Concerning P-Funk and Satan

I'm kinda beginning to dig Twitter. As I was finishing my previous blog someone posted a link to a song via YouTube. I needed a break so I pressed play and was transported back to a Sunday afternoon when I was younger and music was genuinely magical, rather than this aural pigswill we're forced to endure. The song, by The Charlie Daniels Band entitled The Devil Went Down To Georgia, reached out to me through the transistor radio.

The story the song tells is of Satan is weaving his way through Georgia looking to harvest souls when he encounters a young chap named Johnny and engages him in a musical face-off. Satan offers to give Johnny a golden fiddle if he plays better than he does; otherwise, Satan takes Johnny's eternal soul. Satan goes first and employs a legion of demonic minions to conjure a deliciously discordant riff which would do Megadeth proud whilst he fiddle-shreds wildly like Vinnie Vincent on a raw caffeine bender. When the Devil's performance ends, Johnny compliments him and responds by playing excerpts of four traditional American southern folk songs. The Devil, suitably impressed, concedes the contest and lays a golden fiddle at Johnny's feet.

The tweeter had signed off by saying "And I still say the Devil won." It's hard to disagree with this assertion. Having been transported back to the very first time I'd listened to this song I cast around to find a tune which would have a similar effect. I alighted upon "All That Future" by Lori Carlson and keyboard wizard Bernie Worrell and dove back into a warm pool of reverie.

It was 2001 and I was in the shower listening to Material's (Bill Laswell's avant garde noise ensemble) alternative Hip Hop album Intonarumori. As the rivulets of warm water cascaded down my naked torso, I slowly moved the bar of Imperial Leather soap across my chest and then up and down my chiselled abdomen. I was standing with my back to the spray to avoid washing off the rich lather when the insistent, dissonant clank halted and track 9 came on. Out of nowhere a languidly erotic, delicious shimmer of keyboards and a hauntingly delicate, breathy female voice weaved its way toward me through the steam. It was beautiful, like a glittering rainbow slicing your skull in two. A 5 minutes and 35 second interlude of exquisite enchantment. The rest of the album went back to the wilfully odd and angular Hip Hop of the first 8 songs. That's typical of Bill Laswell: always pulling a sharp left turn when you least expect it.

My first proper encounter with Mr Laswell was via Bootsy Collins' Jungle Bass EP. Bootsy was one of the original JBs - James Brown's backing band - and it is he who plays bass on Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine, Super Bad, Soul Power and Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing. The EP had all the familiar elements of a P-Funk release (popping bass, chicken grease guitar, the assured slap of an authoritative snare sound and sleazy horns), but it sounded just a little off-centre. Tweaked. The 70s transplanted to some unspecified point in the future. It was superb.

Being a P-Funk completist I have precisely 103 Parliament/Funkadelic, or P-Funk, albums in my music library - I've just counted - and none of them are in that awful MP3 format. Unlike Hip Hop, P-Funk was/is genuinely uplifting. It casts Black people as Gods who are waiting for the Mothership to descend from the skies to return us to our proper realm and release us from this earthly bondage. This was symbolic of a spiritual awakening and an acknowledgement of our history and lineage. In the meantime, whilst we wait, our role is to re-educate the rigid materialists and reveal to them the true rhythms of Mother Earth through the Funk. Deep, huh? And more life-affirming than Niggas In Paris, for fuck's sake....

I kept coming across Mr Laswell as I expanded the P-Funk section of my immense music collection. He produced Bootsy Collins' What's Bootsy Doing? album. Bootsy played with Bill Laswell, Bernie Worrell, guitarist Buckethead and drummer Brain (the latter two went on to play with Axl Rose in his new version of Guns N' Roses, replacing Slash and Matt Sorum respectively) on the album Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) by Praxis in 1992. He produced the only non-official P-Funk album (it only features 3 songs written by the Godfather of Funk, George Clinton, and he only sings background vocals on 1 song) that is considered an official P-Funk album (1995's Funkcronimicon).

Most importantly, for my collection anyway, Bill Laswell set up the Black Arc label as a home for "Black Rock, Cyberfunk and Future Blues". During what many consider to be the peak years of Hip Hop George Clinton and P-Funk were sampled mercilessly. The Black Arc label was a means to highlight the craft and the magic of the musicians who had created hits for De La Soul, Cypress Hill, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J, 2 Pac, Dr Dre, MC Hammer, Run DMC, Adina Howard and Beastie Boys amongst countless others.

Mr Laswell assembled an impressive cast of P-Funk alumni and across 9 albums of righteous indignation - featuring an abstract, yet inclusive beatscape melding disparate and differing textures: gothic rock, Hip Hop, ambient, jazz, hardcore, techno and tribal African beats - the sweeping arc of black experience is declared as a musical memoir. A reminder that our musical culture is richer than that which Hip Hop has chosen to represent.

Only 9 albums were released:


  O.G. Funk - Out of the Dark
  Zillatron - Lord of the Harvest
  Slave Master - Under the Six
  Hardware - Third Eye Open
  Buddy Miles Express - Hell and Back
  Abiodun Oyewole - 25 Years
  The Last Poets - Holy Terror
  Bernie Worrell - Free Agent: A Spaced Odyssey
  Aftershock - 2005

I started writing this just before the Brit Awards 2013 kicked off. After the first couple of paragraphs I turned on the television and accidentally caught sight of the utterly pointless Paloma Faith stumbling through a justification for her vacuity. I threw up in my mouth.

