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 links.) Hoping to do more posting in the near, near future. Meantime, allow me to rip&share my favorite bit from Boima’s mix, esp for you slackers who haven’t listened —
dead prez, “i’m a african” remix
[audio:http://wayneandwax.com/wp/audio/deadprezremix.mp3]
Diligent link-followers (and linkthink readers) may have connected that bit of the mix with this extraordinary work of machinima I turned up while searching for “I’m a African” on YouTube —
The video — and a brief latenight intro to the mad mad world of machinima — inspired an interesting, “vaguely optimistic” riff over at /jaceplace, which I&I heartily recommend. (Thx also to ebog for linkthinking along.)
Hasta pronto —
My blog address is now ilovedub.blogspot.com
I apologies for the mix-up, box-up
Happy No Labor Day!
I’m not really feeling the remix of “I’m a African.” The original is much better. I don’t really like the impossibly high voices…
I hear you, Hasan, though I actually quite like the pitched-up voices and even the uptempo sambafied acidjazz accompaniment. It’s quite different from the original, yes, and I can understand liking it less, but I’m glad this one’s in the world too. Mostly, I like the way it reframes dead prez’s sentiment: what’s it mean for an African, or an African/African-American, to embrace and resignify their militant stance? I like that it poses that question for me in a way that the original doesn’t.