R2C2H2 Speaks About History, Politics, Jazz, and Art

Herd: I think blogs present the actual real mainstream of America. When I say mainstream, I'm referring to basically what people mainly talk about on a day-to-day basis. We always confuse mainstream media as i.e., corporate media. You know, the stuff that we see on TV, that's corporate media controlled by business interests and by the government. When you look at blogs and BlogTalkRadio, you're hearing the voices of the everyday citizen voicing their concerns and their opinions, giving their fellow citizens a platform to speak and be heard.

What has been the most memorable topic or person that you've had on your show?

One person that comes to mind is Dr. John Hope Franklin. This guy...he's almost a century old, but yet he only head one headache in his entire life. One headache. Being a Black man in America and the phenomenal work that he has done. I know it may not be appreciated greatly while he's alive, but that work is going to stand the test of time, and I think he really put his talent that God gave him, or whoever gave him the talent, to very good use.

You talk a lot about history, so would calling you a history buff be accurate?

Yeah. I might have a bias, but I guess so. Yes, I'm a history buff.

Where does this interest in history come from?

Well, I've always been fascinated by history. I've been a bibliophile for as long as I could talk and read. And my thing was, I remember when I was in elementary, I was the cat that read the encyclopedia. Versus reading The Cat in the Hat, I was the one in the school library checking out biographies on Andrew Jackson and David Crockett. This was back in elementary. And you know, it's funny in third grade, I wasn't making the honor roll back then, but people always thought I was the smartest person in the room because I knew a lot about the president of the United States. I thought it was interesting.

That's a good segue into my next question.In regards to the presidential nomination, who are you pulling for?

Well, I have to say, first of all, I'm just excited to be alive with this historical moment in history. I've got to say I'm pulling for Barack Hussein Obama for the president of the United States.

Do you believe the American system needs to have a three-party system with Democrats; Republicans; and Independents, or do you support the two-party system with Democrats and Republicans?

This is like mind games we're playing here because we always had more than one party. The thing about it is we go back to the corporate media. They want you to believe that there's a two-party system, but we always had Independents. You look at, back in the day, Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, but before he was Republican, he was a whig. They talk about Jeffersonian Democrats, Jacksonian Democrats, blah blah blah, blah. We always had different people running. We've got folks running like sister McKinney is running for the Green Party nomination. Ralph Nader. People like that. All these people are running, but the thing about it is the corporate media wants you to focus on two parties, when in actuality, the two parties are one party. Kinda like Reebok and Nike. They're all owned by the same people. Viacom, MTV, BET-all owned by the same people.

So if you believe the Democrats...what do you consider yourself?

Well, I'm registered as a Democrat. It don't mean too much of anything, but I'm registered as a Democrat though.

Okay, so if you believe that the Democrats and the Republicans are basically one party, what would make you want to vote for a Democrat instead of an Independent?

Well, that's a good question. The thing about it is, it's mind games 'cause people don't feel like an Independent has a shot at becoming the president. It's all psychology. It goes back to who do you see on TV most? Who do you hear on the radio most or talked about the most? I mean, you know, if you look at the bigger picture, it's more than three candidates running. I think with Democrats you got to look at, you know politics is about victory. It's not about who's right or wrong. It's not about ethics. It's not about morality. It's about who can win it. George Bush, for example, is a successful politician because he's president. He's a two-term president, and he was governor, so I mean, politics are about wins and losses. In politics, you got winners and losers. You got to be realistic and think about the very nature of politics. It's about the art of compromise, so you got everybody in there that knows the system very well and knows how to navigate through those waters and make alliances with the people across the other side of the aisle 'cause I look at Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader, you know, for a lot of people, he would be the ideal president. But at the same time, he has no experience running at that level of government. He's a consumer advocate, which is very much needed right now in today's gas epidemic and all this other stuff going on now. House shortages and subprime mortgages. We need somebody to advocate for the regular citizen, but at the same time, if that guy gets into office, he can't make any alliances with the Republicans or Democrats, and no bills get passed. No legislation gets passed. Nothing gets established 'cause it'll take more than one firm to do that even as a Democrat or as a Republican.

