insideentertainment Inside Time in association with Gema Records

February 2012

Welcome to the Inside Time entertainment supplement, in association with Gema Records, featuring the latest interviews, reviews and iconic images from the world of entertainment.

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Essential Nas & Damien Marley

hat’s the concept behind the album you two made together, Distant Relatives?

‘Road to Zion’ (from Damian Marley’s Welcome to Jamrock) – ‘I’ve been a fan of [Damian’s] music for a while and he’d been in to my music. We met when he called me to a song called ‘Road to Zion’ on his last album and from that point we started doing a lot of talking together, at first about doing a little EP – but that turned into an album...’ [Nas]

Nas: ‘Distant Relatives is really just saying that we’re all family - no matter where we’re from, no matter who you are, white, black, Arab, Indian - whoever you are, we’re all family spread out all over the globe. It all started in Africa, that’s a fact - mankind, civilisation, schools, colleges, armies, maths, science - it all started there and spread out. We’re all still family though... and there’s a lot of ignorance and racism in the world, and some don’t want to hear it, but the reality is we’re all family, distant relatives.’

You’re known as the Street’s Disciple because you talk about things that happen in the streets without glamorising them - what would you say about that? Nas: ‘If you’re from it then you know what it is... and you have the ability to talk about it first-hand, but it ain’t gonna come off as you bragging because you’re just talking about your life... you’re not glorifying ignorance, you’re just story-telling.

Some of your songs deal with prison life. Have you ever been to prison and if so, how has it affected your life? Nas: ‘No, I’ve never been to prison, but some of my closest homeboys have been in prison and some still are. I’ve only been locked up here and there for minor things. I was blessed enough at the time to get out of that. It’s something that’s been on my conscience how many of us get locked up, how many of us make mistakes, how many of us are targeted and wind up filling up the jail cells... The thing we’ve got to realise is if you get back on the streets, the way we win is to stay on the streets; the way we win is not going hard on each other to prove your point or to release rage...’

Do you feel rappers should take responsibility for their content or do you think they’re targeted by the media and unfairly blamed for crime? Nas: ‘I don’t think they should take their art and make it more conscious - I think they should be true to themselves, but I do think every one of us has to work on being the best we can be... The media sees where we come from, and we’re shedding a light on the country, on the world, on the nation, on society, that they don’t want to talk about. But don’t let that stop you, just say what you got to say, because it’s coming from the heart.’

Distant Relatives Nas & Damian Marley talk to National Prison Radio about their music, their collaboration, and their influences What are your thoughts on commercial music released by the industry today? Damian Marley: ‘Well, music is a place where people can enjoy themselves. It’s something that will free you up. When you hear music it relieves certain stress. Not all music needs to be something where you can say it’s deep or you can learn something. Some music is just there so you can move and enjoy yourself. We love music, all kinds of music - we don’t really fight the music.’

What’s your message to prisoners across the UK? Nas: ‘You’re breathing. You’re alive... You got to care about you, you got to get out of that situation as safe as possible and keep yourself going. If you give up on you, there’s nothing nobody else can do, so don’t ever give up.’ Damian Marley: ‘Keep your heads up at all times. Babylon are going to try their best to hold down the youth by any means necessary. So we need to make sure we are strong and firm... Our generation has to take its destiny into its own hands.’

American rapper Nas was born Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones in 1973. He is the son of jazz musician Olu Dara and was raised in the infamous Queensbridge housing projects in Queens, New York City. Nas has released several platinum and multi-platinum albums since 1994, selling over thirteen-million records in the United States alone. MTV ranked Nas at #5 on their list of The Greatest MCs of All Time. Reggae artist Damian Robert Nesta “Jr. Gong” is the youngest son of reggae legend Bob Marley. He has been performing since the age of 13 and released his debut album, Mr. Marley, in 1996. Marley has won three Grammy awards and is the only Jamaican reggae artist in history to win two Grammy Awards on the same night.

‘I Can’ (from Nas’ God’s Son) – ‘I do a lot of street songs, and my daughter was at a young age at the time and I needed to balance out what I was giving out to the world. I look in her eyes and I see that she’s a part of the next generation and she sees her dad talking about a certain topic ... I had to balance that out and I needed a song strong enough to offset all the hard records I made, and I Can was it.’ [Nas] From Distant Relatives: ‘Patience’ – ‘It came from some people who come from Mali in Africa, called Amadou & Mariam. We sampled their track and my brother Steve put the track together in terms of production. I wanted to talk about kind of things that people think of Africa but don’t really know because of what the media feed them and because of what they’ve been told.’ [Damien Marley] ‘Dispear’– ‘This was Damian’s vision. When we got together to do the album Distant Relatives we were talking about Africa – he’s from Jamaica and I’m from New York, but we have common roots. We all have common roots, no matter what ethnicity or race you are, mankind starts in Africa, so that was the theme for the album. ‘Dispear’ was perfect, fitting for what we needed to say and who we were talking to.’ [Nas] ‘Tribes at War’ – ‘This is what’s happening in Africa between some Arabs and Africans. What’s going on is wrong, it’s racism to the fullest, it’s a misunderstanding of life, its ignorance... there’s a lot of tribes at war and we had to touch on that.’ [Nas]

You can hear more reggae giants in Bob and Beyond, every Sunday at 21.00 on National Prison Radio www.nationalprisonradio.com Radio made by prisoners, for prisoners

insideentertainment

10

albums that changed music

by Andrew Cousins of Gema Records

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that untried ground was not only the most fertile stuff, but also the most viable commercially. It defined the Sixties and - for good and ill gave white rock all its airs and graces.

