Amen Brother Film, Richmond, VA (2026)

09/25/2024

🎂 Happy 80th birthday to the LEGEND, the most sampled musician in history, Gregory G.C. Coleman… The drummer of the Amen Break, the most sampled piece of music in history.

This is a previously unseen picture of him from high school. Handsome as ever.

One way or another, I will finish this documentary about the man, his story, and the worldwide phenomenon that is the Amen Break. 🙏🏽

03/21/2024

This is my buddy, the legendary Po Joe! He was G.C. Coleman’s good friend and driver to all his gigs back in the 60s when Coleman was working the Tri-State area of the DMV (Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., and as far south as North Carolina), which were parts of the notorious Chitlin Circuit, with his band, G.C. Coleman & The Soul Twisters. These were the years before Coleman went on tour with Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions, The Marvelettes, and later with The Winstons.

Po Joe is a local celebrity in Richmond. And he still dresses up to go anywhere, even just to the corner store. Jewelry and all. Yes, that’s a chain that says “Po Joe”, and his late wife’s diamond engagement ring on his pinky finger (pictured with him when they were young in slide 2). 💖

But seriously, how COOL is this guy? 😎 🆒 🤴🏾

Po Joe is giving me a crucial interview today, as this last year or so I’ve turned my focus to getting as much of Coleman’s back story as possible. Coleman grew up in a thriving Black community full of wonderful people and true Black Excellence, and I am constantly inspired by each story I learn. They’re doing something special there soon that includes a big nod to Coleman, which I am honored to be contributing to. 🙏

I’ll continue with more high profile interviews when I secure more funding, but for now, the backstory is CRUCIAL, with or without funding. In fact, called me last year and emphasized how important it is that I really focus on the backstory, and while I knew its importance, I’ve really heeded that advice lately, as these older heads are getting up in age, so it’s now or never for a lot of them. 🙏

02/29/2024

On this last day of 2024 I’d be remiss if I didn’t make mention of easily one of the most important pieces of black history there is, the most sampled artist and musician of all time, Gregory “G.C.” Coleman. 👑

Here’s a little yearbook pic of him. Enjoy. 👊🏽

As for the film, I’m currently working hard on grant applications and ethical funding to finish it (when I say “ethical” I mean steering clear of vultures and ulterior motives). I’m open to ideas so if you have any, feel free to reach out. This venture is crazy hard to do on my own, so any real help is greatly appreciated. 🙏

01/29/2024

🤯 It’s absolutely chilling how similar my journey in making the Amen Break / GC Coleman documentary is to the journey of Thibault Ehrengardt, the writer of the only official biography of the legend, King Tubby. Especially the part where he says “It was a peculiar experience investigating a dead man I will never meet. I sometimes felt like I was chasing a ghost, especially as almost nothing has been written about him”… And how he’s virtually unknown by the vast majority of people, and how the family gets no royalties on his colossal discography and the use of his work… 🤯

It’s also never lost on me how salient and crucial these works are, taking on the massively important mission of shining a much deserved light on the lives and accomplishments of some of the most remarkable figures in music and human history, whom remain largely unknown, educating the masses who don’t know but want to know. ⚡️

I have several films planned, and almost all of them are about highlighting and honoring some of the world’s most important unsung heroes. Hence why my film company is called “IllumiNative Films”… 🔦 👊🏽

Though I’ve not been talking about it much publicly lately, but on the low, in between the trials and tribulations of general life, I am working hard to bring these projects to fruition, with or without the help of others, whilst dodging flakes, vultures, snakes, and sh*tty people who try to highjack or derail it along the way. It’s no easy feat, but I will NOT stop til the work is done. 🫡

Anyways, happy 83rd birthday to the father of modern music, King Tubby. 👑 His biography is definitely worth the read, as we as a culture owe so much to him and his work. 🙏

01/01/2024

🎉 Happy New Year! 🎉 Here’s a nifty pic of the engineer who recorded the Amen Break doing a little crate digging recently. 😏

11/16/2023

This is the type of treachery that artists of the 50s and 60s had to endure as they toured the Chitlin Circuit in the segregated United States. The Winstons and G.C. Coleman were part of that. Many of those artists insisted and had it built in to their contracts that they must perform to an integrated crowd, as they believed music was a powerful vehicle for social change to fight discrimination and segregation, with the potential to change people’s racist views. Indeed they were right, it was, and that makes the power of the Amen Break so much more poetic and more significant than just it’s sonic excellence. As it literally became part of the backbone of modern music and solidified their efforts to continue their work of racial progress and desegregation for decades to come.

On this night in 1955 in Houston, Texas, Ella Fitzgerald, her personal assistant Georgiana Henry, Dizzy Gillespie, and Illinois Jacquet were all arrested on bu****it gambling charges after police harassed them back stage for putting on a integrated show.