But going back to my original question, if you believe the Democrats and Republicans are one party, what would make you vote for a Democrat? What's so special about Obama?

It's the lesser of two evils, I guess. It's not about what you want. It's about compromise. You know, revolution is about what you want, but you know, revolutionists create the country, but moderates run the country that they create.

Why are you voting for Obama? Let me just get to that.

Why not give a Black man a chance to run the country? You look at all them Hollywood movies. Every time a Black man is a president, there's always some national crisis going on in the world. You look at "24," David Palmer. You look at "Deep Impact" with Morgan Freeman or "Head of State" with Chris Rock. There's always some type of crazy crisis going on, like right now we have tsunamis, cyclones, and tornadoes, and earthquakes, and fixed elections, and gas prices, and ethanol. With all this stuff that's happening, why not have a Black president in all this madness? The world is coming to an end anyway. I'm just joking. Just joking.

You speak about the African American community in every blog radio show, I believe. What do you feel is the biggest obstacle that African Americans have to get past in order to fully succeed, or do you feel we've reached our peak?

Well, I hope we haven't reached our peak because that means we're on our way out the door.

(Both of us laugh.)

From an artist's standpoint, it's the fact that I realize as an artist, the same issues I faced in my artistic expression are the same issues that Leonardo faced, that Picasso faced, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jacob Lawrence, name any artist from any era. See, the nature of an artist is not to solve the problem. The nature of an artist is how I get around the problem to get what I want to make my statement. I think a lot of us are too focused on the issues, the problems, instead of being more solution-oriented, which requires pro-action, not reaction. That means we must become revolutionaries, and when I say revolutionaries, I mean be strategic. Play Chess, not Checkers. Don't be so knee jerk. Be thoughtful. Be decisive. Be resolute. Be absolute. I think that's what we're doing. We're missing that ethics. That part of our experience, like when things don't go our way, instead of us whining and speaking out protesting, you know, rallying and marching is great, but if you don't build an organization to sustain that energy, so you can actually build something of worth like a platform and beyond that, what's the use of all this complaining? So I think overall, I'm not Larry Eldridge or nothing like that, I believe that you must have protests, but we almost must have action that sustains the protest, and it also sustains our community on a spiritual and economical and a physical level.

So you don't feel like protests and marches and things like that are a form of action, or can you be more specific about what you feel like the community needs to do besides marching?

Well, let me put it this way. I know Thurgood Marshall, they said he was pissed off a lot of times because of how much credit Dr. King got for the Civil Rights Movement. You look at Thurgood Marshall. He's very underappreciated by our people in America because anytime a person can go before the Supreme Court and win 29 cases out of 32 chances, that's an amazing lawyer. Twenty-nine cases out of 32 cases against White men who have their own personal issues when it comes to color and racism. For him to do that and risk his life going through the back roads of America, and having hits on his life, and for him to not get the credit that he deserves-not only that, but when you look at Dr. King, the thing that I admire most about Dr. King is the fact that he was such an eloquent speaker, but even Dr. King knew that it took more than speaking and marching to get things really changed. He had to build an organization. You know, before that, he had the Montgomery Improvement Association, where he had people organized. The people that [have] names forgotten in history, who really put their lives on the line and their livelihood in order to give a person like Dr. King the platform to speak his mind and be a symbol of change. So I look at that and think about that, and the fact that...look at our HBCUs. A lot of our historically black colleges were founded by White people. The NAACP was founded by rich White people, and you don't realize that. You think about it. Why is the NAACP the nation's oldest Civil Rights organization and the Black Panthers don't exist anymore? Why is that so? What's the last great movement of sustainment that helped Black folks in this country?

