Never one to hold his tongue on issues like politricks, violence and poverty in the Black community, it is no surprise veteran, revolutionary rap commander Paris is sounding off on this historic 2008 Presidential Election. The Bay-area rabble rouser just released his latest ‘get free’ effort, entitled, Acid Reflex. on his indie label, Guerilla Funk Recordings. According to Paris, not only does the single, “Don’t Stop the Movement,” but the entire album serves as the soundtrack documenting this moment of change and transformation in the country. AllHipHop caught Paris in mid-grind to get a quick course in politics and Hip-Hop for those in need of a cheat sheet before hitting the voting polls this Tuesday.On the economic crisis and the absence of poor people from the conversation.“I think a lot of times when those conversations are taking place people assume poor people don’t have anything anyway. They’re not on anybody’s radar. They’re not homeowners. Nobody seems to care about renters. Poor people not applying for credit because they can’t get it so it’s like they’re vote is never taken seriously because oftentimes the assumptions is those voters are uneducated or not able to provide direction one way or another anyway. And, of course, politicians respond to money. Politicians respond to donors. Politicians respond to that which they think will be beneficial to their future. “A lot of what is enticing to people about Barack Obama is how his campaign is funded. It’s more of a grassroots approach. In reality he’s young, he’s vibrant, he’s handsome, he’s Black, he’s so completely different from what we’re used to and he’s different from what we equate to a politician, so people are energized.”Paris “Don’t Stop The Movement” Videofrom Acid Reflex On the bailout being corporate welfare, the government being gangsters and Obama being Elliot Ness.“[The bailout] is corporate welfare. We’re seeing institutions buying each other and instead of using money to help lenders we’re seeing it used to better position themselves in the corporate landscape. The money is already not being used for what it is intended for. It’s gonna be a bloodbath. Eight years of Republican rule, Republican congressional rule, it’s amazing to me to hear the GOP talk about they want limited government when they spent a trillion dollars on an illegal war and have proven time and time again to be fiscally irresponsible. “All of the problems that exist in America right now are the direct result of war profiteering, cronyism, no-bid contracts, a reduction of expenditures on social programs and government deregulation…The government is gangsters. It’s set up for a select group of individuals to be able to benefit at the expense of everybody else, and by definition, that’s what a gangster is… [Obama as Elliot Ness] It’s possible. It depends on who he surrounds himself with. We won’t really know until he gets in. He’s not gonna say anything that’s going to be contrary to what the status quo is right now. He can’t start talking about looking out for us before he gets in office. You know that.”On protest music in Hip-Hop and music’s influence on the community.“I know that in entertainment, especially in Hip-Hop, protest music is not heard at all.  I know it’s definitely not heard on a mass commercial level. And I know when I first started in music back in the early 90s, Hip-Hop had an entirely different sensibility. I came out in what people considered to be the golden era of Hip-Hop when it was me, Public Enemy, X Clan, Queen Latifah, BDP, early Ice Cube, that wave of Afrocentricity back then. That no longer exists… so me coming to the table talking about current events, talking about the social conditions that exist within our community, that’s nothing new.“But a lot of people [are] disillusioned with what’s going on even though the people are talking about Obama, oftentimes, they feel like politics never speak to them, no matter who it is. A lot of people feel that way, a lot of people feel as though participating doesn’t make that really big of a difference and I see where they’re coming from, especially when you’ve been beat down repeatedly over the years… But I know the power that music has and I know the influence that musicians have over young people because it speaks to us the way that teachers and politicians and a lot of times our parents don’t. “I always say many teenagers know the words to a lot of these songs that’s out – they know them verbatim. They spit the lyrics to anything because entertainment speaks to them. When entertainment is laced with messages that’s positive it has an effect that’s positive. When entertainment is laced with negative messages then it has a negative effect. That’s just the cold hard reality…” On foreign relations and Hip-Hop.“I was looking at a story the other day about a store in Africa. The name of the store was called the N*****s store and a black African ran it and it sold Hip-Hop paraphernalia. So connect the dots and understand why they call it that and why they choose to identify with that word that way and choose to identify themselves that way. That’s a prime example [of] the negativity Hip-Hop can have. You gotta black African in an area with all Black people and still identify with that word. That’s hard to take.”

“It’s worthy to note that America [hasn’t] made arms to war with a white country but once since WWII. Every other country we’ve fought from Panama, Grenada, to Iraq to Nicaragua, to El Salvador to Mozambique, [are people of color]…it’s no wonder why we’re hated by the world.”

