Everybody’s Doin’ What?

As I prepare to teach various classes about ragtime (and its roots), I’ve returned to Dale Cockrell’s recent book, Everybody’s Doin’ It: Sex, Music, and Dance in New York, 1840-1917 (Norton, 2019). It’s a revelatory peek at the roots of popular music and dance in the public houses, dives, brothels, and concert saloons of New […]

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Interview in Music Journalism Insider

I first worked with Todd Burns back in 2013 when he commissioned me to write a “loop history” of one of my fave loops of all time: dembow. Of course, RBMA is no more, nor are various other outlets for music writers. In the light of this changing and precarious landscape, Todd has been devoting […]

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Social Dance in the Age of (Anti-)Social Media

A few years ago I started teaching a class at Berklee called “DJ Cultures and American Social Dance.” We survey the history of social dance across the Americas, with particular attention to the era of DJing, but we try to place that cultural turn within the long-view of how dance has functioned in different societies, […]

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Ich kann ein bisschen Reggaeton verstehen

ila, a German magazine devoted to Latin America published a special issue on reggaeton this summer, including an interview with yours truly. If you kann ein bisschen Duetsch lesen (like those of us who studied vergleichende Musikwissenschaft in graduate school), then you can click on that link in the last sentence and read it there. […]

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More Re:ggaeton

The “Despacito” effect continues. That is to say, I continue to receive media inquiries about reggaeton a good year after the song’s triumphant run. And while I’ve started to get a little tired of the same questions, this newfound enthusiasm over and curiosity about reggaeton has also resulted in some cool invitations and some strong […]

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Technomashicology Spring 2015

My students have been hard at work in this spring’s session of Technomusicology at the Harvard Extension School (which I’ve just realized marks 10 years since I first started teaching there!), and I’m eager to share some standout projects. We recently turned to the mashup as a media form to grapple with, thinking about the […]

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Boys v. Girls

There’s been a lot of news in the past week about the legal kerfuffle between the Beastie Boys and a company called GoldieBlox, which markets science/engineering toys aimed at girls (and their parents) seeking something beyond the standard pink princess fare. Apparently, GoldieBlox has successfully leveraged the “viral” qualities of the net to project their […]

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Talking Music & Media, Whirled & Jamaican, Self & Other

A couple items to share, pardon the self-centeredness, but hey, this is a blog, right? First, hot off the virtual presses: Radio Berkman has just posted a snappily edited podcast featuring yours truly in conversation with the one and only Ethan Zuckerman about world/whirled music, globalghettotech, jerkbow, tribal, moombahton, and platform politricks, among other things. […]

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More Writing on the Walls: Graffiti En DF Addenda

A few things to add to my recent post about graffiti in Mexico City — First, Said Dokins, one of my guests at Postopolis, writes to share some supplementary materials — in particular, documenting the role played by women in “arte urbano”: También te mando unos links de los libros que nuestra editorial tiene actualmente […]

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Ali Had a Fruit Punch

Rant: Zombie Feminism holy moly! a very persuasively argued account/critique of "zombie feminism" :: "_Deadgirl_ is such a striking entry in the zombie feminism genre because it's just so damn literal. You've got a naked girl, strapped to a bed in a mental institution, being raped by a bunch of teenaged guys. Clearly a situation […]

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linkthink #7402: Like, Totally Obliterated

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ – New York Times “The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.” (tags: US prison stats nyt) Globalization or Zoo-Like Exploitation? Slum Tours on the Rise at Racialicious – the intersection of race and […]

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linkthink #95363: Color Guard

Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) PALAOA – Livestream streaming sound from the antarctic ocean (via bldblg) (tags: audio science sound soundscape nature antarctica) Canyon Cody el canyonazo, studying music in grenada via fulbright, promises to live-blog the making of an al-andulus inspired album, w/ such collaborators as gnotes, over the month […]

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Slackness Chat @ UPenn

Tomorrow I’m participating in a symposium convened by the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m humbled and excited to be a part of the conversation. Check the lineup — Thursday, March 27th 12noon – 2:00 pm Smut/Slackness in Caribbean Music Carolyn Cooper University of the West Indies Shannon Dudley University of […]

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