanitarian projects.

Explain why it is so important for these girls to continue their education?

These girls are very bright academically. What they lack is support to help them realize their dreams. They are the future leaders of Africa who we expect to bring change and development desired in Africa through good governance.

Donate here: www.wepay.com/donations/support-girls-pursue-secondary-school-education

GALLERY Rick Motzkus 37

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Could Legalizing Marijuana help our Economy?

By Cali Green

Today, we struggle as a country to survive in this difficult economy.

With President Obama in office we have made great progress, however our economic problem is not yet resolved. My opinion on this subject is that there are other options that could help us with this situation, but some people will not support these options because they fear change and mostly likely are uneducated about this subject. Legalizing marijuana is an idea that our society has not gotten use to; still it may be one of the answers that will help our economy. There are four different ways, how legalizing marijuana will help improve our economy: we will save money from decriminalizing marijuana smokers, save money on propaganda against the marijuana law reform, gain revenue from the illegal market, and from consumption.

Many people are criminalized for smoking marijuana every day, and it’s actually costing our government billions of tax dollars every year. According to NORML’s report on Economic Cannabis Legislation: “Current federal drug enforcement programs run at $13 billion per year.

State and local programs are probably of similar or greater magnitude: in California, the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated the cost of state drug enforcement programs at around $640 million per year in 1989-90, plus perhaps twice as much more in local expenditures. A sizable chunk of these costs involve cannabis, which accounts for 30% of drug arrests nationwide.”

Imagine if we are able to reduce drug enforcement programs that involve

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incidents with marijuana. We would be saving money that could be used in a better way, such as improving our public schools. When we are in need of money our government seems to want to cut education budgets first, why don’t we start cutting were it is needed. If legalizing marijuana would reduce drug enforcements programs by “one-third to one-fourth, it might save $6 - $9 billion per year.”

If we stop criminalizing individuals for marijuana, we will be killing two birds with one stone.

A lot of our tax money is also being used on propaganda against the marijuana law reform. According to NORMAL’s economic report on Who Funds Prohibition? , there is no correlation between drug use and drug spending. There is an inaccurate misconception about the drug policy in the United States. And the idea that money spent on anti-drug efforts is to help decreased drug use, and the lack of money spent on drug efforts helps increase drug use, is false. NORMAL examined the drug use rate amongst twelfth-graders from 1986 to the present, and found these facts to be true: • “From a high rate of usage in 1979, the use rates fell steadily throughout the ‘80s until they bottomed out in approximately 1991.

Then they began to rise yet again.

Daily use of marijuana/hashish among twelfth graders tripled from 1991 to 2000, while annual use nearly doubled.”

• “From 1986 to 1992, as community anti-drug spending grew, drug use rates plunged. But in 1992 drug use rates reversed direction, and for the first time in over a decade, went up. That same year, those private money donations exploded, nearly doubling in a single year.”

• “The National Drug Control Budget for national and international law enforcement has risen dramatically from 1991 to 2000, surging 68% in ten years, from under $11

billion to nearly $18.5 billion. The separate demand reduction allocation similarly swelled 61% from $3.7 billion to nearly $6 billion. Nevertheless, marijuana use among twelfth graders rose even more dramatically, more than doubling between 1992 and 1997.”

As you can see money is being wasted trying, to prevent marijuana use through anti-drug programs. It’s clear that no matter how much money is spent to prevent marijuana, it is not affecting users.

Legalizing marijuana will not only help our economy but also eliminate the illegal market. According to NORMAL’s Case for Legislation report: “An important advantage of legalization is to open the door to taxation of marijuana-a potentially valuable source of public revenue-while eliminating the need for an illegal market.”

The money that is spent on legal marijuana will be put back into our economy instead of the illegal market. Another way to eliminate the illegal market would be through taxes or regulate cultivation. However, regulating cultivation would take the right from consumers to grow within their own home. According to NORMAL’s report on Putting a Value on Cannabis, the ideal policy would be to require a license to grow or buy marijuana; the state could then charge a fee and raise tax revenues: “In this system, licenses would afford the one opportunity for the government to derive tax revenues from marijuana, while an active marijuana surveillance program would still be needed to prevent commercial sales and unlicensed use.”

Having a surveillance system in order to grow marijuana might be invading a person’s privacy. However, there does have to be some type of system to regulate legal marijuana. The important thing is that we will be eliminating the illegal market, not only to help our economy but our society as

well. Once marijuana is legalized, we will no longer worry about children buying marijuana in the illegal market. This will give us the opportunity to educate are youth about marijuana and teach them responsible use, just as we have with alcohol.

The consumption of marijuana will also grow and help our economy once it is legalized. Marijuana will become cheaper and easier for the consumer to buy. In NORMAL’s Revenue from Legislation report, it states that: “the 1991 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, some 19.5 million Americans used marijuana at least once in the year, of whom 5.3 million used at least once a week and 3.1 million daily. About one-half of the latter are thought to be multiple daily users, who can be expected to make up the bulk of total consumption. Assuming the mean consumption of all daily users is two or three joints per day, current national consumption can be figured to exceed 7 to 10 million joints per day, or 1200 to 1800 metric tons of 6% THC cannabis per year.”

In addition, to the number of consumers using marijuana, legalization would also generate revenue in industries like coffee shops, gardening equipment, and paraphernalia. According to NORMAL, we would reap the benefits just like Amsterdam has: “The city of Amsterdam, with a million people, boasts 300 coffee houses retailing cannabis. Translated to the U.S, this would amount to over 60,000 retailers and 100,000 jobs.

It is evident that legalizing marijuana would help our economy tremendously. Legalizing marijuana will not only bring in new revenue, but also helping our society to change and adjust to a new way of living: where marijuana users are not criminalized, negative propaganda will no longer target marijuana, we will no longer have a illegal market and consumer’s will no longer be stereotyped by our society.

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RAWWATER.NET

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EAGLE OPEN MIK

Interview by Adam Daniel Martinez

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os Angeles-based/Chicagobred emcee, Open Mike Eagle, Swim Team member, Project Blowed alumni, and college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, filled us in on his early days in hiphop, his music at present, and his recent trip to Uganda to promote Hip-Hop culture on a global level.

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Explain your name.

The roots of my name are with my father and his name is Michael Eagle. When I got tired of going by my graffiti name, DRONE, I started going by Open Mike. I put the “Eagle” behind it and here we are. Three words that have no business together are my rap name.

When did you start rapping?

First time I kicked a rap was in the back of a Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1996. Me and my boy, Rift Napalm, who gets down with the Galapagos4 collective out of Chicago. We first started rapping together in high school. We were both already graffiti artists, he was more an artist; I was more of a tagger. We pushed ourselves to learn how to b-boy and learn how to rap at the same time.

How did the b-boying work out?

Real good. I’ve just recently stopped. I actually went to J.U.i.C.E. yesterday. In MacArthur Park and they teach all hip-hop elements to youth.

I’m going to start taking my son up there and I might get back into it, I need some exercise.

Who made you want to start rapping?

The first person I remember hearing freestyle was Rhymefest. There was a college radio station in Chicago; I think it’s still there. It’s called WHPK and that was like the main vein for hearing underground hiphop in Chicago. I heard him freestyle on there and I read this book by this guy named Upski, called Bomb The Suburbs. He was a Chicago hip-hop cat and he was saying like, to call yourself hip hop, you had to do at least two of the elements. And me and my people were just getting into it and so we tried—we wanted to try deejaying too, but nobody could afford turntables so we all started rapping, breaking, and doing the graf.

What was your life prior to rapping, where are you from?

