We interview politicians, activists, educators, and artists to inform and empower communities. Information
A Brief History of the CER Magazine: the Prequel to All Politics Are Local
The College Entertainment R***e (CER)
We were the first magazine to put Sean “Puffy” Combs on the cover. We were the first magazine to ever feature the Notorious B.I.G. We were the only magazine to get the inside scoo
p on the real reason Farrakhan planned The Million Man March. In the spring of 1991, Edward Riley was an accounting major at Essex County College in Newark, NJ. He took Accounting courses in the morning, and challenged a group of younger students to create their own voice in the afternoon.
“After my career as a successful middle-weight boxer, I promoted some comedy shows in Manhattan. When I went to Essex I saw a group of brothers and sisters trying to break into the entertainment and communications business, but nobody was opening the door.” Riley helped the students began the African-American Student Conscience Group Newsletter. The next time they printed 500. In six issues they were printing over 1000 copies of the newsletter. When Riley and his protégées Bashir Akinyele and Calvin Smith graduated from Essex County, they knew they had to go further. “I told them that we could create, fund and support our own voice. We just needed to do the research.”
Bashir Akinyele and Calvin Smith went on to attend to Seton Hall University. Deep in the stacks of Seton Hall University’s library they found old copies of the Negro Digest—the first magazine begun by Ebony and Jet publisher John H. Johnson. “We took so many of our ideas from that publication. The size (6”x 9”), the look, the content, and even the motivational messages on the back page, were all inspired by Mr. Johnson’s original vision.” The Negro Digest featured many of the thinkers and writers of the day, with an emphasis on exposing new and necessary voices to the nation’s marketplace of ideas. “That was exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to find new and different voices to expose and interpret the culture of our day.”
Riley knew Terry Williams of the Terry William’s Public Relations Agency through the Comedy and R & B groups he promoted. He called her up and asked to interview Matty Rich, the nineteen-year old director of the 1991 independent film, Straight Out of Brooklyn. “We had a college market and he was nineteen.” In three months, the first magazine published. It also featured an Al Sharpton interview promoting marches against police brutality, and a Tony Brown speech on why he became a Republican. At this time they also recruited recent college graduate and journalism instructor at Seton Hall University’s Upward Bound program, Jonathan A. Alston, to edit the magazine. Riley and the students took that issue everywhere. “We sold it door to door, at football games, and in just about every beauty parlor and barber shop in the New York and New Jersey area. We sold it on the on-ramps to major highways during rush hour. We even sold it on Harlem’s 125th Street.” CER Magazine was born. Riley pushed for alternative marketing. He was able to call on Ralph McDaniels from Video Music Box. Riley said, “We promoted a concert with EPMD, Chi Ali and Pete Rock and CL Smooth. We raised money for students to cover their book expenses.” Queen Latifah, Naughty by Nature and many other hot groups of the era came to show their love and support.
“We decided to not only do concerts, but educational forums.” CER in conjunction with Columbia University’s Black Student Union sponsored a forum on “The Business of Entertainment.” Hosted by WLIB talk show host Gary Byrd, the forum featured songwriter and producer James Mtume, Vibe magazine CEO Keith Klinkscales, East/West Records executive Karen Mason and ABC News correspondent Lee Thomas. When CER was not busy with intensive marketing, they were busy editing and laying out the magazine in all night and all day sessions in the computer labs of Seton Hall’s Communication Department. “Soon we realized that we outgrew the little computer lab at Seton Hall, so I rented a little room in East Orange, NJ that we used as the new base or the magazine.”
