That's the handsome MC Perry Jones onstage.  It's 1974 at a sold-out Madison Square Garden, and Jones is looking out to a pitch-black arena.  The only thing the audience can see is his genie-like, glowing full-length robe and his turban with a sparkling diamond covering his nearly foot-tall Afro.  In the omnipresent voice of a prophet, he announces the opening act in a slow, deliberate baritone: "Presenting! The Elements of the Universe, Earth! Wind! And Fire!"

A disembodied, glow-in-the-dark kalimba appears.  Maurice White, shirtless, begins playing the first notes of the eight-minute, extra-funky, Latin-soul workout that is "Power," the standout from their third album, Last Days and Time.  Led by thrilling rhythms of Ronnie Laws on saxophone and the wild, Hendrix-reminiscent guitar solo or Roland Bautista, it winds down with Laws's smooth, subtle flutes, Larry Dunn's Fender Rhodes and Clavinet, and turns the corner back to the beginning with White's kalimba.

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The manic energy of Manhattan morphs into slow motion as Lenny Kravitz walks the streets of the Meatpacking District. He’s uncharacteristically conservative in a black oxford shirt, David Ruffin–style glasses, a gray blazer, and a peacoat while click-clacking across the cobblestone streets in what he calls “church shoes.” Heads swivel. Bartenders dart out of saloons, asking in broken English to take a picture with him. Women with their daughters swoon: “He’s so cute!” Soon the pace picks up as the paparazzi begin to swarm—on bicycles, on foot, seeming to rise from potholes, snapping with their industrial-size zoom lenses from windows above. Still, Kravitz stays at the same speed, obliging everyone, bending down to pet the dogs of a lady struggling with six of them on a leash, not flustered, cracking jokes, and having a good time.

He doesn’t travel with an entourage or a security guard or even a pet toy poodle. “He’s cool with everybody when we walk the streets in New Orleans,” says Trombone Shorty, who guests on Kravitz’s new album, Black and White America, and occasionally cameos on the HBO series Treme. Kravitz bought his first home ever in the N.O. on a whim after visiting one year for Jazz Fest. He moved into a dilapidated house and never moved back to New York. Shorty continues, “He talks to everybody. He’s just a cool cat.”

“I think the fact that he raised a child on his own has made him an..."

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Like Raphael Saadiq’s acclaimed 2008 album, The Way I See It—a downtown ode to the Motown-Stax-Philly International eras—his latest album due out May 10, Stone Rollin’, conjures up nostalgia, with dust-track roads and sock-hop, bluesy, British soul fusion. Saadiq keeps proving that he is a master of musical reinvention and one of the last pure musicians and great songwriters from the New Jack Swing era operating in commercial music.

“He’s not doing what he was doing—never mind when he first started out—he’s not doing what he was doing on his last album,” notes Gary Harris, industry veteran and musical director for the upcoming Tribe Called Quest documentary, Beats, Rhymes & Life.

Not everyone can rock out in homage to Solomon Burke with Mick Jagger and have the Grammy audience in a near raucous church stomp. In that artistic spirit, the multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, and vocalist ushers in a new soul invasion with Stone Rollin’—invoking fresh-faced beach boys, church growlers, blues twanging, marching bands, old-school crooning, and legendary bass lines.

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Jennifer Hudson’s producers, publicists and managers are all inside the North Hollywood Mason Sound recording studio, but there’s no recording going on just yet. Instead, they’re killing time watching basketball on a big-screen TV, their laughter, squeals and groans bouncing off the wooden rafters and against the gold and platinum records — from artists like Michael Jackson, Kelly Clarkson, Jamie Foxx and Hudson herself — that hang on the walls.

Hudson’s entourage sits transfixed by the screen, either oblivious or accustomed to the paparazzi lurking outside, armed with flashbulbs, teetering on bicycles and waiting — like everyone else — for Hudson to arrive.

But it’s not the diva-making-her-grand-entrance kind of waiting. It’s just that most of her days are testaments to a fluid life and career: a photo shoot in the morning, dialect coaching in the afternoon for her role as Winnie Mandela in an upcoming biopic, and a studio session in the evening for her upcoming sophomore album. She somehow manages to juggle all these activities with her irresistible, perpetually smiling son, David Daniel Otunga Jr., in tow.
 

