Blogs and Works

A little late to report this here, but two weeks ago FACT Mag ran an interview with Mike Paradinas, aka ยต-ziq, perhaps better known these days as the head of Planet Mu Records. FACT describes the label so — Initially serving as an outlet for the IDM scene and its offspring, the label has since […]

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Rocksteady to Lit City

If you happened to have slept on either of these two recent and utterly epic Beat Research sessions, I’m happy to report that both DJ Rashad’s blistering juke set and Junior Rodigan’s masterful tour of Studio One’s rocksteady resonance are now online and listenable & what-not. Enjoy!

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Let’s Werk Together

Ok, y’all, the week of Together is finally here, and we couldn’t be more amped for Wednesday’s event: Do note that we’ve added another DJ/producer to the line up: Blk.Adonis has been our guest at Beat Research before, but given that he’s a great admirer of Rashad and has been working to work juke & […]

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Sustained Bea(s)t Mode

Beat Research looks to remain in high gear (with more low end than ever!) for the rest of the spring, maintaining our beast mode pace with some BIG guests coming thru over the next month or two. Among others, as I’ll detail below, our spring line-up will include such wreck-shopping luminaries as Chicago juke alchemist […]

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A Whole Nu World?

Last week a daily newspaper from Abu Dhabi, The National, published a piece I wrote about “nu world” music under the title “Sounds of the wide, wired world” (29 Oct 2010). As usual, while I think my editor — here, the mighty Dave Stelfox — did an utterly admirable job of making my prolix prose […]

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Just May Be

I’ve been on a serious YouTube grind over the last couple weeks, working up a couple papers/talks on black digital youth culture. Check the waxtube or my favorites to sink into a pixelated dance trance. Gave one version of this black-digi-youf chat a couple weeks ago at Harvard, which thx to a little bird tweet, […]

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Up-to-the-Time, Down-to-the-Minute

It’s hard to keep up with dancehall’s now ting from farin, which is why I’m both grateful to and surprised by the way some London brethren keep up on things. Of course, London’s a very Jamaican place at this point, but so’s Boston, in certain corners, and I guess I just gotta get out more. […]

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Globalistas e Baptistas

Not long ago, w/r/t global gobbledecrunk, I referred to an interview I gave recently to a Brazilian journalist. The journo in question is Camilo Rocha, who doubles as a DJ (& has a fab disco mix over @ Spannered). The piece was just published in Folha de Sao Paolo, apparently Brazil’s biggest newspaper. I don’t […]

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Watch My Upmost Music Industry Nem

A tale of several videos :: again about the wonderful work that music does, the vitality of digital (youth) culture, the persistence of realtime, peer2peer creativity and sociability, & the obvious shortcomings of corporate hackery u kno the first, no doubt — The maker of many a best of 2007 list, Dude Nem’s “Watch My […]

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Local Ghettotech (vs. Gobbledecrunk)

This Friday — here in Cambridge, Mass — the Thunderdudes are bringing none other than Detroit ghettotech luminary DJ Assault to move the (m)asses @ the Greek American Political Club — I have to admit that I’m pretty excited ’bout that, since I find ghettotech, ghetto house, juke, etc. — various hardcore post-house/techno booty beats […]

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Global Ghettotech vs. Indie Rock: The Contempo Cartography of Hip

“Hipster hedonism takes many forms,” wrote Ned Polsky in reply to Norman Mailer’s hipster manifesto of 1957. “Some hipster groups,” Polsky continued, “have everything to do with motorcycles, whereas others have nothing to do with them.” Similarly, but more in the abstract, in his genealogy of the hipster, “Hip and the Long Front of Color” […]

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Labor Day Special: End His Career!

The NYT published a long profile on Rick Rubin yesterday. It’s a innaresting piece and Rubin’s a helluva producer, executive producer, A&R man, and new-age exec — but he’s not gonna save the music industry. DJ Nate (via s/fj), on the other hand, provides a good glimpse at the new non music industry. On his […]

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Outsourced Analysis #745639: Kwaito Resonance Reflex

On 8/2/07, Sonjah Stanley-Niaah, Dr wrote: And this one, check this out.. I am interested in your analysis of the dance and music… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKxhKhLhlb0 Sonjah Stanley Niaah, Ph.D. Lecturer, Cultural Studies University of the West Indies, Mona Campus Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 2008: www.crossroads2008.org Wadabagei: www.lexingtonbooks.com/Journals/wadabagei/Index.shtml To which I replied: This one’s (more) interesting […]

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It’s Time for the Blog U Later

Sorry for the silence. It’s that time of spring — all mango-con-chili in the park and classes to finish up and articles & anthologies to tie together and whatnot. More soon, tho, I promise. Meantime, for an early summer bubble fix, I meem you Cajmere‘s classic Chicago house, maximinimal, proto-juke joint, which was apparently a […]

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Stage Show Excerpt & Counter Canonical Discourse

If we’re listening for the presence of Jamaica in hip-hop (and hence in NY/US/worlwide), we could attend to such a thing on any number of levels: 1) the occasional 3+3+2; 2) the influence of dub engineering on hip-hop mix aesthetics (e.g., echo, layering, lowend); 3) double-time, flip-tongue, fast-chat flows; 4) accents, cliches, Rasta mantras, and […]

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What’s Real eHood?

Hot off a week of steady jukeboxin, I got to see/hear/feel DJ Nehpets — Chicago radio’s juke ambassador — alongside localtronix partyrockers Flosstradamus Friday night at Sonotheque. It was a treat to hear those bassy beats through something other than my laptop, and I love that juke — at least as represented by Nehpets — […]

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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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