The Black Arc catalogue is the perfect palate cleanser. None of these albums are formulaic. The Bootsy albums (Lord of the Harvest and Third Eye Open) are genuinely fascinating in that one gets to hear the low-slung funk of his legendary space bass grinding against ambient and rock gears.

The Lost Poets are a collective of poets and musicians who came out of the 1960s American civil rights movement and laid the foundation for Hip Hop. Their album gives you a glimpse of a time before corporate rap, when what was lovingly placed over beats was carefully constructed polemical poetry.

Bernie Worrell's disc is rather ethereal, atmospheric and awesome to chill to. The rest are patchy at best, but there are moments on each that will make you catch your breath, the perfect antidote to the empty vessels who have sold their souls. Proving, perhaps, that the Devil doesn't always win.

*The foto features selected highlights from my P-Funk collection.

Jay-Z, Kanye West, The Grammys and the N word

My brother and I are soooooo different. At the conclusion of the first 5am screening of The Dark Knight Rises, on the day of its release, I'm not ashamed to say I welled up. Perhaps it was the context in which I viewed the movie - I've never been to a 5am screening before - but it seemed the perfect end to a very impressive trilogy. My brother's verdict? Not so much. His was a decidedly unimpressed "Meh..."

'Twas ever thus. Back when we were youngsters the family cat, Rivelino (we named him after the World Cup winning, combative Brazillian midfielder. Later I had a pet Hamster whom I named Reggie The Bastard, but that's a different story for a different time), somehow managed to trap himself in the back of the piano and was mewing desperately for help. I was distraught. I was crying hysterically. Poor Rivelino. My brother, as rational as always, huffed, "What's wrong with you? All we need to do is pull the piano out. Jeez..."

I could give you loads of examples of where I'm the one shrieking with outrage like a raped goat, whilst my brother gives an insouciant shrug of his shoulders. Our roles have probably been reversed lots of times over the years, but at present I can only bring to mind two examples. A few years ago I was leafing through the NME (yeah, I know). In the ad section I came across a music emporium which announced proudly that it sold lots of different genres of music, but specialised mainly in Indie, Electronica, Heavy Metal and Nigger.

Being permanently drenched in cynicism it was pretty easy to make my voice sound light and breezy when I rang my brother to casually suggest he go to a newsagents and just have a quick flick through the ads section of this week's NME. "You'll know what it is when you see it," I teased. He rang me back an hour later in a frothing rage, which as I've already stated, is most unlike my brother. He had rung both the shop involved AND the publication to ask what they were playing at and to find out exactly what they planned to do about this gross transgression.

On the second occasion, we had just soundchecked for a show as Damaged Gods and strolled into the town centre for some deep-fried, potato based sustenance. Sitting down to eat at a grubby formica-topped table our senses were assaulted by a dishevelled man who announced "He's a nigger. A big, black fookin' nigger."

"What the-? Okay, Brother B," hissed my brother in a harsh whisper. Putting down his fork he curled his fingers into a fist as he used one of my many rap aliases (Big Brozilla, Triple XL, B.B. Mon£y and Daddy Long Stroke are amongst the others), "What are we going to do about this?"

"Leave it, G-Influence," I replied - plucking that particular nomenclature from a very long list of my brother's AKAs which includes Doc Connors, Wachowski and Chachi - "He's clearly disturbed."

Anyone notice the common thread between both incidents? That's right! The N-word.

Words exert influence. You can calm, scare, call to arms or induce sleep with words. Noam Chomsky posited that words and language are an integral part of our psychological being; they give shape and meaning to the things around us, and, in a very real and literal sense, the person and people that use them.

In magickal terms - I've been reading a lot of Aleister Crowley recently - invocations and spells are referred to as "Grimoire", literally "grammar" in French. One can harness power and create magick for one's own ends simply through the use of words.

The history of the word nigger is often traced to the Latin word niger, meaning black. This word became the noun negro (black person) in English, and the colour black in Spanish and Portuguese. derogatory nigger and earlier English substitutes such as negar, neegar, neger, and niggor that developed into its lexico-semantic true version in English. It is probable that nigger is a phonetic spelling of the white Southern mispronunciation of Negro.

By the early 1800s it was firmly established as a pejorative term. In 1837 Hosea Easton wrote that nigger:

"is an opprobrious term, employed to impose contempt upon [blacks] as an inferior race. . . . The term in itself would be perfectly harmless were it used only to distinguish one class of society from another; but it is not used with that intent. . . . [I]t flows from the fountain of purpose to injure."  

The word "nigger" is imbued with so much hatred and prejudice that its mere utterance evokes centuries of discrimination and ignorance: conjuring an image of abused, enslaved forebears who were considered lazy, stupid, dirty, subhuman and unworthy of the dignity afforded any other human being. The use of the word was a form of ritual humiliation employed by slave masters.

Fast forward a couple of hundred years and Jay-Z and Kanye West are picking up Grammys for Niggas In Paris. I feel like crying. Trust Americans (a people whose country was founded by genocide and built on the backs of slaves) to trivialise the word, ignore its history, use it as a matey salutation and subscribe to the notion that its meaning changes depending on the complexion of the person saying it.

Slavery has caused severe emotional and psychological trauma, resulting in a self-hatred which manifests itself as Black people disrespecting themselves with the same words which were once used to denigrate them. No other culture does that. You never hear, "What up, my *insert racist epithet here*?!?!" as a greeting in any other culture. It would be quite horrific, but indicates that slavery and its attendant racism have succeeded.

