wayne&wax

Academic Writing

A selection of recent publications — some on the web, some as pdfs, and one genuine, physical book.

• Reggaeton. Edited w/ Raquel Z. Rivera and Deborah Pacini Hernandez. Duke University Press, 2009.
• “It Takes a Little Lawsuit: The Flowering Garden of Bollywood Exoticism in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.” With Jayson Beaster-Jones. South Asian Popular Culture 10, no. 3 (2012): 1-12.
• “Spectacular Copulative Dance Today.” Norient, 14 January 2012.
• Book Review: “Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois, The Anthology of Rap.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 2 (2011): 190-4.
• “Mashup Poetics as Pedagogical Practice.” In Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube, ed. Nicole Biamonte, 307-15 (Scarecrow Press, 2010).
• Book Review: “Dave Tompkins, How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop and Steve Goodman, Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear.” Current Musicology 90 (Fall 2009): 93-103.
• Book Review: “Mark Butler, Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design in Electronic Dance Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 31 (2009): 192-99.
• “Dem Bow, Dembow, Dembo: Translation and Transnation in Reggaeton.” Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs 53 (2008): 131-51.
• “Kool Herc.” In Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture, ed. Mickey Hess, 1-26. (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007).
• “Follow Me Now: The Zigzagging Zunguzung Meme.” Paper delivered at Annual Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (US branch), Boston, 28 April, as well as at Experience Music Project, Seattle, 20 April 2007.
• “Giving Up Hip-hop’s Firstborn: A Quest for the Real after the Death of Sampling.” Callaloo 29, no. 3 (2006): 868-892.
• “The Riddim Method: Aesthetics, Practice, and Ownership in Jamaican Dancehall.” With Peter Manuel. Popular Music 25, no. 3 (2006): 447-70.
• “Bling-bling for Rastafari: How Jamaicans Deal with Hip-hop.” Social and Economic Studies 55, no. 1 & 2 (2006): 49-74.
• “What Is Stolen? What Is Lost? Sharing Information in an Age of Litigation.” Paper delivered at Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Honolulu, 16 November 2006.
• “Musically Expressed Ideas About Music: Techniques and Technologies for Performing Ethnomusicology in the Digital Age.” Paper delivered at Annual Meeting of the Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Trinity College, 8 April 2006.
• “Hearing Hip-hop’s Jamaican Accent.” Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter 34, no. 2 (2005): 8-9, 14-15.
• Book Review: “Michael Veal, Dub: Soundscapes & Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae.” Latin American Music Review 30, no. 2 (2009): 145-51.
• Book Review: “Deborah A. Thomas, Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalization, and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 7, no. 2 (2005): 270-2.
• Book Review: “Louise Meintjes, Sound of Africa!: Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio.” World of Music 46, no. 1 (2004): 145-52.

Teaching

I’ve taught courses on music, culture, and society at MIT, Harvard, University of Chicago, Brandeis, Brown, UMass-Boston, and UW-Madison. Here are links to several syllabi — some as HTML/blogposts, some as pdfs.

• Musical Publics. Harvard University, Spring 2013.
• Technomusicology. Harvard University, Fall 2012.
• Music, Race and Nation. Harvard University, Fall 2012.
• Music Industry and Digital Youth Culture. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Spring 2011.
• Global Reggae. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fall 2010.
• Global Hip-hop. Brandeis University, Spring 2008.
• Introduction to World Music. University of Chicago, Winter 2007.
• Introduction to the Social and Cultural Study of Music. University of Chicago, Autumn 2006.
• Routes, Rap, Reggae. Brown University, Spring 2005. (Here’s a bloggy reflection on the endeavor.)
• Electronic Music: History and Aesthetics of Popular Music since the 1960s. Harvard Extension School, Spring 2005 and 2006, Fall 2007. (Here’s another bloggy reflection.)

Journalistic Writing

When I can find the time, I like to write freelance popular music criticism as an experiment in voice and an exercise in communication beyond the academic sphere.

• “Sounds of the Wide, Wired World.” The National, 29 October 2010. (Expanded version.)
• Review of Ayobaness! The Sound of South African House. The Wire, June 2010.
• “Trading in Futures: From Rastas in Space to Dreadlocked Aliens, and Back.” Woofah, Spring 2010.
• Review of Dancehall: The Rise Of Jamaican Dancehall Culture (Vol. 2). The Wire, February 2010.
• Review of Funky Nassau. The Fader, April 2008.
• Review of Pitbull’s El Mariel. Boston Phoenix, 18 January 2007.
• Review of Specialty Records Reissue Series. Boston Phoenix, 4 January 2007.
• Review of New Reissues in Heartbeat’s Studio One Series. Boston Phoenix, 7 December 2006.
• Review of Tego Calderon’s The Underdog / El Subestimado. Boston Phoenix, 19 October 2006.
• Review of Heartbeat’s Studio One Reissue Series. Boston Phoenix, 12 April 2006. (Extended version.)
• “The Rise of Reggaeton.” Boston Phoenix, 19 January 2006.
• Review of Welcome to Jamrock and The Trinity. Boston Phoenix, 28 October 2005. (Director’s cut.)
• “Reggae-Tinged Resonances of a Wicked Wicked City.” Sonic Heart 1, no. 3 (July 2005).
• “War Ina Babylon: Jamaica and the War on Terror.” XLR8R, August 2005.

Press

The following are profiles of / interviews with me, but as Public Enemy say, “Don’t believe the hype.”

• “Doctor Dread.” By Gervase de Wilde. Undercover, no. 23 (May 2005).
• “Marshall’s Plan.” By Renee Graham. Boston Globe (29 July 2005).
• “The Boston Jerk.” By Camille Dodero. Boston Phoenix (26 August 2005).
• “Boston Bounce.” By Nick Barat. The Fader, no. 33 (October 2005).
• “Into the Blogosphere.” By Kaili McDonnough. Skywritings (Air Jamaica’s Magazine), Spring 2006.
• “Un ethnomusicologue aux platines.” By Étienne Côté-Paluck. Le Devoir (French), 15 June 2007.
• “‘Globalistas’ buscam sons periféricos.” By Camilo Rocha. Folha de Sao Paolo (Portuguese), 26 December 2007. [full interview published at spannered.org]
• “Watch My Meme: How the Web is changing black youth culture, and vice versa.” By Miles Raymer. Chicago Reader, 16 October 2008.
• “State of the World: How Globalistas Are Tearing Down Cultural Barriers.” By David Dacks. Exclaim!, March 2009.
• And Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend said this in Rolling Stone (Issue 1103, 29 April 2010):