As tension continues between Israel’s secular and Charedi communities, new Yesh Atid MK Dr Ruth Calderon talks to Timna Jacks about her mission to find a common ground.

DR Ruth Calderon is a curious politician. The 13th member of Yesh Atid (there is a future) – a largely secular party forming part of the government’s coalition – made the daring decision to inaugurate her career in politics two months ago with a Talmud story.

The 14-minute clip of Calderon’s maiden speech, delivered on February 12, proved something of a YouTube sensation, drawing more than tens of thousands of views just a week after it was published. The talk was premised on a domestic tale from Ketubot 62b, about Rabbi Rechumei – a diligent student of Jewish law – who became so engrossed in study on the eve of Yom Kippur that he forgot to return home to his wife on the only night he was expected that year.

As Rebbetzin Rechumei shed a tear over her husband’s absence, the pillars buttressing the room in which Rabbi Rechumei studied began to crumble, and Rabbi Rechumei descended into death.

Such was the fall of the house of Rechumei. “What do we learn from this tragedy?” Calderon asked. “He who forgets that he is sitting on the shoulders of the other will fall.” And, she added: “Being righteous is not sticking to the Torah at the cost of insensitivity to fellow human beings.”

These views are not unexpected of a newly minted voice of Yesh Atid. After all, the party’s leader and now Israel’s Minister of Finance Yair Lapid’s electoral platform included vows to end automatic military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, put a cap on rising taxes that choke the middle class and to invest in public education.

Indeed, these goals are couched in Calderon’s reading of the Talmud tale, especially in her focus on the importance of sharing an equal burden, for the sake of the future of the Jewish home. “Every person in the middle class carries another person on their back,” Calderon told The AJN. “It’s a heavy load!”

But it was the form of Calderon’s maiden address (she handed out copies of the text to MKs), her olive branch appeal to the merits of “both sides of the argument” (referring to the secular and the religious), and the overwhelming excitement about Calderon, from all kinds of MKs and voters, that set this politician apart. The maverick is also the first to host weekly Talmud study sessions in the Knesset.

There’s a tendency to watch Calderon’s famed speech and interpret her demeanour as coy; she appears as a delicate bird chirping from a dragon’s den. Yet Calderon treats her Talmud-teaching politicking as a powerful political weapon.

The inclusion of holy Jewish texts in the process of policy formation, Calderon said, forms a “common ground” between parties; it’s the backbone, the harmonising force that binds competing views: “It’s a new kind of culture that I, and Yesh Atid hope to introduce to the Knesset”.

This is why she considers ultra-religious Shas party “potential partners”, even after embattled former Shas member Shlomo Benizri, told an Israeli news broadcaster that Calderon should have “died in her sleep”, she said. It’s the reason she can laud the party for its “strong Jewish character” and study Talmud with Shas members during the Knesset’s recession, despite Shas chairman Eli Yishai wrongly accusing her of wanting to omit the word “Jew” from the Hatikvah. “He was so obviously lying,” she reflected. “And he apologised for it.”

“My position is this: I am liberal and a feminist – I am clearly very different from them. And I don’t think Shas is going to give money to secular yeshivot for example, but I think when it comes to a common base of respect and love of Torah, and a very clear eye on the present, on what Israelis need, this way of speaking could be useful. Education is a process that takes a lot of time and patience. I am an educator, and I have the time and the patience.”

Yet Calderon’s new brand of politics is not without controversy.

Soon after her speech, the editorial of the online Charedi news portal Kikar Hashabbat  read: “We realised that we are watching on live broadcast the new Enlightenment, the new powers that have risen and want to destroy the Charedi society as it is today.” The far left have also levelled criticism, voicing concern that her tactics blur the church-and-state distinction – a tender spot for the democratic Jewish State.

Calderon responded: “That’s the traditional attitude of keeping this separate, of giving money to ultra-Orthodox and letting them deal with the religious. There’s a problem there.”

Calderon calls for mandatory military or civil service for the religious, and for the integration of the Orthodox into the workforce, by introducing practical subjects such as science and maths into Orthodox yeshivot, enforcing mandatory service, and draining the institutions’ disproportionate funds.

She vows to strip back the Orthodox monopoly on lay Israeli institutions and Jewish traditions, including holy sites, laws of kashrut and marriage and rally for equal funding for all Israeli yeshivot.

