‘Black Women: In The Media’in association with Paparazzi Studio and Hair by Sleek, is a three part documentary TV series that gives an exclusive insight into some of the UK’s most successful and talented women, paving the way in the Media Industry today.
Premiering on 1st September 2011 ‘Black Women: In The Media’ features, ITN Journalist Charlene White, BBC Arts and Entertainment Correspondent Brenda Emmanus, Media Trust & Broadcaster former Head of MTV Base Jasmine Dotiwala, Founder of Colorblind Cards and JH PR Jessica Huie, MD of VA-PR (World Music Awards) Vannessa Amadi, CEO of LGN Events (Producers for London Fashion Week) Yolande Letshou, BBC and OH TV Producer Michelle Brooks, Radio Presenter for Premier Gospel Radio Amma Aning, Award-winning Book Author Malorie Blackman OBE and Media Brand Consultant to MOBO Awards and Justin Timberlake Kubi Springer.
From PR, to publishing, TV to radio, ‘Black Women: In The Media’ explores the careers of these ten phenomenal women. An inspirational and must-see show, it gives an exclusive up close and personal account of the highs and lows of their journey to success. Dynamic and honest, these women discuss what it took for them to push past the boundaries and excel as Black women in Britain today.
To complement the show, Pride Magazine is dedicating a double page spread in their September issue, alongside a billboard campaign across London starting from 1st September 2011. OH TV is also proud to announce Hair by Sleek and Paparazzi Studios as the programme sponsors of ‘Black Women: in The Media’.
Watch the journey on OH TV and hear first-hand, how these iconic women, went from being aspirational young girls into inspirational Black Women!
Watch ‘Black Women: In The Media’ On OH TV (Sky Channel 199)
Part 1 broadcasts at 8pm on Thursday 1st September 2011
Part 2 broadcasts at 8pm on Thursday 8th September 2011
Part 3 broadcasts at 8pm on Thursday 15th September 2011
Full Series broadcasting at 8pm on Thursday 22nd September 2011
Full Series repeat broadcasting at 8pm on Thursday 29th September 2011
This week I’ve been working on new mainstream TV music shows and news shows for youth. My 2 favourite things. I also welcomed a whole new batch of new young journalists into the LONDON360 TV roles and next week spending most of the week interviewing loads of young people for the new LONDON360 reporter roles. I love my job when it combines all my passions.
I also grabbed a 5 day Craig David special with lunches with Sean Paul, Princess Nyah, DJ Manny Norte, the Grimedaily team, the British Urban Film Festival (BUFF) team, I did an interview with musician and actor Lonyo- (‘’Summer of love’’ singer and new movie lead in ‘’David is Dying’’).
And just to reassure all those on twitter who accuse me of not living in the real world or doing what real people do, I also had a doctor’s appointment, went bowling with friends, helped my mum and dad with shopping and cleaning and paid a parking ticket. There. Normal enough?
Sean Paul was in town for promo for his new music and his gig at the ONE LOVE PEACE FESTIVAL. We met at his hotel where his label rep the infamous Taponeswa Mavunga and his manager Steve Wilson were awaiting my arrival. We discussed world issues before Sean turned up. Everything from being gay, adopting children, Jamaican celebrities and Mohican hairstyles as Steve was rocking one. When Sean wandered in, it seemed he had also caught the Mohawk mania but he was quick to correct me. His he stated was a ‘’tappahawk’’. Sean told me he was currently enjoying the excitement about his single ‘’GOT 2 LUV U’’ produced by Norwegian duo Stargate (Rihanna, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown), and the infectious new track features Roc Nation starlet – Alexis Jordan, which is nearing 2.5million views on Youtube. He mentioned that they were probably going to shoot the video in September. As well as performing at the One Love Festival alongside Shaggy and Busta Rhymes he also played a sold out Bristol 02 Academy date and told me he was eager to finish up and get out his 5th new album early in the New Year.
I recalled the early days with Sean Paul when he was just starting out and we filmed his DIARY OF SEAN PAUL at MTV. We visited South Africa and places all across Europe where Sean sampled fine French wine, went into the African town ships and more. Sean’s an artist that has worked hard and his sound continues to get used in parties and clubs on the regular and has everyone dancing hard- even in my gym Body Jam classes!
JASMINE AND LETHAL B
Next Lethal B kindly popped up to the BBC building to speak to a group of young journalists and reporters from LONDON 360 for an impromptu press conference scenario. 2011’s been a good year for Lethal B- who I know as his birth certificate name -Maxwell. He’s done a remix with a few of the new school artists, set up his own label. And on the back of that, a lot of doors have reopened for him. He re released his next single called Mind Spinning, and now he’s working on an album probably to be released towards the end of this year or early January time and going on tour.
Maxwells from East London, Walthamstow. He understands more than most what its like for young frustrated people. He said ‘‘the council estates, a lot of negative things happen. That kind of inspired me to do better. I knew at some point this is only going to end in two ways, none of them are positive. So in that sense it was like the whole music thing was like bit cheesy but kind of like a saviour for me. When I was in a crew we used to support each other and go and make mix tapes and free styles and that was the kind of support we had for each other. Slowly we were building our career in disguise. We helped each other rather than being on the street and causing trouble’’.