The Godfather of the Black use of the N-word is Richard Pryor. In his rather slight autobiography Pryor Convictions, he said, "Nigger... I decided to make it my own. Nigger. I decided to take the sting out of it. Nigger. As if saying it over and over again would numb me and everybody else to its wretchedness. Nigger. Said it over and over like a preacher singing hallelujah."

In 1979, Pryor went to Kenya. He sat in a hotel lobby and saw, "gorgeous black people... The only people you saw were black. At the hotel, on television, in stores, on the street, in the newspapers, at restaurants, running the government, on advertisements. Everywhere."

Pryor said to his wife, "You know what? There are no niggers here. The people here, they still have their self-respect, their pride."

He left Africa regretting ever having uttered the word "nigger". "To this day I wish I'd never said the word. I felt its lameness. It was misunderstood by people. They didn't get what I was talking about. Neither did I. ... So I vowed never to say it again."

Of course, by then the damage had been done and the floodgates opened for an abundance of Hip Hop Proto-Pryors who considered the word mere slang and paved the way for the negative stereotype to become profitable and impose itself as a shorthand for Black culture. Professor Griff calls it the niggerfication of rap music. Wynton Marsalis calls it "ghetto minstrelsy." He says,

"Old school minstrels used to say they were 'real darkies from the real plantation'. Hip-hop substitutes the plantation for the streets. Now you have to say that you're from the streets, you shot some brothers, you went to jail. Rappers have to display the correct pathology. Rap has become a safari for people who get their thrills from watching [Black] people debase themselves, men dressing in gold, spending money on expensive fluff, using language like 'bitch' and 'ho' and 'nigger'."

Witnessing the rise of an "artist" like Chief Keef is depressing, but, as a teenager, he doesn't know any better. He's young, impressionable and plainly has no idea that he is perpetuating negative (Niggertive) images of black people, or that he could be a focus for the laser beam of racism.

I hold the rap elder statesmen and veterans to a higher standard. Jay-Z and Kanye West should know better, but the lure of filthy lucre means they'll shit yards of reinforced negative stereotypes to keep the shareholders happy and consolidate their personal brands. Music executives want to cash in on gangsta rap and its essentially disparaging narrative: the media complies, ignoring all other expressions of the music. The big money involved means that the corporations care nothing for the soul of hip-hop or the people who create it; their only concern is with profit.

Jay-Z's lyrics are a far more eloquent treatise on why he would rather rap about nothing and perpetuate the notion that, as a rapper, one has to be steeped in criminality and wallow in juvenilia for one's music to have any validity. It all comes down to the money...

"I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars / They criticise me for it yet they all yell holla / If skills sold truth be told I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli / Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense / But I sold five mill, and I haven't rhymed like Common since." - Jay-Z, "Moment of Clarity"

The resulting dumbassification* sees rap artists all trying to sound the same: chasing the same coin in the consumer's pocket in an effort to justify the major label coddling of their record contracts. They sound so similar that they cancel each other out and create a cacophony of nihilism.

We also have a real-life CB4 movie plot in progress in the form of Rick Ross. In CB4 Chris Rock appropriates the identity of an incarcerated criminal, MC Gusto, in order to sell records, only for the real Gusto to turn up and claim a little violent restitution. All of which is precisely what Rick Ross has done. He's presently living out the rest of the movie as the Chicago Gangster Disciples issue death threats via YouTube(!), passing acerbic comment on his sales strategy. Mr Ross was the target of a drive-by shooting in late January as he sat in his Bentley: great for sales and it bolsters his street credibility.

From Melle Mel's hard-hitting and innovative The Message in 1982 to Niggas In Paris in 2013, the Grammys represent the celebration of Hip Hop's regression. It's ironic that Public Enemy's Chuck D was on hand to close the Grammy awards ceremony with an incendiary performance which was ably supported by LL Cool J, Tom Morello, Travis Barker and Z-Trip; reminding us of the true power of Hip Hop. Historically Public Enemy's call to Fight The Power and their highlighting of the Fear Of A Black Planet were ignored by the Grammys' voting panel in favour of less incendiary, less difficult and less challenging works. He brought a poignantly dignified presence which acted as a peerless counterpoint to the preceeding buffoonery.

* as coined by Mr Chuck

Cheryl Cole: Livin' me dream, like

These are, indeed, the worst of times: I'm shuttling backwards forwards between the Doctor's office and hospital; Gideon Osborne officially doesn't know what he's doing; Tesco and Sainsbury's are predicting a Christmas shortage in potatoes, parsnips, carrots, sprouts, broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower and swedes; and party balloons will be far less floaty this festive season as the worldwide shortage of helium kicks in. Thank Santa then that two staples remain in place to keep us smiling during the long cold evenings, namely Stand Up Comedy DVDs and the celebrity autobiography.

Stewart Lee's Carpet Remnant World is by far the best of the comedy DVDs on offer, whilst the celebrity autobiography category is dominated by the colossus that is my mate Cheryl Cole's My Story. Not to be confused with Jessie J's autobiography with practically the same title, or Tulisa's Contostavlos' My Story So Far in which she tells us that Dappy has a penis which could conceivably belong to King Kong. Cheryl stopped by my hospital bed recently to share a bunch of designer Ruby Roman grapes and a chat.

It's so nice to see you again, Chezza. 

You too, pet. Hoo ye gannin'? Y'areet, hinny?

I'm not great, obviously, but thanks for visiting me and these grapes are amazing.

They're fooking champion! They're the most expensive fruit ever, like. They cost me an absolute fooking SHITE load, but I respect you, Basil and I like you too, so, y'know... No bother, like.

