Vybz Kartel
Ninja Man said "I come in a killing mood, but I hear de man me come fe kill have a funeral", so he left the action at Jam World, Portmore, St Catherine, up to Zebra.
The striped one duly reminded the large but still well below par audience at Saturday night's Champions in Action of Redder Than Red before taking the house three times with new lyrics at Ninja's command.
Aidonia got a rare spark at the end of his showing when he threw words at Munga Honourable, while Kartel ignited the venue as he took it to Mavado. But when it was Mavado's turn, coming on to work with Bounty Killer, he tore the house down in his reply, remarking that Kartel sounded "trembly" and weak when he was deejaying his battle lyrics.
Unsatisfactory show
Still, despite the inevitable cheering that accompanied the war threats, the see-saw action at Champions in Action made for an unsatisfactory show in the closing dancehall onslaught. At one minute Assassin was turning in a sparkling performance, taking the house down with Sissy and Anwhere We Go, at another Aidonia's 100 Stab was falling flat.
Sizzla's extended run, although he worked on tracks, was impressive, as he veered between the roots of Just One of Those Days, the dancehall of Run Out Pon Dem and the defiance of Nah Apologise.
In one breath Lady Saw was demanding Chat To Me Back to delight the audience, at another Spice (who Saw called on) was making minimal impact. Kartel's extended segment, along with his Portmore Empire, went over very well, but then Matterhorn and Fire Links chanted mainly to their own delight, Serani and Bugle got mildly warm late in their sets with Doh and Exercise respectively and the crowd was only very mildly interested in DeMarco.
And it was mostly the women at the front who were interested in Shaggy, who leapt high to the mix on Church Heathen.
Vanloads of policemen
So, ironically, on what is known mainly as a hardcore dancehall show ("A bad man show, police cyaa lock it off," Mavado said, many faces turning to the two vanloads of policemen at the back of the crowd) it was the roots of Tarrus Riley's Lion Paw, Etana's I'm Not Afraid, I-Wayne's Lava Ground, Lutan Fyah's St Jago de la Vega and I-Octane's stabbing of vampires with a peg that went over best.
There was variety as well, LUST delivering their remakes of Chicago's Inspiration and Air Supply's Just As I Am just after 2:00 a.m. and the Finesses models strutting their stuff.
Prophecy, Anger Management, Black Soil and Rhythm 2000 bands played on a night of many changes, Razz and Biggy and Swatch dropping the beats. Emcees were the hilarious Sample Man, Empress and Nuffy.
Mavado - Nathaniel Stewart Photos
Zebra in his first major performance since being released from prison.
Tarrus Riley made an impact with Lion Paw.
http://www.positivelybarack.com/2008/09/25/election-day-dress-code-no-obama-t-shirt/
Jake Tapper is ABC News' Senior National Correspondent based in the network's Washington bureau. He writes about politics and popular culture and covers a range of national stories.
On his talk show on WPHT today, conservative Philadelphian Michael Smerconish endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
Listen HERE.
Smerconish did so by reading a couple paragraphs from his pending op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"Ive decided," he said. "My conclusion comes after reading the candidates memoirs and campaign platforms, attending both party conventions, interviewing both men multiple times, and watching all primary and general election debates.
"John McCain is an honorable man who has served his country well. But he will not get my vote. For the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago, Im voting for a Democrat for president.
"I may have been an appointee in the George H.W. Bush administration, and master of ceremonies for George W. Bush in 2004, but last Saturday I stood amidst the crowd at an Obama event in North Philadelphia," says the Republican.
Smerconish has given us some more from his op-ed:
"Terrorism. The candidates disagree as to where to prosecute the war against Islamic fundamentalists. Barack Obama is correct in saying the front line in that battle is not Iraq, its the Afghan-Pakistan border. Osama bin Laden crossed that border from Tora Bora in December 2001, and we stopped pursuit. The Bush administration outsourced the hunt for bin Laden and, instead, invaded Iraq.
"No one in Iraq caused the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Our invasion was based on a false predicate, so we have no business being there, regardless of whether the surge is working. Our focus must be the tribal-ruled FATA region in Pakistan. Only recently has our military engaged al-Qaeda there in operations that mirror those Obama was ridiculed for recommending in August 2007.
"Last spring, Obama told me, 'Its not that I was opposed to war [in Iraq]. Its that I felt we had a war that we had not finished.' Even Sen. Joe Lieberman conceded to me just last Friday that 'the headquarters of our opposition, our enemies today,' is the FATA."
Smerconish is taking a lot of heat from his fellow GOPers, as one might imagine.
Citing published studies, the group said a red or itchy rash, known as "mobile phone dermatitis," affects people who develop an allergic reaction to the nickel surface on mobile phones after spending long periods of time on the devices.
