Halal Beats

illuminarcy blog devoted to arab hip-hop / challenging stereotypes of arabs&muslims (tags: blog hip-hop arab islam representation babylonia) illuminarcy: "Arab Money" Download & Lyrics a fierce, at times funny, response to busta's ignant "ay-rab money" (h/t rachel) :: lyrics & zshare link here :: someone pllllzzzz make sure that busta hears this (tags: arab representation […]

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Austerity Gospel

Inside Indonesia – Punks, rastas and headbangers: Bali's Generation X a short piece by emma baulch (who recently published a book on the subject) about popular music in contemporary bali, esp alternative, metal, and reggae :: "Although dominated by covers of Bob Marley songs, the Bali reggae scene is much less about the struggle for […]

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Palingenetic Ultranationalism

The Elephants Child: ring ring ring rachel re: ring tones, txt speak, & refurb'd nokia nat'lism (tags: cellphones video global nation language blogpost) ffm713's blog – FFM presents The Pen & Pixel Madhouse – Skyrock.com 73 pages of pen&pixel rap album covers (via noz) (tags: hip-hop art design album gangsta) Palingenetic ultranationalism – Wikipedia, the […]

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Half Baked Alaska

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before "Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. There are now nearly 600 maps." (tags: world map visualization geography cartography) Dancehall.Mobi » Middle East Riddim 2008 middle east riddim relick, 4 years after the […]

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Pimp My Piragua

El Ganso Gris has a nice lil piece today (w/ video!) about Miguel Luciano‘s “Pimp My Piragua” project. I’ve talked about Miguel’s work here before. It’s stunning stuff, and I’m thrilled to report that a shot from his “Pure Plantainum” series is gonna grace the cover of our reggaeton book (due out this spring!)!

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Mujahideen Dairy

This "Paper Planes" Thing is Way Out Of Control | RapidShare | Blogs | Vibe.com all of a sudden, it seems, "paper planes" has gone downright viral :: whattaya know? (tags: remix hip-hop MIA audio blogpost) The Jamaica Star :: Entertainment :: Overseas party link :: March 19, 2008 "While the major summer events are […]

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Hokey Mom Playing Cards

I think I’ve finally got my linkthink flow resolved, so there should be a more consistent stream of delishish posts from here on out. For whatever glitchy reason, my recent taggage has gone un(re)published here, so I’m going to paste it in below just to throw all you loyal readers a bone or two. Plz […]

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Inadequate Blackmail

McCain’s Daddy Yankee Endorsement – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com 'Daddy Yankee called Mr. McCain “a fighter for the Hispanic community” and “a fighter for the immigration issue.’’ Mr. McCain, who noted that his wife, Cindy, had gone to Central High School, said, “I just want to say thank you, Daddy Yankee.’’ ' :: (thx, […]

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Linkthink #74943: The Future Is Later

todo mundo » Blog Archive » Is that Lil Twane on the keytar? great post by kevin linking lil wayne to coltrane, miles, george duke and other techno-musical visionaries :: including the great question, "Is not Auto-Tune the wah pedal of today’s Black pop?" :: and, to boot, he inserts his video-supported commentary into recent […]

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linkthink #611: Pound for Pound

Reggae Vibes presents Jamaica’s Weekly Music Countdown Charts top20 dancehall singles chart, up-to-the-time (thx, rachel) (tags: dancehall reggae jamaica charts) MASALA: Reggaeton de Aruba. The Dutch Tropics nice post on reggaeton in aruba, w/ lyrics in papiamento (tags: reggaeton caribbean aruba blogpost mp3) YouTube – bigcityfm’s Channel collection of videos from boston’s caribbean radio station, […]

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linkthink #439: Edward James Almost

MySpace.com – BIG CITY 101.3 FM BOSTON – BOSTON, Massachusetts – www.myspace.com/bigcityfm my favorite radio station in boston, hands-down (tags: radio boston caribbean reggae soca) todo mundo » Blog Archive » Throwback videogames, digital distro, and atavistic joy nice piece by kevin on the retro video game design trend in the wake of digital distribution […]

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Flag This: A Glance @ Google Nationalism

What can be gleaned by glancing at the first page of returns via Google Images for certain nations and their flags? I don’t know exactly, but I found the results fascinating enough to take several screenshots. I do like the play between a sort of repetitive stability and the occasional, odd (but telling) aberration, e.g., […]

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Rearguard Opinion? (Slackness b/w Sexism & Sexuality)

I’ve been meaning to share my reflections on the smut/slackness symposium I participated in @ Penn for some time now, but, well, you know how the end of the semester can go. Many of the themes that emerged in the panel have been ‘verberating in my head, however — ideas which seem to resonate with […]

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Congatronix

For any readers whose curiosity was piqued by the conga videos in last night’s del.icio.us dump, allow me to provide a little more context via Lani Milstein, a NY-based ethnomusicubanist, who brought them to my attention — Just a shout out to say thanks for being such an eloquent writer on reggaetón. I’m working on […]

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Ready for the Road (and the Remix)

With carnival jumping off in T&T over the next week — & Mardi Gras a week from today — tis the season for Trini artists to roll out the big guns: tunes so massive that they run the road once the marching begins (not to mention before and after all is danced and done). The […]

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Eat a Rum (Cake)

“Drink a Rum” = a Trini Xmas favorite. Composed by his highness Lord Kitchener, but also given various chutney soca parang upgrades, among other countless variations and personalizations. Another Trini Xmas fave, with even more personal/family/local versions — plus more broadly diffused throughout the (Anglo-)Caribbean — is the rum/fruit cake often referred to as black […]

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Horsepower

Redd Man to Wayne :: Sep 11 (1 day ago) Horse, Want you to check this out when you get a chance…this is a sound system of some of my breddren, and one did an excellent dubs-only mix of some of T&T’s reggae/culture artistes: http://dancehallreggae.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127303 Easy, Danish yes iyah, straight fiyah mp3 >> here (& […]

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Wayne’s Caribbean Music Lectures

On Tuesday (5/1) and Thursday (5/3), from 11am-12pm, I’ll be delivering what have become my annual lectures on Caribbean music to Orlando Patterson‘s “Caribbean Societies” class at Harvard College. Tuesday’s lecture will focus on Afro-Latin traditions, while Thursday’s will turn to the history of Jamaican music, though there will be, of course, some intersections between […]

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Reggae(ton) Bangara

Went for an afternoon trip up to Devon Ave’s “Desi corridor” yesterday accompanied by an anthropologist who studies the circulation of pirated media in India (mainly Bollywood/Filmi), and who was, as you can imagine, a perfect companion for a brief tour of the strip’s numerous “record” shops (which sold CDs, DVDs, videocassettes, and even plain […]

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imeem, i’m sayin

Talk about too much music. Was readying a post on all the pods I cast (or subscribe to, that is), but then I get pointed to a Soca 2k7 playlist on some mysite called imeem — The soca 2k7 are verrrrrry r and b. I thought it would be interesting for your work. The soca […]

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