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 →“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 →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 →make way: american express meets el angel de la independencia uptown Allow me a little (belated) unpacking, now back from Mexico City, where I swear I will return, clunky español and all, que pronto es posible. !Que ciudad! My principal reason for going was, as mentioned, to attend the biannual international meeting of the International […]
Read More →Two other entities in the (other)worldly spirit I was speakin of — and I mean that in a good way — would seem to merit some shine on em, ‘specially since one’s got a new mix up & out :: London’s Heatwave crew bring the picante to the blogaparty, lacing together Spanish rap y reggae […]
Read More →In a recent issue of the SEM Newsletter (March 2007, to be precise), Phil Bohlman addressed the issue of cultural translation and how it presents a paradox to ethnomusicologists — or perhaps more broadly, to those of us who mediate musical representations in myriad ways (including via links and mp3s): Should we understand our acts […]
Read More →On Tuesday (5/1) and Thursday (5/3), from 11am-12pm, I’ll be delivering what have become my annual lectures on Caribbean music to Orlando Patterson‘s “Caribbean Societies” class at Harvard College. Tuesday’s lecture will focus on Afro-Latin traditions, while Thursday’s will turn to the history of Jamaican music, though there will be, of course, some intersections between […]
Read More →After running my “Zunguzung” paper through the ringer at EMP the week before, I’ll be offering a slightly different (and no doubt revised) version at the annual US meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (or “yaspum,” as we say it). The conference takes place at Northeastern University from April 26-29; […]
Read More →JC on JB Back from Seattle, which was a blast (see below). Off to Boston tomorrow. Gonna be in the Bean (and the Bridge) for a spell, presenting a revised version of the Zunguzung tale I told this past weekend, weighing in on the White Rapper Show alongside some hip-hop(-studying) ethnomusicologists, and delivering what have […]
Read More →From April 19-22, I’ll be participating in this year’s EMP conference in Seattle, an annual convergence of music writers (journalists and academics alike). My own presentation is on that ol “Zunguzung” meme and will follow the zigzagging melody from Yellowman to Jin, with plenty of stops along the way, examining how such a musical figure […]
Read More →Off to Seattle tomorrow to participate in this. I’ll be following what I’ve been calling the “Zunguzung Meme” from Kingston to Brooklyn to San Juan and back (w/ several stops along the way). That ol’ Yellowman melody sure seeps into some interesting (and often seminal) performances, telling the intertwined stories of hip-hop and reggae (and […]
Read More →While we’re in a outsourcing mood here at w&w, allow we to offer up another recent q&a — Dear Wayne, Hope you’re well, This is a follow-up to an email that I sent last week regarding me possibly conducting an interview in the near future regarding the role of Jamaican styles in US and UK […]
Read More →Alan Lomax’s “cantometrics” has long functioned as a Pandora’s box for conversation on the SEM listserv. Yesterday and today, fairly explicitly (literally?). We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Here’s the current string, in all asynchronous argument — Alexandre Enkerli to SEM-L Mar 27 Fellow music analysts, To be honest, when a student in my anthropology of […]
Read More →On March 8-9, I’ll be participating in a Caribbean Music Seminar at Royal Holloway College (University of London). On the evening of the 8th, I’ll contribute to an open forum on Jamaican music. On the morning of the 9th, I’ll be delivering a paper about Jamaican culture, versioning, and the notion (and uses) of the […]
Read More →As I mentioned in the last post, I’m headed to London this week (tomorrow today actually!) to participate in a Caribbean music seminar at Royal Holloway College. I’m honored to have been invited to join in the proceedings, and I’m quite looking forward to the various papers, the broader conversation, and the feedback I hope […]
Read More →“It would seem evident that these two singers were friends of Diplo. The performance begins with a prayer for the repose of his soul and then the two singers exchange improvised decimas, ten paired couplets of eight syllables each. A powerful and moving eulogy and a wonderful example of the Puerto Rican Jibaro or mountain […]
Read More →Went for an afternoon trip up to Devon Ave’s “Desi corridor” yesterday accompanied by an anthropologist who studies the circulation of pirated media in India (mainly Bollywood/Filmi), and who was, as you can imagine, a perfect companion for a brief tour of the strip’s numerous “record” shops (which sold CDs, DVDs, videocassettes, and even plain […]
Read More →Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to sound like Time fckn Magazine or appear too technoptimistic. Indeed, allow me to repeat here — for those who aren’t comment readers — /jace‘s well-put and well-taken anxieties w/r/t web2point0h: i think most of web2.0 activities is lil autonomous nodes — blogs, youtube uploaders & viewers, […]
Read More →A couple nights ago I attended the reception for an exhibition currently showing at the Glass Curtain Gallery (Columbia College) in downtown Chicago. Curated by anthropologist art historian Deborah Stokes and entitled “Africa.dot.Com: Drums to Digital,” it is billed as “an exhibition that visually and interactively explores the collision of modern culture and technology on […]
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