Ronald and Bryan Williams, two entrepreneurial brothers from New Orleans who run the successful music company Cash Money Records Inc., are turning their attention to the book business.

The brothers, whose company counts rapper Lil Wayne among its artists, plan to use the same techniques that helped build their music label to launch their Cash Money Content imprint, including selling books at concerts and holding red-carpet launch parties for authors.

“We think we can do more, market books in a new way,” said Bryan “Birdman” Williams, the younger of the brothers, who is also a rap artist on their independent music label. “We want to put out five or six books a year.” read the rest of the article here.

(image via fuckyeahblackpower)

(pic via Push The Movement)

” Whenever this issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race 300 years after another man, the first would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up.”  – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(pic via Masia One)

When I first started working on this book, I told my editor that I wanted it to do three important things. The first was to make the case that hip-hop lyrics—not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC—are poetry if you look at them closely enough. The second was I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to.” ….Decoded coming out 11/16…

Paris vs New York, a tally of two cities: “a visual but friendly match between those two cities seen by a lover of Paris wandering through New York’s infinite details, clichés and contradictions : this way, please”…..such a cute site…feelin it.

“How these cats ain’t pleased and they neva owned a thing, Lisa wit da Visa, Mona thing…” haaa! This was my sh__!! My friends and I used to babysit BET after class just to check for this video and ummm, of course, Jadakiss…This is truly an example of a track from a one-hit wonder that’s still tatooed in my mind…and in the part of my heart sectioned off specifically for music from my ‘wonder years’ <aka wonderful, memorable college years>.

One of my all time favorite films!!! Classic!

(pic via 1 Photo Central)

Henry Clay Anderson was a Black school teacher turned professional photographer who started his own business in 1948 – Anderson Photo Services. As a result,  he contributed rich, timeless pictures that depict the struggle and celebration during a period of  blatant segregation (I say ‘blatant’ b/c on so many levels segregation still exists with eyes wide shut). For more of his amazing photographs/photologs, check out his book Separate, But Equal: The Mississippi Photographs of Henry Clay Anderson.

Painting by Joel Kelly