Leimert Park, California

Not too many are associated to Leimert Park located by the Crenshaw Boulevard thoroughfare that rises from the Wilshire District all the way down to Rolling Hills Estate in Southern California's South Bay. Leimert Park and its environs now booms with African businesses from the 4300 block of Degnan Boulevard to Martin Luther King Boulevard where the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza Mall sits. Leimert Park is about 15 minutes to Downtown Los Angeles.

The above piucture showing Leimert Park Gardens and African drums jam sessions where women particularly gets therapy by dancing to the drums all day long. It's amazing how this theurapetic formula works since most women I spoke to say the drum sessions heals their body spiritually and emotionally. Good thing stuff like that keeps the body and soul of women together.

I have been taking a trip to this beautiful park lately. It has been overwhelmed with a whole lot of activities. On August 19, 2007, while crusing down Crenhshaw Boulevard from church, (I haven't been to a church and a friend talked me into it perhaps to save my soul even though nothing much has changed from the last time I thought I was missing something) I popped up just like that at the park, and guess what? Marcus Garvey's birthday was being observed and food was served free to all. Folks were lining up to get some bit of original African cooking with all kinds of vibes from the background.

I took a tour of Degnan Blvd. and the line up was unbelievable. Obi Onyeador's African Treasures, Kumasi Gift Shop, World Stage Performance Gallery, Papa West Breakfast Club, Jamaican Restaurant and series of eateries, gift shops, barber shops, discount stores, hangouts and things like that were scenes that keeps the park alive. Nevertheless, the bad cop image LAPD patrols the entire area 24/7 making this beautiful neigborhood that is now the hub of "Black Township," clear and safe.

Seventies Commodores and Jam Sessions

The Ambrose Ehirim Files



For some reasons I cannot explain, something popped up in my mind reminiscing the seventies jam sessions when imported US and UK grooves influenced local musical ensembles of the day.

Every now and then, I dust off my packed vinyl LPs, long obsolete for the way technology considerably changed, especially in electronics. What it means is that I have packed every musical gadget in my household—the tower-like speakers, amplifiers, cassette tapes, VCR—for the fact it occupies unnecessary space and now that very tiny gadgets, as small as a cable TV remote control can supply any form of music loud enough to blow out your ear drums.

Dusting off these LPs, I picked up Commodores “Machine Gun” released as a single in 1974. The first time I heard this track already an album was in 1975 while holidaying at my brother’s house in Lagos. I had not paid much attention to this group until sometime in 1976 while attending a ballroom dance with my childhood buddy Andy Iheanacho and other friends in the complex of an all girls secondary school on the hills of Uruala. We had trekked more than five miles holding our three layers, the Bootsy Collins kind of boots in our hands with our tight-fitting-wide bottom pants folded up from another secondary school up the hill for this much anticipated dance in a complex that has nothing but girls.

While we walked and climbed the hill leading to the school on the left, we discussed extensively the music of the day. Hughes Corporation, Crown Heights Affair, K.C. & the Sunshine Band, George McCrae, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Muscle Shoals Horns, Jimmy Castor Bunch, Dramatics, O’Jays, Billy Paul, Bill Withers, Isaac Hayes, and many other R & B flavored influences, with a groove obverted discothèque approach.

And we arrived!

At the same time while we enjoyed the imports and “boogie nights”—“Young Girls Are My Weakness,” “I Feel Sanctified,” “Machine Gun,” “Soul Limbo,” “Rock The Boat,” “Ring My Bell,” “Let’s Get It On,” “Joy,” “For The Love Of Money,” “Payback,” “Do It Good,” “Hustle To The Music,” “Smiling Faces,” Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” and all that great hits, Anwar Richards and his Kenyan-born colleagues catapulted Matata to London doing gigs at the pubs and night clubs. Mac Tontoh and his brother, Teddy Osei, in the days of egwu onwa, moonlight plays, formed Osibisa and turned every household in London into a crowded house with those “Kokorokoo,” “Sweet America,” “Basa Basa,” “Fire,” “Che Che Kule” and “Woyaya” smash hits. South African legendary trumpeter, Hugh Masekela did sessions with Fela and Osibisa, and recorded "The Boys' Doing It" while in exile, on the run from a bastardized Apartheid regime. Meanwhile, the Funkees were funky, too. Jake Solo and Harry Mosco Agada shooting it straight like the Bad Company took Funkees to another level. London pubs were jammed because Funkees hanged around doing their own thing.

