The Evolution Has Come: Long Live Oscar Grant

Wednesday, January 14, 2008, Oakland, CA

Today, like last Wednesday was electric, inspiring and empowering. Oakland stood up and demanded justice. In a collective outcry we all shouted "I AM OSCAR GRANT" as we followed youth leaders like Franceyez Jackson in a peaceful rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza. After hearing the words of very spirited OG's like Dereca Blackmon and Tony Coleman, we marched peacefully but intently all the way to the District Attorney's office. United under a banner of justice, unity and strength, we showed BART, The Oakland Police Department and our clown mayor that the people of Oakland, California are an organized body of nonconformist activists that will no longer sit still for the massacre of our young black men. Despite subconscious fear tactics ensued by the powers that be such as choppers overhead and a mobilized police force in full riot gear, we moved with love and force. Families, community leaders and everyday civilians all transformed into freedom fighters today. Moved by messages from Too Short, Mark Curry and Oscar Grant's grandfather and coach, today we celebrated truth. Demanding the prosecution of all the Bay Area Racist Transit police officers involved in Oscar Grant's apprehension and murder. We are now an organized and orderly mass of civil dissenters. I urge everyone reading this to get down with CAPE (Coalition Against Police Execution) if you aren't already. This can be done by emailing joincape@gmail.com or calling 415-748-1556. You can also find us at Facebook and Myspace and I strongly suggest you all join this movement. This is not a sedentary moment in time for we have not yet won. We soon shall win but we gotta keep pushing. We have to make sure that another Johannes Mehserle action does not take place as we have to make an example of him. An arrest is not enough as murder can easily be delineated to manslaughter and if you read between their stutters, it's written all over their lips.

This would have been a perfect moment in time, if all that took place was our triumphant display of noncompliance with injustice. But of course that's not all that happened....

When will we learn to stay completely disciplined and stick to the script? The mainstream media won tonight. They got the ratings they wanted tonight. They have once again sensationalized the situation. They spent the last few hours, from 8pm to now, reporting the rioting and damaging of the stores near Frank Ogawa Plaza. Very little talk of the peaceful protest, and the drummers and the unity. Very little commenting on the presence of reputable agencies like Leadership Excellence and Ella Baker Center downtown but tons of footage of Jamba Juice, Wells Fargo and Club One store windows broken. It's all good though, We got footage and I'm finna share some soon. Nonetheless let's keep it rocking. Let this be a full wake up call and start to unite for real, from the heart. It's time to put aside our petty differences and become selfless and become one. We have to really support one other and get behind all who work to heal our community. One such entity is Cov Records and they need our help. Their 28th and Telegraph location is being shut down this Friday, January 16, 2009. Mind you now Cov Records has been serving 30-50 youth per day, every week for the past 6 years. And as they seek to transition their community-based music and video production center into a Green Youth Media Center they can really use your support. As a matter of fact Grind For The Green and Destined Nation Media are major partners of that center and we beseech you to please help in this effort as much as you can. They need financial support and contributions can be made at support@artinactinworld.org.

Also several healing events will be taking place this Saturday, January 17, 2009 where we can reflect and honor Oscar Grant and our movement. I will be hosting and performing at one of these events called Cultivating Town Solidarity that will take place at Merritt College's Huey P. Newton Auditorium located at 12500 Campus Drive in Oakland from 12:30pm - 5:00pm. This event is being presented by Oakland Leaf, BUMP, Youth Movement Records, Cov Records, Art In Action, Weekend Wake Up and with me, Grind For The Green and Destined Nation Media is supporting it. Please join us in this day of unity and culture.
Three other Day of Remembrance events will be going on as well in Oakland at:

East Oakland Youth Development Center - 8200 International Blvd. (East Oakland)
Arise Charter School - 3709 E. 12 St. (Fruitvale)
Poplar Recreation Center - 3131 Union St. (West Oakland)

