like the moon
I noted on Twitter the other day that one reason it was taking me so long to finish up the previous post is that “darts are harder to throw than confetti.” It’s important to critique, at least if we want things to be better, but I also always try to remind myself that there are […]
Read More →a once-obscure music that enjoyed a fanatic embrace in the _______ slums of _______ has become a full-fledged global occasion – This could be the mantra of global ghettotech. Could hardly have written it better myself. But I didn’t. Nor was it written, despite what might be its commonplace connotations, about reggae, or funk carioca, […]
Read More →Two birds, one stone: in the ongoing effort to re-host some adventures in riddim meth0dology, this post also continues the recent trend of recommending mixes well-suited to summering. (But plz note — I really do think of this mix as suitable for all seasons.) I’m very happy to (re)present: our Lemon-Red Mix! >>> The Riddim […]
Read More →Next week’s Postopolis! DF happening is shaping up to be super stimulating and utterly exhausting. The schedule has been posted, and it boasts an array of guests that range from art/design-world titans to a dude who’s been diving DF sewers for three decades, and pretty much everything between and beyond. The diversity of participants is […]
Read More →Since I’m not on Facebook, you may not know that today’s my birthday. I’m 34, so I’ve now spent more time on Earth than that sexy guy from Nazareth. It’s a little unnerving, finding myself undeniably in my mid-30s. It’s not quite “middle age,” despite what my father just said on the phone, but I […]
Read More →Munchi follows up his moombahton splurge with some flashbacks — i totally forgot to send you some tracks i worked on in late 2009 that were bubbling but influenced by dominican music. like perico ripiao, bachata or dominican dembow. i had these finished but i was working on a whole concept thing there. Munchi – […]
Read More →Squaring unprecedented opportunities for music distro, sobering visualizations, and tweets for mpfrees asks for tricky math. I’m not sure we yet have the tools or the data. But we get more of each every day. It seems safe to say that the explosion of online tools for distributing music, whether for a fee or free, […]
Read More →Interestingly, this would have never happened on my blog, I don’t think. Score one for Google Buzz. & thx to all for playing along, including Paul himself.
Read More →Tomorrow I’ll be joining the fine folks from the Music and Sound Studies Colloquium Series at the University of Minnesota to talk about the synaesthetic publics addressing each other via skinny jeans, electronic dance beats, and wonky shuffle steps. I’m pasting the title and abstract below. As you can see, I’m flogging some familiar, but […]
Read More →Sometimes it really does feel like I’m in Oz, some Wizard behind a curtain producing lifelike YouTubes of my swirling musical obsessions — or like that cartoon kid Simon for whom the things he drew came true ¡ via via via con dios !
Read More →No, this post is not principally asking about things I should go see at SXSW next week, though I am eager to know about promising parties and awesome acts to catch. Holler if you’re gonna be in town or have a tip. (I can safely predict I’ll be unable to avoid the Tormenta Tropical tractor […]
Read More →In my recent post on “Watagatapitusberry” I wondered aloud, in so many words, where “the text” in question might reside, given that most people have been exposed to an intermediary “fan”/peer-produced text (a video) more popular than the original “text” (a recording), tho perhaps soon eclipsed by a new “official” video with potentially greater reach […]
Read More →Mil gracias a Marisol LeBron, who not only first brought to my attn the wonderful nueva-media phenom of “Watagatapitusberry,” but who has offered some interesting thoughts on its homosocial joi de vivre (check her initial round-up of home videos) and has kept up on the latest developments around the song. Most recently, the launch of […]
Read More →awesome img grab via promo materials for a similarly titled music conf also this week I’m honored to announce that I’ll be keynoting this Saturday’s Columbia Music Scholarship Conference. The conference theme is near and dear to my heart & work: “Music and Money: Examining Value in Music.” The relationship between money and value is […]
Read More →Next Tuesday (Feb 2) will be the initial meeting of the first class I’m teaching at MIT. I’m excited about the course, a new one, which invites students to read along with me and collectively investigate what I’ve been calling music industry — that is, a broader understanding of musically-propelled cultural practice than something like […]
Read More →Boima’s post about a Panamanian/Nigerian jerk-off made me wonder about this Suku Castro character calling out “TODO MUNDO JERKEANDO!” So I did a quick googlywuzzit on his name and landed on this page, which not only hosts yet another interesting example of jerk practice in Panama (a mix containing no Spanish verses but cut’n’pasting several […]
Read More →Ok, back to reggaeton. So, once again, back to questions of vitality and vocality. Or, how it’s doing and for whom & from whence it speaks. one way of looking at the “reggaeton” “crash” (and recovery?) I was tickled to see Birdseed name reggaeton genre of the year for 2009, fully contra Gavin’s provocative post […]
Read More →(via cshirky, who says that bit about the kidney) & while we’re YouTubing tweaked technoptimism, tis the season for this ol’ chestnut:
Read More →Afropop Worldwide has a new program, airing currently on terrestrial radio in the US (and soon to appear online as streamable audio), which focuses on a subject near&dear to the heart of this blog: world music 2.0, aka nu-whirled music, aka global ghettotech. Or as they put it — Afropop Worldwide takes us into the […]
Read More →I’ve been working on a talk/chapter called “Skinny Jeans and Fruity Loops” and while part of that has involved tracking floggers and tecktonik across Latin America, another part has required that I dig into LA’s similarly day-glo/geeky youthtube dance scene: i.e., jerkin. More on all of this research later. Meantime, I just want to share […]
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