A shocking amount of sunlight permeates the “Mike Davis for City Council” campaign signs that paper the front windows of his campaign headquarters. Inside, precinct maps and outreach goals accent lime green and bright orange walls. Six volunteers sit at two temporary tables, munching on pizza and tacos and shuffling call sheets. [Read more…]
As Antonio Villaraigosa bows out of his role as Los Angeles Mayor, several candidates have stepped up to the stage to snag his spot. Those looking to replace him are City Council Members Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry, entrepreneur Emanuel Pleitez, former federal prosecutor Kevin James and City Controller Wendy Greuel.
Rosalie Murphy has profile of the candidates to discover the issues they want to address for Angelenos.
Candidate Closeup: Eric Garcetti
City Councilmember Eric Garcetti leads polling in the days before LA’s mayoral primary. But is he a strong enough personality to lead the city politically? MORE…
Candidate Closeup: Wendy Greuel
In the days before March’s mayoral primary, City Controller Wendy Greuel leads the field in funds raised. She is expected to advance to the May runoff election. MORE…
Candidate Closeup: Kevin James
Kevin James is more like a watchdog than a City Hall outsider—a longtime Angeleno keeping a careful eye on its policymakers. MORE…
Candidate Closeup: Jan Perry
There are two narratives about City Councilmember Jan Perry. MORE…
Candidate Closeup: Emanuel Pleitez
Emanuel Pleitez is the Los Angeles mayoral race’s undisputed underdog. MORE…
Listen to an audio story from Annenberg Radio News
We’re probably going to see a lot more of Eric Garcetti.
He served on Los Angeles City Council for more than a decade. The son of former District Attorney Gil Garcetti is only 42 years old, the second-youngest among the five leading candidates. He is expected to finish in one of the top two spots in the mayoral primary election March 5.
Garcetti is second in fundraising to City Controller Wendy Greuel, but he leads narrowly in polls. He’s been endorsed by a host of local leaders, including movie stars, unions, La Opinion and the LA Times.
“Eric Garcetti shows the most potential to lead LA into a more sustainable and confident future,” the Feb. 17 endorsement read [Read more…]
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The mayor’s office would bring Wendy Greuel’s long political career full circle: She started in the same room.
The 51-year-old candidate began volunteering for former mayor Tom Bradley when she was still in high school. Greuel is a lifelong Angeleno. Born in North Hollywood, she graduated from Kennedy High School in Granada Hills and then from UCLA. She worked in Bradley’s office for more than ten years and was elected to City Council in 2002.
Her long-term dedication to the city impresses Kaya Masler, who took a break from phone banking at Greuel’s office on Crenshaw and 54th to talk.
“She really loves being in politics, especially local politics, and she loves LA. So that was inspiring to me,” Masler said.
As City Controller, Greuel discovered in 2010 that city agencies left more than 260 million dollars in debts uncollected, mostly in parking tickets. She also published the salaries of city employees after embezzlement in Bell, California made headlines in 2011.
“She’s incredibly genuine, and she is a watchdog. I mean, she’s a fiscal watchdog,” Masler said.
Greuel’s priority is economic growth.
“One, it’s about creating jobs in Los Angeles. It’s about addressing pension reform, and it is about looking at inefficiencies—ways in which we can address waste, fraud and abuse in the city of Los Angeles.”
Specifically, Greuel has promised to dedicate 20 percent of new revenues to the police and fire departments. She wants to hire 2,000 new police officers and 800 new firefighters, which the Los Angeles Daily News says would cost about 200 million dollars.
“We should have a goal of being the safest big city in America,” Greuel said. “If we increase the revenue that is so important to the city of Los Angeles, that a portion of that should be dedicated to hiring more police and firefighters, as well as making sure we have more emergency preparedness and gang reduction programs.”
But this year’s FBI report shows that property and violent crimes have fallen steadily for a decade now. Former Daily News editor Ron Kaye says growing the police force doesn’t need to be the city’s first priority.
