odes to billie joe (riddim meth0d repost)

[Here’s another Riddim Method re-post, featuring a couple mashups which I made all by myself (with the help of Kazaa and Ableton). It attempts to embrace a “riddim method” approach to music blogging — to focus more on musical texts that say things about music than wordy texts. I liked the playfulness and directness, as […]

Read More →
Panamanian Reggae Rabbit Holes

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 →
Bongo Flavored Independence?

When Boima was in Boston recently, back from a trip that brought him to Dubai and Dar es Salaam (aka Bongo) Nairobi, he mentioned that he noticed CDs on sale on the street, like the one pictured below, which compiled current hip-hop (and r&b) instrumentals, presumably for local rappers and singers to use for their […]

Read More →
Return of the Chief

Just a quick post to let you know that Beat Research will be leaping into 2010 tonight with a special guest appearance by Chief Boima. We’ve been lucky to host Boima’s distinctive blends of the best dance music on the planet — with a heavy slant toward African and Afrodiasporic jams — a couple times […]

Read More →
Down Like the Economy

DJ Earworm offers up his latest year-end mashup retrospective, putting together the top 25 songs of 2009. For me, despite how remarkably well it all hangs together, this doesn’t quite have the magic of last year’s collage, but it’s still a great way — much as I would prefer to never hear those BEP songs […]

Read More →
All My Hats At Once

tis the season for donning hats & maybe getting clobbered by a classmate Last Wednesday night I was the guest of Emily Corwin, host of The Neighborhood, a weekly radio show broadcast from Cambridge/MIT on WMBR. As she billed it — With trusty laptop in tow, Wayne wears all his hats at once –– musician, […]

Read More →
remix-mas! (riddim meth0d repost)

[I haven’t made another Xmas mix since this first attempt four years ago, and I’m not quite sure why. Despite my nostalgia for the sounds of the season, I think I quickly reach saturation. Anyway, I repost this for those of you who haven’t heard this before and are not yet feeling oversaturated. For those […]

Read More →
screw christmas (riddim meth0d repost)

[This is the first in a series of several reblogged posts from the now defunct Riddim Meth0d blog. I figured I’d start with some seasonally appropriate fare, so look for a couple more X-mas related things to follow. This post was originally published on Dec 21, 2005.] not to be a humbug, but it occurred […]

Read More →
Independent Riddim

Thanks again to Tom, our man in Panama, who recently pointed me to an additional, and interesting, instantiation of the Miss Independent riddim. As we heard previously, the Ne-Yo instrumental — most famously reappropriated in Vybz&Spice’s “Rampin Shop” — has become a veritable version in Panama, supporting no fewer than a dozen local voicings (and […]

Read More →
Se Llama Sonido

Tonight at Beat Research: the one-and-only Sonido Martines ! For those who don’t know, Sonido has been a driving force in the recent (re)surgence in cumbia interest outside of its longtime hotspots. He co-authors La Congona New Cumbia with Sñr Rupture, and he’s largely responsible — at least by my ears — for brokering the […]

Read More →
Pop Goes the Meme, Yo

I’m headed north this weekend to take part in the Pop Montreal conference. I’ll be speaking/playing on a “DJed Lecture Series” alongside such keen observers / boosters / makers of “World Street Music” as Guillaume Decouflet (aka Khiasma / Valeo from Masalacism), Brian Shimkovits (of awesometapes fame), Sao Paolo’s Dago Donato, and 90210’s favorite hip […]

Read More →
Re-Meet the Beatles, *Really* This Time

Last night at Beat Research the employees of Cambridge-based video game makers Harmonix swarmed the E Room with their friends, their gadgets, and their various musical side projects. They put on quite a show, and to a packed house! Video killed the radio star, but Rock Band might make some rock stars yet. Harmonix is […]

Read More →
Pop Goes the World

There’s little I can add to all the tributes and reflections gumming up the web these days, but like so many others I feel compelled to say something. Inspired even. I found Andrew Sullivan’s and Jeff Chang’s posts pretty resonant, Jason King’s too, among others, and I’ve been particularly struck by all the MJ music […]

Read More →
Covers, Blurbs, y Otras Traducciones

Amazing how an Amazon link makes our book finally feel real. (Pre-orders in teh house!) And though they don’t have any imgs yet, I’m happy to report that I do, and — having lobbied HARD for this particular photo by Miguel Luciano to grace our cover — I’m thrilled to share it with y’all: On […]

Read More →
Buried Treasure, Excavated Sizzle

The haunting echoes of r&b and garage ephemera are hallmarks of Burial’s music. Myriad, minute vocal snippets, tossed-off castaways in a sea of murky radio remembrances, reanimated as deeply expressive fragments, pitched around, recontextualized rhythmically and harmonically and vibewise. This is a poignant poetics, sometimes jaw-droppingly so, as the producer projects an alarmingly “human” voice […]

Read More →
Meta Matters!

ok, second post in a row jacking a video from those canny video jackers @ immanentdiscursivity — i love this. don’t you? not only is kid downright adorable, he’s using a youtube vid of a solo piano rendition of the akon song (now a duet!) to accompany himself. that’s some srsly born digital creativity right […]

Read More →
Pop Champagne, Pop Copyright

Listening to the Federation‘s recent mixx of reggae hottage for Mad Decent, a few things struck me per recent conversations here: [audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/maddecent/mad_decent_radio_44_federation.mp3] 1) the use of the “hey” sample in the intro (0:30-0:40), like an airhorn or any other selector sound effect (speaking of which, check the first sound on that page — you can’t […]

Read More →
A3rab Money Refix?

would you prefer to listen while looking at an img of what may or may not be a swank Dubai livingroom? You may have heard — or at least heard about — the above, a remix of Busta’s infamous “Arab Money,” featuring Lil Wayne, Akon, Diddy, Swizz Beatz, T-Pain, & of course, Ron Browz. There […]

Read More →
Delayed Linkdump #2429

Changed my wordpress password over the weekend, which threw off my semi-automatic delicious blogging (aka, linkthink). So here’s a semi-manual collection of yesterday’s links — LRB · Slavoj Žižek: Use Your Illusions looks like zizek caught the hope (kinda); here is a sneeze: “Nothing was decided with Obama’s victory, but it widens our freedom and […]

Read More →