I think about, for example, the Million Man March with Farrakhan. Farrakhan was a great leader. I know every Black American doesn't agree with his issues, but the fact that he got a million or two million people to come whenever he issues a call for atonement shows the power and respect of this man, but at the same time, how did those Black folks get to DC? Whose plane did you ride? Whose bus did you ride? Whose restaurants did you eat in? Whose hotels or motels did you stay in? So the bare nature of Civil Rights and moving all this is about equity. It's about do we own anything. Where's our Black businesses? What's going on with that? You know, Dr. King's last speech in Memphis, it's about boycotting Wonder Bread, Hart's bread, Coca Cola, any place that will take your Black dollar but will not hire you as a Black worker, boycott those places. Invest in Black business, Black insurance companies. These were things he was calling for, not just, "I've been to the mountain top," but invest in your people. Invest in ourselves, and that's something we have not been doing. Yes, we got the rhetoric down, but we don't have the follow through.

Okay, so basically what you feel we need to do, in action, is basically own or try to take...claim of things that we complain about?

Yeah, own up to it. Realize that there's a problem, but what are we going to do next. You know, it's like that famous skit that Richard Pryor did when he got in the hospital. I guess he had a heart attack, and he had his best friend, Jim Brown, a great football player and activist visit him in the hospital, and Richard Pryor was talking about all the stuff he was going through, and he said all Jim Brown could say was, "What you gone do next? What you gone do now?" He kept on saying, "What you gone do now?" You know what I'm saying? We realize that hey, there's genocide against our people, apartheid, and all that stuff, but at the same time, what are we going to do now? "Where do we go from here?" in the words of Dr. King. "Where do we go from here?"

Without the historical comments, what do you think we should try to do? Just try to own things?

I think definitely we should try to own things, but also put people in office. Stop putting blackface leadership in office. Stop voting for somebody because they look like you or have a last name that you like.

Wait a minute. You said start voting for people who look like you?

Stop voting for people because they look like you. Just because they got your skin don't mean they're your kin.

Wait a minute, but earlier in the interview, you said you were voting for Barack Obama because, "Why not put a Black man in office?" So, aren't you...?

Well, voting is emotional. It's subjective. Politics got a lot of emotion to it. It's a lot of emotion in politics. It's like voting for American Idol. It's not necessarily voting for the most talented singer. You're just voting for somebody you like, and they look a certain way. All of this stuff is subjective on a level.

Wait a minute, but you just said earlier that you were voting for Barack Obama because, "Why not put a Black man in office?" but then you said, "Don't put somebody in there because they look like you," so I'm a little confused. Are you voting for him because he looks like you, or...?

If you keep on voting for the same people, and they haven't done anything to uplift your community, now with Barack Obama, I don't know what he's really capable of doing yet, and he don't know what he's capable of doing once he gets in the White House yet, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Because...?

If you keep on letting people in office for 20 or 30 years, and your community looks a mess, and your kids are failing in school, and all this other stuff, you know, then you got to start thinking, "Why am I voting for this person?" Is it because they're Black? Is it because their family got a good name in our community? What is it for voting for people like that? And that's what I'm saying. I'm not necessarily saying that Barack Obama has a different face, but Barack Obama, this is his first time running for president, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Because he's Black or because you believe in his beliefs? Because it just sounds like because he's Black.

I want to see a Black man for president, I do. That's the subjective part, but I also feel like we need a change. I just don't want to see this become like a country that's got Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. I don't want to see all that. We need change. Those folks have been in office for almost 20 plus years, and we still got the same old mess. We're still in a hot mess. We need something different. Barack Obama offers something different. I don't know what he's really going to do once he gets into office, but he reminds me of an Abraham Lincoln. He's a uniter. We need some unity in this country right now. In the world right now actually. We need somebody with a fresh vision.

Okay.

I don't know what he's capable of doing once he gets inside there, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for the first term.

Going back to your earlier comment about the generation killing each other and so forth, do you feel like the next generation below...you're 28, right?

Right.

Do you feel like the next generation is taking a step back or do you believe the next generation could take a step forward?

