TRANSATLANTIC TIMES: World News Report
December 26, 2006
Washington, DC, USA
A. JAMES BROWN SOUL 'GODFATHER' DIES
B. UMAR SHEHU YAR'ADUA GETS PDP CANDIDACY
C. GIBSON SAYS 'GET OVER IT'
D. NORTH OR SOUTH PDP QUEST DOWN TO 17
James Brown Soul 'Godfather' dies
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ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.
Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.
Copsidas said Brown's family was being notified of his death and that the cause was still uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said.
Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him.
His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.
If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator. (Watch the "Hardest Working Man in Show Business" do his thing)
"James presented obviously the best grooves," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. "To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close."
His hit singles include such classics as "Out of Sight," "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Out Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.
"I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black," Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. "The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society."
He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.
'Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown' He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life. Brown, who lived in Beech Island near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer. After his release on in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music.
From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business."
With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince.
In 1986, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling.
Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. "The music out there is only as good as my last record," Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," he told the AP in 2003.
Born in poverty in Barnwell, South Carolina, in 1933, he was abandoned as a 4-year-old to the care of relatives and friends and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Georgia, in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it. There he learned to wheel and deal.
"I wanted to be somebody," Brown said.
By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Georgia, for breaking into cars.
While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.
In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later "Please, Please, Please" was in the R&B Top Ten.
While most of Brown's life was glitz and glitter, he was plagued with charges of abusing drugs and alcohol and of hitting his third wife, Adrienne.
In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta office. Police said he asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom.
Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck.
Brown received a six-year prison sentence. He spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program before being paroled in February 1991. In 2003, the South Carolina parole board granted him a pardon for his crimes in that state.
Soon after his release, Brown was on stage again with an audience that included millions of cable television viewers nationwide who watched the three-hour, pay-per-view concert at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.
Adrienne Brown died in 1996 in Los Angeles at age 47. She took PCP and several prescription drugs while she had a bad heart and was weak from cosmetic surgery two days earlier, the coroner said.
More recently, he married his fourth wife, Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers. The couple had a son, James Jr.
Two years later, Brown spent a week in a private Columbia hospital, recovering from what his agent said was dependency on painkillers. Brown's attorney, Albert "Buddy" Dallas, said singer was exhausted from six years of road shows.
UMAR SHEHU YAR'ADUA GETS PDP CANDIDACY, Good luck Jonathan a stroke of good luck for Vice.
GOVERNOR Umar Musa Yar’Adua of Katsina State virtually clinched the nomination among the 12 Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, aspirants participating in the party’s presidential primaries for PDP convention last night. The Katsina governor was clearly in the lead as most of the votes counted as at 10 p.m. were cast in his favour.
General Aliyu Gusau, Brigadier-General Buba Muhammed Marwa and Professor Jerry Gana were trailing behind while the eight other presidential aspirants who remained in the race after the party’s seven governors pulled out of the contest on Friday virtually had no votes. The other aspirants at press time include Mrs. Sarah Jibril, Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, Vice Admiral Mike Akhigbe and Mr. Bitrus Sawa. Others are Major General Mamman Kontagora, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe and Chief Rochas Okorocha.
Analysts were already looking beyond victory for Yar’Adua in the PDP presidential primaries last night as the next assignment for the ruling party leadership, according to them, was how to find a suitable running mate for the Katsina governor ahead of the 2007 presidential election. The vice presidential candidate will invariably come from the South. But whether the running mate will come from the ranks of the PDP governors as has been done in the case of Yar’Adua is another thing altogether.
As the counting of votes continued at the PDP convention yesterday, facts emerging on the primaries indicated that the pursuit of a soft landing may have informed the decision of the party’s governors to adopt the candidacy of Yar’Adua for the presidency on the eve of the convention.
Sunday Vanguard also gathered, as exclusively published by Vanguard last Thursday, that the choice of consensus candidacy as adopted by the governors stemmed from the tactics of arm twisting adopted by the Presidency.
Penultimate week had seen the arrest of some officials of Rivers State government. Infact, just last Tuesday, the speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, who had also been alleged to have muscled Odili into adopting him as the sole gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in the state for the 2007 polls was arrested by men of the EFCC. As at press time, he was still being held.
