Entertainment
in Brief
pi g
n y r
re olution
Gerald Levert d termincd
that 1993 w the year be uld
fulfill a lifelong dream to pro­
duce some of those artist he'd
admired while be coming
up.
So be' oft'to a good tart,
having worked with both Bany
Whi am Teddy Pmdergrass.
(Perdergrass' albwn is due out in .
May).
Lev rt also teamed with the
Wmans for a d ( t wi be
featured on the Wmam upcom-
ing reI due later this year.
By the way
Ice Twill address the fallout
from his tune "Cop Killer" in an
upcoming boo for Penguin
Publishing.
Converse has signed the
Funky Divas of Soul to appear in
an upcoming ad for their new
Run 'N Gun basketball shoe.
The pot also features Pboenix
Sun Kevin Jolmson.
With his "Love Makes No
Senie ingle climbing the R&B
charts, AI aIXtCl' 0' cal was
putting his career into high gear.
But rDN � are temporarily
talled w ile he undergoes 001.111
ordered treatment for chemical
deperxteocy •
Th sentence stems from an
incident in July otlast yearwhcn
0' ea1 w charged with drug
. possesslonatter Minneapolis po­
licestoppod a car in whichhew�
a passenger, The police found
two-tenths of a gram of cocaine
and a pipe. .
Ice T makes
new start'
It' fficial. Priority has
signed Ice T. to a new recording
contract ow that be's chillin'
with his new label, the "Home
Invasion" album is set for release
In rrud-March, The album will
carry the picture of a white youth
listenin to hi tereo head­
phones while dreaming of vio­
lent images - this is the same
cover that put an 00 0 Warrx:,r
and Icc T' eight year marriage.
As the fire from Body
(punt' "Cop Killer" Ingle till
smolder in musicland, will re­
cord tares carrying Ice' new
album with its blatant depictio
of rape aOO murder on the cover?
Chuck Lee, director of m ic
buying for "The WherelJ>�"
reco rd store chain has said that
album avaitability will be deter ..
mined on an individual tore ba-
is. Another chain, Tower Re­
cords, will determine avail­
ability on an individual tore
b
Urdcr his new contract with
Pri nty I T WIll bring over his
own record I I, Rhyme SyndI­
cat Records w ich formed
whllehew withWamerBroth­
e .
Desprte tbemove, l T ear­
lier �.I includi the Body
Count album, will tHl be avail-
I through Warner. Ice T'
m vc works out for him very
well financially. H' oow get-
n a hi r ro alty
If art and m ic (and by ocia-
tion, music makers) reflect life; if
m ic' the microco m of life'
m croco m, it' hardly surpri ing
that a goo portion of what p
for m ic th e day is constituted
round 'minimizing the risk' or
playing it e, ticking to the trled­
and-tested formul and re-hashing
old ideas. Which is why Caron'
Wheeler' latest work, Beach o/th�
Wor Goddess tands out, a testa­
ment to the innovative, creative
force that has propelled this unique
'sts level of expression.
Lyrically bold and musically
adventurous, Caron Wheeler'
much awaited new 010 project
comes almo t three y�rs after the
release of her critically-acclaimed
UK BlaJc 010 debut. "It's a tribal
funky kind of record and it reflec
what' going inside me. The first
album initiated people into where
I'm coming from but Ldon't know
that it had the ubstance of grooves­
that this one has."
if it ever will be different.
Being Black is a day-to-day
situation: YQu can't take your black
off when you go out and deal with
people. The song "Beach Of The
War Goddess" i about the life of
the Black woman today, about ris­
ing to your highest potential. .. "
Using an exciting musical fu­
sion of African rhythms, reggae,
British/Black funk groove and
R&B shading, Caron uses her lat­
est work to lyrically addres ub­
jects of ub tance. The 'world
mu ic ' feel of 'Pather" exempli­
fie the musical hybrid Caron cre­
ates throughout the album,
addre ing itself to the plight of the
'Black family, with 0 many young
Black men incarcerated or dealing
with drugs and other ituations that
leave children in the care of i ngle
parents. "We need to tart rebuild­
ing the Black family. Behavior
patterns have been passed dow
we need to break the vicious circle.
and "F ather" is all about that, about
stopping the Black race in We tern
ociety from being an endangered
specie ... "
Haunting and poignant, "Lite As
A Feather' i inspired by the trag­
edy of AIDS: "I happen to believe
that AIDS is a 'created' di ease
that was put out to kill off certai n
minorities," ay Caron, "but no
one thought it would spread the
way it h and particularly among
hetero exual becau e .pcopte
. don't acknowl dge bi exuality a
m thod through which it could be
contr ed. So now we have an epi­
demic. "Lite As Feather" ug­
ge t that even when you're
dealing with omething deadly like
AIDS; by giving yourself a lot of
love energy, by literally 'lighten­
.ing up,' you can go a long way
toward healing."
(the lead-off ingle from the al­
bum) all deal very much with one­
orr-one relation hip and
ituations. "Whatever I'm writing
about whatever I'm singing. it ha
to have that po itive enlighten­
ment. I look for music that h i
own personality ,It ays Caron.
Caron Wheeler' latest musical
venture doesn't come a total sur­
pri in term of cope and depth to
the hip fol on both sides of the
Atlantic who di covered her
uniqu artistry on UK Blak. The
album was named in tribute to
Caron's heritage a part of first
generation Black men and women
born in the U.K. from' immigrant
familie . Many of the album'
tracks (incl uding the hit smgle
"Livin' in the Light," and "Don't
Qui t") 6 fleet the truggle or
id a cd�nition that are 0
man, Angela Bofill Stevie Won­
der, Deniece William and jazz
great Billie Holiday were big influ-
ences. .