Thanks again, Cheryl. You've had an incredible 2012. You've hooked up with Tre Holloway, released a third solo album (A Million Lights), aired the Access All Areas documentary on ITV2, Girls Aloud have regrouped and your autobiography has just hit the shelves.

2012 has been so fooking crazy, man. Will.I.Am, he's, like, managing me (?), says it's going to get even crazier. Tre is my rock. My soulmate. We connect on every level and it definitely helps that he's hung like a Shetland Pony. This solo album was a real personal statement, the documentary was a chance to show ordinary people the real stresses of being Cheryl, Girls Aloud is just me getting back with me mates, and the autobiography is a chance to show ordinary people the real stresses of being Cheryl. Again. Revealing the real me, like. The Cheryl Cole who stays in of an evening reading Noam Chomsky in a tiger onesie, eating a meat feast Domino Pizza and farting like a good 'un. Lol.

You say that your album was a personal statement.

Aye.

Nothing exemplifies this more than Call My Name. Can you tell me a little bit about what you were trying to say with this song?

Well, first of all I didn't write it, Calvin Harris did, but what I had in mind when I was singing it was, like, me hitting back at the infantile, fundamentalist logic which is subservient to acquisition for its own ends and is impervious to compassion definining the world in a postmodern prescriptivism of black and white: they're evil and we're good.

Having been a solo artist for quite a while, how easy has it been for you to readjust to a group dynamic?

It's been great seeing the girls again... Well... Most of them. Nadine just keeps whining on about her failed restaurant. I wish she'd just bore off, like. Nicola Roberts is so pale sometimes, against certain backdrops she's literally transparent. At the moment we're rebuilding the set for our tour next year because there were points of the show where she disappeared completely and it looked like there was a microphone just suspended in mid-air defying the known laws of physics. Lol. No, but seriously, someone's got to drive the car and, given my phenomenal solo success and being the nation's sweetheart, the girls are willing to have me in charge.

You're as massive a fan as me, have you noticed the similarity between Chen Pacino's H-H-Humpin' Ya and PSY's Gangnam Style?

I know! Fooking mental, right? (Cheryl proceeds to sing H-H-Humpin' Ya to the tune of Gangnam Style) Chen was way ahead of his time. I reckon Will.I. Am is our modern day equivalent. Did you see him on The Voice?

Yes, I did.

What did you think?

When he talks he sounds like a malfunctioning R2D2 unit.

Lol. He's a musical genius though, just like Chen. When we win my case against Simon Cowell for sacking me off of X-Factor USA I'm gonna buy Chen's publishing rights and re-release his whole back catalogue as a 52 CD box set. I'm thinking of calling it Ay No Pacino. There'll be at least a couple of his protest albums in there.

How do you feel about PSY rowing back on his earlier position in criticising American foreign policy. Some of his earlier lyrics were a little incendiary. 

And he's apologised, yeah?

Yes, he has.


I see it like this, right. Americans have a President who is a mass-murdering psychopath and they apologise to absolutely fooking nobody for his behaviour. Nobody. Oh, sorry, Afghanistan. Those drones weren't meant to kill everyone at the wedding reception, only the terrorists, but the rest of the guests got in the way. And actually we're not going to apologise, because if anyone is of fighting age in the vicinity of a drone attack we've rewritten our constitution so that we're allowed to kill you just in case. Yet they expect, nay, demand, that a pop singer apologise for some lyrics in a song he recorded years ago? PSY has no blood on his hands, whereas Barack Obama could bathe in the blood of his victims, and for all I know, he probably uses it as shower gel.

If I want to hear to an apology from any pop singer, I'll take one from the gaggle of twat artists who endorsed Obama and conveniently turn a blind eye to the murders he commits daily. Snoop Dogg, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Michael Stipe, 50 Cent, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj... I could go on, but I won't. These fooking assholes are the ones who should apologize, not PSY. Although, it's pretty piss poor that PSY is so desperate to get on Letterman that he'll say anything. Sell out. At least he brought MC Hammer out of retirement though.

People don't get to see this side of you. The politicised Cheryl Cole.

They don't want to see it.

Why not?

They're happy to see me as a piece of fluff. Trivia. A clothes horse with no discernible talent and absolutely nothing to say with dubious views on race, although I'm always gaggin' for the dark meat, if you get my drift?

And that isn't you?

Hadaway, man. Is it fook, like.

I see.

At the moment the way our government voted on that UN vote on Palestine is really pissing me off, like. The UN voted overwhelmingly to recognise Palestine as the world's 194th state. It’s a massive victory for the Palestinian people, for justice and for peace. Do you know why the UK abstained? Because we sell shed loads of arms to Israel - £2.4m between April and June this year - and we can't afford to cut off a gushing revenue stream irrespective of the unrelenting oppression and its illegality. Talking of gushing streams, I'm gonna have to go before I piss meself. Lol. No, no, no. You keep the grapes. Think of them as a Christmas present. Like I said to that black toilet attendant before I kicked her head in for looking at me funny, Season's Beatings. Laters.

* Girls aloud tour the UK next year between February and March

My muscley thighs and 3 days in church

I'm so disorganised. Maybe because my mind's constantly flitting from one thing to another and I get a little lost on where I am and what I'm doing. On one occasion I searched my room looking frantically for my glasses, riffling through cupboards, throwing clothes hither and thither, cursing myself and my appalling short-term memory only to realise that they were perched on the end of my nose the whole time. I was 11 years old when I did that. This is reassuring because when something similar happens these days I know it isn't dementia. I've always been like this.