Attitude) exposed the vicious realities of the West Coast gang culture on their lurid, fluent debut. Part aural reportage (sirens, gunshots, police radio), part thuggish swagger, Compton laid the blueprint for the most successful musical genre of the last 20 years, gangsta rap. It gave the world a new production mogul in Dr Dre, and gave voice to the frustrations that flared up into the LA riots in 1992. As befits an album boasting a song called ‘F**k tha Police’, attention from the FBI, the Parents’ Music Resource Centre and our own Metropolitan Police’s Obscene Publications Squad sealed its notoriety. Without this ... no Eminem, no 50 Cent, no Dizzee Rascal.

Without this ... pop would be a very different beast.

Though it sold poorly on its initial release, this has since become arguably the most influential rock album of all time. The first art-rock album, it merges dreamy, druggy balladry (‘Sunday Morning’) with raw and uncompromising sonic experimentation (‘Venus in Furs’), and is famously clothed in that Andy Warhol-designed ‘banana’ sleeve. Lou Reed’s lyrics depicted a Warholian New York demi-monde where hard drugs and sexual experimentation held sway. Shocking then, and still utterly transfixing. Without this, there’d be no ... Bowie, Roxy Music, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Jesus and Mary Chain, among many others.

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3 Kraftwerk Trans-Europe Express (1977) Released at the height of punk, this sleek, urbane, synthesised, intellectual work shared little ground with its contemporaries. Not that it wanted to. Kraftwerk operated from within a bubble of equipment and ideas which owed more to science and philosophy than mere entertainment. Still, this paean to the beauty of mechanised movement and European civilisation was a moving and exquisite album in itself. And, through a sample on Afrika Bambaataa’s seminal ‘Planet Rock’, the German eggheads joined the dots with black American electro, giving rise to entire new genres.

Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues Singers (1961) Described by Eric Clapton as ‘the most important blues singer that ever lived’, Johnson was an intensely private man, whose short life and mysterious death created an enduring mythology. He was said to have sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in Mississippi in exchange for his finger-picking prowess. Johnson recorded a mere 29 songs, chief among them ‘Hellhound on My Trail’, but when it was finally issued, King of the Delta Blues Singers became one of the touchstones of the British blues scene. Without this ... no Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin.

Without this... no techno, no house, no Pet Shop Boys. The list is endless.

There are those who rate Revolver (1966) or ‘the White Album’ (1968) higher. But Sgt Pepper’s made the watertight case for pop music as an art form in itself; until then, it was thought the silly, transient stuff of teenagers. At a time when all pop music was stringently manufactured, these Paul McCartney-driven melodies and George Martinproduced whorls of sound proved

4 NWA Straight Outta Compton (1989) Like a darker, more vengeful Public Enemy, NWA (Niggaz With

Elvis Presley Elvis Presley (1956)

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Who would have thought punk rock was, in part, kickstarted by a girl? Poet, misfit and New York ligger, Patti channelled the spirits of Keith Richards, Bob Dylan and Rimbaud into female form, and onto an album whose febrile energy and Dionysian spirit helped light the touchpaper for New York punk. The Robert Mapplethorpe-shot cover, in which a hungry, mannish Patti stares down the viewer, defiantly broke with the music industry’s treatment of women artists (sexy or girl-next-door) and still startles today.

Marvin Gaye What’s Going On (1971) Gaye’s career as tuxedo-clad heartthrob gave no hint he would cut a concept album dealing with civil rights, the Vietnam war and ghetto life. Equally startling was the music, softening and double-tracking Gaye’s falsetto against a wash of bubbling percussion, swaying strings

The King’s first album was also the first example of how to cash in on a teenage craze. With Presleymania at full tilt, RCA simultaneously released a single, a four-track EP and an album, all with the same cover of Elvis in full, demented cry. They got their first million dollar album, the fans got a mix of rock-outs like ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, lascivious R&B and syrupy ballads. Without this ... no King, no rock and roll madness, no Beatles first album, no pop sex symbols.

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Without this ... no REM, PJ Harvey, Razorlight. And no powerful female pop icons like Madonna, Lady Gaga.

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds (1966)

8 Bob Dylan Bringing it All Back Home (1965)

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The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

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Without this ... no Innervisions (Stevie Wonder) or Superfly (Curtis Mayfield).

Patti Smith Horses (1975)

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The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

and chattering guitars. Motown boss Berry Gordy hated it but its disillusioned nobility caught the public mood. Led by the oft-covered ‘Inner City Blues’, it ushered in an era of socially aware soul.

The first folk-rock album? Maybe. Certainly the first augury of what was to come with the momentous ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Released in one of pop’s pivotal years, Bringing it All Back Home fused hallucinatory lyricism and, on half of its tracks, a raw, ragged rock’n’roll thrust. On the opening song, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, Dylan manages to pay homage to the Beats and Chuck Berry, while anticipating the surreal wordplay of rap. Without this ... put simply, on this album and the follow-up, Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan invented modern rock music.

