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Urban Music Village

GRDadof3

By GRDadof3
in Grand Rapids

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NorthEnder Hamlet

NorthEnder

Posted
Posted

True, but I think the parties pushing this have hip-hop roots and GR roots.

One that I can think of.

LA THE DARKMAN

La The Darkman (BKA Lason Jackson) was born in Bronx, NY. He lived there until the age of four and then moved with his family to Crown Heights in Brooklyn, NY, where he started running the streets at a young age. By the age of 14 he was skipping school and getting into trouble with the law. La and his three siblings were raised by a single mother, who did not approve of La's troubled ways.

La's mother moved him out of state to Grand Rapids, Michigan so he could finish school. Being away from New York City, La was able to finish high school successfully. At the age of 17, La moved back to Brooklyn where he strengthened his street ways. While back in Brooklyn, La met members of a clan, better known as Wu-Tang Clan. La stayed behind the scenes with the Clan before coming to the surface as a solo artist.

La is an independent businessman and artist. In his free time he enjoys playing basketball, Play Station 2, writing music and reading.

But i doubt he's invovled.

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

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Posted

The hiphop community is closely knit, discovering someone may have a GR root will uncover more community members that have some family ties. The underground rap/hip hop scene here in GR has quite a few Detroit related rap groups and through the Detroit connection there is a wide national connection to the bigger rap/hip hop scene. I would imagine this is in any other music genre, but its known here in Gr that people are pretty tight with eachother.

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NorthEnder Hamlet

NorthEnder

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I think i'm on to something, could it have been infront of our faces the whole time?

Steven Belkin:

Originally from Grand Rapids, Mi.

Atlanta Hawks

Owner: Steve Belkin, with 30% ownership, is the largest single owner of Atlanta Spirit LLC.

Age: 57

Hometown: Grand Rapids, Mich.

Net worth: $300 million

Education: Bachelor's from Cornell, MBA from Harvard

Other pro sports interests: Atlanta Spirit bought the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers and rights to Philips Arena from AOL/Time Warner.

Notable: Belkin gave up a chance to play basketball for Georgia Tech to study engineering at Cornell.

He was forced out of the ownership in atlanta, but before he had lost his dream of OWNING an NBA franchise to music/TV mogul Robert L Johnson, of BET fame.

Belkin heads up Trans National Group, a VC/entreprenurial group out of Boston. He spent considerable time in Atlanta with the Hawks.

Belkin received his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Cornell in 1969 and his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971

David Minkin, from POGO law, in Atlanta.

M.B.A., Harvard University, 1973

A.B., Government, Cornell University, 1969

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Phizzy Hamlet

Phizzy

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Interscope hip-hop artists Eminem, D12 (aka The Dirty Dozen), and Obie Trice are all from Michigan (there might be others). True, they're from the Detroit area, but perhaps Grand Rapids was seen as an more atractive for this development for whatever reason.

Belkin received his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Cornell in 1969 and his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971

David Minkin, from POGO law, in Atlanta.

M.B.A., Harvard University, 1973

A.B., Government, Cornell University, 1969

Wow, interesting connection between Belkin and Minkin. Nice research. :thumbsup:

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NorthEnder Hamlet

NorthEnder

Posted
Posted

Interscope hip-hop artists Eminem, D12 (aka The Dirty Dozen), and Obie Trice are all from Michigan (there might be others). True, they're from the Detroit area, but perhaps Grand Rapids was seen as an more atractive for this development for whatever reason.

Wow, interesting connection between Belkin and Minkin. Nice research. :thumbsup:

With a Grand Rapids to Atlanta connection :shades:

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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I think i'm on to something, could it have been infront of our faces the whole time?

Steven Belkin:

Originally from Grand Rapids, Mi.

He was forced out of the ownership in atlanta, but before he had lost his dream of OWNING an NBA franchise to music/TV mogul Robert L Johnson, of BET fame.

Belkin heads up Trans National Group, a VC/entreprenurial group out of Boston. He spent considerable time in Atlanta with the Hawks.

Belkin received his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Cornell in 1969 and his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1971

David Minkin, from POGO law, in Atlanta.