This trip to Canada is both poignant and significant, so I felt a little pressured. My best course of action, I surmised, was not going to sleep to make sure that I had enough time to go through my list again and again and again so I didn't forget anything when we left. I handwashed my Evisu jeans at about three in the afternoon, but didn't want to put them in the tumble dryer, so I was checking on them intermittently as they hung on the maiden in the kitchen whilst ironing and watching the outstanding French cop drama Braquo (thanks again, Gordon). It makes The Shield look like Cagney and Lacey. Amazing.

Anyway, I still managed to get to my Mother's house late and then when we got to the airport I left her laptop on the backseat of the taxi and didn't realise until after it had left. I had to ring the taxi firm to send the driver back.

It's been a while since I last got on a plane, so these new security protocols were a bit of a shock. If you know me, you know my muscley thighs are never going to fit inside a pair of skinny jeans. I was instructed to remove my belt and I was thankful that I was wearing underwear when I raised my arms to be frisked. They're a bit zealous these security guards, aren't they? This fella had a good grab at my firm buttocks and a bit of a rummage down the front of my trousers (I wore Diesel jeans to travel in addition to the 3 pairs of Evisu jeans I had packed. Is that too many for a week?). He brushed roughly against El Monstruo (my nickname for Basil Junior Junior) and I briefly wondered if he wanted to induct me into the Mile High club right there in Terminal 3.

The flight was pretty much crash-free, thank fuck, but the diversion to Maine for refuelling meant our arrival in Winnipeg was delayed by 3 hours. A 22 and a half hour journey, door-to-door. Hardcore. We were staying with my Auntie Donna: the rebel of the family, which also means she's the most fun. Oh, and Auntie Donna is the one who called me a bow-legged bitch.

Winnipeg has a large Carribean community which has the church at its centre. Bright and early on Sunday morning, washed out and bleary-eyed, we all went to the Life and Truth Centre for a service, the first hour of which was comprised of a God-themed R&B concert. No kidding. There was a full band, four female singers and a saxophonist laying down hot lead lines which recalled Eric Leeds in Prince's Sign O'The Times/Lovesexy period. Everyone in the building was dancing, and not that nervous shuffling foot-to-foot type thing either. The congregation was going for it! One fella performed a slow robot stomp around the perimeter of the church, pausing dramatically to mop his brow with a sharply pressed hanky. I'm a cynic, boys and girls, but this was awesome.

The following evening was a viewing service, where everyone gets a chance to see the body and pay their last respects. The Life and Truth Centre was packed. Standing room only as family and friends took to the microphone to reminisce about their times with a man referred to by Auntie Donna's husband as "The Martin Luther King of Winnipeg". This is the second funeral I've attended with my Mother this year and on each occasion I've been floored by the vast number of family members I never even knew I had.

The Faith Temple in downtown Winnipeg was chosen for the funeral service proper on Tuesday. As a man whose death had made the evening news a much bigger venue was required for everyone to say "Goodbye". It was pretty harrowing. Myself, Wade's four sons and my cousin Andrew were the pallbearers. There were rivers of tears spilled and much heart-rending wailing and the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines sent a letter of condolence in which Uncle Wade was described as a "fearless warrior on behalf of the poor and the disadvantaged."

His youngest son, Maurice delivered a moving eulogy in which he intimated that being part of a family in which the Father was consumed by the bigger picture resulted in a very strained relationship, but that as Wade 2.0 he would ensure his Father's legacy was carried forward. It was a pretty emotional day. It's been an emotional stay. Pushing my Mother in a wheelchair makes her frailty a jarring reality which I don't ordinarily have to confront and yet another funeral puts me right back in the hospital 8 years ago when my Father died.

Now, I'm not necessarily a fan of church or Christianity. Even back in the days of the Roman Games they would use burning Christians as torches at night, because their inventions were perceived as being dangerously crazy. Throughout history armies have marched behind a crucifix to subjugate, commit genocide and dehumanise billions of people. Billions. I shift a little uneasily in my seat whenever I see Luis Fabiano, Kaka or any Brazillian footballer score a goal, cross themselves and then look skyward. It's like they're completely ignorant of Christopher Columbus and his murder of their forebears on an industrial scale to make their gesture a reflex. If you go to the island of St Vincent there's a church practically every 500 yards giving the definite message that if only Black people worshipped our God they'd be a little more human.

There has been a lot of talk over the past three days about justice. Dogma, whether Capitalist in nature or Religious, has no capacity for empathy except on its own terms as part of its own agenda. When Capitalism required the toil of Black people to make plain old Britain, Great Britain, the Church was the cheerleader yelling "God's will" from the sidelines.

As a champion of the disaffected and the disenfranchised, Uncle Wade's mantra was "Injustice anywhere means injustice everywhere," and the Pastor of the Life and Truth Centre recalled a time when Uncle Wade called him and said, "The Haitians are in trouble. Who's going to pray for them?" Behind the pulpit of the Faith Temple two flags are solemnly draped: the Canadian flag and Israel's flag. Given the life he led and the causes he fought for, it was an ironic backdrop. Today Hamas' military chief Ahmed al-Jaabari was assassinated in Gaza, which is essentially an open air prison: a symbol of one of the last injustices of Empire. Could you imagine the British Air Force sending fighter planes over to Belfast to eliminate Gerry Adams as the head of Sinn Fein? Of course not. It's unconscionable. Once again the alien "other" are getting the short end of a very sharp stick. They plainly deserve it though, don't they?

