Sustained Bea(s)t Mode

Beat Research looks to remain in high gear (with more low end than ever!) for the rest of the spring, maintaining our beast mode pace with some BIG guests coming thru over the next month or two. Among others, as I’ll detail below, our spring line-up will include such wreck-shopping luminaries as Chicago juke alchemist […]

Read More →
Me @ EMP

I’ll be in NYC this weekend participating in the annual EMP pop conference, always a lively gathering of people who not only care about music but care about finding the right words to talk about music. I’m pleased to be involved in two promising panels — a roundtable with the likes of Eddie Stats, DJ […]

Read More →
Speak of Yellowman and Installing Thingsā€¦

And you might end up with an earworm. I’m saying, the automaticity of musical memory ain’t nuttin to ckuf wit. Of course, Yellowman’s earworm par excellence, at least for this happy host, is the ol’ zunguzung meme. I can’t seem to go long without encountering another iteration. In fact, I came across two in the […]

Read More →
Rapping to the Beat

Funny as it may be, I’m pretty sure Run DMC’s “Roots, Rap, Reggae” (featuring Yellowman) is the first “reggae” song I ever knew. As an occasionally awkward and awfully chintzy attempt at reggae via New York, it’s an odd introduction in nuff ways. On the other hand, there are a couple moments in the song, […]

Read More →
On RETV the Girls Dem See Me

Bigups to my man Marvin Hall, aka @hallsoflearning, aka the guy we’ll be thanking someday for the Jamaican turn in robotics — or something equally astounding — for uploading an old reel from RETV (Reggae Television) dating back to 2003. That’s the year I was living in Kingston with my better-half, doing dissertation research alongside […]

Read More →
NY Funky

This Tuesday — TOMORROW! — we’re amped to play host to the Boston debut of Old Money Massive, a duo bleeding the edge of No/New/True Yorkness with their grimey, synth-riddled, patois-laced paeans to race, space, & place. What’s more, I’m told there might be another special guest in the house to drop some rhymes over […]

Read More →
Ecological Frictionstep

I’m happy to report, as exhorted about back in December, that Filastine & his collaborators, Nova & Tooliq, have completed the first of the two videos they successfully kickstarted. Before I offer an embed, allow me to cut-n-paste their poignant, soulful framing of the project and its settings & subjects — Colony Collapse is filmed […]

Read More →