The choice for a running mate was also decided, names considered included candidate from the South South and South East regions, it included Charles Saludo governor of the central bank, Mike Akhigbe, Donald Duke of Cross River State, Edmund Daukoru Petroleum Minister, Andy Uba presidential aide, and a score of other unnamed candidates, which included many governors from Peter Odili of River State, to James Ibori of Delta State, Sam Egwu of Ebonyi. With all the chips down, the loyal disposition of the Bayelsa State governor Goodluck Jonathan was the choice of Umar Shehu Yar'Adua and the party elite. The stage is now set for the show down in 2007.
Gibson Says 'Get Over It'
By Marco R. della Cava
"You got me at the wrong time. I'm probably a bit surly in the morning," Mel Gibson says. "I'm surly early."
Though as mornings go, Thursday cast a soft light on a man more accustomed to glare: Gibson's Apocalypto had just gotten a Golden Globe nomination for foreign-language film and was riding the week out as box office champ.
"Ah yes, the Golden Globes, it's nice, flattering," says Gibson, tweaking the awards' name.
He added that he's not concerned by his film's modest $15 million take. "I knew it wouldn't be like Passion (of the Christ, which earned $360 million worldwide), so this will just take a little more time to make its money back," he says. "I think it's lucky it got to No. 1. It was a soft weekend."
If Gibson sounds vaguely humble, don't be fooled. The director leaves no doubt about his feelings for those who assail his movies or his actions. When it's suggested that perhaps he move away from Hollywood, Gibson doesn't hesitate: "They can move."
Gibson and Tinseltown have been locked in an awkward dance since his double-Oscar triumph for 1995's Braveheart. First came his controversial take on Jesus' final hours and, more recently, a drunken-driving incident in which he railed that Jews were the cause of all wars. Now, with Apocalypto, come charges of excessive violence.
"I don't understand all the heat," says Gibson. "It's less violent than Braveheart, and yet they're calling it blood porn. To make it personal against me, that's a low blow."
Gibson concedes that his pre-Columbian chase scene-cum-love story does have nasty turns, as when a man gets his face chewed off by a jaguar, "but it's appropriate to the subject matter."
He dismisses charges that the film doesn't linger long enough on the cultural contributions of Mayan civilization. "That's on the History Channel, right?" Beat. "Seriously, I show you glyphs and temples and incredible architecture. It's there if you look. In the end, though, the main objective is to tell that story."
With Apocalypto's current success, Gibson's own Hollywood story remains on track, despite calls from the likes of super-agent Ari Emanuel for him to be shunned.
1 climber found dead in 2nd snow caveAstronauts prep for fourth spacewalkColo. may limit oil and gas emissionsPaparazzi sues celeb blogger for $7.6MTomlinson breaks Hornung's single-season scoring record "This place isn't like a club where you're in or you're out," says Gibson. "It's a sprawling place that you make of what you will. It's not a glee club, that's for sure."
He says he feels some empathy for Michael Richards, whose recent comedy club tirade against blacks finds him in the entertainment community's cross hairs. "He snapped, what are you going to do. … You don't always have to be picked to be off the hook."
Gibson says his next project is unknown ("It'll germinate"), and though he'd consider acting, "I'm not really anxious to jump up there again. … Maybe I'll just go get a dartboard tattoo on my chest."
The non- sequitur is revealing; Gibson's thoughts often return to the shake he's getting in his field.
"I'm doing well," he says. "But how many people do you know get a DUI and are kicked around for six months? It's out of proportion. I'm not saying I wasn't at fault. Hey, we're not perfect, we're all human, get over it. I've apologized, done the right thing, now get the hell over it. I'm a work in progress."
NORTH OR SOUTH PDP QUEST DOWN TO 17
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PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday declared that he would tell his delegates to the PDP presidential primaries slated for Saturday in Abuja who to vote for among the array of contestants. Addressing the delegates at the gubernatorial primaries at the MKO Abiola Stadium Abeokuta, Obasanjo said that he would be meeting with delegates from Ogun to the national convention to tell them who to vote for.
“Next (this) week, I don’t know whether I am going to meet those of you coming to Abuja because I don’t know how the programme will be. But I will tell you the right path and the one which is the bush”.
Receiving a huge applause from the delegates, the president, who stated that yesterday’s meeting with the delegates would not be his last, said that he would definitely meet with them before the convention.
