JOHm:
DAY, JULY 6, 2006
James Muhammad has inked a major deal with St. Martin’s Press to produce 20 urban fiction novels, including one
of his own.
Publishing Dynasty
Charlotte entrepreneur branches out with major book deal
By Cheris F. Hodges
cheris.hodges®(hechartoffeposf.com
Dynasty Bookstore owner James
Miahammad is running a publishing
empire in a comer of Eastland MaU.
Muhammad had run his bookstore
for 10 years and 2 of A Kind Publish
ing for about five years. Now Muham
mad and author Shannon Holmes
have launched Dynasty Publishing.
The imprint will be distributed by
St- Martin’s Press with tiie first book,
“Coimtry Boy,” to be released in'
Novemb^.
While 2 of A Kind publishes books
that range finm erotica to urban fic
tion, Dynasty Publishing wOl focus
strictly on urban or street literature.
St. Martin’s Press has signed on to
distribute 20 titles fi-om Dynasty
Muhammad said eight books are
ready to go and he’s looking for writ-
“We’re looking for creativity,” he
said. ‘We don’t want the same girl and
boy falls in love, boy sells drugs and
gets locked up. That story’s been told.”
Muhammad knows how to sell
books. Ihs first title, “Little Ghetto
Girl” sold over 120,000 copies and was
an Essence best seller for three
months. Larger publishers were so
impressed, they came looking for
Muhammad and author Danielle San
tiago.
“After the success of ‘little Ghetto
Girl’ (Simon ^d Schuster)
approached us with a deal to see if
they could buy her out of her con
tract,” he said. “That was our first'
time dealing with a major (company).
That got me into the avenue of luider-
standing taking my business into a
different avenue. Maybe like setting
up a farm league for these authors
that the majors were not interested in
signing because they didn’t know
what kind of volume these authors
could do.”
Sellir^ books independently can be
difficult, Muhammad said.
“^\^th independent publishing, there
are only about four megor channels to
get your books out there,” he said, cit
ing Baker and Tajdor, and Ingram
Books as the largest distributors.
“There are only about two or three
black distributors out there.”
Once bigger houses saw the number
of books Muhammad’s company sold,
he said they wanted to talk.
But Muliammad didn’t want to give
up everything by signing with a large
pubhsher. He wanted to make sure
authors kept the rights to their wco-k.
Rease see DYNASTY/2D
Bearden, Oubre highlight Mint Museum art exhibit
By Sandy Seawright
FOR THE CHARLOTTE POST
Mint Museum of Art
2730 Randolph Rd.
A very fresh exhibit is
What’s New - 2005” - an
exhibit of artwork given to
the NBnt Museum of Art by
generous donors'
in 2005-
Of great inter
est here are four black and
white photographs of the
Charlotte native and great
collage artist Romare Bear
den taken in 1980 when
Bearden had a retrospective
exhibit at The Mint by pho
tographer Frank Stewart,
who was bom in 1947.
One of the photos is a very
large vertical portrait of
Bearden devdoped with an
inlget Process. This image
clearly depicts Bearden’s dig
nity
In a second photograph,
Bearden is showing art by
another artist to three
black girls and a black boy
In this shot we see Bearden’s
quiet reverence
toward • artwork. Also
revealing and enlightening
for all who visit the
Bearden gallery in The
Mint is the photo, “Romare
Bearden - Long Island Stu
dio.”
'The surface of the artist’s
work table is well used and
covered in Bearden’s art sup
plies. Overlooking the work
table is a large photograph of
perhaps his grandparents.
And full of joy is a shot of
Bearden at the opening of his
retrospective.
And etchii^ of the Wool-
worth Building done in dry-
point by American James
PenneU (1860-1926) is of
interest because Pennell was
influenced by James McNeil
Whistler (1834-1903). PenneU
loved to create art about New
York City and said, “It’s the
most marvelous and endless
subject on the face of the
earth.
There is great variety in
these art donations. Stunning
is a 16lh Century brass door
knocker by an tmknown
Venetian artisian. And
another showstopper is
Donna Craven’s stoneware
“Lidden Jar” which is about
three feet high and tastefully
striped in two different brown
values.
Makir^ us think a bit of
Pablo Picasso is the 1948
“Self Portrait” of intriguir^
black artbt Hayward Louis
Oubre Jr. Oubre first studied
at Clark Atlanta University
and was the third Afiican-
American artist to earn a
Master of Fine Arts degree at
the University of Iowa, where
he studied with Thomas Hart
Benton.
Oubre’s self-portrait is com
posed of firee flowing fines
forming wide eyes Jhat border
on surreafism.
Three pieces of soft paste
porcelain finm Derby Eng
land are dainty fantasy crea
tures of pastel-colored flow
ers. A waU label indicates
that the holes in the pieces
Rease see MINT/2D
After a year off air, Delai resurfaces at WQNC radio
By Cheris F. Hodges
cOeris.hocfges'4''/hecnortoffeposf.cofT)
He’s back to put Jaye in
your mid-day
Radio host Jaye Delai has a
new show on WQNC-92.7, fol
lowing the man he’d original
ly came to Charlotte to beat-
Tbm Joyner.
“When one door closed, it
took me, a while and it took
my father really drilling it in
my head, sayir^ ‘son, nobody
can steal your blessings and
you can’t take nobody elses,”
MOVIE REVIEW
he said.
His father, Rick lioberts, is
also a radio man.
Sitting in the
Q 92 studio,
Delai spends
commercial
breaks fielding
calls from hs-
teners welcom
ing him back to
Charlotte-at
least the air waves.
