Talkin’ All That Canon: On Hip-hop’s Jazz

Did I say something about “counter” canons? I think I like “loose” canons better. But the gist remains: that is, if we listen to some genre of choice through the ears of another, it can tell us a great deal about both genres (which is to say, about the producers and devotees of both). — […]

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The People in Your Neighborhood

Something is poppin’ in the state of Denmark. Troels (of Firehouse Sound) recently hipped me(space) to Lady Smita, a Roxanne Shante song-embedding dancehall diva who makes punaany-power traxx with digital Danish producers like Maffi, uses Boba Fett for her profile pic, and starts her heroes list like so — Which made me think: the MIA […]

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Global Schoolhouse Fundraiser

If you roll like a philanthropist (i.e., $50-and-up for tix), come schmooze with me and the people behind Global Schoolhouse on Thursday, September 27, at 120 Walker Street in Chinatown, NYC. I’ll be playing lots of whirled music in support of this global education initiative. More details available here.

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Beat Research – Sept 07

As usual, DJ Flack & i&i & special guests will be conducting some weekly Beat Research over at the Enormous Room. Here’s our line up for the month of September — Sept 3 :: Eggplant Xanadu For this Labor Day we thought we would bring in party DJ Eggplant Xanadu to help keep those free-wheeling […]

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Hallelujah Holla Black

Some readers might remember that I participated in a panel about ego trip’s White Rapper Show earlier this year at the annual meeting of IASPM-US. I’ve been wanting to share my thoughts / comments from that session here for a while, but haven’t had a moment to collect (or transcribe) them. Well, I just spent […]

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Gungo Peas, Feng Shui, and Zen / Zunguzungunguzung-again!

Thanks to Gabriel from Heatwave (and happy earthday, y’all!) for bringing my attn to yet another iteration of the Zunguzung meme. This time around, Damian Marley and Gwen Stefani add their names to the long list of meme carriers. I’m not really feeling the track (which maybe goes without saying), but I like the way […]

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Mash Ave

I’ll be dropping some mashy potatoes alongside DJ BC and Lenlow at their biweekly Mash Ave gig over at the Indo in Union Square.

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Euroteknofolkisch Fußwerk and Other Whirledly Delights

Mashit Records relaunches this month as a netlabel, complete with a blog, and DJ C has been tearing it up over there. He promises podcasts, mashups (of the week), remixes, and all sorts of goodies as they go, including no doubt plenty more Mashit Seratonin. My favorite post so far is Jake’s coverage of yet […]

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¡Todo Mundo!

DJ Flack and I will be moving our Beat Research labs over to the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain to rock the house with DJ Lone Wolf at his recently inaugurated Todo Mundo night. TODO MUNDO Week 0: Lone Wolf hosts Beat Researchers DJ Flack and Wayne&Wax ! Thursday Sept 13, 10pm 403-405 Centre St., […]

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Horsepower

Redd Man to Wayne :: Sep 11 (1 day ago) Horse, Want you to check this out when you get a chance…this is a sound system of some of my breddren, and one did an excellent dubs-only mix of some of T&T’s reggae/culture artistes: http://dancehallreggae.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127303 Easy, Danish yes iyah, straight fiyah mp3 >> here (& […]

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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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Tons o’ Tons, or Distributed Reading #5382

I tagged a “raï-ggaeton” video over at my linkythinky a while back. A bit o’ chutney-ton, too. Both seemed interesting to me as rather explicit examples of the localization of global pop (and rton in partic), if not terribly compelling as specific things &, yeah, rather steeped in the odor of novelty. That’s not the […]

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Dancefloor Friktion, Almost From Any Font

The Frikstailers first came to my attn via DJ Ripley and Stu FatPlanet, both of whom seemed to admire their “fidget groove” (thx, stu!). I too was instantly enamored with their glitched-up, tech-housey (blog-housey?), syncopated dance traxx. They helped me to imagine Argentina in a different way, hearing Córdoba as another outpost of the EDM […]

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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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I&I’m a African

Sorry for the silence here of late. It’s been crunchtime for fall semester, which I’m v excited about. What’s more, I thought I’d leave the “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” post up for a while in the hope of getting more feedback for me and Boima both. (Thanks to Lamin for sharing his thoughts & the […]

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