CHARITY : The J-Dilla Foundation

      "Dilla was about love in many formats", Maureen stated. "One of the things he wanted me to do with his legacy was to use it to help others... kids who were musically gifted but had a little hope due to poverty". Therefore, Maureen Yancey created The J-Dilla Foundation in 2006, to help fund inner-city music programs and provide scholarships to students attending school that have progressive music curricula.

      James Dewit Yancey, better known by his stage name 'Jay Dee' or 'J-Dilla', was a producer who emerged in the 90's from the underground hip-hop scene of Detroit in Michigan. According to a lot of people, he was one of the most influential hip-hop artists, and he worked with big-name rappers like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes and Common. J-Dilla was a real music lover, collecting ton and ton of records. Unfortunately, he died from complications with Lupus and rare blood disease TTP. Dilla's death has had a significant impact on the hip-hop community and his mother, better known by the name of 'Ma Duke', decided to create the J-Dilla Foundation right after her son passed away in February 2006. A couple of months after, the foundation was put on hold due to legal issues with J-Dilla's estate, but it was reestablished in 2009 in Detroit, the hometown of the Yancey family.

      The idea of this foundation is to create and provide progressive programs to students in order to develop their talent and creativity. Giving them the tools and support they need, the foundation helps children to flourish and become successful within the entertainment industry. Different programs were designed. The 'Pay It Forward' program provides financial support to local music programs. The foundation will give money to cover needs such as transportation, uniforms and vital equipment. The 'Be Instrumental' program have been collecting used instruments and equipments, and ensure that where there is a child with a desire to create music, he has the opportunity to do it. The foundation also has a dedicated partnership with inner city high school and community music programs. It supports them by providing instruments, editing and production software and equipments.
      Because of J-Dilla's renown, a lot of famous hip-hop artists such as Busta Rhymes, Common, De La Soul or Erykah Badu are involved in the foundation. In 2009, a posthumous album titled 'Jay Stay Paid' was released and a part of the benefits were donated to the foundation. Concerts, festivals and art contests have been organized not only in United States, but also all over the world in order to make money. The J-Dilla foundation also developed a huge network of partnership and sponsoring with a lot of brands. For example, last February, Grassroots California released the official 'King of Beats' J-Dilla hat to donate back to the foundation. Maureen Yancey and the mother of J-Dilla's youngest daughter, Joylette Hunter, are working together to keep the name and the legacy of J-Dilla alive in the hip-hop community and throughout the world.

      I can not say how much I like the idea of this foundation. I am a real fan of Dilla's work and music, especially hip-hop, has a huge place in my life. I think it is really important for those children who live in poverty, to escape their ghetto and their daily routine, and I have the strong conviction that music is one of the best ways. I hope the J-Dilla foundation will continue to help children and, why not also expand their activities in poor countries in Africa.

HISTORICAL STRUCTURE : Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviere

      If there is something you can not miss when you are visiting Lyon, my hometown in France, it is the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière. By its dominating position on top of Fourvière Hill, the Basilica can be seen from almost everywhere in the city. After many years, it became a iconic building and a real symbol of Lyon.

      In 1168, a little chapel was built on the top of Fourvière Hill by Olivier de Chavannes, dedicated to Saint Thomas and then, to the Virgin Mary. Due to an increasing number of pilgrims in this chapel, Cardinal Bonald decided to build a new church. The construction began in December 1872, following the design of the architect Pierre Bossan, drawn from both Romanesque and Byzantine architecture. The basilica contains two churches, one on top of the other. While the lower is simply designed, the upper sanctuary is very ornate, with a lot of beautiful mosaics, sculptures and stained glass. The monument was completely finished almost a hundred years after, in 1964 and became a basilica through the benediction of Pope Léon.

      In addition to being a gorgeous church, this place is really special for every Lyon citizens because of a lot of mystical stories. All over the years, three major wishes were made in this place, and all were achieved. The first happened in 1630 when the french queen Anne d'Autriche, the Louis XIII's wife, could not have a baby and decided to come to Fourvière and pray to the Virgin Mary. A miracle came 8 years after and Louis XIV was born. I think the most important and famous story happened in 1643, while a cholera wave was killing the population of the city. Another wish was made to the Virgin Mary, to protect the city and stop the massacre. Twenty days after, the virus was gone, and the city was safe again. The last story happened in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war. The Prussian army, was progressing south towards Lyon, and a wish was made at Fourvière by Monseigneur Ginoulhiac to the Virgin Mary, to prevent the occupation of Lyon. The Prussian never took the city and after this victory, the basilica was dedicated to Mary.

