I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: NAIA IZUMI-“Soft Spoken” (TINY DESK CONTEST WINNER 2018). 

I didn’t pay much attention to the Tiny Desk Contest this year (even though there were lots of opportunities to watch various front runner videos).  But this year’s winner was just announced.

Naia Izumi is a 34-year-old musician from Georgia who regularly busks on the streets of Los Angeles, where he now lives.  And now he has gotten some national exposure.

Naia starts the song with a simple percussion loop and then he sets out on some amazing finger tapping jazzy guitar playing.  It’s impressive and pretty at the same time.  And then he starts singing on top of it!

The bridge or chorus (I haven’t figure doubt what’s what yet) is strummed with some cool fluid soloing and then it’s back to the tapping–such a great melody.  There’s a short but pretty solo in the middle and then a quiet section before he resumes the drum loop again.

He starts singing some great falsetto notes (a good vocal range too, this guy) and then the song returns to the fingertapping before it abruptly ends.

I have no idea how it compares to anything else, but it’s pretty darn good.

Watch it here.

[READ: January 15, 2018] The Iceman #2

A whole bunch of books from Holloway House Publishing Co. came across my desk recently.  Interestingly, in 2008

Kensington Publishing has acquired most of the publishing assets of Holloway House Publishing in Los Angeles, the original publisher of such classic black crime writers as Donald Goines, adding an historic trove of gritty African American popular literature to its publishing program. The acquisition includes about 400 backlist titles which will become part of a new imprint at Kensington called Holloway House Classics. Holloway House also publishes a range of popular fiction and nonfiction titles including biographies of famous African Americans.

So this book and many other are likely to be reissued.

But this particular book (and the ones that came with it) were originals gifted to the library from someone.  There were quite a few books written by Joseph Nazel and I decided I’d read this one because it looked awesome.  And it was.

The premise of this series is:

Henry Highland West – he rose up out of the streets of Harlem to become one of the richest, most powerful Blacks in the world, earning the nickname Iceman due to his cold, calculating will to survive. He owns The Oasis, a multi-million dollar pleasure palace glistening in the desert of Las Vegas. And his success is a thorn in the side of those who envy the phenomenal success of the Black man! He’s already fought one battle. One vicious, backstabbing betrayal that left the desert stained with Mafia blood. And now he’s challenged again as modern-day carpetbaggers, hungry for the glitter of gold and the merciless exploitation of slave labor in Africa, waste an old friend in hopes of getting the very land that The Oasis is built on! He’s not alone in the fight. Besides his old street friends he’s got his own private army of voluptuous women trained in the martial arts. And he’s going to need them all, as his survival is threatened by the gold greed of men out to take what he’s so desperately earned! It’s high-stakes action on chopped Harleys and dune buggies as Iceman pulls all the stops just to keep the honkies from giving him the shaft!

And it was just as good as that description sounds.

Nazel tends to over write a bit but when he’s not overusing adjectives, he writes a great, flowing story.

Henry grew up in Harlem and

he was not the blond, blue-eyed American boy that tripped through school in some never-never land of crystal illusion and finally into the family business….  Iceman was a “nigger” a “spade” a “spook.”   He was a loser from day one.  But that didn’t stop him.

Iceman started by hanging with thugs and gangsters but he didn’t want small time. He started running numbers and pimping.  He catered to the whims and needs of the male species.  He brought creativity to pimping. He parlayed his money into a fortune and created The Oasis.

That’s just he introduction.

‘The story proper starts with a group of motorcycle thugs threatening an old prospector.  They say he owes their boss money and they kill him.  But that prospector is almost in Iceman’s turf.  During the battle, there was an explosion and Iceman heard it. He needed to check out his property.

Turned out the prospector was one of Iceman’s friends named Dipper.  After taking care of things, he went back to his air-conditioned lair.

Iceman was often flanked by two beautiful and deadly women Solema and Kim. Solema tended to his full Natural while they talked about the events.

Then the sheriff came calling.  The sheriff respected Iceman, feared him, too.  But mostly, he envied him.  Nevertheless, Iceman was good to the sheriff–keeping him in expensive cigars, which led to less snooping.

After 50 pages we meet the bad guys.  Mister Johns and his South African friend Robert Martin.

Of the bunch, Johns seems somewhat decent to start with.  He is outraged that his men (the bikers) killed Dipper.  Martin, on the other hand, says that murder is an ugly word.  They are business men. Johns says no more killing.  Martin amends it to “if it can be avoided.”

Their plan? To get their hands on the gold nine that Dipper was prospecting.  The mine is on The Oasis property.  Iceman allows Dipper to prospect it because Dipper is pretty harmless.  Of course, Johnson Martin know none of this.

And then when Martin finds out, he reveals the true nature of his character:

“What the hell is a nigger doing owning anything?  No matter.  I’m accustomed to handling these ignorant, uppity Blacks.  Get him over here and we’ll get the property.”

I am very happy to spoil that this asshole gets a massive comeuppance at the end.  We find out a little later that Martin is a slave owner in South Africa, whipping and killing Black men at his discretion. And the lines that he says will make your blood boil and your hatred for this man grow and grow.

Iceman is onto him immediately:

he would enjoy putting the bigoted honkie through a few changes before he told him to go to hell.

There’s even some context about Africa, for those getting up to speed:

It was inconceivable that these Africans who made up over two-thirds of the population, were forced to live in utter poverty on less than one-tenth of the land.

Iceman gives Martin shit right away:

Just a moment there, boss.  Got’s to finish lookin’ at these here pictures in the comic section.  Sho wish I could read so’s I ‘d know what they was saying.  Know what I mean, boss.  Us ol’ iggnrent niggers just sho ain’t worth a darn sometimes.

Martin gives him shit right back but Johns tries to settle things down, apologizing and hoping that Iceman will do business with them.

Martin offers him $20K for “the useless land” to which Iceman responds “If you are offering me twenty thousand dollars for useless land, it would seem you are lacking in business sense.”

The scene ends with Martin getting shoved in a pool.  Back at Johns’ place, Martin describes his plan to kill Iceman

In true racist fashion, Martin ogled after one of the workers at the Oasis, but Brenda is a tough as she is hot.  So she decides to do some undercover work on the racist.  When Brenda arrives, Martin calls her Black Beauty. And before she can even try to get anything out of him, he lunges at her. Now, obviously I’m not pleased with the idea of Iceman being a pimp and that all the women who work for him would do anything for him.  Although it is great that Brenda fights him.

‘m doubly saddened that Brenda winds up with her dress torn–fighting Martin in only bikini bottoms.  Brenda kicks Martin’s ass good, but Martin is not alone.  And the fight is unfair.  This was a sad section of the book.

Soon Iceman is out for revenge.  In a blue dune buggy.

It’s here that Johns reveals just what side he is on, so he is fair game as well.

Iceman has had enough and people are gonna pay.  Except that Martin is amazingly able to flee the carnage.

He heads back home to South Africa–safe from the prying hands of Iceman.

Unless, that is, Iceman can call in a favor or two, a favor that might just get him revenge and a chance to do some damage to the racist system in South Africa.

The ending is really satisfying with some great midnight gunfights and chases, a cool plane sequence and some great surprise attacks.  The only thing that would have been amazing is if he could have destroyed Martin’s whole operation.

This was my first book like this and it was really exciting. I hope to read more from the series.