He explained that he had been apprehensive that no one would contest against Daniel which he said would not have been good for the democratic process. “I am happy today. You know why? I was afraid because I did not want a one horse race.
Atiku, Babangida and Buhari
Atiku Abubakar, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari. The three were together in Minna, the Niger State capital. They needed to be there. The issue at stake had become a common but pathetically mutually exclusive nature.
For whatever any Nigerian politician may say today, the only political party of the Nigerian hue which has the largest collection of individuals (and preponderantly so) is the PDP.In fact, from what politicians themselves say, only an incurable optimist would still be in doubt as to which political party in Nigeria would form the government next year.
Where will the party zone the ticket? Which part of the country would produce the next presidential candidate of
PDP? This is coming after Obasanjo’s two terms of eight years.
Today, Atiku is not so much of a member of the PDP as he would of any other political party.
Even George, just last Wednesday, made it clear that the vice president would never have anything to do in the party again. Atiku is on suspension from the PDP.
The courts, just on Friday, declared that his suspension from the PDP is null and void. But, typically, the PDP would carry on.
2006: One ticket too significant
There are still flickers that the ticket may be open. However, with developments in Rivers State barely 48 hours to the gubernatorial primaries and some nine days to the PDP presidential primaries, the insinuation that the presidency is backing Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to take over next year may be real.
In terms of reach and networking, he has demonstrated that for every human endeavour, there is always a time to reap the benefits of labour. But, with the storming of Port Harcourt by the indefatigable men of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, last Thursday, market place rumour is that Odili is being muscled.
Although there is General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, a man described as a spy of global standing, who served as Obasanjo’s National Security Adviser from June 1, 1999, to June 1, 2006, whose campaign has also been reaching for the skies, the sudden swooping on Rivers State is instructive.
There are 30 presidential aspirants in PDP - 14 from the north and 16 from The list of viable candidates have actually dropped to about 15 candidates and it spected to drop further to about 7 candidates going to the Saturday event in Abuja.
Prof Jerry Gana (N) Godson Nnaka (S) Gen Aliyu Gusau (rtd) (N)
Gen Mohammed Marwa (rtd) (N) Admiral Mike Akhigbe (rtd) (S) Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (rtd) (S)
Gen Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) (N) Gen Mamman Kontagora (rtd) (N)
Governor Abdullahi Adamu (N) Governor Umaru Yar‘Adua (N)
Governor Peter Odili (S)
Governor Victor Attah (S)
Governor Donald Duke (S)
Governor Achike Udenwa (S)
Governor Sam Egwu (S)
Governor Ahmed Makarfi (N)
Governor Adamu Mu‘azu (N)
The southern and northern charge is zoning the cart before the horse.
Which one should come first: Redressing the real injustices of the past decades; or sticking to a supposed pact which does not have any proof of life or agreement? But, this is the PDP where, as a party, it only came into existence in November 1998.
But PDP operates in Nigeria and is, therefore, expected to take cognisance of happenings within the country.
The topsy-turvy presently characterising the debate in the PDP over which part of the country should produce the next president in 2007 is quite healthy but if mismanaged may create its own problems.
Now, the questions are:
First, should Nigerians just be fixated on a zoning arrangement that may end up not doing the country any serious good?, or should they focus on the candidate.
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK, SELECT A CANDIDATE AND GIVE YOUR COMMENTS.
EMAIL: editor@transatlantictimes.com
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Her are results PDP GOVERNOR PRIMARIES
1. BUKOLA SARAKI - KWARA STATE
2. GOODLUCK JONATHAN - BAYELSA STATE
3. ALHAJI KASHIM IMAM - BORNO STATE
4. DANJUMA GOJE - GOMBE STATE
5. GBENGA DANIELS - OGUN STATE
6. SEGUN AGAGU - ONDO STATE
7. ANDY UBA - ANAMBRA STATE
8. CHIBUIKE AMECH - RIVER STATE
9. OSUNBOR OSI - EDO STATE
10. MARTIN ELECHI - EBONYI STATE
11. OLAGUNSOYE OYINLOLA - OSUN STATE
ABIA, BENUE, DELTA, PLATEAU, NASARAWA, NIGER POSTPONES
WHILE EKITI, KATSINA, LAGOS INCOMPLETE
OTHER STATE ARE STILL PENDING.
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