Maxwell added ‘’ music definitely brings people together. Music’s the universal language. You see it doesn’t matter what colour you are, you know I do festivals, I do club shows, I do all sort of events and every single person knows that record. Now it is getting more accepted especially with festivals, a rock n roll kind of event and now it is starting to bring different genre in and people are just music lovers now.’’
Maxwell might be a pioneer in his game but he admitted he still feels frustration with parts of the media explaining ‘’Recently I was on the front page of the telegraph in Coventry, I was headlining a festival, and their headline was ‘’GUN RAPPER, HEADLINES FESTIVAL ‘’ and I was like what the hell are you talking about?!. And they were referencing my song ‘’Pow’’ saying it was more about guns and stuff like that. I was disappointed to see that. The negative, ignorant media stereotyping is still there. Slowly slowly, we’ll get there one day’’.
Maxwell explained to the young people in his presence that ‘’Grime life style is about expressing yourself. There is no kind of rules or anything; Grime has made me express myself. It’s made me dress how I want to. Don’t be scared to speak. If you don’t speak no one’s going to hear your opinion. Everyone has an opinion. So grime helps me express myself, how I want to express. If that makes sense.
The real thing about grime is when it started I was at the start of it; we didn’t even know what we were creating. We were just making music for the fun of it. And now it’s become this big huge whole thing. I think it’s the story of young kids from the streets of London who may not necessarily have the best background but who are becoming young entrepreneurs from nothing to something. I think that is what is making the story so powerful’’.
Maxwell laughed about how far Social Media can help a new act-something he didn’t always have the advantage of having at his fingertips ‘’now it’s a lot easier, it used to be very hard. When I first started doing the whole music thing, it was ten years ago, there were no things like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube. Now you can use resources and do things like free styles and collaborations which may not necessarily be on the album but it giving back to your fans’’
He did want to clarify that the new generation needs to pay attention to his era of acts claiming ‘I’m one of the pioneers and have set a blue print. When I came in, we didn’t really know what was going on, we just made music for the fun of making music and next minute we are on top of the pops and I think the new generation needs to really pay attention to see how its been done . And grime gets a lot of negative press. We are all positive guys from a negative environment. We are just trying to better ourselves. It’s all about empowering yourself. About doing better. Being negative is only going to lead you in one way so I definitely feel like the new generation should pay attention and listen because we have done it’’.
We agreed that most celebs and brands were focusing on pro-social, positive community projects now with acts like Alicia Keys, Brad Pitt, Estelle and Samuel L Jackson supporting charities and orange networks sponsoring ‘’orange rock corps’’ and more. To this end Maxwell talked about his passion for organisation Biggafish. He sad ‘’Biggafish is amazing like organization. Its just kids on the street they get to meet their local stars. Its real positive, at that age 14 15 16, doing something productive, school holidays, times where a lot of kids have nothing to do and they get out to stuff, negativity comes off, Biggafish is important. it gets people involved’’.
Maxwell is putting his actions where his mouth is and talked about his passion for mentoring. ‘’I think that could really be positive. As I said you know especially at that age you are really not confused, but you don’t really know what you want to do where do you want to go, it’s all about trying to find inspiration and direction. If you are speaking to people who you look up to or you may respect give a bit of insight, where you wanna be, where you wanna go, so it could definitely help. Positivity is the way forward, most definitely’’.
If he hadn’t made it in music Maxwell confessed ‘’I think I’d probably be in education probably university, my parents are African Ghanaian so, they are really strict on this education thing. Maybe work in some sort of profession. My dad wanted me to be an engineer, electrical engineering and music thing picked up for me. I think I would probably be doing maybe engineering or a job like that’’.
With the Olympics coming to his area he thinks ‘’The Olympics was obviously a positive thing, the whole shopping centre thing is a catch 22, its gonna give young kids more jobs and help the economy. Bring more opportunities and yes it is getting a bit done up over there. When I was there it was just towers and blocks and garages, I hope it has a positive reaction’’.
Maxwell did admit though that he doesn’t live in his old hood any longer ‘’I don’t live in east London anymore, let me just put it out there, but my experience in east London is going to be there forever. As my journey goes along its always going to be reflected in my music, I don’t know if not still being there will really affect me that much’’.
Finally with African celebrities taking over our charts, sports and politics Maxwell said he’s a proud African now as ‘’it is hard being an African in the world, when I went to school ages ago, it was like a crime to be an African, I used to get teased..uh uh uh you are from Africa! I’ve always been a proud African. And now Africans have just empowered themselves.. I have been in a Nigerian crew, but I am a Ghanaian, so I represent Ghana. But Africa as a whole, we have come a very long way. African parents born here managed to build a career. It’s a beautiful place man.. People are proud and we can find some African restaurants. You can find African clubs and African culture being embraced and all-it’s a happy day!.
With that I bid him farewell and stood taller and prouder with my own Kenyan roots!
Samuel l Jackson hosted his annual shooting stars benefit ball at the Royal Courts of Justice which had requested a Black Tie for men and glamorous for women dress code ,which saw me roll up on a very long, busy stressful day in my car just as dinner was beginning in my ride with my ball gown from DOLCE & GABANNA in my boot. I had to slide myself into it in the front seat of my car and hope passers by didn’t grab a shot of any Dotiwala bodily parts and then had my friend race around to my side of the car to zip me in! Such class.