      Time changed but nowadays, the basilica of Fourvière is still a place where people come to pray or confess, but it is also a tourist attraction which receives around 1.5 million visitors every year. Guided tours are organized and you can also visit the Museum of Sacred Art, or just admire the spectacular 180-degree view of Lyon and its suburbs. There is also big traditional event related to this iconic building. Lyon citizens still thank the Virgin Mary for saving them by lightening candles throughout the city every 8th of March. We call it the Festival of Lights and people from all over the country come to see it.

      As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, The basilica of Fourvière will continue to attract tourists from all over the world. The building is in renovation since 2008 to keep the magic going, and with the Virgin Mary as protector, Lyon can build its future serenely.

View from the Basilica

The upper sanctuary

GREAT INVENTION : The Turntable

Today, who doesn't have an iPod or other mp3 player? Almost everybody. For a lot of people, the "digital music" is one of the greatest invention of the last years. So maybe I should write something about this kind of new music support but... no, because I'm an old-fashion man. Of course like everybody, I have a mp3 player because it's really useful to listen to music everywhere, but I don't consume music like food, I'm a real music lover (especially hip-hop) and collector. Yes, we are in 2012 and I still buy CDs, tapes and records. The invention I want to talk about is the turntable which is the device I use to play my vinyl records. I just put a record on on it, press the "Play" button and enjoy the music.

There is nothing better than listen to the sound from records... The sound quality is totally different from all the mp3 you have on your laptop : it's warm and living! And it's possible to feel this difference only with a turntable as a listening device. That's why I like it. The turntable is an old invention used to play old music but it also has developed year by year thanks to the new technologies. That's how today, almost every turntable includes new functions like "pitch control" or "reverse" which are very useful especially for DJs.

Turntables are used by records lover like me, but nowaday, DJs, and especially hiphop DJs, are the biggest potential customers for the turntable market. They usually use turntables to mix music and make people dancing. But I want to focus my writing on another alternative use of turntables : the turntablism. This word was created by the greatest DJ Babu to differentiate DJ who plays records and DJ who manipulates the sound touching and moving records and DJ mixer. In other terms, turntablism is the art of creating sound using turntables and DJ mixer, or the art of using turntable as an instrument. This discipline is now structured and organized with a lot of battles and worldwide competitions. I think the most interesting part when we talk about an invention is to see how people can change the principal using of a device to build something new and fresh, to create their own invention finally. That's all the magic of turntables...

Even if turntables are slowly disappearing, I hope passionates will continue to use this kind of music player because, music is all about passion.

BONUS : if you want to learn more about turntablism, I found on youtube the excellent and really interesting documentary Scratch which is about first DJs, fresh culture of turntablism and future of shufflin' vinyls. Here is the whole movie for you, enjoy it :

Nature VS Nurture

The nature versus nurture debate is about the differences between our innate qualities (nature) and our personal experiences (nurture). It's clear that physical characteristics are hereditary : this is what we call the nature. Everybody knows that we got certain parts of our body, like the color of our eyes, from our parents. But what about our sens of humor or our talent to play tennis? It's difficult to say that our behaviour, intelligence or personality are determinated by our DNA, some people believe that it's much by our personnal experience : this is what we call the nurture.

The phrase "nature VS nurture" is usually used to talk about the roles of heredity and environment in human development. Some people believe that we behave as we do according to genetic predispositions, and other believe that we think and behave in certain ways because our personnal experience. Some scientists has recently made it clear that both sides are partly right. Nature gives us inborn abilities and traits and nurture takes these genetic tendencies and changes them as we learn.

In my opinion, I believe in the nurture theorie. I don't talk about our physical characteristics because it's clear that they come from our DNA. But I think that everything that happens to us is determinated by our parental education and our family environnement. For example, an only child are usually more capricious than other children because his parents usually give him everything what he wants. Moreover, researches prove that many violent people (criminals, rapists...) suffered of violent acts during their youth.
Anyway, the "nature vs nurture" debate still rages on, as people fight over how much we are shaped by genes and how much by the environment.

99 Problems?

I just want to react about a new I read early in this afternoon on the web. It was about the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. Everybody knows that a lot of famous people (rappers as Kany West, Lupe Fiasco, Immortal Technique or Talib Kweli) join the movement, manifesting their support to all the citizens in the street.