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Trip-hop pioneer Tricky is back. But really, to his longtime fans, he never left. When critics were searching for the oppressive beats and dark menace he brought with his 1995 debut, Maxinquaye, true fans knew that to Tricky, life is music and music is experimental. If you’re looking for concepts, or categories, or something linear, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Tricky’s latest album, Mixed Race, is a culmination of ambiguity, pure musicianship, and feeling. It’s full of two-to-three-minute snippets of intensity that you want him to stretch out, but he refuses, unless the feeling strikes him. Which, unfortunately, it doesn’t. He says it’s a visual album, much like cinema.

“[Mixed Race] reminds me of when I first heard Public Enemy—very visual,” Tricky says by telephone from his home in Paris (he recently moved back east, first to the UK and then to Paris to be near his daughter). “I think this album mirrors new music. It reminds me of Public Enemy.”

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In 1985, DJ Marley Marl was working in his studio that doubled as his sister Belle’s second-floor apartment in the Queensbridge Houses—a sprawling ninety-six-building project, a small city of some thirty thousand residents in Long Island City, Queens. The apartment was sparsely decorated with a creaky couch that Eric B. slept on, reel-to-reels against the wall, records from floor to ceiling, and a drum machine that Marley slept with because he didn’t want anyone to touch it.

During the day, Marley worked at the Sergio Valente jeans factory. A barely teenage Roxanne Shante was becoming well known as a rapper and a booster—shoplifting for mothers in her building. Her own mother sold underwear to hookers from a shopping cart by the Dutch Kills ho stroll. A stone’s throw away was Hollywood’s second cousin, the newly minted Silvercup Studios where new movie stars were being bred daily. But inside Queensbridge, there was a different kind of movie rolling without the Klieg lights. Residents were robbing people for their sneakers, walking around with blades to snatch the patches off Lee jeans, and claiming the uninitiated for their sheepskins and leather goose coats. Foreigners to Queensbridge were chased out, and if they went in the wrong direction to get to the train station, “They’d find themselves butt naked by the river,” recalls MC Shan by telephone with a wicked laugh.

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Michael Spriggs, a 6-foot-3, 189-pound senior at C.H. Flowers High (Prince George's County, Maryland), listened intently as his coaches directed him in a wrestling match against Bladensburg (Md.) High's Marcus Bates last month.

Because Spriggs is blind, battling opponents with vision, the rules require that he and his opponent maintain contact throughout the match. They begin with both palms touching each other. When the whistle blows, Bates immediately dives for a shot at Spriggs' legs, takes him down and Spriggs ends up on his back. "Let's go Mike! Stay in control, circle left!" head coach Odist Felder yelled from the sidelines.

Despite this apparent disadvantage, Spriggs finished his second season with a 27-11 record. His humility and determination led him to become one of two team members to qualify for the state championships last weekend where he was defeated, 9-3, by reigning champion, Danny Miller, a junior at Stephen Decatur High (Ocean City, Md.).

"He has a lot of heart and courage," Miller said. "And if your opponent has a lot of heart you could easily find yourself on your back."

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With the next millennium fast approaching, we are witnessing a musical and cultural phenomenon—a collage-producing jump-cutting, mix and match blending of American urban music—jazz and hip-hop. Not that this strikes a lot of folks as good news. Some see hip-hop and jazz as an unholy alliance, the trivialization— maybe even vulgarization of jazz, that great American art form.

But musicians who share the same bloodlines often see the genre-melding as a positive development.

More and more these days, in fact, the offspring of famous jazz musicians are experimenting with jazz and hip-hop hybrids—with their parents’ blessings. Quincy Jones’ son, QDIII, is a rap producer. The sons of Ornette Coleman and Roy Haynes are also involved with the music. Kenyatta Bell, the son of bassist Samuel Aaron Bell, produces rap records, as do the sons of saxophonist Marion Brown and Horace Silver— Djinji Brown and Greg Silver.  Three generations down the line, rap producer Rene McLean is part of an emerging musical dynasty, being the son of saxophonist Rene McLean, Sr., and the grandson of sax legend Jackie McLean. Many of these artists were happy to discuss the trend toward blending the two musics—the problems, the promise and the controversies.