“The basic sin of the generation of Ben-Gurion was that they told the Orthodox: ‘you give us your votes and we will make policies against your wishes, but with that money, you can do whatever you want. You can build a Jewish state near our Zionist state.’ When I say ‘state’ I mean autonomy.

“That brought us to a situation today where there are only 45 per cent of citizens are paying taxes and we cannot hold that anymore,” she said.

“I don’t want the Charedim to disappear like Ben-Gurion wanted them to disappear. I want them to always stay, but be fair. If they use the facilities and the money of the state they need to be respectful of the state.”

Surprisingly, the roots of Calderon’s passion for Jewish study do not reside in the Western Wall, but in a stuffy classroom of Canberra High school, circa 1975. When Calderon was 15, her Bulgarian father, an entomologist, chose to spend the year of his sabbatical leave in Canberra.

“Australia was a wonderful experience – the land and the people. I hope to see it again sometime,” said Calderon, who is considering featuring at the upcoming Limmud Oz.

Time in Australia marked a period of self-discovery for young Calderon. It was Down Under that she realised she was not just an Israeli, but a member of a broader Jewish nation – a people that extends beyond the bounds of Israeli life and culture. This fuelled an already burning desire to learn about her religion.

But when the young Calderon returned home, she searched relentlessly – albeit unsuccessfully – for a suitable yeshivah. It was only when she was in her first year in the army that she would learn of a pluralist yeshivah and join it – a move that sparked a life of Talmud scholarship.

She went on to attain a PhD in Talmud scholarship at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where she has worked in the prestigious Talmud department, subject of acclaimed Israeli film Footnote.

“I was the only one there without a beard,” she jokes. “For a long time, I felt like the ugly duckling, not knowing how to find my flock … but I eventually found my kind,” she said.

In 1989, she established secular beit midrash (house of study) Elul in Jerusalem and in 1996, she founded Alma: Home for Hebrew Culture in Tel Aviv – a beit midrash open to religious and secular people of both genders. Yair Lapid – then a journalist and media personality – was on the board.

Alma is now something of an institution, a fountain of progressive thought located in Tel Aviv – the heartbeat of Israel’s political, social and spiritual renaissance.

“Jewish renewal is happening in Israel today. It is this notion of reclaiming Jewish classic texts, symbols and customs. It’s about sharing the Jewish traditions with a majority of Israel.”

The absence of government funding for secular learning yeshivot (along with some encouragement from Lapid) prompted the academic to consider a life in politics and eventually, to put her name on the Yesh Atid ticket.

“I realised that nothing was going to change and the money would continue to go to the Orthodox yeshivot or the modern-Orthodox yeshivot, but never to the pluralistic or secular. So, at some point, I understood that someone needed to go to the area where decisions are made, and it might as well be me,” she said.

It’s fair to say that nobody, including Calderon, expected Israeli voters to respond so positivity to Yesh Atid, awarding the party 19 prized seats, and catapulting it from the punter’s pick at fourth place to the second largest party in the Knesset.

Time will tell how fledgling Finance Minister Yair Lapid will straddle his election platform and his commitment to the country’s economic growth. He may perform backflips at the cost of his surging popularity, but with some creative policy making – such as finding ways to bring the Orthodox and Israeli Arabs into the labour force – the Yesh Atid leader could be on track to become Israel’s next Prime Minister.

As for Calderon, voters and viewers in the Diaspora will keep a watchful eye on her ethics, her integrity and the music of her Talmud – heralded idiosyncratic qualities that are sure to be put to the test.

“Yes, I’m new to the job, but I still believe it is possible to fight for your rights and for your values,” she said.

“I believe that it’s possible to do good politics and still be civil. But I guess we will have to see.”

Watch Dr Ruth Calderon’s maiden speech:

Read this story in The AJN: Dr Ruth Calderon 1 Dr Ruth Calderon 2

Israeli author Amos Oz and his historian daughter Fania Oz-Salzberger team up in a new book to roam the gamut of Jewish history to explain the integral relationship between Jews and words, while jettisoning the faith of their ancestors. They speak to Timna Jacks about being “atheists of the book”.

PROPHETESS Deborah,King Rehoboam, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook – they are grand Jewish characters plucked at random from Jewish history. Were they to meet in some ahistorical space, they would be seemingly alien to one another on nearly every account except for Bible trivia.

“They will have common topics of conversation: Jacob and the 12 tribes, Moses and Mount Sinai, the Land of Israel and its natural and human geography,” write acclaimed Israeli author Amos Oz and his daughter Fania Oz-Salzberger in their new book Jews and Words.

