Words by Adisa Banjoko

Before becoming a multi-platinum artist, Aubrey “Drake” Graham, dropped out of Forest Hill Collegiate Institute High School. His parents divorced when he was young and he was raised by his mother, a retired teacher, in Toronto’s wealthy Forest Hill neighborhood.

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But Drake had some interesting aspirations while he was enrolled. In this old yearbook photo Drake listed, “to be a great singer and break dancer” as one of his goals.

While Drake doesn’t advise his fans to drop out of school, he loosely addresses his decision not to finish  on his track “Crew Love”: “Smoking weed under star projectors/I guess we’ll never know what Harvard gets us /But seeing my family have it all /Took the place of that desire for diplomas on the wall.”

At least for Drake the decision to pursue a career over school paid off. The actor-turned-rapper scored his first platinum album with his 2010 debut Thank Me Later. And it definitely appears that he got the money to get some contacts dental work.

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Before landing her career changing slot on “American Idol”, R&B star Jennifer Hudson had a 5-year recording contract with Righteous Records. It is said that Righteous Records put Jennifer through a rigorous year of charm school, physical fitness and live performance training before releasing her from her contract so that she could take part in the third season of “American Idol”, where she finished in seventh place.

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Hudson credits her Grandmother as her inspiration in her 2007 Best Supporting Actress Oscar acceptance speech.“She was my biggest  inspiration, she had the passion but never had the chance and that is what pushed me forward.”

In January 2012, Hudson released her autobiography  I Got This, but many critics were shocked to find the much publicized murder of her brother; mother and nephew were not mentioned in the book. Hudson is now most famous for her weight watchers ad where she credits the program for losing more than 85lbs.

Watch Jennifer Hudson’s audition from the third season of “American Idol”!

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Should Diddy Run This City Next?

In September of that year, Combs announced that he’d become an advocate for children and on their behalf, would run the New York City Marathon. But the real attention grabber was his new haircut. Bald faded along the sides and cut to a steeple at the front of his dome, Diddy now sported an aerodynamic hybrid between a Lonnie Luster and a Dennis The Menace, that could only be called a fro-hawk.

Combs longtime friend and barber Curtis Smith calls the cut the ‘9CHawkie’. When asked about the haircut – first popularized by Mr. T – Smith was quick to clarify that Diddy’s style choice wasn’t an homage to the A-Team. Nope, Sean Combs had been inspired by the then three-year-old Maddox Jolie, the adopted Cambodian son of actress Angelina. The barber spent several months perfecting the Entertainment Moguls ‘grown-man version’, which soon caught fire in barbershops throughout the nation, and stayed put.

Combs didn’t win the marathon that year. But he did finish in an impressive 4 hours and 15 minutes and raised over $2 million for NYC kids. But almost equally as amazing, Diddy spawned a decade long trend that’s seen everyone from Chad Ocho Cinco to Duane Rock Johnson to even rapper Whiz Khalifa sport their own versions of the hawk.

Who other than Diddy could take a toddler’s swag and turn it into a movement?

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Even though writer Sophia Stewart’s lawsuit against the Wachowski’s was dismissed, no one should have needed a judge to tell them that the block buster film trilogy that was The Matrix, was a black brainchild.

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Let’s examine the facts. The smartest person in the classic 1999 Sci-fi action flick was an old Black woman giving wisdom from the kitchen with a cigarette and a smile. The film called her “the Oracle,” Black people call her Big Mama, Nana, etc.  And if you missed the fact that the Oracle called the PJ’s home base, you couldn’t have missed that the last human city was a Bob Marley tribute named Zion.

Yes, Neo was the ultimate hero, but the big homie who saved, trained, ordered him around? Good old Larry Fishburne! Not to mention that in the distance future Black people weren’t just alive, we were trying to keep the race going. Neo and Trinity were the main love story but almost every other couple in the movie was black or of color. And they didn’t just play around with it. When Link (Harold Perrineau) gets home from a mission to finally see his wife Zee (Nona Gaye) the first thing he says through the door is “Where’s my….” And it wasn’t his puppy.

The cast of the trilogy was rounded out by Marcus Chong (Tank) Anthony Ray Parker (Dozer)  Don Battee (Vector)  Harry Lennix ( Lock ) with cameos  from Roy Jones, Jr. and Dr. Cornel West.

