Though such songs as “Distant Lover” and “Let’s Get It On” are still considered premiere blue light basement classics, and songs such as “Trouble Man” and “Hitchhike” are sure to make even the most rhythmically challenged want to get up and dance, it’s his socially conscious lyrics that still resonate with today’s generation, proving that pain, suffering, poverty and racial unrest are as American as apple pie.

Marvin’s music reflects the landscape of the late 1960s and early ’70s with a clarity that is as vivid as stepping into a painting that has come to life.

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As we continue to fight for justice for Rodney Stanberry, Trayvon Martin, Ramarley Graham and countless others who have fallen victim — whether by gunshots or the prison industrial complex — to the racism, inequality and violence that stand as cornerstones of the United States judicial and law enforcement systems,  what better time to ask: “What’s Going On?”

Inner City Blues/Make Me Wanna Holler

“What’s Going On?”


“Mercy, Mercy Me”


“Save The Children”


Tomorrow, April 2, as we celebrate Marvin’s birthday, let us all remember that there is rebirth from the ashes of struggle — but we must never give up the fight.

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Marvin Gaye III (pictured in cap) suffered kidney failure or renal failure, which was brought on by diabetes, two years ago.  Renal failure can be fatal within a few years of the initial failure if the patient does not receive a donor.

Now Gaye is making a plea for a kidney donor who is compatible with him and has gone on various social and media outlets seeking individuals who will give him the gift of life.

The 45-year-old musician, who was working on a debut album of his father’s legendary songs before he took ill, has family roots that stirred up quite a bit of scandal before he was conceived.  Reportedly Marvin Sr. and Anna had an age difference of 17 years, with Marvin Sr. being only 21 and Anna being 38 when they began dating back in 1961.  The pair eventually tied the knot three years later.

Unfortunately, the marriage hit the skids from the start.  Marvin was a rebel, who reportedly felt ostracized by the controlling Gordy family, so he refused to comply with a few of the clan’s priority demands, such as attending an artist-grooming school that his wife founded so that the company’s talent would know about social graces and how to properly conduct themselves publicly.

Marvin Sr.’s strict Seventh Day Adventist religious teachings also clashed with the Gordy clan’s more liberal approaches to life.  Rumor has it that the Gordy family actually arranged for Marvin to initially have a child with one of their younger relatives, Denise Gordy, who was 16 at the time, because Anna could not have children.
Marvin was reportedly hesitant at first, but according to the rumor, he was soon forced to comply by the ever-powerful in-laws.  Marvin Gaye III was born in November 17, 1965, and he was allegedly adopted by Anna not long after.  The couple continued to battle throughout their ensuing years together.  There were tons of infidelity rumors on both parts and whispers of violent arguments within the marriage.  The couple finally divorced in 1977, but not after a lengthy and nasty court battle.
Ironically, even after all of the turmoil that occurred in the couple’s ill-fated marriage, Anna and Marvin reportedly kept seeing each other romantically on and off until his untimely death in 1984.
The Gordy family has never revealed or confirmed any of the speculations surrounding the birth of Marvin Gaye III.
Now the younger Marvin has put out an urgent call for matching kidney donors who must meet certain criteria.  The donors cannot have hypertension, diabetes, heart conditions, be drug users, or have a family history of kidney problems or failure.  Marvin is also assuring any potential candidate that being a kidney donor will not adversely affect their health; many people have one kidney and don’t know it until an X-ray or an MRI shows it.

Present day kidney surgery simply involves removing the kidney through the belly button via laser. Kidney donation can be done with either a live or deceased person.
If you would like to donate one of your kidneys to Marvin Gaye III, please call his transplant coordinator, Jean Santos, at UCLA at (310) 794-3419, or you can also send an e-mail to kidneyforMarvin@yahoo.com.

What if LeBron James led the Miami Heat to an NBA championship next year, but during the course of the season he also killed 7 people in a hold up, exposed himself to a high school cheerleading team, hijacked and airplane and interrupted Taylor Swift as she received an Oscar.

Would this affect how we viewed his on-court performance?

Well, it’s using this logic that the best president ever becomes The Best President Ever.

He was the first President that I knew, elected during the year of my birth.

He completed JFK’s quest to put a man on the moon.

He opened up diplomatic relations to The People’s Republic of China.

He ended the Vietnam War.

As far as being The President was concerned, he was great!

But it’s when people get around to trying to judge the morals of others, that many judges found this man lacking. Yet many of the people that hated him the most vocally remained able to appreciate him up close.

“There is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human”, Hunter S. Thompson once wrote about this President. But even Thompson left impressed by this President’s knowledge of pro football.

This President killed The Black Panthers dead.

Shot Fred Hampton through the head.

Started the path that would lead to Bobby Seale becoming a professor (sometimes), Huey Newton becoming a junkie and Eldridge Cleaver, sadly, remaining himself.

But this President shot white kids too, as anybody that attended Kent State can attest.

He was an equal opportunity hater of young people.

He was the President during Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Gordon Parks’ Shaft, and James Baldwin’s No Name in the Street.

And as the Tea Party is to Barack Obama, the Democratic Party to him. He hated those people worse than the N-Words (which he used) or the original believers in the God of Abraham (which he feared and loathed).

So I almost can’t blame him for wanting to snoop around the Democratic offices in the Watergate Hotel and find out what those people were up to.

Richard Milhous Nixon wasn’t trying to lose.

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