“I think the perfect example of what’s wrong with this campaign is Greuel’s posturing that she’s going to get the police force up to 12,000 by taking all this booming new revenue that’s supposedly going to come in,” Kaye said. “The fact is that we’re at an incredibly low point for crime, unprecedented, and crime isn’t the number one problem, cops aren’t the number-one issue in this city. The health of our neighborhoods, the quality of our lives and our loss of faith in a city working for us is the crisis.”
To generate money, Greuel plans to rely on the new City Controller to reduce the city’s budget. In addition to reforming city pensions, she vocally supports the elimination of the gross receipts tax for businesses. Economists say it will probably drive investment, but it may take a decade to recoup the lost revenues.
Eric Garcetti, Kevin James and Emanuel Pleitez support removing the tax, too. Jan Perry wants to keep it in place.
Greuel also opposes the half-cent sales tax increase on next week’s ballot. But Kaye wants more details.
“[Greuel is] against the sales tax in a very quiet voice. They haven’t suggested how they would actually fix the city’s financial problems, and they talk in symbolic language without actually specifying concrete policies that could be critiqued, examined, challenged, questioned.”
If elected, Greuel would be the city’s first female mayor. And after Tuesday’s vote, the City Council might become all-male.
Masler says gender isn’t the reason she supports Greuel, but she would like to see a woman in the top office.
“I’m not really one for tokenism, but she’s hyper-qualified,” Masler said.
Greuel leads the candidates in funds raised, and she’s neck-and-neck with Garcetti in most polls. She’s backed by most of the city’s public workers unions, who in total have donated more than 2 million dollars to her campaign. Detractors worry that such huge fiscal support will oblige Greuel to unions.
“When I’ve challenged it of why, why’ve they’ve jumped aboard, the answer generally is, Wendy’s the easiest one for them to manipulate. And I think it’s true—she has never really stood boldly for anything,” Kaye said. “She is incredibly likeable, everybody likes Wendy, she’s smart and personable… But she’s danced around the hardest issues.”
After more than three decades in LA’s public eye, Greuel is definitely popular—and if polls are accurate, she’ll have two more months to address those challenging issues.
Tiffany Taylor contributed to this report.
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 Jan Perry/ File photo. |
There are two narratives about City Councilmember Jan Perry. In one, she is a crusader for poor communities in South LA—the woman who invested on Figueroa and reaped the benefits for Main Street. But in the other, she is the union-busting pragmatist who shut down the push for a Fresh & Easy on Central and Adams.
“I think the greatest source of my passion is my desire, my very strong desire, to help people move forward,” said Perry. “It’s obvious that I’m a woman, I’m a woman of color; I happen to be a woman who is not only black, but I’m also Jewish and I communicate in Spanish. I think I step in the shoes of most people, and I feel what they feel because I go through it myself.”
Perry has represented Council District 9 since 2001. During her tenure, she tightened restrictions on fast food restaurants, installed the Central Avenue Farmers Market and directed millions of dollars into parks and affordable housing. She also championed the Central Avenue Jazz Festival and won awards for restoring her district’s wetlands.
“Over the last twelve years, when we had the redevelopment agency, I leveraged tax increment and took it south to develop more housing, to bring in more neighborhood retail, to basically create a climate that was far more receptive to business. I will continue to leverage construction of housing and retail,” said Perry.
Her advocacy has won her a devoted base among black voters in South LA. CD 9 has historically been represented by an African-American, but in the past few decades it’s become about 80 percent Latino. Perry has worked hard to win support from her Latino constituents, too.
“The voice of the communities is very, very important on what happens in this city,” said Mark Gory, a South LA preacher who noticed her history of engagement at a recent mayoral forum. “This is a very large city… and each community needs to have their issues addressed individually.”
 Jan Perry at the Central Avenue Jazz Festival, July 2012. |
On the other hand, there’s the Perry who installed LA Live and advocated for USC’s Village project. City politics writer Ron Kaye says those put her at the beck and call of developers like AEG.
“Jan has done everything she can that the Central City association wants, that downtown developers want, certainly that AEG wants… She represents downtown, the city has poured most of his wealth over the last 30 years into downtown, and so she has done everything she can, because that’s where the money was, certainly, for her campaign,” said Kaye.