These event will all take place between the hours of 12pm - 4pm. Finally there will also be a March for Justice coming up on MLK Day this Monday, January 19, 2009. It will assemble at 11:30am at West Oakland Bart and will begin promptly at 12:00 pm. Brought to you by the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement. Check them out at www.inpdum.org.
Big up all you my comrades in this struggle, progress and evolution. Big up Zion -I, Jakada Imani, Alli Starr, AshEL Eldridge, Ryan Peters, Trinidad, Salim, Jon, Dave and the whole LE crew, KEV, Kev Choice Jennifer Johns, Ise Lyfe and everybody mentioned in this article.Let's Fight The Power and reclaim our spirits of peace, community, and justice. Let's use this current turn of events as an impetus for spiritual and communal enlightenment and empowerment.

One Love,

Ambessa Negus/Cantave aka AmTheArt
Co-Founder, Co-Owner
FIYAWATA-Grind 4 The Green (G4G) - Destined Nation Media

Grind 4 the Green: Sustainable Hip-Hop or Bust

"Broken glass everywhere, people pissin on the stairs you know they just don't care."

Any true lover of Hip-Hop can immediately identify the quote above, and if they're old enough reminisce what they were doing when they first heard it. For that matter a die hard 16 year-old hip-hop enthusiast today can probably recant the entire song with a deeply heartfelt inner serenity when they get to the famous hook "Don't push me cuz I'm close to the edge, I'm trying not to lose my head". Lyrics like these Melle Mel penned keepsakes represent an era in Hip-Hop when inner city residents went head to head against local and national government policies that brought drugs, crime, disparity, poverty and pollution into our neighborhoods. A time that made the creation of hip-hop a stark necessity. Fast forward 20 years later hip-hop is the world leader in music and a multi billion dollar industry and the blocks where it came from still have broken glass everywhere? Wait, a minute something is wrong here, how can this still be the case? Where are all the mainstream giants? The Jay Z's, The 50's, The Diddy's and Weezy's ? Who's gonna clean up the block? Who's gonna teach the kids? How come no one's doing anything to pick up the broken glass? Do they just not care? 

Oh wait, there is someone, it's the folks from Grind for the Green or G4G. It's us, no to toot our own horns but really it's us. Grind for the Green G4G is annual 4 part summer eco music festival produced for and by youth that has been initiated in the San Francisco Bay Area. With this program of ours, we've decided to address the issue of environmental racism in our neighborhoods which is part of the planet's holistic environmental problem that has been growing at an alarmingly toxic rate. In rehashing this program known once upon a time as Grind and Glory, we - Zakiya Harris and myself Ambessa Cantave hired and trained 8 Frisco and Oakland youth to throw 4 events: a music business conference, performance workshop, beat battle and solar powered concert. Thus far we've successfully executed 2 of them. Our Music Business conference which was preceded by a party at Club Mighty, had Talib Kweli as it's keynote speaker and the chief rocker at the pre-party. We busted our asses and worked literally off of 2.5 hours of sleep to see it through.  Thank God for panelists like Namane, Goapele's manager from Sky Blaze Records, Kerry Fiero of  Strive Management and Rob Collins of BAVC/BUMP, amongst others.  We also just knocked out event 2 which was a performance workshop, with topics covered by Bay Area art mavericks such as, JAHI, Do-DAT and Elefant of the Attik, Nu-Dakades and Ahsabi Monique. We as FIYAWATA just ran around like mad people. Through both of these events our eyes opened to the possibilities that lie in this kind of work which is one part music business education and ecological solutions building. In all of our events, mind you we pledge to only use recycled and recyclable food ware, stationery and other materials as part of our campaign. After these four events we will be placing about eight youth into SF State's Music Recording Industry program in the Spring and taking them on an eco-awareness raising eco-tour after that. This goes to show that no matter how braggadocios the mainstream maybe, solutions for hip-hop and our people's future, once again stems from the underground.