The Pastor of the Faith Temple made reference to the congregation being "Friends of Israel" and it was met with nary a flinch nor a solitary sound. It was chilling. The Palestinians are in trouble. Who's going to pray for them? Injustice anywhere means injustice everywhere.

* Mother's laptop went missing again. This time somewhere between the airport and Auntie Donna's house...

Four More Years, Mittches!!!

1. Costa Coffee using my favourite song this week - I Was Made For Loving You by KISS - is awesome, even if the residents of Totnes are trying to kick them out of town. They may well be a rapacious multinational, but Damn! They know music.

2. Ash Dieback, the fungal disease laying waste to the trees of the British countryside, sounds very much like the title of a Rammstein song.

3. A death in the family forces us to contemplate our own mortality. I've been doing that a lot and getting very maudlin. Wade Kojo Williams passed away on Monday. He was my Uncle on my Mother's side. The 'Williams' part is very important. When we were growing up ANY virtues or talents we expressed were explained by Mater as being "like the Williams", whereas any missteps, plainly, were due to us being "so Creese".

I can't speak for my Sis, or my Bro', but as a youngster I was of the opinion that these Williamses were a little bit up themselves, until we eventually met them when we took a family jaunt to St Vincent. They were pretty all right actually (apart from the relative who said I walked like a "bow-legged bitch"), and Uncle Wade was a bit of a legend: a journalist, a celebrated songwriter, parliamentarian and an active member of the community. In his time in Winnipeg he served as:

• President of the National Black Coalition of Canada (Winnipeg Chapter);
• President of the National Council of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Associations in Canada;
• President of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Association of Winnipeg;
• President of the Manitoba Intercultural Council (MIC);
• Representative on The Visible Minority National Council on Canadian Labour Force Development;
• Chairman of the Black History Month Celebration Committee;
• Member of the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - Social Planning Council of Winnipeg;
• Chairman of the Martin Luther King Memorial Committee;
• Executive Member of the Afro-Caribbean Association of Manitoba;
• Founder and Chairman of the Manitoba Coalition of Organizations Against Apartheid and Racism;
• Founder and Chairman of the Forum for the Awareness of the Minority Electorate;
• Multiculturalism Director of the Liberal Party of Manitoba;
• President of the St. Norbert Liberal Association;
• Executive Member of the Assiniboine-Fort Garry Residents Advisory Group (City of Winnipeg);
• Founder and Chairman of Students Against Apartheid (University of Winnipeg);
• President of Caribbean Students Association (University of Winnipeg);
• Founding Executive Member of The Calypso Association of Winnipeg;
• Co-Founder of the Winnipeg Calypso and Reggae Competitions;
• Co-Founder of the annual Winnipeg Soca-Reggae Festival and Member of the Manitoba Senior Provincial Cricket Team.
• He was also a member of several Caribbean Folk Groups/Choirs in Winnipeg.

Truly an exceptional man, and a bit of an inspiration. He will be greatly missed.

His funeral is taking place in Winnipeg, Canada, and I'll be accompanying my Mother, which'll be a laugh riot. I get my sense of humour and sunny disposition from her. Ask my sister. She calls me 'Smiler'.

4. So I skipped over to Liverpool to sort out my passport. The last time I was in the city was a few years ago to rehearse with an early line-up of Damaged Gods, which disintegrated when the guitarist and bassist started banging each other - Gina, the bassist, went on to play briefly for all-girl metal maidens McQueen - so I was surprised at how well I was able to navigate its streets.

Having about four hours to kill before my passport was ready I popped into a Tesco Express to grab some overpriced sustenance, and scanned the newspaper stand for a publication which would entertain me whilst I sat in my car waiting for the paperwork to be completed. Obama's face beamed triumphantly from the front pages of the newspapers whilst, on the shelves above, a scarlet tressed Holly Hagan proffered her sizeable mammaries like shoddily constructed Blancmange desserts. I decided that Roger Moore's autobiography would prove more engaging and stuck with my Chicken and Bacon sandwich, Strawberry and Banana smoothie and a pack of Cool Breeze Extra chewing gum, resolving to check out the Obama reaction to, and analysis of, his re-election online when I got home.

Ah, Obama... He's as war mongering and as slavishly bound to the notion of the expanding American Empire as his half-wit predecessor. That Hopey/Changey thing didn't really pan out, did it? Drone attacks and Guantanamo aren't going away anytime soon, kinda proving that even if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it still might turn out to be a bit of a cunt. On the subject of cunts, seeing the response of the sore loser Republicans was definitely worth it.

Donald Trump called for revolution. A subdued and sombre Ann Coulter intoned, "I'm pretty pessimistic about the country. We have more takers than makers and it's over. There is no hope," whilst Ted Nugent tweeted, "Pimps whores & welfare brats & their soulless supporters have a president to destroy America". Fox News host and attack dog of the bigoted right, Bill O'Reilly, lamented the erosion of the white establishment:

"The white establishment is now the minority. The voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them those things? Obama wins because it's not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is the minority. People want things."

Poor fella. His whole world had fallen apart. He looked devastated. I almost felt sorry for him, even as he employed the stereotype of ethnic minorities being feckless spongers. And that's the Republican Party's problem: its hijacking by the extreme neo-cons means that it isn't inclusive enough and as a result Mitt only made inroads into the hearts and minds of the electorate each and every time he moved to the centre, which left him open to charges of 'flip flopping' and hypocrisy. Ronald Reagan would be too moderate for his own party now.

They and the purblind others of their type need to wake up and recognise that times are changing. Watching one's parents forced at gunpoint to engage in sexual intercourse in a bath of warm excrement would be more fulfilling and better for one's conscience than voting Republican. Compare their separatist language with the following from Obama's acceptance speech:

"The idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try."

