Interview with PAJAM

PAJAM, the talented production trio, has changed Gospel and Urban Gospel in many ways. Walter Kearney and Paul Allen of PAJAM spent some time with GOSPELflava.com talking about their new Praise and Worship release on Integrity Gospel, titled Sing to The Lord, and also about praise and worship in the Black church in general. And of course, about the upcoming J. Moss project...GOSPELflava.com: Fred Hammond did something that no one else was doing when he worked on Integrity’s "In The House" series in the 1990s. How important is it to bring the songs popular in CCM circles and adapt them for a more urban and black audience?Paul Allen: The Black church has started to venture into the praise and worship realm. Those songs are praise and worship classics. It's important because there has been a move with Fred, Israel and New Breed, Martha Munizzi, Joann Rosario and Stephen Hurd. It's just time. Praise and worship has become prominent in the Black church. It's great that they are being exposed to that because it takes us into the presence of God.GOSPELflava.com: How did you hook up with Integrity? Walter Kearney: We had a relationship with Integrity since the Ramiyah album came out, because Integrity handled the CCM market for the project. [Integrity Gospel executive] Jackie Patillo knew that we did great music production and she knew how we did business. So it was just kind of a natural thing to let us do the next record for them. That's what it was, and Jackie being so cool said, "You guys gotta do the next record". It went from there.GOSPELflava.com: There was obviously a great deal of thought put into picking the songs for the release. Was there a process? Paul Allen: We sat down with Jackie and we had a panel full of songs. We were like "Let's narrow it down to some of the big Christian Praise and Worship heats. Let's use the ones that have already been tested and sung in churches. Let's narrow it down to about 25 songs." We just started to go through those songs and we were saying that "the Gospel church needs to hear this. Oh they need to hear that." So we narrowed it down to the ones that are on the record. We went with the ones that have been tested, the ones with words that grab you. We just put our Black church spin on it.
Sing To The Lord
"Open the Eyes of My Heart" gets a little reworking with Darrell Dixon's wah-wah guitar work serving as the icing on the cake. Look to Jared Anderson's "Rescue" for an example of PAJAM's excellence in balladry work....Read full album review.GOSPELflava.com: "Father" is such a hot song and it has that appeal to be a good song for Praise and Worship. What inspired you to write that song? Paul Allen: I'll be honest with you. My wife and I are always talking about different things; kicking stuff around. One day, I heard her say "Father I Love You". I said "Oh wow. I love God too". Some kind of way, a melody hit me and I was singing those words over and over. All of a sudden the words and the melody started to come together.GOSPELflava.com: Monique Lee and Leya Dickerson are prominent singers on Sing To The Lord. Where did you discover these two singers?Paul Allen: As a production company, we keep our ear to the street. We are always looking for new talent. We are always auditioning. We have to have musicians ready to go. We have to have singers ready to go. Leya and Monique have been faithful and loyal to PAJAM. We're just trying to implement them on certain things. We have a host of other singers that are going to be coming out. That's what we do.GOSPELflava.com: For the last 5 or 6 years, it seems like everyone is doing a praise and worship album. Do you think that some are doing it just because it is the trend?Walter Kearney: Absolutely. That's just a part of the music industry. Some artists see what sells and see what people are getting into. Some artists just adapt to it and make it their own, but there are some true praise and worship leaders that have put together some tremendous records. We just learn from them. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It depends if the person puts their heart to it and adapts to it. That can be a wonderful record.Paul Allen: Then there are many artists that don't have control over it and the record labels will dictate to them. They’ll say, "You know what? The new move in the industry is praise and worship. We need to do that." Like Walt said, there are some true praise and worship artists like Kurt Carr, Stephen Hurd and Byron Cage. They have always been doing it. There are some that are made to do it. It is what it is.GOSPELflava.com: There are rumblings about an album from PDA (Paul Allen). What is going on with that? Walter Kearney: The PDA album is coming!!!Paul Allen: It is an album from a producer's perspective. Timbaland did one. Pharell did one. So did Babyface. The list goes on. It's my turn. It's going to be bangin'. It's going to be uptempo.Walter Kearney: Nothing but uptempo tracks.Paul Allen: Walt wants it to be uptempo. We are going to make it happen. We're in the midst of it now.Walter Kearney: You're talking about the dude that did the "Holla" track by Trin-I-tee 5:7. He did J Moss' "I Wanna Be" track. I go down the line of the uptempos that are PDA specials that people are not aware. He has the ballads, but he definitely has the uptempo tracks. The record is going to be versatile, but it will have the headbangers that PDA is known to put down.Paul Allen: The A&R of the project is obviously Walter Kearney (laughing).Walter Kearney: Well, PDA has always been in the background on the production side. It's time for him to come out and into the forefront. He has put his heart into our artists: Ramiyah and 21:03. He is going to display, from his own perspective, himself.GOSPELflava.com: OK, we cannot end this interview without asking about the new J Moss project. What is going on with it? People want to know!Paul Allen: We're finishing up that record right now. Remember when Michael Jackson went solo and came out with the Off the Wall record? It let people know that "Michael Jackson is solo. The album is hot". It went on to be a big record. Then he released "Thriller" and it blew up beyond the imagination. That's the J Moss...V2 record. We’re putting our heart, soul, mind and energy into this record. We put so much into this project in terms of our sound and creativity. We have Thriller-type expectations. We originally named it J Moss...Thriller, but we didn't want to bite, so we called it J Moss...V2. It comes out on April 3, 2007, and it's ridiculous. We got Marvin Winans, Donnie McClurkin and Kirk Franklin. It's crazy! We got Karen Clark and Kim Burrell.Walter Kearney: It might even have PDA on the record.Paul Allen: PDA is on there. 21:03 is on there also. The record is really incredible. We have live strings and horns on there. We even have a song called "I'm Not Perfect" featuring a big named secular artist whose name cannot be disclosed right now. It's going to be shipped to urban radio.Walter Kearney: We go the extra mile with issues that the church has issues with. We just speak on them in our own way.