It was something else, how “we” teenagers of the day rocked every disco hall to these "funked-up" attitudes from the East (all over) to the West (Lagos in particular). As teens, we were attracted to the socio-political concepts of Karl Marx even though politics in that era was a “taboo,” something that can get one into trouble, thus the presence of the military juntas who ruled by the barrel of the gun.

Back in the day, grooving the way we did, one must belong to the era’s socially accepted group (SAG) in order to hang. Each SAG had its own thing going on, though; there were the highlife buffs and ikwokirikwo-ajasco dancers whose passion for Congo and East African soukous/rumba music had taken them to a whole new height. They had their own gigs which played only highlife, soukous and the kind of ikwokirikwo music Ikenga Super Stars of Africa invented.

My kind of fraternity back in the day was absolutely engaged with US and UK imports which influenced local ensembles like the Apostles, Wings, One World, Doves, Wrinkers Experience, Black Children, Strangers and Founders 15 in the East; and also the “Chief Priest” Fela, Segun Bucknor, BLO (Berkeley Ike Jones, Laolu Akins and Mike Odumosu), St. Gregory College spoiled brats Ofege, Tirogo, Joni Haastrup and Monomono in the West (Lagos in particular). “Yeah,” Lagos was jamming and everybody felt like bursting loose, the Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers way. Friday Jumbo had called it quit with Fela’s Africa ‘70 Band joining the flamboyant Joni Haastrup and Kenneth Okulolo to form the group Monomono. A whole lot of these stuffs have been digitally re-waxed and reproduced on CD. The pure funk of Ofo & The Black Company’s “Allah Wakbarr” recently compiled alongside William Onyeabor, Joni Haastrup and Monomono, Afro Funk, Strangers’ “Survival,” Matata’s “Wanna Do My Thing” including The Funkees “Love Rock” makes one “wanna holla” whenever I hear these masterpieces.

It’s all good vibes, especially when one remembers the legendary vocalist, Spud Nathan, whose life was cut short by the nasty sting of bad roads on Njaba Bridge deliberately neglected by Ukpabi Asika’s administration. But hey, at least, Nathan got this far with hits that changed the pop world in the East and beyond. I’m still spinning his good old vibes; those powerful lyrics that made the girls had an instant crush on us the hippies. Now, I don’t mean the kind of sixties hippies that swept through the United States and Europe on a counterculture revolution. We were just “hippies.” We obeyed our parents—had our routine confessions and attended mass on Sundays as prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church--did the right thing and kept intact the cultural heritage of our forebears, not the kind of Woodstock hippies that rebelled against the establishment.

By the way, why is Tirogo “Everybody Loves Funky Lagos” popping up? I heard of this funked-up group when Jacob Akinyemi Johnson (JAJ) was on primetime at Radio Nigeria 2, AM/FM Stereo; so to speak, the way these party animals bragged about it and made something out of it; which made Lagos the New York City of Africa. “Yeah,” Lagos was really jamming, back in the day!

Enter “Machine Gun.” Many of my peers thought Machine Gun was a name of a musical group not knowing it was a cut from the Commodores debut titled “Machine Gun,” which melted every teen of that era. “Machine Gun” was the opening act for the Commodores’ long journey that would span nearly a decade before Lionel Richie’s solo projects. The album is still selling and the Commodores, believe it or not, are taking every royalty to the bank, unlike the case of our wretched musicians who are not only in penury through bad business decisions but denied royalty by pirates and bootleggers who copied every bit of their song with impunity.