Much nicer and genuinely inspiring, isn't it? But then, he meticulously employs a lexicon designed to be inclusive, which is a very good thing indeed. Just try to avoid looking at the detail, eh? At the very least the average American woman will have control of her own uterus for the next 4 years, which I shall address during my 2 hour stopover in Chicago later today. BOOM!

I'm kidding.

Or am I...?

Yes. Yes, I am.

* The Monkey Obama t-shirt comes courtesy of the white supremacist website Tightrope. Also in this series "Fight Crime. Abort Black Babies."and "Bureau of Negro Control."

Hour back... Get it?

1. Played a gig with my new band, The Extraordinary Gentlemen, and much adulation ensued.

2. My left knee is now merely the size of a small Mexican boy. I have named it Tiago Rodrigues.

3. Skyfail, more like. It never hits the heights of the mediocre title song. Javier Bardem as Silva hams it up more than a horribly mutated, genetically modified pig. He gives a magnificently camp, rip-roaring performance. He's amazing considering what little he's given to work with.

4. Jimmy Saville, eh? Who saw that coming? Actually, Jerry Sadowitz did. Back in 1987. 25 years ago he suggested Uncle Jimmy was a paedophile who used his charity work as a cover for his evil deeds. Jerry had to withdraw the CD from sale when the threat of a libel action reared its head. Jerry Sadowitz once won a bet with fellow comedians at the Comedy Store by saying to the audience of the celebrated, at the time, Robben Island inmate: "Nelson Mandela, what a cunt. You lend some people a fiver and you never see them again."

His BBC Television series The Pall Bearer's Revue, which featured magic tricks, sketches and stand-up routines, received a record number of complaints and the Beeb have promised never to repeat it or release it on DVD. A tad hypocritical given the criminal barbarity of Russell Kane on BBC3's Unzipped. The only thing I really remember from this series was a sketch in the final episode in which Sadowitz, playing the role of a US Army General, suggests that a strategic nuclear strike against himself and Andrew 'Dice' Clay is the only way to make the world a better place.

I was in a bar with a friend and his American girlfriend when I told her how much I liked Andrew 'Dice' Clay. Incensed, she spat her drink out in classic Hollywood slapstick style and then began rummaging in her handbag for a napkin as she mumbled about what a jerk he was and what an idiot I must be. I got the distinct impression that she was contemplating punching me in the face.

What to say about Andrew 'Dice' Clay..? I've always regarded him as the Italian-American version of Barry Humphries' Sir Les Patterson. A hideously hilarious caricature. Less enlightened people, or morons if you prefer, have convinced themselves that he is deadly serious and that the Diceman is not a brilliantly grotesque invention. I became aware of Dice for the first time when a Channel 4 arts programme featured excerpts from his live act to illustrate how utterly repellant he was. He was legitimised as an artist, in my eyes, when he starred in a film (The Adventure Of Ford Fairlane) which featured both Morris Day and Sheila E: acolytes of Prince's Minneapolis Funk sound. It was directed by Renny Harlin who had come straight from abandoning work Alien 3 and, on the strength of his work on this feature, went on to direct Die Hard 2.

Dice will forever be known for being the only comedian to sell out two nights at Madison Square Garden and his adult Nursery Rhymes ("Mother Goose? I fucked her"). I would contest that he should also be known for recording perhaps one of the greatest comedy albums of all time: The Day The Laughter Died.

Unlike the scripted profanity of his other albums, this one, produced by the incredible Rick Rubin (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Adele, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Jay Z, Justin Timberlake) was entirely improvised. It's like a jazz album. Across an hour and a half, Dice describes a thrilling organic arc of a performance: starting off tentatively and disinterestedly describing his first Christmas kiss and ending with the rousing finale of the piano accompanied Something Soft via conversations with a sparse audience which sees their number dwindling as people walk out in disgust. Genius. 

I've got a Richard Pryor boxset which collects all seven of his albums for Warner Brothers and they're a laugh riot: filled with pathos (his Mudbone character especially), sagacity and a razor sharp wit, but there's nothing which matches the surreal absurdity of Dice's Hour Back... Get It? routine;

"Ya know, this could take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour... Back! Get it?It could be a minute. It could be a half-hour, or an hour... Back! Get it? Hour Back!Ya don't get this bit? D'ya think I do? Think about it, I'll wait... Take an hour... Back! Get it?"

The present equivalent of Jerry Sadowitz is Frankie Boyle - Jerry Sadowitz calls Mr Boyle a tribute act - who recently won a libel case against the Daily Mirror who had called him a "racist comedian". He won his case, which seems fair enough. He's a lot more politically astute than his digs at Rebecca Adlington and Katie Price would indicate. In episode 4 of Tramadol Nights, which was cited in the case, he succinctly summarises British Foreign Policy:

"We're fighting a couple of wars now. Well, we call them wars basically we're just murdering a whole bunch of fucking shepherds. And what gets me is our callousness as a society, when we read out our dead on the news first because our lives are more important. Other people's lives aren't worth as much. 'A bomb went off in Kandahar today killing 2 British Servicemen, 3 UN relief workers and a whole bunch of Pakis.'"

Mr Boyle ends the show with a routine which analyses the results of his wife getting fucked by a Black Cock. As this could constitute a clumsy male compliment does that mean it isn't racist. Think about it, I'll wait. Get back to me in an hour. Back. Get it? No. Neither do I.