M.B.A., Harvard University, 1973

A.B., Government, Cornell University, 1969

The Atlanta thing is interesting Northender. Aren't Minkin and the PR firm based in Atlanta.

Barb Van Andel - Gaby, who I believe runs the Amway Grand, is based in Atlanta.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:kSSDN5...us&ct=clnk&cd=1

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NorthEnder Hamlet

NorthEnder

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The Atlanta thing is interesting Northender. Aren't Minkin and the PR firm based in Atlanta.

Barb Van Andel - Gaby, who I believe runs the Amway Grand, is based in Atlanta.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:kSSDN5...us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Yes, Minkin and the PR firm are from atlanta, hence the possible connection.

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Nitro Burg

Nitro

Posted
Posted

Good question.

Another question, anyone know a hip-hop artist/producer/owner who grew up in Grand Rapids?

No hip-hop that I know of but it could be El Debarge and Meatloaf. God knows they stuck it huge in the music world. Maybe they want to give back................. :rofl:

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Well just the fact that Belkin owned an NBA team puts him in the same circles with RDV. This guy in the paper, Don Hunt, worked a lot with DPFox.

Belkin the money man, unknown record company owner being the main tenant.

Communique with Amway to upgrade the Marriott to JW status.

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

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Posted

Theres a local interest but below the head of the two families. There seems to be a social slant to this because the younger children, some of which don't share the views of most politicos around Metro GR planted themselves in Atlanta,???

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NorthEnder Hamlet

NorthEnder

Posted
Posted

Well just the fact that Belkin owned an NBA team puts him in the same circles with RDV. This guy in the paper, Don Hunt, worked a lot with DPFox.

Belkin the money man, unknown record company owner being the main tenant.

Communique with Amway to upgrade the Marriott to JW status.

Belkin lost out on his NBA dream to Robert Johnson, late in 2002..... Belkin could of at that point decided to attack Johnson's industry, music and the BET network. ? :blink:

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MJLO City

MJLO

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Posted

Has anyone given consideration, that maybe the person, persons behind this don't have connections to GR? This is a business deal, not all business deals are made with personal nostalgic feelings. It kinda makes me sad that most everyone here thinks, the only way we'd ever get something like this being considered for our town, is if the driving force behind it were from our city. Perhaps a major recording label is looking to shake it's image up, and in the process, save, and make some money, Since that's what's being in business is all about. Perhaps Grand Rapids, asside, from being business friendly, having alot of amenities, and accessible to two of the worlds largest cities, is also cheap. Maybe it's just what a company needs to reintroduce itself, and the way it does business, in the changing world economy, especially since EVERYTHING is going digital!

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Has anyone given consideration, that maybe the person, persons behind this don't have connections to GR? This is a business deal, not all business deals are made with personal nostalgic feelings. It kinda makes me sad that most everyone here thinks, the only way we'd ever get something like this being considered for our town, is if the driving force behind it were from our city. Perhaps a major recording label is looking to shake it's image up, and in the process, save, and make some money, Since that's what's being in business is all about. Perhaps Grand Rapids, asside, from being business friendly, having alot of amenities, and accessible to two of the worlds largest cities, is also cheap. Maybe it's just what a company needs to reintroduce itself, and the way it does business, in the changing world economy, especially since EVERYTHING is going digital!

I love your spirit MJLO, but I was basing it on this quote from Logie:

Former mayor John Logie said three representatives of a large recording studio visited his City Hall office about four years ago, asking to see possible sites for an urban music studio.

"One was from Los Angeles with connections here, and two guys were from Detroit," Logie said. "They talked about putting together some big operation."

Just sayin :D

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francishsu Hamlet

francishsu

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Remember when the comment was made that there is only one other like it?

Are there any other "music villages" in the country?

Didn't someone make the comment that GR would become to hip-hop (or something like that) what Nashville is to country? Is there something like this idea in Nashville?

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Hmmmm:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_MFqFy...us&ct=clnk&cd=5

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_iERa1...us&ct=clnk&cd=5

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5708045.html

I'm just following the search engine lead :whistling:

Didn't someone make the comment that GR would become to hip-hop (or something like that) what Nashville is to country? Is there something like this idea in Nashville?

Yah, it's called Nashville :rofl:

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