Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1074

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #5: Ben Harney & Sheryl Lee Ralph—"When I First Saw You" (Dreamgirls)

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music Day #5: Ben Harney & Sheryl Lee Ralph—"When I First Saw You"by Mark Anthony Neal
What I remember most about high school, was that I was a bit of an outsider. Part of it was the Bronx cat traveling to BK everyday but also the fact that I was a nerd.  Being a nerd wasn't the worse thing to be in a school of future engineers and biologists—always knew that I wasn't dude in the corner with the slide-rule. My future wife, though, was one of the cool girls. Granted she was two classes behind me, so I got some points for being older, but I'm sure a bunch of her girls were like "really?" when I started showing up on the regular, with my Sperry top-siders, pink polo shirts and matching pink socks. Rest assured weren't too many wanna-be preppies (as it might have been described then) in my hood.
Nowhere was my outsider status more pronounced than in my taste in music. Still have vivid memories of one of those girls—you know gum popping, bad-ass girls—who were never inclined to pay me much attention, but gave me a little shine one day 'cause I was listening to my first generation Walk-man. "What you listening to?" Gave her the headphone and while Ronnie Dyson's "If You Let Me Make Love to You," played in the in the background, a she blurted out to all who could hear "This is what you listen to?"
Yes, I was that dude, going to school in urban America in the 1980s when all of my peers were listening to The Furious Five, The Funky Four-Plus One, and The Crash Crew (which featured one of our classmates) and I was listening to ten-year-old show tunes. What specifically caught my fancy that spring was, not surprisingly, the soundtrack to the Broadway musical Dreamgirls.
Dreamgirls opened in December of 1981 and I had heard a little buzz about the show from some adults. In fact, I was a little ticked off when my mom got tickets to see the musical and didn't take me. But she brought home that soundtrack. At the time I knew little about the history of Motown or anything about the fact that the original musical was a metaphor for the marginalization of Gay men in the arts. All I knew was that one song, "When I First Saw You," sung by Ben Harney and Sheryl Lee Ralph in their roles as Curtis Taylor and Deena Jones. And indeed every-time that song came on I was Curtis Taylor and "Peaches" was Deena Jones.
Years later "When I First Saw You," would be one of the songs I included, on series of cassettes tapes that I would occasionally give my future bride, each with a detailed, nuanced playlist and a little romantic picture, usually cut out from Essence Magazine, that I placed in the back of each cassette case. Dude was never a player, but you couldn't tell him that he wasn't the most romantic cat in the world.

"Jordan Miles" | New Music Video by Jasiri X

Jasiri X tells the story of Jordan Miles, the 18 year old honor student who was brutally beaten by 3 undercover Pittsburgh Police officers while walking to his grandmother's house. "Jordan Miles" was mixed by Diezel and directed by Paradise Gray.
Call Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala at 412.350.4400 and demand he file charges against the 3 police officers who brutally beat Jordan Miles.
For more info go to
http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/


LYRICS
by Jasiri X

Now here's a little story I got to tell
about 3 officers you don't know so well
It's started way back last January
with officers Ewing, Sisak, and Saldutte
They ran into boy named Jordan Miles
a real good kid who for sure was mild
but he was found guilty before a trial
cause he's a young black man in the wrong part of town
Jordan is a kid that gets good grades
not a thug bragging that he's hood raised
He takes care of his grandmother cause she's older
went to performance arts school and plays the viola
He never did a crime one day in his life
His favorite TV show is CSI
when he graduated he wanted to learn
how to catch a criminal like Lawrence Fishburne
Then one night like he always did
He made the short walk to his grandmother's crib
cause grandma didn't like to be alone
by her self at night so Jordan stayed in her home
Now these 3 cops were undercover
so they could sneak up and snatch a brother
catch you in the act pull the gat and bust ya
throw you on the ground pat you down and cuff ya
rollin through the hood looking for they next victim
like every other night so they know how to pick em
They saw Jordan walking they lips they start lickin
there's a young black male hell yeah let's get him
They jumped out the car as the tires spun
yelling where's the drugs, where's the money and guns
Jordan stops walking his face was stunned
he thinks he's being robbed so he starts to run
He didn't get far before the cops catch em
Now they got em they gotta teach him a lesson
Because he ran that means they gotta wreck him
they slam him on his neck and start to chin check him
Blow after blow till his face was swollen
He thinks their gonna stop but they just keep going
he calls on God whispering the lords prayer
they grab him by his locks just to rip out his hair
beaten and bloody they finally hand cuff him
but then when they search they don't find nothing
they're minds was boggled then lies start to follow
let's say inside his coat he had mountain dew bottle
and we thought that it was a weapon
we had to hit him cause he resisted arrest and
Let's take him to jail and get him drug tested
because if he's high we won't look so reckless
Now Jordan's Mom is really scared
cause she called his grandma's and he isn't there
What his in jail she headed there on the double
it must be a mistake Jordan's never been in trouble
Outside the jail and she saw this man
who was beat so bad it made her think damn
It looked like he was hit with by bomb
then he walked right up to her and said Mom
She was shocked she couldn't believe
that disfigured face was he's son indeed
she fell to her knees she couldn't even breathe
Her son has been a victim of police brutality
she rushed Jordan to emergency
And every time she looks at him it hurt to see
her son in a hospital bed in pain
police took no blame and claim its how they trained
Jordan got charged but when it went to court
We found out the police falsified they're report
They said a neighbor called the cops crying
She got up on the stand and said stop lying
Now the whole community wants justice for Jordan
And the cops charged for the crimes they reported
Call the DA and tell him to press charges
we demand justice and we just getting started

