Search Results for: riddim method

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 […]

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A La Plenísima

Plena is Spanish for ‘full.’ But it has other meanings too, depending where yr @ —                      In Puerto Rico, plena refers to street music played on panderetas (see, e.g., Sorongo‘s comments here). In Panama, plena refers to reggae — homegrown reggae en español in particular. The riddim method has been alive and well in […]

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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 […]

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Showtime (for Lawsuits), Unfinished Business (for Lawyers)

Dancehall.mobi has the scoop today on a lawsuit instigated by producer Dave Kelly — In Jamaican dancehall culture, “re-licking” a riddim has undoubtedly been a way of life. Almost monthly there seems to be a remake of a dancehall, reggae or rocksteady riddim that originated anywhere from just a few years ago to decades ago, […]

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Technomusicology (Mixes & Mashups)

Ableton Smashups Mashups and mega-mixes, mainly for classes but also for fun. Mixes You can also stream many of these via Mixcloud or Soundcloud. “Wave Count” :: notes | vimeo | mixcloud | mp3 “Louis Dembow Gottschalk” :: notes | soundcloud | mp3 “Raggamuffin Hip-hop Mix” :: notes | soundcloud | mp3 “Picó Picante May […]

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Bean Research

Longtime local pal and fellow Riddim Methodist, the mighty Pacey Foster, has been working on a history of hip-hop in Boston — a project that began as a commission to write a chapter for a book on regional hip-hop scenes and which has gradually expanded into something much larger as musical-social networks have led him […]

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Are You On MyFace?

Library Of Vinyl Experience: Beantown Boogie pacey — friendly neighborhood riddim methodist, lover of vinyl, and boston hip-hop historian — seeks to rightly re-center the bean in the boogie universe, offering up "a collection of (mostly) 1980's Boston electrofunk, boogie and breaks" and ending with a rare, schooly-D style bit of ol-school boston brash c/o […]

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I Am Curious! What Beat Does Your Soul Emanate On?

I think a lot of the critical hoo-ha that followed in the wake of SF/J’s miscegenationist broadside could have been averted had we all paid closer attention to the Monkees. Take the following clip, discussed by fellow Riddim Methodist Pacey Foster way back when, in which Charlie Smalls demos the difference between white and black […]

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Gyp the System

Not surprisingly, Timbaland is back in the news — and in the courts — again facing charges of outsourcing the orient unauthorized sampling. This time he’s being sued, for the second time, over the use of elements from the Egyptian composition “Khosara” (most famously recorded by Abdel-Halim Hafez back in the 50s) for Jay-Z’s “Big […]

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On the Record(s)

Jose Davila recently penned a profile of Black Chiney for the Miami New Times. In the article, I make a brief appearance, referring cryptically to a “triple threat” that never gets enumerated. Here’s the full transcript of my email Q&A with Jose, just for the record — 1: what do you like about black chiney/what […]

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Time For Another One of Those Egg-Noggin’ Beats

Well, it’s that time of year again. According to teh shopping centers, it’s been that time of year for a few weeks now. And I’ve gotta say that I’m as righteously indignant, if not as homicidal, as Junichi that we now find ourselves prepped for shopping season by Chri$tma$ jingles before it’s even Thanksgiving. It […]

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SEM in Honolulu

Alongside fellow Riddim Methodist, Larisa Mann (a/k/a, DJ Ripley), I’ll be “giving” a paper called “What Is Stolen? What Is Lost? Sharing Information in an Age of Litigation” at this year’s annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, which is happening in Honolulu from Nov 15-19. See the program for full details on the conference, […]

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Boston Smashacre

Before I get too ensconced in the Windy City, I’d like to send a little musical farewell (for now) to my dear hometown. A follow-up to last year’s “Boston Mashacre,” the “Smashacre” has been in the works for a while now. It’s not simply a sequel, though, it’s a different thing in kind. “Smash” is […]

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Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See

Jesse Kriss, whose History of Sampling visualization was long ago big upped here at w&w, has updated his Visual Scratch project (as formerly demo’d here) with the assistance of Boston’s DJ Axel Foley. I take no small satisfaction in having connected these two technicians. When Jesse described to me his intention to represent a number […]

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Slim Pickins

Imagine being asked to open up for an old school hip-hop DJ. Y’know, one of the innovators, the originators, the architects. Pretty good deal, right? An opportunity not to be missed. Now imagine being given a list of tracks you can’t play. Fair enough, you think. Gotta leave some crowd pleasers and ol’ stand-bys for […]

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Ethnomusicology

Our Book! Reggaeton. With Raquel Z. Rivera & Deborah Pacini Hernandez. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Articles “Ragtime Country: Rhythmically Recovering Country’s Black Heritage.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 32, no. 2 (2020): 50-62. “Social Dance in the Age of (Anti-)Social Media: Fortnite, Online Video, and the Jook at a Virtual Crossroads.” Journal of Popular […]

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Jivin’ Ladybug Picnic

Today I’ve got a Q&A with Jared Demick at his site The Jivin’ Ladybug, a “Skewered Journal of the Arts” or in slightly plainer terms, “an online arts journal devoted to word-whittlers, picture-pizzazzers, & sound-slingers, all over this here globe!” Though the latter most obviously describes me, and the middle option may seem more dubious, […]

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Dembow Criollo

If I were writing my mega-essay on reggaeton today, I’d want to make a lot more space for the Dominican Republic’s local take on the genre. Generally referred to as dembow (rather than reggaeton) — or dembow dominicano, to signal a certain national(istic) distinction — the Dominican artists and producers working in the style essentially […]

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Feeling the Unheard

The following text is the comment I delivered as the discussant for Steven Feld’s presentation this past Friday at Sensing the Unseen, a year-long seminar at MIT seeking “to join more familiar attention to material culture with an innovative focus on immaterial culture” in order to explore, in a variety of ways, the realm of […]

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Todo Mundo Musikeando

When I was in Mexico recently, I gave a lecture-demo on how one might express ideas about music through music. (Readers of this blog will be familiar with these approaches, especially via my excursions in riddim meth0dism.) Although I want to keep the concept as open as possible, believing there are myriad ways to do […]

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