TheMoePezzy

Remembering Prince Be the Nocturnal (Friday, May 15, 1970 – Friday, June 17, 2016) Born Attrell Stephen Cordes Jr. in Jersey City, New Jersey, Prince Be became the visionary voice of P.M. Dawn, the Hip-Hop/R&B group he formed with his younger brother, Jarrett Cordes, also known as DJ Minutemix/Eternal. Raised in a musical environment that later included their stepfather George Brown of Kool & the Gang, Prince Be developed a sound that moved between Rap, Soul, Pop, spirituality, memory, and dream language. Before P.M. Dawn’s breakthrough, Prince Be reportedly helped fund the group’s early demo with money earned while working as a night security guard at a homeless shelter, a quiet beginning for music that would later drift all around the world. Their blend of Hip-Hop, R&B, Pop, and older Soul textures caught fire in the early 1990s. P.M. Dawn’s first two albums, “Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience” and “The Bliss Album…? (Vibrations of Love and Anger and the Ponderance of Life and Existence),” both reached gold status and drew serious critical attention. When P.M. Dawn broke through with “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss,” built around Spandau Ballet’s “True,” the song became one of the era’s most recognizable crossover records. The group followed with “I’d Die Without You,” a spare, piano-centered ballad featured prominently on the Boomerang soundtrack, and “Looking Through Patient Eyes,” further proving that Hip-Hop could hold tenderness, abstraction, romance, and interior life without losing its power. P.M. Dawn’s impact reached beyond one hit. “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss” topped the Hot 100, the group’s first two albums reached gold status, and P.M. Dawn won Best International Newcomer at the 1992 BRIT Awards. Prince Be’s artistry widened the emotional vocabulary of early 1990s Black American music. At a time when the industry often narrowed artists to “toughness,” P.M. Dawn made room for softness, mysticism, melancholy, vulnerability, and melodic experimentation. Their work sat at the intersection of Hip-Hop, R&B, Soul, Pop, and spiritual searching, not as novelty, but as a fully realized musical language. Later P.M. Dawn albums did not reach the same commercial heights, but the group’s influence continued. In 2005, after Prince Be’s health struggles deepened, DJ Minutemix left the group and their cousin Gregory Lewis Carr II, also known as Doc. G, stepped in. Prince Be had lived with diabetes for many years and suffered a stroke in 2005. On Friday, June 17, 2016, he died in New Jersey from kidney disease related to diabetes, at age 46. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and three children.

Remembering Baba Oje (Sunday, May 15, 1932 – Friday, October 26, 2018) Born Ollie Johnson Jr. in Mississippi, Baba Oje became known to many as the elder and spiritual presence within Arrested Development. As part of the Atlanta-rooted collective, his role gave the group a rare multigenerational dimension during a period when Hip-Hop was expanding its mainstream vocabulary through Southern identity, Afrocentric imagery, spirituality, live performance, and alternative visions of Black American life. His name Baba Oje also points to a rather important distinction: a Black American elder can carry a U.S.-rooted lineage while also adopting an African-centered spiritual or cultural name. For many Black Americans, such names have reflected reclamation, spiritual discipline, cultural memory, and chosen identity rather than a rejection of their American-born ancestral roots. Speech met Baba Oje while he was in college at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and later learned that Baba had known his parents and had even served as the best man at their wedding. That made his place in Arrested Development much more than symbolic; it carried the feeling of lineage, guidance, and family. With Arrested Development, Baba Oje was connected to an early 1990s breakthrough that brought songs like “Tennessee,” “People Everyday,” and “Mr. Wendal” into the mainstream. His Recording Academy profile credits him with 2 Grammy wins and 5 nominations, while Arrested Development’s 1993 Grammy wins helped mark the group as one of Hip-Hop’s defining alternative voices of that era. On Friday, October 26, 2018, Baba Oje transitioned after a bout with acute leukemia. He was 86 years old. Remembered as an activist for the homeless, a military veteran, world traveler, spiritual adviser, vegan, dancer, vocalist, and one of Hip-Hop’s most visible elders, Baba Oje stood as proof that the culture has room for wisdom as well as youth.

BREAKING: Sen. Elizabeth Warren is introducing a wealth tax in senate that will Force Elon Musk to pay roughly $24.8 billion per year in federal wealth tax Warren wants all the money to go to working families to help with child care, education, health care, housing