It's Showbiz All Around

Femi Kuti plays Hollywood Bowl and Central Park, NY, in his summer engagements while on top Herbie Hancock, Pascal Atuma and Sam Onwuka; Ernie Watts, Atuma on presentation of NEA for Best Album and bottom is Gregory Isaacs, Roy Hargrove who plays alongside Hancock for the Hollywood Bowl events and Queen Latifah who hosts BET's My Black is Beautiful Post Show June 28.



I have been working out lately on the Westside and boy, how does it feel to dabble into affluent old folks trying to stay in shape to keep up with their long life and prosperity mission. Sounds good and we all are trying to push it further, now that "life," they say "begins at 60;" and with the summer jams all around town, nobody wants to be confined to a position of not being able to hang on to all that summer blasts which smells all around the place, especially the Hollywood way.

There is no business like showbiz and living around Hollywood, it is a 24/7 thing and nothing one can do about it but just hang on and make the best out of it. It's too much stuff going on in Los Angeles -- the summer concerts, the 4th Annual Los Angeles We The People Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival at the complex of UCLA Westwood Village kicking off on June 18, the Jewish Festival and Israelwood, and the crazy-dubby all night pub-crawling. Yes, Israelwood, you heard me. And there is Kenyawood, Ugandawood and all that wood. It's a whole bunch of woods line-ups and I might be just chilling limiting myself to not that many concerts and other outdoor events.

But the dates on the central courtyard of Hollywood & Highland Center, the home of the Academy Awards -- I would not miss the ones I had highlighted. It's a free live jazz sessions produced by Long Beach State's KJAZZ 88.1 FM. The line-ups are incredible -- Barbara Morrison, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Gonzalo Bergara, Carl Saunders Sextet, Bobby Matos Latin Jazz Ensemble, Ernie Watts Quartet, Karl Benson Trio, Theo Saunders Sextet, Francisco Aquabella Latin Jazz Band and John Daverga Big Band which runs through August 25.

And the Hollywood Bowl jams, I have already picked. Yes, on 6/21, I will be seeing Femi Kuti & The Positive Force alongside Santigold and Raphael Saadiq. Then follows Grace Jones, Herbie Hancock, Toots & The Maytals, Michael Rose, Gregory Isaacs, Buddy Guy, Dr. John, Pearbo Bryson, George Duke, Dizzie Gillepsie All Star Big Band, James Moody, Roy Hargrove Big Band, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Natalie Cole with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Beasty Boys to close-up the summer jams on 9/24. You see, I'm old-school and hanging out with me is just fun.

For the LA Film Fest, my schedule is limited, also. I will for sure be seeing "Facing Ali," a documentary portrait of 10 men who stormed the boxing ring to face the greatest, "Black Dynamite," a remake of 70s blaxploitation comedies and maybe "Sacred Places" about tracing a lineage from the West African traditional djembe drum in Ouagadougou.

Well, filmmaker and actor Pascal Atuma had called during the week telling me it was all jamming and brothers made some noise inside Cramton Auditorium of Howard University in Washington, DC, last week when the Nigerian Entertainment Awards had its gala night with presentation of awards. Atuma presented an award for the best album of the year which went to D'Banj. Seriously, I'm not familiar with Naija hip-hoppers as every name he mentioned sounded Greek to my ears. That's right, I'm old-school.

Elsewhere, the queen of hip-hop, Queen Latifah who said she was sexually abused as a child will be hosting the BET Awards 2009 My Black is Beautiful Post Show in Los Angeles on June 28. According to BET press release, "My Black is Beautiful celebrates the diverse collective beauty of African American women and encourages black women to define and promote their own beauty standard. The campaign brings to life an authentic reflection of African-American women's beauty by embracing Quen Latifah as the host of the My Black is Beautiful Post Show. The special will capture and recap the atmosphere, style and sexy of the night's festivities."

Whew! It's going to jam and for sure no business like showbiz.

Pascal Atuma and Nollywood film producer Sam Onwuka images courtesy of Trendy Africa