get in while the getting is good, but don't get got

Hot Housing Market Opens Doors for Fraud
Dream of Homeownership Is Preyed Upon

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 29, 2005; A01

NEW YORK -- For mortgage scammers, deed thieves and property flippers, this is the Golden Age.

The chatter in New York, as it is in Washington, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Miami, is of housing riches quickly realized. Prices have tripled in those cities, and 70 percent of Americans now own a home. But for thousands of working-class and poor Americans, the venture into homeownership has brought misery at the hands of the unscrupulous.

"We've never seen so many schemes and such complexity to the fraud," said Sarah Ludwig of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which has helped lead investigations into predatory lending in New York. "Everyone works to defraud: the broker, the appraiser, the attorney and the inspector. Before a homeowner knows it, they are in way over their heads."

Maria Elena Mateo is one of the victims. The Dominican immigrant wanted only to buy a house with a back yard for her three children and a bedroom for herself. But a lawyer, a real estate agent and an appraiser pressured her into buying an overvalued and uninhabitable home in Brooklyn, according to court papers. She has expended her life savings of $13,000 trying to repair it.

"My kids thought their mommy was getting them a house," said Mateo, 41, tears flowing. "Everything was lies."

Echoes of such homeowner pain can be heard across the nation. Fueled by loose credit and lending standards, a growing number of "subprime" mortgage companies and rogue bands of scam artists are using false appraisals to inflate prices, stripping equity from elderly homeowners and even persuading untutored homeowners to surrender their home deeds. Click here to read more

A Hip Hop Clothing Store Called 'Nigger'

from David Sylvester's Website Contribute2 via Kalamu's E-drum

A Hip Hop Clothing Store Called 'Nigger'

My name is David Sylvester and I recently completed a charitable bicycle
trip in Africa, riding over 7000 miles from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South
Africa . The trip made me the first and only African American to cross two
continents on a bicycle. I have plenty of great and fascinating stories.
Many are funny, others bittersweet, some are poignant, but all are
entertaining. Surprisingly one story has stood out and if it was not for the
fact that I have a picture of it, many would never believe it. and it is for
that reason that I am sharing it with you.

While in Lilongwe, Malawi, I came across a store by the name of "Niggers"
---that's right " Niggers"! The other riders, who were all white, could not
wait to inform me of this to see my reaction. Initially, I thought that it
was a very bad joke but when the other riders were adamant about the
existence of the store, I had to see it for myself. Click here to read more

hip hop retirement news

I guess hip hop is truly coming of age. Shock G, 42 , from Digital Underground retires Click here to read his reasons why...

William Raspberry on the African American famliy

With all this local discussion about the failing of the African American family WIlliam Raspberry deicdes to enter the fray with his column. click here

old news but still interesting

July 25, 2005
Blacks Pin Hope on DNA to Fill Slavery's Gaps in Family Trees
By AMY HARMON

All her life, Rachel Fair has been teased by other black Americans about her light skin. "High yellow," they call her, a needling reference to the legacy of a slave owner who, she says, "went down to that cabin and had what he wanted."

So it was especially satisfying for Ms. Fair, 64, when a recent DNA test suggested that her mother's African ancestry traced nearly to the root of the human family tree, which originated there 150,000 years ago.

"More white is showing in the color, but underneath, I'm deepest Africa," said Ms. Fair, a retired parks supervisor in Cincinnati. "I tell my friends they're kind of Johnny-come-latelies on the DNA scale, so back up, back up."

Ms. Fair is one of thousands of African-Americans who have scraped cells from their inner cheeks and paid a growing group of laboratories to learn more about a family history once thought permanently obscured by slavery. They are seeking answers to questions about their family lineages in the antebellum South - whether black, white or Native American - and about distant forebears in Africa. Click here to read more

does your suburb do this

In light of the fact theDC area housing marketing is cooling off, do you think it was wise for legislators in Prince Georges County to hold up plans for the National Harbor, being that it will add value to the property owned by a large amount fo African Americans there?

Would it be wise to further delay building such that the largely African American population in that part of Prince Georges County can experience the same type of developemnt based explosive property value growth, that some areas in DC, Montgomory County and surrounding counties in VA have already experieinced?

and.... Click here to read more

No Place for Me: I Still Love God, But I've Lost Faith in the Black Church

No Place for Me
I Still Love God, But I've Lost Faith in the Black Church

By John W. Fountain
Post
Sunday, July 17, 2005; B01

Sunday morning arrived, like so many before, with a mix of sunlight and chirping birds outside my bedroom window and a warm greeting from my tiny son, lying beside my wife and me. My wife rose quickly, announcing her plan to jump in the shower and get ready for Sunday school at the Baptist church, not far from our house in suburban Chicago, that she and our two children attend.

