RIP PhifeDawg, aka Malik Taylor and some of 90's NYC

(Above a still from the music video for "Jazz/Buggin' Out" by "A Tribe Called Quest" (1991) featuring a then mostly desolate DUMBO waterfront in the background. Of course that building behind them in this shot is being made currently, into condos.)

Phife Dawg is dead at 45. This one personally hurts.

"Phife Dawg" aka Malik Taylor was a lyricist and key member of hiphop's ground breaking group "A Tribe Called Quest"

Some folks rant about people mourning the death of entertainers or celebs, and if you're kind of fan of "A Tribe Called Quest" then Malik Taylor aka Phife Didd-dawg was the energetic essence of that, but he was also the dude I'd see on the regular in NYC. Specifically in video game arcades where he'd hold down a machine for hours, beating anyone who foolishly stepped to challenge, or just rocking the machine by himself. If you have no idea who I'm talking about let me take a few lyrics from the man himself to explain:

"Now here's a funky introduction of how nice I am Tell your mother, tell your father, send a telegram I'm like an energizer cause, you see, I last long My crew is never ever wack because we stand strong"

From "Check the Vibe" by A Tribe Called Quest
(This video shot with contours of a desolate DUMBO in the Background)

Phife on his preference of women:

"I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu Nation Told you in the jam that we can get down Now let's knock the boots like the group H-Town You got BBD all on your bedroom wall But I'm above the rim and this is how I ball A gritty little something on the New York street This is how I represent over this here beat"

From "Electric Relaxation" by A Tribe Called Quest,

Phife On fidelity:

"Original rude boy, never am I coy You can be a shorty in my ill convoy Not to come across as a thug or a hood But hon, you got the goods, like Madelyne Woods By the way, my name's Malik The Five-Foot Freak Let's say we get together by the end of the week She simply said, "No", labelled me a ho I said, "How you figure?" "My friends told me so" I hate when silly groupies wanna run they yap
Word to God hon, I don't get down like that."

Also From "Electric Relaxation" by A Tribe Called Quest

Phife On life(kinda):

"I never half step cause I'm not a half stepper Drink a lot of soda so they call me Dr. Pepper(sad! He was referring to his indulgence of sugars that led to his diabetes) Refuse to compete with BS competition Your name ain't Special Ed so won't you seckle with the mission I never walk the street thinking it's all about me Even though deep in my heart, it really could be I just try my best to like go all out Some might even say yo shorty black you're buggin' out"

From "Buggin' Out" by A Tribe Called Quest,

Damn! Imagine being 20 years old and those lyrics play over Tribe's dope beats as you walk down the street, into the club, off to class, Phife aka #MalikTaylor made an introduction, lines for anyone feeling the vibe, especially someone young as he was then, trying to find their way.


It's very important to note these albums came out over 20 years ago, when HipHop was still a largely unknown genre, and when images of HipHop ranged from under budget to cliched. Yet A Tribe Called Quest powered by Q-Tip's fertile visual imagination, he and Phife's lyrical flows, Ali Shaheed Muhammad's dope beats and all three of their combined energies created videos which were imaginative, bugged out (sometimes literally, as shown above) and always full of Black and Brown faces.

Smiling faces, Hard Faces, Happy Faces, Dancing Faces, Living Breathing on the Block from Bk to Queens, faces. Us just living, being, us.

For a great example check out this video for "Oh My God" which was shot on Monroe (btw Marcus Garvey and Monroe *below) in Bedford Stuyvesant.

I can't begin to express what it was like in the 90's to click on "Video Music Box" (running on a public tv station channel 31 here in NYC at the time) and seeing the block my family lived on, and the people of Brooklyn I recognized as everyday people being the setting for the music of the moment. Tribe was a part of the culture that elevated an unseen NYC for millions of people.

If you're reading this and you've never heard of any of this, it could because while Phife and A Tribe Called Quest (#ATCQ) were pioneers in a jazz infused melodic hiphop that plotted the course for hundreds of lyrasis and producers to come, most notably The Roots, so you may not have heard Tribe on your radio but it didnt matter or as Phife might say:

No need to sweat Arsenio to gain some type of fame No shame in my game cause I'll always be the same Styles upon styles upon styles is what I have You wanna diss the Phifer but you still don't know the half.