I was a nerdy kid from Chicago who lived in or around the projects most of his early life. I’d always visited California because my dad has always lived here. I went to different elementary schools. I went to this really unique high school in Chicago which is a magnet school but it’s just about all Black, it’s majority Black, and so it’s just a weird confluence of elements of like, the American Black urban experience plus this, like, high achievement expectation. It was a very interesting place to go to high school, but that’s when I got into hip-hop. And then I went to college at this place called Southern Illinois University, which is a state school that’s really not that great, but it’s where they’ll give you some money to go if you really want to go to school and go away from home. So I went there and I had a lot of experiences at college, I had a real maturation down there. That’s interesting, there’s a lot of different ways “college stories” can go but I came out a lot different than I went in. One of the things that happened there was I started taking rapping seriously. I did my first rap show. I had been rapping since I was 15, but I had never done a show and so when it came to me having to do a show, then it came to me having to write songs. So I started actually writing and recording later in my college years. By the time I moved to L.A. in 2004 out of college, I had enough songs to start thinking about recording a project. I recorded my first EP in ’05 that no one will ever hear again [laughs].

What and who are your influences? Not just rappers, but what are the main things that influence you?

My favorite band is this band, They Might Be Giants that I started listening to when I was like, in the third grade. They make a very unique brand of rock music and I’ve always been really huge into alternative rock and later on in life, around the same time in college, I started getting into all kinds of music. I started getting into jazz, funk, disco, and all kinds of rock music throughout American pop history. I have a lot of influences, but like, They Might Be Giants, Frank Zappa, David Bowie.

Rap side, DOOM is a huge influence, a lot of the O.G. Blowed cats like Aceyalone and Busdriver, Ab Rude, those are heavy influences on me as well. Busta Rhymes was a huge influence too.

What is your catalog?

Run it down? 2005 is the Finger Booger EP, that’s the one that nobody’s ever going to hear again. I made a couple hundred of those and sold them all so people got ‘em somewhere. It’s funny, I did the thing where you buy the labels at Staples and print them at home and put them on the disc, so that thing probably got stuck in a whole bunch of people’s car CD players. That was the first thing. The next thing was Thirsty Fish’s first album [Something in the Water], that’s me, Psychosiz and Dumbfoundead, so we did that, I think, in ’07. I put out a mixtape that same year called Premeditated Folly. Then there was the Swim Team Ocean’s 11 mixtape, which I think was ’08. I made an EP called, Another Roadside Attraction in 2009. Then I made my first album, Unapologetic Art Rap in 2010. The second Thirsty Fish album, Watergate, came out in 2011. My second album, Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes came out in 2011.

Art Rap After Party EP came out in 2011. The Extended Nightmares EP came out at the end of 2011. The Rent Party Extension EP came out in April of this year, and 4NMLHSPTL [pronounced “Animal Hospital”] dropped in June.

What’s your process when working on a record? Do you have any rituals?

[Laughs] I’ll tell you this—I record and do a first mix of all of my songs at my house, by myself. Matter of fact, everything I just named to you, except my first EP and those Thirsty Fish records and the Swim Team mix tapes, everything that’s me solo on a project, I recorded in my house, by myself. My ritual – is to be absolutely alone [laughs] it’s great for my work flow and it’s why I’m able to be so productive because I have everything I need in home, everything is within arm’s length. So I can, hit RECORD, and turn around and record and then turn around and press STOP. Do it all on my own, you know what I mean? The drawback though, is that I get weirded out when I have to go to a “real” studio because there’s such a comfort level with knowing how I sound on my microphone and having all my preamp settings right so I sound how I want to sound in the headphones. So much of that is normalized for me at home that when I get into another studio situation, it takes a long time for me to get comfortable recording.

When is a record finished for you?

When I gotta turn it in [laughs]. I mean this is the thing, man. Seriously, nothing’s ever “finished” and it’s a cliché but I heard someone say this recently that artists never finish, it’s just kind of abandoned at some point, and that’s how it is. Everything I’ve ever put out, there’s something on it that I hear now that bothers me but you know, it was a decision that I made at that time and if I could go back, I might switch it up. So really, there comes a time when I have to release my micromanagement of it and hand it over to somebody to mix it and master it, or a label to put it out, and that’s when it’s done.

You have a wealth of material, but it seems as though people really started to pay attention to your music with RWDONC, with 4NMLHospital, is it conceptual? Is it an extension of the last album?

How I categorize it in my head, at least in terms of how my previous work sits, it [4NMLHSPTL] reminds me more of my first album. But see, this is the thing, my first album, Unapologetic Art Rap was really kind of, I don’t want to say “naïve”, but I had this real quixotic notion that I was going be able to make some serious change in how indie rap was perceived, by doing certain things. So like, even the name of it, in my head it was going to come out and just slap people in the face to even call it that. And to really embrace the term “art rap,” I had a lot of notions of how revolutionary that was going to be and so a lot of it is spent making fun of rap, indie rap, art rap, and kind of pokes holes in things. Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes had a theme to it as well, but its more about the perception of what it means to be a rapper, what it means to tell somebody you’re a rapper, the faces they make, what they’re associated with, and trying to break down some of those things. This album, 4NMLHSPTL, is way more of a personal thing, it’s not as much of a thesis, there is some of that there, but the concepts aren’t as clearly defined because it’s more just about trying to make a record as close to how music sounds in my head than anything else. It’s very mental, I guess “cerebral” might be a word that could be used, but I didn’t make a lot of attempts to bring it right down to earth. I really kind of just indulged my own aesthetic notions of what I wanted to do this time more than ever. When I say it reminds me of my first record, I think it’s because this album is very “art rap”, very very “art rap”. But like I said, there are some themes in it. Mental health is kind of a theme in it. Paranoia is a theme in it. Hospitalization in the abstract is kind of a theme in it too.

Do you think your educational background, a B.A. in psychology, has anything to do with it?

Absolutely. It really does, especially with this record. My mental health background and the jobs that I’ve had working with emotionally disturbed youth. You have to have a master’s degree to be a “real” psychologist, but I have enough experience with the nuances of what goes on in people’s heads and the perception of the same situation can be so different. A lot of that is definitely in this record, for sure.

What sparked your interest in travelling to Uganda?

The organization J.U.i.C.E. is a hip-hop program that I work with very closely. The co-director, Daniel Rizik-Baer, saw that the Department of Cultural Affairs was offering some grant money to do a cultural exchange program with Los Angeles artists. He saw that and knew there was a Ugandan organization called AGYA that did a similar thing to what J.U.i.C.E. does here. Knowing that he had those resources on deck, he wrote the grant to connect us, representing J.U.i.C.E. in L.A., to the AGYA group out in Kampala.

When he came up with the idea, he asked me if I wanted to do it and I was super down with it and Ras 53

G as well. It all happened; we got $5,000 from the Department of Cultural Affairs, with the agreement that we would have to raise matching funds, so we raised another $5,000 to be able to make the trip happen.

How much did you know about Uganda prior to this trip? And in what ways has that changed?

I did a lot of research about what was going on there and then naturally, getting closer to the time, we started to hear more things too, as us and the organization out there communicated in preparation for our arrival. I know way more now. It’s so interesting too, because right before we went, we had that Kony thing happen, which when you get there, you come to find out that actually, that was something that happened 10 years ago. That’s not even a relevant issue to people in Uganda anymore. They haven’t seen or heard from the guy Kony in forever. Aside from that, just having a better understanding of what life is like in Uganda, a developing country. Yeah it’s a city, but what a city means in Uganda is very different than what it means here. Understanding that a lot of people in Kampala, it’s a huge city, but a lot of people live off the grid. They do a census, but there’s people deep down in the villages that they don’t get to, so there’s a lot of people that don’t get connected to the economy. They kind of just do whatever small-scale live stocking and hustling they can do so they could eat day to day. They’re not connected to the overall economy and there’s no real sense of taxation for them. There’s no sales tax out there. I think there’s some business tax, but there’s not too much income tax and so what that means is that there’s not a lot of public services. There’s not a lot of public roads and streetlights. Their downtown area is more developed because it’s kind of touristy and a lot of international business happens there, but right outside of downtown is straight dirt roads and villages. There’s houses but they’re all very old, it’s a lot less developed than what the city’s center is like and it’s only like a mile away.