WATERS IN THE DESERT.

Gen 40:9-23
We live in a very amazing world where a times what you expect is not what you get and what you get is not what you bargained for. Someone said we live in a world were bad things happen to good people. It really is a very funny world. It is funny in a way that what we expect to happen ends up not happening and who we expect to do things for us end up disappointing us. It’s funny how a man could love his wife and yet forget her birthday (to many things to worry about you’ll say), funny how a dad could love his son and yet forget his birthday gift, funny how you give someone an helping hand and they never say thank you, funny how you’ll help someone push a car and they just drive past you the next day, really things don’t go the way they should a times. And so it was with the story of the man Joseph, a very good man who was accused wrongly and charged for a thing he did not do. That aside but he choose to help people he could inn the capacity he could. Haven’t helped the king’s cupbearer interpret his dream, we were told things happened the way he said it but Joseph told him “and when all goes well with you remember me… and get me out of this prison” but funny enough as human as he is “he FORGOT”. That hurts you know, imagine Joseph day 1 after the cupbearer was released and day 2, day 3… till it becomes 2 FUL YEARS. One word will describe it all painful, it took that man 2 years to e able to repay back a good deed (that’s some years) but you know Joseph never took it personal he got over it and moved on in his life. It is good for us to now that no matter how much people hurt us we owe it to ourselves to always get over it and move on because people will always forget no matter what it is we did cos they are human. All we have to do is to always remember that we live in a very funny world and when we can get that into us then we can just laugh over it. Isn’t it funny how I forgot to title this article?




By Tunde Ige

WATERS IN THE DESERT.