Perry is decidedly pro-business. That’s helped cull support among fiscal conservatives in the San Fernando Valley who might have leaned toward Kevin James or Wendy Greuel. Garcetti and Greuel, who lead in the polls, have also gathered union support. Perry hasn’t.
“She’s always… not against unions, but questioned,” said Kaye. “In her own way, Jan is stronger than, as a personality, Greuel or Garcetti, and is more capable of fighting, at least on some of the issues.”
Most public employee unions have lined up behind Greuel, Perry says that binds Greuel to them, though — and limits her flexibility on pension reform, one of this year’s leading issues.
“They haven’t spoken about getting employees back to the table on giving back on their healthcare and pension costs, because that is the absolute hardest thing to do — particularly if you’re a candidate who’s been heavily endorsed by some of the more powerful public employee unions. A campaign who has received the benefit of that kind of money will not say that your employees need to create salary parity. They will not say that your employees need to give back on their healthcare costs and pension costs.”
Perry is a Democrat who agrees with Greuel and Garcetti on most issues—all three oppose the half-cent sales tax increase on March’s ballot, for example. And she says her years of experience have taught her how to use Council’s resources—and that would make her a well-prepared mayor.
Sherita Herring, a South LA entrepreneur running for the 9th District seat appreciate the work Perry did in city government. But she’s worried that Perry’s cozy relationship with downtown developers threatens her ability to really advocate for poor Angelenos.
“Right now, the Staples Center, when there’s a game there, every game generates three million dollars. Every single game,” said Herring. “How much of that is impacting these surrounding communities, who are going to be impacted when the stadium comes here, and there’s more traffic? What is the trickle-down? You’ve got people who don’t care, because their home isn’t here on 41st and Broadway.”
Perry’s goal, though, is to maintain that political tightrope until March fifth—and she’s counting on crowds on both sides to keep her balance.
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 Photo by Graham Clark/Neon Tommy. |
Kevin James is more like a watchdog than a City Hall outsider—a longtime Angeleno keeping a careful eye on its policymakers. For more than six years, he hosted a talk radio show about LA politics on KRLA (AM 870).
James cancelled the show when he started his mayoral run more than a year ago. He spent much of his airtime providing conservative commentary on politics, national and local. He also aired shows about each of the city’s neighborhood councils.
James has no direct political experience—he grew up in Texas and Oklahoma, served as an assistant U.S. attorney, then practiced entertainment law in LA. He also spent two years directing AIDS Project Los Angeles. If elected, James would be LA’s first openly gay mayor.
A gay Republican leading a decidedly Democratic city. An ex-prosecutor taking out-of-state campaign funding in a scene dominated by unions and political partnerships. That resume may seem contradictory—but longtime city reporter Ron Kaye says it’s at least as valuable as one from City Hall.
“I think Kevin James has raised the most amount of issues with the best knowledge of what’s broken,” said Kaye. “Nobody, I don’t think, has an answer, and the closest to it is James, in that he would negotiate and put the unions under pressure. But he’s a Republican, and I think he would have a very hard time getting the leverage and support that he needs from City Hall.”
James talks confidently, though. Like every candidate, he says the city budget is his first priority—and he has a five-year plan that is heavy on numbers. He would balance the budget with pension reform, tax loophole closures and increased revenue.
By lowering business tax rates, James thinks he’ll drive investment during his first term—and he says new companies will bring in enough revenue to eliminate the need for tax increases on individuals. But… if it comes down to it, he says he’s willing to raise taxes.
“Because I am the fiscal conservative in the field, and because my opponents have lost whatever credibility they had on tax increases… When I come in and give an independent look to the books on these projects, if I have to tell the voters that this is a tax increase that we need for whetever the purpose is, I’ve got much more credibility with them than they my opponents do,” James said.
James comes across as straightforward. He didn’t equivocate when I asked about the controversial decision to allow Wal-Mart to put a store in Chinatown: “I supported it. The community wanted it,” James said. “I won’t say no to any private industry that wants to come here. I know Wal-Mart is controversial, but you know what? Our city needs jobs.”