A champagne reception greeted us as we arrived along the red carpet at this very striking old location with centuries of historical content. I smiled as I noted all my favourite brands were sponsors from the Moet & Chandon bubbly, to the Virgin Atlantic flights that were up for auction, to the slick AUDI cars that were taxing guests around. Even better, the healthy athletic shoe maker Fit Flop were the main sponsor and so each guest was treated to a free pair of any Fit Flop shoe of their choice-and as these are pretty expensive I took full advantage. I was sat on the Adidas table which was clearly the most lively and fun as others from the top tables actually came and requested to be seated at our table midway through the dinner as their table had been very quiet and stuffy. They could probably hear us laughing as we had caught one of the Adidas team with a topless photo screen saver of London’s finest actor-Idris Elba that all the ladies were salivating over in a quite disturbing manner! With Idris topless and Desperate Housewives heartthrob Jesse Metcalfe at a table beside us there were ladies swooning all over the place, whilst the non-stop alcohol which was being poured by silver service waiters had the rest swooning. To complete the massive swoonfest we had a little two-step with the main man of the night –Samuel- after he hosted the live auction which raised lots of cash for young people that just wanted their final wishes granted. What an amazing cause!.
JASMINE WITH NOEL CLARKE
Next my pal actor, director and screen writer Noel Clarke invited me down to hayes to the film set where he was making his latest film STORAGE 24. It was fascinating to watch the making of film as opposed to the TV that i’m used to. The detail and patience required is second to none. I saw aliens flying around and blood and wounds everywhere whilst noel just sat back like a G and took it all in his very classic stride. I wish more young people could hear Noel speak- he can articulate opinions for the younger generation like no one else in our scene. He has respect, talent and a following of thousands- politicians get him on board whilst you still can!.
What can I say about the Riots that hasn’t already been said. Probably not much as I’ve already tweeted like a mad woman this past week. I work in a news department. This means I speak to and empathise with a diverse range of people and their differing opinions.
So many divided opinions from all, so many lives affected. So many causes set back. So much worse to come now that we have to all pay for the clean up and have even less in our local communities to enhance our lives. As predicted the lazy cries of the press wanting to blame music and hip-hop came thick and fast.
DJ Semtex shot back ‘’rappers talk about the negative because we live with it. Get rid of the negative and it wont get rapped about. If we didn’t have hip-hop, if we didn’t have this form of self-expression, this mirror that reflects society, things would have happened years ago, and the situation would be a lot worse’’.
Arts impresario Ekow Eshun stated ‘’the violence is appalling but we only risk its repetition by failing to look at this as major social breakdown not just lawless thuggery’’.
South London rapper Giggs spoke out ‘’My Prayers go out to the people affected by the Riots, and the attacks on innocent people needs to stop’’
Should we blame hip-hop for thieving MP’s? Paedophiles’? Mass murderers? I listened to NWA, and watched shoot em up westerns throughout my childhood-it didn’t make me riot and loot. I also had free education, a youth club and activities after school and lived in a world full of hope where parents were allowed to reprimand me and I was frightened of disrespecting my teachers. This is the chickens come home to roost.
The government took away parents and teachers rights to be authoritive. Nowadays the reality is that there are kids threatening to call the police on their parents and threatening them with social services!?. Taking away parental power was the beginning of the end. That made kids rude. Then you cut all education, ignored poverty, pretended that postcode gang wars didn’t exist and let them get on with it. This made them frustrated. You said our country is in debt, cuts need to be made but you took it from the poor and left them with nothing whilst the rich got richer and bankers got bailed out-with pay rises. Now they are bored and idle and see that crime pays. You know what they say about the devil making work for idle hands.
You told people that if they were unhappy about society then we had the freedom to peacefully protest and our opinions would be heard. We peacefully protected in our millions about the Iraq war. We were ignored. Thousands peacefully protested about black people dying in police custody. They were ignored. Now we are angry, frustrated and bored with no pride in our area, ourselves or a stake in society. Why wouldn’t people lash out?
Yet there are also a whole generation of young people who have a huge sense of entitlement of what society owes them that is so laughable its ridiculous. We all helped ourselves. We too had single mothers and were poor. We worked hard and earned money and that’s just not how life works. We saw our parents go to work so we grew up with a work ethic-the new generation see their parents claiming benefits-is it any wonder they’re minds are screwed up!!? This mind set is inherited and handed down. We bombard youth with adverts for status symbols making them feel irelavent unless theyre blinged up-why is this looting such a shock?
The press are messed up. They have a responsibility to report the TRUTH. We clearly saw the live TV footage show a mixed bag of cross sections of the public looting, but the next days papers show just pics of young black men. How is that fair news reporting? Are we surprised that the Daily Mail point of view exists?
Doesn’t this underline the unspoken fear of black males always being seen as sexually aggressive, angry, studs? The best reporter in the country for print press was Paul Lewis with his honest tweets and daily blogs at THE GUARDIAN telling the real story. Similarly Sangat TV- a Birmingham, Sikh TV station saw a fearless young Asian reporter, Upinder Randhawa in the depth of the action chattering away-it was mesmerising.
Young gangs in postcode and area wars have been fighting and killing each other for years. The media made a big deal about it for a minute a few years back but now the kids are just left to kill each other- this week alone yet more young men are stabbing each other to death. Now that it’s affected commercial business and the wider community are involved its come to the forefront again. Alas-this has been the best advert that the racist BNP and EDL party’s need. Nick Griffin must be laughing in his whiter than white bubble bath.