On the candidates mending relationships around the world.“With McCain, there’s nothing I can really tell him. He’s already on the trajectory of continuing the agenda of the previous eight years. With regards to Obama there’s really nowhere else to go but up. We’re ridiculed on the world stage. We’re hated by all other countries that’s not our allies. We’re known for having a legacy of brutality and violence that more often than not with people of color. In fact, it’s worthy to note that America [hasn’t] made arms to war with a white country but once since WWII. Every other country we’ve fought from Panama, Grenada, to Iraq to Nicaragua, to El Salvador to Mozambique, [are people of color], so you look at that legacy of violence and it’s no wonder why we’re hated by the world.”On advising the President of issues to address Day One in office.“Well, definitely step up the focus of education in our community. That really is the great equalizer. And that is the one thing that I know that can improve everybody’s condition. A lot of times especially young people get caught up on entertainment, thinking that rapping or playing ball can improve their condition and get them out of the hood, whatever.“The one thing a lot of people can do is get an education. One thing everybody can participate in is improving themselves. So the first thing I’ll tell Barack is to step up the focus on it. Education is one thing that’s needed. Another is some kind of program funded to initiated violence prevention… We know the violence is out of control. We can take any Black neighborhood and the story is always the same—it’s always impoverishment, lack of economic opportunity, disenfranchisement, poor schools, it’s always a lack of unity. So education, violence prevention and job training.” Need money for school and/or housing expenses? There are three tickets, each worth $10K, randomly placed in Paris’ new CD, Acid Reflex. For more information about Paris, log onto: www.guerrillafunk.com or www.myspace.com/guerrillaparis. FOR FULL ALLHIPHOP ELECTION COVERAGE CLICK HERE!

As time has gone by, our music has sadly become more about portraying a role than first-rate lyricism and wordplay. Rappers continuously brag about being super gangsters but wouldn’t pop off a cap gun. We get hit with a tsunami of bars about ice but the jewels? Rented. Then you have dudes claiming they’re drug kingpins but have no one in the street vouching for the work they have put in. Point blank, it is rare to find individuals who really live and breathe all the big talk in the recording booth. Consider Bleu Davinci an exception to this trend. As part of the infamous Black Mafia Family (B.M.F.), Bleu would be the marquee artist on the legit B.M.F. Entertainment. But behind the music was a multi million dollar criminal organization. B.M.F. would notoriously flaunt their wealth with fleets of luxury automobiles, lavish homes, and extravagant diamond pieces. But sooner or later all good things come to end. Within the span of the last two years, B.M.F. members, including boss Demetrius “Meech” Flenory, would be arrested on drug charges, while Bleu Davinci would be arrested on conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Much has been said about Bleu’s affiliation with the Black Mafia family, whether it be scoop seeking reporters, brothers chopping it up in the barbershop or the Alphabet Boys building their case against the organization. With that in mind, and fresh off being sented to a five year bid, who better to speak on Bleu DaVinci’s situation than Bleu himself? In this AllHipHop exclusive interview we ask the questions everyone has been whispering about like his relatively light sentence, homeys turned rats and the future of B.M.F. After all, the streets is talking. AllHipHop.com: You recently got sentenced to five years for possession and intent to distribute cocaine. Some of the other B.M.F. members got hit with way more time and the streets are trying to put the snitch jacket on you.Bleu DaVinci: Check this out so everyone can have a clear understanding of how this works. First of all a conspiracy with intent to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine holds a minimum mandatory of ten years to life in prison. That’s what I was up against. How this works is like this, I don’t have a criminal history at all. My criminal history is at the age of seventeen. In California I’m still a minor at the age of seventeen. Only adult criminal history counts in the federal court system.How this works it goes off a grid. It’s a grid that goes across and it goes down, like any other grid. Across is criminal history category and down is the offense level. Now across I’m a zero to one, it goes up to twelve or thirteen or some s**t. I’m reading off the government paperwork right now. They hit me with time for more than one hundred and fifty kilograms of cocaine right. So what that does is got me at zero to one for criminal history and that starts my offense level at thirty eight which hold like two hundred and thirty months. That’s what I was actually facing in the beginning, right. Now they got something called safety valves that enable the judge to rule under your mandatory minimum. The only way you can get a safety valve is to not have a criminal history. So I was eligible for a safety valve. The prosecutor didn’t put me in the leadership role; they gave me a minor position. So that automatically adjusted me four levels down from thirty eight to thirty four. So when you admit to guilt inside a plea you automatically get a three point reduction for not taking them to trial and all that, so that takes me to a thirty one. And the safety valve also gives you two more points adjusted downwards so [that] put me at a twenty nine. What they tried to do is enhance