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Melvin Douglas Williams waits in a small room off of the main entrance to the Bethel AME church on Druid Hill Avenue, wearing his signature all-black clothing. A black towel draped over his shoulder, yellow tinted sunglasses by his side. A picture of a crucified, brown skinned Jesus hangs on the wall to his left. In front of him are lockers tacked with BELIEVE stickers.

As camera crews, extras and cast from the third season of the HBO series The Wire mill around him, Williams sits in a red leather chair, self-possessed and indifferent to the confusion around him. Bethel AME is his church, but today, it's where he will work on his acting chops.

Moments later, Williams is sitting in a pew, facing stained glass windows, filming a scene in which he counsels a young man trying to get his life in order after being released from prison. Williams plays a deacon at this church, a man whose job it is to tend to wayward souls like the one now before him.

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It is a typical 80 degree day in Miami, and the one 45-minute flight that leaves daily for Cuba is filled to its approximate 125-seat capacity. Bags, sky blue plastic wrap securely swaddling each with the names of the owners written in bold letters on the front, are being loaded onto the plane. The process to get on this flight has been an arduous one--with travel affidavits, visas, passports, and detailed explantations as to visiting purposes along the way--and the crowd is giddy and sometimes irrational with anticipation. 

"I paid $400 for this ticket, and this man is in my seat!" one man reeking like a brewery and dressed in dark green army fatigues grunts loudly, though there is an empty seat in the same row next to his assigned seat. He opens his hands in indignation and admonishes the flight attendant for not acting fast enough in removing the offending party--John Boyd Jr.--because, as he sees it, "I paid for my seat."

"Everyone on the flight has paid for their seat," the flight attendant reminds him, deviating from her plastic-smile routine with just a hint of disgust.

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WHEN Jackie Mullins suggested to her husband, Houston, that they celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary in East St. Louis, Ill., a largely black city known for its social problems, he didn't think there would be much worth seeing there. Gradually, she persuaded him, and the couple came up from Memphis and signed in at the Parker Garden Bed and Breakfast, a 1912 Tudor-style home owned by Herrett and John Parker.

There the Mullinses ate homemade honey-nut wheat bread and omelets for breakfast, and relaxed in a whirlpool bath. Mr. Parker, a game enthusiast, taught them how to play mancala, an ancient African board game somewhat like Chinese checkers. And they got the real flavor of St. Louis from their hosts, who drove the couple past blues clubs; the Trans World Dome, where the Rams play football; Busch Stadium, home to Mark McGwire; the St. Louis Black History Museum and the Black Repertory Theater, and the flamboyantly colored pink and lime-green historic houses of Lafayette Square, with their turn-of-the-century French styling.

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Some might say it all began at Security Square Mall in the summer of 2001, when The Baltimore Times hosted its annual Uplifting Minds talent show. Sisqó, the flamboyant, red-haired member of the Baltimore-bred R&B group Dru Hill, was in attendance and heard the Featherstone boys sing one of their own songs. They didn't win first prize, but Sisqó was impressed with their sound and gave them his phone number. When he was slow in getting back to them, tenacious father Lurenda Featherstone took matters in hand. He placed a quick call, leaving a message on the singer's answering machine: "I heard your last album wasn't so good--you better call me back if you want a hit."

Maybe it was Dad's boldness or his sons' arresting sound, but Sisqó called right back. "After my husband called him, Sisqó came over to our little house," says Mom Tegra Featherstone. "I was in the kitchen cooking--my daughter was scared of him and she was hiding under the table. He told us he really liked the song and wanted to record it for his album."

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The day before Thanksgiving in 2005, Aricka Westbrooks, 35, CEO of Jive Turkey, was sleeping on a wooden stool, leaning against the wall of her 1,500-square foot store in Brooklyn, New York.  She and her staff were exhausted from frying turkeys 24 hours a day for four days straight.

When Westbrooks finally opened her eyes at 7 a.m., she noticed several faces peeing into her storefront window.  She walked outside to discover a long line of customers-some from as far away as Califormia.  The early birds were lining up to buy Westbrooks' famous deep-fried turkey for their Thanksgiving dinners.