How did this trip affect your music?

I was done with 4NMLHSPTL before the trip, and we actually recorded a record out there. A lot of what I was experiencing during the trip, I put into that project. I didn’t feel the need to carry it with me passed that. It’s finished and it’s being mastered right now. Part of the grant stated that we had to record a project to be released free to the public so it’ll come out as soon as it’s done. It was all Ras G’s production, there’s me and one Ugandan rapper named Mon MC and we had a lot of Ugandan rappers guest on it as well. I think total, there’s seven or eight Ugandan rappers on it.

What was your daily routine out there like?

Get up, open up the mosquito net – mosquitos out there are serious, very, very serious. Being American, we don’t have the same immunity. I had to take a malaria pill every day. Fresh fruit breakfast, then get with the guys to record the project or we would just go into the city and see sights, experience different parts of the town. In the evening we would meet with the younger rappers in the area that wanted to be a part of what we were doing. We would cipher with them all night and then we did a lot of “question/answer” stuff too – a lot questions about the business. We developed some of their song writing skills, those guys are rappers already, we weren’t teaching them the basics. They knew how to rap. It was a little bit different than the workshops we thought we were going to be doing. We thought we would be out there working with a younger population that wanted to learn to rap in English, they don’t even honor rapping in English out there, not if you’re from Uganda. They want you to rap in Lugandan. They call it “Luga Flow”.

If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing?

I would be doing some type of therapy. I’d be some kind of counselor. I was on the path to get my masters. I was supposed to only come to L.A. for a year because I had gotten into the grad program at the school that I went to. I went into the program for a year and I hated it so the plan was to come out here for a year, do AmeriCorp and link up with one of my mentor professors that had taken up a position at Mizzou. I was supposed to enter his program but I got out here and I started actually taking music seriously and that kind of diverted me to a whole other path.

What do you have planned for the rest of the year?

I’m putting the record out, touring in July. A West Coast leg, an East Coast leg, I’m working on trying to book a Midwest leg right now. It may be national, it may be bi-coastal. Hopefully tour every other month until the year is over.

I’m working on a project with Blockhead. I released the first single from 4NMLHSPTL called “Backpack Past” and I’m releasing that video right after the album comes out. I’m working on getting this animated video done for this song called “Universe Man” and then there’s another joint on the album that I’m looking to get a video for. Things definitely coming down the pipe, one video is in the can already, starting the process on the other two right now.

Trying to get three done, three seems like a good number.

Where can people find out more about you and your music?

Always at http://mikeeagle.net

GALLERY 55

Samantha Cobb (Solaas)

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Here at La Raw we love to point out the positivity in our society, because sometimes people only see the negative. When we see people doing great things we like to shine some light on them. We bring to you a person who we believe is doing their part to help heal this broken society we live in. We introduce you to Shelly Bruce and her creative prison story.

Prison Art

Gallery Interview by Kaymar Haye

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Tell us a little about yourself?

I’m still learning a lot and I know I should be seeking more words of wisdom myself than givMy name is Shelley Bruce and I am a Califor- ing them, but I have had a lot of experience at nia girl, to a Jamaican born mom and L.A. native Cal Poly and in the last years serving my comdad. Graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 2011 munities, so I’d say: and received my bachelor’s in fine art and gen- I think it takes true sincere love, then dedication der ethnic and multicultural studies. I work for a and wiliness to serve. The people you are servnonprofit in Los Angeles called Educating Young ing can smell you from a mile away if you are not Minds as well as the Prison Education Project truthful. And doing community work, especial(PEP) as our first Art Director. With PEP I teach ly starting something new takes so many parts art classes at the men and women’s adult facili- of you. There’s no substitute for hard work and ties in Chino, as well as plan exhibits and com- compassion… munity outreach events using their art. In my But I also say don’t beat yourself up too much! I spare time I serve as the art curator at Machine think everyone is always trying to stay busy and Pomona Art Gallery and Boutique. And last but do it all. Thank yourself for your willingness to certainly not least my passion is being an artist work and know that after giving it your best, if it’s (painting, portraits, live paintings, ceramics, po- not perfect there is always tomorrow. Nothing is etry, music, etc.) impossible. Don’t EVER give up on your dreams.

It’s kept me going and it keeps blessing me even What words of wisdom would you give to when I feel I may have failed. someone else that wants to start their own project to help a community?

Tell us about this project?

Wow. That’s a big question for me. Being just 23 So the Prison Education Project (PEP) (www.pris-

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oneducationproject.org) is the idea and work of Cal Poly Pomona political science professor Dr. Renford Reese. Dr. Reese is a personal mentor of mine, and anyone who knows him can tell you his work, background, travels (he’s been to over 65 countries!), talents and mere presence is truly inspirational. Dr. Reese has written two books about the Prison Industrial Complex in this country and started PEP to address this burdensome issue that has gotten out of hand. Dr. Reese believes that the high rate of incarceration in the U.S., especially male youth of color, is not only devastating to those people, but their communities and to each and every one of you, the taxpayers. If we want real change we must begin where the problem is and truly rehabilitate these so called “criminals” who are often people just like you and I who made a huge mistake but still want a chance at a better life.

Why is it important to you?

So many reasons! First of all just being at the prison, it is so humanizing. Being in one of the

most dehumanizing environments you can be in, is eye opening and gives crazy perspective. My students though despite so much grey and gloom are bright lights. You better believe with PEP as an opportunity they want that light to shine beyond the prison walls. I think PEP is also the small but powerful change agent to this huge issue, because I believe it literally has the potential to change California’s correctional system. We can do this through changing hearts and minds first, then moving to change programs and policy. Every time I tell someone what I do, it is an opportunity to plant that seed is someone’s mind that we need change, that there is a problem, that prisoners are people just like them too.

How did you start getting involved in this project?

I met Dr. Reese at Cal Poly Pomona, and he automatically became a mentor and person I highly admire and strive to be like. I’ve taken his classes and traveled to Ghana twice on study abroad trips with him in school. So once I graduated,

PEP had actually just started in Fall 2011 and I was in the right place at the right time, and knew the right person, who asked me to be the Art Director.

Explain why other people should care about this project?

Because “injustice anywhere is an injustice to people everywhere” (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King). When California and the United States can grow to have the highest concentration of incarcerated people on the planet! We have to begin asking questions. We have to realize that maybe we are doing something wrong. And when we can so easily criminalize and dehumanize individuals through the correctional system we also have moral issues as a nation. Yes, there are people who need rehabilitation, absolutely. We can’t let crimes go unaddressed. But at the end of the day Dr. Reese always likes to remind people it is the taxpayer who really hurts at the end of the day. It can cost anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 to incarcerate an individual, but it only costs about $15,000 to $40,000 to put a kid through college,

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and taxpayers bear that burden. Funding prisons throws money away but funding education circulates, it’s an investment. And it’s a shame that there are more correctional institutions than state universities in California. We are losing generations to the lack of education and it’s hurting us in the long run.

What are your future goals for this project?

To really solidify funding and have more classes. Right now we only have like three or four art classes running at two facilities, (along with all the other academic and career education courses run by volunteer students from Cal Poly) but I would love to do some beginner to advanced art. There are so many talented artists, who am I to teach them? They need more attention. Also I can’t wait to have more community projects and exhibits. We had our first in Downtown Pomona in May! It was a great success- two galleries, 125 pieces of art, and hundreds in attendance. But we plan on doing two more this fall and want to get more community organizations and creative ideas involved. I mean it is art, the possibilities are endless.