After the first issue, the CER staff started an innovative way to pick magazine cover stories. Riley says, “Whenever we had staff meetings to get a cover, we didn’t want to know who was hot. All the other magazines had the same people. We wanted to know about that person stirring up things underneath everyone’s noses --- a person everyone would want to know about in three to four months.” Some of the alumni from those staff meetings are Marcus Reeves and Allen Gordon. Reeves went on to become the Entertainment Editor for Source Magazine and publish the critically acclaimed Hip Hop history, Somebody Scream!: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power. Allen Gordon became the Editor-in-Chief of Rap Pages before becoming the Editor-in-Chief of XXL. When CER did the first ever cover interview with Andre Harrell, the former owner of Uptown Records responsible for such acts as Mary J Blige and Jodeci, no one had ever put him on their cover before. We found him first, and other magazines followed our lead. When CER first interviewed the Notorious B.I.G., he still went by the name of Biggie Smalls; we saw him before the flash and luxury of his now legendary videos. “His record was playing on the radio, and he was excited about getting his advance from Bad Boy Entertainment,” said Riley when remembering him. He adds, “At times he just looked like a sincere, shy, kid who wouldn’t mind sitting by himself in the corner.”
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan had been interviewed many times before he did our exclusive front cover feature with the CER. He had just begun planning the Million Man March, and was also holding public meetings with both the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus; he was attempting to move from the political fringe to the political mainstream. For over 90 minutes, in the penthouse suites of New York’s Park Plaza hotel, we spoke to a Farrakhan dressed in Fila sneakers and a designer sweat suit. After all of the images of fiery speeches and bow ties, we were really surprised when he walked in so relaxed. CER magazine was criticized for not focusing on previous anti-Semitic remarks and his often contentious relationship with important Jewish organizations, but we knew that there were plenty of quality news organizations that had recently focused on those important issues in very well publicized interviews. We wanted to ask him questions no one else had, and — as a result — we were able to get historically significant information that no one else had.
“It was shortly after the interview with Farrakhan that I realized the stories we were doing were the ones that could be read in ten and twenty years by people who would want to look back at our time and really want to know the critical events that made things happen.”
Even the front cover article on Sean “Puffy” Combs was a breakthrough. He had not done any interviews since the City College of New York Tragedy in late 1991, where eight youths were crushed to death at a celebrity basketball game Combs promoted. Combs received death threats and was ridiculed by the media that now worships him. “He didn’t want to talk to anyone else at that point, and no one else wanted to talk to him. He felt that the other media had already made up its mind and only wanted to take him out of context.”
Combs was surprised that Riley wanted him on the cover. Riley says, “He thought I was just going to give him a small picture and a blurb.” In that interview Sean Puffy Combs explored the fresh demons of his recent past and the starry heights of his future hopes in a way only possible when people are on the verge of realizing their dreams.”
Now, Twenty years later, Edward Riley is back in the entertainment business. All Politics are Local, the highest rated program on Rutgers University’s Newark campus radio station, WRNU. In the month of June of 2011, All Politics are local averaged over 100,000 listeners. And on July 22, 2011, the radio show went into syndication in Dallas, Texas on KJM radio. The new radio program has the same spirit as the old magazine. It seeks to entertain and educate about the issues that affect our lives. All Politics Are Local combines Hip-Hop culture, music, and entertainment, with intense conversations about local, national, and international political issues for a show that is both informative and entertaining. And in the spirit of the old CER magazine, we seek to get important interviews and information that other media outlets overlook and ignore. In less then three months we interviewed Vinny of Naughty by Nature; Freekey Zekey of the Dip set; Pastor David Jefferson, Chairman of Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network; New Jersey Congressmen Donald Payne; Newark, NJ, Councilman Ras Baraka; poet Jasmine Mans; as well as Miami’s Luther “Two Live Crew” Campbell; and songwriter, producer, community activist, and co-host of the New York’s popular 98.7 KISS FM’s Open Line, James Mtume. But instead of asking Luther Campbell about the early 1990’s hit song “Me So Horney,” we asked him extensive questions about politics in Miami and the 20,000 votes he received in his first run for Mayor. We asked Ras Baraka about the Day of Outrage rally he held in Newark. We asked Jasmine Mans, the first Hip-Hop college scholarship recipient at the University of Wisconsin, about her controversial but highly acclaimed poem about Nicki Minaj. Moving into the future there will be more interviews and more controversy, but we will always ask the questions that no one else asks, combining Hip Hop music and culture, politics, and entertainment, for the only show in America that makes democracy and politics relevant and fun to the Hip-Hop generation.
