RAPPER , JUVENILE CONVINCED U.S BLEW UP LEVEES IN N.O



www.allhiphop.com




Juvenile: A Moment of Clarity
By Houston Williams


Though he wasn’t the youngest Hot Boy, Juvenile certainly seems to have matured in the last eight years. From his salacious ballads, Juvenile is committed to showing the other side of the lifestyle with the upcoming Reality Check.

In a candid discussion with AllHipHop.com, Juvenile touches on this new vision, his reactions to Katrina and beliefs of what really happened. While Juvenile was a public figure in activism for relief, he not only regrets that – but offers greater insight than has been seen from many of his peers. Reality Check seems to be advice that Juvenile is not only offering, but as something the New Orleans playboy is taking himself.

In addition to that, Juvenile reveals the status of his former Hot Boy fraternity and corresponding label. Lastly, for all you chain snatchers out there, Juvy’s got a memo for you – but, you’d better snatch this feature first.

AllHipHop.com: Tell me about Reality Check. The title leads that this could be responsive to Hurricane Katrina…

Juvenile: [Reality Check] is basically what we all go through sometimes in life. Or, some of us ain’t even had our reality checked yet, you know what I’m saying. But for me, Katrina was mine, I had the title of the album from before Katrina even hit. So I hadn’t had mine yet, know what I mean? When, when the hurricane hit, they sent me back to the studio to really, really make the title true, ‘cause it changed everything, it made me really feel like, “Damn, how could I have a title like that before a hurricane and be so appropriate?”

AllHipHop.com: Did you change songs or add new ones?

Juvenile: I changed songs, added new songs. I mean, it delayed everything for me because you know I was close to putting my album [out around that time.] My reality check was like man, no matter what you do or how big you make it or how much money you made - I just built my house - no matter how much you accomplish, you still a n***er. I ain’t no better than nobody else, ‘cause I do still have problems [like ordinary] people.

AllHipHop.com: Do you think people scoff when artists become activists? I mean, you have money, and a lot to come “home to,” so to speak…

Juvenile: Everybody wasn’t like that, but I do think the majority thinks like that. I mean, the true colors come out during the worst times. They seen me full of alcohol, speak your sober mind, because you can’t control the truth then. It looked like it was a whole bunch of drunk ass people working for the government until the truth came out, you know what I’m saying? The truth came out and the answer is: they ain’t gonna give a f**k about us.

AllHipHop.com: What’s the status down there now, like you know, it’s out of the media, it’s not really prominent like that anymore. People kind of want to know like how is it.

Juvenile: I said all, all of the media, y’all full of s**t, you know. And probably won’t play me, probably won’t show my commercials or nothing, probably won’t play my videos or nothing but I got to get out, to me y’all full of s**t.

AllHipHop.com: How so?

Juvenile: Y’all should of, a lot of them should have been doing something different than what they was doing and showing. And then you, enough you’re not showing the truth, 'cause the truth is the levees didn’t break. The levee was breached, but not by water. It was breached by military, by military firearms. People heard a boom, then the waterways. So, you know it’s a whole bunch of lies man. Honestly when you saw me at that [Red Cross] press conference, you know, I was really in there mad, like, “Y’all full of s**t.” I really lost my s**t, you sure they didn’t, the insurance agency really ain’t giving me nothing yet, know what I’m saying? Oh, I was really, I walked out.

AllHipHop.com: A lot of people have military-related theories…

Juvenile: What happened was the water was backing up in the wrong areas: the tourist areas. And they knew it, and it was backing up in areas where some strong people was politically, and on other scales were, and those people knew what was going on. Like man, y’all could have fixed this pump system where everybody could be safe, but y’all fixed one area of the city. We watched them over the past couple of years, you know the pumping system that was designed to pump water on the lower main. They blew the levee.

AllHipHop.com: Wow.

Juvenile: It’s more like out with the old, in with the new. Now you got [wealthy real estate barons] down there, buying up all the property - now it’s a big business venture. If you didn’t pay your taxes on your property - and half of the people weren’t able to pay taxes, you know - a lot of people lost their money for real.

AllHipHop.com: Is this a new era of political mindedness for you?

Juvenile: Nah, you ain’t gonna catch me doing a public anything, I’m not like that, all you’re gonna catch me doing is telling my people, ‘Get what the f**k you gonna get and get it right now,’ man. Get what you can get right now. Make the best of out of life you know what I’m saying. Stop crying, don’t feel sorry for yourself, do what you gotta do. It’s time to eat.

