PRINCE YASHUA

..*"ANGEL CITY"....... "Welcome 2 Angel City, I'm really glad U made it, This is a place where Starz are born, and peoplez lives are Jaded. Laced up with Party Drugz, Sunset Clubs, Crips and Bloods, Rappers, Actors, Weekend Thugs, SouthSiders with Eastside love, Yup. Bar fights, Hollywood night life, Paradise for the taste of the spot light, Its Hype, but it just dont feel Right, carjacks in the Hood broad daylight. Low Riders, Outsides, Graff Writerz, Import knighters, Projectz with young Street fighters, Sniff'em up types, pullin' All nighterz. Showtime "Hit'em up, Get'em Up," Big Gangster SuperStarz, BodyGuards, and they Pimped out Cars, Everybody out here tryna act hard. Fake flashy Video Flick, young Runaway Porno chicks, Limos and Cylicone Tits, Iced out with Gunzs in their whipz, * Chi-Ching get your Green, Some scheme 4 a spot on the Big Screen, Some Scream like they're Lost in a Bad Dream, Some Chase 4 a taste of that mad Cream. Out Here, Yo the Rich stay Rich, and No one has no Pity, Whether tou have LOST or FOUND yourself, in ANGEL CITY!" ****PRINCE YASHUA..Burning Star: Musical Activists in the Angel City by Jenny Stoever For the members of the Los Angeles based hip hop/soul collective Burning Star, the notion of political action is as rich and as varied as the individual cultural and sonic strands that intertwine to form their music. From penning overtly political lyrics for songs like “Victory,” to volunteering with the Hollywood Teen Community Project, to rocking the stage for both the anti-war efforts of the Answer Coalition and the Bands Against Bush LA rallies, the sevenpiece band walks it like they talk it and refuses to have it any other way. Prince Yashua Alvarez, Burning Star’s MC and newly minted solo artist, argues that as musicians, “you have the ability to speak to masses of people. . .and when you have that type of power I think it is almost abusing that power to just do it for the sake of saying I got a gun or I got this chain or I got this thing, instead of giving answers to the problem, instead of using your power to promote change. That’s one of our main motivations. You don’t need these things to be a powerful person or a beautiful person.” Alvarez describes his own political consciousness as crystallizing early, tracing it back to the example and influence of his parents in the 1960s and 70s. His mother and father— a Vietnam vet—took him as a small child to political rallies in what is now called Salazar Park. He recalls the intense feeling of being one of thousands in the midst of a mass political action. “ I looked up and the Brown Berets were marching,” remembers Alvarez. “That stuck with me. A group of men in uniform, just connected, of one mind and disciplined.” This image of community building and positive political collectivity has driven Burning Star forward since their inception in 1998. Since then, the band has steadily been building a strong southern California following, playing regular dates at Nappy at the Roots, the Temple Bar, and the Little Temple and collaborating with other Angeleno acts like Ozomatli, the Black Eyed Peas, and Quetzal, of which Burning Spear keyboardist Quincy McCrary is also a member. Currently, the band’s members are pursuing various solo projects—a hip hop joint for Yashua and a rock-oriented release for Khalfani White among them—while their latest full-length recording is under consideration at Jeepney Music, the new Silverlake record label owned by apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas. Although the band’s philosophy of live performance has its roots in the politics and music of the 60s and 70s—especially War, Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley—there is no doubt that Burning Star is facing the political realities of our contemporary moment. Alvarez, a registered voter, struggles with the fact that our government is run by rich, powerful people who are removed from the everyday struggles of communities of color. However, in spite of his skepticism, Alvarez argues that “this year I am going to vote whether I believe it is going to change anything or not, so I can say you know what, I voted, I took that step regardless of where it goes because of how Bush won the last election.” While the war with Iraq—and the half a million children currently suffering starvation there—weigh heavily on Alvarez’s mind, so does the current state of domestic affairs here in the states: “here in America people are dying, people are poor, starving, without medical insurance. How can you go anywhere else if your home isn’t right? ... It doesn’t matter if you are in America and you have freedom, if you’re starving, you’re starving.” In many ways, Alvarez feels that what we are engaging in is a war for America— especially concerning who gets to define what this America is all about. He argues that while this country is usually described as “a land of opportunity,” we must empower ourselves to question “who is this opportunity for? What opportunity is there?” Aside from the ideological content of their lyrics that directly addresses these issues, the political power of Burning Star is deeply embedded in the sound itself. Their unique mélange of hip hop, soul, reggae, and Latin rhythms works to remind audiences that one of the most important sociopolitical functions of music is its ability to provide us with a space to dream. Alvarez remarks that Burning Star enjoys “doing music that makes people feel good. For some people it is meditation, you know? It’s therapy to listen to some music that they can really feel, because we live in a time of nuclear arms, starvation, and war. . . for that moment if they transcend beyond this world, it shows them that there is good in this world.”. ..