Introducing is a talented, Oxford-based nine-piece band with a very specific goal. Every show they perform is essentially the same. With the exception of slight variations in their encores, the set never changes. Their mission? To perform DJ Shadow’s first LP, “Endtroducing”, in its entirety, from start to finish.
The full blog post is at INTELLIGENT LIFE.
Long before we debated what real punk-rock was, what true hip-hop was, or what made indie-rock authentic, jazz heads grappled with what is and isn’t jazz music. Now, the debate is whether jazz is dying off or not.
America’s jazz audience is not only shrinking, it’s aging. Attendance at jazz performances has dropped 30% since 2002. The median age of concert patrons in 2008 was 46; in 1982 it was 29.
But jazz is not dead, yet. Among other groups, Skerik’s Syncopated Taint Septet is proof:
The full blog post, on the status of Jazz in 2009, is at INTELLIGENT LIFE.
I’ve seen “Do the Right Thing” many times, and have observed and participated in many debates about its value and meaning. But this particular London screening reminded me of just how well it captures the little things that not only set people off, but also calm them down and even make them laugh. There are incendiary and violent moments throughout the film (based on actual events), but there is also plenty of humour and humanity.
The full blog post, on the 20th anniversary screening of Do The Right Thing in London, is at INTELLIGENT LIFE.
Kanye West’s self-help book is a small, spiral-bound thing, too big for your back pocket but a perfect fit for the coffee table. Its bright yellow, blue, pink and green text is printed on glossy black paper, often in quite large sizes. It’s durable, so much so that you could throw it across the room and it would survive the launch unscathed.
The full blog post is at INTELLIGENT LIFE.
In short, Astatke is a big fish in the Ethiopian jazz pond. He studied music in England and is reportedly the first African student to attend the Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts. He’s credited with combining Ethiopian melodies with Western funk and jazz to create what often gets called “hypnotic grooves”, most notably on the Ethiopiques album series (which came out in the 1990s to spotlight Ethiopian music from the 1960s and ’70s). He was also a guest artist with the Duke Ellington orchestra when they played Ethiopia in the ’70s.
At his recent performance at Koko in Camden, Astatke, now in his late 60s, took the helm at the vibraphone, surrounded on all sides by the younger members of the Heliocentrics on horns, cello, percussion, drums, guitar, keys and bass. Cutting through lush textures of organ, guitar and bass, Astatke hunched over the vibes and went to work.
The full post is at INTELLIGENT LIFE.
Posted in Blogs
Tagged arts, culture, ethiopian jazz, heliocentrics, hip hop, london, Music
If you’re like me, and grew up listening to – and mimicking – cassette recordings of rap artists like Biz Markie and the Fat Boys beat boxing, Shlomo is now on the radar. And not in a throwback, nostalgic kind of way; the Leeds-based, Israeli-Iraqi-German beatbox artist rips it.
Since the musicians are only getting together just two days prior to an upcoming performance, the results will be anyone’s guess. “The performance will be raw, often improvised,” Shlomo wrote. “Maybe not the most polished or slick of performances, but hopefully you’ll get some real magic in there.”
The full blog post is at the NEW YORK TIMES
Playdoe is difficult to describe in standard hip hop terms. The group lacks the gangsta bravado of NWA, and has none of the political urgency of Public Enemy. There’s no Wu-Tang Clan brashness and little of the slick, polished production of Jay-Z or Kanye West. Don’t expect smooth lyrical flow like Common, or DJ mastery at the level of Mix Master Mike or DJ Premier.
Two young men make up Playdoe: Spoek and Sibot, a black rapper and a white scratch champion, both from Johannesburg. At a recent concert at the Social, a tiny underground bar just outside London’s Soho, Sibot, wearing a T-shirt and a sideways-tilted baseball cap, manned the turntables while Spoek, in high-tops, faded purple jeans and an African kofia-styled hat, worked the microphone, occasionally touching various keys and knobs next to him onstage.
The full blog at INTELLIGENT LIFE
Words of Wisdom, a recently published book from Rev Run of Run DMC, is part Stuart Smalley, part Russell Simmons; sort of a pocket-sized, bathroom-reading, Christian alternative to Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, a book that made rounds in hip hop circles a few years ago.
I was reluctant to pick the book up because I prefer to think of Run as he used to be: an MC for one of the most influential and popular New York hip hop acts of the 80s. It’s Run, after all, who convinced me that I needed to wear white hi-top sneakers with bright, fat laces to my middle school every day. Today, it’s safe to say he’s convincing folks to do a lot more than just wear cool kicks.
The full blog post at Mother Jones.
Boots Riley talked with me about politics, and vented about how the biz shortchanges idiosyncratic bands like the Coup.
The INTERVIEW appears on motherjones.com, and appeared in the November/December 2007 issue of Mother Jones Magazine.
In August of 2007, the photographer James Woodard and I produced an audio slideshow about the Hip Hop Chess Federation and their efforts — along with Wu-Tang Clan’s the RZA — to get young folks hip to the connections between hip hop, chess, and the martial arts. Go to Pop and Politics to see the story.
