like the moon
What a weekend on the way! First, this Friday, I’ll be honored & pleasured to drop some gems at the Good Life (downstairs to boot!) for an absurd iteration of Picó Picante, my favorite local dance party. (And apparently Boston’s too!) In addition to resident DJs, Pajaritos and Oxycontinental, I’ll be joining downstairs headliners Uhuru […]
Read More →Ok, Boston Massive, the time has come! Tonight we kick off our new monthly edition of Beat Research with none other than NYC’s DJ Rekha! What (more) can we say? Flack & I have been wanting to get Rekha up here for ages; we’ve both had the pleasure to open for her at local shows; […]
Read More →Contrary to former reports, we will not have DJ Rekha at Beat Research tonight. Indeed, we will not be holding Beat Research at all this evening. Our final Tuesday night session will happen next week, May 8, when Tony “DJ” Flack and his students from MassArt present “Beat Research at Beat Research” — that is, […]
Read More →Beat Research looks to remain in high gear (with more low end than ever!) for the rest of the spring, maintaining our beast mode pace with some BIG guests coming thru over the next month or two. Among others, as I’ll detail below, our spring line-up will include such wreck-shopping luminaries as Chicago juke alchemist […]
Read More →“Downstairs Bhangra” doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Basement Bhangra,” the legendary monthly at SOB’s that DJ Rekha has been holding down since 1997, but I couldn’t be happier to warm up the crowd for her this Friday at one of Cambridge’s biggest local venues, downstairs at the Middle East. I’m looking forward to […]
Read More →This video mostly speaks for itself, and speaks volumes, but here are a couple key items: The weapons are not real! We don’t support violence. Also fake picture. Song used: Punjabi MC – “Jogi“ The range of reactions are absolutely precious. Does this mean the terrorists win? h/t ebog
Read More →Since I’m in a syllabus sharing mood, I figured I should finally get around to posting the one I put together in Spring 2008 for a course on “Global Hip-hop.” A series of case studies examining how hip-hop travels outside the US, what it carries with it, and how people adapt its forms to their […]
Read More →English Translation of Thoda Resham Lagta Hai Don't take this elegance as anything less than a disaster Oh my adorers, don't take me as made out of hard soil It takes a little silk, it takes a little glass Diamonds and pearls come together, it takes a little gold Such a fair body is then […]
Read More →The N-Word Is Flourishing Among Generation Hip-Hop Latinos – Music – Village Voice "Somehow, the n-word has found its way back into hip-hop's critical zeitgeist: I'm interested in exploring, as a Dominican New Yorker, how we as a community have propagated it. Recently, due to the mounting criticism of Boricua rapper Fat Joe's use of […]
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 →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 →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 →Considering what a solid series it’s been so far, I’m quite proud to present — Blogariddims ¡Blogaritmos! 11: “Another Crunk Genealogy” crunkyclave / dembowsalsa / raggyton / bhangrabounce subscribe to series | download mp3 (60:54 | 83.6mb) Of course, given the all-around excellence of the contributions to date, never mind the massive mix Heatwave dropped […]
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