From "Check the Rhime" by A Tribe Called Quest

"Rappin' is an art, coming straight from the heart So forget the chart because the action can start."
From "Hot Sex" A Tribe Called Quest (on the Boomerange Movie Soundtrack)

Me, I used to be a gamer, hardcore, and like others I'd go to the city to play the best in the land. I saw Phife regularly in the arcade. Occasionally I'd stand by and watch his gamer skills. He was totally unpretentious. A regular dude like everyone else, flexing skills at a serious hobby, concentrating mad hard, or cracking jokes.

Dudes would come and try talking him up, but usually not, cause Phife was busy leveling up. And if you know, you know how that goes. After a while my visits to the arcade were just to come and go. I'd step in and right back out cause if Phife was on deck nobody had next.

Phife is a part of my NYC, my Hip-Hop my memories. 

Seeing him struggle with diabetes in the "A Tribe Called Quest" documentary was rough, but like anyone would, I'd hoped he was recovering toward a happy ending.

45 is young. Way too young to go.

(Recent photo of Malik Taylor aka "Phife Dawg" Photo credit Andrew H Walker/Getty)

"You on point Phife?" Yo Rest in Peace man.

#RIPPhife #ATCQ #NATIVETONGUES #HIPHOP #FallenRappers #NYC #BROOKLYN #BKLYN #QUEENS #UPTOWN #BRONX #WORLDTOUR #LONGISLAND #VIBE #PEOPLESINSTINCTIVETRAVELS

(Apologies for the wack spacing throughout this, I will be overhauling this blog soon)

NYTimes posts a used-to-love letter to 5Ptz

The New York Times posted what I'm coining a "I used-to-love letter" to the subject of the erased murals on the 5ptz building in its Friday, Dec 20th, 2013 online edition.

I noticed a small headline and link reading "A Beginning For 5Ptz not the End" whose title conceit inspired me to read it since last word and image from 5ptz, the iconic mural and graffiti coated building in Long Island City, Queens, was of all it's art, tags and massive murals, some of it a decade old had been destroyed in gut wrenching fashion and the middle of the night by the land owner and developer.

Immediately after I read the letter which was posted in the City Diary section and who's message seems to be telling us, to borrow a movie line,"nothing to see here move along" I wondered if any vested real estate interests help blow this bit of prose up the grey lady's skirt. And if so how much?

For you I present my interpretation of the letter, the article to the actual is at the end.

Dear Diary,

I used to love, a boy, he was cool, an artist, with a cool name. I'm giving you the superficial details because I have a word count to watch and there really wasnt much more depth to my interest than that.

It wasn't my fault but I missed out on the New York of lore, fortunately thanks to my crush-love I was granted access into a sliver of that world and a chance to sight-see. It was great. My crush, wrote me in small letters into a world of characters, among them; self-proclaiming types, and a  disappearing/reappearing tabby cat(Cheshire, duh). Finally I surfed on the edge of inclusion. From the roof, I watched the sunset on this world and it's magic.

Long after I got a fb message from my crush-love (who by now I realized, I didn't really love anyway) he showed me the art work of that world was taken away. Interestingly he didn't care much.  Since he's of that world and willing to see the developer's middle-night white out of all it's artwork (including my non-crush's artwork (ephemeral, duh)) I know what happened doesn't matter, and I clearly should not see it as a big deal that the art work was destroyed without any attempt to save even one mural.

My erased-crush thinks it's like a blank canvas for new art to grow, like say the uniqueness of the edifying edifices of luxury high-rise condos. My once-crush is giving me permission not to see the developer's actions as an insult, an example of the excessive greed and ego that has dictated much of the gentrification of the city in the last ten years, or a symbol of petty vengeance by a sore winner/developer with a desire to take an eraser to a world renown aspect of New York City.

So like an online fling we should just move along and be happy there still pictures somewhere on the internet to look at.

P.S.: No word on the tabby, I'm sure he'll pop up somewhere else, maybe he'll just appear in one of the new luxury condos because that's how magic works.