Of late, Pet Sounds has replaced Sgt Pepper’s as the critics’ choice of Greatest Album of All Time. Composed by the increasingly reclusive Brian Wilson while the rest of the group were touring, it might well have been a solo album. The beauty resides not just in its compositional genius and instrumental invention, but in the elaborate vocal harmonies that imbue these sad songs with an almost heartbreaking grandeur. Without this ... where to start? The Beatles acknowledged its influence; Dylan said of Brian Wilson, ‘That ear! I mean, Jesus, he’s got to will that to the Smithsonian.’

SUPPLIER OF MUSIC, DVDs and games over 17,000 DVDs. In addition, we have 11,000 New Releases and over 5,000 Special Offers included in the catalogue.

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Unorthodox Wretch 32 talks to National Prison Radio about life, music and how brushes with the law inspired his lyrics

Where did you get your name, Wretch 32, from? ‘Just growing up, I was a naughty little kid, so everyone used to call me a wretch. And 3-2 are my lucky numbers so I thought I’d put them at the end of it. I thought it would be interesting to have something a little odd.’

Tell us a bit about your early years ‘Growing up in North London, in Tottenham, I was probably like everyone else... I was getting up to the normal mischief, until I was about 17 or 18 and I started writing. I got more and more focused on making music. I stuck to it and starting putting out mix-tapes and fast forward to today... We always got into mischief and got a telling off here and there, but ... [music] was my way of saying that I could do something positive that I care about, that no one could bother me for – I couldn’t get arrested for making that album.’

How and when did you realise you had a talent for rapping? ’When I was about 14 I used to mess around and make mix-tapes, but if I’m honest with you I was kind of crap still. Then I got better when I was about 18 or 19 and the feedback on the road was good, people were really feeling it... That was my encouragement, because you know how it is when you’re coming from an estate – people don’t tend to congratulate what you’re doing, so for them

to tell me it was good and to keep going, I thought it must be good so I just kept going. When I got to level where I was confident in myself, I decided to take it to commercial radio stations, put a CD in the shops and see if people want to buy it.’

You released several mix-tapes before you were signed. How hard was it to put these mix-tapes out independently? ‘It was difficult. I was looking at it like – if my CD gets in to HMV then it might end up next to Kanye West’s. He’s going to have good packaging, a good CD, a great video – so what’s going to make someone buy mine over his? We were trying to compete with the best. Musically we could do that, but we didn’t have the best production to battle the bigger producers. But we tried our hardest to spend a lot of money on getting it mixed it down so it sounded like that, we spent a lot of time on the artwork and we spent as much time and as much money as we could on the video. It was always about making the best it could be so we could compete with the best and I think that’s why it stood out.’

A lot of MCs are criticised for focusing on violence and crime. Do you feel you have a responsibility to your young fans to talk about more positive things? ‘I think the responsibility I have is to be honest

and to conduct myself in a professional manner. If I had a fight today and rapped about having a fight I wouldn’t think that was negative, but I would think it was negative if I was glamorising a certain aspect of it or not being completely honest... But I have a responsibility to conduct myself as a professional person. You won’t see me with weapons in my hands in a video.’

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Do you have a message for prisoners across the UK? ‘One thing I think is really important is for everyone to realise that we only live once. It’s so important that you try to live your life to the fullest and try not to waste any time, and always be in a position where you’re in control of your life. Sometimes it’s extremely difficult because things happen to you or around you, but it’s about finding something that works with you... then stick with it, because when you do something that you love then you probably never work a day in your life. It’s about finding your talent and really sticking at it.’

Also known as Jermaine Scott, Wretch 32 is a British rapper and former Grime MC from Tottenham, London. Born in 1985, he grew up the son of a local reggae DJ in the Tiverton Estate. He became a member of the grime collective The Movement, alongside other artists Mercston, Scorcher, Devlin and Ghetts. From 2006, Wretch 32 released a series of mixtapes, and his debut studio album, Wretchrospective was released in 2008, after which he signed with record label Ministry of Sound. In 2010 he was nominated for the BBC Sound of 2011 and was voted MTV’s Brand New for 2011.

Radio made by prisoners, for prisoners

2011 was also the year when he released his 2nd studio album ‘Black and White’ debuting at number 4 on the album chart.

insideentertainment

Movie reviews

single-handedly rescue half the US Army from a hidden Hydra fortress, set-piece after set-piece is thrown at the screen – with varying levels of success. Some, like that initial exhilarating jail break, pull you into the action completely, but a forest bike chase ends up more Epping than Endor, somehow lacking energy no matter how many bullets Cap deflects. Ultimately the good outweighs the bad though, with the final assault on Hydra and a mid-air scrap with the Red Skull right at the close particular stand-outs.

Andrew Cousins of Gema Records reviews the best of the latest DVD releases Captain America: The First Avenger

Released 5th December Rating 12 If there’s one thing that Americans know, it’s how to put on a show. A well-choreographed bit of the old razzle dazzle performed with vigour by the shiny of tooth and buffed of muscle can lighten even the darkest of hearts. Yes, the nation that invented showbiz knows more than any other the value of spectacle, and as a result Captain America: The First Avenger is the perfect marriage of classic comic-book caper to explosive Hollywood bombast.

