Spoonie Gee

Gabriel Jackson (born. 1963), better known by his stage name Spoonie Gee is one of the earliest rap artists, and one of the few rap artists to release records in the 1970s. He has been credited with originating the term hip hop and some of the themes in his music were precursors of gangsta rap.

Career

Jackson was born in Harlem, New York City, receiving his 'Spoonie' nickname as a child because the spoon was the only utensil that he used to eat with. His mother died when he was twelve years old, and he went to live with his uncle, the record producer Bobby Robinson, in whose apartment he began to practice rapping.

His first recording came about after Peter Brown visited Robinson's record store and mentioned that he was looking to make a rap record. Spoonie's name was suggested, and he recorded "Spoonin' Rap", which was released on Brown's Sound Of New York, USA imprint, featuring a lyric that included jailhouse references that would later become common in Gangsta rap, and with echo applied to vocals in a similar way to many Jamaican deejay records. Spoonie Gee has been described as "the original gangster rapper".

Contract killing

Contract killing is a form of murder in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two or more parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be a person, group, or an organization.

Throughout history, contract killing has been associated with organized crime and with vendettas. For example, in recent United States history, the gang Murder, Inc. committed hundreds of murders on behalf of the National Crime Syndicate.

Contract killing provides the hiring party with the advantage of not having to commit the actual killing, making it more difficult to connect said party with the murder. The likelihood the authorities will establish that party's guilt for the committed crime, especially due to lack of forensic evidence linked to the contracting party, makes the case more difficult to solve in many instances.

It is also often used by a person who do not have the fortitude to carry out the killing themselves, such as a spouse contracting the murder of their partner.

Hit Man (U.S. game show)

Hit Man is an American television game show that ran from January 3 to April 1, 1983, on NBC. Peter Tomarken hosted this Jay Wolpert production in association with Metromedia Video Productions, while Rod Roddy was the announcer.

Gameplay

Four contestants competed on each episode of Hit Man in a memory-based quiz game. One was either a returning champion or champion-designate, with the other three contestants competing for the right to face the champion in the second round. The surviving contestant at the end of two rounds of play played the Triple Crown bonus round for $10,000.

Round 1

Each game of Hit Man began with the three challengers, who were sitting behind desks colored blue, yellow, and green, viewing a short film narrated by Tomarken. Film topics varied widely and included biographies, the "making-of" specific films, professions, hobbies, etc. The film was also shown to the returning champion offstage, since the subject matter would later come up in the Triple Crown if he/she advanced to the round.

Hit Man (film)

Hit Man is a 1972 American crime film directed by George Armitage and starring Bernie Casey, Pam Grier and Lisa Moore. It is based on the Ted Lewis novel Jack's Return Home, more famously adapted as Get Carter, with the action relocated from England to the United States.

Plot

Oakland hitman Tyrone Tackett (Bernie Casey) comes home to southern California for the funeral of his brother Cornell. Cornell left behind his wild daughter Rochelle (Candy All), who rejects Tyrone's offer to live with him. Tyrone befriends his late brother’s business partner, Sherwood Epps (Sam Laws), and stays in town to investigate his brother's death. He is threatened by gangsters who tell him to leave town, but they've threatened the wrong man.

Cast

Production

George Armitage says he never saw Get Carter before making the film. He says Gene Corman gave him a copy of the script with no title and said MGM owned it. Armitage rewrote it to be set in the African American community, and only then did his agent tell him it was Get Carter. Armitage: