Newspaper Page Text
Page 5
March 4,1993
Spehnan Spotlight, Atlanta, GA
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Vanessa <Betf Armstrong:
Something On c Ihe Inside
By Kanika Williams
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Jive Records, best known for their
R&B and Hip Hop releases from artists
such as Boogie Down Production, R.
Kelly and Public Announcement and A
Tribe Called Quest, has just released a
new contemporary gospel album by
Vanessa Bell Armstrong.
Some may know Armstrong for her
popular gospel single "Press It On" or
her cameo appearance in the television
special, "The Women of Brewster
Place." This year she is attempting to
break new ground with her new album,
Something On the Inside.
Something On the Inside is an
album that offers a fresh new approach
to contemporary gospel music. It
experiments with and explores a wide
variety of musical styles.
"Something On the Inside" is an up
tempo gospel song with an R&B feel.
It mixes the traditional choir with
contemporary synthesized beats.
"Everlasting Love," which is more
inspirational than gospel, is a powerful
song to a swing tempo.
"You Can’t Take My Faith Away"
is a moving song with a pulsating Latin
rhythm.
Sometimes the music on
Armstrong’s album sounds too
computerized and often overpowers
Armstrong’s beautiful voice. In "Father
I Stretch", one feels more moved to get
up and dance rather than listen to the
message that she is trying to convey.
The best song on the album has to
be "The Story Of Calvary." It is one of
the more traditional songs on the
album. While listening, the focus is on
the richness and soulfulness of her
voice rather than the synthesized
keyboards. Armstrong’s voice sounds
as if she is much more comfortable
singing songs of this calibre. The
power and range of her voice really
shines through.
Something On the Inside is
impressive and innovative due to its
unique and creative style of gospel
music. Ixxtk out for Vanessa Bell
Armstrong.
Queen Explores
Go Travel The Road To Freedom
By Sabrina Hawkins
Arts and Entertainment Editor
"We are here on a mission" is the
first thing heard when play is pushed
on the tape deck.
The Young Disciples succeed in
their mission of making their musical
journey fuse with soul, rap, rhythm and
blues, and jazz on their album Road to
Freedom.
Following the smooth, jazzy R&B
sounds of Soul II Soul, Brand New
Heavies, and Loose Ends, Femi
Williams and Marc Nelson create a
style that is distinctly their own.
The buzz of their success in Britain
crossed over to American shores.
Originally planned to be released solely
in Britain, the album spawned two Top
10 singles, was nominated for Britain’s
Mercury Music Prize (equivalent to
America’s Grammy Award) for Best
Album of 1992, then won Britain’s
Black Music Award in the category of
Best Dance Group.
A sound this appealing could not
remain Britain’s best kept secret for too
long.
Already roaming the airwaves,
dance floors and hip-hop scenes of
London, the Young Disciples were
prepared to share their magic with
other artists.
They have created jazzy hip-hop
remixes for A Tribe Called Quest,
Mary J. Blige and The Dream
Warriors; they also released
productions for Loose Ends, Master
Ace and Desirie.
"We take all the kinds of music that
we’ve loved over our lives and
integrate them together in a non
patronizing, forward-thinking way,"
Marc said.
With the soulful, sultry, soothing
voice of Carleen Anderson on the
tracks "Get Yourself Together Part 1
and Part 2," "Apparently Nothin’," "All
I Have," "Move On," and "As We
Come," you can’t go wrong with this
album.
So find the Road to Freedom of
which the Young Disciples is preaching
in your local record store.
of Race, Gender
By Malaika Kamunanwire
"...She had nothing to fall back on;
not maleness, not whiteness, not
ladyhood, not anything. And out of the
profound desolation of her reality she
may well have invented herself."
- Toni Morrison
I have heard this quote applied and
reapplied to many different situations.
After watching the final episode of
Alex Haley’s Queen, I realized that this
miniseries is deserving of its
application.
