like the moon
Today marks 3 months since Nico joined us in the post-womb world. It’s been a really wonderful time. And I mean that — filled with wonder. Seeing and hearing her learn to interact with the people and things around her has been totally fascinating. The arrival of smiles, focused eyes, a strong neck (keep keepin […]
Read More →Last week I gave a guest lecture in a “Global Pop” class at MIT. The professor, Patricia Tang, asked me to come in and do my thing where I show how various genres cohere depending on tempo and rhythmic pattern. It’s a shtick I’ve had going for years, using Ableton (or, previously, FruityLoops) to make […]
Read More →Recently I brought two authors to campus to share their work with my class — that’s the only connection between the two otherwise disparate topics in the title of this post. (Hope I didn’t alarm anyone by implying improbable causal relationships.) … 1. The “hip-hop Japanthropology” was c/o Ian Condry, a professor at MIT who […]
Read More →Tomorrow (Monday) night @ Beat Research, we’re happy to host Boston’s mashup maestro, DJ BC — BC’s been cooking up mashed potatoes for years now, garnering international notoriety with such concept albums as the Beastles, Glassbreaks, Wu-Orleans, and other improbable partners. Although the heyday of the mashup has seemingly passed, with the idea still ubiquitous […]
Read More →W&W is happy to host another loving nod to Tim Haslett. Namely, the two-hour radio show Brian Coleman did on March 24, prior to our Beat Research tribute. A description and tracklist, from Brian, follows — WZBC “School Beats Tim Haslett Tribute” :: 24 March 2008 [audio:http://wayneandwax.com/wp/audio/coleman-ZBC-haslett-trib.mp3] Back To The Old School and School Beats […]
Read More →I have to admit, when I first heard MIA sing “slang tang” during the opening salvo on Arular, I found it an awfully clever gesture. And I liked it. A lot. I appreciated the allusion to a classic riddim and the winking rearticulation to describe how the gyal’s (s)language — London calling / speak the […]
Read More →A couple posts ago I shared some new videos c/o Maga Bo and Ghislain Poirier — two of the transnational bass proponents profiled in Camilo Rocha’s “globalistas” article. It goes without saying that I’m a supporter of what both Bo and Ghis are up to. In partic, I dig their cross-border collaborations, their distinctive […]
Read More →(thx 2 andrew gee & alexis stee 4 the tippage)
Read More →!! Tonight at Beat Research !! two top-notch worldly/whirledly DJs: Maga Bo and Chief Boima — neither of whom should be a stranger to readers of this bloggg As described here last year, Boima embodies global flows, reppin Sierra Leone via Wisconsin and the Bay Area. His Diamonds for Sierra Leone mix offers up his […]
Read More →Monday night at Beat Research was a lot of fun. Folks and friends came out in force, from veteran DJs to Tim’s family, & the vibes were real nice. Special thanks to Brian Coleman for rallying the people and bringing his deep crates of tunes he knew Tim loved. & Props to all the other […]
Read More →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 […]
Read More →still totally delighted by nico’s sudden smiles, coos and gurgles aside from our silly faces, the most consistent smilemaker = this mobile (thx, mom!), esp the cat so focused ! so expressiv !
Read More →The number of testimonials still rolling in — and rolling along — make it clear how many of us were touched by Tim. This past weekend, DJ Duo and Carlos B of the QE2 crew dedicated their longstanding, all-night Saturday/Sunday show to the man. (Hopefully they recorded it and can share it soon.) Here’s how […]
Read More →My ol fren Derrick Ashong continues to grain traction with his impromptu, utterly eloquent explanation of why he supports Obama. The latest to shine some light: the Grey Lady. Pull quote — Mr. Ashong, with an audience of more than a million so far, thinks he knows what made the difference for him. “My ears, […]
Read More →Last week my phone got put through the ringer — the rinse cycle, to be precise — and it was pronounced dead on retrieval. So it goes. Today I got a new phone, about which I’m excited, but I’m sorry to say that I lost all of my contacts from the old one. It saddens […]
Read More →As I linkthinked yesterday, YouTube’s most viewed (all time) page is a hard to find but rather interesting thing. For one, nearly all the videos are musically-mediated in some way (aside from the laughing baby). Most of the videos are, disappointingly, commercial productions that you could as easily catch on MTVH1, though there are a […]
Read More →In Kevin’s post about the fall of Audiomaxxx, he links to the video for Mr.Vegas’s “Tek Weh Yuself.” What most struck me while watching it was not the awesome dancing (tho it is awesome) but the setting: an unfinished brick-and-mortar mansion seemingly in the middle of nowhere — For those familiar with the Jamaican landscape, […]
Read More →The smiles have started to arrive! Like little laserbeams of love — I’m smitten as ever.
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