It could take a step forward, but the thing about it, they got bad models to emulate. They'd have to look back in history and find people to really kinda model their work. A lot of people perpetuate crap. Some people believe that all you got to do is vote for somebody of color, and put them in office, and that's all what Civil Right is about-voting for a person of color. We got to look at people that actually did the grunt work-folks that put their lives on the line for what they believe in, and I think young people are being shortchanged. I talk to young people on a daily basis. I go to schools in Memphis, and Memphis is known for its crime rate and our high high school dropout rate like a lot of Black places in the country right now. But at the same time, when I talk to these young people about history-we've got such a rich, Black history, these kids are amazed. Even when I talk about their particular high school, they didn't know so many people of worth came out their schools, out their neighborhoods, or out their projects. But once you put that in their minds, then they've got something to build on. Now they know that these folks came from the same conditions that they are in, and there are no excuses. I keep on telling kids, "You got folks that were born into slavery. They were not born slaves, but they were born into slavery, and yet they had enough sense to try to better themselves regardless." You had people like Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells and Booker T. Washington. These are the shoulders of giants. There's no excuse that you can't reach your highest potential. So once you realize the type of people that we come from, then we can't help but go forth.

It's going to take a lot of courage on their part because I think the problem with our educational system is the foundation of an education is all you got to do is really have critical thinking. If your education does not inspire critical thinking, then yes, we have a problem. Houston, we have a problem. But the thing about it is, I tell them kids, not only teachers. "You are your own teacher. You are your own destiny, so it's up to you to go to the library and read a book. It's up to you to talk to the elders in the community. Because when people see you making an effort, then you get all types of help from the most surprising of places. Places and people you never thought of will help you out."

I was watching the movie, "The Great Debaters," and they were saying in the movie that it seemed like that next generation appreciated education because they were one step from slavery. Do you think that next generation...they're taking it for granted? They don't realize how sacred education is. How important it is.

Our community doesn't value education. It's not on a high priority list of things. It's not young people's fault if they're born into a community that does not know the value and worth of knowledge. It's something they've got to get deprogrammed from. Like I said, I see a lot of hope for our generation. Like I said, if people just take the time to go back and pull from the past, they'd spring towards the future. I think we're going to be all right. I think, for the most part, kids...they've got curiosity. They're looking for leadership. They're looking for direction. What I like about Barack Obama is he's reaching out to the Hip Hop generation. If it wasn't for the Hip Hop generation or Hip Hop culture, Barack Obama would not have the chance he has because Hip Hop culture and Black culture has a life in a lot of young White people. Because the vote that Barack Obama cannot win over is not necessarily the working White class vote, but it's the Jim Crow era vote. The same folks that killed the Emmett Till, that killed them three Civil Rights workers. The same folks that celebrated when Dr. King got assassinated in Memphis. These are the votes and the era and that generation that he cannot win, but he's winning the White youth vote. The Hip Hop generation vote. So I think there's a lot of hope for our future. We just got to give these kids a chance to learn because they're shortchanged. They've been knee-capped. We need to help repair their legs, and get a sturdy chance at life.

On BET's "Hip Hop Versus America," they talked about the lost generation saying that was the reason why some of the generation was lost in education. Do you feel like the [crack epidemic] could be a reason why the next generation might have issues with education now, or do you feel like that's done and gone?

We were lost before Brown v. Board of Education. When they took the actions and decisions from Brown v. Board, I think with the crack epidemic, those types of situations create revolutionaries. Think about Cuba in the '50s before Castro took over how you had this rich city, Havana, but everywhere else was so poor. It's only so long that those people were going to be willing to take that. Like Fannie Lou Hamer said, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired," and yes, we have some issues now. A lot of that was going on in our community, but really, some of that stuff was systemic. The government allows the infiltration of AK 47s and all this crack and stuff to infiltrate the inner cities of America for collateral damage for their wars in South America, which they still are fighting to this day. So really, we were collateral damage. Any time you're in a country where you're only looked at as three-fifths of a human being, how can you expect White folks to see you as whole? How do you expect us to see each other as whole if we only view ourselves as three-fifths of a human being? Even though we may not think about that, it's implanted our minds. If you look at the media, we're basically on an auction block.