The Commodores met as freshmen at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama where they began singing and playing instruments to entertain the girls. It was just a pastime until local businessman Benny Ashburn discovered such magnificent talents with potentials to blow up. And, of course, they did. After opening gigs for the Jackson Five in 1971, Berry Gordy who ran Motown efficiently signed these lads from Tuskegee and the rest would be history. Everything the Commodores touched turned gold and hits upon hits carried them through over the years.

The band’s early years at Tuskegee had Lionel Richie on saxophone; Thomas McClary on Guitar; Milan Williams on keyboards; Walter “Clyde” Orange on drums; William King on trumpet and Ronald LaPread on bass. They produced hits and club numbers without winning a Grammy until the exit of Richie when British born J.D. Nicholas of Heatwave was invited to replace Richie’s powerful chords. “Night Shift,” a tribute to Marvin Gaye was then produced and Commodores finally won a Grammy Award.

We use to sing that song verbatim at party jams waving our handkerchiefs and raising our hands and it echoed something like this:

Marvin, he was a friend of mine
And he could sing a song
His heart in every line
Marvin sang of the joy and pain
He opened up our minds
And I still can hear him say
Aw talk to me so you can see
What’s going on
Say you will sing your songs
Forever, evermore

Gonna be some sweet sounds
Coming down on the night shift
I bet you’re singing proud
Oh I bet you’ll pull a crowd
Gonna be a long night
On the night shift
Oh you found another home
I know you are not alone
On the night shift…

That was how it wrapped up through the eighties with the magic tough of Nicholas which made its Grammy nomination inevitable. Oh, by the way, I got to go now. The month has just ended and you know what’s up.

Life At Deswab & Samaka Studios

In 2000, when my cousin, Daniel was visiting from London, we had gone to Ralphs Market to buy some groceries and I bumped into Omari George who had told me a studio is in the making and I should come on down and get it going. I had rented an old store and converted it to a recording studio on Washington Blvd. in Los Angeles. The whole idea was to groom some inner city kids as hip hop artists, disc jockeys, dancers and other forms of entertainment in Hollywood. And that's how Seth "School Boy" Hall was hired to produce for Samaka and Deswab Studios. This interview was conducted after The Crews debut in 2005. Part of this interview has been edited for length and clarity.


How did you get into all this production stuff?

Man, you know I have been trying to do music long time ago before hip hop became the real deal. When I was a kid, hip hop ain’t big so we listened and played R&B all the time in our house. And growing up in the hood, it got to be tough. You have to be strong to get your shit right. I use to visit studios around LA and Compton a lot and I’ll be buying time to put my stuff on tape. I do my stuff, make some change and head to the studio to make my beats because it is the real shit.

What is the real “shit”?

Rap music…hip hop, that’s what I am saying.

When you talk about hip hop and rap music, I’m not sure if that is appropriate considering the time; unless we are talking about going with the flow with fast-changing musical genres. Rap music was not officially born until 1979 when Sugar Hill Gang came up with “Rapper’s Delight,” and now the rest is history. How did you come up with the idea of producing rap music and what is generally known now as hip hop?

Well, Los Angeles has a great performance culture and the music really got to change as the flow goes…you see what I’m saying and you feel me? Moreover, Sugar Hill Gang which been around since the late 70s ain’t nothing new and that’s old school, bro, you feel me? I like Sugar Hill Gang though but rap ain’t come from East Coast. You and I know the best rappers are the ones that lived on the Westside, bro, and who rapped more than 2Pac…. This East-Coast-West-Coast gangbanging shit is all about the recording companies and how they compete and make their own money. ID came up with Deswab Studios, you came up Samaka Music and The Crew popped up, and an album was released. And we been underground all the time putting our little stuff together. And you and ID been doing a whole lotta stuff for us in the studio helping us put all the shit together. We want you guys to continue. Give us the opportunity and we not gonna fail. You see what I am saying?

I consider Tupac Shakur one of the new generation of rappers after Sugar Hill Gang, Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and the list goes on and on when rap became the trend. Why are you bent on Tupac and not mentioning rap’s origin?