As for me, in what has become my ritual nowadays, I turned over and pulled the covers up around my head. Soon I overheard my 9-year-old daughter's familiar question: "Mommy, is Daddy going to church with us?"

"No-o-o-o," my wife replied. After months of my failure to accompany them, she has abandoned the excuse that "Daddy has a lot of work to do."

Sunday mornings used to mean something special to me. But I now face them with dread, with a bittersweet sorrow that tugs at my heart and a headache-inducing tension that makes me reach for the Advil. I am torn between my desire to play hooky from church and my Pentecostal indoctrination that Sunday is the Lord's day, a day of worship when real men are supposed to lead their families into the house of God.

Once, that's what I did. I am the grandson of a pastor and am myself a licensed minister. I love God and I love the church. I know church-speak and feel as comfortable shouting hallelujahs and amens and lifting my hands in the sanctuary as I do putting on my socks. I have danced in the spirit, spoken in tongues, and proclaimed Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. I once arrived faithfully at the door of every prayer meeting and went to nearly every Bible study and month-long revival. I attended umpteen services, even the midnight musicals and my church's annual national meetings, like the one held two weeks ago in Kansas City.

Yet I now feel disconnected. I am disconnected. Not necessarily from God, but from the church. Click here to read more

big ups....

Big ups to my man Alan King for his work with the Gazette Newspapers in Prince Georges County. I wanted to thank him for doing a nice profile on my father! Click her to read the story.

big ups....

Big ups to my girl Faye (Brown) she started her own body products line called Rum & Cake:Recipe for a Spirited & Sweet Life
Click here and check her out

Holly Bass' "Diary of a Baby Diva" runs 7/23 -7/24

DIARY OF A BABY DIVA
written and performed by Holly Bass
Saturday, July 23rd (8pm) and Sunday, 24th (7pm)
Dance Place @ 3225 8th St. NE, D.C.
$18 General, $14 Students, Seniors, ARTISTS!! and $6 Children
For more info: 202.269.1600

D.C. Considering More Police Cameras

"I have always been for broader use of cameras," Williams said. "I do not think that cameras are this big mortal threat to civil liberties that people are painting them out to be."

The mayor's comments reopen a debate that broke out three years ago after D.C. Council members learned about the camera system, which had been installed without their knowledge. In response to concerns from the council and some members of Congress, the police department came up with guidelines designed to ensure that privacy rights would not be abused. Click here to read more

The Mark Of Borf

The Mark Of Borf
With Graffitist's Arrest, Police Put a Name to the Familiar Face

By Libby Copeland
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 14, 2005; C01

The mysterious, ubiquitous and eminently destructive graffiti artist known as Borf was arrested yesterday after waging a months-long campaign that may have been intended to enlighten Washington, but mostly just confused us.

The man primarily responsible for Borf is, it turns out, an 18-year-old art student from Great Falls named John Tsombikos, according to D.C. police inspector Diane Groomes. He was arrested along with two other young men in the wee hours of yesterday morning after officers received a tip that graffiti artists were spray-painting at Seventh and V streets NW.

Approached by a reporter at D.C. Superior Court yesterday, Tsombikos refused to comment. One of the other men arrested, Richard Lee, 18, said, "Borf is dead." Click here to read more

Free Film Programs at the National Museum of African Art

Monday's Girls
Sunday, July 17, 2005, 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.
National Museum of African Art Lecture Hall, Level 2
Documentary on the women's initiation ceremony of Iria contrasts the
opposing viewpoints of two young woman-one who has lived in the delta all
her life and another who studied in the city for 10 years (Great
Britain/Nigeria, 1993 50 min., in Waikiriki and English with English
subtitles).
Due to the incorrect information in our calendar flyer, we are having 2
screenings to make up for the printed error.

Next program:
Recalling the Future
Sunday, August 28, 2005, 2:00 p.m.
National Museum of African Art Lecture Hall, Level 2
This film explores, through interviews, how modern African artists take
their place in the worldwide evolution of artistic expression (Canada, 2000,
48 min., English and French with English subtitles).

Diamonds are forever...