With the problem of Jewish continuity facing communities around the world, they tackle the contentious issue. Judaism is not about “chromosomes” or birth certificates, or “stones or clans”, the authors write. “Ours is not a bloodline but a textline.”

Just as the four random Jewish figures were bound by knowledge of Jewish texts, the authors believe contemporary Jews are “texted to our ancestors” – bound by a lineage of intertextual, intergenerational and intercultural reading, learning and interpreting of the holy canon.

Oz has written more than 20 works of fiction and numerous essays on politics, literature and peace. He is a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva and was the co-founder of the Peace Now movement.

In an interview with The AJN, Oz says: “Jews for millennia have been discussing texts. It’s the combination of text and dinner table, the combination of text and family life, the combination of text and child raising – this idea of having three or four generations around the family dinner table that is the essence of Jewish civilisation.

“This is a story about how a civilisation survived through words; not through armies, not through castles, not through bridges, not through cathedrals, but through words.”

Oz-Salzberger tells The AJN that a long and tragic history of displacement has seen Jews adjust to the strains of a nomadic existence by carrying only two things: “A child in one arm and a book in the other.”

The book, which is a companion to the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilisation, examines the relationship between Jews and words, framed within topics such as continuity, women, timelessness and individualism, told through the authors’ unique reading of Jewish history and literature.

In response to the perennial question, ‘Who is a Jew?’ the authors write that you don’t even have to be a Jew in order to be Jewish – all you have to be is a reader.

“We are saying something metaphorical,” Oz-Salzberger explains. “That every person who deeply loves books, who feels they are anchored to their past through this kind of reference, is ‘Jewish’ by metaphor. You don’t have to be Jewish by actual identity or technical registration in order to be ‘Jewish’ in this sense.”

The phenomenon addressed most comprehensively is the authors’ grasp of secular Judaism. The father and daughter are strictly non-believing, authentic kibbutzniks, or as they put it: “atheists of the book”. Oz-Salzberger says the authors are sending a signal to non-religious Jews around the world that it is possible, if not highly recommended, to be deeply Jewish in a “textual way, in a cultural way, but not in a religious way”.

Separating themselves from the New Atheism construct, their philosophies may be more comparable to those of Jewish atheist thinker Alain de Botton. But instead of employing religious structures to facilitate spiritual and meaningful connection, as de Botton ventures, the father and daughter turn their gaze to Jewish parchments and urge their counterparts to “lock horns to the end of time” on the essence of those scriptures.

Oz says that, according to the Jewish tradition, even the subject of God is debatable. “This was the case with Abraham in the Valley of Sodom as he bargained over the destiny of the sinful City of Sodom, as one would with a second-hand car dealer,” he says

“When Abraham loses the argument, he turns his eye upwards and pronounces the very daring words: ‘Will not the justice of all the earth do justice?’ Mind you, he was not struck by lighting for his chutzpah, for his impudence. God accepts what Abraham says to him: that you, God, may be chief legislator, but you are not above the law.”

It is in the Jewish DNA to be distinctly disputatious, an inheritance on full display in the streets of Israel. “Israel is a fiery collection of arguments,” says Oz. “Every electrical line near a bus stop is likely to catch a spark and turn into a fiery open-air seminary with total strangers debating about politics, history, religion and the real purpose of God.

“The Jews are not a nation, not a religion, they are one big open-air seminary – where people discuss and debate, relating to the same texts for thousands of years, but interpreting and re-interpreting those same texts.”

Read this story in The AJN: Amos & Fania Oz

R&B legend Charlie Wilson was on The Steve Harvey Morning Show clearing up the rumors of him dying in a plane crash. Wilson is alive and well and is promoting his latest single, “Turn Off The Lights” from his latest album Love, Charlie, in stores and on iTunes now.

Listen to the exclusive interview with Steve and Charlie Wilson below:

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True greatness is magical. So when two powerful hip-hop forces combine, the outcome transcends mythical proportions and gives birth to household names that are linked forever in music legend and lore

Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a concert as much as seeing these guys live in August of 2012 along side beat genius 9th Wonder and illest femcee Ms Rapsody, thanks to our dope event co-ordinates UPE Entertainment! I remember jumping up and down in the chock-full crowd at Baseline hoping they would perform “Words” my favorite track from these lyrical wizards. So lets take a journey for those who are still lost as to who I’m talking about.