The Inbetweeners Movie Released 12th December Rating 15

The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) opens with the forever sexually-deluded Jay (James Buckley), naked but for a pair of snorkels and slithers of ham strewn inexplicably about his person, enthusiastically masturbating to European pornography. At this exquisite moment of teenage self-love, his mother walks into his bedroom and informs him that his grandfather has died. Start as you mean to go on: and writers Iain Morris and Damon Beesley do indeed go on, plummeting further depths of degradation and humiliation, all in the name of comedy. The ‘Inbetweeners’ are the four laddish sixth form mates whom we first met on three wildly popular series of the E4 sitcom, and their first big screen outing brazenly ignored historical and conventional wisdom - which deemed all sitcom-characters-go-on-holiday movies to be abject failures - and became the biggest British comedy of all time. It’s quite easy to see why: for their young adoring audience, this cinematic adaptation is a full-blown crowdpleaser, taking familiar and much-loved characters and giving them a large-scale, churninducing, side-troubling send off. The film picks up where series three left off, following the misadventures of wannabe sex pest Jay, the lovably stupid Neil (Blake Harrison), lovelorn Simon (Joe Thomas) and aloof narrator Will (Simon Bird), as they embark on an ill-advised holiday to the Brit holiday paradise of Malia on the inheritance money of Jay’s recently deceased granddad.

As with the sitcom, the main plot points involve the lads’ attempts, of varying success, to get their end away. And as with most holiday movies, a well-trodden arc of falling out and making up, of friends made new and old, of lessons learned, is carefully followed. It’s not devastatingly original and the final outcome is all rather implausible, but you don’t watch a film for plausibility or structure - you watch it for the funnies. And boy, does it deliver. Taking their cue from American gross-out comedies and upping the gag density immeasurably, Beesely and Morris barely let you pause for breath. Rarely a minute goes by that a character does not humiliate himself or show a complete lack of self-awareness, for our pure entertainment. There’s a consistency to this comedy, a film that is genuinely funny from start to finish. Highlights include Jay and Neil coming face-to-face with a self-fellating male stripper; the ‘suicide shot’ - tequila with salt up the nose and lime juice in the eye; and an attempt at dancing from the boys so bad you will feel your very soul cringe. And amid all the humiliation of our heroes it also manages to capture the zeitgeist of Britain in 2011, or at least the pocket of Britain that gets embarrassingly, paralytically pissed in a foreign land every summer, transforming whole islands in Greece and Spain into Bacardi Breezer-drenched infernos - and capturing a very British adolescence is something Beesely and Morris have always excelled at. They say this is the last Inbetweeners Movie, but with that box office take, a sequel surely in the works. And if we have seen these characters for the last time, it’s a fitting send off.

It’s 1942, and the USA is at war. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a Brooklyn native with a heart of gold but the body of a prepubescent girl, is determined to try and sign up for the fight, no matter how many times the US Army rejects him. Chosen to take part in a super-soldier program run by cuddly German ex-pat Dr Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), Rogers is injected with a serum that transforms him into six-and-a-half strapping feet of prime beefcake, and Captain America is born. Cap’s origins are well known to even the most casual of comic-book fans, and The First Avenger’s opening works beautifully mainly because it subverts many of those expectations. Director Joe Johnston takes his time to get to know Steve Rogers in his scrawny earlier incarnation, hammering home the idea that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog that counts. The CGI alone is enough to make these early scenes fascinating – whichever dark arts were used to shrink Chris Evans’s entire body are uncanny – and when Rogers is transformed, you never completely shake the image of the skinny guy. Post-super-soldier injection, Cap is sent off on a morale-boosting tour of the States, gaining his gaudy stars and stripes costume in the process. A brilliant period piece complete with high-kicking showgirls, it’s a neat trick that allows Johnston to tie in comics history as Cap bitch-slaps Hitler night after night to delighted fans and has his own comic published. All the fun and games comes to an end when the show winds its way to an actual war zone though, and it’s here that Captain America really lives up to its all-action billing. From the moment Cap jumps out of Howard Stark’s spectacularly shiny plane to

The Red Skull, playing with relish by Hugo Weaving, is a devilish adversary, utilising the destructive power of Asgardian Macguffin the Tesseract to further his evil schemes. But both the schemes themselves and his Hydra organisation are a little more troubling. From then on, the Hydra henchmen act as Nazi substitutes, faceless black goons with amazing weaponry but the feeble aim of imperial storm-troopers. They must be twice as evil as the Nazis because they use two arms to salute instead of one, but they’re such useless soldiers that they never seem like a real threat. Similarly, the Red Skull’s key aim appears to be “kill everyone in the world”. While it’s good to have ambition, it’s a weirdly formless threat that doesn’t really make sense. Crucially, for a film stuffed full of computerised effects and outlandish weaponry, Captain America has plenty of heart and is refreshingly free of cynicism. Chris Evans’s Cap is a principled underdog, a dogged scrapper who remains humble even when he’s turned into a running, jumping, bad-guy-busting Adonis. Hayley Atwell kicks ass as Peggy Carter (even though she’s made to do so under roughly four tons of make-up), and her romance with Rogers is sweet rather than sexy, which is totally fitting in a ’40s context. Full of knowing nods for fans and stunningly designed – the retro-futuristic forties look good enough to eat – with a mouth-watering ending, Captain America might not be perfect but it is an awful lot of fun. The wait for The Avengers just got even tougher for True Believers everywhere.

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HMP

Are musical tastes in prison any different to listeners’ habits on the outside? National Prison Radio investigates ...

