U News: U Music Widget Debuts

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 01-05-09: U People LLC and iLoveUPeople.com debut a new and fun online music delivery service called U Music Drops. It is similar in concept to ITUNES Song of the Week except with a fun and addictive twist and geared towards a niche market of music.

The site iLoveUPeople.com was created to support the first rockumentary of its kind entitled U People, to debut on LOGO Feb. 7, 2009. The film supported a soundtrack and music video Do You Mind also featured on LOGO’s New Now Next in 2008. The rockumentary and soundtrack gave way to a growing niche market of fans within both the queer and of color communities. These communities were hungry for new voices in independent music. In 2008 U People introduced the U People Download Music Mix Card to an overwhelming response.

U People realized the hunger had no end and developed with sproutbuilder.com the U Music Drops widget. This exquisite little widget not only delivers original music by independent artists, but short 10 minute conceptual mixes by DJs. Not only does the widget deliver new and exciting music weekly it delivers it in a fun and addictive manner. Every Monday at noon the widget counts down to zero from 7 days prior and then changes its tune and face (skin). At that point the 7 day countdown begins again and viewers have 7 days to download for free the song or mix of the week.

The U Music Drops (right here in….) debuts itself with a 3 part DJ mix series called Born Again American created by Hanifah Walidah co-director/producer of U People. It is a provocative and spiritually excavating house music meditation on a new era of politics and people. Get your U People Drops widget and don’t laugh if you find yourself at work staring at the screen just before lunch for the next and best in independent U Music to drop!

News: Jury Award at Image+Nation Montreal

U PEOPLE 12/10/08:   U PEOPLE was awarded the 2008 Jury Prize for Best Documentary at Montreal’s premiere LGBT Film Festival IMAGE+NATION. We could not make it out to Montreal to support the film, but it seems the film was fine without us. We hope this is the beginning of more awards to come to which we feel the film deserves.The Montreal Jury Prize is actually the second award presented to U People. It won Best Doumentary at this years Queer Black Cinema Film Festival in NY in October.

News: U People TV Premiere on LOGO

U PEOPLE TV DEBUT ON LOGO!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2009 8PM EST

U People just signed a licensing deal with LOGO Networks to debut the film February 7, 2009 8pm EST. U People will be apart of their LGBT documentary series Reel Momentum. U People had established a relationship with LOGO from the first music video Make a Move with was the ccatalyst to making U People. The relationship grew with the debut of a second music video that supported the film “Do You Mind”  appearing on New Now Next this past September 2009. Do You Mond can now be seen on LOGO on Demand. U People LLC looks to develop its relationship with LOGO as time progresses.

Olive and Hanifah would like to thank everyone who bought Music Mix Download Cards, and donated towards the success of the film and the movement. We would like to thank our Fiscal Sponsor Women Make Movies, Open Meadows and other private funders. We would also like to thank all the musicians who donated their music to the soundtrack, all the folks who were at the brownstone April 8th and 9th of 2006 for whom there would be no film. There is more the come and I’m happy to announce that this milestone is just the beginning.

U PEOPLE HOME MOVE DEBUT PARTIES

We would like to celebrate this milestone in the film’s history with those who have supported the film from the beginning. We want everyone gathered around the TV to share in the experience of this amazing movie’s national television debut. If you are a U People fan and want to share the movie with others on February 7th then read the following. Setting up your own U People Home Movie Debut Party is simple.

1. Find a home that is open to having a gathering and also has the LOGO Network. That may be your home or a friends. Keep it in the family. We are not asking you to pack your house with the neighborhood. 5-10 friends max or whatever number you feel can fit in your livingroom comfortably.

2. Start sending Evites or emails out to folks and a few reminders as we get closer to Feb. 7th.

3. In January, we will be debut our new NING community , forum site where you an announce  your U People party/group in your area and begin to strengthen your community. More info to come.

4. You and your friends can then join Olive and Hanifah live online after the debut. You and your friends can call into the show and scream with us!! We will also be posting a U People conversational guide towards the end of January which you can use to spark conversation after the movie.

6. As the host of your own U People Party you are eligible to win the U People collectors edition DVD that will go on sale in February 2009. More info to come.

That’s is. Real simple and alot of fun.

Do You Mind Feedback

Thank you checking out the new music video from Hanifah Walidah off of the U People Documentary Soundtrack. This video much like Make A Move is making history in the most sexist means possible. We attempted to not just make it hot but make it true to the nuances that a couple (any couple) can share. And to again specifically focus on women of color when it is women of color behind and in front of the camera.

We invite you here to give us feedback about the new video and our new site.