AllHipHop.com: Moving on, what’s your relationship like with Cash Money these days?

Juvenile: None.

Juvenile: Trying to take five with your boy, whenever you want to fight --

AllHipHop.com: For real?

Juvenile: Yeah, it’s for real.

AllHipHop.com: Why’s it like that?

Juvenile: ‘Cause, [the] man got a big mouth.

AllHipHop.com: Who?

Juvenile: Baby. He got a big mouth, [I'm] gonna punch him in it.

AllHipHop.com: What’d he say this time?

Juvenile: A lot. Now, what I’m saying, is how you even know he saying something? He’s always saying something ‘cause we gonna, I’m gonna get it on with him.

AllHipHop.com: I heard y’all was working out a reunion of with Cash and Hot Boys or something.

Juvenile: Yeah.

AllHipHop.com: Why it didn’t go through?

Juvenile: There’s another reunion between, that’s another reunion involving Cash Money, I think. I ain’t caught up with Cash Money thing. You probably [heard] B.G. talking about me, and him, and Mannie Fresh.

AllHipHop.com: Right, right, so no reunion? Well, what about B.G. though?

Juvenile: No, nah, nah. We be bumping heads with each other, we be holler and stuff like that, you know.

AllHipHop.com: Are you and B.G. on good terms?

Juvenile: Yeah we good. But you know, we got a situation, and I got my situation right now. And it like we both trying to make it happen, like, “You got your little camp and I got my little camp,” we agree to do songs with each other, but it’s like, we both in motion. You know the Hurricane killed everything, too.

AllHipHop.com: Are you working with Mannie on this album?

Juvenile: All the time, all day. He ain’t even Cash Money either.

AllHipHop.com: Yeah, I know. Last year you were the first person that confirmed that, at the BET Awards.

Juvenile: Yeah, people didn’t believe me, people was looking at me like I was crazy or something, I’m telling you.

AllHipHop.com: Well, what about Wayne? His album is very hot right now…

Juvenile: You like that “Party Man” [actually titled “Fireman”] song?

AllHipHop.com: Yeah, it is cool, but the album is better. What are your thoughts on his tattoo tear? People wonder about that kind of stuff these days…

Juvenile: Tattoos [tear] is people’s fashion nowadays. My homey told me, they told me, when you get the little tattoo [tear] like that that means you put in some work. I'm gonna bash them, [that] little boy that grew up and he needs daddy. What I'm say is nobody remembers [him in the street], so all this s**t you saying, is false. Now far as rap, he's a good rapper, he been a good rapper. He's been to the best schools, he been, he been a good boy.

AllHipHop.com: In the summer, there was a rumor of a dude who allegedly took your UTP chain…

Juvenile: Man, that’s a long story. But that dude, honestly, [it must have been] one of the little cats, ‘cause I don’t have a chain like that. One of little cats on my bus got, guy got a little chain and slipped a little over, you know what I mean? And I guess since she give the chain to her dude and he got an itch, he was gangster and everything [sarcastically]. Man, keep the chain, da, da, da. I don’t even know what happened, the end of the story I don’t even know what happened with the chain.

AllHipHop.com: There were pictures on the Internet for a second.

Juvenile: Yeah, he come back on, you never saw him back on it, I wonder why you never see the Indian, right? We straightened it. He so stupid is out on the web site and showed his face on TV. Now you’re playing. Jump on the TV, that was like something on national TV, I got the chain, it’s me, we got the gun, okay, so now you know where, where is [the chain now]?

AllHipHop.com: What prompted you to do this “Rodeo” single?

Juvenile: It really falls upon the Reality Check title. And that song is an uplifting song for women. Once you see the video, you’ll understand that I’m trying to show you what these women go through, the women that stay in strip clubs what they go through after they leave away from the strip club. Some of them got kids, some of them forced women, forced into doing that. Some of them try to go to school, don’t have nobody to help them, some of them been badder than that. I’m showing you the other side of the picture. I’m just saying [to the women], “You’re beautiful anyway.” I got a daughter, I got a momma, and I got a wife. So I look at things differently, you know what I’m saying, I look at things like how could I make a song for them what I need, you know what I mean? Getting off of the G upside that you always catch me on, because every time you hear a song from G you expect it to be this way, you know what I’m saying? But this is something different and also when you get off into the album and you see there, that’s one in a million, you know what I’m saying, it’s like it was the only song on my album that was really radio playable to that extent.

AllHipHop.com: Given the reality we’re faced with in 2006, why should people get this album?

