On August 1st, in 1947, the infamous bassist-Prakash John was born in Mumbai, India. He moved to Toronto, Canada in 1960. His early musical influences were Indian music, and once stateside, R&B. His first band was R&B based-The Trikq. He built his chops throughout the 60’s and taught others as well (Edgar Winter, Rick Derringer, Bobby Whitlock). In 1971, Prakash John worked with George Clinton, sharing bass playing duties with Bootsy Collins on Parliament & Funkadelic LPs & tours from 1971-1979. He’s worked with James Brown, Lou Reed, Domenic Troiano, Blues Brothers and Alice Cooper. He’s 71 today.
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On August 1st, in 1960, two of Public Enemy’s group members were born: Emcee Chuck D (Carlton Ridehour) & Minister of Information-Professor Griff (Richard Griffin). Chuck D is from Queens & Griff hails from Long Island. Both were intricate members in one of Hip Hop’s most political groups. Their last song together with all the original members was 1989’s Fight the Power single off the Do The Right Thing soundtrack. Griff was coerced to leave the group after he made some anti-semitic comments, which was largely how the media labeled their music (anti-semitic/homophobic).
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| On August 1st, in 1963 former W.C. & the Madd Circle Emcee-Coolio (Artis Leon Ivey Jr.) was born in Compton, California. Madd stood for: Minority Alliance of Anti-Discrimination. The members of the group included W.C., DJ Crazy Toones & Big Gee. Coolio went on to do solo work, act, became a chef and more…but to me, his best joints were with the Madd Circle. Emcee Rampage: (Roger McNair) was born today in 1974 in Brooklyn, New York. He’s a Flipmode Squad member (Busta Rhymes’ crew). He’s rocked with LL, Alicia Keys, Puffy, Craig Mack & Biggie to name a few. | |
On August 1st, in 2012 DeAndre McCullough passed away in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the man that inspired David Simon & Edward Burns to write the book: The Corner. It became a HBO miniseries and later spawned off into The Wire. DeAndre played Brother Mouzone’s muscle and an Officer in Treme. He’s included here today because his character that Sean Nelson portrayed in The Corner used to freestyle rhyme with his crew a lot on the show. All of Simon’s HBO series have great backing music as well.
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