At the time of the 1955 incident, public spaces in Houston were indeed largely segregated by race, despite the fact that racial segregation laws were abolished the year prior. For many the law change was ignored and segregation continued on for many years to come. So this trillion dollar music industry and those who enjoy it today all owe a great debt to the artists who knocked down those walls…

These things are all going to be addressed in “Amen Brother - King Of The Beats”!!!

11/12/2023

Been gutted to hear the news of the sudden and untimely passing of an old friend (she was diagnosed with an incurable cancer and given just a small handful of days to live, so hold your loved ones close). Known her since the 90s, and though I can’t say I knew her super well, I’ve always had the utmost respect for her, being an OG Junglist soldier and pioneer putting it down for North Carolina and the entire United States Jungle / Drum & Bass scene for decades. 🙏

Rest easy, my soul sister in Amen. We will all miss you, Leigh “Xist” Bailey. 💖

09/27/2023

🙌

09/25/2023

🤯 Wow. What a day for this to arrive in the mail… ⚡️ On Coleman’s birthday. ✨ This is an original 1969 copy of the full Winstons album FACTORY SEALED! 🙌

Never seen one of these before ever in all my years collecting vinyl (since the 80s)…

I’ve included in this picture an original 1969 copy of the 7”inch single that is also factory sealed from Woolworth. The only other person I know with one of those is (eat your heart out, homie 😉)…

I think about the only thing more holy grail than this when it comes to Winstons vinyl is the copy of the album signed by the full band that was given to Coleman’s daughter, Glynis. 🤯

09/25/2023

🎂 Happy birthday to the most sampled musician in history, the legend, Mr. Gregory “G.C.” Sylvester Coleman. 💖

He would have been 79 years old today.

This is a picture never publicly seen before, sent to me by his sister, Florence. 🙏

08/12/2023

💖 Man, this really warms my heart. Imagine being honored this way at Yankeee Stadium, 50 years later, for changing the world. 🤯

Little known fact about Herc. He grew up in Kingston Jamaica until he was 12 years old. He grew up on King Tubby and Sound System culture, where the DJs would play instrumental “Dub” versions (being created by engineers like Tubby, Lee Scratch Perry, etc) at the parties and MCs would “toast” over them, AKA rapping.

He brought what he saw there to the Bronx a few years later when his family emigrated here in 1967. He was playing a wide variety of music, particularly hard Funk music, and began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat - the "break" - and switch from one break to another when he noticed that’s what the crowd was anticipating in each song - the breakbeat. Using the same two-turntable set-up of disco DJs, he used two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using funky drum solos, formed the basis of Hip Hop music. Herc's announcements and exhortations to dancers, like he heard in Jamaican Sound System culture, helped lead to the syncopated, rhythmically spoken accompaniment now known as rapping.

He called the dancers "break-boys" and "break-girls", or simply b-boys and b-girls. Herc's DJ style was quickly taken up by figures such as Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash.

📝

I’ve been in contact with his management for awhile now and do plan to interview him for my Amen Break film. He is one of only 2 people who have ever asked to be paid for an interview with me, and I plan on delightfully paying him in full, because the man certainly deserves EVERY penny. 👊🏽

Thank you, ! 🙏

08/11/2023

🎂 Well, today is the day. Happy 50th birthday to Hip Hop! 🎉 Easily one of the most culturally important forces in the history of mankind. To call it an inspiration in my life would be an extreme understatement. From my 27 year career as a DJ, to my film career now, none of it would have happened without Hip Hop. Period. You could easily say it saved my life. 🙏

I grew up rapping LL Cool J songs to my family and friends, and anyone who would listen, lol. I grew up watching breakers dance in the 80s, to becoming one myself in the 90s (trained by an East Coast OG, BBoy Collin, founder of Swoon Unit, who danced with Janet Jackson and others). In 1996 I met members of the Rock Steady Crew when my DJ mentor won a huge DJ battle and got put on with Zulu Nation. They blessed me with knowledge, signed my fat laces, and tagged my drawing book with R.S.C. everywhere.

In 1995, I acquired DJ Q Bert’s “Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik” mixtape which was a mix of highlights from the “Ultimate Breaks & Beats” compilation. Then I started collecting volumes from that series on vinyl. This taught me, and entire generations about the origins of Hip Hop. The breakbeats. The songs, artists, and labels where these breakbeats lived.

As important as Kool Herc (the father of Hip Hop), Bambatta, Flash, etc. are to me. and his partner Lenny are owed an incalculable debt by the entire culture for virtually saving Hip Hop in 1986, giving us the blueprint to the culture and its origins.

I could write an entire diatribe about all this, but I’ll just say this; Breakbeat Lou is a HERO to me, and to this culture. So I’ll use today’s celebration to give him some of his flowers, since so many are talking more about Rap, and leaving out the other elements that make up this culture (DJing / Breakbeats, Breaking, and Graffiti).

Lou and myself were recently guests for ’s class at University of California San Diego, which is now part of their curriculum. 🙏 I’ll post some clips of that soon, as well as a major announcement about a forthcoming event with Lou and some other big names coming to Durham soon for an event I’m curating for . 👊🏽

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