News & History
| A Dream Deferred ? |
Rap Music America's Original Art Form™ ?
"The Watts Writers Workshop was a creative writing group initiated by screenwriter Budd Schulberg in the wake of the devastating 1965 Watts Riots in South Central Los Angeles (now South Los Angeles). The group was composed primarily of young African Americans in Watts and the surrounding neighborhoods. The group expanded its facilities and activities over the next several years with funding from the Rockerfeller Foundation. Government files later revealed that the Workshop had been the target of covert operations by the FBI. Well-known writers to emerge from the Workshop include Quincy Troupe, Johnie Scott, Eric Priestley, Ojenke, Herbert Simmons, and Wanda Coleman, as well as the poetry group Watts Prophets®."
From Wikipedia 2011
"The Watts Writers Workshop was conceived by screenwriter Budd Schulberg and fostered the development of many of the Well-Known writers that emerged. His dedication to helping aspiring writers to write their way out of poverty and desperation must be kept alive. The Watts Writers Workshop spawned The Watts Prophets®.
The writings of all cultures preserve the collective history of its people. They serve a vital role for future generations by giving insight into the past experiences that help to formulate that society.
The first album in the world to use and publish the word "Rappin™" in it's title and composition. Created for aesthetic purposes, a precursor to the rap music genre, which did not exist before 1970. The Watts Prophets® named the genre "Rap" and played a major part in defining the art form."
Watts Prophets 2012
"And hip-hop, an outgrowth of black culture, is a worldwide phenomenon. And 80% of the consumers of hip-hop music in America are white kids"
Roland Martin, CNN Contributor 2012
"Hence the unprecedented event known as Wattstax, stemming from a suggestion by the Watts Prophets®' Richard Dedeaux. On August 20, 1972 an audience of over 100,000"
A Black Woodstock: Wattstax James Maycock, The Guardian, 20 July 2002
Lupe Fiasco's mother introduced her son to books like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. She told him about groups like The Watts Prophets®, one of the first acts to use spoken word with music in the nascent genre that would become rap. "He matured," Fiasco's mother says. "He started listening to the lyrics, to what they were saying, because he started to change his whole style."
Chicago Magazine - A Chicago Tribune website 2011
A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
"What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?"
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Some Answers to Questions? It was the Hollywood cause of its time, years before whales, ecology, oceans or animal rights became the crusades of the day. It might be worth a retooling. The Watts Writers Workshop was something different for the Hollywood of that time--it had a strong emphasis on creativity and humanity, not on objects. Click Link to Read More. |
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Secret Rock History "The Most Influencial Bands You Never Heard |
"THE SECRET HISTORY OF ROCK THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BANDS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD" RONI SARIG - Billboard Books |
| "Pop Beat: The poet group, formed in the late '60s and a forerunner of rap, has a new album that updates its biting take on society. Why? It's a question that many are asking after the recent fatal shooting of the Notorious B.I.G.--the second such incident of a major rap star in six months." Click link to read more | |
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"A community artist must inspire, motivate and teach young creative minds in the community. They have a serious obligation to the community they are paid to serve. They must know the artists within the community, along with the culture, traditions and history of the community. He or she is the keeper of creativity who works in consort with the other motivating art forces in a community." Amde |
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| Hey, world -On the Watts Prophets and the author's days in the Writers Workshop | "Editor's note: Odie Hawkins was a member of the Watts Writers Workshop that spawned the Watts Prophets®, a collection of spoken-word artists considered among the forbears of modern hip-hop. He is the author of such novels as Lost Angeles, Memoirs of a Black Casanova and Busting Out of an Ordinary Man, published by Holloway House. I sat there, in the middle of a funky hot August day, in deepest Chicago, 1965, sucking on the corner of a half-pint of cheap Scotch--all I could afford after working two weeks' worth of 12-hour days in the post office--staring at the chaotic scenes being broadcast from Watts'Nam, California" |
| The Watts Summer Festival |
"The festival has drawn world-wide attention to the small African American community in the United States. It has attracted many artistic forms to its stage, showcasing for community artists as well as some of America's leading African American entertainers such as James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Isaac Hayes, the late Harmonica Fats, WAR, Richard Pryor, Nancy Wilson, Gil Scott Heron, Barry White, the Watts Prophets®, Charles Wright and the 103rd Street Rhythm Band and the Staple Singers. All have donated their time and talents to this annual summer event." |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/ft/2011//how_jay_z_ common_and_other_hip_hop_ stars_have_turned_their_ celebrity_into_profit_.html |
"Rap music is the defining American art form of our time. In its showmanship, its exuberance, its hunger for innovation, its love of technology and its ruthless competitive discipline, it represents mass culture in the U.S. like no other medium. Country music, the only other contender, showcases a different set of equally American values: community, tradition, compassion, patriotism, resilience, faith. But it is principally a domestic phenomenon, largely ignored overseas. Hip-hop, meaning rap music and its associated culture, is both a global force and a central feature of the face America presents to the world. In Russia, for example, Vladislav Surkov, the powerful aide to prime minister Vladimir Putin, keeps on his desk a picture of Tupac Shakur, the Californian rapper murdered in 1996 who has become a global icon of non-specific militancy." |
| http://jambettastudios.jambettarealty.com/thelastpoets/news/quincyjones.pdf |
Quincy Jones: on Hip-Hop
Hope Some Questions were Answered? |