Daily Archives: September 1, 2015

West Coast pioneering MC Tajai of Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics, who can be on heard on Hip Hop classics like “93 til Infinity,” the debut classic of Souls of Mischief, and “One Life, One Love” on the “3rd Eye Vision” Hiero album, where he traded verses with his Hiero brothas Del and Casual over a Dj Toure-produced soundscape. Tajai in this interview talks about the Hiero Day Hip Hop Festival in Oakland, which is coming up on Monday, Sept. 7.

So this poem is for everybody on planet earth, even though I start it out by saying: When I was younger ... I used to wonder ... why my elders would be talking holes in my clothes about Blackness? I just thought it was to make me feel better about my situation: being a Black man in America. But a funny thing happened to me while I was searching for my blackness: I found God!

Today, California prisoners locked in isolation achieved a groundbreaking legal victory in their ongoing struggle against the use of solitary confinement. A settlement was reached in the federal class action suit Ashker v. Brown, originally filed in 2012, effectively ending indefinite long-term solitary confinement and greatly limiting the prison administration’s ability to use the practice, widely seen as a form of torture.

All of Us or None’s upcoming Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People’s Western Regional Conference is Sept. 20-21 at Oakstop, 1721 Broadway in downtown Oakland. It will be a time for people to discuss employment, housing, crimmigration, which is the connection between the punishment system in the U.S. and immigration policies, and more. Check out one of the main organizers, Manuel La Fontaine, about the conference and his life experiences.