Tupac was a great teacher. A great guy. He was well educated and this teacher side of him heated all the stuff up and that stuff were all in constant conflict. You’d expect that someone would come from the ghetto, raised in the hood and know no damn thing and eventually assume gentility, keeping listeners on edge including the opposite, the politicians. They listened to him but with his nature he died violently. He had character. He had guts and he gang banged. He had talent. You see what I am saying?

Let’s talk about The Crew. Where are you folks going with it? I mean not much has been done and I am beginning to get worried about the fights, the women, alcohol and all that weed smoking stuff. It bothers me and how do you plan to keep these things in check?

A lot comes with life in the studio, bro. It is a challenge and it is like this initiation stuff we all have to go through like a ritual. It is a competition. The girls got to do their stuff and do their thing. You feel me? The guys like Leo, J J, Ali Baba, Charles, Joe Morgan all got to do their thing. Even Joe who makes beats, mixing and shit like that got to do his thing. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Gangsta rap started from Compton and the following is big, bro!

But the West Coast rap as a following is not the ideal of how it all began. Easy E, NWA and that entire gangsta rap makes it unsafe for the kids in the hood which ends up learning the bad way. Do you think the kind of rap you are advocating is good for society?

It all depends on what you mean, bro. For a while, you know West Coast rap was the bomb and it tipped the continent that way. When NWA say ‘fuck you,’ they want you to understand how they feel and what they are saying is you have to learn how to understand them; and when they say ‘fuck you’ they mean no harm but to learn their way. You feel me? Like we say in the studio ‘what’s up my nigga’? we mean no harm, bro. All we are showing is love. You know what I’m saying?

“What’s up, my nigga” depicts street jargon and shouldn’t influence a breakthrough both in the underground and mainstream rap in today’s highly competitive music business. Don’t you think so?

Nah! I don’t think so King Ambrose. 2Pac, Ice Cube, NWA, Yoyo, Ice T all had gangster roots. They have ghetto roots. They were all on the streets from one time to another and look at what they did. Ice Cube and 2Pac they are gangster rappers and successful filmmakers and actors. See what they did. One from the hood in Compton and the other from the jungle…Survival, man! You know what I am saying? It gows with the territory and that’s why we The Crew keep pushing it.

Pushing what?

The underground way. One day we are going to blow up. You know what I am saying.

Last week while we hanged out at the Viper Room in Hollywood, you guys sneaked out to inhale some stuff. I thought you stopped.

When you’re 15 and you start smoking weed every single day and don’t let up for years…I began to struggle with severe depersonalization, where nothing seems real. You know what I am saying? You don’t think you are actually alive. You basically meltdown the DNA of your personalities. It took me years to figure out why I would still want to exist, let alone function in front of others. That recovery will always be part of The Crew story.

Did you check into a rehab?

Well, never, really. The day you disassemble your psyche on weed is the first day of the rest of your life. Weed is good for the soul. It is a religious agent. It’s not for abusing, it’s for learning. To this day I’m still trying to piece together my mind. Mine is not a cautionary tale. It’s something I will do again. It’s like destroying oneself to find out what’s at the bottom. You know what I’m saying?

Was it more than just weed?

Yeah, you try everything, and almost systemically. Luckily I was never addicted to anything that totally destroyed me, because that, in itself, is completely boring and has nothing to do with good art. You’re merely trying to push yourself around, see what’s already going on in you that are obscured now. A sober mindset can be one of the biggest enemies in your life. I’m scared of sober people. I think they actually a dangerous entity.

How did your father end up living in Watts?

There’s a move called Scarface that explains the story of what happened in Watts. All of Freeway Ricky drug money came through there, but before that it was a hippie jungle and my dad…I was so young, I don’t know what he was doing, but there is one amazing story where he accidentally brought an international diamond thief posing as Al B Sure into the country. My dad was living with Cynthia at the time and she fell in love with the thief. That said, I’m probably not even supposed to say what the other families around me were doing. I was baby-sat by these people.