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DT: MARCH 3, 2008
FR: SHAZILA MOHAMMED/MITCH SCHNEIDER
‘WORDZ FROM THE STREET’
UPCOMING HIP HOP ALBUM INCORPORATING THE MESSAGES
FROM THE BOOK“THE WORDS” BY LEE CANTELON
FEATURING APPEARANCES BY ESTABLISHED AND RISING HIP HOP ARTISTS INCLUDING LAYZIE BONE AND BIZZY BONE FROM BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY, THE LAST POETS, MR. MIXX FROM 2 LIVE CREW AND YO YO
WORDZ FROM THE STREET is the latest project from Los Angeles-based writer/artist/social activist Lee Cantelon. The album sees established names in rap music-- including Layzie Bone and Bizzy Bone from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, The Last Poets, Mr. Mixx from 2 Live Crew and Yo Yo--coming together with young talent from the inner-city including Watts, New York City and South Central Los Angeles, to interpret the text of Cantelon’s book The Words. The album will be released later this year (exact date TBA).
The idea for WORDZ FROM THE STREET evolved from a discussion Cantelon had with some members of the rap community after completing his work on the critically acclaimed Rickie Lee Jones album Sermon on Exposition Boulevard (February 2007) that was also based on the The Words. Work on WORDZ got underway in late 2006, when the producers asked a variety of hip-hop artists to tell their stories as Gospels written from the streets--powerful stories of hope, survival and spiritual strength which amplify the meaning of The Words.
Cantelon’s book The Words is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. As he explains, the idea for the book came out of a conversation with a friend that, “turned to the words of Jesus and I suggested that they were revolutionary, filled with the power to change lives and society, and had been misread and misrepresented by the church. I went looking for a book that contained just the words of Jesus outside the New Testament, thinking that surely such a thing existed. When I failed to find one, I began cutting up the Bible and pasting Jesus' words into a notebook. During this process, I was taken by surprise at how little I knew of what he had said, and how that much of what he said seemed to challenge or contradict what was being preached from the pulpit.”
At the same time the producers of WORDZ FROM THE STREET--DreGhost, Lee Cantelon, Richard Shaw (Owner, Pinlight Hollywood, producer on “Beat the Drum”), Warren Holden (owner of Urban Icon LLC.)--were starting the project, they met Leila Steinberg, an activist and early mentor to Tupac Shakur that founded Assemblies In Motion (AIM)--a non-profit that uses writing workshops and performance to help youth learn self-expression and gain confidence as they learn the social skills that can empower them to transcend hardship and pain. It is through Leila and AIM that they came to find some of the talented young artists on the album such as Oblivion, Skim and Pat's Justice.
One defining moment during the project came last December when Oblivion flew to New York City to visit Abiodun Oyewole--former member of the Black Panthers and founder of The Last Poets, who have been credited as the "founders of hip-hop" by many historians and musicologists. The meeting at Abiodun’s apartment in Harlem was emblematic of the bridging nature of the project--bringing a kid from South Central who had hardly ever been out of the ghetto to sit down with one of the forerunners of hip-hop on the other side of the country. A video clip of the meeting can be viewed at http://www.pinlight.com/OBLIVION264.mov.
WORDZ FROM THE STREETS comes at a moment when so many are searching for a better life and a more spiritual solution to the problems that besiege the inner-city, answering the call that we have the power to rise up and to do things that are outside the stereotypes and perceptions reflected in media and marketing.
More information on WORDZ FROM THE STREETZ:
http://www.pinlight.com/Wordz
http://www.youtube.com/user/Pinlight
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 March 2008 01:39 (sixteen years ago) link
eight months pass...