It's like they're telling you, "Hey, you can play in the NBA, but you can't own the NBA." They're sending a subliminal message. You can be a player, but you can't be an owner. You know what I'm saying? You look at the March Madness. You got all these White colleges, but they got all Black basketball teams. "You're good enough to run up and down on the court and jump as high as you want to, negro, but you're not good enough to be the president of our university." It's certain things that are subliminal and the lack of critical thinking, like with the LeBron James cover on Vogue. As soon as I saw that...

Is that the one about the gorilla?

Yeah, the gorilla looking thing. The fact that LeBron James didn't even see himself as...the fact that he didn't get offended, that he thought it was okay shows a lack of education. You know, 'cause the fact that our people are saying, "Well, Lil' Wayne, he's a Black leader." How the hell is Lil' Wayne a Black leader? He's a great rapper but...

Who said that? Who said that?

I'm just saying people think that. What White folks tell you is, "The only thing you're good at doing, negro, is being a basketball player or a rapper." Because that's the media images that they put out there. It's like the only thing that we respect in our community are entertainers. The only leadership we have our entertainers, and that's kinda ass backwards if you think about it because it wasn't that long ago that some of the most respected people in our community were Pullman Porters because they had the ability to move around from across the country. A Pullman Porter was a respectable job in our community, and the sad thing about it is a lot of them brothas that were Pullman Porters had PhDs, had Masters, but they couldn't find no work in master's world. So you had to say what the master wanted you to say, but you had to be a Pullman Porter.

Lightening up the subject a little, please tell me about your interest in musical instruments (trumpet) and jazz. You mention that a lot, and you have a book out about jazz.

I'm glad you mentioned that. My interest in jazz started in college. You know, it's funny. The media and the perception of things is not the reality because I used to think of jazz as white...sophisticated white people's art, this elitist white folk's art form. When you look at the movies, white folks and wearing berets and doing deep poetry and mess like that, and it was an Italian American man who I was having issues with. It was kind of like a Spike Lee movie or something from the eighties. We were having these issues 'cause like I didn't come to class on time. Your class is Monday morning at eight o' clock, and after a weekend, you know what I'm saying, you might not come to class on time either especially as a college.

(Laughs) Yeah. I've been through that.

He showed a documentary one day about this cat named Sun Ra, this Black jazz musician. This guy was in his pajamas, like some space pajamas standing in front of the Great Pyramids of Africa, and the brotha kept on saying, "Space is the place." And I was one of two Black people. He had a majority White class, only two of us that were Black in the class. And me and the other Black dude were like, "What the hell is this crap on the screen?" So I became transfixed by it because this brotha kept on saying, "Space is the place." And after I researched him, this cat basically he was a musical prodigy. He could play all these instruments, basically all the instruments known to man. He had a scholarship. He was from Alabama. He was born "Sunny" Herman Blount in Alabama back in 1914 or 1913, I believe, but he had a scholarship to go to Alabama A&M, and he said he was kidnapped by UFOs. And they told him the only way they'd let him go is that he'd teach the world how to love beautiful things. So his mission in life was how to teach the world how to love beautiful things. Now quite frankly, if he was going to school in Alabama back in the '30s, I would think he was kidnapped by the Klan. They let him go, but he called them aliens, so I said, "Okay, they're aliens." So this guy was one of the first people to use synthesizers, and he was like the godfather of funk, like Parliament and the Funkadelics, all them cats got their stage presence and their outfits and stuff like that from him--Sun Ra.

So is that how you got interested in jazz?

Yeah, that's how I got interested. I've seen this guy traveling all around the world and speaking this philosophy and playing all this phenomenal music. He had folks following him for decades. He had one dude that had been with him for 40 years just following him around from Philadelphia to Chicago, all over the place. Teaching classes at Berkeley. Not getting paid for it, and then going on to Europe. I don't know how the hell he made money, but somehow he was able to make a living and have all these folks on his payroll. He died back in '93, but you look at Andre 3000...I remember I was looking at Rap City back in, I think it was 2000, and he was on there with Joe Clair. And Joe Clair asked him what was he reading. He said he was reading a biography about Sun Ra, and Joe Clair said, "What you know about Sun Ra?" And then three years later,

I've heard all of those. I wouldn't say I'm a jazz aficionado, but I have heard all of those.

