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ENTERTAINMENT
IN BRIEF
W odin. II
-Ia u 9 n
City pol c
Last month, it wa reported
that member of BBD and
Whodini were pulled over and
allegedly 'eat by ew York
City police officers on a Har­
lem treet. Turns out non of
BBD wa involved. Whodini
had ju t fini hed filming
video with Run DMC when
they were topped by police.
Whodini'8 John "Eest y"
Fletcher id a white officer
kicked him in the head making
hi f ce hit the pavement. Th
vehicle cont ining th group
w topped because, accord­
ing to police, it matched the
de cription of a car used in a
robbery.
The officers involved were
white. Whodini' attorney
h filed a complaint with th
New York City's new Civilian
Review rd. The city of
New York m . t be in for a
big I w uit.
Teddy Riley
is all talk
By TUREKA TURK
#Chk1!n Cltlz n
First it was jazz. Then it w
rock and roll. Soon after, it w all
on rap. ow it' dancehall. ear­
ly every form of original BI ck
oul music h come under the
fe on its way up the popular
mainstream ladder. But dancehall?
Jami can middle cia s intel­
ligence quads write murder when
it com to th success of dan­
cehall. They regard the rising
music form as a reggae flunkie,
from which dancehall is derived
and accuse it of not being "suffi­
ciently musical or intelligible", as
well as being sexist and materialis­
tic. Dancehall superstar Rexton
"Shabba Ranks" Gordon doesn't
escape the squa ' riticism eith r.
,
nothing more than "slackn "
leaze-.masqu rading a culture.
"Slackn is not mere xual
I ness-though it certainly is
th t. Slackn i a metaphorical
revolt gainst law and order, an
undermining of consensual stand­
ards of d cency. It is the the an­
tithes' of culture," Cooper . d.
In other words, it goes gaiRSt the
norm, a true ign of an inner-city
revolution against middle cl s
standards.
Cooper . d her tudy of dan­
cehaU male/female relationships
show that deejays are prai in not
degrading women.
"In the songs of sexual gender
relations, the deejays were bigging
up (praising, for you non­
Jamaicans) women. They id
• • c
Dancehall disciples find it a
ritual to celebrate the deejaying as
well as the body as a form in rela­
tion to the flavor. This doesn't fit
at all into the middle class
. tream the intelligencia have
formed.
"When I perform, I just give the
public what is inside of me, so
talking slack lyrics for the public is
just to build the vib for m st of
the bretherns and istrens down in
the ghetto, because i you don't
give them what they want, they
won't listen to you," aid female
deejay Angie Angel.
SJiABBA RANKS
posed to the uptown, style of
speaking.
"The creole lyrics of the deejays
define the further textrem of the
cri be/ora I lit rary continuum in
Jamaica; Unrn diated by a middle­
class scribal sen ibility, d ejay
oracy articulates a distinctly ur­
banized folk eth s," he explained.
. -
cehall is laughing in the face of its
criticizing int Ili encia.
"All thi mon y making and
popularity and uper-stardom
busine 'S i legitimizing mediocrity
and ooli hn ss,:_ aid Angela
ampson, a year-Old executive.
• Y did be
play uch a heavy role in
"Rump Shaker", the new
rna h from Wreckx N' Ef­
fects.
For tho who haven't een
the "Rump Shaker" video -
Teddy' lounging on the
beach, occ ionally peering
through hi video camera at
the' numerous women educ­
tively dancing around with
their rump-revealing bikini ..
Teddy's al 0 been spotted per­
forming the same song at the
Apollo.
IfTeddywa n'thappywith
the effect Guy' exual over­
tone had on his career, it doe
eem odd that he's indulging
in imiJar conduct as a guest
arti t with Wrec N' Effect.
C uld it be that Teddy' talk­
ing out f both 'ide of hi
face?
Warner Bros
sells out Ice T
T and Warner Bro
Rec rd will apparently e
going their eparate way.
Ace rding to chief M 0 tin,
that appea to be the be t, if
not only way of re olving their
current creative differenc .
The m ve comes after a year
of tcn ion park by the
rapper' ntrov rial "Cop
Killer" relea
-By the way
.
Spike Lee wa not among
the Di rector Guild of
America' nomination for
it' highe t honor . For eight
of the la t ten years, the Direc­
tors Guild' choice h gone
on to win the 0 r for be t
direct r.
Talk is cheap.
There', talk of another
erie in th work for Della
Ree e, ut Della ay she
orne fr m the old cho 1. "If
Y u don't have a c ntraci and
it is n 1 igned,y ud n'thave
anythi n J ut e nve ali n,
and I have tion with
every dy."
- 'peclal contributors. Lisa 01-
lins (Belund-] he- cenes) and Radio-
5 ope 7i1t! "'Ii,,."