That directness appeals to some voters, like Sherri Bell, a South LA native who attended a recent mayoral forum.
“Kevin James, I feel, did a good job in today’s forum… You have to have a plan in order to execute the goals you’re telling the public you’re going to reach,” Bell said.
James’s experience as a talk show host sparks his energy—especially the neighborhood council series. During our interview, he rapped his fingers fervently when he described talking directly to the public.
“The neighborhood councils, I kind of fell into, and have developed a real appreciation for,” James said. “If you want to know what is really happening in LA, you go to the neighborhoods.”
James wants to offer neighborhood council seats on city-wide commissions that will advise him personally. These people are already engaged … and James says it would be a shame not to put their energy toward actual policymaking.
“These people are volunteering their time. They’re learning city issues. And they’re doing it for free because they love their city, they love their neighborhoods, they love their kids, and they love their community. And I don’t know a city in the country that has the kind of volunteer and city engagement that we have in LA,” James said.
That really resonates with Collins Osagiede, who serves on the Silver Lake neighborhood council.
“The more you get your neighborhood councils involved, the more you get your neighborhoods involved, because for a long time it’s always felt like there was a dichotomy—the people who wear the suits and make the speeches, and the people who live real life,” Osagiede said.
Journalist Ron Kaye sees that, too. He thinks James is genuinely interested in the good of all Angelenos because he’s been so curious for so many years.
“Kevin paid a lot of dues… I was on his radio show,” Kaye said. “I think he knows what people are upset about throughout the entire city better than any of the other candidates, because he’s been out there talking to people and looking for news.”
James was endorsed by Former Republican mayor Richard Riordan. He’s also taken money from big-name out-of-state donors—among them, Harold Simmons, a Texas industrialist who’s bankrolled conservative campaigns for decades. Another donor is Republican advertiser Fred Davis, who managed media strategy for John McCain in 2008. His campaign office in Studio City is staffed by a small, spry strategy team.
But the numbers aren’t in his favor—only sixteen percent of voting Angelenos are Republicans.
“The question is, has he been able to convince other constituencies that he’s the right man for the job? I don’t know that I see evidence of that,” Kaye said.
James may not be able to win the March fifth primary, but he could pull enough votes to influence who advances to May’s runoff election. And a strong showing for moderate James in solidly Democratic LA could galvanize the Republican Party nationwide.
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Emanuel Pleitez is the Los Angeles mayoral race’s undisputed underdog:
“I’m stepping up to take the challenge on because we need that,” he said. “We need a new leader, someone with a fresh perspective, a unique perspective.”
Pleitez has rocketed onto debate stages and into TV ads since the new year after surprising analysts by raising enough money to receive matching public funds.
Just 30 years old and born in South LA, Pleitez is a breath of fresh air for longtime LA political reporter Ron Kaye, former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News.
“He has the immigrant son story of growing up in the city, and he’s put himself on the map,” Kaye said. “I think he’s become a visible player, and from my personal point of view, a welcome one.”
Pleitez is only seven years out of Stanford University, but his job history is extensive. He has worked for John Kerry, Mayor Villaraigosa, Goldman Sachs, President Obama’s transition team, a consulting firm and, most recently, data firm Spokeo. He even ran for Congress in 2009, but lost. In fact, his only victorious election has been to his senior class presidency in high school.
Pleitez calls this job history an advantage because it makes him an outsider to City Hall, independent from debts to unions and specific neighborhoods.
“I’m a mayor of all Angelenos, and that goes whether they’re documented or not. I am the mayor of all Angelenos that are in the city of LA, and I want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to work and contribute to LA,” Pleitez said.
Kevin James, a lawyer and radio host, is the race’s other “outsider.” But Jan Perry, Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti are City Hall veterans with big endorsements from politicians, unions and developers.
But Pleitez’s relative inexperience stokes his popularity for frustrated voters.