How can someone else get involved in this project?

Please go to our website! www.prisoneducationproject.org. You can contact us (Dr. Reese) to volunteer, donate, etc. Also we have a Facebook group, please add it! It’s just called “Prison Education Project” (PEP). THANK YOU LA RAW FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE PEP!

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Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a cul ture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our mott and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are RAWWATER.NET Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Ou line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. T reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles t overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because succes

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Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Our line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. To reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles to overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because success wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a culture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our motto and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are.

Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Our line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. To reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles to overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because success wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a culture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our motto and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are.

Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Our line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. To reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles to overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because success wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a culture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our motto and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are.

Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Our line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. To reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles to overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because success wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a culture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our motto and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are.

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Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Our line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. To reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles to overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because success wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a culture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our motto and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are.

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Radicated and Respected is a line based out in LA/Sacramento California. Our line is all about establishing oneself and then conquering at our desire. To reach the top, you have to climb, and there will be struggles and obstacles to overcome. Our line celebrates both the struggle and overcoming, because success wouldn’t feel so good without the tough times. We are trying to represent a culture where people want to display their roots and where they come from. Our motto and first design is REP WHERE YOU STEP, that defines a lot of who and what we are.

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JUDAH 1 & LA VOICE MACHINE POMONA ART GALLERY

Interview by Adam Daniel Martinez

David “Judah 1” Oliver and Jerrence “La Voice” Owens sat with us in their recently reopened art space, Machine Pomona, to discuss how poetry has brought them to teach and build a strong sense of art and creativity for their community.

What do your names mean to you?

La Voice: Being a poet out in the community since 1997, we hit up all the different venues like Beyond Baroque and the World’s Stage. The name spawned from going to these events and falling in love with writing. I knew it was my inner-voice speaking out. It simply means to love your voice. Whenever you say it to someone who’s not a writer and doesn’t understand they have a voice, it inspires them to think differently about their inner-thoughts.

Judah 1: Judah is a Hebrew name, it means “praise”. 1 means “one” and for me that means “God”, so when you say my name, you say,

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“Praise God”. Also, at the time I was reading only the Old Testament and the prophets in the Bible. Any time Israel would go to war they would ask God, “Which of us are going to go?” and He’d always say, “Send Judah first.” So it also means, to go lead the people, go in the front, and go take the hit – make the way.

Where has this life taken you thus far? How did you end up sitting here, doing this interview in your own art center, Machine Pomona?

Judah 1: I started poetry in 2000, when I was 16, at a venue called A Mic and Dim Lights, where I

met, La Voice. He’s a founding member and I’m an alumni. In 2005 and 2006 I represented Los Angeles on a national level as part of the L.A. Poetry Slam team. In 2007, I was a PodSlam.org international all-star slam champion. In 2008, I started LionLike MindState (an ongoing poetry event held in downtown Pomona) and in 2009 we sent out our own team from Machine/LionLike to represent the areas of Chino and Pomona. We got 17th in the nation and a year later, we sent another team to Slam Nationals and we ended up getting in 2nd in the nation. I was the coach for both of those. Now, I teach poetry at Chino Men’s Prison, as well as at Camp Glenn

Rockey in San Dimas, those boys are now published authors. I’m an author, working on my second book.

La Voice: I’m originally from the Midwest. It was around 1988 and my mom decided to leave Cleveland. She’d always wanted to come to California as a kid. We packed up with one-way tickets, with nothing, and just came here and built. It’s an inspiration to others; if you’ve got to start over, don’t ever fear that. Sometimes re-laying helps you to have a stronger step forward.You have to stand up and build that foundation one brick at a time.

I entered the poetry community with a background in mental health. I combined the two and started offering poetry and music workshops into residential facilities throughout L.A. County. I started a non-profit in 2002 called Visionary Voices for Youth that allowed me to do services through the office of education; we’ve gone on to service around 300-400 kids since 2005. It started as a mobile outreach program – we’ve been to the Bay and even as far as Rhode Island. In 2011, we began combining a tutoring component—mentoring through music and media with English, math, science, and language arts. We’re really keeping the youth connected and tapping into how to use their imagination with technology as a tool. It spawned as a prayer to be able to combine my love for music and poetry with my skills set as a behavioral specialist. I realized a lot of youth don’t have the attention span. Compile that with them not scoring well academically and you have a lot of kids that fall through the cracks based on just a lack of desire. As the world changes, they really have nothing to latch on to.

Also, the non-profit was key in allowing me to work on my craft as a working artist. Even if I wasn’t on someone’s stage, I was still creating for them so that they’d have something to build on. Machine has giving me a place to call home for these kids to come to after they’ve been inspired in order for them to showcase their creativity and become active members of the community.

You could say that the recent re-opening of your art center, Machine, is a testament to that notion of rebuilding. What was that process like?

Judah 1: Yeah, it took a year. We did it as we could. We have our own bills as well and this is an art gallery, it’s not a retail store so it does numbers silently and we are thankful for that. But when it doesn’t, we’re still responsible for it. We make the ends meet every month and it is just that, we had been building it brick by brick. We really are a family. It feels like home. There’s a collective of maybe 12 or 15 artists that also call Machine “home”. A year ago, many of these artists were the ones that helped us rebuild this gallery. They helped build stuff, they help manage events and help tear down and clean up, they help give artistic direction of the gallery itself. It closed on my birthday last year. I was done. And Jerrence walked through the door and told me to pray on it.

It took a few months but he came in and we got busy.

Judah 1: We did everything ourselves. The electrical, the carpentry, painting, the floor.

We had no knowledge of how to do these things before. This is a place that we built.

La Voice: We had a vision of what we wanted and did a little research and just jumped in.

Physically put the hand to the hammer. We

have good neighbors here at the fish market.

They’ve been a pillar of the community for about 40 years. We try to keep the relationships with other local businesses within our community solid.

Judah 1: When we order food, they walk it over to us. There were times when I was here by myself, building, last summer, and the lady who works there saw me one time. She brought me some food and she said something I’ll never for get. She saw me working and said, “you’re at it again?” and I said, “I’m trying,” and she said, “you try well, you’re doing a good job.” Every so often she’ll see me outside, hungry, and she’ll bring me food and say, “take care of yourself.”

La Voice: And she’s an artist. Brotha Ed talks with them a lot and she said to him the other day, “I’m ready, ready to share.” It’s infectious. The balance between Judah and myself is that we’re artists – spiritually a blessing to each other. We’re also business partners, but we can put all that to the side because we both realize that if this helps one person wake up to themselves and in return they affect the community in a positive way, we want to allow that message to spread.

What is your mission with Machine?

La Voice: We do it for the people. We’re the stewards over this place. We have the keys

to open it up and keep it accessible but those bricks that we’ve laid are steps toward making sure all ages and creative interest areas are displayed, seen and accessible to the community. It can be economic factors that keep an individual from finding their dream, their goal, or their niche. But, when you create a building like this, where all is welcomed, we can teach you and show you what it means to be a working artist, not a starving artist, not an artist whose work is all at home and no one will ever see it because of your own self-image – we try to transfer it and say, “this is what it means to go out into your market and compete in a way that people recognize your art.” It’s a place that we watch and make sure the culture grows and matures as we do on the business end, the creative end, and as a family.

Trying to get it sustainable so that it could be a pillar in this community.

And to redefine what an art gallery is. It doesn’t have to be traditional, stagnant and quiet, or priced to a point where it isn’t accessible. We are dialed in to the hearts of people and the economics of this community.