"It is worth doctors bearing this condition in mind if they see a patient with a rash on the cheek or ear that cannot otherwise be explained," it said.
ReadThey reckon that a huge type of catfish, called a goonch, may have developed a taste for flesh in an Indian river where bodies are dumped after funerals.
Locals have believed for years that a mysterious monster lurks in the water. But they think it has moved on from scavenging to snatching unwary bathers who venture into the Great Kali, which flows along the India-Nepal border.
The extraordinary creature has been investigated by biologist Jeremy Wade for a TV documentary to be shown on Five.
He said: The locals have told me of a theory that this monster has grown extra large on a diet of partially burnt corpses. It has perhaps got this taste for flesh by feasting on remains of funeral pyres. There will be a few freak individuals that grow bigger than the other ones and if you throw in extra food, they will grow even bigger.
Jeremy discounted theories that crocodiles could be responsible for the carnage before turning his attention to goonches among the worlds biggest freshwater fish.
Music By: Zj Chrome + Zj Liquid + Nikki Z + Chromatic + Darkcide + TNG Music + Equilibrium + Illusion + Exclamation
Slip N' Slide is a Day Event in the form of a Car Wash in which patrons can come out and view the vixens and party amongst them whille getting their cars washed.
N.B. The Car Wash will be doubling as a themed photoshoot so you can also look out for hot pics from the wash on the group after the events.
If you wouldl ike a personal shot with a vixen of choice there will be a fee otherwise shots with the vixens will not be allowed
KLIQUE ENTERTAINMENT in association with PAPPIZZLE ENTERTAINMENT presents... "VIVA" The Ultimate Club Fiesta!
Taking place at The Office (Above Burger King) Knutsford Boulevard New Kingston, Jamaica
Pappizzle Entertainment & Klique Entertainment presents their first installment of crazy club parties. Come party to the sounds of Dj Pappizzle, the hot new sensation out of Fletcher's Land & ZJ Ice from Zip 103 FM. Madd party vibes!!!
Ananda's family still had hopes their little girl would return $7,000 in phone credit paid to Ananda's 'abductors' |
INGRID BROWN, Senior staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com Monday, September 29, 2008 |
$7,000 in phone credit paid to Ananda's 'abductors' |
ANANDA Dean's family had high hopes, after making arrangements to pay a ransom as well as sending $7,000 worth of phone credit to persons who claimed to be the abductors of the 11-year-old girl, that she would be happily reunited with them.
However, yesterday, although they could not identify the severely decomposed body as that of 'their little angel', the reality hit that they may never see her smile again.
Yesterday, the residents of Whitehall Avenue in Kingston, where Ananda lived part-time with her father and his family, rushed to the community of Belvedere in rural St Andrew, when news spread that her body had been found.
When her parents could not make a positive identification, their hopes slowly began to return as they milled around on the streets with sad blank stares.
Dozens of children huddled together waiting for some good news, especially since they had been told earlier that her parents heard her last Friday screaming in the background as they spoke to persons claiming to be her abductors.
An aunt of Ananda, who requested anonymity, told the Observer that the family was so sure she would have been returned to them, since they always complied with the supposed abductors' requests.
She said they had become even more hopeful after one of the men who claimed to have abducted her, called and they heard Ananda in the background screaming in anguish for "Daddy, Daddy".
Yesterday, the family said if it was Ananda that was found, then it can only be surmised that it must have been a recorded message which the 'killers' were playing.
"I know is she we hear screaming for Daddy Daddy like them doing something to her," she said.
The aunt said she had made several trips to various points, as asked by persons claiming to be the abductors, as well as following up leads, many of which turned out to be pranksters.
She said she believed that the persons they sent the phone credit to were the ones involved, as they said things which seemed to suggest that they had more information than they were letting on.
"Every time them call they keep saying them going to meck har come home," said the distraught woman.
The aunt said although the persons called from a private number all the time, one night they heard crickets chirping in the background which suggestewd the call was coming from a rural area.
She said on one occasion they were asked to pay a ransom of $30,000, however, they could hear someone in the background chastising the caller for making such a small demand. He then hung up and called back requesting half-million dollars.
The aunt said that she was instructed to meet with the 'abductors' at Emancipation Park in Kingston. However, when they turned up they were redirected to Parkington Plaza, also in Kingston, but Ananda was not there as promised.
She said they never involved the police as they were warned against doing so.
Apart from this, she said they received several other calls during the 11 days that Ananda was missing, however most of them appeared to have been pranks.
"One day a lady call and a cry on the phone say she see her in a car with two men in a Mocho, Clarendon and that a gunshot just fired in the car. She sounded sincere because she call from her number and everything," she told the Observer.