Award for "Song of the Year"
("Keep On Movin "') and recogni­
tion by the International OJ
Awards as "Mo t Promising New­
comer UK."
Forming her own company (Or­
ange Tree Production ), Caron be-
an working on her 010 debut for
EMf. A mixture of "regg 'rid­
dim " Soul, African bcat , Rap,
English pop," UK Blak wa based
n Caron'. earch for self-defini­
tion: "I don't want to ay that 1 was
Engh: h, bccau e I'm really not, but
then again I am not completely
Jamaican either. The concept is
basically about being born Black
and being bred Engli h."
Performing on a limited b i in
the U.S., Caron reated a ground­
well of intere t in her mu ic and
decided to make abe for herself
in the U.S. she worked on her
econd album. Th results of liv­
ing and recording in Los Angles,
ew York, London and Jamaica i
r fleeted in the powerful work on
Beach Of The War Goddess. ttThe
album' about elf-discovery,
pride, ob ervation empowerment.
Th re ' often 0 much pretense -
people pretending to be happy -
and I'm interested in seeing us all
bridge the gap between ourday-to­
day reality and what we can attain
in life."
From the tart ound of "Soul
Stre til ("about a child brought up
by , treet' people, reflecting life
rom a different perspective") to
her tribute to th late Jimi Hendrix
on t md Crie Mary" ("I think a
lot of Black youth don't understand
what Jirru wa all about and the
wild, free pirit that h injected in
to hi m ic"), Caron Wheel r .
unafraid to take a tand through her
music.
Wheth r w rkmg With up r
hitmake Jimmy Jam Terry Le-
'�WI who p ifically requ ted her
pr en c to work n the infectio
"1 Ador You," a hit ingle from the
oundtra k f 'Mo' Money," or
: Lisa ColJim
(Behind-The-Se ) and Ra-
di co .. Th Column
Recorded in New York, Lon­
don, Los Angeles and Jamaica,
B�ach 0/ the War Goddess features
13 Wheeler compositions and writ-
• ing collaborations and a cover of
the Jimi Hendrix clas ic, "Wind
Cries Mary" and w produced by
a range of exceptional producers
including Jimmy Jam & Terry Le­
wis, Jazzie B. (of Soul II Soul, the
group with whom Caron came to
prominence in 1989), Mikie Ben­
nett (Maxi Irie t Shabba Ranks),
plu relative newcomer Derek
Johnson (who worked on Caron'
previous album), Keith Crouch,
Heavy Love and Jirni Randolph.
Caron w the album' co-execu­
tive producer and w . al 0 re pon- .
ible for production on Iour :
highlight cuts ("Resp�ct To TIu!
Mother," "Soul Street," "Lite As A
Feather," and "Father,,) as well as
co-producing four of the et' four­
teentrac
"TH LBUM REFLECT
the I t two, three years when I've
undergone a good deal of personal,
spiritual growth" ay Caron. "1
think it's important to express what
you're experiencing and then, by
writing about what you're dealing
with, using th� music to empower
others ... "Skipping out and talking.'
out i u that are the tuff of
everyday living is the theme for
much of Beach of the War God­
dess.
The title track is Caron' vehicle
for haring her thoughts in the af­
termath of the '92 riot in L.A.
( hich w h r hom base at the
time): Th chilling reality that Af­
rican people have never been wel­
comed in W tern ocietie unle s
it uited We tern purpos , that
there' alway a hope that things
ill be different but then. eein
hat ppe d ter Rod y ·ng
in th U.S. (and before that, .Colin
Roach in the U.K.) and wondering
By the time he w 12, Caron
winging 'lover' rock' (a hy­
brid mu ical form that encorn­
pa cs reggae oul and British
pop) with a female tno known as
Brown Sugar, coring four No. 1
ingles on the U.K. chart. Just out
of her teens, Caron joined another
trio nown as Afrodiziak. doing
ion work for a myriad of p r­
formers including Elvis Co tello,
Nona Hendryx, Phil Collins, Ne­
neh Cherry, Erasure and Aswad.
Fru trated by orne of the 'chal­
leng 'of being in the mu lc busi­
ne ,Caron quit temporarily in
1 88 "to go work in a library -
that really helped ground me. It
5 CARO, 82
"0
a I a
'created' di ea e that
put (Jut to ·11 off
uie
wa
ce
•
lD OM IT all impor-
tant ocial themes, Caron ge into
orne ot er are too. The educ-
tive -Naughty Eye, the heavy
groove-flavored "Need a Man" and
th looping, layered "In Our Love"
much a part of the UK Blak experi­
ence.
Coming out of a Jamaican fam­
ily with trong mu ical ba k­
ground (father w a b player,
mother ang with a Jamaican
drama company) Caron ang
around the house (in South Lon­
don) and listened t the like of
reggae performer like Denni
Brown, Freddy M Gregor Judy
Mowatt, Jacob iller and Bob
Marley. A� th arne time, U.S ul
tars like Chaka Khan Phyl i y-
BU HA VI 'I gained. uch a
olid reputation or her in ing
kills, it w inevita le that Caron
wouldn't be able to tay out of the
b in� for too long and after Brit­
i h glack entrepreneur and pro­
ducer Jazz i e B. e nh ted her
i tance or hi tit Soul 11 Soul
rec rding proje t. ..
, Writing and r cording lor the
group' n:Ultl-platlnum de t
C ron garnered a Grammy for
"Be t Vocal Perf rmance" for
"Ba"k 'To Life, " a ul Tram MUSIC