But there is one of them who wanted to make benefits on the OWS movement : Hova aka Jay-Z! How take advantage from the 99%? The Jigga's Roccawear clothing brand launched an OWS themed "Occupy All Streets" t-shirt last Friday. It could be a good initiative to make money for the movement, but the problem is that Hova had no intention of donating any money from the shirts' sales to the cause... "To attempt to profit off of the first important social moment of 50 years with an overpriced piece of cotton is an insult to the fight for economic civil rights known as #occupywallstreet" said Grim, one of the leaders of the Occupy movement. By Saturday afternoon, the t-shirt disappeared from the Roccawear webside but according to Global Grind, Roccawear have no intention to stop selling the t-shirt... Shame on you Mr Shawn Corey Carter!

In my opinion, I'm totally agree with the cause and I respect all the people in the street who want to fight for their civil rights. But I'm not really sure staying in the street is the right way to change the economic system... Today, the NY police cleared the Occupy camp arresting about 200 more people...

Chewbacca

I found this video on the web this morning and I liked it because it's so cool and moreover, it's from an hip-hop group I really like : Random Axe. That's why I decided to write about this band and this video :

Random Axe is a group formed by Black Milk, Guilty Simpson from Detroit, and Sean Price who is a native from Brooklyn, NY. They all have consistent solo discographies but they decided to release a common album this year and it was finally out last June 14th, on Duck Down Music. This New York based label also established famous rappers as Pharoahe Monch, 9th Wonder & Buckshot, KRS-One & Buckshot, B-Real of Cypress Hill (solo), Heltah Skeltah & Boot Camp Clik. All the tracks of this album, self-titled "Random Axe", are produced by Black Milk who is one of my favorite producer from Detroit (After the late J Dilla of course... I'm going to talk about him on next post). These 3 dudes are also very considered when they are behind a microphone, they have a strong underground reputation.

About this video, I found it very cool cause Chewy : I'm also a fan of Star Wars saga... In the video, Chewbacca is a die-hard Random Axe fan. Watch as he gets ready to see the group perform at Rock The Bells (San Fransico, CA) and is bold enough to join them for a performance on stage after knocking out a security guard. lol. I like it, it's so funny!! This song, features Long Island, NY based rapper Roc Marciano, is one of my favorite song of the album with its aerial beat!

If you like, buy it! Support artists!

Here are the cover and the tracklist : 

01. Zoo Drugs
02. Random Call
03. Black Ops feat. Fat Ray
04. Chewbacca feat. Roc Marciano
05. The Hex
06. Understand This
07. Everybody, Nobody, Somebody
08. Jahphy Joe feat. Melanie Rutherford & Danny Brown
09. The Karate Kid
10. Never Back Down
11. Monster Babies
12. Shirley C feat. Fatt Father
13. Another One feat. Rock & Trick Trick
14. 4 In The Box
15. Outro Smoutro

Family member (350 words)

Let me introduce you my little brother : His name is Lionel and he is 22 years old. He was born in the same place as me, in Lyon, and we live together with our parents. Lot of people tell me that he looks like me, and I agree about that, but it was not the case when we are young. He had a big head with long brown curly hair and his cheeks was big like an hamster eating nuts (lol) ... he was so cute! I remember that I wanted to kiss him every days, but he rejected me all the times : he had a very bad character, even now! At first sight, he seems to be very shy, and I think he is, but he is also very susceptible and he could be angry and excited very quickly... I remember the time when I teased him that he get angry... I was very vicious at this time! (lol)

As me, my brother played soccer and he was a great player, better than me, but a very bad ankle injury kept him out of soccer fields for a long time. So he renounced to his soccer career, and he began to smoke... I told him that it was bad for him but he was on his teenage crisis at this period, and he didn't listen to me.

As me, my brother likes hip hop and electronic musics, but he's not so curious as me. He don't like to dig some new sounds or new artists, he prefers to steal my CDs which I just buy...!!! I don't like that but it's a way to share something with him, so usually, I say nothing.

Lionel was a very bad student... Unlike me, he never like school, even if he was a child! That's why he decided to get a physical job. Now he's working as a landscaper for the city of Lyon and, sometimes, he makes some extrajobs for people to make more money. His job is hard because he have to carry chainsaw, climb trees or drive mowers, but that's why my brother is stronger than me now and I don't want to fight withe him ;-)