Besides the color lines that got crossed, the ultimate triumph of The Matrix was proof that a diverse cast can actually bring in the dollars for a sci-fi series. Black people didn’t see the inside of the Capt. Kirks Enterprise till Next Generation. But maybe the Matrix’s 1.6 billion dollar earnings will finally show Hollywood that blacks are believable and belong in the future too.

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Check out the video below. Is this a fitting tribute for Rosa Parks from the kids channel?

Cymphonique Miller (How to Rock)–A Poem for Rosa Parks from Jessica Wilson on Vimeo.

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“Black Republicans”

“We would be at the Spelman computer lab, me and my homeboy Chris. Spelman always had the better computers because they had the Cosbys funding them,” says the Morehouse and Georgia Tech alumnus of his humble beatmaking beginnings.

“Kush and Corinthians”

“I didn’t have a laptop so I had Fruity Loops on a 100MB ZIP disk. I had to install it each time. I’d bang away for a few hours and then delete the program from the computer. It was a demo and with the demo you could export the project but you couldn’t save it. So when I made my beats I had to finish ‘em up, bruh. I had to finish the beat or I’d never hear it again. Low budget? I’ve been there.”

Thanks to that kind of hustle Wyldfyer now holds the distinction of being the only producer (thus far) to have had Jay-Z and Nas on the same track–twice. He programmed the slaps for Ludacris’ “I Do It For Hip-Hop” featuring Nas and Jay-Z and the aforementioned “Black Republicans.”

“God is my manager, bruh,” he says. “Me and NO ID were joking around one time cuz he did “Success” and we were saying ‘we’re the only ones that had Nas/Jay-Z collabos.’  I don’t know what made Luda get Nas and Jay-Z so that was just a blessing.”

Currently Wyldfyer is at work submitting tracks for the next Nas album and is sitting on some unreleased Biggie vocals that could make his career if he wanted to.  He submitted two remixes to the Biggie Duets album that weren’t used, but he still has the acapellas.

“It didn’t make the album so it would be an unreleased Biggie song that no one’s ever heard,” says. “It’s the slow flow Biggie. It might just be a verse, which is probably why [Puff] didn’t put it out. But I’m not that thirsty to put it out there and ruin my career.”

Follow him on Twitter @Wyldfyer

Exploring The Sound Of Philadelphia

..It was a dance show and he[Don Cornelius] was very excited about it. He had everything in place, the only thing missing was a theme song. When he came to us he called Gamble, they communicated and he flew into Philadelphia. He talked about the concept…we didn’t have any ideas but I said me and Gamble will come up with something quick. We always rise to the occasion when it comes to a song.

Seven Memorable Soul Train Moments

[But] we went into the studio the first night and nothing really clicked. So Don Cornelius got a little nervous and I said, “Don’t worry. We don’t force creativity. Let’s come back tomorrow.” It was on a Friday,  I’ll never forget it.  The next day Saturday me and Gamble went back into the studio with the musicians and we grooved all day with that “dun dun dunnununua.” He was very happy. Everything turned out great. The MFSB orchestra and Three Degrees put it out as “T.S.O.P (The Sound Of Philadelphia) and it went #1. Their album and the single were #1 at the same time. Plus his show was red hot. So it was win-win for everybody.

Don Cornelius coming up with that Black concept show to expose Black R&B artists was right on time.

While Gamble & Huff’s theme song is the most recognized, it was not the first or only theme  song “Soul Train” would have. Take a look at the list of Soul Train’s opening theme songs.

Soul Train used various original and current music for theme songs during its run, including:

1971-1973: “SoulTrain (Hot Potato)” by King Curtis (Curtis Ousley) and later redone by the Rimshots as “Soul Train, Parts 1&2″. [The original 1962 version Curtis recorded 9 years before the show was named "Hot Potatoes (Piping Hot)"]

1973-1975: “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)“, composed by Gamble and Huff and recorded by Philadelphia soul studio group MFSB with vocals by the Three Degrees. Released as a single, this song became a pop and R&B radio hit in 1974 and the show’s best-known theme.