The government need to invest in our young people in a better manner. Let me give you examples from my own life. At my time as head of production at MTV BASE, I was privy to numerous meetings over the years where central government wanted to do something to put across anti knife crime messages. Instead of ever taking up any of my proactive ideas that would’ve actually taken groups of young people off the streets and given them new hope, all they wanted to do was a PR exercise where they paid MTV for advert time and editorial to show that THEY were to be SEEN as encouraging positive messages but not ACTUALLY investing in any change.
So of course the ad’s are on air and the politicians are seen to care but the message reaches no-one that really needs to hear it. That’s the extent of their reach.
There were a multitude of talking heads rolled out to comment on the riots including articulate people like Nii from Bigga fish and Anne Diamond. Yes Anne diamond!.wtf!?
As one blogger said ‘’ Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school.’’
In one TV report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:
“Yes,” said the young man. “You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you-all of you want to speakl to me now.”
I would actually argue that actually the message has been lost cos now they’re only seeing young black people looting for blingtastic materialistic goods. We’re brain washed by consumerism – they’re stealing status symbols. The governments cut benefits for those that can work- these people desperate now to keep up their ghetto superstar lifestyle want to go looting trainers, jeans and phones. At least they could’ve looted some bookstores to show they’re smart too? (You may have even learnt something!)
There’s been a simmering anger all over the UK’s cities-not just from young people in London –but from people from all areas and cultures. This has been bubbling for years. We have to focus on the lack of family structure in communities. Parents are now so out of touch with their kids. They’re actually trying harder to friend them. I regularly see kids rave with their mums and shop for similar clothes together. How can a parent demand respect if their child see’s them as an equal? Give back the power to parents and authority figures so they can command respect.
I spoke to a lady a while back who ”thankfully told me she loved MTV BASE and VIDEO GAMES for babysitting her kids most evenings as it keep them quiet and out of trouble to do her own thing” ? Guess what her kids are like?
Young people want to get rich quick-or die trying. And they want fame. Whilst part of me was glued to the TV riots mesmerised by the disaster movie shots in front of my eyes, the other half of me knew that whilst this 24 hour rolling news footage was exciting, it was also inciting the bad ones to do more and make themselves famous for a minute like the naughty school kid playing up in class to impress their peers in the same way.
Fame and notoriety plays a big part in a culture that’s grown up on mafia movies and Jay Z hustle songs. Adults aren’t even aware that there’s a whole underground world they’re unaware of that exists. But their kids ALL know about it. Gangs from different postcodes are threatening each other online on websites and going through with killings and post shank, boasting about their deed. If you type in the words ‘’Brixton’’ or ‘’Peckham’’ on spifftv.com’s search engine hundreds of videos that youth have uploaded of themselves masked and unmasked brandishing weapons appear. This is an immediate instant fame platform for gangs that want kudos amongst their peers. As a kid when I had a fight my street knew about it. Now these sites mean the country knows about it.
Compare that openly available material with MTV content.If you attempt to put MTV programmes onto YouTube it’s usually taken down within hours due to the disagreement on content rights between MTV/VIACOM and YouTube. Because MTV have bigwig lawyers their content won’t be available for free online and gets shut down. Why can’t City Hall hire big wig lawyers to put legislation in place that ensure tastemaker sites with influence aren’t allowed to host violent content like this? Site moderators should have to justify their content. Instead I know City Hall hire community leaders that are so out of touch with the youth and have such old-fashioned views they’d be better off advising Jesus and his disciples than modern day youth. I’ve sat in on and been privy to a few of these meetings-they are so off track its tragic. One recent one put into action a dance with celebrities to raise money for knife crime victims. No honestly. This is the reactive remedy that they think will help. How about being pro-active.
There’s a crisis of leadership in this country.We have no articulate, opinionated leaders within urban culture either. Most UK urban chart toppers are happy to tweet about their music all day long but many are ghost silent when asked to speak on things that matter to their audiences. If this riot had kicked off in the USA I have no doubt that leaders like Obama, Russell Simmons and Puffy would stand up, rally the troops, bring in the NATION OF ISLAM to try and diffuse the situation and make their voices heard correctly. I tried to think of one, very famous British face who the UK urban youth would listen to and that would be prepared to speak. I couldn’t think of one that had enough influence or articulation. Russell Simmons reached out last week to Estelle and Tim Westwood to try and help. How embarrassing that we need to be policed by Americans, as we can’t sort out our own problems? Only a Londoner knows what London’s going through. Years ago I had DefJam UK tell me they were bringing in an American to teach me and my peers how to sell UK URABAN music to the UK charts. They failed. Miserably. And snuck back to New York with their tails between their legs leaving the hopes and dreams of young Londoners they had signed up shattered and broken.
One blogger said ‘’People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all’’.
How ironic that the young people involved that usually wouldn’t dare step into each other post coded ‘’endz’’ were now putting that curfew on hold and uniting together for now against a common mutual enemy-the police. I wondered if subconsciously the young ones were relieved to be able to be one big happy ‘’family’’ gang together for once instead of having to look over their shoulder for each other. Maybe they thought it might lead to a long term bonding by uniting together against another external foe? Because lets face it-surely this must be what they want-right? Can you imagine how powerful these gangs of kids would be if they united for positive change? THey’d be unstoppable!