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ast year, National top 20 albums and singles Prison Radio last year. received over 3,000 letters from prisons So why are the charts so across the UK. different? Jay, a prisoner in Many people wanted to HMP Brixton and one of the share their stories and expepresenters of The Request riences and hundreds wrote Show, puts it down to a lack Most made byRequested prisoners, for prisoners to request a book or Radio of access to new music – ‘For dictionary from the NPR people to request more Artists of 2011 Book Club. But for those up-to-date stuff is hard. Not writing from prisons in England everyone can afford to buy a 1 Tupac and Wales connected to the radio in prison, so unless you radio station, the biggest have your own, you won’t 2 Vybz Kartel reason for writing in was to be listening to stations 3 Bob Marley ask for their favourite song playing all new tracks. But 4 Gyptian to be played on NPR’s most we do have the Brit 40 on popular programme, The NPR which releases a general 5 Rihanna Request Show. flow of new music.’ Earlier this year, NPR took stock of all the letters and requests from 2011 and created a Top 20 Chart of the Most Requested Artists of 2011. The results are interesting, and very different to other charts published in the UK at the end of 2011.

6 Mavado 7 UB40 8 Akon 9 N-Dubz 10 Eminem 11 P Diddy 12 Giggs 13 Biggy Smalls 14 Serani 15 Jah Cure 16 Devlin 17 50 Cent 18 Adele 19 Pink Floyd 20 Jay-Z & Sizzla

Comparing the NPR Top 20 to the official UK album and singles charts from 2011, what’s striking is that only two artists appear on all three. Adele topped both of the UK-wide charts with her platinum-selling single Someone Like You and the album 21, whilst the award-winning singer from South London was at number 18 in the NPR chart. Meanwhile, Barbadian singer Rihanna peaked at number 6 in both the album and singles chart, and was the fifth most requested artist on NPR last year. Some notable absences from the NPR chart included female icons Lady Gaga and Jessie J, singer-songwriters Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars, X-Factor boy band One Direction and the late Amy Winehouse – all of whom had

Unlike the UK charts, where almost all of the singles and albums were released that year, many of the tracks requested on NPR are from before 2011, decades before in some cases. Jay thinks that NPR listeners request older songs or artists because of the sentimental value they hold – ‘From my experience, listening to older tracks brings back good memories. Everything coming out in the charts today reminds me of prison because I’ve only heard them since I’ve been here. But music which came out before you got locked away reminds you of something you were doing, a place, a time, a holiday, a girl you were spending time with. I think the reason people pick old stuff is so they can be in a good place in their mind.’ The NPR Chart has also mostly urban in character, featuring hip hop legends Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z and Eminem, as well as British rappers Giggs, Devlin and N-Dubz. Akim, presenter of the NPR breakfast show Porridge, thinks this is because hip hop speaks

insideentertainment to prisoners about their experiences and frustrations – ‘There’s some serious, passionate rap music out there and when you listen to the lyrics, they go deep. Although Jay-Z can boast about how many diamonds he’s got and how much money he’s got, he’s also got certain lyrics and metaphors which really let you know that ghetto life is hard, but you can do better. Some lyrics are seriously touching.’ Reggae is also a dominant genre in the chart, with Bob Marley at number 3, closely followed by Gyptian, Mavado, UB40 and several others. Richard, former presenter of Behind Bars, thinks this is down to the hope that is represented in many reggae songs - ‘For me, Bob Marley is a musical Messiah. Inspirational, uplifting – he’s a prophet, in a musical form... I find

myself here in prison listening to his tunes for inspiration, to grow strength. His music gives you a thinking process of cool meditation.’ What do you think of the NPR Top 20? Does it represent your musical tastes? To hear your favourite tracks on National Prison Radio or tell us what you think of the chart, write to us at HMP Brixton, Jebb Avenue, London SW2 5XF. And your friends and relatives outside can request a song for you at www.nationalprisonradio.com. The Request Show - every weekday on NPR at 18.00. Brit 40 - the UK’s only chart show presented by and for prisoners - every Friday on NPR at 14.00.

Jonathan King’s onehit wonders I’m a great fan of One Hit Wonders - Novelty Smashes - call them whatever you like. Tracks which grab a huge global audience and sell millions of copies, whether or not the performers are ever heard of again. Too much credit is given to singers and in the attempt to build careers, usually because they are pretty or handsome, the machine constructs “albums” - normally a dozen or so rubbish songs alongside the one hit. But the greatest records are often simple, catchy, original and fun and stand on their own. Here’s my list of five fantastic “one off” hits from the past 50 years. 5) Who Let The Dogs Out? - The Baha Men - 2000 I’m afraid I’m responsible for this. My friend Keith, who has cut my hair for 40 years, heard it at Carnival in Trinidad in 1998 and played it to me. I loved it and recorded a version as Fatt Jakk and his Pack of Pets. That did very little but I kept pestering my mate Steve Greenberg to produce it with his Baha Men. Which he eventually did (it took eight dinners to convince him) two years later - it then sold 14 million singles. 4) Doctorin’ The Tardis - The Timelords - 1988 The very first Dr Who inspired tribute single and a glorious No1 smash selling millions. The Timelords disappeared into their Tardis without trace - emerging years later after a name change as KLF who had several superb smashes. 3) Tubthumping - Chumbawamba - 1997 Another one of mine, I’m afraid. I adored this but couldn’t find any label prepared to release it. So I did a deal with the band and placed it with two labels - one in the UK and Europe; the other for the USA. Within months I Get Knocked Down But I Get Up Again had sold 16 million singles. It was my theme tune during my time in prison. 2) Je T’Aime - Moi Non Plus - Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg - 1969 The sexiest record ever made - an instrumental with Serge grunting and Jane whispering but all we youngsters in the 60s adored her and it was banned by the BBC (which naturally turned it into a monster). And my choice as the Top One Hit Wonder of all time... 1) Spirit In The Sky - Norman Greenbaum - 1970 It’s been a hit subsequently for Doctor and the Medics and Gareth Gates amongst others but the original is still the greatest. Whatever happened to Norman? Who cares? It’s a wonderful sound and just proves my point. The best hits are not made by stars or popular artistes. They explode and catch everyone’s attention for one reason only. They are terrific.