But when they went to the area they found out it was another prank call.
The nightmare continued when another man called to say that they had raped her and thrown her body in the May Pen Cemetery, located on Spanish Town Road.
Even yesterday relatives of the little girl said a woman from
Montego Bay visited Whitehall Avenue, wearing T-shirts and buttons with Ananda's photos, saying that Ananda was dead, even before the body was discovered yesterday. The woman was held by the police for questioning.
But even though the relatives of Ananda Dean said they had kept the police out of the 'negotiations', they threw blame at the law officers, claiming that nothing had been done since she went missing.
"If we didn't go and block the road we wouldn't get anywhere because the police not giving us any information," said one relative.
While residents held discussions about the missing girl, a group of children sat on the cold concrete of a sidewalk in Whitehall Avenue as they awaited news as to whether the badly decomposed body found earlier in the day was that of Ananda.
Young virgins have been performing the Zulu Royal Reed Dance for centuries wearing nothing but beads and short fringed skirts.
But now King Goodwill Zwelithini has told the girls to put on sarongs or traditional undergarments called umuntsha to cover their buttocks.
He said the event was "not for looking at maidens' bottoms."
And the King added: "There are times when maidens have to sing and dance and we end up seeing certain private body parts that we're not supposed to see."
Locals are said to be fed up of "lascivious" male tourists who "act like paparazzi" and "zoom in on bare flesh with their hi-tech cameras."
Zulus say their traditional ceremony is being sullied because of the wrong sort of attention from visitors.
Photography at the traditional dances, performed by thousands of virgin girls in Nongoma, northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is strictly regulated.
All camera-men are supposed to be bona fide members of the press. But checks in recent years have shown some photographers were just ordinary tourists taking pictures without approval.
The tradition is carried out to pay homage to the King, who chooses his wives from among the dancers.
The dancers usually do not wear underwear because the routine is designed to be a proud display of their innocence.
Zulu girls are said to be angry at being told to cover up because they are losing the chance to show off their virginity in the customary way.
However the ANC Women's League argued other girls were deterred from performing because of the semi-nudity and now would feel more comfortable.
The ceremony clocks up more than 25,000 visitors per year.
The soaring cost of living has had severe consequences for many people in these economically troubled times. Among them is a Florida man accused of smashing up a grocery store in protest at the rising price of crack cocaine.
According to police, the man entered that Dixon's Food Mart in Fort Pierce, on the east Florida coast, and smashed a counter partition and DVD case.
When police turned up to arrest him, they say he smelled of alcohol, and was 'challenging people to fight.' He claimed he was angry about the fact that a rock of crack now cost twenty dollars, instead of ten.
Authorities say that the man, identified as Gus Young Jr., then claimed he had actually been trying to punch a drug dealer in the store, but that the dealer ducked, causing him to hit the partition instead.
Young continued to bemoan that state of things when taken to jail, shouting about 'unfair the price of crack had become', according to TCPalm.com
'Stanky (expletive)! I brought me a ten and they're twenty tonight!' he added.
With their two most recent collaborations gaining airplay and chart positions, T-Pain and Lil Waynes proposed collaborative effort also continues to build momentum.
The T-Wayne project has even gained the support and involvement of several high profile producers, T-Pain told AllHipHop.com during a recent interview promoting his third studio album, Thr33 Rings.
Thats going down. Heavily, T-Pain told AllHipHop.com, promising that this project wont go the way of other rumored superstar collaborations.
Weve already got like 25 songs, T-Pain revealed. Its going down after my album drops. Could be the beginning of next year, like January/February.
Now, with Timbaland and Pharrell Williams having voiced an interest in joining the project, T-Pain says he hopes to bring in superstar rapper/producer Kanye West.
T-Pain and Wests last major collaboration, Good Life, won a Grammy Award in 2008 for Best Rap Song.
Throughout the summer, both T-Pain and Lil Wayne have confirmed their desire to create a joint project, capitalizing on the success theyve had with hit singles like DJ Khaleds Im So Hood and more recently Got Money and Cant Believe It, from Tha Carter III and Thr33 Ringz respectively.
However, T-Pain says the project may be delayed by label red tape, especially if all three multi-platinum producers get involved.
But ultimately, T-Pain says he is determined to deliver the project to the fans.
If anything, we aint making no goals for the date, T-Pain told AllHipHop.com. If we really gotta do it as an album and all those labels gotta work together, itll come out like, two years from now. So if it just falls into a bunch of leaks or if it falls into a mixtape, thats fine. We might just take the songs weve got and say: Here you go world. T-Wayne project. Right up. For free.