Also-how long can the police get away with their behaviour? So many black men have died in police custody but not one police officer is suspended? But recently a dog died due to being left in a police car that over heated and the dog died-the police man was immediately suspended? Are human black lives worth less than a dogs?
Could Mark Duggans family not have received better treatment and answers? You can never justify the riots or looting. They were wrong full stop. But you should be open minded enough to see why its been a boiling pot waiting to bubble over. There were people angry about Duggans death and police inaccuracies, there were people who were caught up trying to pilfer as much as they could and there were people who are so frustrated they want to fight and let their tension out whoever they hit-and to them the police are an easy and justifiable target.
The bottom line though is that there is no intelligent justification for the carnage that innocent people and their livelihoods have suffered, people have died!. Young boisterous men fuelled with testosterone ran the streets and now innocent people are dead.
There is no one solution to this. Its an iceberg effect where the riot marks the seen visible tip of the riots but underneath there have been layers of deep, thick issue that’s been building strongly for years. So instead of a simple solution of just punishment for the savagery, how about pro-active change in Britain’s moral society which is corrupt from high to low?
JASMINE WITH LISA MAFFIA AND SU-ELISE AT RACE FOR LIFE CLAPHAM
So last week the EVENING STANDARD newspaper picked up on the LONDON360 news story about literacy in London featuring celebrity chef Marco Pierre White that my team made. People don’t read as much now as in the past and as a testament to this libraries are shutting down and we care raising a generation of people that can’t spell or enjoy reading. People send me letters and application forms with CV’s that contain practically illegible grammar. They attend interviews and they can’t speak coherently. They want to be musicians and presenters but they can’t write? Every Tuesday afternoon after school my mum used to turn my library trip into an adventure that I looked forwards to. I felt independent choosing my own books from the bookshelves and exploring loads of different topics that I had not encountered before. I loved Nancy Drew and hardy boy’s child sleuth novels as well as Enid Blytons secret 7 and famous five fun gang stories. I learnt how to escape the streets of Southall and Harlesden for a couple of hours a day into fantasy worlds that helped me dream big and learn how to be articulate. In fact young people aspire to be like their hip-hop heroes but every time I ever worked with Pharrell and Kanye west we would discuss which books we were reading and in fact it was Pharel who first had me hooked on the Dan brown books before they became very commercial. For people that tell me they don’t need libraries as they will buy their kids books or let them read them online they are being very tunnel vision-ed and ignorant. The child cannot experience the wonderful experience of browsing through hundreds of books and picking any outside of their usual interest to broaden their horizons. The joy of carrying the book, seeing how far into it you are, the anticipation of nearing the end conclusion. All these things are fascinating for kids and I as an adult STILL use my local west London library. The number of biographies I read I couldn’t afford to buy them all or would want them cluttering up my home after reading. My bookshelves are full to the brim of my favourite reads which I re read (piers Morgan’s books) or flick through (my HIP HOP IMMORTALS COFFEE TABLE art book). In fact if ever asked the proverbial question ‘’if your house were on fire what would you save-it would be one of my favourite signed books!). I urge you to encourage literacy amongst those around you- it’s the first step towards greatness!
JASMINE WITH THE ORIGINAL LONDON HIP HOP CLIQUE-COOKIE CREW!
I was invited by Saddler’s Wells theatre to go and see the amazing production of Fela, which has already captivated audiences worldwide. About the Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Kuti the show focus’ on Fela’s final gig at Lagos nightclub-the Shrine and was a wonderful night of great music, mesmerising dancers and an intriguing storyline that focused on Fela’s relationship with his mother, the fact that he came to London to study medicine then was drawn towards jazz music and his relationship with many women simultaneously.
Fela was the pioneer of Afrobeat, a genre of music that’s going to blow up in the UK soon-there’s already a huge afrobeat show happening this month in London and DJ Abrantee has an afrobeat show on CHOICEFM. Even Kanye west has signed 2 African acts recently-perhaps America is slightly ahead of our game with this one.
The audience were encouraged (forced!) to participate through out the show with dancing in our seats and in the aisles, which could have been a little cringe worthy but was taken well even by the conservative half of the audience. The ‘’clock dance’’ where our hips were encouraged to move around the clock was hilarious. Even sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was sitting with us!.
The cast made humorous references to ‘’ethnic folks’’ reputations by asking ‘’how kind of you all to come especially considering how dangerous this area and how dangerous we are-as Reuters will tell you’’.
They mocked the ’white people coming Africa to steal our soaps, dressing gowns and ashtrays from hotels, steal our diamonds, steal our people but left us with’ gonorrhoea’’. There was a massive cheer when they talked about multi national corporations like BP and News Corp and raised eyebrows as to whom were the corrupt in society’’. I thought it was a great show but would’ve liked more of Fela’s real story and fighting the brutality of the African regime and less booty shaking. My friend agreed and wished that all black musical shows didn’t focus on stereotypes of blacks. I knew fela is lauded by many of my American friends and looked upon as a hero and I was a bit disappointed not to learn more about why this was.
