Routes & Culture

Ok, so obviously I’m not up to the task of live-blogging the conferences I attend, esp when the hosting hotel wants to charge an extra $14/day for internet access. (Amenities, schmenities.)

Will offer some Hawaiian highlights before they get filed away like the dogeared program they’re scrawled on, but just so you don’t miss it, go out and git Heatwave‘s brand new (second hand) contribution to the Blogariddims series.

Blogariddims 10: An England Story

Nice in concept, extra nice in execution. As they put it,

Blogariddims 10 is a special extended edition from Heatwave. ‘An England Story’ traces a lineage of UK MCs from 1984-2006 covering reggae, dancehall, hip hop, grime, jungle and more…

If you’re still not signed up for Blogariddims, you’re sleepin. A solid series of mixes so far. And guess who’s slated to deliver the next one?

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A couple quick non-conf observations from this weekend:

Friday night, I linked up with my good good people, Amy&Ron, and we went to see Jesse Saunders, the “Originator” of house, do his thing. He was great. A real pro who clearly loves the music he’s playing and making people dance. Two main obs:

1) Although what Saunders was spinning could conceivably be described as a “narrow” slice of house, it’s remarkable how much stylistic range that can encompass.

2) Fitting I found myself flitting backforth and sideways through embodied states that seemed also to draw from a wide range of styles, despite their overarching, er, EDM-ness. It made me think, as I watched myself mimic moves I’d copped from ravers, clavers, salseros, and, um, dancing queens, that dancing about music is far from imprecise as representational relations go. (Though one may need to reconcile oneself with the orthogonal, as usual.)

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After Saunders, on the way to the next spot, we listened to early morn freestylers rock radio beats on what I guess was this show. A&R and Larisa dared me to get on and Ron remembered the number, so I dialed up and was immediately on the air. I asked for a beat, and proceeded to completely kill it for about 30 seconds. No lie. Didn’t miss a beat or rhyme. Straight relentless, yo. But then I dropped an f-bomb and they cut me off. Oops. My bad, y’all. (If you archive, tho, holler.)