And we want them to be aware of that. It’s a balance of artist and product.

We want you to be able to take something home. If something inspires you, we want you to have something tangible that you walk away with. It takes people years or a lifetime to find their niche, but where do you find your reference point for the next step in your creative process? We want to be that place.

Judah 1: We built a platform. This is home to about 20 artists. All the clothing we sell is by artists. The jewelry we sell is handmade by artists. Local artists do all the art on the walls. We have a space in Machine that serves as a classroom. La Voice teaches the kids from the group homes here. We teach music theory, writing workshops, art classes. We have a Capoeira Angola class, taught by Jelani Lateef. We teach music and movements, the language. We’re Machine Pomona, art gallery, but it serves more like an art center. The community is responding because we built our own.

La Voice: Also, Brotha Ed Cartwright, one of the “Three Wise men”, we call ourselves. Brotha Ed is our community elder. He’s our glue. He’s very hands-on and often times will take charge while we’re away. And people still get our spirit through him because he knows us. He knows our vision.

Judah 1: He’s been the in the game for many years. He’s a percussionist so now we have drum circles here at the shop. When you play drums, its

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vibration and we are very conscious people over here, so when you start playing them drums, what’s in us comes out. It vibrates out of your body and out of the building. Then, an hour later, strangers will walk in and start dancing. No music, they just feel free here.

La Voice: The whole key is to have something to pass on as a legacy of what it means to pioneer and create something that is not just for you, but also for the community. We want to get the youth involved so that as they age, they can keep the vision alive and to understand the idea of supporting, participating, and giving, years down the line. We want to help them grow into the culture of creating your own way. Don’t allow your high school or college education to confine you to one opportunity. Create and be around different art forms and find your way.

Judah 1: And hopefully they take care of us [laughs] because we’re artists, we don’t get pensions.

It seems to me that your transition from A Mic and Dim Lights to Machine is really one of transitioning from being students to teachers.

Judah 1: Sometimes your life veers you in a certain way that you just can’t avoid. It takes you to where you’re supposed to be. And I’m supposed to be teaching. Poetry is healing. That’s what I teach my students. I teach them how to heal themselves because you can heal yourself. If you can have a question then you also have the answer. You just haven’t asked the right question to yourself yet. You can repair yourself.

La Voice: Instead of looking externally, the transition was that we’re the ones that we’ve been waiting for. We’re going to have to create and teach the community to create.

What is your art? How do you define it?

Judah 1: I’d say it’s spiritual. It’s like alchemy. Making things better. That’s my art. Having the drive to make something better, make it the best it can be. It has spiritual components. Break down an element, and build it up. It’s basically what happened in our own lives. I’m a teacher. I want to teach. I want to be a professor of religion when I’m done with school.

This store is a piece of art because all of our creative juices go into this making this place what it is. It’s a spiritual place because we are spiritual people. I wanted to be a pastor when I was younger, I still do but I didn’t necessarily want to build a church. This is more authentic for us. We actu-

ally met at church, Abundant Living in Rancho Cucamonga. La Voice was an usher and I was staff as well. We were already a part of Dim Lights so we always saw each other in passing on Wednesdays and Sundays, but when he walked through the door of the shop last year, I knew it was no coincidence. You see the work we’re doing. It was definitely good timing.

La Voice: Creating is the last original freedom. We want to be dreammakers, mentors and life coaches. Writing and music is my tool to help people be but we want to be renaissance artists. Not just one facet of artistic expression but multiple so that we do connect to different ages and background and so people feel home when they share their art for the first time. That’s a very private moment.

What is your mission as a poet? Who are your influences?

Judah 1: My favorite poets are Khalil Gibran and Pablo Neruda. I have political poems and love poems and personal poems, but through all of it I mainly write about religious philosophy. I want to teach you, so I’ll say things that make you want to go home and look up, so that it unlocks something in you.

La Voice: My favorite poet is Bob Marley. A lot of people love his music but if you just looked at his work in writing form, it would inspire you equally. Writing became my expression. Growing up in an inner city you witness so much and before you know it you’re forced into mature situations. I like to write about the transparency of generations. It’s about repair. If there are still things that are wrong from the last generation, how do we create in the moment? I write about political injustice. It’s easy to blame someone, but if each generation has the opportunity to leave something, we first have to repair what the previous generation has done.

With our art, we want to build as opposed to destroying, and to tell the youth to take time to be led. To learn to be heard.

What is your process when writing poetry?

Judah 1: My process is waking up because I’m talking in my sleep. What I’m saying is a new poem. Generally it’s like the first two or three sentences and I don’t know what it means because it’s kind of abstract. And then I’ll live a little bit and keep it in my head. A year or two later something will happen that makes me understand exactly what it meant and then I’ll write the poem. Or sometimes I’ll be free styling in my car over and over and catch some good lines and it becomes a snowball effect. One of my biggest poems, “National Pride” is like 1400 words. I had it for two years and I never wrote it down. That’s how I operate. It’s just in my head and I

just lock it in like a song. If you ever see me performing on stage and you see me kind of freeze before I start, it’s because I’m looking for the poem I’m about to recite and once I remember how it starts, then I can finish it.

La Voice: I would just feel the energy in the room at venues and listen to the hearts of the people and want to add something to that. I would do a song or poem off the head and then go home and write it. I find it liberating to push yourself outside of your own comfort zone to be that transparent and say something that speaks life into a person. It inspires someone to write. I like to write it and then define it. It leaves the pureness in as much as possible before you put your hands on. I like to let it organically manifest itself.

Judah 1: I like to write right when I wake up where it’s kind of like a dreamstate. Or when I’m dead tired. I call it subconscious writing, where there is less of me in the way. When you literally write, your muscles are in the way. It has to get from your brain to your heart to your arm to your hands.

What art projects do you currently have planned?

Judah 1: I published my first book of poetry a few years back called Instructions for Alchemy: Ingredients of Ether and it’s available at lulu.com.

134 pages 80 poems, 40 haikus. My second book is called Child of the Sun, Man of the Moon under Dim Lights Publishing. It’s going to be about 90 poems, some short stories and illustrations.

La Voice: Musically I’m looking to release an EP with World Music, as well as a mixtape for the gallery itself. We’re building on the studio as we speak.

For more information: machinepomona.com lionlikemindstate.com visionaryvoicesforyouth.com

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05-09-12 Words by Chaz and Chris Picture by Phuc Le

May 9, 2012, was the day that renewed hope for many Americans who believe equality and love are basic human rights. It renewed hope for those who expect to be protected under the United States constitution, for those who want to see their lifestyle recognized in the eyes of the government, for those who think America is the land of the free and for those who believe in a more just and verdant life. This day will be in history books as the day that President Obama revealed to Robin Roberts, on ABC News, his support for same-sex marriage. Many criticize his opinion on this issue and believe he used it as a political move to appeal to the supporters of same-sex marriage, but for many Americans, it truly evokes hope and change.

Opponents talk as if same-sex marriage would be detrimental to society, that it will corrupt the young minds of Americans, that it will destroy families, that it is evil, and that if we allow samesex couples to marry then it will lead to marriage between humans and animals. Really? Most 81

opposing arguments stem from religious beliefs and/or ignorant ideals from people who fear differentiation. We are all different; the differences among the American people and the freedom this country was founded upon are the most important values we share. The idea of the “traditional” household is also being jeopardized in the eye of the opponent, the idea that every good American was brought up in a household with a perfect mother and father. What about the millions of functioning “nontraditional” families in this country: single parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, and divorced families. In fact, the divorce rate alone in this country should prove we know nothing about who should or should not get married. Is the Ocoto-mom or the Kardashians a good example of the ideal family? Uhhhh....no! Clearly America does not have the best track record when it comes to healthy marriages; so who are we to deny them that right.