JASMINE WITH ''TEAM MAFFIA''
On Saturday morning I drove down to Clapham common to see my girl Lisa Maffia (former So Solid Crew first lady) run the 5k RACE FOR LIFE-one of 28 races that have happened around London this summer. It was nice to attend in South London as Race for life started in 1994 in Battersea Park and since then millions of women have taken part Lisa’s mother was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and so Lisa has been positively putting on a brave face and generating positive energy around her determined to make a difference. She put together TEAM MAFFIA to run with her and the group included one of her best mates Su-Elise (former Mis-Teeq member). We arrived early to film the event with the LONDON360 TV crew and found 4,500 women in pink t-shirts warming up in front of stage where an aerobics instructor was doing her thing. Each runner had a square card pinned to their backs with their personal dedication to whom they were running for. Many were running to remember parents and family members that had passed away. Just as many were running for people in their lives that were dealing with cancer presently. It was emotional and heart breaking to read them all. Runners ran alone, in pairs, in groups, even with their prams with babies and dogs running alongside them. The feeling of unity in the air was humbling and strong.
It’s easy to feel it doesn’t affect you until it does. The facts are that in London alone one person every hour is diagnosed with cancer in and one in three of us are affected by cancer.
I hated sponsored events as a school child. The endless begging people holding a paper and trying to collect cash. Nowadays the rest is out there in a click with e-mails and facebook/twitter and with justgiving sites you don’t even need to collect money! The last time I ran this race I ran for the ACLT and raised £3000-it literally was a doddle. The organisers told me ‘’Its brilliant when celebs get on board as the amount of celebrities that are getting involved in race for life, not only that they are taking part but its special for the other participants to see them taking part and they tweet, they go on Facebook and they really raise awareness for race for life and cancer research UK in the public’’.
Lisa told me just before the race began ‘’ I’m feeling very emotional that these girls turned up for me, my mum was diagnosed with cancer in April and I asked the girls to all come and take part with me and they have and its going to be a great day. I’ve been training for about two weeks, I’m feeling confident I just want to get it done I want to make my mum proud, I think that’s what’s going to drive me round this course today. The cancer research does unite women in London because woman can be affected as well as men by cancer and you never know when its going to happen, I didn’t know it was going to happen to my mum, so its just so important that every penny raised can buy telescopes, doctors coats, it can do all sorts of things and every penny counts it really is so important, and women are together. I plan to crawl around the track, I’m running, I’m running the whole way, I’m going to try and run’’.
Lisa Mafia and Su-Elise weren’t the only music ladies running. The original female UK hip hop collective- Cookie Crew were there (MC Remedee -real name Debbie Pryce and Susie Q (born Susan Banfield) ,and informed me ‘’ we’re running the race for my cousin Paula and for DJ Swing (RIP) and for everyone we know who’s suffering. everybody has been affected in some way by cancer we all just feel that we’re compelled to do something because it’s a disease that you feel you cant do anything about so you feel that you have to do something and we’ve all been affected by cancer and we did make a decision that we will do more things for charity, that was our new years resolution last year. the best thing is that its on Clapham Common this is literally our back garden and its where we grew up and this is where hip hop started’’.
The stage host asked team mafia to get onstage pre-race and do a mini press conference. He asked Lisa about why she was taking part. Lisa replied ‘’ my mum was diagnosed with cancer in April and I just realised how important something like this…’’ before becoming overcome with emotion and teary. In true best friend mode without missing a beat Su-Elise hugged Lisa, took the microphone from Lisa and saved the day stating ‘’She’s doing it for her mum today and she wants to finish the whole race, make her mum proud and thanks you guys for joining in with us. You all look absolutely fabulous by the way’’. I was impressed by their tight friendship bond and it was a heart wrenching moment. It was also a proud moment highlighting the unity that life-changing moments like this can bring. We caught up with Lisa as she sprinted past the finish line who explained ‘’ I’m a person that likes to help when I’m in a bad situation and doing this is just… I think it’s given my mum another hope, as it is a hard thing to go through. I’ve never seen my mum in such a vulnerable situation and watching her daily and doing something like this I just know it gives her a new hope and I think it does it for everyone who has either lost somebody or some who’s going through dealing with cancer’’.
The runners just that day raised £600,000 for cancer research UK-an amazing feat! I salute all of you dealing with this-may your unity and courage gives you strength to take each day as it comes, comes what may.
JASMINE WITH INTERNATIONAL REGGAE STAR ETANA.
The very next day it was off to Wembley arena for the ONE LOVE PEACE FESTIVAL. I’ll be honest. I didn’t expect much. Much of the time urban events on a big scale in the UK aren’t great for turnout or organisation. So imagine my happy surprise on arriving to find thousands of people queuing around the arena in their most summery outfits in the scorching sunshine. Wembley hill was a roadblock! So THIS is where all the true diehard reggae and dancehall fans have been going instead of carnival! It was like being at Sumfest! The arena was full, the vibe was great, flags were being waved and whistles blown, the acts who included John Holt, Aswd, Horace Andy, Etana, Trevor Hartley, Sandra Cross, Gyptian, Busta Rhymes, Sean Paul and Shaggy, were onstage from early afternoon until 11pm. There was a real positive energy and no bad vibes anywhere, just like a summery all-dayer in the city should be!.
My criticisms would be that the backstage media room wasn’t the best organised machine with random people crowding around interviews, photographers actually flashing cameras which render TV footage being filmed unusable and at one point we were all moved from the hot room to a freezing room next door-all day media were kindly provided beverages in the form of Levi Roots latest ginger beer offering and also ‘’Marley’s mellow mood juice’’ which provided much mirth.