In January 2009, 9th Wonder announced plans to start two independent record labels, Jamla and The Academy, under his imprint It’s A Wonderful World Music Group (IWWMG). Jamla originally consisting of Skyzoo, GQ, Rapsody, Tyler Woods and Big Remo, while The Academy consisted of Thee Tom Hardy, Actual Proof (Sundown & Enigma), TP, and The Away Team (Khrysis & Sean Boog). The Academy artists were later folded into the Jamla label. Halo and Heather Victoria were announced as the newest members of IWWMG in October 2010.
In July 2010, 9th Wonder officially debuted his production team for IWWMG, the “Soul Council” consisting of Khrysis, E. Jones, Fatin “10″ Horton, Ka$h Don’t Make Beats, AMP, Eric G and 9th Wonder himself.

Originally founded by producers Amp and Sundown as a production team a crew of beatmakers who did it for the love of the music, Later joined by Amp’s younger brother and emcee, Enigma, Actual Proof is North Carolina’s latest, fueled-up team of hip-hop heralds. Amp later became apart of 9th Wonders ‘Soul Council’ collective, leaving Act Proof with Sundown & Enigma as the remaining members.

“We combine musical genres of hip hop, soul, R&B, and jazz into our own unique style,” says Amp. His sound is an epic one- he masterfully mixes the simple drama of all the genres that the Actual Proof sound is influenced by.

Enigma, was a student at N.C. Central University and all three would visit 9th Wonder’s Hip Hop in Context course on Tuesdays and Thursdays. During a conversation after class, 9th found out they were major Talib Kweli fans and invited them to a free Kweli show in Brooklyn. “If y’all can get there, y’all can roll,” 9th told them.

Sundown described the experience as “surreal.” “We stood up in bassline studios, met Kweli, Buckshot, the staff at Duck Down, Marco Polo, Young Guru…” He says of 9th, “He was our hero. Right before we met him, me and Amp were like, let’s stop making beats,” which would have proved to be the last thing that they should’ve done.

Actual Proof went on to rock the stage with artists like Big Daddy Kane and Nice & Smooth, and they plan to keep rocking stages, record stores, and the internet with their distinct brand of hip hop style. Enigma explains, “We’re hoping that with hard work, dedication, drive, and dope music, Actual Proof can make some noise.”

Noise??? Dudes have been creating massive sound decibels with all their projects which constantly displays depth in lyricism I am yet to see from any other rapper or rap collective. These guys fusion of imagery through rhyme over compelling beats is what has them dripping in real hip hop of the purist form.

They begun with their first EP entitled “The Free EP” consecutively releasing the project “The Talented Tenth”, the release is comprised of two sides The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Experience and The Malcolm X Experience, giving listeners’ music that coincides with the demeanor of those two great leaders. Features on The Talented Tenth include Rapsody, Thee Tom Hardy, Laws, Naledge, Kendrick Lamar, and more. Then the much anticipated “Still Hotter Than July” dropped and Act proof were ready to take the industry by storm! The recent project birthed by this eloquent duo is the popular “Black Boy Radio” album and is probably the most triumphant album you will hear. For the average listener, they will be shocked by the overall quality of the music. For those in the familiar, they will just hump their shoulders and say “Of course. It’s Jamla, fool!”. In 2013, Jamla is not going to be ignored in the least bit. Act Proof’s album is an evident artifact in their year of reckoning. Thus, like a blind man receiving an ocular operation to receive sight, people better recognize. Keep it real: this album puts a lot of major label projects to shame. There are no weak rhymes and the beats are better than probable.

So with all that said are u now familiarized with this untainted rap duo?? Well niggaz and niggarettes, I yet again had the opportunity to talk to one these astounding rhymesayers! I’m more then ecstatic to bring to you Sundown of ACTUAL PROOF!

Que: What’s Up Sundown!!? Welcome to South Africa and Sixteens On 16th!!
Sundown: All good Miss Que….Thanks for having me
Que: I’ve been a fan since your first EP came out, (The Free EP, The Talented Tenth and Still Hotter Than July)…these are all well-rounded projects. In the current industry climate it’s more about pushing a single. Is Actual Proof constantly focused on the “full project” thing or has this become a norm the Jamla stable try to push?

Sundown: The full project thing is sort of just how we do things. Maybe its the Jamla model, but its how we work best. We don’t set out to make full projects all the time.It starts as a few songs and grows from there. Half of “Black Boy Radio” was done almost 2 years before it dropped.

Que: Are you getting accustomed to working with a producer of 9th Wonder’s caliber or is it still surreal to you?