My struggles with the truth

THE FOLLOWING BLOG CONTAINS THEMES AND LANGUAGE WHICH SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING. INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS ONLY.

I made reference to the peerless Cyrille Regis in my last post. He was a late 70s striker who played for West Bromwich Albion and, alongside Laurie Cunninham and Brendan Batson, was one of Ron Atkinson's pioneering Three Degrees. This clip on YouTube shows them destroying Man U in the 78-79  season, the black footballers being booed every time they touched the ball. So things have moved on considerably, but I'd like to say a heartfelt "Well done" to Jason Roberts and Rio Ferdinand for their actions this weekend in not wearing the Kick It Out anti-racism campaign T-shirt. It looks like Rio's going to get a good kicking from Sir Alex Ferguson. SAF described Rio's actions as "embarrassing" and promised "He'll be dealt with it, don't worry about that".

Roberts and Ferdinand are protesting what they perceive to be a lack of action by the 'Kick It Out' organisation in combating racism in football. In light of the high-profile Suarez and Terry cases and what happened in Serbia it's time for something more than words on a t-shirt. I hope they get the opportunity to explain their positions rather than being vilified for rejecting the prevailing orthodoxy.

The reaction of the Serbian FA to the criticism they've received for their monkey chanting fans has been curious. They posted a heavily edited video on youTube suggesting that Danny Rose is lying when he says that he was the subject of racist abuse. It's pathetic, asinine, utterly witless and smacks of a Lance Armstrong style two-fingered denial.

There's a lot of that denial stuff floating about. I was on a sports news website and was perturbed by the amount of racist abuse offered by Football fans in defence of John Terry, which, of course, I had to challenge. There was one fella who had an onscreen name of THE TRUTH. The following are all pretty awful, but illustrate that racism is alive and well. I've copied and pasted his posts without editing or correction:

THE TRUTH

WHY DO NIG_GERS CARRY A TURD IN THERE WALLETS ?

 I.D.

THE TRUTH

WHY DO MONKEYS LOOK SO WORRIED ?

BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT IN A MILLION YEARS THEY WILL EVOLVE INTO NIG_GERS.

THE TRUTH

WHY DID STEVEY WONDER ALWAYS LOOK SO HAPPY ?

BECAUSE NO ONE TOLD HIM HE WAS BLACK.

THE TRUTH

WHY DO NIG_GERS STINK ?

SO THAT BLIND PEOPLE CAN HATE THEM AS WELL.

THE TRUTH

THE DISCOVERER OF DNA DR JAMES WATSON SAID BLACK NEGROS

HAVE A VERY LOW IQ AND PREFER TO DANCE AROUND TO BONGO DRUMS

AND MOST SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THIS TO BE TRUE.

THE TRUTH

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU SEE A NIG_GER WITH ONE LEG ?

STOP LAUGHING AND RE-LOAD.

THE TRUTH

MOST SCIENTISTS THINK NEGROS HAVE THE IQ OF SMALL CHILDREN AND THE ONLY WAY TO CONTROL THEM

 IS TO GIVE THEM A GOOD THRASHING

THE TRUTH

ITS AN ""INCONVIENIENT TRUTH""

NO ONE WANTS NIG_GERS OR PAKIS HERE

THEY ARE SUB HUMAN IN EVERY WAY

ITS NOTHING PERSONAL

ITS JUST THE TRUTH

THE TRUTH

YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST THE ARGUMENT IF YOU TRY AND BAN SOMETHING..

WHICH MEANS YOU ARE UNABLE TO ARGUE YOUR POINT FOR OR AGAINST

THE TRUTH

ANYONE NOTICE HOW BLACKS ARE ENGLISH WHEN THEY WANT TO BE

AND SUDDENLY CHANGE TO  AFRICAN VICTIMS WHEN THEY WANT TO BE

THE TRUTH

 80% OF  AFRICAN NIG_GERS ARE HIV POSITIVE

 AND THE REASON IS THEY TAKE IT UP THE ARSE

 STRANGE BUT TRUE CHECK IT OUT

THE TRUTH

DARWINS LAW 

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

WHITES ARE FIT 

NIG_GERS ARE  S_H_I_T

Horrified, I asked, quite reasonably, what the fuck the moderators were doing allowing this vile filth to be posted without censure or sanction as it indicated that they agreed with these views. There were those who posted that, like many "People of colour", I was being too sensitive, or actually a bit of  a bigot for wanting to restrict THE TRUTH's right to free speech.

In celebration of my love for Gene Simmons my e-mail addy bears a "Demon" reference, which inspired the THE TRUTH to respond:

THE TRUTH

HAVE YOU NOTICED ITS ONLY NIG_GERS AND FAGSTHAT WANT TO BAN ME

OTHER MAY NOT AGREE WITH ME, BUT THEY RESPECT MY RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

DEMONFAG.... ITS CALLED FREEDOM OF SPEECH

COS YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH

This was a step too far for me. I channeled the spirit of Malcolm Tucker and offered a brusque riposte:

Do not address me, you f@%king moron. You're a waste of skin, rather like the useless moderators who've allowed you to say stuff that you should be arrested for. And what's with the 'fag' reference? Scared of the big black dick, are we? If I'd known you were going to turn out this way, I would have insisted your Mother swallow instead of...

Despite the warning in red at the top of this page I cannot reproduce the concluding thoughts of my rant. If you can bear to, read this imbecile's crass posts again. They pinpoint precisely why wearing a t-shirt is not enough. Kick It Out need to do more than offer slogans and promotional t-shirts, because racism is still a very real problem.