Let Nothing.
Mark 10:46-52
What is worth your tears? What is worth your failure? What in the whole world will make you not get that which your heart desire or be who you have dreamt of being. Did I hear you say nothing or was it just my mind telling me you said so. Well no matter what answer it is you gave I believe it’s same with me. Nothing in this world is worth getting you down so much so you wouldn’t get to the place you’ve dreamed of. It quite sad a times when you hear people say that so and so did not make me get that degree or job. You set out in life to get something but one day you just decide to give it all up. Am been reminded of a story of a young man who had had a dream of owning an organisation where people will be trained musically, business wise and above all help them discover and develop themselves. But going through school for him was a HARD thing, he failed several times and had to repeat classes, this really weighed him down and made him feel incapable. He lost his believe in himself and also his dream began to fade away. He lost hope of being anything and felt it was just “his lot” to be a loser in life for years. Later in his early 30s he had an opportunity which brought back strength to him, and that was the beginning of his success story. Many a time we get hit in life and give up so soon on our dreams, but I like us to know that we should not give up. The story in our text is about a man who will not let ANYTHING hold down his miracle. His day of miracle came and he was in dying need of it, but SOME PEOPLE would not let him get it, but “but he shouted the more”. Let’s learn from this man how not to let anything shut us up from crying out for our miracle and dreaming about that which we believe. Let nothing, no sickness, no failure, no person, no situation, no circumstances, no job, no family, no degree, no limited education background take your dream or miracle from you. Don’t ever give up on your dream when life hit you, always remember that you were born to win and you MUST win no matter how long it takes. Lastly I need to re-emphasize the fact that NO -THING in this world is worth giving up your dream for.


By Tunde Ige

200 Years after Abolition: Did the Slave Trade really End? Part 1.

Hi evryone,i'm back with anoda brainstorming post i found while doing research on the net a few days ago,it was written by oluseye bassir and i believe there is no further truth than what this post contains, so read up and enjoy, and please drop a comment if u feel likei will appreciate your feedback,thanks.

News Type: Other — Mon Apr 2, 2007 10:21 AM EDT
world-news, britain, europe, africa, racism, nigeria, lvs0407, slavery, morality, blacks, west-africa, colonialism, oluseye-bassir, abolition, an001, trans-atlantic-slave-trade
Oluseye Bassir

