Thug Life Army

Is Spike Lee's new Canada film inspired by hip-hop activist and rap radio host Deejay Ra? Not exactly, but Canada will see Spike Lee's official "Huey P. Newton" biography film arrive on home video shelves across the country Summer 2005, following months of discussions and planning between hip-hop activist Raoul S. Juneja (a.k.a. Deejay Ra) and acclaimed UrbanWorks/VenturaCanada imprint.

Juneja, recently hailed in Britain's EasternEyeUK magazine as "one of the leading music personalities on the North American scene," last made Canadian headlines alongside Spike Lee's name in mid-2003, when the rap radio host came under fire after attacking Maxim Magazine and actor Hank Azaria in a national Globe & Mail newspaper editorial and prime-time CHUM TV interview as propagators of "the current rage in popular prejudice - racism towards South Asians."

Referring to a Maxim "hin-don''t" cartoon brutalization of Mahatma Gandhi and Azaria's "brown-face" voice-over of The Simpsons ''Apu'' character as creating "the new millennium minstrel," Juneja urged study of Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" film amongst Indian and Pakistani Canadian youth as a way of understanding why "after years of humiliating people of African, Asian and even Native cultures, the American entertainment behemoth has turned on us."

Originally a NAACP awarded play produced in collaboration with former Black Panther Chief of Staff David Hilliard; written and performed by Roger Guenveur Smith off-Broadway throughout the 1990's; Spike Lee directed "Huey" with archived Panther footage as a PBS movie in 2001 (having already featured Smith as memorable characters in Lee's "Do The Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" films).

Please visit http://ahueypnewtonstory.com for more information on the Huey P. Newton Story.

Photo Credits: Photography courtesy of Luna Ray Films / Ventura Canada.