(Akiit.com) For most of his career, Denzel Washington has been the epitome of a “race man” — a well-mannered, well-intentioned role model thoroughly committed to black uplift. He’s maintaining that tradition in “The Great Debaters,” a new film in which he plays a champion debate coach in the segregated South.

But his recent portrayal of the murderous Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas in “American Gangster,” following his Oscar-winning performance as the corrupt cop Alonzo in “Training Day,” has shaken his standing as a race man — and has prompted speculation that, after years of playing characters who symbolized African Americans’ mainstream acceptance, he’s finally selling out to a commercial culture eager to make a buck off of portraying black men as thugs.

That’s not how I see it. To me, the more important question that Washington’s career choices raise is: Why, as the nation grows to appreciate the many different ways of being black, do we still need race men at all?

“Race man” is a term from the beginning of the 20th century that describes black men of stature and integrity who represented the best that African Americans had to offer in the face of Jim Crow segregation. It has lost some of its resonance in a post-civil rights world, but it remains an unspoken measure of commitment to uplifting the race. Race men inspire pride; their work, their actions and their speech represent excellence instead of evoking shame and embarrassment. Thus the pundit Tavis Smiley and the Rev. Jesse Jackson (even with an illegitimate child) can be race men, whereas the comedian Dave Chappelle and the rapper/mogul Jay-Z can never be.

Sidney Poitier had impeccable race-man cred. The legendary black actor was one of the first to achieve mainstream success, and he never wavered. In films such as “The Defiant Ones” (1958), “In the Heat of the Night” (1967) and even “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967), he made us proud to be black. At the height of the black-power movement, when his articulate, educated and even affable characters were often measured against fiery political icons such as Malcolm X and the Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown, some blacks felt ambivalent about Poitier. But the actor’s willingness to support the civil rights movement appeased those who wanted a more radical image.

There’s little doubt that Poitier and contemporaries such as James Earl Jones and Raymond St. Jacques influenced Washington in his choice of roles. Early in his career, he was often drawn to the part of the heroic do-gooder; his roles in “Cry Freedom” (as the martyred anti-apartheid hero Steve Biko) and the Civil War epic “Glory” (which won him a 1990 Academy Award for best supporting actor) displayed his gravitas. The tear he shed when his character, Pvt. Trip, was flogged in “Glory” lent black men a depth of humanity not seen in American cinema before or since.

In his collaborations with director Spike Lee, Washington complicated the race-man ethos. No longer defined solely by their willingness to stand up for their race, characters such as Bleek Gilliam (”Mo’ Better Blues“), Jake Shuttlesworth (”He Got Game“) and Detective Keith Frazier (”Inside Man”) represented the new race man, whose main emphasis was on being manly. These characters were self-absorbed and selfish and demanded the respect they thought they deserved. Still, many black audiences embraced them, if only because Washington had earned their trust, especially after his signature collaboration with Lee on the film “Malcolm X.”
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(Akiit.com) Why do we constantly listen to music that insults our intelligence? Why do we watch television shows that degrade the human race? This generation, for some unforeseen reason, is interested in topics that are entertaining yet embarrassing to society.

I watched R. Kelly’s popular hip-hop soap opera “Trapped in the Closet” and was completely disgusted at his use of cynical entertainment.

For those of you who are not familiar with this disgrace to hip-hop culture, it revolves around the over-usage of adultery and deception. Since the recent release of Chapters 13 through 22 in the series, many people still watch the misfortunes of several people who are connected in the plot.

Since the entire story line is focused on adultery, the characters do not have to concentrate on real acting skills, because the attention is on the cheating and lying.

This wastes production time and money is because it makes African-American adults look like lying, cheating and unprosperous people.
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(Akiit.com) It would seem a daunting task to step out of the shadow of a man known to his fellow countrymen as “the black president.” But Femi Kuti, son of Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, has managed to embrace his father’s legacy while rising to stardom in his own right. Combining his father’s funk- and jazz-infused African highlife music with elements of dance and the occasional house beat, Femi has helped bring Afrobeat into the 21st century — collaborating with the likes of Mos Def, Common and Macy Gray, among others.

Ten years after his father’s death from AIDS, the 46-year-old singer/sax player continues to live and raise his family in Lagos, the Nigerian capital. He’s reopened his father’s legendary nightclub, the Shrine, which was shut down by the government in the 1980s, and plays free shows several nights a week.

