Category: Whats Buzzing in the Streets

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (born September 4, 1953) is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in a number of films and television shows, including Claudine (1974), Cooley High (1975), Roots (1977), Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–79), Bangers and Mash (1983), and The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992).Hilton-Jacobs was born in New York City, New York, the fifth of nine children of parents Hilton Jacobs (died 2000) and Clothilda Jacobs (died 2008). He attended Wilkes University for a short time before his acting career took off. He began his acting career in the summer of 1969 and graduated from the High School of Art and Design in 1971. Afterward, he studied acting with the Negro Ensemble Company and the Al Fann Theatrical Ensemble.In 1975, he won the role of Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington on the ABC hit comedy series, Welcome Back, Kotter. Hilton-Jacobs starred in a few commercials over the years, including an early 1970s commercial for The United Negro College Fund. Later in his career, he appeared in the 1989-1990 science fiction TV series Alien Nation as Sgt. Dobbs, an LAPD detective. He portrayed Panda Thomas (#1) in Rob Zombie’s slasher film 31.Hilton-Jacobs portrayed Joseph Walter “Joe” Jackson, the father of the Jackson family, in the 1992 miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream. He also appeared in a commercial for Salon Selectives.Hilton-Jacobs sang on Rick James’ 1981 album Street Songs.As a homage to him, the public housing in Eddie Murphy’s television program The PJs is named the Hilton-Jacobs Projects.He has two daughters.

Written by Dianne Washington

Rick James (born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004) was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, James began his musical career in his teen years. He was in a number of various bands and groups before entering the U.S. Navy to avoid being drafted in the early 1960s. In 1965, James deserted to Toronto, Canada, where he formed the rock band the Mynah Birds, who eventually signed a recording deal with Motown Records in 1966. James’s career with the group halted after military authorities discovered his whereabouts and eventually convicted James on a one-year prison term related to the draft charges. After being released, James moved to California where he started a variety of rock and funk groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

After forming the Stone City Band in his hometown of Buffalo in 1977, James finally found success as a recording artist after signing with Motown’s Gordy Records, releasing the album, Come Get It!, in April 1978. It’s from this album where the hits “You & I” and “Mary Jane”, were released, helping the album go platinum and selling over two million records. This was followed with three more successful album releases. James released his most successful album, Street Songs, in 1981, which included career-defining hits such as “Give It to Me Baby” and “Super Freak”, the latter song becoming his biggest crossover single, mixing elements of funk, disco, rock and new wave. James was also known for his soulful ballads such as “Fire & Desire” and “Ebony Eyes”. In addition, James also had a successful career as a songwriter and producer for other artists including Teena Marie, the Mary Jane Girls, the Temptations, Eddie Murphy and Smokey Robinson.

James’s mainstream success had peaked by the release of his album Glow in 1985 and his appearance on the popular TV show, The A-Team. James’s subsequent releases failed to sell as well as their predecessors. Rapper MC Hammer sampled James’s “Super Freak” for his 1990 hit, “U Can’t Touch This”, and James became the 1991 recipient of a Best R&B Song Grammy for composing the song. James’s career was hampered by his drug addiction by the early 1990s. In 1993, James was convicted for two separate instances of kidnapping and torturing two different women while under the influence of crack cocaine, resulting in a three-year sentence at Folsom State Prison. James was released on parole in 1996 and released the album, Urban Rapsody, in 1997. James’s health problems halted his career again after a mild stroke during a concert in 1998 and he announced a semi-retirement.

In 2004, James’s career returned to the mainstream after he appeared in an episode of Chappelle’s Show, in a Charlie Murphy True Hollywood Stories-style segment that satirized James’s wild lifestyle, resulting in renewed interest in James’s music and that year he returned to perform on the road. James died later that year from heart failure at age 56.

Written by Dianne Washington

Letitia Ann “Tish” James (born October 18, 1958) is an American lawyer, activist, and politician. She is a member of the Democratic Party, and is the Attorney General of New York having won the 2018 election to succeed appointed attorney general Barbara Underwood. She is the first African-American and first woman to be elected to the position.

James previously served for a decade as a member of the New York City Council. She represented the 35th Council District, which includes the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, parts of Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and Bedford-Stuyvesant. James chaired the Economic Development and Sanitation Committees, and served on several other committees. She was later elected the New York City Public Advocate in 2013.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, James obtained her J.D. degree at Howard University in Washington, D.C., after graduating from Lehman College in The Bronx. She worked as a public defender, then on staff in the New York State Assembly, and later as an Assistant Attorney General. She first ran for city council and won on the Working Families Party ballot line.

Written Dianne Washington

Ronald Isley ( May 21, 1941) is an American recording artist, songwriter, record producer, and occasional actor. Isley is better known as the lead singer and founding member of the family music group the Isley Brothers.

Isley was born the third of six brothers (O’Kelly Isley, Jr., Rudolph Isley, Ronald, Vernon Isley, Ernie Isley, Marvin Isley) to Sallye Bernice (Bell) and O’Kelly Isley, Sr. Ronald, like many of his siblings, began his career in the church. He began singing at the age of three, winning a $25 war bond for singing at a spiritual contest at the Union Baptist Church. By the age of seven, Ronald was singing on-stage at venues such as the Regal Theater in Chicago, alongside Dinah Washington and a few other notables.

