jace offers less a review than an extended essay on the sounds, significations, & marketing of a west african / "islamic" hip-hop comp: "Populist, ecumenical, Muslim, fun: Many Lessons is good, right? Yes. … None of this diminishes the fact that the label releasing Many Lessons (Piranha) is using Islam as a marketing hook. It’s a postmodern irony: the religiosity of artists who take a moral stance against Western materialism gets used by a German label to promote their CDs. Foregrounding ‘Islamic’ in a region where religion and spirituality have long inhabited popular music seems disingenuous somehow." :: historical hermeneutics, music/market criticism, and a poetic prose that suggests social theory :: nice work, my fren, when u gonna get a job at some fancy magazine? — not that writing for a dubai rag is anything to scoff at, i mean, u got some a-rab money for that, right?

i met lucas (who runs the diginois site) in rio last year, cool cat :: his new mix @ spannered is part of maga bo's ongoing, epic, deeeeep "sambacana" series, about as wide-ranging, interesting, and provocative a presentation of (inter)national music i've ever heard :: lucas's mix is mellow, pretty, rollicking too :: is that brazilian reggaeton i hear?

the showtime riddim is a perennial fave (hey! hey!) and i like cham and "political" / "conscious" songs, but how many times is he gonna try and make another "ghetto story," whinumphant tone and all

classic bawstin hip-hop ish from brick records :: a few of these dudes came out to BR last monday for pace's blast-from-the-past session :: they were gassed to hear me play some ol' superscientifical cambridge rap that brick put out back in the (those were the)day(s)

katie, who i met at brandeis, has begun an apple blog after reading up on sñr appleseed and eating lots of apples; it's apple season so i'm rllllly feelin apple talk; i'm going to go have an apple right now