“The things that he said, it gelled. It came together,” said Brian Gaines, who saw Pleitez speak at a mayoral forum on Jan. 19. “Look at the others who have been there–what have you done over the last, collectively, 30 years?”
“The others who have been there” refers to Greuel, Garcetti and Perry’s combined three decades in City Hall. “That really stood out to me, being young and coming through the trenches. I want to see something new.”
Consistently, Pleitez’s number-one issue is one ravaging City Hall: Pension reform.
LA’s pension obligations will increase to $3 billion a year by 2017, according to former mayor Richard Riordan. That’s about 50 percent of the city’s annual budget. Pleitez wants to increase the retirement age and move toward a 401-k plan for current city employees.
“That’s why every single year they’re having to cut another few hundred million dollars. If we reform the pension system, we wouldn’t have to make those cuts,” Pleitez said.
His number-two issue is education. Pleitez has been speaking ardently at LA’s community colleges and is hosting a “South LA Backyard Hackathon” next weekend. Its mission: “Bring Silicon Alley to South LA.”
“If we actually invest in education and training, not just for young people, but older folks as well, then we’re going to be able to move our workforce into a higher skill level to get the jobs that are actually available,” Pleitez said.
Based on city election trends in LA, though, this race doesn’t look good for Pleitez: He has a fraction of the frontrunners’ money and lacks endorsements from major city players like unions and councilmembers.
But he does have momentum. Pleitez said this week that his team has knocked on 40,000 doors and made 150,000 phone calls since Jan. 1.
That effort might be sufficient. According to California Common Cause, LA has notoriously low voter turnout in local elections: Sometimes just 7 percent of the population votes, and the city’s maximum is about 35 percent.
However, Ron Kaye cannot envision Pleitez qualifying for the runoff election in May. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote on March 5, the top two candidates advance to another ballot on May 21.
“I do not have a scenario where this is going to be an election that changes the face of LA politics,” Kaye said. Pleitez is young, however. “He’s put himself on the map, nobody had heard about him a few months ago. I think he clearly has signaled that he intends to be around.”
Pleitez will be around, knocking on every door, at least until March 5.
Molly Gray contributed to this report. Photos by Molly Gray.
Hundred-degree heat pressed resolutely on the walls of Mercado la Paloma’s meeting room Saturday morning, but inside, a collective commitment to honesty kept the South L.A. Power Coalition’s first-ever Black and Latino Community Issues Forum cool.
Around 70 people attended the forum, in spite of warnings that the event would fail to create the respectful dialogue it hoped for.
“No one wanted to talk about these issues. We had threats, pressures, warnings leading up to this,” said Koyaki Jitahidi, one of the event’s organizers and a member of the Ma’at Institute for Community Change. “We had a similar workshop in May, and it got contentious; there was arguing, shouting. People said, ‘maybe we shouldn’t do this, maybe it’s too soon,’ but we’ve got all this stuff going on right now,” like Los Angeles’s spring redistricting and elections in November and March. “We can’t wait.”
Rhetoric: Disenfranchisement and empowerment
The forum marked both African and Latino culture in its opening statements. Moderators greeted attendees in English, Spanish, and Swahili. Then they led people in a power clap, a United Farm Workers sign of solidarity, and a Harambee chant, which cries the word “harambee,” Swahili for “all put together,” seven times.
 Rosalie Peterson of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment raises her fist in the Community Issues Forum’s introductory Harambee chant. |
Moderators Carlos Montes and Dr Maulana Karenga each spoke about the history of black and Latino unity in the Americas before discussion of present community issues began. Montes, whose Chicano-Latino activism began with the Brown Berets in the 1960s, harkened to black-brown coalitions in the unified Third World fighting U.S. imperialism during the Cold War. “When we were attacked, we supported each other,” he said.
 Moderators Carlos Montes and Maulana Karenga analyze a participant’s comment before responding to his question. |
Much of the morning’s rhetoric reflected its organizers’ backgrounds in radical and even militant activism. Karenga, chair of the African Studies department at California State University, Long Beach and creator of the pan-African holiday Kwanzaa, headed a black nationalist group that competed with the Black Panthers in the 1960s. That group, The Organization Us, maintains an office near Leimert Park.
