like the moon
Last year I published a couple reviews that land somewhere between the realm of ethno/musicology and music criticism — a netherworld I obviously like to explore. One piece engages with the multimedia work of Arca; the other with a cheeky French rap video. One appeared in an academic journal devoted to Latin American art and […]
Read More →As published in issue 377 of The Wire (July 2015), here’s my joint review of two recent books about soundsystem/DJ culture, each of them impressive efforts of deep documentation and deliberate framing even as each takes a rather different approach to the project. Together, they further round out our understanding of the soundsystem as global […]
Read More →Appended below is the “director’s cut” (or unabridged author’s version) of a book review I wrote almost a year ago, which will soon finally see the light of day in the Journal of Popular Music Studies. The book is Mark Katz’s Groove Music, and I say enough below that I needn’t say more here, but […]
Read More →Summer vibes really on lock all a sudden, eh? Boston tropical and ting! (In fact, the main reason I’m finally getting around to writing this post — best intentions notwithstanding — is on account of IT IS TOO HOT TO SLEEP.) The dog daze arrived just in time, tho, for I’m delighted to report that […]
Read More →Ok, rounding things out, here’s the 3rd review/polemic in the 3-part series I’ve been running here (see parts 1 and 2). This one’s the most recently published, hardly a year old! (That’s not bad for lag, as these things go.) On the surface, it’s a review of 2010’s Anthology of Rap (Yale); but again, while […]
Read More →Following up on the last post/review, I’m running the next in the triad I described there: a series of book reviews written over the last few years which together bring matters of form — and its institutional (re)production — to the fore. This one — a review of Mark Butler’s Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, […]
Read More →This Thursday at MIT, Dave Tompkins will be giving a talk based around his book, How To Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II To Hip-Hop. I’ve not given the book a full treatment on the blog, but I’ve been recommending it to anyone I talk to about music or technology or […]
Read More →A few things to add to my recent post about graffiti in Mexico City — First, Said Dokins, one of my guests at Postopolis, writes to share some supplementary materials — in particular, documenting the role played by women in “arte urbano”: También te mando unos links de los libros que nuestra editorial tiene actualmente […]
Read More →I’ve been trying to get Dave Tompkins to come do a reading in town this spring from his much anticipated and well-worth-waiting-for book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop (Stop Smiling 2010). An afternoon at MIT followed by a night of vocoder-animated Beat Research seemed pretty apropos, […]
Read More →from Raquel Rivera to wayne marshall, Deborah Pacini Hernandez date Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 11:38 AM subject riddle me this Hi dear compis. I still don’t quite understand how the amazon sales work, but I got a big kick out of seeing us #1 in salsa and and #1 reggae. And #11 in rap. […]
Read More →Some bookish things to report, including the latest re: Reggaeton — namely, that tomorrow, Wednesday May 27 (which happens to be my born day), I’ll be appearing alongside co-editor Raquel Rivera on WNYC’s Soundcheck.
Read More →I love the moment at 0:21 in this credit card commercial: It’s obvious why, no? MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” — a “work” which, in addition to the song itself, includes as a part of its whole a now iconic video, known as much for its choreography as parachute pants — has become a […]
Read More →I know, I know, I’m flogging at this point. But I’m really quite excited to hold this thing in my hands.
Read More →Working on a little something about the dialectic(s) between dreadlocked aliens, Rastas in space (in reggae and sci-fi), and Jamaicans/Africans as “aliens” among us/US. If you have any other tips/refs in addition to these provocative pics (thx @rizzla_dj & @dizzyjosh for their Star Wars intel), do tell — Bonus points for anyone who can name […]
Read More →Amazing how an Amazon link makes our book finally feel real. (Pre-orders in teh house!) And though they don’t have any imgs yet, I’m happy to report that I do, and — having lobbied HARD for this particular photo by Miguel Luciano to grace our cover — I’m thrilled to share it with y’all: On […]
Read More →"Resisting, Subverting and Destroying the Apparatus of Surveillance and Control": An Interview with Mike Davis | (voices of resistance from occupied london) interview with mike davis about London, LA, and other cities at our strange moment, at times getting downright foucauldian — "So the internet gets to threaten freedom because of the way in which […]
Read More →It was due to serendipity (and size) that my hip-hop books ended up on the bottom shelf. But, boy, was that a good move.
Read More →WireTap Magazine – Free Association: Sound of Silence larisa/ripley's article on the recent rash of dubious takedowns in the mp3blogspotosphere :: written for a youth/general readership, so pretty backgroundy, but a good explanation of the current lay of the land :: bye bye blogspots (tags: mp3blog blogging copyright copywrong digital culture p2p) Beat Diaspora: Beats, […]
Read More →The Duke U Press catalog for Spring 2009 is already out. Why should you be excited? See pg 1 —
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