You know what's so important about that though?

What?

That these guys were geniuses. Man, these guys not only did the music, but they could talk to you about anything and everything. These guys knew everything. They knew a little bit about everything-philosophy, history, science, mathematics, they could talk to you about anything and everything. Like an artist, you've got to be able to take all this stuff in and spit it back out in your own image.

You're also an artist! What is your specialty with artwork? Is there a type of painting you do? Portraits? Scenery?

I look at myself as an artist like MacGyver. You know MacGyver's TV show where he'd take a lint ball and a needle and a toenail and make something that could save his life. A lot of these things I use are office supplies. I use white-out markers, markers, regular ballpoint pens to create these beautiful things, and also I do the traditional things with the paints and whatnot. I love doing the pen and the white-out marker drawings because it's so therapeutic because art is music. All art is repetition. It's about repetition. John Coltrane and Hawkins played tenor saxophone, but they don't sound like each other because to me art is about speaking to what is true about yourself. But it's funny 'cause, like Picasso says, "Art is a lie to make us realize truth." But still to be an artist is to be yourself. Thelonius Monk said something I thought was profound. He said, "All it takes to be a genius is to be one's self." And that's probably so hard for a lot of us to do because we get so used to being followers, but to be a true artist is to be a leader in your taste. To be comfortable in your own taste and your own opinions and your own feelings and put it out there and share it for the people. So I look at art as being a cathardic experience for me to be able to relate and express my humanity and share it with the world.

Where'd you learn to paint? Did you learn in school like with jazz?

Most of it was self-taught, but I was blessed enough to have a mom that could see my talent at an early age. I was drawing well before I could really speak. I had speaking problems, so I had to go to speech class when I was in elementary. But I was drawing before I could really speak, and so my mother saw my drawings and put me in art programs in junior high school and high school so I could excel. I had instructions, but like I tell people all the time, "There are certain things that nobody can teach you that you were born with." People will show you certain magic tricks, but it's some other things that can't be taught. That's the ex factor, and that's what everybody has, but unfortunately everybody ain't gonna discover that because a lot of us are scared to take chances. And art is all about taking risks 'cause, to me, you cannot make a mistake in art. Every great art was made by mistake. All great art movements were made by mistake.

What do you see yourself doing with all of these passions you have (art, history, music, radio, and writing)? What would you like to make your primary profession if you could make it full time? What do you want to do in the long run?

I'm going to keep on doing as much as I can. I guess I'm trying to build a movement. I guess with an artist, it's about creating your own world. I'm creating my own world. I'm creating my own language. My own rules. Like Charlie Parker said, "They teach you there's a boundary line in music, but there are no boundary lines in art." Or, like Duke Ellington said, "It's beyond category." So basically, I don't know, I'd like to take advantage of the opportunity and also to create opportunities for myself, as well as for other people, so what I see myself doing, I write and do all this, producing a movie...a documentary about people that I like or subject matter that I really care about and care deeply for. So I don't really know where I see myself as far as combining all these things, but whenever something presents itself, like for example, I wrote the book about this pioneer jazz musician, James Reese Europe. It's funny you mentioned that because one of his descendants actually emailed me today and found out about the book. I didn't know because it was hard for me to find anybody because he only had one son who passed away, I think, about seven years ago. [James Reese Europe Jr.'s] daughter-in-law contacted me today, and said that she read the book, and she actually clarified some things in the book like how many grandchildren and great grandchildren that James Reese Europe Sr. actually had. So she was telling me all the exact names, but she was very appreciative of the artwork, as well as the story being taken the time to tell her of her grandfather-in-law's story. I was very honored to have that, to make that connection, and to have her contact me. It made me feel good about myself for today.

Well, that's good. You always want to feel good about yourself.

