Urban Thought Collective

YOUNG JEEZY & HIS COCAINE CONNECTION
Atlanta’s hot rapper Young Jeezy has been implicated in a major cocaine-dealing trial. A witness testifying in a case against members of Black Mafia Family, a massive Atlanta drug gang that moved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coke across the country and whom I’m sure we’ll see on BET’s “American Gangster” series, said that Jeezy bought several kilos of coke from BMF.

Is Jeezy living up to his nickname “Snowman?”

A witness testified that his job was to unload BMF’s cocaine from limos outfitted with secret compartments. He said he piled as many as 100 “bricks” of cocaine at a time inside the basement of one of BMF’s stash houses, an ultra-modern Buckhead mansion nicknamed “Space Mountain.” He also said that in the fall of 2004, he was ordered by high-ranking BMF members Chad “J-Bo” Brown and Martez “Tito” Byrth to set aside multi-kilo cocaine “shipments” for two customers. The customers then picked up the coke from him at Space Mountain.

When asked by assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney who the customers were, two names were given: William “Doc” Marshall, a high-level BMF co-conspirator who testified earlier in the trial, and “Jeezy.”

“Young Jeezy the rapper?” McBurney asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

I’ll keep you posted on how this is going down. Hopefully people won’t start disappearing when it comes time to testify.

JAY-Z’s LAWSUIT | PAY UP OR HUSH UP
Jay-Z is currently being sued for $88 million over allegedly stealing the technique of “whisper rapping,” according to a published report.

Now before I go on any further, if you look at the year “Hawaiian Sophie” was made, (almost 2 decades ago) he’s been making money & hit records consistently for a long time without ever, and I mean ever, being compared to another MC. That would be a desperate move by some other MC, but not the likes of Jigga Man in my opinion.

Usually lawsuits over music ownership deal with stolen lyrics or tunes, but not so for the case being brought by Mitchell Rose, a so-called boxer/lawyer/rapper, against superstar Jay-Z. He claims that Jay-Z adopted the technique as his own without crediting him.

This isn’t the first time Mitchell Rose has staked shaky claims against celebrities. He wrote the book, “Mike Tyson Tried to Kill My Daddy.”

Jay-Z’s total net worth was estimated at $940 million in 2007, a figure that put him in the top spot for richest rapper, taking over from Sean “Diddy” Combs. So you know EVERYBODY has got their hand in his pocket….

SOUL TRAIN GETS A NEW OWNER…38 YEARS LATER
Well it’s about damn time cause “Soul Train” hasn’t been the same since Jody Watley & the two Asian sisters with the long hair to their butt were on the show.

“Soul Train” has been on the air since the 1970s, but was never canceled. I know, I can’t believe it either. Although no new episodes are produced, it lives on in reruns, but somewhere along the lines, I couldn’t take no more. I love Shemar, but watching his non-dancing ass forced me to abandon Soul Train. Then Soul Brother # ZERO, Dorian Gregory…whew, that was just painful & nauseating.

Now, production company MadVision Entertainment has bought the “Soul
Train” franchise from its founder, Don Cornelius, and plans to breathe new life into it. The plan is to open up the show’s archives for older consumers as well as to create a new version of the program for younger ones.

I hope now we can finally see some female representation as a host (like myself) who has a clue about dancing! Lord knows, I’m tired of seeing these non-dancing folks hosting these dance shows. Believe I’m in my agents a**, but that’s for another blog y’all, I just had to vent.

But the “Soul Train” brand has not entered the Internet age. Its website has barely been updated since 2006, when Mr. Cornelius stopped producing new episodes. “The Best of Soul Train” is now shown on weekends in syndication. “The series has never been shown on DVD, and it’s not been utilized on video-on-demand or mobile or Internet platforms,” Peter Griffith, a co-founder of MadVision, said. “There are many opportunities that we are exploring.”

I have to give the man props, because Don Cornelius, a former disc jockey, was not just the creator of “Soul Train,” but also the writer, producer and host. He produced the pilot for “Soul Train” in 1970. Three years later, calling the show an “almost instant success,” a reviewer for “The New York Times” said that “Soul Train” was to “American Bandstand” as “Champagne is to seltzer water.” Later, the director Spike Lee called it an “urban music time capsule.” “We had a show that kids gravitated to,” Mr. Cornelius said.

In the 1970s and 1980s, “Soul Train” helped glamorize black music, featuring performances by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson and other hit makers. But the real stars were the young dancers who would strut their stuff, laying the groundwork for countless dance programs , including current ones like Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance?” and MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew.”

Needless to say, Soul Train is gonna finally be brought into the millennium and I hope to be a part of it. I’m grateful for having graced their stage many times as a dancer w/ recording artists. It is a show that helped my career as a dancer and choreographer come to life.

R. KELLY NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
I know some of you are still on the floor passed out from shock and disbelief, but really, did you not believe that since this case has taken so many years to go to trial (while we’ve seen people of lesser & even more brutal crimes be sentenced), that he would not skate away like Dorothy Hamill in her prime?

What kills me is that I heard some idiot DJ say he was glad that a black man beat the system. Yeah, but if it were your daughter (whether she was a fast-ass or not), would you feel the same way?

Fifteen witnesses…YES PEOPLE 15 WITNESSES… identified the alleged victim as the girl on the scandalous 27-minute sex tape and a dozen identified Kelly as the man, but the jury said they could not be sure. Jurors said that though most of them believed Kelly was the man on the tape, it was harder to positively identify the girl. I saw the tape, no it wasn’t damnit.

At one point, as many as five of the 12 jurors wanted to convict Kelly, they revealed at a press conference later.

“Thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus,” Kelly whispered as each not guilty verdict was read.

Not that he ever took a break from touring, performing, recording and raking in the dough, but now he is truly now free to pursue his Grammy award-winning career without the worry of a possible 15 years behind bars.

Kelly’s attorneys had alleged that the star was framed by his former protégé, singer Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards, the alleged victim’s aunt. Sparkle and parts of the victim’s family had teamed up with two Kansas City men to fake the sex tape, Kelly’s team alleged, saying Sparkle wanted “money, money, money.”

At this point, what he ended up spending in lawyers & hush money, he might have just given to Sparkle, it would have been cheaper. But life and karma have a way of hunting you down.

Big Lez has interviewed everyone from Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G. to Mary J. Blige and Tom Cruise. She was host of and producer of BET’s landmark show “Rap City” and has enjoyed an extensive tenure in radio as co-host of The Steve Harvey Morning Show in Los Angeles, plus stints at New York’s WQHT/Hot 97, Atlanta’s WAOK/V103, LA’s Big Boy Morning Show at KPWR/Power 106 and Sirius Satellite Radio. Currently, Lez is partnered with DVA Media + Marketing as producer and host of the syndicated urban radio report, “The Urban Eye,” which launches nationwide this summer.