Michael Eric Dyson on the "Hijacking" of the American Constitution

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Aspen Ideas: Race & Criminal Justice

Aspen Ideas Festival 2011 Race and Criminal Justice
If current trends continue, one-in-three African American males and one-in-six Hispanic males born today can expect to be in prison in their lifetime. What is the link between race and criminal justice? What does a civil-rights movement look like in a post-civil-right era?
Moderator: Jeffrey Rosen
Speakers: Kamala Harris, Charles J. Ogletree, & Kasim Reed

Rene Marie: "Lift Ev'ry Voice & Sing / Star Spangled Banner"

This clip is taken from Rene Marie's performance the Bridgestone Music Festival. Her version of "Lift Ev'ry Voice & Sing/ Star Spangled Banner" can be found on her Motema album "Voice of My Beautiful Country."

So What is 20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music?

1989 in Philadelphia, PA




























So What is "20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music"? by Mark Anthony Neal
Part love story, part social history and part music criticism (like all of my work), "20 Years in 27 Days" is a celebration of a committed relationship; July 27, 2011 marks the 20th Wedding Anniversary of my marriage to Gloria Taylor-Neal.
So for 27 days I will reminisce, through music about our relationship, the worlds we lived in that helped forge that relationship and the radical importance of staying together at a time when so many don't. 
In short this is the story about a couple of Bronx kids, who group up five minutes from each other, met for the first time miles way in a  Brooklyn high school and managed over time and space to reconnect years later on Broadway and Astor Place, fall in love and raise two beautiful and challenging Brown girls.
Truth be told, I rarely get the opportunity to let my partner know how much this has all mattered to me, and "20 Years in 27 Day: A Marriage in Music" is just my little opportunity to let her know, share it with the world,  and tribute the combined 90-plus years that our parents spent together.
In case you've missed days 1-3:20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #1: Stevie Wonder's "That Girl"20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #2: Secret Weapon—"Must Be the Music"20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #3: The Doobie Brothers—"What a Fool Believes"

Sekou Sundiata: "We Dreamed You, Black"

Urban Music
by Sekou Sundiata

...I wanna tell you how much we wanted to make revolution
But in our yearning we learned, suffering ain't noble and to struggle is a blessing
that brings more life on the side of life itself

That wide are the rivers we know, deep is the water ,
hip-hop and beyond hip-hop and before
I mean I could run out of breathe before I could divest the rest that I don't know

Maybe, I can break it down to you like this
We dreamed you Black, in your badness
Made you up out of poems, and lies and words to live by
And we ourselves was dreamed, most likely by some slaves
Whenever they got a little space to climb into their heads and be free
So when they closed their eyes, what did they see?
They saw you…they saw me...