‘You have no idea what it’s
fike when people accept you
Delai
as part of their lives and
when you’re gone they miss
that,” he said.
After a year of hosting his
own morning show on WBAV
101,9, Delai was released
fiom his five year contract
with the CBS station.
It’s been about a year since,
he’s been on the air. Delai said
he needed that time to be
with his family and see what
he could do without radio. He
started his own voice over
company, but he’s a radio
“I got a call, ‘Let’s get togeth
er for limch,”’ he said. “They
actually told me that they
wanted to call me back then,
but they had some other stuff
going on.”
Delai said timing and grace
brought him back to the air
waves in Charlotte. During
his time away fium the micro
phone, Delai said he’d
received offers finm other sta
tions but he didn’t want to
leave Charlotte.
‘T had given everything I
could to my community 1,000
percent of what I was doing
and I honestly felt fike I was
angry God, why? 'They say
you get back out of the uni
verse what you put in, why?”
he said, saying that he need
ed to go though the anger to
find his way back,
‘T had to know that without
radio, I could be very very
successful and do things for
myself,” he said.
Rease see DELAI /2D
New Man of Steel revives franehise in ‘Superman Returns’
By Cheris F. Hodges
crieris.Ooc/ges®)hechorfoWepos(.com
“Superman Returns” has
sir^le-handedly returned the
fi'anchise to its 197ps glory
If you haven’t seen the box
office blockbuster, what are
you waiting on?
The movie begins and'for
gets about Superman HI and
IV, which is a good thing. The
Man of Steel I'etums after a
five-yeai' absence fiom Earth.
He’d thou^t that parts of
Krypton had been found. As it
turned out, the place was a
graveyard.
Back on
Earth, Lois'
Lane i
angry and
heartbroken that
Superman left with
out saying goodbye. If
you remember, Lois and
Supes had a thing goir^ on.
She wrote a Pulitzer Prize-
•winning artide titled “Why .
the World Doesn’t Need
Superman.” She’s engaged to
Richard White, son
of the Daily Plan-
let’s editor and
she has a son, who
she doesn’t mind
dragging aroimd on
dangerous assignments.
Oh, and the kid is about
five years old.
Now, Superman isn’t Super
man if he doesn’t have some
evil-doer to fight. Enter Ler
Luthor, who’s been released
Sum prison because Super
man kind of ignored his sub
poena to show up and testify
How would anyone know his
address anyway? But I
digress. Lex, played brilliant
ly by Kevin Spacey is just as
evil as ever and won’t hesitate
to swindle an old lady out of
her money break into Super
man’s Portress of Solitude or
hold Lois hostage.
JLex uses secrets from
Superrnan’s. world to create
new land and take over the
world.
It seems that he got a lot
further with his scheme
because Superman was too
busy trying to get Lois back.
Even if the story is a little
weak, “Superman Returns” is
still worth seeing. Newcomer
Brandon Routh plays Clark
Kent brilliantly and there are
Rease see SUPERMAN/2D
Huey Freeman stirs trouble
and debate in “The Boon-
docks” which will be avail
able on DVD this month.
July’s
hot for
releases
For those of you mad at me
for getting the “Boondocks”
release date wrong, retract
your fangs and redirect your
anger towards Sony It made
the decision to move the
release date.
That date is now firmly set
for July 25. Yes, that’s also
the same day that “Pinky &
The Brain,” “Anamaniacs”
and Dave Chappelle’s “Lost
Episodes” hit stores. Start
saving your
pennies. All of
these sets will
be worth hav
ing.
Be warned.
“The Boon-
docks” will be Cosby
unedited and
uncensored, which may be a
scary thing. Remember
Granddad doir^ nude aero
bics or the hi^e guy in the '
shower finm “A \^t Prom
The Health Inspector?”
Someone may get a thrill. I
wouldn’t ad'vise showing this
set to anyone under 13.
On August 22, “The Bill
Cosby Show” debuts on DVD.
No, not the show with Cosby
as Cliff Huxtable. “The Bill
Cosby Show”’ debuted on CBS
in 1969 with Cosby as Chet
Atkins, a good-natured gym
teacher. He was always good
for advice but usually found
himself getting involved in
situations he wanted to
avoid. I remember it being
very funny and it had no
laugh track. My favorite
episode was Cosby dealing
with a kid who cussed fike a
sailor. When he called his
mom in for a confei'ence, the
boy’s mother cussed fike two
sailors. It’s a five-disc set with
26 episodes that should
please any Cosby fan.
On the same day “House”
releases its second season.
■ Hugh Laurie is brilliant as
the offbeat doctor who solves
medical mysteries with
imconventional flair. Omar
Epps is very good as Dr. Fore
man who has been gettii^
more screen time.
But back to July One of my
favorite weird shows, “The
Adventures Of Briscoe Coun
ty Jr.” hits shelves. Fox ran
this series fiom 1993-94 to
less than stellar viewership.
It was a Western with ele
ments of fantasy which
included time travel, ghosts,
magic, and sci-fi. B-movie
star Bruce Campbell starred
as the Harvard-educated
County Julius Carry (Sho’
Nuff fiom “Berry GordYs The
Last Dragon”) plays his side-
kick. It was innovative and
well put together, but it was
Ihe early days ofFox, before it
got the NFL and right after it
pimped Negroes by dropping
all those black-themed
shows.
“JAG,” “Smallville,” “Veron
ica Mars,” and volume one of
season one for “Perry Mason”
round out major television
show releases through Sep
tember,
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