like the moon
As promised last week, what follows here is my review of Michael Veal’s recently published book on dub. It won’t appear in print for perhaps another year, which is a little silly and unfortunate, but that’s how it goes. I see no reason, at any rate, not to share it now that it’s written, especially […]
Read More →Been working on a review of ethnomusicologist Michael Veal’s recently published book on dub (it’s called Dub [BUY!]), which I will share with y’all before too long; meantime, as I jot down some excerpts, I thought I’d share some of my favorite passages — insightful thoughts and neat narratives and such. To wit, a nice […]
Read More →As usual, DJ Flack & i&i & special guests will be conducting some weekly Beat Research over at the Enormous Room. Here’s our schedule for the month of October — Oct 1 :: Brian Coleman For anyone interested in hip-hop history Brian Coleman needs no introduction, he is the author of Check the Technique: Liner […]
Read More →Mobb Deep’s Prodigy alleges he was set up by the “hip-hop cops.” Listen >>> … Pull quotes — The hip-hop cops, they all over us, son. … When they locked me up, they tried to get me to set up 50 Cent. … They told me to plant stuff in his car and they’d let […]
Read More →Boston will be bouncing tonight — & not just b/c the Sox have convincingly emerged from the 20th century “Curse of the Bambino” triumphant and dominant, but also b/c we’re gonna be gettin down at BR with two of Boston’s best DJs: virtuoso rekkid blenda, dj rndm, and Boston Bounce originator and Beat Research founder, […]
Read More →“Hipster hedonism takes many forms,” wrote Ned Polsky in reply to Norman Mailer’s hipster manifesto of 1957. “Some hipster groups,” Polsky continued, “have everything to do with motorcycles, whereas others have nothing to do with them.” Similarly, but more in the abstract, in his genealogy of the hipster, “Hip and the Long Front of Color” […]
Read More →“To swing with the rhythms of another is to enrich oneself — the conception of the learning process as dug by Hip is that one cannot really learn until one contains within oneself the implicit rhythm of the subject or the person.” “(And yet crazy is also the self-protective irony of the hipster.” “the nihilism […]
Read More →TSA dude: Yes it is! me: No, technically, it’s not. TSA dude: She deserved everything she got. me: I’d expect you to say that. … (t-shirt deets here)
Read More →It’s a Sooty month at Beat Research. Last week we had the pleasure of hosting Filastine, and tonight we’ve got the mighty Maga Bo! Readers of this here blog surely need no introduction to Mr.Bo. He’s been making waves for a while now with his world-whirling, genre-busting mixes — not to mention his excellent series, […]
Read More →Dang. I think Simon just referred to my blog as “hipster chatter.” Them’s fightin words, Reynolds. I mean, I’m sayin, I only own one belt and maybe 3 pairs of sneakers, tops. For serious tho, I’m very curious to know what constitutes hipsterism — for Simon and for others — at this moment in time. […]
Read More →Been enjoying the ASA conference in Philly for the last few days. Our panel on Thursday went pretty well, I think. We actually seemed to have some coherence across our papers and although we had a rather compromised a/v situation (holding a Shure 58 to laptop speakers don’t really cut it in a ballroom), I […]
Read More →If I thought something was poppin in the state of Denmark, I have no idea que pasa en Argentina. The ol’ blogosphere radar has been registering lots of blips from that southmost outpost in South America. I mentioned the Frikstailers a little while back, for instance. And of course, there’s the whole cumbia rebajada movimiento, […]
Read More →Tonight at Beat Research: none other than the globetrottin, no-stoppin, power-to-the-people’s-party-rockin radical, Filastine! Don’t sleep. Check the profile in last week’s Phoenix for more deets, if you don’t already know —
Read More →Next week (Thursday, Oct 11, from 12:00pm – 1:45pm to be exact) I’ll be presenting at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, being held this year in Philadelphia (at the Marriott, natch, which is offering a lovely “conference rate” of $200/night). I’m not so excited about the hotel deal, but I’m excited about […]
Read More →Thing about hip-hop, it’s laaaaarge. Too often the focus falls on the most ubiquitous figures, images, and myths. But hip-hop contains multitudes. Don’t let MTVH1 and Diet Fiddy colonize yr horizons, kids. I try to keep this in mind when someone who knows very little about hip-hop asks me my opinion of “it,” and it’s […]
Read More →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). — […]
Read More →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 […]
Read More →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.
Read More →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 […]
Read More →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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