1975-1976: “Soul Train ’75″ by the Soul Train Gang, which was later released as a single for the newly formed Soul Train Records

1976-1978: “Soul Train ’76 (Get on Board)”, also by the Soul Train Gang

1978-1980: “Soul Train Theme ’79″, produced by the Hollywood Disco Jazz Band with vocals by the Waters
1980-1983: “Up on Soul Train”, first by the Waters and later by the Whispers, whose version appears in their 1980 album Imagination.
1983-1987: “Soul Train’s a Comin’” by R&B artist O’Bryan^[18]
1987-1989: “TSOP ’87″, a remake of the original “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)”, composed and produced by George Duke
1989-1993: “TSOP ’89″, a remixed version of “TSOP ’87″, also by George Duke
1993-1999: “Soul Train ’93″ (Know You Like to Dance)” by the hip-hop group Naughty by Nature with a saxophone solo by Everette Harp
1999-2006: “TSOP 2000″, with rap vocals by hip hop artist Samson and music by Dr. Freeze, and again featuring an Everette Harp saxophone solo. However, a portion of “Know You Like to Dance” was still used in the show’s second-half opening segment during this period.

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Fact: Lenny Williams won a BMI Award With Kanye West for Twista’s “Overnight Celebrity”

The Arkansas-born California native was once the lead singer of the group Tower Of Power and has had much success as a solo artist. Now, thanks to Young Jeezy, a newer generation of music fans are being exposed to his music.

On TM103  Young producer M-16 samples Williams “Let’s Talk It Over” for Jeezy’s latest hit “I Do,” The original song was released as a single in 1979 on MCA Records.

“I thought it was going to be my follow-up to ‘Cause I love you’ and I was trying to do a similar song,” says Williams of the track. “But we ended up doing it a little faster than I wanted to at the end. So I couldn’t get my talking on. It’s a good song, I always felt it was kind of wasted and here it is all these years later and Jeezy found it. It’s exciting to see what touches people. It’s gotta be thirty years later and they found it. Their version has a lot of nice strings. They got me humming in the back. I love it.”

“I Do, I Do”

So with two of his songs anchoring hip-hop hits is there anything else he feels could get the sample treatment?

“I always wondered why nobody ever sampled ‘Choosing You’,” he says. “Especially the New York rappers.  ‘Choosing You’ was  a #1 hit in New York on WBLS. It’s an uptempo song with the strings. I think Ray Parker, Jr. is playing on it and the guys from Lakeside are signing and playing on it.”

“Choosing You”

In addition to his considerable catalog from the 60s and 70s,  Williams has been recording new music as well. He released an album in 2009 called Unfinished Business with the hilarious “Sorry I Didn’t Know That Was Your Momma”, which he says is based on a true story.

“I was at a club one night with the band and I was walking around on a break and I saw this table of ladies,” he begins. “I walk over and holla and you see they look like a certain age. But one of the girls at the table said ‘hey don’t be talkin like that to my momma.’ It’s interesting because momma had the little tattoo, the nose ring, earring, tongue ring…They dress like Beyonce and want you to treat ‘em like Eartha Kitt.”

With stories like that it’s easy to see why Lenny Williams will have more music coming in 2012. In the meantime hit him up on Twitter @LennyWilliams

The D.C native’s affinity for hip-hop and fearless approach to sensitive topics made him an instant hit. Whether it was “The Racial Draft” where Tiger Woods became Black or the classic Charlie Murphy’s Truth Hollywood Stories with the late Rick James Chappelle took made sketch comedy feel like oral history. In fact, mere phrases from the show (“I’m Rick James, bitch!” ) have become ubiquitous, embedding themselves into the American lexicon.

Add performances from some of hip-hops best like Kanye West, Erykah Badu and Snoop and Chappelle’s Show was must-see TV. Sales of season 1 and 2 on DVD made it one of the most successful of all time, beating out The Simpsons in 2005.

Unfortunately, Chappelle would take his talents back to Ohio and Season 3 never officially materialized. Fans still pine away for the return of Chappelle to TV and Chris Rock recently hinted that the two may tour together.  In any respect we need him back.

“He was the new generation Eddie Murphy,” says DJ Rob Flow, who walked away with a jar or Pomade and a pack of Newports after winning the “I Know Black People” contest on Chappelle. “Every generation has a black comedian that expresses a particular type of angle on the culture. In ’70s we had Richard Pryor. ’80s we had Eddie Murphy. He was definitely a part of hip-hop culture and he loved conscious artists. He was important to the culture for that.  He ended up really pushing the racial lines and that’s what freaked everybody out. It got really popular and he realized white people aren’t laughing with us.  That’s my theory. I think that’s why he left. But he needs to come back and finish the thought. Get white people to laugh with us, not at us.”

Throughout the month of February TheUrbanDaily.com will be celebrating 25 of the biggest  moments in pop culture, sponsored by Gillette.

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