Kalamu and Mtume ya Salaam rap about the Kanye and Lupe Fiasco fiasco on their new website Breath of Life
click here

Mexican stamp is bad, but U.S. rappers have it licked

Mexican stamp is bad, but U.S. rappers have it licked
Gregory Kane

July 6, 2005

SO, WHICH image of black folks does more damage to the race?

The one of Memin Pinguin, the little guy on the Mexican postage stamp who looks like he was yanked off the screen of a cartoon in the 1930s or 1940s?

Or the image of rappers 50 Cent and Tony Yayo on the cover of XXL magazine that its editors proclaimed "The Jail Issue" and dedicated to "hip-hop's incarcerated soldiers"?

Before you make up your mind -- although you've probably guessed where I'm going with this -- allow me to give a few more details about that XXL cover. Click here to read more

Consequence - A Tribe Called Quence???

Consequence - A Tribe Called Quence

Do I need a late pass or what? I might be alone on this but Consequence was my boy....Has anybody heard this or any other project he is working on?

RIP...poet Lorenzo Thomas

Lorenzo Thomas, professor and poet
He was longtime Houston literary icon, social critic
By FRITZ LANHAM

Lorenzo Thomas, a much-respected fixture on Houston's literary scene and a poet who married bluesy lyricism with a social conscience, died Monday. He was 60.

Thomas died at the Texas Medical Center Hospice. Cause of death was emphysema, according to his companion, Karen Luik.

Thomas' poetry collections included Chances Are Few (1979, expanded second edition in 2003), The Bathers (1981) and most recently Dancing on Main Street (2004). About the last, the Chronicle wrote: "Taken together, the poems in this collection exhibit that equipoise that comes with age and experience. Sorrow and joy find their balance." Poetry, Thomas once wrote, "attempts to knock the mind out of the rut of commonplace thinking." Click here to read more

Hip Hop Theatre Festival hits DC

Click the links below for motre info:


The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities info on the 4th Annual DC Hip-Hop Theater Festival.


Hip-Hop Theater Festival Official Website


The dates for the 2005 festival are Monday, July 11 through Saturday, July 16.

big ups....

Congrats to my boy Derrick Weston Brown who just got published in the new issue of DRUM VOICES REVUE. However he was not alone a few other DC area poets Patricia Biela, Randall Horton (out in Chitown doing his MFA), Melanie Henderson, Marlene L. Hawthorne , Valerie A. Davis, Ashley Mack, Essence W. Sweat, and a few others (all students from Dr. Tony Medina's creative writing class) were also published in that same issue.

They contributed to an issue that was tribute to Amiri Baraka's 70th Birthday. The pieces they contributed were written in an African American form called a Kwansaba.
The “kwansaba,” a poetic form consisting of 49 words distributed over a 7-lines, with each line consisting of 7 words, and each word limited to a maximum of seven letters. This form was invented in 1995 by the Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club (in East St. Louis, Illinois). The Club co-publishes Drumvoices with the English Department of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. ---from Chicken Bones and Flapship

A Fundraiser and Evening of Tribute for DAMU SMITH!

A Fundraiser and Evening of Tribute for DAMU SMITH!

Featuring spoken word/reggae/jazz/neo-soul/hip-hop and more!

Saturday, July 9, 2005, 6:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Howard University's Cramton Auditorium
Washington, DC

TRIBUTES BY:
Danny Glover,
Dick Gregory,
Cong. Maxine Waters,
Rev. Al Sharpton,
Rev. Jesse Jackson
and others

ENTERTAINMENT BY:
The Last Poets,
Bernice Reagon,
Black Notes,
Amiri Baraka,
Sekou Sundiata,
Heru,
Ayanna Gregory
and others

COME PARTY WITH A PURPOSE!
Please join the Spirit of Hope as we give back and honor Damu and all he has done to make the world a safer and healthier place while we expose the health injustices that are rampant in this country!

Please, Support Damu by Purchasing a ticket for this Benefit Tribute.

Tickets are available online through TicketMaster and they can also be purchased at the following locations:

Howard University's Cramton Auditorium Box Office
The Blue Nile
Dar EsSalaam

Scion presents Jazzy Jeff @ AVENUE

Thursday July 7 05::Scion DC::DJ Jazzy Jeff::
Click to RSVP

Scion DC: No Cover

The One & Only
:.DJ Jazzy Jeff

& DJ Revolution
+Resident DJ's Hall & Mason. Dirty Hands

649 New York Ave. NW
WDC 20001
21+
9p-2a

EVENT IS FREE BUT YOU MUST RSVP at www.scion.com/metro TO GAIN ENTRY

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