“We struggle like this because together we will win,” said Karenga. “We are soldiers on the battlefield for something better… and we must talk often and productively with one another.”
Two participants in the South L.A. Power Coalition’s forum greet each other with a handshake and an embrace.
 Two participants in the South L.A. Power Coalition’s forum greet each other with a handshake and an embrace. |
The community’s challenges
But cooperation is hardly as rosy as the facilitators described it in theory. Thandi Chimurenga, a freelance journalist, broached the black community’s concern that often Latino police officers, not just whites, commit violence against blacks.
Chimurenga called specifically on Latina women, addressing them as “mis hermanas,” to react to those killings in solidarity with their black neighbors.
“I need to hear a human cry from the community, and I need it to be translated into English and in Spanish. When a black person is murdered, I need to hear a human voice,” Chimurenga said. Scattered applause and encouraging murmurs followed.
In response, SLAPC member Blanca Cruz said Latinos who join the police force often become “rasa” – people who oppress their own people. “Cops… represent the oppressive system,” she said, no matter what ethnicity they claim.
Karenga hypothesized that the police department plays on historical neighborhood rivalry and uses Latinos against blacks. If so, “this is a battle strategy conversation. They’re trying to destroy our unity,” he said. “We must not let our oppressor” – that is, traditional white centers of power – “be our teacher about who we like, who we trust, or who we let across the border,” he said.
Also, reminded Montes, many in the Latino community have denounced Sheriff Lee Baca.
Another pertinent comment touched on the South Central Neighborhood’s Council recent resolution against the disproportionate rate of black student suspensions at Santee Educational Complex. Just 5 percent of Santee’s students are black, but 23 percent of them were suspended in 2011-2012, CityWatch LA reported (http://www.citywatchla.com/lead-stories/3751-blacks-and-latinos-unite-to-fight-for-reduction-in-black-student-suspensions).
Ron Gochez, a history teacher at Santee and vice president of the SCNC, addressed the problem as one of black-brown unity: rather than allowing the majority group (Latinos) to dominate the minority (blacks), both must come to a place of cultural understanding.
As a long-term remedy, Gochez proposed institutionalized ethnic studies programs in L.A. schools. Educating black and Latino students about their shared history, particularly during civil rights and labor movements, could help reduce inter-group violence and animosity.
“We need a vigorous multiculturalism, and I don’t mean food, fashion or festival,” Karenga said. “We share responsibility. We must practice reciprocal solidarity.”
Finally, thinly veiled calls to political action bubbled under the forum’s ideological surface. Two City Council candidates and a City Controller candidate addressed the crowd. But March’s election will be the first decided by new council district lines.
Black councilmembers have represented District 9, which encompasses much of South Central L.A., since 1963.
Gochez, who is running for the seat, encouraged residents to choose the person who could best represent both black and Latino residents.
Jitahidi also stressed unity in his closing remarks. District 9 cannot belong to a distinct group, he said.
“We’re not trying to be the best Democrats or the best Republicans or the best decline-to-state voters. We’re trying to kill the status quo” by continuing to elect “brave and courageous leaders,” Jitahidi said.
The SLAPC has not yet declared support for any candidate in L.A.’s March elections.
“Next time, we’ll need more time”
Long before polls open, however, the forum’s attendees must start working, Jitahidi said in his closing remarks. SLAPC officers cut off the line of attendees waiting to speak after more than 80 minutes of questions and suggestions. Still, only about a third of the forum’s participants addressed the crowd.
One of its final speakers requested monthly meetings. The crowd replied with fervent nods and a few supportive whistles.
Arnetta Mack, another organizer of the conference, affirmed these plans. “It was good for a first attempt,” she said. “Next time, we’ll need more time and more space.”
One Afro-Latina member of Karenga’s Organization Us, Hasani Soto, expressed the importance of educating community members in conversations like these. In identifying with both cultures, Hasani said she shares both groups’ knowledge and responsibilities.