Hilariously Levi Roots performed a set about ‘’reggae reggae sauce’’ and wasn’t as bad as it could have been(is there anything this man cant do?). Ray Lewis who works for the mayor’s office and is pals with Boris Johnson spoke onstage a few times and was promptly booed every time he mentioned Boris. Don’t know why-I think Boris is realer than any past mayor we’ve seen and unlike most politicians sticks to his word with his promises. Ray gave messages of anti gun crime throughout the day alongside community groups and this reminded the audience why we were there which I was pleased about as when my TV crew vox popped the crowd entering early in the day-hardly anyone was aware it was an anti gun crime themed event.
I also question whether an event like this is really making a different with those young gang members that are caught up anyway. Surely most of the crowd here were present as they were music lovers and already unified in their positive outlook on life. The ones that are still wasting their lives with street nonsense probably aren’t here anyway? And at £50 quid a ticket how many young desperate youth could afford it anyway?
Gyptian told me ‘’ “The one thing I’m glad about is that I’m not part of the artists that sing derogatory lyrics, ya know,.”
JASMINE WITH THE UK’S PRINCESS NYAH
Princess Nyah disagreed ‘’ Regards musicians that talk about gun crime and glamorize violence she stated “With every artist, everyone’s got their own story to tell, and I can’t penalize somebody else for talking about what they’ve been through. Regardless of all the negative press, if someone’s got a story to tell and they want to share it and people can relate to it, then who is the media or anyone else to say any different.I was really keen on taking part in the event because I was born and raised in north west London, and there’s a lot of crime that happens all the time but amongst all of that there are really good young people out there.”
Etana told me her thoughts on women helping the cause “I always feel for about representing women, my name Etanna, means the strong one, so its for every woman to know when they hear the name Etana it represents you. “Women play a major role in keeping the peace. In a household, when a woman is upset the whole household is upset. Fathers upset, kids are miserable, everybody’s screaming and running around, that’s because the queen bee is upset, you know, she’s buzzin. So the best thing we can do as women is start with ourselves and remember we cant take our stress out on the kids.”
Father and son music duo PRB told us ‘(son) “It is basically bringing youths and adults together, so knowing that all multicultural people can come as one like Martin Luther once said and try and spread the love and peace and forget about gun and knife crime and end this.“When we are listening to music we listen and think, ah yeah this song may be catchy but what is it actually really portraying?’’ father Ruben added ‘“It’s about the mentoring skills as well and showing that care and concern so the kids don’t feel distant away from us“It’s a lot to do with the system, everyone has a standard in their home. A standard of how they behave themselves.”
Some acts that were mentioned on the flyer like Ky-mani Marley, Third World and Bashy didn’t show so many complained about that. (I know Bashy was filming his movie so clearly some miscommunication there by the organisers!) Also many young audience members were there to see team UK acts like Donaeo and Skepta-and you could tell the event was organised by the older generation, as when sh@* hit the fan and the show was running late Skepta was finally allowed a really short set as was Princess Nyah but ‘’party hard’’ star Donaeo was cut out of the show totally-much to his and the hundreds of young audience in attendance! They even had Skepta’s name flashing on stage whilst Sean Paul was performing. Oh dear. Elsewhere, Etena name checked Amy Winehouse, Busta and his co-hort Spliff Star are one of the top 5 live hip-hop acts in the world and killed the stage-the crowd were in a total frenzy by the time Mohawk haired Sean Paul came on to relax their vibe a bit with some gyrating, sexy tunes. The headline act Shaggy only got to play for 10 minutes, as they were running late- typical. Sean Paul and Shaggy had a tough time onstage-I’d love to print their thoughts here but alas it’s a family newspaper.
If any lessons were learnt from this show its that an outdoor arena with 2 stages so band set up times could be swift not making the audience wait ages for the next act could be beneficial.
Overall a brilliantly put together front of house show for the reggae community in the UK-one that hasn’t existed for a very long time! Organiser hugh summed it up nicely ‘’ “What happens here today is an a culmination of what has been happening over the past month. On the first of July we went into the schools, the colleges, the youth clubs, into the playgrounds and we say youngsters look, we going to try and create a more equipped community able to negotiate a successful stake in the UK.”
Lead Sugababes singer Keisha Buchanan invited me to her first solo outing in conjunction with Jacques cider who took over a beautiful town house mansion in Central London to celebrate the opening of a new super stylish Jacques townhouse. As I walked in past the paparazzi board where young starlets were being papped surrounded by eager pr people gushing at each other. We stepped into the main front room where an actual Mini beauty spa was full pelt ahead with one corner where girls were having their make up done, another areas with crazy manicures, a third area with massages. I whooped (out loud embarrassingly!) and started my own mini make over. Half way through a manicure alongside Asian singing and acting sensation Preeya Kalidas, the D&G ladies Ruth and Chandni and PR Maven Jennifer Mills, I spotted a man I knew in this sea of women…it was none other than JLS sensation Oritse with his vivacious and excited girl group Vida who told me that Ortise was a hard boss to please but was whipping them into chart topping shape.