Juvenile: All I got to say is you ought to get my album. My album was generally done before the hurricane hit. But the hurricane hit, and I tried to change up as much but you’ll probably get more footage ‘cause I got a DVD coming out, and you’ll get more footage of the people actually [involved], me actually in New Orleans, and you seeing it really handle the truth because you’re talking everybody [affected] but the White people.

AllHipHop.com: Do you ever feel that moves like that could compromise your gangster?

Juvenile: [People are] kind of they scared to make songs like that, song needs to be made. I’m G’d up all the time, I am who I am, you know what I’m saying? I don’t feel like making a song like that takes anything away from my character, I feel like you know my respect stays there because I can make a song like that and I can make a song like that, you know what I mean and I ain’t gonna cross my boundaries.



VERY INTERESTING EXCHANGE BETWEEN SPIKE LEE AND DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK TUCKER CARLSON IN THIS ARTICLE



Eye Witnesses Living Near 17th St. Levee Say Loud Explosion Heard Just Prior To Raging Waters Flooded 9th Ward
New Orleans resident, Terry Adams, heard "bomb-like explosion" right before he was forced to his rooftop and it floated away downstream. City Bus driver, Ryan Washington, adds hundreds more people with the exact same experience are being ignored by the mainstream media.
9 Jan 2006

By Greg Szymanski

Eye witnesses are starting to come forward, some only a block away from the 17th St Canal levee break, saying they heard a loud, powerful explosion right before water starting gushing in, as they ended up in a matter of minutes floating downstream on their rooftops.

Terry Adams, who lives one block away from the 17th St. break, remembers hearing what sounded "like a bomb going off" from where the levee gave-way before rushing water forced him to his rooftop.

"Everything was calm, it was late at night and the storm had passed. I thought we had dodged a bullet and there was no water in my house and I was only a block away from the 17th St. break," said Adams, a lower 9th Ward resident, in an extended conversation this week from New Orleans.

"Then I heard what sounded like a bomb go off from the direction of where the levee gave-way and within a matter of minutes I was forced up on my roof where I floated for about a mile into town before somehow getting to safety."

Asked if he was sure he heard an explosion, he added: "Water breaking a levee isn't going to make the noise I heard and besides, the levee should have broke before or during the storm, not afterward.

"I heard an explosion and so did a lot of other people. It came right from where the levee broke. What else could it have been but somebody blowing up the levee?"

The question of how the levee burst in one gigantic place at the 17th St. and London Ave. drainage canals, estimated by some to be a gaping hole three football fields long, as well as a number of other locations, has been on the minds of other local residents from the lower 9th Ward besides Adams, many hearing the same explosions but being ignored by the mainstream media, putting their accounts in the realm of conspiracy theorists.

For example, whenever the subject of the levees being intentionally detonated comes up, most mainstream commentators like ABC's Michel Martin, dismiss even the slightest possibility of foul play, appeasing Black listeners with comments such as this:

"Anybody with any knowledge of history can understand why a lot of people can feel this way, but any real possibility that the levies were intentionally exploded must be dismissed."

However, according to Ryan Washington, a long time New Orleans bus driver and former resident of the lower 9th Ward who grew up playing football on top the levee, said the possibility of government dirty work and foul play isn't so far fetched.


Now living in nearby Slidell, also hard hit by the hurricane, he has talked to numerous eye witnesses who say the exact same thing as Adams, insisting the levee was blown up and didn't give-way by natural means.

Washington also said the media should not concentrate on testimony from experts, new commentators and government officials, who have biased opinions, buy emphasis should be placed on interviewed the hundreds if not thousands of people who heard or saw something the night the levees blew.

"Why don't they talk to the people who were there? Why are they relying on government experts who have a reason to hide the truth? I personally am gathering a list of people, a long list, who saw and heard what really happened that night," said Washington, in a telephone conversation this week from New Orleans.

He added that government officials have been wanted to get hold of the valuable lower 9th Ward property ever since 1965 when Hurricane Betsy flooded the area and the same suspicions of foul play circulated through his neighborhood.

"I even have talked to many reporters on the scene and tell them to get the story from the horse's mouth and talk to the people," said Washington, adding it's easier to hear and learn the real truth on a city bus than behind the veil of city hall and the corrupted television cameras.

"The stories about people hearing and seeing explosions, as well as stories about bomb residue being found at the scene, never see the light of day or get in the papers or on television.

"And if they do, these stories are always dismissed as being crazy or discredited by experts or government officials, who I personally don't believe one bit."