Well, you know it's funny. As an artist, you get on these highs and then, "What's next?" To me, it's not about the completion. It's about the journey. It's about doing our stuff and after you get through doing the product or making the project work, it's the downtime. It's like what else is out there. What is left for me to do?

So it sounds like you're just a battery right now. You want to do some of everything. What is your end goal? What is it that you absolutely must do before you die?

Before I die, well one thing I guess, live. (Laughs) Hopefully live a little bit, but I do want to do this documentary about this forgotten jazz musician that I really respect a lot named Jimmie Lunceford. This brotha was interesting. He was like one of the greatest swing band leaders of his generation. He was known as the King of the Battle of the Bands. He came to beat Duke Ellington and Count Basie and Cab Calloway, but what I like about this story, it's like a "Great Debater" story, 'cause he was the first band director of any high school in the city of Memphis, and he started the first music education program without money from the city's schools. He basically took nine boys from north Memphis, a Black part of town, taught them how to play instruments. He was a teacher at Manassas High School, I guess one of the first Black high schools in Memphis in the '20s. He'd just came out of Fisk University. He was 26 years old, was a world class athlete, but his passion was music. But he wasn't hired to be the music teacher. He was hired to be the baseball, football coach, the Spanish teacher, and the English teacher, so he had like five jobs at this school, but his passion was music. So he took these nine young men and made them into professional musicians. They left Memphis back in 1930, became the official house band for the Cotton Club in 1934. And what I like about this guy was he was known as the Harlem Express. He was the number one dance band for African Americans in the country. He was an idol of Quincy Jones and Miles Davis. This guy flew his own air plane back in the '30s and '40s. A Black man. You think about what happened to the Tuskegee Airmen, and all that they had been through. You think about Bessie Coleman. For a Black man to fly and own his own plane in the '30s and '40s is amazing to me, and he was like a movie star. "Blues in the Night" in 1941, one of the highest grossing movies of his era, so he's forgotten about now, but he always came back to Memphis regardless of how famous he got to give free concerts for the school he used to teach at. To have the students open for him. He put so much money into music and education programs for kids to help them stay out of trouble. And he's been dead for 60-something years now. He's buried in this historic cemetery in Memphis, but yet he's been forgotten by the city he loved so much. He recorded with old-timers that have died now and experts. I'm going to make this documentary in the next several years time. That's one thing I want to definitely do. Put him back in his place as a jazz great.

Last question. With your Blog Talk radio show, which I hope will become national so I don't have to sit in front of a computer every time I want to hear it, for someone who hasn't listened to your show, what would make them want to listen to your show?

My show really represents the truth for lots of people of society who have been forgotten about by the quote unquote corporate media or mainstream, whatever you want to call it. My show represents the organic everyday living of people in this country, particularly African American people, but also it's universal 'cause once you get specific, that's when you become universal. Specific equals universality. I look at my show when I talk about issues when I talk about Reverend Wright or when I talk about education, the state of Black America, or when I talk about things from a historical perspective like Jimmie Lunceford or Dr. John Hope Franklin. What I'm doing, I'm bridging an intergenerational gap that is very much needed. 'Cause it's like you look at every movement. All movements had generations of different people working together. Even the founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams, or you look at Ida B. Wells working with Frederick Douglass. You need intergenerational dialogue and networking, and this is what's not happening right now. I think that's the problem of our quote unquote lost generation-the lack of communication with the elders and the elders' fear of the younger generation, so I think once we get past that, I think we'll build the platform to help bridge that gap. I think that's why people of all ages and different backgrounds will listen and continue to listen to the show.

For more information on Ronald "R2C2H2 Tha Artivist" Herd, visit:

www.weallbe.blogspot.com (blog)

www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe (radio show)

www.cafepress.com/r2c2h2 (clothes with R2C2H2's artwork)

www.r2c2h2.com (personal website)

r2c2h2@gmail.com

James Reese Europe: Jazz Lieutenant (Ronald Herd's nonfiction book at Amazon.com)