Love
Alice

Liked,
Kristen

The City Roll Diary article refered to can be found here: 
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/a-beginning-for-5pointz-not-the-end  

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”
― Lewis Carroll

The End of 5Ptz, a vibrant piece of New York City

I've been wanting to post about last month's Banksy NYC residency and it's impact, but life happened as it does, and then this happened.

(all photographs by Tiernan Morgan for Hyperallergic) 

EVIL. i dislike when "evil" is tossed around as a cause or a label, but this is straight evil, malicious, petty, intended to do nothing really more than wound and disrespect. The 5ptz building, which most of you know is an otherwise unremarkable industrial building at LIC Queen's eastern edge, made otherworldly and beautiful by the artwork it's been dressed in for over a decade has been defiled by it's owners who last night sent in workers to cruelly paint over as much of the artwork, as they could.

(all photographs by Tiernan Morgan for Hyperallergic) 

The owners recently won the right, after many appeals, to turn the land into a new development. The plans they show, make no usage of the existing structure, so why paint over this building that is scheduled to be torn down? They did it simply to be evil soulless monsters.

(all photographs by Tiernan Morgan for Hyperallergic) 

The buffing and over painting in this way is a physical, premeditated undeniable attack on art, which is an attack on the human heart. And why? To prove ownership? To forcibly demonstrate power to Meres who has been custodian and curator of the building and leader of the fight to preserve it as artists mecca and landmark? Did they cover the art to look away from the artists who've committed beauty to modern blight? Or are they like Oedipus realizing that they've screwed that which put them on the map and made the building (and to a large degree the neighborhood) a place where people would even consider WANTING to be? Did the fight over the right to make statements with paint leave them secretly longing to up their own sloppy tag, to say "fuck you we're somebody too" and at the same time physically blind themselves to the art that birthed their opportunity, attempting blind us in the process along with them?

Who cares their motivation, my desire to know why doesn't explain or excuse their desire to obscure creation, expression from the public space and the lotus-esque ways in which our spirits rebirth value out of human despair. 

I can't help but recall the transition of 11 Spring in Soho from public graf board and tag mecca to it's current luxury condo status.  I shot and produced a simple video with the help and support of Marc Schiller and the Wooster Collective, interviewing the artists and talking about the significance of that building. The owners sought out Marc to invite artists to tag up 11 Spring, dozens of them, each with their own styles, background, celebrity levels and politics were granted the time to demonstrate what that building had become, there public came, a moment was made and I believe the value of art it's inspiration to commerce were reinforced in an enriching experience. Granted there many were differences of opinion at 11 Spring, but ultimately recognition was given to the place art had made in giving that building such value that it was able to capitalize monetarily and as a result take what had become a public space for the exchange of ideas and friendships and political and personal discontent, through art, away from the public. New York City has always been a confluence of commerce, since the native Lenape came down to the rivers to trade, but there a ways to do business on a human level that add value to the transaction and the active. 

Disrespect is not only evil, it's unnecessary. 

So I'm hoping we all keep our eyes and ears open for how we as intentional and accidental members of this moment's nyc artistic community respond and when necessary participate in response to the evil disrespect of human heart that took place last night at 5Ptz. 

Life's not so easy living Breezy - Hurricane Sandy brings hard facts home for Rockaway community, New York City in general

Breezy Point, Queens took a helluva a beating from Hurricane Sandy.

The winds turned bits of home and property into shrapnel, the storm surge brought floods in from the ocean overlapping the low land, inundating homes, drowning possessions and of course as has been widely reported causing fires to erupt surrounded by impassable roads, which sweep through the community on the Rockaway peninsula disintegrating over 100 homes and leaving smoldering foundations in it's wake.

Fortunately so far, there haven't been reports of any deaths as a result.

Most New Yorkers would have an easier time finding Staten Island than Breezy Point, (go ahead ask ten random New Yorkers to locate Staten Island on a map) Being the geek that I tend to be I knew where Breezy Point is but besides being gobsmacked by the fire and destruction I was way stunned at how many people live there. It's not what I remembered.