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Iconic images in film Gema are looking at the possibility of including a range of posters in the future. We would love to know your opinion and preferences. Here are some of the most Iconic Still Images in Film History and the stories behind them

King Kong - KING KONG (1933) A superb feat of special effects back in 1933, there’s something that remains incredibly impressive about King Kong atop the Empire State Building even to this day. Photographer Robert Coburn’s series of photographs depicting the beast on his New York rampage have become iconic not only to film fans, but to the wider public in general too. Kong merchandise is still readily available, with images on a range of items as well as enormous canvas displays and poster sized photo prints. The model work of Marcel Delgado is seamlessly captured by Coburn and whilst to the modern eye Kong is obviously not a real creature, the photographs still display a reality that makes the images breathtakingly powerful. Whether viewers have seen the film, these images can instantly be equated to the production and perfectly demonstrate how iconic a still from a film can become. Who can’t visit The Empire State Building now without checking that King Kong isn’t up there fighting for his life.

Ursula Andress - DR. NO (1961) Possibly the most famous image to come from the James Bond series, this sexy pose from Ursula Andress would have certainly coaxed

audiences into cinemas for the first British Secret Service outing! Today, Andress’s emergence from the sea on to the beautiful white sandy Caribbean beach remains a firm favourite for horny teenage boys… as does this still image from the scene. Capturing Andress’s unique beauty and sultry exoticism, the photo set the bar for all other Bond girls to emulate. Each film has produced a series of images of Bond’s latest conquests, but none have had such a profound impact upon popular culture as this one of Andress. The bikini she wears in the photo was sold to Robert Earl in 2001 and can now be seen in the Planet Hollywood museum in London. Leading to an array of imitations (including both Halle Berry and Daniel Craig within the same series!), this will always remain the classic original that is as equally iconic as the Bond franchise itself.

more unnerving for this. Regularly featuring in or on the cover of books documenting horror films, this is one of the most commonly used images to immediately evoke the genre. Available in a number of formats, from coffee mugs to t-shirts, this photo will surely remain as iconic as the film itself for many years to come.

within the public consciousness long after the film itself has begun to fade from viewers’ memories.

Janet Leigh - PSYCHO (1960)

Marilyn Monroe THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955) Here’s Johnny! - THE SHINING (1980) It’s one of the most notorious moments within horror cinema and one of the most widely recognised still images too. The sheer lunacy of Jack Nicholson’s character in Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror film The Shining is perfectly displayed in this photograph. He is totally menacing in the image, which is all the

Instantly recognisable, this is one of many images of the iconic sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. Repeatedly imitated by a number of personalities (predominantly for comedic reasons, however) this image is immediately identifiable as being from The Seven Year Itch. Simultaneously depicting Monroe’s innate sexiness, as well as her coy naivety, the still has adorned any number of items of film memorabilia and will undoubtedly remain

Hands down, this must be the most iconic image in film history. Donning everything from books on horror films to greetings cards to countless parodies, Janet Leigh’s scream is possibly as famous – if not even more famous – than Edvard Munch’s classic painting The Scream. This single still sums up the terror of Alfred Hitchcock’s horror masterpiece, as well as mimicking the screams audiences’ bellowed as they found themselves shocked by the director’s decision to kill off his leading lady so early in the plot. This photo has almost single-handedly kept Janet Leigh’s memory alive, with even those who are unfamiliar with the film being able to instantly recognise it…

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Get your strides on chummy, you’re nicked

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Charles Hanson examines the portrayal of prisoners and prisons on TV and film

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he fictional television portrayal of prisoners and the prison environment has always attracted an audience of those who seek to look into the closed world of prisons and to a lesser extent the mindset of offenders. Although what is often presented bears no relation to the reality so that viewers are often left with mere weekly soap opera like entertainment which might explain the faithful following of those who might believe that Porridge, The Sweeney, The Bill through to Prisoner Cell Block H and Bad Girls gives the appearance of the actual reality and a reflection of how prison and offenders really are, but nothing could be further from the truth. Shortly after my release from a life sentence in 2009, I was approached by a film production company who were planning to produce a film to be written by Tony Marchant who was then better known as the scriptwriter of Garrows Law and that this new venture was to be a film which centred around the dynamics following the release of a life sentence prisoner. Having met with a member of the company, I later met with Tony and with copious notes and recording of the conversations which had taken place, I thought I had done enough to dispel some of the myths about lifers - especially what is expected of those who had been released. And there it remained with me hoping that at last we might eventually see something about what ‘life after a life sentence’ means. That it could be more than a film and have an impact but also have a social value. And there it remained until early January 2012 when I chanced upon an early review of Public Enemies, a three part series about a released lifer by Tony Marchant. I felt that the choice of the title was fitting, for in the public eye lifers are the forever dammed but I would have to wait and make my own judgement about whether the production might just throw up anything that had the capacity of changing the minds of the many sceptics. I was disappointed almost from the beginning for the film is not as clever as it thinks it is, with a contrived ending that was almost predictable. And it offered nothing new to the debate if that was its intention. In many respects it was a rather pointless exercise for it was more about a relationship between a man and a woman - the only difference here being that socially and professionally both parties were on the opposite sides of the fence. One a lifer on licence and the other a middle class and comfortably well off probation officer. You couldn’t make it up.