Though politically active like his father, Femi has recently taken a Bob Dylan–like retreat from public life — eschewing overt political action in favor of spending time with his family and letting his music speak for him. This comes in the wake of years of public proclamations against democracy — a position no doubt birthed by the election of Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999. A former Nigerian military dictator known for brutally squashing political dissent, Obasanjo routinely harassed and arrested Femi’s father for his political activity during the 1970s, and his soldiers were responsible for the murder of Femi’s grandmother.
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(Akiit.com) 8/26/2007- New York, NY- Omillio Sparks is back on the movie scene with the launch of Colossal Films. Colossal Films, is a new division underneath Colossal Entertainments music umbrella that will mass market and distribute urban street movies. Sparks was once a prominent actor for his former label Rocafella Records, and starred as “Baby Boy” in the Lionsgate Films, State Property 1 & 2. Johnson will be making his own imprint in black Hollywood this fall by releasing his first movie. Omillio teamed up with Shurwil Langston of Tough Struggle Entertainment to release “Soulful” during the holiday season as a straight to DVD movie, and as a bonus DVD packaged with his album, The Payback.

The movie will be distributed through Koch Entertainment and will be sold at FYE , BEST BUY, Circuit City, and other national retail chains. The movie is a coming of age story of a young girl named Rachel nicknamed “Soulful” for her god given talent to sing despite dealing with the adversities of a hard knock life in the streets. The supporting cast deals with six degrees of separation with their own individual struggles which adds edge & suspense to the story. Jamie Knight plays the lead as Rachel aka “Soulful“, with a line-up of co-stars like Omillio Sparks, the film also stars Tray “Poot” Chaney & Felicia “Snoop” Pearson from the critically acclaimed HBO series, “The Wire”. Colossal Films second movie, Expendable is already in the production phase with an all star cast, such as Omillio Sparks, Jim Jones, Tray Chaney, Lauren London aka, New New, from the movie ATL, and more.

Omillio Sparks aka Kenneth Johnson was signed to Rocafella records in the late 90’s by Damon Dash and Shawn Carter. Sparks has starred in three movies, including State Property 1 and 2. Since leaving Rocafella records he has established a new independent label, Colossal Entertainment and now a film division called Colossal Films. Omillio Sparks, the Hip Hop artists has wrote on seven songs on the State Property 1 album and six on State Property 2- writing his verses as well as the hooks. He also wrote the hook for Jay Z’s, I Just Wanna Love You off the Dynasty album and al so had a verse on the single, As One, off of Jay Z’s, Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse. He’s also been featured on songs with Beanie Sigel, Freeway, and many others. He’s laid verses to tracks produced by Kanye West, Just Blaze, Johnny J, and Black Keys.

Tough Struggle Entertainment is a film and production company located in Philadelphia, PA. Shurwil Langston founded the company in early 2000 and his responsible for the production and holds the position of the lead casting director for Soulful and the upcoming movie, Expendable.

For Media Inquiries & Movie Trailer:

Brash PR
Publicist
Tiffiany Vaughn
267.233.8100
tiffianyvaughn@comcast.net

(Akiit.com) When you mention the name Tyler Perry to white people, you receive a blank stare. When you mention the name to Black people, there is a clear sign of recognition and admiration. Perry is a non-entity in the general (read: White) culture – and that includes the elite Liberal culture as well – but because of his immense success inside the Black community, he is regularly featured on the covers of magazines like Ebony and Jet which has made him a celebrity of sorts.

Why is it that Perry, who owns a movie and theater production company that is perhaps one of the largest and most successful of its type in America, is unknown to White people?

Last year I reviewed Perry’s breakthrough film “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.” Perry came to make the film after many years of hard and arduous work writing and producing plays in what continues to remain of the so-called “Chitlin’ circuit”; a chain of theaters exclusively catering to the Black community. In an America where race continues to play an important but often neglected factor in the national dialogue, Perry sought to create an independent movement based on characters and stories that resonated in the Black cultural consciousness.

Perry integrated into his stories the bedrock elements of Black life in America; elements often ignored or marginalized by the predominantly White mainstream. In “Diary of a Mad Black Housewife,” the culmination of his thematic explorations within a Black cultural framework, Perry based his writing on the centrality of the Black family and the historic Black Church. Implicit in his thematic approach was a critique not only of White ignorance of this culture, but the appropriation within the mainstream of a counterfeit culture, Hip-Hop, that has been promoted and co-opted by White media, White youth culture, and White intellectuals as the “authentic” manifestation of Black consciousness.
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