On summer days in the late 80's I'd ride my bike about 3 miles from the Flatlands/Mill Basin (yeh Mill Basin) area of Brooklyn where my grandmother's home is down along the Flatbush Avenue extension past the former Red Lobster, past the Toys R Us (usually past, there were frequent pit-stops at Toys R Us, hey I was a kid) out to Jamaica Bay. I'd then make what I still think is the most terrifying bike ride over a bridge in New York City, over the Gil Hodges Bridge stretching over the Jamaica Bay inlet between Brooklyn and Rockaway's slender strip of land.

Almost directly on the other side of the bridge is Jacob Riis Beach, in my opinion the best of the city beaches. The waves are higher at Riis Beach. I'd argue it's water and sand is cleaner than most of the city's beaches. It faces the ocean straight away unlike Coney Island which to an extent is behind Rockaway's eastern most point and that point is Breezy. Which is why I know of Breezy Point.

The first time I went, I did so simply because its words were otherwise unremarkably printed on the outskirts of the 1980's NYC Subway map. It seemed so distant. The map showed no landmarks. Not the ambiguous green geometry of a possible park or even a line to indicate roads. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to stand there, at the point drawn on the map, noteworthy enough at least to have been named but possibly consisting of nothing else. Being the literal minded kid I was, hoped for a pointed piece of sand to stand on, water on either side of me and what else, a breeze, at least.

Usually though, the summer heat and the 3 mile bike ride narrowed my focus and desire to nothing more than a quick splash in the accessible surf. It took many trips before I realized my Breezy Point investigation had never been conducted, so one day I made it the primary goal. Turning right off the bridge instead of my usual left toward Riis, I found a quaint street, a small fire station, and after a short ride not much else. The road as I recall stopped after less than a mile and became a sandy path. Curious as I was, a random sandy path into a neighborhood that didn't look a lot like me, wasn't so appealing to my teen-aged bike riding self. Yusef Hawkins was a constant presence in my mind when I rode into foreign outer borough neighborhoods. A few years later I convinced a girl friend that we should drive to Breezy Point. Of course I had an ulterior motive, besides whatever shenanigans we'd get into I wanted to see if we could get further in the car than I could on bike. Well a few minutes later I got my answer. The road had ended and we were surrounded not by water but tall grass. It was higher than the car, we couldnt even see the water but I suggested we drive deeper. We did and were rewarded by the sound of tires with no traction spinning out in the sand. She turned the car around and we high tailed it outta there.

That was all I knew of Breezy Point until Sandy hit. The number of tragically destroyed homes on inspired me to do some research and I learned it's a co-op community. Built from land purchased in the 60's but much of it developed only since the 80's.

A New York Times article from 2008 mention's this;

In 1960, when the neighborhood went co-op, Breezy Point was mostly a summer retreat for middle-class families from Brooklyn, particularly Marine Park, Sheepshead Bay and Flatbush. In the late 1990s, according to brokers, hundreds of residents began razing one-story bungalows and building year-round dwellings.

That might explain why I didn't notice so much community when I rode through. Unfortunately the community has a lot of undesired attention these days. Hopefully they can rebuild but I wonder how they will.

I watched this 20/20 report about Breezy Point.

Watch More News Videos at ABC | 2012 Presidential Election | Entertainment & Celebrity News

Two ABC producers were there when the storm hit, to cover the folks who'd refused the mandatory evacuation. Several residents expressed a stand our ground philosophy. I understand that. I write this blog and more substantial live a good part of my life from the perspective of this land is my land, where I'm from and will remain. I understand that way of thinking. But ultimately I know in my heart outside forces come into our situations and influence our lives. We can stay put, but if we don't adapt to our new realities we won't last long. Whether the reality is gentrification or climate change.

Considering the storm was the result of climate change (leave comments if you can prove otherwise) and at-sea-level communities like Breezy Point, the outer banks in North Carolina and all around the world are going to be exposed to more intense storms and higher water levels, I can't help but wonder if residents are going to make long lasting solutions (building higher at least) or simply engage in the kind of cognitive dissonance that leaves people doomed to repetition.