me with a possession of a firearm and that was the only thing I had to argue when I went to court. The probation department gets your whole life in a nutshell and tells the judge how much time you should get. They recommended my sentence to be eighty-four months, which is seven years. So when I went into court I was facing seven to nine years, because the prosecution wanted me to do nine years. So when I went in there, unlike a lot of other people I had a background in entertainment. My papers show that my life has been in entertainment even from being a couple months old doing a Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo commercial. That showed the judge that I was doing other s**t besides f***ing with drugs.The prosecution was trying to use a common sense law that you need a gun to protect drugs and they were trying to put an invisible gun on me. So me and my lawyers, we beat that. So at the end of the day they ruled in my favor and that’s how I got the sixty four months. Bleu DaVinci “Work” VideoAllHipHop.com: With everyone on your team getting hit with football numbers, did you feel copping out was your best move?Bleu DaVinci: Nah, it’s like this. A lot of dudes don’t know about the law. I really didn’t know how all this s**t worked beforehand. But once I got in the mix and got to understand how the law works; in the feds it works different in the states. How this works it’s like this; if two people say you did something, you going to get convicted when you get to trial, period. They can lie just to get their time cut or whatever. All they need is two people and in our case they had like I would say at least fifteen to sixteen people that I’ve seen in my paperwork that was telling on all kind of n****s, not just me. That’s what made me pull out. I had two attorneys, they let me know, “Yo there’s no winning this at trial. There’s too many people taking the stand on you.” AllHipHop.com: When was it clear to you the feds were really watching?Bleu DaVinci: S**t, October 2005; when they picked Meech up. It didn’t get real until it was real. It was all speculation until they started picking n****s up and charging n****s with stuff. AllHipHop.com: Have you spoken to Meech?Bleu DaVinci: Yeah I talked to him through a couple letters and stuff like that. AllHipHop.com: How is he doing; is he holding his head?Bleu Davinci: He’s good, he’s holding his head like me. He took the responsibility for his actions and took it like a man. That’s all he knows what to do. AllHipHop.com: Ironically a lot of B.M.F. members and associates flipped and turned informants.Bleu DaVinci: See people got to understand we had us a crew as far me and Meech and our people. His brother T [Terry “Southwest T” Flenory] had a crew. At the end of the day, they really wasn’t claiming B.M.F. at the end. Just to clear that up, T didn’t have anything to do with B.M.F. Entertainment. They had switched up and did their own thing at the end and went their own way. The brothers kind of fell out at a certain point in time; it was basically like two crews. They were doing their thing and we were doing our thing. My crew didn’t say anything, my crew is solid. We all took the time. It was middleman n****s, n****s that weren’t a part of the crew that started telling. This n**** named William Marshall, he did ninety five percent of the telling. All kinds of s**t and that’s where the problems came from.AllHipHop.com: That’s the dude that’s called Doc right?Bleu DaVinci: Yeah, Doc.AllHipHop.com: So what you’re saying is that Doc ran with T’s crew?Bleu DaVinci: I mean like him, I really don’t know that n****’s get down. He was just a middle n***a, I can’t even say he was part of their crew. He was really doing his own thing. He had his own crew of n****s and he told all kinds of crazy s**t; a bunch of lies. Once he had them people [feds], he was just getting his time cut and cut and cut. He was saying all types of s**t. AllHipHop.com: Can you comment on Fleming Daniels and Ralp “Ralphie” Simms. It’s been reported that they both flipped as well.Bleu DaVinci: Nah, Fleming didn’t flip. He just took his time. We got to clear that up. As far as I’m concerned, I got boxes of paperwork and his name didn’t come up in any paperwork saying he told anything. But Ralphie, he told some s**t of whatever he was witnessing. But as far as I’m concerned right now, until I get some paperwork that shows me he said something, Fleming Daniels didn’t tell. AllHipHop.com: One part of the story that came out of nowhere was Jacob The Jeweler’s involvement with some money laundering. What’s your commentary on that?Bleu DaVinci: I really don’t have much to say about that. You know, as far as I’m concerned Jacob is straight. I don’t have any paperwork that said he was talking about nothing. I really wasn’t clear on that whole situation. AllHipHop.com: During the trial an informant pointed to Young Jeezy as receiving cocaine from B.M.F.Bleu DaVinci: As far as I’m concerned Jeezy a rapper man. You know I met Jeezy in Magic City. Some of my dudes was like, “Yo dude be spitting, we should f*** with him.” We f***ed with him and that’s where our relationship stood. I never passed him any work. I’ve never seen him on no blocks pitching no bricks or none of that. Me and Jeezy as far we go was the studio and messing with some females. AllHipHop.com: Before Pimp C died, he made this statement about B.M.F.:

“Everybody was down and everything was cool with B.M.F. before they got busted. Everybody wanted to be down with the plan until they got busted. Then when it went sour, nobody wanted to fly the flag no more. If you was Black Mafia Family in the street when they were spending all that money in the strip clubs, you need to be Black Mafia Family right now when everyone getting indicted.”

