(Watts Prophets Official Website) - Introducing two special offerings to the world from the poets of The Legendary Watts Prophets! Amde Hamilton has just released a book spanning forty years of his poetry, titled: Me Today, You Tomorrow:
Journey of a Street Poet and in perfect accompaniment, the group has released Things Gonna Get Greater: The Watts Prophets 1969-1971, featuring poems compiled from two of their most famous albums. The Watts Prophets were laying down Rap over beats way before Hip Hop was born. They prove again and again that content can be shocking, raw and hardcore yet at the same time be inspirational, build unity and bring about change.
Me Today, You Tomorrow:
Journey of a Street Poet by Amde Hamilton of the legendary Watts Prophets Amde Book Cover
THE PROJECTS
When I lived in the projects in Watts, I always wondered whose project was the projects and just what that project was.
- Amde Hamilton
Amde Hamilton of the legendary Watts Prophets has just published Me Today You Tomorrow: Journey of a Street Poet, featuring forty years of his poetry. Chronologically organized by decade, his book begins with poems from the 60's, a time filled with political strife, and continues to "now" where his poems reflect on a life spent as a Black man in America.
More than a book of poetry, Hamilton's intro Death of a Village mourns the loss of his community as the result of "urban renewal" programs that plucked the heart and soul out of the village of Watts, California. From the the Filmore in San Francisco to Harlem in New York, the story is much the same.
"Watch what happens when they start to rebuild New Orleans," predicts Hamilton, "The resulting gentrification pushes the poor out, scattering them and disrupting any effective organizing they might have worked hard to establish. I recognize that everything must change. But change should not destroy the creativity and connectivity that make a community strong."
Amde Hamilton as a member of the Watts Prophets has been performing and teaching the spoken word since the sixties. The Watts Prophets pioneered the form of spoken word put to music that has exploded into the cultural phenomenon that Rap is today. Amde is an Ethiopian Orthodox priest who served in the funeral of Bob Marley. He appears in the documentary, Land of the Look Behind, performing his poem Wisdom and Knowledge, at Bob Marley's funeral. The Watts Prophets were scheduled to record an album with Bob Marley but Marley became ill before the album could be realized. Hamilton currently lives and works in Humboldt County, California. He continues to perform with the Watts Prophets and travels with them nationally and internationally conducting residency programs for teens at art centers and schools. Their programs foster self-_expression through the spoken word and culminate in performances where rapping, singing, dancing, scatting, and drumming are some of the ways young people make their voices heard.
"From the fires of Watts to the global millennium, Amde Hamilton is one of the most powerful, passionate, and truthful voices of the past half century of American letters. His words are weapons and tools - weapons to fight injustice, despair, and wrong, tools to build respect, community, and life. They are a blessing and a call. We cannot ignore them." - Jeff Chang, author of "Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation"
Beautiful West African Adrinka symbols decorate this 165 page paperback which includes 69 poems and 2 essays: The Death of a Village and The State of Art in Watts plus Jeff Chang's liner notes from the Things Gonna Get Greater CD.
To order a signed copy of "Me Today You Tomorrow", from Amde Hamilton, for only $11.95 + shipping and handling, please click the link below. No Purchase "Me Today You Tomorrow" No Review Copies, Interviews & Bookings
Things Gonna Get Greater: The Watts Prophets 1969-1971 watts Things Gonna Get Greater: The Watts Prophets 1969-1971 features poems from the albums, Rappin' Black in a White World and The Black Voices: On the Streets in Watts.
41 tracks include: Sell Your Soul, Take It, Instruction, Amerikkka, Pain, What Is A Man, A Pimp, Tenements, The Master, What It Is - Sisters, Everybody Watches, Watch Out Black Folks, The Prostitute, Celebration, What Color Is Black, Black In A White World, Listen, Part-E S, Kill, Funny How Things Can Change, Falstaff, Pimping, Leaning, And Feaning, Keeping You Doing Things, The Meek Ain't Gonna, The Days, The Hours, Taste, We Must Love Black People, Saint America, They Shot Him, Nearer My God To Thee, Clowns All Around, Things Gonna Get Greater Later, Pledge Of Allegiance? and more!
"Formed in the wake of the infamous 1965 Watts riots, the Watts Prophets were....dropping pro-black street corner poetry atop minimal free jazz and tribal percussion with an urgency and resonance that would later influence the tones of such hip-hoppers as Eazy-E, DJ Quik, Brand Nubian and Ghostface...The high-pitched sermonizing of Prophet Amde Hamilton would be arresting in any milieu-and, as elucidated in liner notes by Can't Stop Won't Stop author Jeff Chang, many of the group's observations on race and America remain startlingly relevant today." - Jesse Serwer for XLR8R
"The Watts Prophets' often harsh message still resonates for hip-hop heads nearly forty years later...Ultimately, the Watts Prophets' sociopolitical commentary remains highly controversial to this day, especially when you consider that Kanye West was the only high-profile black artist to speak out about the Bush government's lackluster response to Hurricane Katrina, or the irony of living in an era when former crack dealers have six-figure endorsement deals with multinational corporations... Although the burning embers of the Watts rebellion echoed in their verses, it's clear they were 'rappin' facts' about a revolution of the mind - which may never be televised, but still might one day be realized." - Eric K. Arnold for The East Bay Music Express
"The Prophets - Anthony "Amde" Hamilton, Richard Dedeaux, Otis O'Solomon and later Dee Dee McNeil....have influenced and have been sampled by countless hip-hop artists. The two recordings featured here....are seminal documents of the Black Power struggle that was wiped out by the FBI's Cointelpro operation, incarceration, death, poverty and other persecutions from the power culture.... Ragged, wailing saxophones and hand drums color the poetic proceedings that insist on revolution and a holistic approach to living while being suffocated and eaten alive in the white America. These records are not for everybody, but then, they never were. They are for those who can handle the truth that is still the truth....This is rap, hard, immediate and angry; it's a heart full of soul and a belly full of hard beauty that rings like a cry from the wilderness. Welcome to the real hardcore. - Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
"Collecting tracks from a modest two years' span, Things Gonna Get Greater: The Watts Prophets 1969-1971 captures in suite, song and spoken word a hint of the passion and ice-cold articulation that confronted communities not quite ready for a self-reflective message." - Joel Callahan for Dusted Magazine No Purchase "Things Gonna Get Greater" No Upcoming Appearances No Review Copies, Interviews & Booking
