Got issue 34 of Stop Smiling in the mail this weekend, a 3-cover Jazz edition. I read every issue these people put out cover to cover like a poetry journal so I assure you, it's always worth picking up.

From Alex Abramovich's interview with Nas's father, Olu Dara also a lifer for the music:

AA: The Civil War was happening in 1619 and it's never stopped happening.

OD: Yeah. It shows you what happens with a young country started by everybody being out of pocket--the Europeans and the Africans, the Native Americans, everybody was on a wheel, moving around to places not knowing where they were and not knowing who they are. The country's like that now. It's a new country, what, 500 years old? It's a new country started by people who had no education.

AA: By illiterates--everyone was illiterate, all the whites were illiterate too.

OD: You're right--everyone. But everybody is different. Look at the black community. There are all kinds of denominations of churches, religions, hues, economic status. It's the same for white folks and everybody else. But if you grow up in a world where people delineate, "We are this and they are that," you're overlooking the idea that we are all humans. That's the one thing. We're doing the same thing, we're looking for the same shit. Everybody is trying to get something to eat, a decent place to live, a good education--all human beings are basically the same. It's just that I think we are lesser species than all other living things.

Growing up in the woods in Mississippi you could see that. I loved to stay around the animals, insects, plants and all kinds of beautiful stuff. Inderstanding how fortunate human beings are. As a kid I used to think, "Wow, we're fortunate. Peach trees are growing, fruit treas, everything is growing. We could survive by not even planting if we don'ts want to." Everything is here but the human being has some type of inferiority about who he is, unlike other living things. He's combative because one person has a better pair of shoes. But we are not superior to anything. We're somewhere way down the line. We're afraid to make correct decisions. I think when the human beings ceased to grunt and make noises like animals and started speaking that's when the trouble started. When the first guy started speaking, he probably said to somebody else, "What did you call me? What did you say about me? What?" Language to me is the enemy.

If you know me, you know I couldn't agree more.

If that didn't sell you here's another gem--an excerpt from Arthur Taylor's Notes and Tones: Musician to Musician Interviews--from Miles Davis in 1968:

AT: What interests you besides music and boxing?

MD: Nothing other than music and girls. Let's see, what else? Drummers, bass players, money, slaves, white folks.

Jazz haters, if that ain't gangsta, I don't know what is.