MTV News Erasure Just Proved My Point
The Internet isn't forever!
Respond2Bass is the name of the music blog that I minimally maintained between 2005 and 2009. It’s a nod to the 1990 song “Women Respond to Bass” by Renegade Soundwave, the first band I ever interviewed professionally.
I have really been enjoying building newsletter communities here over the past year. Creative Jobs, a letter with free job listings and career advice, began last July. Music Book Club followed in January, and California Eating just started a few weeks ago as part of the relaunch of my multimedia/zine project. Respond2Bass will fit in really well with these other endeavors and, like the Music Book Club, will help me develop book ideas and other longform projects out of my unparalleled 30+ year interview archive and experiences as a writer and a DJ.
There are some really fun pieces to resurface from the old R2B blog and from outlets that no longer exist and have vanished without a trace on or offline. I’ve been drafting up some of them here and was trying to decide where to start, when today’s news basically made the choice for me.
Though it went under last year, the online archive from MTV News survived until today. Decades of news stories, videos and features from incredibly smart writers, editors and producers are now just gone. I’m trying to scramble through my email and see what I can salvage of all the work I did over there as a freelancer.
I began writing for MTV in 1995, when the network debuted a website called MTV Online (with that URL). Back then, I mostly wrote about house music DJs and producers such as Deep Dish, Junior Vasquez and Armand Van Helden. I found a transcript printout recently, which reminded me that I was still using highlighters at the time.
Transcript of interview with Junior Vasquez for MTV, 1995
Years later, I linked up with MTV’s RapFix department to write about hip-hop. I interviewed West Coast stars like my late friend Shock G, Too $hort, Ice Cube, E-40 and Mack 10 backstage at concerts thrown by the throwback radio station KDAY. I eulogized late legends Nate Dogg and Special One from Conscious Daughters. And recapped early seasons of Love and Hip-Hop, the reality series that filled the void in my heart left after All My Children ended.
Here’s one of my stories that went offline today. I can imagine some of this material making it into the Bay Area rap book I’m working on and will publish through Music Book Club.
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Too $hort on The Legacy of The Black Panthers in Oakland
By Tamara Palmer
Too $hort (Todd Shaw) moved to Oakland from Los Angeles when he was 14, but was already aware of the legacy that the Black Panthers had left in his community and beyond. The multi-platinum artist, who is working on his forthcoming album with a live band, talks about the impact of the revolutionary organization on the city — then and now.
When you moved to Oakland, were you aware of a continuing Panther presence?
Oakland had a lot of pride attached to the Panthers. A lot of people were connected to it in some kind of way and a lot of people who weren’t Panthers supported the Panthers. You’d see Huey P. Newton around, and people would be like, “That’s Huey right there.”
Do you have any memories of Bobby Seale or Huey P. Newton?
Something I remember very clearly: The city was upset about Huey being killed by a drug dealer. The way he got killed, the city didn’t like that. I remember people saying they didn’t care what the situation was, but the sentiment was that you just don’t kill Huey. They mourned the moment; even if you didn’t attend the funeral or know him personally, you still felt the loss.
Do you think there was a deep knowledge in the city about what the Panthers represented by the Eighties, or had they just become an iconic symbol in the way that Malcolm X did?
To me, that’s what it was. It was a moment to be proud of in history to say we did that. The negative image that the media put on it and the positive image that the inner city felt about it, [I felt] just a little bit of both. Without having to read a book or be told, everybody knew the story of the Black Panthers at that time.
Do you think you related to it in a deeper way more so than someone like Malcolm X because they were from Oakland?
I wouldn’t even say I relate more because of my Oakland connection. I would say because of the time. When Malcolm and Martin made their impact, I was just being born. I was born the year that Martin Luther King got assassinated. I was a child coming up in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. The vibe that was in the city after the Civil Rights Movement kind of started dying down, that’s pretty much the time that the Black Panthers got started.
Do you think kids in Oakland today know about the Black Panthers?
I can guarantee that the majority of kids, no matter what age they are, they’re going to have some sort of opinion on the Black Panthers. It might not be the historical version but they have a visual and an opinion about what it was. Everyone knows they came from here because there’s always some event or some propaganda hanging somewhere around the city — something that reminds you that this is the home of the Panthers.
Originally published on MTV News, 2011
Recent published work
• Bay Area radio icon Chuy Gomez raised a generation of latchkey kids [SFGATE]
• 'I'm still disgusted': Janet Jackson rails against 'injustice' at San Francisco concert [SFGATE]
• Dissecting SF’s big surprise rave [48 Hills]
• Shaboozey On His New Album, Beyoncé & Why He'll Never Be A "Stereotypical" Artist [GRAMMY.com]
• New Kids On The Block's Joey McIntyre Shares His Favorite Career Moments With The Iconic Boy Band [GRAMMY.com]
More letters from Tamara Palmer
• California Eating — I am happy to offer you the incredible chance to design your own custom chocolate bar from Charles Chocolates, which was recently named Best Chocolatier by San Francisco Magazine! Enter the contest here.
• Creative Jobs (free job listings!)