Religion seems to be a strong driving force in the opposing arguments. Voters of Christian faith are not in favor of President Obama. Many religious leaders came forth to vocalize their change of heart in the Novem-

ber election. On Good Morning America, Obama did address his and Michelle’s personal faith, “we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated.” Obama is willing to adjust his religious beliefs to progress as a nation. America is constantly evolving; the laws we abide by should evolve in favor of our society, to protect and reflect the needs of the people.

There was a time when interracial marriage was illegal as well. According to religioustolerance.org, in 1959, Richard and Mildred Loving were charged with committing a felony because they were a married interracial couple. When the Loving vs. Virginia case came to trial, the judge also used religion to justify the law. Part of the judge’s ruling stated: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages.

The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” This ignorant justification that was used to keep Richard and Mildred Loving apart seems so irrational in this day and age. America has changed drastically since the Loving vs. Virginia case. Or has it? Now in 2012, we are still facing the same problem with marriage inequality and using religion to justify opposing views.

The legalization of same-sex marriage will benefit the community.

The money from the marriage licenses and taxes will contribute to society. According to gaymarriage.procon.org, the Comptroller for New York City found that legalizing same sex marriage would add $142 million to the city’s economy and $184 million to the state’s economy. Samesex marriage would also create more homes and families for the 100,000 kids without a home in this country. Honestly speaking, when we allow this to happen it will actually move this country into a direction where more learning, understanding and tolerance will be encouraged. Supporting same-sex marriage will not destroy a damn thing.

Vote Obama’12.

POMONA

ART WALK

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KING FANTASTIC I definetly did not realize what I was getting myself into when I decided to interview King Fantastic, but at least I can say this is the most interesting interview I have done for La Raw yet. After having King Fantastic in our fall 2010 issue, La Raw was very eager to catch up with Troublemaker (DJ/Producer Josh Kouzomis) and Killer Reese (rapper Mauricio Rivera), especially to talk about Reese’s trial and their new EP SocioPoliticalPimpTalk. To make things more interesting Killer Reese crutched into the interview with a broken foot. Overall long story short, SocioPoliticalPimpTalk is what I asked for and SocioPoliticalPimpTalk is definetly what they gave me.

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Interview by Christina Ledesma

Where exactly, did this idea begin for this EP? Troublemaker: Usually, they kind of become what they are in the process.

Killer Reese: Yeah.

Troublemaker: We just start recording-either I start with something I like or he starts with something he likes, and writes to it. And then we record or we do it all in the studio, then after we have kind of a few songs and we kind of feel like there’s a direction, like things are starting to make sense, then it kind of—like names come into place and title’s start getting thought about and—you know Reese’s is the one that names all of our songs, and for the most part he names everything you know.

Yeah.

Killer Reese: Yeah that’s it.

Troublemaker: It’s pretty simple.

So how did that title happen for you?

Killer Reese: Well its SocioPoliticalPimpTalk, it couldn’t be called anything else. [Laughs] THAT’S WHAT IT IS……DUH! So what happen with your foot?

Killer Reese: Uh I was running—I was running out of a bank I was robbing and like I tripped over this dead baby and—uh I fractured my fibula. I got away though but the baby’s dead still.

Troublemaker: It was already dead though.

Killer Reese: It was—yeah I didn’t kill the baby, apparently that was from another robbery.

Troublemaker: [Laughs] Earlier that day.

Killer Reese: Earlier that day. [Laughs] I was listening to “Squeeze the Trigger” obviously it’s a cover from Ice-T, I was curious about how you were influenced by that.

Killer Reese: I FUCKIN love Ice-T man. He’s FUCKIN great that Rhyme Pays album is like one of the best albums to me of all time. I think it’s the coincidencidental—my brand of gangster rap, gangster rap. I think it projects you know the NWA shit, you know it’s real like—“fucking classy gangsta shit” and then but it’s just hard. It’s really you know— his shit is really political.

How do you feel about how he’s [Ice-T] talking about that issue then and your still talking about that issue going on today?

Killer Reese: In another 20 years it will be the same monkey shit going on, you know. America hates poor people and niggas especially. So it’s fucking— you know were fucked and if there is a heaven there better be a special place for black people.

Troublemaker: There better be no white people there. [Laughs] Killer Reese: Yea dude. Like black males better have a fucking VIP room man. If this is the fucking deal were getting. So that’s why a song like that will always be relevant. Until somebody raises up and actually starts squeezing the trigger and killing people. Which is the only thing I think they’ll understand at this point, we’ve said it every other way we can possibly say something.

When you sit down to write or think about song ideas, do you try to go a political route?

Killer Reese: I’m not really all that political, more social than political. You know what I mean it’s more of functional politics.

So it just comes out period. That’s just how I fucking talk like that.

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You have that one track on your guys new EP [Jamaica, California] that you’re talking a lot about what’s going in the marijuana culture right now, you pretty much say how you feel about it. Do you want it to be legalized?

Killer Reese: I mean I don’t give a shit one way or the other. I mean if you smoke you gonna smoke. Just stop playing games; just be what it’s gonna to be. I don’t smoke anymore or any less.

But Obama, you know weed smokers help get that mutha-fucker elected. Don’t pull some mutha-fucking back door bullshit on us now. And then start criminalizing places you know that our doing their thing. Now there targets in the government and I don’t like any part of it. I’m from Venice dude it was already legal in mind. [Laughs]

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I did read the release that you were arrested and on trial, and I’m just curious and I’m sure some of your fans might be curious about some more facts about that.

Killer Reese: I said what happened. [Laughs] I fuckin stole the Mona Lisa and I sold it for meth dude! I fuckin said that. I don’t know why everyone keeps saying “what did you do” I told you guys I fuckin stole the Mona Lisa and sold it for methamphetamine and I smoked the methamphetamine at a daycare.

[Troublemaker laughing in background] Troublemaker: [Directed at Killer Reese] You should have sold it for bath salts. It would have been way better. Then you could of ate someone’s face off [Killer Reese laughs].

Killer Reese:Yea you know that shit is still going on. It’s fuckin— you know a tragedy, its family shit. It’s the white man against the most powerful NIGGA; [Troublemaker laughs] the white man has EVER FUCKIN SEEN. The white man has got me completely fucked up! [Laughs] I’m about to take this shit sitting down.

I’m about to fuckin kick a whole bunch of white asses all over fuckin Portland in the next few months—know what I mean. So all because of the fuckin Mona Lisa dude.

Apparently you guys have gotten some offers for labels, but you choose to stay independent?

Killer Reese: Who told you that? Tell them to offer that shit again. [Laughs] Troublemaker: Labels have called us but nobody’s offer us any real money, for us to actually take serious. [At Killer Reese] Is that worthy of saying?

Killer Reese: I think so.

Troublemaker: Yea. A lot of people call. A & R [Artists and repertoire] people are like—I don’t know it’s like when you first meet someone and you’re really juiced about meeting them.

And then you really don’t like them right away. That’s what A & R people are. You know they hear about something and there like “yo I need to holler at you” and then you talked to them and their full of shit.

The reason why I ask is because independent artist this day and age, you know can obviously really make it happen for themselves with all the technology, and people doing their own visuals and their own marketing. I’m curious, and this is kind of a question I ask all artists, if the labels are even needed anymore?

Killer Reese: Yep. Because fucking—they’re going to control the machine that allows you to get publicity. If you don’t have a base machine, you have to be insanely lucky. Like were super popular and nobody knows who the fuck we are. And that’s the difference between being on someone’s label or having somebody, some name backing you or something like that. Is that—it tells people that it’s okay to look at your shit. People are fucking retarded. Like the general public, I’m talking about 75 percent of these mutha-fuckers.