When the character Eddie Mottram, played by Daniel Mays, banged his fist on the table and has a mini tantrum in front of the probation officer Paula Radnor, played by Anna Friel, that would have been sufficient to warrant a recall to prison. Showing anger, as would have his falling out with the hostel staff on more than one occasion as being difficult to manage, but more than that when he ran out of the hostel after another tantrum and made his way to the home of his probation officer. This in any sense of the word would have meant a recall to prison and I have known not only lifers but non-violent offenders being recalled to prison for less. But then there was more to the film than this, there was a sexual chemistry between them which would have precluded that happening and now the whole situation took a different turn with her taking an active role in helping Eddie prepare an appeal against his conviction. Suddenly he is innocent and she is going along with that. It must be love for now she is breaking all the rules and putting her own job in jeopardy by becoming too close to the very person she is paid to supervise. Probation officers deal with risk management and public protection, not appeals, and his protestation of innocence would have put a question mark above his head as being manipulative and hers as being naive and a quick exit from the Probation Service. I was even more amazed that the script had it that Eddie had appealed his conviction, which to his dismay and indeed the probation officer was rejected by the Court of Appeal. Sorry, but he wouldn’t have made it to that Court. He was way out of time as one has to file an appeal within 28 days of conviction, failing which the only route is through the Criminal Cases Review Commission. There has to be fresh evidence which wasn’t available at the trial. Having had only a paralegal to prepare all the paperwork for the trial which were the grounds of appeal would not amount to a miscarriage of justice or render the conviction unsafe. In any event, he would have been represented by a team including a QC, a junior barrister plus a solicitor. Moreover the script had it that when he was about to launch his appeal he was talking of applying for bail. What? The appeal first has to be heard by a single judge and he decides whether to grant leave to appeal and questions of bail. Eddie’s chance of getting bail was premature for it wouldn’t have reached a single judge without a CCRC referral and bail was never going to be on the cards. The whole play was really less to do with Eddie as a released lifer but more about the relationship between him and the

Anna Friel and Daniel Mays in the in the 3 part series, Public Enemies

probation officer, which I believe had a predictable outcome. If I was to get picky about this play I would start at the beginning, which appears to show Eddie coming out of a closed prison into a strange world. That is not what happens. Lifers will always have to go through the open prison system where one carries out community work, undertake periods of home leave and have a limited amount of freedom so that on release they have already had a mobile phone, yes in an open prison although the play shows Eddie not having caught up with technology. He was 28 years of age when released - meaning he was 18 when sentenced. It may be splitting hairs but at that age he would have been sentenced to Custody for Life. Life imprisonment is given for over 21s. He would have started in a Young Offender’s Institution and gone on at 21 into the adult population. The differences between the sentences are marginal and are only noticeable at the release stage when one’s case is considered by the Parole Board. For sure, the Probation Service would have acted on the mere suspicion of there being any close relationship between Eddie and the probation officer. He stood in jeopardy of being recalled; she warned and possibly transferred to a different office. As a lifer on life licence and with his victim being a female with whom we guess he was having an intimate relationship, one of his conditions of licence would have been that he would have had to have notified the probation officer of any developing intimate relationship with a woman which would have triggered a Probation Service interview with her, case

conferences etc. Failure to report it would almost certainly mean instant recall and yet he was having an intimate relationship with a woman he worked with. The relationship between Eddie and the probation officer was fairy tale stuff and that to me was what Public Enemies was all about. The rest was just gloss. It had little to do with being a lifer on life licence as I know it or the experiences of the many other lifers I know. Since the time of G. F Newman’s four part series Law and Order, with 90 minutes each episode, no one yet has been able to match his grasp of the criminal justice system, the courts, prisons and corrupt police and prison officers. Although produced and filmed over 30 years ago it still resonates today that the BBC decided to re-run it in 2010 and in that year it also hit the US market. Following the original showing there was a huge outcry from the police and prison service and questions were asked in Parliament, such was the impact that no one wanted to believe what was being portrayed that the Director General of the BBC was summoned to the Home Office where he was read the riot act and warned that it wasn’t to be sold abroad so as not to promote such an image of Britain. Law and Order remained on the BBC’s banned list for the next 30 years and was never shown again until 2010. But Newman got it right so much so that it is the only film I am aware of that the Prison Officers Association decided would not be shown in UK prisons. Such authenticity has given way to fairy tales about the criminal justice system which is so very often far removed from reality that it provides but mere entertainment and never tackles the wider social issues head on. Only G F Newman has managed to do that.

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Album reviews Andrew Cousins of Gema Records reviews the best of the latest Album releases

Talk That Talk progresses with the album’s titular track, which features the illustrious Jay-Z, and then with the extremely provocative and completely entertaining “Cockiness (Love It)” which, if it’s not clear by this point in the album, illustrates how much Rihanna’s not just talking about any talk.

