IMPERATIVE RECORDS, INC.                            

            ABOG is Craig (17X) Erving, (AKA Zahieb A. Mwongozi) a native of Oakland,CA who had his first recording contract at age 15. As lead singer for the group “The Shades of Soul,” he choreographed the routines that helped The Shades compete successfully in Bay Area talent shows during the early 1970’s. Erving joined “God’s Creation”, another local doo-wop-and-step singing group, managed at the time by Lenny Williams, then lead singer for world-renowned band “Tower of Power.” Erving next formed a band called “ZAM FAMily Band,” sang lead vocals and played timbales.

            Erving moved in 1976, relocating to the Pacific Northwest where he joined his brother Rudi Mwongozi (Frankie Erving). Erving enrolled at Portland Community College. “Colleges and universities are where all of the really dynamic artistic stuff is occurring. ‘Tribe’ and ‘Fresh’ were two bands that I hung out with. Some of the members of these bands eventually became ‘Pleasure’ who had a couple of gold records. The Muslim Arts Collective (MAC) formed by Rudi, was also kicked off during that time. I was a part of ‘MAC’, playing marimba, timbales, and other percussion.”

            The Mwongozi-Erving brothers returned to the Bay Area in 1980. A band was formed with Erving on timbales, Rudi on piano, and James Lewis playing bass. “Other artists from the area played in or around the unit from time to time, including Muhammed (Tsofiosaam) Kaal, Rasul Saddiq, Diane Witherspoon, and Lady Bianca, to name just a few.”

            Erving stayed involved in what was essentially the remains of the Bay Area’s “black arts movement” (an extension of the Black Liberation Movement). He began doing “rituals” and little theater under the tutelage of El Muhajir (Marvin X), the founder of Black Arts West, and Ed Bullins, a playwright known nationally as “the godfather of Black theater.” Erving enrolled at Laney College in Oakland, CA, in the Fall, 1982, semester in the Media Communications department; he began working in local college radio at station KALX, 90.7, in Berkeley.

            “I was with the Third World Department and Davey D (Jones) was the Chair of the department. Money B and Tupac and Greg (Shock G) used to come through there. I met Jah Bonz during that period, and we started working as a team, putting songs together.” Politics forced Erving and Bonz to quit KALX.

            Erving moved again, relocating to Monroe, LA. “I had that ‘Arrested Development’ vibe five years, six months and two days before their development, got arrested by their record label.” He got a job as a staff writer, under the pseudonym Zahieb A Mwongozi, with an African American bi-weekly, the Monroe Free Press..

            Back in California after one year of writing, he became involved in cultural work again, when UHURU House founder, Omali Yeshitela commissioned him to write agitation/propaganda songs to rally members of the African People’s Socialist Party around specific issues. The song, Everybody Needs a House, was used as a slogan for the African National Reparations Organization, which took the issue of reparations for African Americans to the World Court in 1986.

            Again Erving enrolled at Laney College, where he became the Vice President of the Laney Literary Guild, and organized poetry readings in the San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley area. “I used to be reading with people like Opal Palmer-Adisa, Ishmael Reed, Clarence Major and Phavia Kujichagulia; when the readings were over, people remembered me because I would tell the jazz band, ‘Play such-and-such for me, and I’m going to bust this rhyme on top of that.’ People had no idea we were improvising.”

            The public’s interest in his poetry prompted Erving to self-publish two books of poetry, Waterpipe Dreams and The Children of Negus. “My heart was in music, though, because music is in my heart.”

            Transferring to the College of Alameda in 1987, Erving met the nucleus of what was to become “Ali Baba & the Fresh 40”, a reggae band. He sang lead vocals, played keyboard, and wrote and arranged the repertoire. The 40 Thieves, as they were known locally, were featured at Reggae Bash 1987. The band was a local favorite during a time when the “world music” scene in the Bay Area was flourishing. “We were in direct competition with groups like “The Freaky Executives,” “Strictly Roots,” “George and the Wonders,” “Lambs Bread,” and “Upskank,” but we were the only world music band that had a lead singing keyboardist who tore up his keyboard after the show. We had the only guitarist who would play solos that invoked images of Jimi Hendrix, while he walked around the bar on top of the tables. Plus we had an unrepentant extrovert of a drummer and the only five-string bass player around.”

            Erving put the band to rest in 1990, opened up a bookstore in East Oakland, and immersed himself in the Oakland rap scene. He had some cameo appearances on shows with groups from such labels as Oaktown Records, Ray-Town Records, Dangerous Music. Rap, particularly gangster-type rap, began to be of increasing interest to Erving; he began to tailor his sound to the underground.

            Erving released his first tape as Ali Baba da OG titled “Dis ‘n Dat” in the summer of 1992. In the spring of 1993, Erving put out an LP titled “White Lotus Catalogue.” In the winter of 1994, Erving released an EP titled “Black Rage!,” the first of his efforts to be carried in record stores. The songs were well-received and Erving went to work on trying to complete the album, until circumstances caused the loss of all of his equipment and some completed songs. With no equipment or songs, Erving rejoined Jah Bonz and started creating the songs on “AB the OG: From debasement to de-penthouse.” “The songs are really just some things I wanted to share musically before I move on to the next stuff I want to work on. When a pauper shares his last crust of bread with you, needless to say, it’s a sacrifice, but you know it’s from the heart.”

            Erving is currently working on a screenplay called “The Kan Kings.” His next rap album, to be released on CD, is entitled “Twenty Seconds in the Mind of the Average Black Male.” He has plans for an album of instrumental works with the working title “Sonata for the Black Keys. He is also in the treatment phase of a novel called “I Grew Up in Pantherville,” based on the true-to-life experiences of a young African American boy growing up in Oakland during the civil rights era.

*Since the writing of this press release (2000) Erving has done another album released in 2003 titled “ Ali Baba: The Architecture of Enlightenment” which has sold 8,000 copies.