The general consensus was that he was referring to Young Jeezy. From your vantage point, what did you see?Bleu DaVinci: Jeezy, I’m not going to say he stopped screaming B.M.F., he still say Meech name here and there. He still make comments but you know a lot of n****s do choke up when it’s crunch time, know what I’m saying? A lot of n****s don’t want to accept the responsibilities that come with what n****s is rolling with. And you know as well as I know those label executives don’t be trying to hear that s**t. If a n***a making money for them, they going to tell a n***a to separate himself. I just kind of look at it like that. At the end of the day, a n***a might have felt like he had to do what he had to do to stay on track to do what he was doing. Not saying I agree with it, because I would never do that. I would have to tell those label executives to suck my d**k and do what ya’ll got to do because this is what makes me me. That’s what I would do personally. I’m not knocking Jeezy, but I wouldn’t have done it the same way. I would have screamed B.M.F. harder just like I did when n****s got picked up. Once n****s picked Meech up, I went on nationwide tour with a big bus and all the t shirts and the whole s**t. AllHipHop.com: Where do you stand currently with Fabolous. He was running with B.M.F. as well. Bleu DaVinci: Fab is my n***a. He’s a straight up hundred percent real stand up n***a; my n****s in the street run into him and he still f*** with us like that. He just got done shouting out Meech in one of those new records. AllHipHop.com: While B.M.F. was still out on the town, did you ever think you guys were overdoing it with all the money, jewelry and automobiles. That did seem to bring your organization a lot of unnecessary attention. Bleu DaVinci: Nah, there’s no such thing. We did us. I never thought that. I had thoughts that maybe one day we wouldn’t be able to do it like that for a minute and that’s what I’m going through right now. But when I get right back I’ll be going right back to flossing in a hundred percent positive legal way. You know what it is. You going to floss with your check from AllHipHop, feel me? I’m going to floss no matter what I have. I know how to generate money. They never said Blue Davinci never ever made any money in entertainment. It never came up once in trial. A lot of people never mentioned that it was proven that we were making money from entertainment. Let me point this out. This is my first interview since I’ve been down for a whole year. You know I had get at ya’ll first. A lot of these n****s that are talking all this s**t about me are squares and don’t know. I’ve heard all types of crazy s**t about me telling and snitching. I’m going to tell you who told, William Marshall. He was facing seventy years now he going to do a couple of months or some dumb s**t like that. Snitching gets n****s out of jail. AllHipHop.com: Speaking of getting reduced sentences, T.I. caught some crazy gun charges last year and was facing heavy time. His sentence got reduced to a year and some community services and the whispers commenced. Blue DaVinci: With a criminal history at that. First of all people don’t understand, the government got the control. I don’t believe T.I. told s**t because I know how these people work. T.I. sold a couple of million records. They look at it as this; they can use T.I. as an advocate to speak to these kids that’s coming up. These kids are looking up to T.I., it would be more beneficial and would save the economy more money to have T.I. tell all these kids leave the guns alone than locking that one man up and spending thirty two thousand a year housing him. Feel me?AllHipHop.com: I ask because T.I. just started doing some public service announcements about helping to solve crimes and some individuals, like Mysonne, feel that’s helping the police. Bleu DaVinci: I just consider it that’s what he has to do. See, when you sign these plea deals and s**t like that, they making him do that. It’s not like he woke up one day and called the police like, “Yo I want to do a video for ya’ll.” Nah, they making that man do that s**t. It’s either that or we going to redo your plea deal. He has to do a lot of hours of community service, he didn’t jump up and say he wanted to do that either. But to not go do fifteen years and throw his career away and take all this good music away from all the loyal fans that love him, he has to do certain s**t. I don’t look at that as T.I. f***ing up. He ain’t talking to the thugs and the gangsters, he’s talking to the kids and the civilians. I don’t want people to be getting shot, I want our people to go to school and do well and become doctors. [Automated voice: “You have one minute remaining”]AllHipHop.com: The time on the jack is almost done, anything else you want to hit us with?Bleu DaVinci: I got hit with five years and four months with no criminal history and a minor role. I’m probably going to be two years to the halfway house because I got a year here already served and I got the drug program for smoking all that weed. The judge gave me the drug program that gives you a year off the offense and six months to the halfway house. So I already got two and a half years in on a sentence of five years and four months. So I’m going to be out real soon handling my business. Also shouts to all my n****s on the street, I got my n**** D from the ATL in here, a gang of ATL dudes. I got Smurf out of Baltimore. I got dudes in here from LA, Chicago, New York…[Phone cuts off]