Korn

Path Of Totality £12.95 4/5

The forthright lyrics and overall minimalism in Cockiness (Love It) (produced by Bangladesh), make it one of the more interesting tracks, right up there with the syncopated percussion and sultriness of “Watch N’ Learn”. However, the best allusion in the album goes to “Drunk on Love” which samples The XX’s muchrevered “Intro” and is also another hypnotizing track that encompasses the album’s overall spirit and theme: love of all kinds of music, love in general. Talk That Talk is the sound of a bad girl on a winning streak and relishing every minute.

Korn decides, that in 2011, their great jump forward in sound is…dubstep. Of course, there is a little more substance on Korn’s tenth studio LP, The Path of Totality. Alongside Skrillex, Korn kick everything off with “Chaos Lives In Everything”. A giant swell envelops danceable beats and unmistakable riffing with moments of psychotic vocal violence which Korn are famous for. During “Let’s Go”, a thrash chug devolves into more dubstep wizardry. The band treads the spaciest places they’ve ever been during the expansive, evolutionary, and entrancing epic, “Way Too Far”.

Amy Winehouse

Lioness: Hidden Treasures £12.95 4.5/5

Drake Take Care £12.95 4.5/5

A grab bag of outtakes, unreleased tracks, demos, covers and song sketches, these recordings feel like a gut punch. They remind you, first and foremost, of that voice – one of pop music’s most instantly recognizable vocal imprints, a sound that leapt out of your speakers and seized you by the ears. Here, as always, Winehouse’s singing is both raggedy and dramatic, winking and insouciant, full of high drama and a breezy sense of play.

Hip-hop has never produced anything quite like Drake – a guy with a Jay-Z ego and a Charlie Brown soul. The Canadian singerrapper introduced his melancholy-player persona on 2010’s platinum Thank Me Later; spooling out alarmingly mellow confessional brags over synth-streaked tracks that suggested someone had spiked his Cristal with truth serum.

The songs on Lioness were selected and produced by Salaam Remi, who worked with Winehouse on her debut album Frank (2002), Back to Black (2009) and had been slated to produce her third.

The lead track “Headlines” is a pacy, catchme-if-you-can offering, where even he acknowledges that he took his eye off the prize for a moment. With production again handled mainly by 40, the mood inevitably would again be set to a dark, atmospheric arena, which Drake has excelled on in the past.

Jazz standard Body and Soul, has already been released on the latter’s September 2011 album Duets II, and as a single. It was Amy’s last recording, is beautifully produced and poignantly sung throughout. The same is true for covers of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow and The Girl from Ipanema. The ’68 version of The Zutons cover Valerie is a languid shuffle compared to the energetic single release, and an earlier recording of Tears Dry soothes but never catches fire like the version found on Back to Black. Amy’s tender, and devastating voice always impressed on record, but it was her lyrics that really mattered. Like Smoke, an excellent collaboration with Nas, is calm but opens with a typically dramatic Amy line: “I never wanted you to be my man / I just needed comforting.” Ultimately, Lioness is a flawed memorial for a flawed star, whose churning guts were every bit as defining as her distinctive voice.

The music is flamboyant, full of big names and weighty references – from the drunk-dial epic “Marvin’s Room” to the N’awlins hip-hop tribute “Practice” to cameos from André 3000, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne and Stevie Wonder. Take Care truly goes for it with glam, expansive production. On “Lord Knows,” Just Blaze laces a shake-the-sky mix of gospel choir, gauzy R&B samples and a stomping beat. Over the course of some 18 months, Drake has become quite an up and comer in the genre, well on his way to mastering new and exciting ground. Take Care hints at such a future, and for once, we can all look at his résumé with a sense of beaming optimism.

There’s no clearer proof of Korn’s genius than “Bleeding Out” featuring Feed Me. It’s a pianodriven masterpiece steeped in blood and their most revealing and raw lyrics ever. This is probably not the Korn you are used to but it’s 2011! This is a landmark for heavy music.

Lil Wayne

Tha Carter IV £12.95 4/5 Wayne’s ninth Studio LP, Tha Carter IV, was regarded by hip-hop fans as one of the most anticipated releases of 2011. It has been brewing since 2008 and it’s release was delayed by Wayne’s prison spell in 2011. He recorded his first track within days of being released from prison, “6 Foot 7 Foot” featuring Cory Gunz. The song is produced by Bangladesh who also produced the huge “A Milli” released in 2008 and it has been described as being “a 2011 version of A Milli on steroids.” The album has big features from multiple guests such as, Tech N9ne, Rick Ross, Drake, T-Pain, Nas, Busta Rhymes, Shyne, Bun B & John Legend singing on “So Special” which is typical Wayne.

Rihanna

Talk That Talk £12.95 4/5 Talk That Talk, this is Rihanna’s sixth and most explicit album to date, Talk That Talk climaxes in a no-holds-barred frenzy of cutting edge dance floor grooves and declarations of physical desire. “You Da One”, released earlier this month as the album’s second single, boasts a fleeting intro, a cassette-tape-like warble of the chorus and sets the creative mood of the album before Rihanna delivers her characteristic staccato over the first of the record’s many hypnotizing melodies.

The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 964,000 copies sold in its first week, making it Lil Wayne’s third chart topping album of his career. On January 8, 2012, According to Nielsen SoundScan was elected the seventh artist (second male artist) all-time best-selling tracks digital with 36,788,000 million to the end of 2011. Tha Carter IV is the next piece of the Lil Wayne Jigsaw.

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