Lets talk about how it moved you or didn’t move you. Let’s talk about sex, love, lesbian love, Black love and how they are the all in the same. What does this video, if anything, aid to visibility of queer and black women in the media? The questions and answers are yours to pose and comment.

Artist: Hanifah Walidah
Producer: Hanifah Walidah, Asli M. Dukan, Olive Demetrius
Director: Asli M. Dukan
Cinematographer: Olive Demetrius
Set Design: Olaronke Akinmowo
Editors: Asli M. Dukan, Olive Demetrius
Co-Starring: Ki Ki Hawkins

U PEOPLE at BAM in Brooklyn

Join us for a special screening of U People at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Only one show screening, be there.

Friday August 22nd at 6:50pm
Buy tickets and more info here

What’s new with U: 06.20.08

Hey People,

Olive and I are one month into making our new home and desperately need to do laundry. Sometimes when you are running around like a chicken with its beak bent you neglect the necessities in life. But while I sit here and watch loadzzz of laundry spin I thought I would of course get some work done. Because work always needs to be done here at the U People Camp.

Olive and I would like to introduce a news and updates section to www.iLoveUPeople.com. Sometimes we can’t say it all in our weekly podcast, changes happen more frequently than once a week and sometimes you just wanna read the skinny as oppose to watch it. This will allow us to focus more on what you like most about the U People Podcast and film…the people!

So U People News or U News (I don’t know, we haven’t thought a cute name for it yet really) is where we announce good news, changes to the site, upcoming guests on the show, and new original content we will be offering here at www.iLoveUPeople.com. And like always, we welcome your comments.

TAKING A WEEK OFF

There will be no U People Podcast this week. Olive and I are still settling the dust from June 12th. And with 3 festivals ahead of us, grants to hand in, planes to catch and my sumer tour around the corner; we figure something had to give for this week. A little breathing room or extra sleep never hurt anybody. I’m sure you all will understand. If not, check the video below.

But next week we return with a full wrap up of the June12th show along with guest Tika Milan (featured in the pic just below) from the film U People and the first black trans man to represent on mainstream tv in MTV’s I’m with Rolling Stone.

U PEOPLE COMES TO THE BAY

I will be flying out to the Bay this weekend to support U People as it screens at the San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I hope to see you all there. If you wanna shoot an email to a friend in the Bay to check it out, below is the info and you can use the pic just above as an email flyer (thank you in advance):

U PEOPLE
30 Women and Trans Folks of Color
2 Days
1 House and the Music

A LGBT Rockumentary
comes to the San Francisco Frameline Gay and Lesbian Film Festival

U People is a candid, funny and breathtaking look at what happened behind the scenes of a not so typical music video shoot. Hanifah Walidah’s Make a Move debuted on Logo in 2007 that for the first time pictured women of color in a witty, sexy and refreshing way in mainstream media. But what happened behind the camera will stand a testament to a generation. U People is an accidental rockumentary about us and our time.

Directed and produced by Hanifah Walidah and Olive Demetrius

SUNDAY, JUNE 22 4PM
VICTORIA THEATER
2961 16TH ST. (SF)
Buy Your Tickets at www.frameline.org

GO MAGAZINE LOVES U PEOPLE

We just receive a bit a press in Go Magazine. You can read the article here

TREAT YA SELF

Treat Ya Self was previously a section featured on the home page towards the bottom. We will now move it to be featured as its own post, much like this one placed towards the top with other new posts. In it we will publish events that we feel are worth your time and dime.

U TUNES

We will be featuring new artists in the U Tunes section, like poet Coochie Magic lady Christa Bell and hip hop artist Psalm One of Chicago. U tunes also features our new Musicane player where you can buy digital download of the U People soundtrack. You can also get your own Musicane player and place it on your facebook, myspace or blog. Now feel this, after signing up to Musicane for free, for every sale of the U People Soundtrack on your blog, you receive 5% of the sale. So as you support this movement, it supports you.

Its simple: Sign up to Musicane. Return to our player here at ww.iLoveUPeople.com or search for us on Musicane. Press “Share”, login and then copy the code provided. Where you paste that code and folks buy the downloads, you get hit off with a bit of love.

Ok, that is it for now people. We are planning a lot for 2008 and appreciate how you all continue to support what we do. Keep up the good work and so will we. See you all next week with a brand new episode of the U People Podcast.

Love,

Hanifah and Olive.

Continue to support U People and build your music collection with the U People Download Music Mix Card. For $20, you get a year’s worth of monthly mies by the the best women DJ’s spinning the best in women’s independent music. Learn more here.