The rape and the stolen thunder.
Photo by Jeff Wilcox. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade has been well celebrated by the British. For them, it was a critical moment in their moral history. The celebrations in Africa have been less muted. For Africa, slavery has in many ways not ended.
While the British did abolish, and enforce their embargo, on the trading of African slaves, the moral impetus that drove and achieved the abolition was soon distorted into colonialism and scientific racism. This is one major reason why Africa's suffering has hardly ended. And just like thugs masquerading as African Kings, Clan heads, warriors, and Chieves sold their own people to European marauders, there is no shortage of maniacs and crooks to sustain modern African slavery.
Modern slavery has many forms. There is debt peonage. This is the situation in which stupid commercial banks who made poor and often corrupt loans which do not threaten their portfolios or their financial soundness are protected by sovereign governments to help keep the poorest in misery.
Another form of modern slavery is corruption. In this type, the symbiosis between local and foreign parasites is perfect. Huge sums of unexplainable wealth turns up in foreign banks who know the exact source of the wealth in poverty-stricken treasuries, take in the money and look the other way. In some cases these troves of liquid capital sustains large banking systems, being that the sums are huge and kept long-term in liquid balances. In one famous Nigerian case, a launderer for an ex-Nigerian dictator was found dead after attempting to withdraw a huge sum of money from some European bank. There are many other forms of slavery in Africa today.
There is of course slavery in its pure form. From forced trafficking in prostitutes to the forced peonage of poor children, in Africa, there still exists a large amount of forced labour. Of course there is Western ignorance about many of the forms of these which are purely benign, but in general, these forms revolve around serious dehumanisation of people.
In this abolition anniversary year, white guilt in its search for absolution has wrought up a new and pervasive theme. The refrain is to blame Africans for the slave trade in the first place. Before addressing this issue, I want to point out the racist basis of this topic. The attempt to put all of Africa together in treating this issue is a racist narrative. A more objective narrative is to blame marauders on both parts.
However where the question of blame needs resolution, it is hard not to blame Europeans mostly for this. It does not mean that every Briton today is to blame. That notion is obviously absurd. It does not mean Africans did not share blame. It however means that Europeans were the aggressors in the atrocities of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
It is true that both slavery and a slave trade had existed in Africa before the first European trade. The caravan trade in slaves bound for the Muslim World had existed for a while. The slaving routes stretched from ancient Luanda through the major slave trading depots of Kano through Algiers, Cairo, Tunis and other cities of the Maghreb.
Bill Freund in his 1986 book, "The making of contemporary Africa" established the Portuguese as the first to engage in the trading of slaves. These Portuguese apparently stole a Caravan bound for North Africa and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was born.
Slave-raiding expeditions began in earnest. These very often involved body-snatching, the playing of ethnic groups against each other, and other means. Some 80% of the slaves came from West Africa and particularly from Southern Nigeria.
From the moral perspective of blame, Europeans are the aggressors because African slavery as practised was completely different from the brutal variety that the British abolished. First of all, people became slaves primarily as a result of war. Kingdom A fights Kingdom B, and the people captured by either side, before the Geneva Convention became slaves. These almost always had exactly as many rights as their owners in these societies. In the Oyo Kingdom, one of the main empires of West Africa, some high political offices like the Commander in Chief (separate from the King) was reserved for slaves.
Since slavery had existed in all parts of the world for thousands of years before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the innovations of this particular type were in the unprecedented scale of its dehumanising brutality. The brutality of passage and transportation are well documented as has been the complete political, social and cultural dehumanisation of slaves in European and American societies.
African slavers had originally sold slaves they had captured from war. The rise of legitimate pre-colonial to early colonial exploitative (non-slave) trade in Africa contributed another impetus for warriors, criminals and even Kings to wage war just for slaving purposes just to buy European products.
The phenomenon of wars fought for slaving purposes was disastrous. In Nigeria it led to the breakdown of Kingdoms such as the Oyo and Benin Kingdoms, and all over West Africa it did the same. It ultimately set the stage for the successful colonisation of Africa.
It must be pointed out though that an African Chief or King selling slaves in general was not aware of the dehumanising conditions of passage, and the brutality of slave life in the New World. There is no documentation for this but it is very very clear that the African who sold slaves had a different moral picture of the trade. The reason is that African slavery was much less benign than the one which the seized slaves transited into once in European ownership. In fact, right from the slaving ports, the slave trade became a purely European affair. Africans were generally kept from the staff of trading ships for example and thus played no part in the atrocities of passage.
Every time I hear stories of Africans selling their own people I wonder why the people who say it fail to see the racism of their own words. The racism come from the idea that all Black people were the same, and all white people were the same. The reality is that most slavers sold not their own kin but the population of their enemies who they had captured in war. While within-ethnic group slaving did occur it was very rare. This notion that Europeans are excused because they were not selling their own people, beyond daft is also ignorant. The Europeans were not selling their own people and in general neither were the Africans.
Still on the topic of moral blame, it is also very paramount to point out that it was European and American society with its racism, hypocrisy, that was most dehumanising. Otherwise it would be most correct to blame the Slave-trading merchants of Liverpool, Bristol, Lisbon, etc, and their counterparts in Elmina, Badagry, etc. It would have sufficed. However, on the European and American side, a new dimension was added.
White Guilt can not find absolution this way. Absolution can not come from shifting the burden of blame to the victims. The point is that while a minority of Africans sold a lot of slaves, most of the rest did not. However, the entirety of European society gained from the stealing of bodies and souls. Africa was, at least statistically, the victim. That is even without discussing the places, like East Africa and parts of Southern Africa, where there was no African participation at all in slaving.
The idea of Africa as victim by the way is not appealing. It does not make for African accounting the domestic component in its misery and subjugation which has continued in various forms for over 500 years (Bob Marley's song, 400 years was wrong).
Nevertheless it is impossible and dishonest to take a history of African subjugation without adopting this narrative. It is the most consistently present, and the most empirical one. It is especially necessary because another claim of the racists today is that Africa should have recovered from the slave trade.
Part 2 will be published tomorrow. In part 2, we examine why the slave trade never ended but has merely shown up in new forms existing up till today. Don't miss it!
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