Tag: Minister of Information JR

The Welfare Poets have shared a stage with Dead Prez, Immortal Technique and the revolutionary Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Minister of Information JR Valrey speaks with founding member Rayzer about what has kept them going strong for 20 years.

“COINTELPRO 101” is a recently released documentary that takes a long hard look at the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program to crush resistance that led to the deportation of Marcus Garvey, the assassinations of Malcolm X, George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King Jr. and more.

In “Block Reportin’,” Oakland journalist and filmmaker JR Valrey lays bare stories of struggle and resistance through a collection of nearly a decade of interviews with local political leaders, national Black resistance leaders, artists and family members who’ve suddenly seen themselves cast into the spotlight.

On Jan. 22, 20-year-old Raheim Brown was shot and killed by the Oakland Unified School District’s police force outside Skyline High School. Calling the killing an “assassination,” Raheim's mother, Lori Davis, was horrified by the excessive use of force.

M1 of dead prez on his second visit to occupied Palestine, this time to the West Bank, observes: "People live in constant fear of being raided by the Jewish military settlers, yet the brothers and sisters I was able to greet on the street had nothing but love in their hearts. You could literally see the wounds on the young men."

Revolutionary gangsta rap artist Aisha Sekhmet is bold, passionate and intelligent. Check out this fiery much needed newcomer to the rap world in her own words.

Davey D from Hard Knock Radio, Breakdown FM and daveyd.com breaks down WikiLeaks, net neutrality and what is happening to this democratic library called the internet, formed by the U.S. government.

Jazz Hudson is one of the new up and coming poets out of the Bay who has been making a name for herself at poetry readings - one of the most loquacious and passionate young sistas to come out of the concrete jungle of Oakland in a long time.

The Punany Poets, who do AIDS awareness through erotic poetry and are going on a nationwide tour, will bring the interactive, adult dinner theater show, “Aphrodisiac,” to the El Rincon Restaurant in San Francisco on Saturday, Feb. 12.

Jesus El, a member of the Golden State Warriors acrobatic dunk team, has started a youth program, Boys to Eagles, to help young men who grew up in single parent homes in the ghetto just like him. The program not only helps train acrobats, but musicians, video journalists, dancers and entrepreneurs.

Kaira Espinoza is a poet from the Mission district of San Francisco who recently completed her debut book of poetry called “Poems About This Roller-Coaster Ride Called Life.”

Sophia Dawson is an artist I met in Harlem, New York, at this year’s Black Panther Film Fest, where she had a striking painted piece of Black Panther co-founder and Chairman Bobby Seale. I have seen a lot of dope, conscious-minded Black visual artists over the years; she is definitely one of the more talented ones.

"Dec. 9, 2010, marks the first time in a long time that a group of Georgia prisoners were successful in demonstrating that they were – and are – absolutely positively tired of the slavery-like conditions of the state of Georgia," writes 18-year prisoner Eugene Thomas. Listen to a Block Report interview with Eugene by M.O.I. JR broadcast on KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio.

Today we are going to be talking to Philadelphia Tribune writer and Temple University professor Linn Washington, who is going to give us an update on the case of Mumia Abu Jamal.

Paul Mooney is one of Black comedy’s biggest breathing legends, long time partner with Richard Pryor. Two of his upcoming performances at the great Black Rep are benefits for SF Bay View – on Tuesday, Dec. 28, at both 7 and 9 p.m. What a great gift for Christmas or Kwanzaa! Be sure to say you’re supporting the Bay View when you reserve your tickets.

Four and half decades after El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) made the Hajj to Mecca, his grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, made his pilgrimage. In this, the first interview to be published in the U.S. about his experience, Malcolm says, "Now, by the Will and Grace of Allah, I am a revolutionary Muslim who is in service to the people, especially to the masses of downtrodden and oppressed." Don't miss Malcolm's Report Back from Mecca, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 6:30 p.m., at Twin Space, 2111 Mission St., San Francisco.

We applaud broadcasters, artists and fans of KPFA who have come together to make sure that there is a station called KPFA in 2011. I want to be up front with why we have discussed protesting tomorrow night’s event. It is a principled stand against police terrorism in the Black community, cronyism to the Bush regime and the lack of Black public affairs programming on KPFA.

Minister of Information JR speaks with actress-storyteller-writer Rie Shontel about her provocative one-woman show “Mama Juggs.” Now you have the opportunity to see this gifted sista, who has performed around the country and in Africa and now includes Blues legend Augusta Collins in the show. “Mama Juggs: Three Generations Healing Negative Body Image” will play Tuesday, Dec. 21, at Twin Space, 2111 Mission St., San Francisco, and on Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 29 and 30, at the Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland.

Minister of Information JR talks with Jack Bryson, the father of two sons who were with Oscar Grant the night he was murdered on the Fruitvale BART platform on New Year’s 2009. They discuss Jack's fight for justice for Oscar, Johannes Mehserle's sentencing and how Oscar's murder has affected his family and close friends.

Hours after San Francisco Bay Area radio show host JR Valrey screened his documentary film, “Operation Small Axe,” about police brutality at a university in Philadelphia, daily newspapers in that city carried articles about two separate lawsuits filed against Philly police alleging brutality. “Police brutality is definitely not ‘isolated incidents,’ as officials always say after each new killing or beating by police,” said Valrey, host of the Block Report, a program aired on KPFA-FM, the Pacifica station in the Bay Area.