JASMINE WITH JLS ORITSE AND HIS GIRL GROUP VIDA
We had a fun chat before I sprinted into the next room where they were playing croquet like the olden days, I chucked something at something else but it wasn’t really my thing so I grabbed a Jacques cocktail from the sea of coloured champagne flutes and dashed upstairs to see what else this fabulous night had in store for me. 30 seconds later I was sitting across from MTV VJ Laura Whitmore making cupcakes and decorating them with spinkles! After calling someone and asking if they wanted the mini piece of art cake I’d made for them-and he replied ‘’I’m not eating that-I’m on a diet!’’ my girl friend Anneliese and I wolfed it down us and swanned off to the room next door where a fun dressing up room awaited us with rails of costumes and olde worlde outfits and a surreal set where a photographer from Japanese vogue was snapping away pictures for us all. I stripped and jumped into an old ‘’little house on the prairie’’ outfit and we giggled and posed for the snapper before running back downstairs for the main event which was seeing Keisha perform. A packed room full of power players and taste makers including actress Jamie Winstone (who looked stunning in her dress up wedding dress), watched as Keisha belted out hit song after hit song both from her new and old repertoire and boy did she sound and look hot! Her vocals were thundering dynamic and the crowd was singing along and clapping as though they were at a festival! Welcome back solo star Keisha! JASMINE ON THE COICEFM ”I HAVE A CHOICE” PANEL.
I was invited to sit on a music panel for CHOICEFM at Wembley arena.The Get known Get Paid event in association with charity partners Catch 22 and V-inspired , was about independent and aspiring performers finding out how to promote themselves, market themselves, make money, get in the press and more .The audience were aged 16 -25 and most were interested in getting into the music industry but didn’t have a clear direction as to what avenue they want to pursue. The purpose of the panel was to give some practical information/inspirational stories and tips on getting known professionally. On my panel were representatives from GRIMEDAILY-(Posty), the PRS (Jules parker) , the PPL (Keith Harris) and DJ KC who was chairing. The next panel included wretch 32, SONG WRITERS PARKER AND JAMES, a member of N-Dubz management and CHOICEFM’s breakfast show hosts Kojo &Max.
Its always-special meeting young ambitious people but there’s so much many of them have to learn. When I was at school generic things like ‘how to write a formal letter’, how to dress for an interview and ‘how to research a company’ were mandatory. Nowadays its tough as young people are scared to stand out and be seen as an individual and can resort lazily to the jeans, trainers and hoodie combo for every event in life. We talked about how to focus on marketing your self. Things like professional email addresses can make or break you. I’ve had e-mails with things like ‘’murdergangster1’’ in the title. Do you think most serious people will reply to that? I’ve been sent to check out websites with porn titles. Do you think business people will take that seriously? This very week I was asked for feedback on a track titled ‘’seed from my scrotum’’. Yes. Really. Lyrics of songs should be unique but there’s a thin line between unique and unworkable. Many young acts think they can be amazing in their bedroom studios with a few pressed CD’s. if you don’t perform live at regular known music events like I LUV LIVE how can you get experience, create buzz and build a following?
Do you also understand the power of collaboration? The right musical partnership can open a million doors for you. Shout out Labrynth!
Also- even if your friends say you’re potentially the next jay z-be honest with yourself. Are you truly amazingly talented or are your friends gassing you? Honestly-I’ve been told countless times that someone’s amazing and they don’t sound different to anything that was already rejected years ago! How much do you know about the business? Tinie Tempah’s cousin Dumi knew nothing but he read all about the music business from a book and taught himself about why you must know about and sign up to the PPL/ PRS. These events are brilliant for immediate question and answer sessions but really you have to do a lot of the research yourself and now with everything being online there’s no excuse to cry ‘’doors are shut’’. Even I learn new things whilst being on the panel. Keith Harris had an amazingly easily understand explanation of the PRS and PPL that’s always confused me in the past. I even got into passionate debates about things with my fellow panelists such was the importance of what we all believed in!. As if that wasn’t all entertaining enough for the attendees, DJ Maso from De La Soul made an impromptu appearance along with Black Twang-the perfect day! JASMINE WITH DARREN RAYMOND AT THE INTERMISSION THEATRE.
Next it was off to the Intermission Theatre show at St Saviours Church right next door to Harrods in Knightsbridge where I had been invited by artistic director Darren Raymond to see 10-10-10 which was 10 mini plays lasting 10 minutes each. This night gives opportunities to new writers, directors and actors to showcase their talents. The professional theatre and youth theatre there reaches out to young people at risk and nurtures and supports upcoming acting talent. In all honesty I wasn’t sure what to expect. In the shadow of Harrods I expected very hoity toity church goers but the evening was a pleasant surprise where I was excited to witness so much new young urban talent making in roads in big places. The plays were very well written and directed with the most basic black set and minimal props. The themes were modern and hard-hitting. I recognised a few actors from their roles in already established urban UK films so it was nice to see they were as strong in a live set as well as film. I think this production should tour around London-many of the mini plays would even be great filmed for black history month! Watch this space- young thespians do your thing-you’re about to blow up!
JASMINE WITH ITALIAN DESIGNER LETITZIA MORANDI
Finally I attended a very special fashion event organized by LGN Events and was introduced to a fabulous new handbag designer called Letizia Morandi, who has previously worked with some of the world’s top fashion designer’s, including Jimmy Choo. I was invited into the VIP Celebrity Gifting Lounge by Gossip Girl PR and received a wonderful new designer handbag, which I adore. Check out Letizia’s new and exclusive designer handbag collection at www.letiziamorandi.com, which is bound to attract many celebrity clients.