“We need to study more, and not just TV or radio. We need to read more,” Soto said. “If we don’t do the studying and we don’t have the dialogue, the issues will still be there.”
Still, though, Soto was delighted by Saturday’s attempt. “It was excellent. It was beautiful,” she said.
However, Kahllid A. Al-Alim of the Park Mesa Heights Neighborhood Council warned that, to be effected, the forum needed to maintain organization.
With so many nonprofits and political activist organizations working on such a variance of issues, “This could be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen,” Al-Alim said.
The Regency West Supper Club is a mainstay in old Leimert Park. Its shimmering gold napkins, thick scarlet carpet and flickering tea candles illuminate decades of famous visitors, which earned the neighborhood national renown in the 1960s and 70s for its jazz, blues and African art traditions.
These customs still thrive in iconic institutions like blues bar Maverick’s Flat and arts consortium The World Stage. And the Supper Club still hosts the Living Legends Jazz Series, which brings jazz’s elders back to Leimert Park every summer. The next show will take place Aug. 30. .jpg)
But the venue on 43rd Street only tells half the neighborhood’s story. Leimert Park’s new generation, now in its early 20s, includes rappers and Twitter accounts. Storeowners say teenagers and 20-somethings are absent from Dengan Boulevard on weekday afternoons, but they flood the town center on Thursday nights for hip-hop open mic Project Blowed and on Sunday mornings for the community’s monthly Art Walk.
If the jazz generation will let them, then these young musicians are ready to make Leimert Park their own.
“I’m one of those people that actually want to see Leimert Park… get renovated, if you will,” said Jamaal Wilson, a Leimert Park native who released his first rap album, The Cool Table, in March. Wilson is a 21-year-old junior studying psychology at the University of California at Merced. “I want to see it come up with the times and kind of embrace the hip-hop community a little bit more and just get a bit more new and current.”
Changes in Communication
Community Build tried to implement one of those changes in January. Its weekly community meetings considered a proposition for public Wi-Fi access in Leimert Park Village, where historic shops line Dengan Boulevard and a small fountain gurgles in the center of the park.
Community Build reviewed the suggestion for a few weeks, but has tabled it indefinitely.
“If Wi-Fi is something they want, it’s easy for them to get,” said Eddie North-Hager, who founded the neighborhood’s online forum, Leimert Park Beat. “If businesses think it’s worth the money, I bet they’d do it. But if you’re shopping for clothes or a hat or gifts at Zambezi [Bazaar], who’s going to need Wi-Fi?”
North-Hager estimates that 75 to 85 percent of Leimert Park residents at least have an email address. And Leimert Park Beat has 1,475 registered users – more than 10 percent of the neighborhood’s population, according to the L.A. Times’ Data Desk.
But most of Dengan’s famous shops haven’t entered online conversation. Zambezi Bazaar, for example, doesn’t have a website – just a Facebook page it updates about once a month. Eso Won Books, which does have a website, started posting on its Twitter account regularly at the end of February.
 Drummer Al Williams, one of the Living Legends Linda Morgan (second from right) celebrated in April |
The jazz community is also largely offline. When Linda Morgan, 50, assembled the first Living Legends Jazz Series in 2010, she featured 11 artists at four concerts. Three of them showed up in Google searches that summer.
“If you’re not using technology, it’s really hard to describe,” said Ben Caldwell, who toes the line of Leimert Park’s generational divide. The 66-year-old founded KAOS Network in 1984 to teach film and music production. Since then, he has been leading teleconferences, burning CDs and spreading videos online before any of those practices were commonplace. But most of his peers are unenthusiastic about technical innovation.
“It can be tough for me, and I like computers,” Caldwell admitted. “But unless you were raised in that [technological] world, you probably won’t use it. And then, the old world dies around you while the new world takes over.”
But Morgan said some of her series’ performers, who she fondly calls “my legends,” reject the changes Caldwell described altogether.
“One of my legends was so outdone with all the photography at a show that she was like, ‘I don’t want to take another picture in my life.’ I can’t allow that to happen,” Morgan said. “This year I have legends like Gerald Wilson, who’s 92. I don’t want them overwhelmed.”