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AS Louise Thomas begins the third-hour of her shift at Martha’s Table, a social service organization in Washington D.C., construction workers from a nearby project of new condominiums stop by.

Thomas, 76, has lived in Northwest Washington for 60 years. In the last decade she has seen the complexion of her neighborhood near Florida Avenue and 14th Street change dramatically. Her block, once notorious for a ruthless open-air drug market, is now hot property. Buildings that were burned out during riots in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr. assassination in 1968, have been replaced by big businesses and loft—style condominiums.

The disabled and elderly men and women from Clifton Terrace, a former public housing complex, no longer make the short trek to Martha’s Table to get daily meals, because they no longer live there. The housing complex is now a condominium with a mix of low-, moderate- and high-income residents. The public schools in the area, like Cardozo Senior High School, where six of Thomas’s seven children went, are no longer filled to capacity. Most of the newcomers don’t have children, and those who do send them to elite, private schools.

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He rolls along in his battered wheelchair with the rusty bearings and the wobbly wheels, chattering loudly into his cell phone as he passes drugstores, steakhouses and outdoor cafes, maneuvering into the street to avoid curbs.

It takes him about 15 minutes to make the mile-and-a-half trip from his apartment at 16th and Belmont streets NW to the YMCA on Rhode Island Avenue. Inside, the smell of chlorine hangs in the air. Lifeguards circle the pool in their red T-shirts and trunks while swimmers stretch their muscles on blue mats in the musty artificial heat.

After tugging on his gray swimsuit, he rolls out to the pool, easing himself from the wheelchair onto the floor. A tattoo of a wave ripples on his biceps as he scoots into the water.

He starts out easy, wearing paddles on his hands to improve his stroke and a buoy that he designed tucked between his legs to keep them afloat. Swimming at a steady pace, he stretches his arms to pull deeper, his chin tucked into his chest for better momentum, squeezing maximum distance out of every stroke. When he reaches the wall, instead of doing a flip turn, he uses one hand to maneuver himself around and push off for the next lap.

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-- WHO: Andy Rooney, 79-year-old columnist, author and commentator for CBS "60 Minutes."

-- WHERE: 524 W. 57th St. in Manhattan at the news offices of one of the CBS buildings.

-- WHAT YOU SEE: Mr. Rooney's office is not in a separate building from the rest of the "60 Minutes" staff because of his caustic personality. Rather, it stems from his need for independence. He needs time alone to think of ideas for the show while working at his Underwood typewriter that was built in 1919, the same year he was born.

Mr. Rooney sits behind a walnut desk that he made himself in his workshop. A stool he also built is used for the cameraman to sit on when taping him. A sketch of John F. Kennedy sits behind him, given to him by the late Harry Reasoner, a former "60 Minutes" correspondent. Nearby books include "Lies My Teacher Told Me," as well as copies of his own efforts: "My War," and "Word for Word." He also has a copy of "The Collected Work of Keats," although the volume is actually a faux book where he keeps petty cash for emergencies. Mr. Rooney has three phone lines, and personally answers the one that friends and colleagues are likely to use. The commentator reserves the two others for strangers. He is not particularly interested in talking to them, so his assistant answers those.

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Eric Singletary didn't need saving. He was a straight-A student at Kelly Miller Middle School in one of the most neglected wards in northeast Washington, D.C. When his recreation league coach Calvin Woodland, offered him and a few other young people a chance to hang out with George F. Kettle at his riverfront resort house for the weekend, he went. Kettle later became a well-known philanthropist working with the "I Have a Dream" Foundation to offer low-income children the opportunity to go to college. Kettle saw academic promise in Singletary and offered him an opportunity to meet with administrators at Sidwell Friends School, an elite independent private school in northwest Washington. Singletary impressed his interviewers, passed all the required tests and was admitted. Kettle paid his initial tuition.

Upon entering Sidwell, Singletary immediately faced cultural differences. The students lounged intermittently on the carpets by the lockers in between classes. They spoke of "vacationing" overseas for the summer and winter. Many of them drove themselves to school in sports cars rather than taking city buses as Singletary did.

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