By his early teens, he was singing regularly with his brothers in church tours and also first appeared on TV on Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour. In 1957, sixteen-year-old Ronald and his two elder brothers O’Kelly, 19 and Rudy, 18, moved to New York, recording doo-wop for local labels before landing a major deal with RCA Records in 1959, where the trio wrote and released their anthemic “Shout”. By the summer of 1959, the Isley family had moved from Cincinnati to a home in Englewood, New Jersey.

For much of the Isley Brothers’ duration, Ron Isley would remain the group’s consistent member of the group as well as the lead vocalist for most of the group’s tenure with sporadic lead shares with his older brothers. In 1969, Ron and his brothers reformed T-Neck Records in a need to produce themselves without the control of record labels, forming the label shortly after ending a brief tenure with Motown. In 1973, the group’s style and sound drastically changed following the release of the 3 + 3 album where brothers Ernie Isley and Marvin Isley and in-law Chris Jasper permanently enter the brothers’ lineup, writing the music and lyrics to the group’s new sound. The younger brothers had been providing instrumental help for the brothers since the late 1960s. By the mid-1970s, Ronald was living in Teaneck, New Jersey.

After Kelly Isley’s death in 1986 and Rudy Isley’s exit to fulfill a dream of ministry in 1989, Ronald has carried on with the Isley Brothers name either as a solo artist or with accompanying help from the group’s younger brothers, much more prominently, Ernie Isley. In 1990, Isley scored a top-ten duet with Rod Stewart with a cover of his brothers’ hit “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)”, and in 2003 Ronald recorded a solo album, Here I Am: Bacharach Meets Isley, with Burt Bacharach. In addition, Ron Isley became a sought-after hook singer for R&B veteran R. Kelly, and hip-hop acts such as Warren G, 2Pac and UGK.

Ronald released his first solo album Mr. I on November 30, 2010. The album includes the first single “No More” It debuted at number 50 on the Billboard 200, selling 22,243 copies. It was his first solo album to crack that chart.

In 2010, Isley received a “Legend Award” at the Soul Train Music Awards.

In 2013, Ronald released his second solo album This Song Is For You sign labels eOne. The album includes the first single “Dinner and A Movie”. Second single, Premiere Song “My Favorite Thing” wrote, features and produced singer, Kem. Ronald received a nominees Independent R&B/Soul Artist Performance, at the Soul Train Music Awards.

In 2014, Ronald made a cameo appearance in the music video for Kendrick Lamar song “i”.

In 1993, Isley married producer/composer/singer Angela Winbush in Los Angeles, California. They quietly divorced in early 2002. When Winbush received chemotherapy following her ovarian cancer diagnosis, Isley was by her side giving her his support in her recovery. He has older children with various women, including daughters Tawanna and Trenisha. In 2004, while in London, Isley suffered a mild stroke, which halted an Isley Brothers tour there. In September 2005, Isley made headlines when he married background singer Kandy Johnson (of the duo JS/Johnson Sisters), who is 35 years his junior. Their son, Ronald Isley, Jr. was born in January 2007. In 2007, it was reported Isley had kidney problems. He still lives in St. Louis.

Written Dianne Washington

Johnny Kemp (August 2, 1959 – April 16, 2015) was a Bahamian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a songwriter in late 1979 and is perhaps best known for his solo work, including his single “Just Got Paid” (1988), which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1989.

Kemp began singing in nightclubs in the Bahamas at age 13. He moved to Harlem, New York in 1979 with the band Kinky Fox. In the early 1980s, Kemp became a successful session musician and songwriter, singing backup for the B. B. & Q. Band on their 1982 album All Night Long (on which he co-wrote several tracks) and for Change on their 1982 album Sharing Your Love (on which he co-wrote “Take You To Heaven”). He also appeared on the obscure Network LP I Need You in 1984, where he had lead vocals on the song “Cover Girl”, later re-recorded for his self-titled debut solo album.

Kemp appeared on Keith Sweat’s DVD release, Sweat Hotel Live (2007), which featured live performances by Sweat in a sort of reunion with other R&B/new jack swing era pioneers of the late 1980s, including Teddy Riley. Kemp appeared on the final track, an “all-star finale” rendition of “Just Got Paid”, originally recorded at a February 2006 concert in Atlanta, Georgia. Incidentally, Sweat had initially passed on the instrumental track that would eventually become “Just Got Paid”, when it was first offered to him in the mid-1980s. Kemp listened to it, added his own lyrics to the melody, and “Just Got Paid” was born. Kemp also performed a version of the Reading Rainbow theme song (and other songs for that series) that was broadcast on PBS for a few years between the Tina Fabrique and Chaka Khan versions. Kemp was the featured performer (singing “Just Got Paid”) at the NJS4E event in New York City, on September 8, 2007. As the name implied, the show celebrated and commemorated 20 years of new jack swing and took place at Ashford & Simpson’s Sugar Bar.

Kemp was found dead on April 16, 2015 off the coast of Montego Bay, according to Jamaican police. He was 55 years old. Kemp had been seen earlier that day in the area, and police believe he was walking on some rocks, lost his balance, fell, hit his head, and then drowned. He was scheduled to be on the Tom Joyner Foundation-hosted annual Fantastic Voyage cruise as a performer when his body was found; reports state he did not board the ship.

Written Dianne Washington

He is survived by his wife, Deidre Fisher-Kemp, and their two sons