Sundown – I’m getting used to it. Our work environment feels like we’re hanging out with friends and family. But I still get a reminder of “who” he is every now and then. I try not to focus on that because I did that in the beginning and I think I stressed myself out a little bit. I was too worried about trying to impress him and getting caught up in the moment instead of worrying about doing my job right.
Que; In one of his recent interviews 9th said that recording your stuff reminded him of recording “The Listening” what goes through your mind when you hear that?
Sundown-To hear anyone compare us to anything Little Brother has done is a little surreal. And to hear that 9th said that is really crazy. We started getting serious about music after we heard Little Brother’s first album so I guess “The Listening” was the point in time that we thought to give music a real shot. I think that’s an interesting dynamic because in our own way, we’re chasing that album. It’s almost a perfect blueprint.
Que: North Carolina seems to have the new hip hop sound take over…where does the influence to the NC sound come from?

Sundown – To be honest I don’t know where the sound comes from. We have a melting pot of people from all over the country because of the number of colleges and universities in the area. When I moved here, I had friends from the South, but I also had friends who were from California, from Philly, from New York… I got exposed to a lot of music from all over. I think I gravitated to the boom-bap type of music a little more than everything else but having that exposure is good for you.

Que: Recently Act Proof did their first show right here in South Africa, what was that experience like for the two of you?

Sundown – South Africa was amazing. It put a lot of things into perspective for us, especially outside of music. We visited Soweto and drove past Nelson Mandela’s house. We got the chance to perform at Baseline in Johannesburg and then we got to go to Cape town and experience that also. Everything felt “new.” That was my first time outside of America and I felt like a kid again. Even the airports were cool. I took so many pictures and videos and I still feel like I didn’t get enough to remember the trip. People welcomed us with open arms everywhere we went and we appreciated all of it. I didn’t know that our music reached that far. You can see statistics online but to actually encounter someone from another country who listens to your music is crazy. Seeing people rap our words while we were on stage caught me WAY off guard. We perform in America and there are people who are fans but they don’t now all of the words to every song. We performed old songs… new songs… the crowd was with us the whole time. Hopefully we’ll be back soon because it was a great experience.

Que: When listening to an Act Proof record there’s a sense of relativity captured in the lyrics and beats fashioned by your squad….take me through a studio session with Actual Proof…

Sundown – We don’t really have a strict type of studio session behavior. We just go in and let things happen. Sometimes we’ll have stuff written before we get there. I usually have pieces of verses just sitting in my phone so I can try to work some of that into a song if I feel like it fits. Sometimes we’ll build off of each others verses and trade off… there’s nothing that we won’t try. We’ve gotten into the habit of recording each other so we’re constantly switching from rapping in the booth to working ProTools. 9th will add his touch to things if he feels like its necessary and somehow, everything has its place. I’m pretty happy with the way we work. It keeps us from getting stressed and we stay creative.

Que: My favorite track by Act Proof has to be “Words” just because at the time hearing songs on the radio, in my opinion, seemed to lack exactly that :WORDS! I swear the song remains on repeat in my headphones, was it lyrics first when creating the track? or did the beat come first? Explain the concept when recording this joint.

Sundown – That song is a perfect example of something just sitting in my phone. Most of the songs that you hear from us is lyrics first when it comes to my part of the song. If I don’t write a verse without the beat, which is how I normally write, I’ll hear a beat… start writing and then walk away and stop listening to the beat to finish the verse. I don’t really like writing to beats because I feel like I don’t have a lot of room to express myself. It’s a weird way to work, but I’ve gotten used to it. I heard the beat and thought the verse that I had would fit the song. We didn’t write our verses together but they worked when the song came together. That’s a pretty interesting choice for a favorite song Que (laughs), we usually hear “Genius” when people mention favorites.

Que: With in this hip hop community there have been many rap duo’s which have made waves in the industry over the years namely Blackstarr, Blackalicious, Mobb Deep, BDP, EPMD, Eric B and Rakim, Gangstarr, Slum Village and Outkast…What defines a great rap duo? Awards? Chart dominance? Chemistry? Or a fusion of these three?

Sundown – I would say chemistry. Without chemistry between group members, nothing else matters. We can hang out and not mention music at all… playing video games, playing basketball, hanging out with other friends together… that’s never going to change. We just happened to like the same kind of music and we fell into being Actual Proof. I can walk into Enigma’s parents’ house whenever and he can do the same at my parents’ house because we grew up together. That came before music and it will be here after everything. We’re not the same person, so we give each other a balance but we still have a common ground to fall back on. E and AMP are two of the first friends I made in Raleigh so the chemistry that we all have together is bigger than music. If a group has chemistry, anything is possible.