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #3: The Doobie Brothers—"What a Fool Believes"

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music Day #3: The Doobie Brothers—"What a Fool Believes"by Mark Anthony Neal
I've always considered myself a writer. Wrote my first play at 8 (performed by my Boy Scout troop) and throughout middle school and high school I wrote a collection of teleplays (all in steno pads), where I imagined myself as part some Black middle-class utopia that I knew nothing about growing up in the BX. Before I ever heard things like "a writer writes," or heard Sonia Sanchez explain that she wrote everyday, I instinctively knew that I was supposed to put pen to paper everyday.
I most regularly wrote in series of diaries that I kept from the summer of 1981 until the fall of 1983. Most of the entries occurred during my daily two-hour trek home to the Bronx from BK (two-trains and a bus), when I wasn't reading the New York Times (which we were required to subscribe to) in that commuters-would-only-know way that I still read the New York Times in. I still have my diaries from those three years (ages 15-17) and find myself returning to them often enough, not quite surprised that the germs of the narrative voices I use now, particularly in my personal writing, were apparent even then.
One of the features of my dairy entries, is that I would have a theme song for each day—a playlist of which would look like that of a kid who grew up listening to Ken "Spider" Webb, Chuck Leonard, George Michael (of Sports Machine fame), Frankie Crocker and Harry Harrison on the radio. That day that I finally asked "That Girl" her name, the song of the day was Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again Naturally," which would become professional relevant to me years later in ways that I could never have imagined in 1982.
 The theme song for May 24th 1982 was The Doobie Brothers' "What A Fool Believes." Though I wasn't a big fan of the Doobies in their early Rock days ("Black Water"), "What A Fool Believes," which came out in 1979, was one of the group's first big hits with Michael McDonald as their lead. If you would have asked me in 1982, I would have told you that the song was one of my favorites—that is until McDonald dropped his first solo single "I Keep Forgetting" later that summer.
Of note that Monday, May 24, 1982, is that it was the day that my future wife and I first kissed (shortly before first period). By day's end we were holding hands walking down Dekalb Avenue.

When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost--Unplugged!

Joan Morgan, author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist on her 2010 Relationship Resolutions. 

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #2: Secret Weapon—"Must Be the Music"

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music Day #2: Secret Weapon—"Must Be the Music"by Mark Anthony Neal
Brooklyn Tech is huge. Located directly across from Fort Greene Park the school takes up an entire city block. Founded in 1922 as an all-boys school, the school had been coed for less than a decade when I got there in 1979. Drawing from every borough in New York City as one of the city's four "specialized" High School, the school is primarily known for producing engineers, though alums include Black Rock Coalition founder Vernon Reid and former congressman Anthony Weiner; there was a working foundry in the building when I was a student. The student population during the years I was there topped out at about 6,000 students, comparing favorably to the population of most four-year liberal arts schools. Hell the school's auditorium seated 3, 000.
 I spent a lot of time during the spring of 1982 in that auditorium. FP and I—still in the first decade of what would become a 40-year friendship—both had the same lunch period that semester and true to form, we spent little time in the actual lunchroom—a lunchroom that Spike Lee made famous when he filmed the video for "Da Butt," in it in 1987.
The job of patrolling the hallways was a guy named Xenakis (RIP)—one of those Dean of discipline types, who apparently lived and breathed to make sure his hallways were clear. FP and I were on the run from Xenakis one day when we happened into the auditorium, and who would I find there but "Peaches," who was on stage taking some kind of movement—couldn't really call it dance—class. Never asked her if she thought I was some kind of damn stalker, but the auditorium became my regular spot every lunch period—at least until Xenakis tracked us down. It was one those regular occasions of having to flee, that "Peaches" (and some of her classmates) realized that she had a regular visitor. Mission accomplished—I was in her head.
Favorite part of those visits was this dance routine that the class did to Secret Weapon's "Must Be the Music." Founded by Jerome Prister in the early 1980s, the group recorded for Prelude Records, one of those New York City indie labels that seemed to dominate New York City urban radio in the early 1980s. The label's biggest acts were France Joli ("Gonna Get Over You"), D-Train, and of course Secret Weapon. The song itself was forgettable (it reached 24 on the R&B charts in the spring of 1982) if not for the fact that it was an early example of the kind of R&B/Hip-Hop hybrid that would become popular in the late 1980s. Prister's lead vocals vacillated between a talky singing style and an actual rap late in the song. Can't imagine that Larry Smith (of Whodini fame) wasn't taking notes when he first heard Secret Weapon.
For me, some 29 years later, I can't hear "Must Be the Music"—seemingly a Friday favorite on Durham's local R&B station—without seeing "Peaches" do that little side step shuffle that she did as part of that dance routine in Tech's auditorium. It would become, at least in my mind, our first song.