Troublemaker: Way more than that. [Laughs]

Killer Reese: This is how you can tell how fuckin retarded they are. They play the same fucking three songs on the radio all day, every day. And nobody complains about it. That’s how sheep like and fuckin stupid people are. So unless there is somebody pointed them in the direction and says, “hey hey hey this is okay to wear, this is okay to drink, this is ok to listen to”, then you really have no action, like you’re lucky—like a song has to go fuckin ape shit and bust from the seams.

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Troublemaker: There’s a graphic that is going around the internet right now.

That’s basically shows that all media is controlled by three companies. And there’s two things that labels provide because they are a part of those three companies. They provide money there like a head trunk, and then they provide access.

And the access it what he’s (Killer Reese) talking about. Publicity, they put you on the radio because it’s controlled by companies that own them, television, MTV.

Killer Reese: It’s a FUCKIN TRAVESTY that we aren’t millionaires.

It’s a FUCKIN TRAVESTY. It’s ridiculous that this is even a fuckin question. Like we should have fuckin hundreds and thousands of dollars at least, it’s fuckin stupid and that’s not being arrogant. It’s fuckin dumb with our value of work that we put out. The quality of shit that we put out, as the scale with this other fuck shit that people give their money to. What we put into our shows and the actually time we our branding and shit like that. We kick so many asses in these fuckin arenas for us not to have fuckin money falling out of our anus. Like were struggling to get— an un-bitched notoriety. And there plastering these dick heads all over. Not to mention were fuckin nice looking guys [Laughs] dude. It doesn’t add up it’s a fuckin travesty. And it’s because nobody in the machine can find away to fuckin fag us out or something like that.

Troublemaker: The machine is the problem. The machine is owned by these people. All those people actually don’t work they try to get laid on Facebook all day; they sit there and talk to each other on Facebook. They see what their friend posted and that’s the music that’s popular and the music that’s popular is children, and no disrespect to the kids that make the music but the adults that control that access are pedophiles. In one way or another, either they like little kids or they just want to prostitute them because they can make money off of them for years to come. There easy to manipulate, to control, like “Oh who should wear this, you should look like this” I mean this dudes are—they look like women. You know and they act like them too and there being treated like them by these rich white men because their offering them 30, 50, to hundred thousand dollars, maybe a million dollars if you’re lucky. And you’re not really getting a million dollars when they say that you know that’s bullshit too. So it’s a problem with the system.

Killer Reese: There’s no accountability in the system man. Really to tell you the truth if this wasn’t like the quickest route to fuckin like a splash of money or something for me right at this point. I

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wouldn’t fuckin do this shit, this is for the birds. It has no integrity, I would do it but I do it on my own terms with no expectations, because this whole experience has made realized that humanity is fucking doomed. Hopefully technology gets to a point where it can do everything for everybody for real. Like you know what I’m saying because if not people are fucking brainless, people are fucking brainless fucking zombies running around. I have learned this through small things, like music is just a microcosmic of culture. Culture is just a microcosmic of society.

Troublemaker: 10 years ago we would be, and I’m not comparing us musically. But we would be what Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and all these guys that were around. They weren’t gigantic they didn’t have huge hits but they just kept it steady. And you know they have a career off it. The system doesn’t allow that, you know in any capacity. For just families, you know like people work tons of jobs just to make enough money to feed their kids. We’ve been gutted and until those old rich white men die or we blow them up. Or come to the streets as a militia. Until those people die or go away nothing will change. And because if you look at it, like the younger generation, don’t care about people being gay, they don’t care what color you are. Like I see 17 and 18 year old little kids running around, talk to them all the time, give them advice, and whatever we have this conversation. They’re smart like they know what’s going on. It’s the dumb people that are older that our doing the last money grabbing they can get.

Recently Killer Reese was sentenced to four years in state prison and will be released in 22 months. On behalf of La Raw, our deepest condolences go out to Killer Reese and his family.

Keep a look out for King Fantastic’s remix EP for SocioPoliticalPimpTalk, as well as their new mix tape, and videos.

Find more information on King Fantastic at:

thekingfantastic.com

Summer Album Reviews

By Denise De La Cruz

Oddisee

People Hear What They See

You know an album is dope when you can listen to it for the first time from the beginning to the end and not lose focus once. Nothing in the world matters for those couple of minutes except the music coming out of your earphones. Yeah, this is one of those albums. Oddisee lyrically offers relatable reflections of a striving artist. You can join Oddisee as he finds himself not only as a polished producer but as an enlightened emcee.

Straightforward lyrics of his philosophies and experiences are heard beautifully and complimented by his soulful beat production.

Killer Mike

R.A.P Music

Killer Mike blares his two cents into your brain almost reminiscent of Chuck D in Public Enemy’s prime. Yet Killer Mike’s politics are all delivered with his own brand of Southern/Atlanta rawness.

R.A.P grabs you by the collar and drops political, personal, and quite frankly trill points of view, through the mind of Killer Mike. It’s evident that K.M had a lot on his mind and he expressed himself in a gritty, unconventional yet conscious fashion. In today’s world of “ignaant” who would’ve thought that it could be done?

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Open Mike Eagle

HSPTL

HSPTL delivers polished synthesized electronic beats by U.K producer Awkward, laced with mono-toned and incredibly insightful rhymes provided by Open Mike Eagle. Idiosyncratic and elaborate lyrics are some characteristics of Open Mike’s songwriting. The quality that allows Open Mike Eagle to stand out is his smart subject matter. Open Mike speaks about backpack rappers going trendy and other spontaneous yet refreshing topics. It’s odd yet charming. This album has your intellect on its toes. Accept the challenge. You’ll be glad that you did.

El-P

Cancer For Cure Cancer for Cure is unapologetically boisterous and a sonic dose of caffeine laced with crack and just about any other energy inducing substance you can think of. El dishes up hard hitting beats juxtaposed with his domineering flow and ciphered lyrics. Not to mention he brings out a couple of buddies to play while he’s at it.

(Despot, Killer Mike, Danny Brown and Mr. Muthafuckin’eXquire) Mix some boom bap beats with the fornication noises of Transformers and you get the production for C4C. When listening to this album the world seems like a dystopia but at least it has a badass soundtrack to go along with it.

Ab-Soul

Control System I tried to give this album a shot considering that Ab-Soul is part of the respectable collective that is Top Dawg Entertainment (All hail Kendrick Lamar!) but in the end I just wasn’t sold. Control System felt extremely lackluster. Great production was reduced by mediocre rhymes. The song concepts weren’t very original or stimulating and although the effort was there the execution by Ab-Soul just falls short.

Kaymar’s Rant So I sat down with Music in the park for a casual one on one conversation. About how she is being used and what the future holds for her.

Kaymar: Hey Music what’s up?

Music: Nothing much, just maintaining you know.

Kaymar: I’m just going to dive right into it, what happened to you?

Music: To be honest nothing really special I am still the same as I have always been, but some people use me as an art form and others use me as a profit. But that’s not the problem; the problem is that nowadays people who use me for a profit are by far outnumbered by those who use me for art. My job since the dawn of time has and will always be to entertain with a beat, to move the soul, to bring people a mood whatever it’s good, bad or sad.

Kaymar: What about the message and the art that was in you?

Music: To be honest that is still here. It’s just faded because of all the media and people who use me for a profit and exploit the shit out of me, but true artists are still out there.

Kaymar: What do you think is the main cause for this vision?

Music: I would have to say “like anything else in art, it’s generational and the time we are in.” I only reflect what society is at the time and if you take a good look at society and the new generation: it lacks creative quality, critical thinkers, readers, writers, poets, good music programs in public schools, people with drive, people to take the time to create master pieces and kids that want more besides money and drugs. Not to say that those past generations didn’t want the same things. And I have talked about sex, drugs and money. However, the difference is that the poetic master piece also came with that.