Que: Black Boy Radio has done exceptionally well since its release, how did the project come together?

Sundown – I don’t really know. It just happened. I don’t look at the big picture when I’m writing because I’ll get distracted. My recollection of everything is that we were recording songs and everything fell in line. Some songs are a lot older than others, but they still fit when they were put in the mix with the rest of the album. We didn’t title the album until we were almost done. We tossed around a few names, but nothing fit better than “Black Boy Radio.” We actually found the title to the second album when we were trying to name the first one.

Que: Where does Act proof draw inspiration from? Who are your musical influences?

Sundown-De La Soul, Tribe, LB, Camp Lo, Jay Z, Biggie, Nas, Eminem, The Roots… the list is endless. Those are just some of the ones that come to mind right now. Lyrically, I get just as much inspiration outside of rap. I think I’ve voiced this before but an unexpected influence of mine is Fall Out Boy. I saw Patrick Stump in the LaGuardia a few years ago and I froze up. I didn’t go speak to him but I guess I should have now that I look back on it.
Que: Who would Sundown like to work with in the future?

Sundown-That’s a long list. Ab-Soul, Tanya Morgan, Chuuwee, Add2, The Roots, Clear Soul Forces, Jeanne Jolly, Kaj Kadence… this is all of the top of the head. It wouldn’t be fair for me to run to Google and really put together a list because the list would be too long. I think there are a lot of talented people out there and I enjoy making good music.

Que; There is mad love outchere for Act Proof! Any thoughts on coming back down to SA?

Sundown-We would love to go back. Even though we were halfway around the world, it still felt like home.
Que; How can fans get in touch with where Act Proof is at? Twitter? Facebook?

Sundown- Get at us on twitter…@sundownactproof, @Enigma_ActProof, @actproof, @actproofbooking
Que: Lets wrap up…finish off the sentence…

Hip Hop is………………..??????????

Sundown-……….In good shape.

Que: It’s been beautiful! Thank You Actual Proof!!!

Sundown-It’s been more than a pleasure!! Peace!

Nikki Woods talks with Loni Love about working with the Tom Joyner Morning Show and her new upcoming book, “Love Him Or Leave Him, But Don’t Get Stuck With the Tab”.

Brandy was on the Steve Harvey Morning Show talking about her latest album 211, her role in Tyler Perry’s latest film, Temptation and her upcoming performance at the 2013 Essence Music Festival as the opening act.

She also talked about her role in R&B music and answered whether or not she’s engaged.

Listen to the audio from this exclusive interview below:

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Bestselling author and natural hair advocate Nikki Walton helps women make the empowering transition from relaxed hair to healthy natural hair with books like “Better than Good Hair.”

Listen to this exclusive interview with  Steve Harvey and Nikki Walton below:

Check out Nikki’s website: www.curlynikki.com

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Charlie Wilson has tasted success for decades as a soloist, hip-hop featured vocalist and member of the Gap Band. This year, the man also known as “Uncle Charlie” was selected for Lifetime Achievement honors from the Trumpet Awards, and you can see him reach this major milestone for yourself when the annual show airs on TV One on Sunday, March 31st.

Get The Latest From Hot Off The Wire In Your Inbox!

The annual Trumpet Awards acknowledges the accomplishments of men and women who have significantly contributed to enhancing the quality of life for all…individuals and/or groups who augment the richness of this great global society by partnering with the cause of justice and equality of all.

The Trumpet Awards was created to recognize outstanding accomplishments of Blacks and others who have succeeded against great odds and inspired success in others.

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“We are honored to recognize the achievements of such an accomplished and talented assembly of individuals within their respective fields,” said Xernona Clayton, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Trumpet Awards Foundation. “Between the presenters, performers and honorees assembled we are going to have an unforgettable Trumpet Awards Ceremony.”

RELATED: Charlie Wilson Remembers Rivalry With Roger Troutman, Making “Computer Love”

Watch this year’s Trumpet Awards March 31 at 8 pm EST/7 pm CST, and check out this video to find out what you may not know about Charlie Wilson.

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Actor Lance Gross was on The Steve Harvey Morning Show recently discussing his role in Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor.

Listen to the exclusive interview below:

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