Out of respect for the performers, Morgan tailors her monthly Supper Club shows to their wishes. But to reach young audiences, Morgan also makes all her legends Facebook fan pages and works with their families to secure copyrights for their music. If families are unable or uninterested, she does the work herself – meaning she still manages 22 Facebook pages and owns dozens of domain names.
This year Morgan turned the project into a nonprofit. Eventually, she wants to televise the concert series and open a museum.
“They’ve given so much to the music that we need to make sure that their legacies continue – and not only that they continue, but that they’re protected, promoted and preserved,” Morgan said. “That’s the only way the next generation of hip-hop is ever going to know anything about them.”
“The Newness that is Hip-Hop”
Leimert Park’s median age is 38, and most of Morgan’s audience members are older. “Legends” must be 65 or older to perform in the series. At the same time, though, Morgan wants to hire a young, Internet-literate staff to help her put these records and biographies online. She hopes their work will inspire a whole generation of sign-ups for piano, saxophone and drum lessons.
More than digitizing their parents’ records, however, Wo’se Kofi hopes his peers will fuse jazz traditions with their own. The 24-year-old son of an African dance instructor and African drummer already uses their rhythms in his rap songs.
“The funny thing is, everything in hip-hop comes from that beat, you know? That’s the ancestor. Drums are our ancestors,” Kofi said.
But it’s not only possible for rappers to honor their roots, Kofi said. It’s necessary. At its birth, rap was about cultural pride. Only in recent decades did lyrics become degrading and divisive.
“When people first started rapping, rap had more of a revolutionary aspect, more of a change, more of a substance,” Kofi said. “I feel like the younger generation kind of lost a sense of culture and a sense of togetherness. We just have to find a culture in general, something that we are all unified [in], something that is already in us. We are a revolutionary culture. Or we should be.”
But even if the hip-hop generation embraces their jazz roots, Wilson worries that their elders won’t reciprocate that respect.
“I feel as though they aren’t reaching out to the young hip-hop community. Whenever somebody thinks of Leimert Park, they want them to think it’s the jazz epicenter,” Wilson said. “It’s not really recognized for jazz music anymore and I think that is kind of rubbing them the wrong way, maybe, and they haven’t embraced the newness that is hip-hop.”
Wilson said Leimert Park is garnering some clout among his generation of rappers. Neighborhood native Dom Kennedy played at indie festival South by Southwest in 2011 and has appeared on songs with J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. People know him, Wilson said, so they see Leimert Park as a hip-hop epicenter – a young, rapidly expanding one.
“You can almost see and hear the difference between artists that come from the Leimert Park area,” Kofi said. “They’ve been around the cultural aspect of Leimert Park, which was African ancestors, the African culture, people dressing in African clothing… People who grew up around that positivity continued to keep the positive in their lyrics.”
Compromise and Adaptation
Morgan wants to preserve the jazz culture that made the neighborhood famous two generations ago. She and Kofi agree that culture involves more than music, though – it’s about family ties, visual art and a common neighborhood experience, like rebuilding after the riots in April 1992.
“I want it to grow. I want that area to flourish. It’s culturally rich, especially in jazz,” said Morgan, who also gives Leimert Park historical tours on Art Walk Sundays. “I want to keep that whole society going.”
Wilson was born a few months after the riots ended. He belongs to a different era than the places Morgan points out on her tours. But he and Kofi said their generation wants to take responsibility for the neighborhood’s past as well as its future.
“You have these new kids with the new ideas and the new energy, and you have the older people who have worked their whole lives to try to make this a success and to give it a personality and a character,” North-Hager said. “They’re not always going to agree… [while] passing on the mantle of leadership and responsibility and activism.”
Wilson just isn’t sure Leimert Park’s elders are ready to hand over the reins.
“That’s awesome that they pride themselves on their history, but if you don’t adapt, you run the risk of dying,” Wilson said. “And then you take so much pride in your history that you become history. And Leimert Park is too great of a place to become history.”
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