As I watched the three-part series, I
felt a mixture of sentiments. I was
angry because of the injustices and
degradation that we as a people
experienced and continue to experience.
I was restless because I felt that all
we worked for in the 1960s and
thereafter was in vain. Especially when
we see the killing of three little girls in
Birmingham, the raping of Tawana
Brawley, the slaying of Yusef Hawkins
and the beating of Rodney King.
I was disturbed because I began to
question how we, as African women in
America, define ourselves. Is it through
the eyes of our oppressors?
Queen touched on who we are to
white men and white women, black
men and to ourselves.
For so long we were the sex slaves,
field laborers and house servants of
white men. In Queen, we saw the
double relationship between Queen’s
mother, Easter, and her father, Master
James. While their relationship appeared
to be bom out of love, Master James
still had "ownership" of Easter. She was
considered property and, as such,
inferior. Not only was she black, but she
was female as well.
In the opening scene of Queen,
Easter and the other slaves were being
taunted and teased by a group of white
men. Master James intervened not
because he believed this treatment of
slaves was wrong but because the slaves
belonged to his family.
Easter saw her only power as a black
woman through her sexual relationship
with Master James. She recognized that
she had no voice. Once Queen was
bom, Easter’s father filled Queen with
hope that slavery would end one day
and that slaves would soon be free. As
a result of her conditioning, Easter
discouraged her father from telling
Queen stories that she thought would
never come to pass. We were so used to
being controlled and dominated by the
white race that we were conditioned to
remain slaves mentally and physically.
After the Civil War, where were we
to go? Many slaves continued to work
on the plantations in order to survive.
The plantation guaranteed a place to live
and food to eat.
Freedom is a state of mind. Once
you have been socialized to accept your
inferiority, you continue the cycle of
mental oppression. Through their white
oppressors’ eyes, black women were the
comforting slave girls who worked for
hours in the oppressors’ kitchens and
plantations, and who satisfied their
sexual needs.
Our relationship with white women
was very different. In the miniseries,
master James’ wife was horrified to
discover that her husband had a child
outside their marriage with a slave girl.
Her mother told her that, "if it wasn’t
for the slave girl, women would always
have to submit to their husbands."
In the eyes of most white women,
black women were their personal maids
and their husbands’ sexual pawns. They
pitied us while they detested us. In a
strange way, they seemed to envy the
sexual abuse we suffered at the hands of
their husbands.
The circumstances of Queen’s birth
were not the norm. Master James loved
her mother, Easter, but he would not
marry her or accept Queen as his child.
She was just another "child of the
plantation," a victim of the white man’s
lust.
Master John, accepting his "duty" as
a white man, married Miss Lucy, the
daughter of a well-respected and
wealthy family. His father told him that
duty came before love and that he must
marry a woman with high dowry and
good breeding for the mutual benefit of
both families. Love comes later if you
are fortunate, he said. Despite his love
for Easter, he married Miss Lucy and
pampered and protected her.
Master John treated Miss Lucy
differently than he treated Easter. When
he discovered she was pregnant, he gave
Miss Lucy all the respect and protection
that Easter was denied. Queen only
knew her father as Master John while
Miss Jane was depicted as the "apple of
her father’s eye."
As black women, we were expected
to deal with this denial of our existence.
While we could give birth to the white
men’s children, we were not their
partners for life, or the bearers of their
name. Thus, we were not their equals;
we were their subordinates.
White women’s perceptions of us
stem from the dual role we played as
their husbands’ concubines and their
house slaves.
The miniseries Queen, displayed the
relationship between black women and
black men as mutual victims of
oppression. We are our closest allies
and worst enemies.
Queen’s first relationship with a
black man was characterized by
abandonment. Queen was seduced by
him and then left to raise their son,
Abner, on her own without the
protection or name of the father. Queen
already had problems being accepted by
the white and black race because of her
mixed parentage, but it was even harder
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