Street beats

The phenomenon of illegal mix tapes is lending a new twist to the ancient battle between record companies and bootleggers. The tapes have been appearing in increasing numbers on the streets of major US cities — principally New York and LA. Featuring sequences of tracks blended according to beats and style, they conjure up a club atmosphere and sell for between $5 and $15, significantly less than legitimate twelve-inch singles.

Although illegal tapes are nothing new, and mix-tapes have been available on street corners for several years, the industry's growing concern is that they are being sold through specialist dance shops and via toll-free 800 telephone numbers. Enterprising DJs and re-mixers have recognized the formula's money-making potential, and many shops now openly advertise the tapes and even post flyers carrying details of mail order outlets.

As is usual when a new wave of bootleg paranoia hits, 'though, there are parties willing to speak out on both sides of the argument. Several artists have expressed support for mix-tapes since, in their view, they are putting their music back on the streets and into the hands of a core audience who cannot afford to buy the records at legitimate retail prices. The flip side, as you'd expect, is record companies who, with an eye on their profits, wholeheartedly condemn the practice and are calling for stricter measures to seize illegal tapes and bring civil and criminal actions against the manufacturers and sellers.

A familiar line, spun out by the big corporations keen to protect their monopoly on producing, distributing and retailing recorded music, and in the process wiping out a grassroots movement whose aim is to reclaim dance music for the street.

But things are not as simple as that. While there is understandable opposition to mixtapes from most quarters of the record industry, many executives involved in marketing hip-hop support the illegal compilations as an important means of breaking new artists. Naturally they deny involvement in any infringement of copyright laws, but there is no doubt that known tapemasters and DJs are regularly supplied with promotional 12-inch singles. The reasoning behind this apparently suicidal practice, is that the tapes are bought by a hard-core, streetwise fan base who channel information on happening acts up to the high street consumers, whose dollars are spent in legitimate retail chains.

Nor is it radically different from supplying promos to club DJs: People come to the club, they hear the record, they go and buy the album. On the other hand, the predominantly hardcore dance and hip hop material which form the backbone of mix-tapes, comes from small independent labels who can least afford to lose the business. If they close down the independents, where are the tapemasters going to find their source material?

Whatever your view of the issues, there's little chance that the mix-tape industry will continue to prosper in the style to which it has become accustomed. In New York City, the scene might have already lost one of its most important outlets, through mayor Rudy Guiliani's vow to clear illegal vendors from Harlem's notorious 125th Street. In a recent crackdown, interpreted by many as an attack on Harlem's cultural identity, police shifted hundreds of unlicensed street vendors off the sidewalks, among them scores of mix-tape sellers. Naturally, sellers will spring up again in other locations, but outside the hallowed turf of Harlem, it's doubtful whether the scene's vigour will remain intact.

Wired for sound

As more and more major companies are displaying a strong commitment to new technology, the message from the 16th annual Billboard Music Video Conference in Los Angeles this month was clear: Multimedia is the shape of things to come in the music industry, and it will be making its presence felt in a big way, sooner rather than later.

Proof of this can be seen in Sony Music Entertainment's creation of their New Technology & Business Development department. The department, headed by Fred Ehrlich, currently Vice President of Columbia Records, will be solely concerned with exploring the commercial potential of CD-ROM, multisession CD, electronic distribution and other facets of new entertainment technology. Viewed by many as late-starters and suffering record losses in other divisions, there is still no doubt that Sony will become a major force to be reckoned with in the field of multimedia.

Another company throwing its hat into the ring is Motown, who have outlined plans for their new interactive division - Motown Interactive Software, which already has a roster of CD-ROM projects slated for release next year. Just how seriously the company is taking their involvement in new technology is evidenced by another new division, Motown Games, which will develop music related games alongside more traditional products.

Weddings and babies

With anticipation surrounding his History album not quite reaching fever pitch any time soon, Michael Jackson is strongly rumoured to have been holed up at New York's Hit Factory with producer/singer/songwriter Babyface, a man who has proved to be something of a one-man hit factory himself.

Boyz II Men's 'I'll Make Love To You' is the latest Babyface production to have a stranglehold on the R&B chart, and with his versatile talents he's widely tipped as heir to the mantle of Quincy Jones. It will be interesting to see whether 'Face' (as he's affectionately known) can avoid the kind of career slide that began with the disappointing Dangerous and went into freefall with Jacko's arraignment on child molesting charges; charges he is understood to have bought off for a cool twenty-million dollars.

Interesting as that is, it is nothing compared to the rabid gossip dogging Jackson's marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. Amid constant media forecasts of an imminent split, the prevalent view seems to be that the weirdest thing imaginable would be the match NOT being unmasked as an image-enhancing sham. Dare one mention the names Cindy and Richard here?

Movers and shakurs

In an amazing turn of events, rapper Tupac Shakur was shot five times outside a New York recording studio just hours after the jury withdrew in his trial for sexual abuse and enforced sodomy, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

The incident occurred in the Times Square area of midtown Manhattan at 12.25 a.m. on Wednesday 30th November. Apparently, Shakur and a companion, Fred Moore, who was also injured, were approached by three assailants who demanded their gold jewellery, worth an estimated $40,000. In the ensuing exchange, Shakur received gunshot wounds to his head and groin, while Moore was shot in the stomach.

The attack is the latest in a catalogue of violent crimes that have surrounded Shakur throughout his career, the principal difference in this case being that he was not named as the assailant.

On March 1, 1993, Shakur was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with beating a video director in a parking lot. He was convicted and served 15 days in jail. In April 1993, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for menacing behaviour with a baseball bat. On October 31. 1993 he was arrested in Atlanta and charged with shooting two off-duty police officers. The charges were later dropped. He was arrested in New York City on November 24, 1993 and charged with first-degree sodomy, attempted sodomy and sexual abuse in a Manhattan hotel. On April 29 of this year he was arrested once again in Los Angeles, and charged with possession of marijuana and carrying a concealed weapon: A felony under the parole restrictions relating to his current case. In June 1993, one Ronald Ray Howard claimed in his defence to the charge of murdering a Texas state trooper that his actions had been influenced by Shakur's 'Droppin' the cop' lyric from the track 'Soulja's Story'. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. The 'Tupac-made-me-do-it' defence was also used in September by one of two 17-year-olds accused of murdering a Milwaukee police officer. Also in Milwaukee, just four days before the cop-killing, a live performance by Shakur ended in a riot, after he insulted the audience and a member of his crew reportedly flashed a gun.

Tupac Shakur appeared in court on Wednesday 30 November in a wheelchair (although he walked out of hospital earlier the same day) surrounded by a phalanx of Fruit Of Islam bodyguards. However, claiming numbness in his legs, he failed to return after the lunchtime recess and was not present for the verdict.

The jury, after 20 hours of deliberation, found the 23-year-old rapper guilty of sexual abuse, but rejected both charges of sodomy. His attorney, Michael Warren, described Shakur as elated with the outcome. Shakur himself commented outside the court that he was "guilty of being a male chauvinist pig, probably. But I'm not guilty of rape". Nevertheless, he still faces a prison term of up to seven years.

Mr Big Stuff

Does the name Nene Katey Ocansey mean anything to you? No? Well, being a combination of the word 'King', and the phrases 'Brave African Warrior with the sensitivity to calm wild animals' and 'I do as I say', it is actually the appellation of the recently crowned King of Ghana. Nene Katey Ocansey may be better known to 70s rare groove fans and Sexploitation movie aficionados as none other than Isaac Hayes.