According to Washington, several important factors convince him beyond a reasonable doubt that the levees were blown intentionally to racially cleanse the city, as well as the first step in a redevelopment plan to put up high rise casinos and hotels in the lower 9th Ward.

"First, they always say that explosion was a power generator. But the power was off when the levees blew and the power station they were talking about was not in the vicinity of where the explosions were heard," said Washington. "Next, they say the barge in the canal broke the levees. I never once saw a barge in the canal in all the years I lived there.

"Also, if it did plow through the levee, it never would have made such a noise or cause an immediate break three football fields long. Further, why were immediately on the scene to fence of the levees so no one could see what happened when it too them more than 10 days in some cases to rescue people. What are they hiding?

"Please someone from the media come down here and get the real story as I have talked to so many people who feel the same way I do. The government has been trying to get our land since 1965 and they are still trying today."

Besides numerous residents suspecting foul play, New York filmmaker Spike Lee in October Lee said on Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, that he believes Louis Farakhan's allegation that a levee was blown up to flood the nearly all-Black 9th Ward.

Lee added that "a choice had to be made, one neighborhood got to save another neighborhood and flood another 'hood, flood another neighborhood." He then engaged in a heated battle of words with neo con shill and MSNBC reporter, bow tied Tucker Carlson, who dismissed Lee as conspiracy theorist spreading paranoia and fear.

At this point the short exchange between the two shows Carlson's true colors as a government propagandist and as far from being a journalist as George W. Bush himself:

Lee: "Presidents have been assassinated. So why is that so far-fetched? Do you think that election in 2000 was fair? You don't think that was rigged If they can rig an election, they can do anything!"

Carlson: "I was in New Orleans right after the hurricane in the ninth ward. And while I didn't hear anybody say the levee was blown up by the federal government, I did interview a bunch of people who were stuck there who said they believed this was part of the conspiracy to rid New Orleans of black people. They honestly believed that. I didn't argue with them, I just listened to what they said and I felt bad for them. So as you sit here -- who is someone who is rich and has option -- and are watched by people who are poor and have no options, it seems to me it's your responsibility, your obligation to tell them the truth and you know the truth, which is the federal government did not blow up the levees so don't feed the paranoia and the crazies."

Lee: "First of all, how's that feeding the paranoia?"

Carlson: "Because you're saying it's entirely possible when you know perfectly well it's not possible."

Lee: "How's it not possible?"

Although numerous questions remain unanswered about the reason behind the levee controversy, one question never posed was how could a man like Carlson ever call himself a fair-minded journalist after comments made on Real Time?

"I know why," said Washington. "These journalists are as corrupt as the government folks they write about. I'm only a bus driver but I know the difference between right and wrong and the media is dead wrong by not covering this story fairly.

One of the biggest controversies still brewing is the preliminary results of the three main investigatory groups looking at why the levees erupted. The groups, all tied to government interests, include the National Science Foundation in conjunction with the American Society of Civil Engineers; the United States Army Corps of Engineers; and the third group being funded by the State of Louisiana, led by scientists at the Louisiana State University hurricane center.

Although each investigation is independent of the other, scientists claim to be sharing data, coming to some surprising preliminary conclusions, one of which could have enormous consequences.

In a recent article by John M. Barry analyzing the data from the three groups, he looks at some of the suspicious preliminary questions, raising even more questions of how could the 17th St. levee break with such a small storm surge emanating from Lake Pontchartrain not the Gulf of Mexico.

"We know that Hurricane Katrina made landfall with enormous power, devastating the Gulf Coast, and that the levee on the Industrial Canal in New Orleans was overtopped by a storm surge coming directly from the Gulf of Mexico. When a levee is overtopped, there is basically nothing that can be done. Water pouring over a levee long enough will, in effect, wash part of the levee away. That's what happened on the Industrial Canal, resulting in the flooding of part of the Ninth Ward, along with much of St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes.

"But most of New Orleans was not flooded by water coming directly from the Gulf. It was flooded from the north and rear by Lake Pontchartrain, when levees failed along the 17th Street and London Avenue drainage canals. Initially, the Corps of Engineers said that the storm was so great that it overtopped these levees also.

"But after inspecting the levees and reviewing storm data, all three investigating teams agree: Hurricane Katrina hit Lake Pontchartrain with far less strength than it did the Gulf Coast, and the storm surge fell well short of the tops of the levees. In fact, a design or construction flaw caused them to collapse in the face of a force they were designed to hold. In other words, if the levies had performed as they were supposed to, the deaths in New Orleans proper, the scenes in the Superdome and the city's devastation would never have taken place."

For more informative articles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com.
Greg Szymanski