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Kaymar: So could you pin point what’s the main cause for the problem with your state of affairs right now?

Music: Well I have to say what we have are a bunch of what I like to call “micro wavers”, the kids who want it all now. People used to sit down and try to create a master piece every time they made a tune. Now we have people creating unreasonable material, putting it out and calling it music. They copy whatever was sold last week. If booty shaking music is hot they make it, if killing is hot they make it, if rocking like the sixties is hot they make it and if electronic is hot they make it. This is really what breaks my heart.

Kaymar: Why does that break your heart Music?

Music: Because before you made one type of music.

You work your hardest to perfect that sound and create a master piece using that sound. Not to just make a sound that fits a particular genre, or for the profiteer.

Kaymar: Music what would be an example of people in the same genre who have perfected their sound? And what is a profiteer?

Music: Michael Jackson was a pop star so was Prince, they both made two completely different sounds and made master pieces using the same music. NWA and Wu Tang are two collections of emcees in the same genre that made master pieces with completely different sounds. A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planet are both hip hop trios who made master pieces in the same genre. EPMD and Outkast are both hip duos who made master pieces under the same genre. Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins not only made master pieces but also helped create a new genre in music. Biggie, 2 Pac, NAS and Jay-Z are all individuals who have made great pieces of work that everyone copies which is very very sad.

Profiteers are those in the industrial music complex who make money off me. They are the ones who exploited me for their own gain and it has been this way ever since the first king of the modern world would pay musicians to put him to sleep. So I have come in terms with this reality: with my whore status, there is never such a thing as a “free show”, and someone is always making money off me on the back end somehow. Just as long as I get a message out to help heal this world, like Bob Marley used me to do.

Kaymar: So how do you feel about all the drugs, money and disrespect towards woman?

Music: I get really annoyed by this question, like I said to you earlier “I am just a reflection of society”, the fact is society is stupid, our kids are as dumb as nails and it’s not their fault the education system is broken. Kids don’t learn about me any more so they wouldn’t even know a good tune if it bit them in the ass. As far as money we live in a capitalist country, where money rules so if someone makes music about money and bling, don’t

blame them blame America. A rapper writes about the car he has or the car he dreams about, and he gets killed and is deem a materialist by someone most likely in a nice car their suburban parents bought them.

Big businesses make their millions on the backs of the poor, never really getting any shit for it. A descent of an ex salve raps about one day making material gains, a day in a material world and gets kill by his/her peers while America was made by the labor of his/her slave accentors, very hypocritical if you ask me. And as for rappers disrespecting woman we live in a country with the largest porn industrial complex in the world and where woman were not given the right to vote until the late sixties. So maybe we should start there before we start at some poor kid who probably was raised with poor family values, in a broken home without a father figure. And as for the drugs, I really don’t have a beef with that either I mean ask the Native Americans. They were beating drums and smoking peace pipes way back in the day, maybe the drug questions should be taken up with the government. They are the ones who made all that crazy shit to get rid of all black and brown people in inner cities. Come on! Have you never listen to any music? If you listen carefully you will hear the truths about the drug problems. The question should not be why people have made songs about drugs, but why people in this modern world need to self medicate themselves with drugs just to deal with everyday life. It’s because this shit we call life is fuck up by the people we give power to.

Kaymar: So you don’t care what happens to you?

Music: To be honest I don’t care what music is made.

I just want to be represented equally. I want an equal rotation in mass media of the booty shaking, alongside the poetic emcee. I want melody of rock alongside the pop and emo rock. At the end of the day, I am an art form and no one should tell an artist what art to create. Art should be created from one’s own experiences and perspectives; no one should tell someone what to create, if you want to see something different then you create it. Be that change you want to see.

Kaymar: So music what would be your ultimate goal for yourself?

Music: I am a blank canvas; paint me as you see, all is welcome just please take your time. Always go in to create a master piece not just another lame copy of something that is already out and mass media made so you believe it’s hot. Please profiteers take some of that money I made for you and put it into the public school system. Change the dumbing down of our youth in society, balance the radio give people the opportunity to choose from a variety of quality, not a variety of lame copies. And to those who just sit and complain about how there is nothing good on the radio, shut up! And do something about it, if you don’t like what’s on the radio turn it off, write a blog promote about what you think should be on the radio and educated the younger generation about me.

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F O

So I’m at Buffalo Wild Wings.....

Dude at the table next to me is thee walking stereotype of Southern California: Pauly D Hair, hipster tee, cargo shorts, pattern socks, Vans, gauges, snakebite, diamond anchor just to the side of his left eye, a plethora of mismatched tattoos (including the classics “Only God Can Judge Me”, an outline of California, and, of course, a Kiss tattoo on his neck). His eyes so droopy and red that Snoop Dogg himself would be impressed (or “imprezzled” - whatever the fuck he would say). So yeah, this dude really thought he was on stage too.

He rapped along to Drake, did the Dougie, shuffled to LMFAO, and even squeezed a lemon wedge into his Blue Moon (of course) rhythmically to the wobbles of that godawful Pitbull/Men in Black/ Pop/Dubstep song. Anyway, long story short, I kinda talked shit to him until him and his (admittedly hot) girlfriend left. I feel bad (now), but... fuck that dude.

At some point I have to wonder, “when are we going to stop?”

I mean, what the fuck? What’s really left to do at this point? Call me out of touch, but people are taking “trying too hard” to new heights right now.

It seems everyone is now covered in tattoos, littered with piercings, high as a kite and corny as fuck. Is this what California is? Do other states have populations filled with vapid, carbon-copy hordes of ravers branded with tattoos denoting the state in which they live? People are ridiculous.

Narcissism is definitely the law of the land, but why? Why are we so prone to daily self-glorification? Is this YouTube’s fault? Has social networking made putting one’s self on a pedestal a full-time job? It feels as though somewhere along the line everyone decided to devote their lives to just getting fucked up and liking whatever (insert media conglomerate here) tells them is “in”. Where is this perpetual infatuation with our appearance and fitting in getting us culturally? Stop, please.

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It’s no wonder the youth is so fucked right now; it’s really no fault of their own. People are not trying to improve the conditions of our neighborhoods, economically or socially. Too many are content to see dignity fall by the wayside in favor of assimilation.

Unemployment is just about as high as ever, gas prices fluctuate between ridiculously expensive and rape, and now we’ve reduced our standards for education such that one only needs to demonstrate proficiency in what’s taught during the first semester of 9th grade education in order to graduate (this is actually true). Does anyone care? Oh, YOLO? Oh ok that makes sense then.

Seriously though, when “sikk az FUKK” is the highest compliment a person can give/receive, something has gone terribly wrong socially. Have we forgotten that we are the products of miracle workers? Our antecedents fled evil regimes, survived depression and poverty, overcame social injustice.

Our forefathers had their spirits and backs broken to provide us with a semblance of comfort and this is what we do with it? This is why Martin Luther King died? This is why Cesar Chavez fasted? This is why JFK took a bullet?? This is why our grandmothers would stitch up the holes in their clothes and our grandfathers enlisted in the military before their beards had even come in?

I miss the era of people having ideals...shit, I miss the days of people having ideas. Individuality is dead. Everyone is conforming to the same insipidly base shit, somehow fascinated by its gaudy stupidity. We have become tasteless and crass as a culture. We celebrate the splendid filth of the day in the way a fly basks in excrement. Fuck’s sake, I just saw a television commercial for Microsoft with a dubstep soundtrack...Microsoft!?

It has never been more apparent to me than now that man is indeed a herding animal. Unfortunately, our herd is fucking asinine.

Change.

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