"IN TIlE DANCEHALL the
woman can be who she wants to
be ... We don't see anything wrong
with the lyrics, we (are) just dane- . "Wouldn't y�u like r_nen!o treat
ing to the mu ic," says dancehall your daughters like,la�les, like an­
disciple Gloria Bonner. gels? You wouldn t lIke. a�y man
. What of the lyrics? Can anyone . to see your daughter passing on the
really understand them? Do they street and tart to tell her (to) make
really want to unders�nd them? up now, ite�ing her body parts,"
Perhaps those ethnic rhymes do Gloudon said to a caller on her talk
hide tales of sexism, materialism, show. .
even homophobia. But .al� deejays, ��en females,
There is a big issue of true say the�r slackn IS only what
Jamaican's ba hing homosexual the audience wants.
lie tyle (it is against the culture to
venture down any other path that
isn't straight). One popular dan­
cehall song ("Baddy Bwoy") does
praise the bashing of homosexuals.
And then ther i the other sexism
as well.
be ��babibl. I n taft�·hmill:fIi.
. mon y h makes, Shabba .
coa man," ew York radio tal
show h t Barbara Gloudon id at
a recent public function.
The criticisms have parked a
feud in th sizable Jamaican com­
munity in ew York between up­
town (middle class intelligencia)
and downtown (inner-city)
Jamaica.
Buju Bant n, one of the ph attest
deejay to hit U.S. boarders from
Jamaica, has soared with his hit,
"Browning", a typical dancehall
chant over a reggae-beat with a hip
hop flavor.
"Mi lov mi kyar, milove mibaik;
mi lov mi:
moni an ring bot mos of aJ mi
, lov mi browning"
"[love my car, [love my money
and things but
most of all I love my brown­
skinned girl"
ARDO A K', anoth r
popular dance haller, charged that
Banton's "Browning" snuck in
colorism, causing many Jamaican
or dar - kinned w m n to try and
lighten their kin, and responded
with "Oem A Bleach".
Carolyn Cooper, a lecturer in
English at the University of the
We t Indie ,hyp d nceh 11,
aying that it i the "lib rating
forum for ghetto women It. But the
i ntelligcncia uads f I t its
"V ry n, every young boy
and girl will think all you have to
do is et up and cream' yaa yaa
yaa'andy uwinaGrammy. Then
where will Jamal ? No edu­
cated peopl ,ju t a bunch of cater-
waulers." • .
'Yaa, yaa ya " ay the cauter­
wall rs.
"Besides," she continued "is And thjs inner-city pint of poor
slackness bring all of we h peeked into a n w tr m of
here ... That is how we all born." music and gained a hug f Bow­
ing. Shabba Ranks has won' a
Butdancehall als com und r Grammy and i estimated at
the gun for its clashing of th "col r making more than .5 million last
bar" and the downtown, a op- year alone. The pop larity of dan-
HOT 10 SINGLES
1. "HERE WE GO AGAIN"
.............................................................. Portrait(Capitol)
2. "IF I EVER FALLIN LOVE"
..................................................................... Shai(MCA)
3. "KEY TO YOUR $ HACKLES "
............................................ A. U. T. H. O. R.I.T. Y. (Bass-X)
4. "RE INSCE"
................................... 0 ......... Mary J. Blige (Upfown/MCA)
1. "THE CHRONIC"
.............................................. Dr. Ore (I nterscope/Priority)
-2. "SKJUS OAT PAY DA BIUS"
............. :.0' , Positive K (Island)
3. "WHATSTHE411"
............................................ Mary J. Blig (Uptown/MeA)
4. "HARD OR SMOOTH"
....... ,....................................... Wre�kx -N- Effect (MeA)
5. "THE PREDATOR"
................................................ :::- lceCube (Priority)
6. "PORTRAIT"
, .. : : Portrait(Capitol)
7. "LOVE DELUXE
SAOE(Epic)
8. "3YRS'S MONTHS & 2 DAYS IN THE UFE ... "
.......... Arrested 0 velopment (Chrvsalis)
. .
,9. "TR�SPASS - Movie Soundtrack"
..................... , Various Artists (Sire/Warner Bros,)
10. "BOBBY"
Booby Brown (MCA)
5 "I GOT A MAN"
............................................ , ..... :-:-:: .. : ..... PositiveK(lsland)
6. "FREAKY"
.......................................................... X-Ch,ange(Fliptop)
7. "RUMP SHAKER"
............................... � Wreckx - N- Effect (MeA)
8. "IN THE STIll. OF THE NIGHT"
... � : Boyz II Men (Motown)
9. "SLOW AND SEXY"
.................................... Shabba Ranks wi Johhy Gill (Epic)
10. " OORDI RY LOVE"
SADE(Eplc)