Blogs and Works

A little late to report this here, but two weeks ago FACT Mag ran an interview with Mike Paradinas, aka µ-ziq, perhaps better known these days as the head of Planet Mu Records. FACT describes the label so — Initially serving as an outlet for the IDM scene and its offspring, the label has since […]

Read More →
Sustained Bea(s)t Mode

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 →
Just May Be

I’ve been on a serious YouTube grind over the last couple weeks, working up a couple papers/talks on black digital youth culture. Check the waxtube or my favorites to sink into a pixelated dance trance. Gave one version of this black-digi-youf chat a couple weeks ago at Harvard, which thx to a little bird tweet, […]

Read More →
linkthink #439: Edward James Almost

MySpace.com – BIG CITY 101.3 FM BOSTON – BOSTON, Massachusetts – www.myspace.com/bigcityfm my favorite radio station in boston, hands-down (tags: radio boston caribbean reggae soca) todo mundo » Blog Archive » Throwback videogames, digital distro, and atavistic joy nice piece by kevin on the retro video game design trend in the wake of digital distribution […]

Read More →
linkthink #7402: Like, Totally Obliterated

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ – New York Times “The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.” (tags: US prison stats nyt) Globalization or Zoo-Like Exploitation? Slum Tours on the Rise at Racialicious – the intersection of race and […]

Read More →
Watch My Upmost Music Industry Nem

A tale of several videos :: again about the wonderful work that music does, the vitality of digital (youth) culture, the persistence of realtime, peer2peer creativity and sociability, & the obvious shortcomings of corporate hackery u kno the first, no doubt — The maker of many a best of 2007 list, Dude Nem’s “Watch My […]

Read More →
Labor Day Special: End His Career!

The NYT published a long profile on Rick Rubin yesterday. It’s a innaresting piece and Rubin’s a helluva producer, executive producer, A&R man, and new-age exec — but he’s not gonna save the music industry. DJ Nate (via s/fj), on the other hand, provides a good glimpse at the new non music industry. On his […]

Read More →
Sgt. Sailor Moon Singin’ Sola on the Senny-Three

The other day I was taking the 73 from La Belle Mont to Harvard Square. When I got on, I couldn’t help noticing the chap flickrd above, what with his makeshift Sailor Moon police outfit, complete with blue fabric glued to shoulders and breast, metal plate thing on head, and badges to boot (not to […]

Read More →
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Back to Boston

Everything was going according to plan. We slogged through Chicago (natch), cruised through Gary and the rest of Indiana, and were hoping to roll along I-90 all the way back to the Bean. But shortly after crossing the Ohio border, our ol’ trusty Honda — so clutch over the years — no longer would shift […]

Read More →
It’s Time for the Blog U Later

Sorry for the silence. It’s that time of spring — all mango-con-chili in the park and classes to finish up and articles & anthologies to tie together and whatnot. More soon, tho, I promise. Meantime, for an early summer bubble fix, I meem you Cajmere‘s classic Chicago house, maximinimal, proto-juke joint, which was apparently a […]

Read More →
Stage Show Excerpt & Counter Canonical Discourse

If we’re listening for the presence of Jamaica in hip-hop (and hence in NY/US/worlwide), we could attend to such a thing on any number of levels: 1) the occasional 3+3+2; 2) the influence of dub engineering on hip-hop mix aesthetics (e.g., echo, layering, lowend); 3) double-time, flip-tongue, fast-chat flows; 4) accents, cliches, Rasta mantras, and […]

Read More →
Lava Lava

I’ll be joining Zebo, Hess, and Chump over at Lava, the newly (re)opened audio lounge @ 1270 N Milwaukee Ave, to drop a series of sizzling selections from across the reggae spectrum. Should be a vibes, seen —

Read More →
Mr.Lavaman They Call Me Mr.Lava

Calling all Chicagoans who read this here blog: I’m gonna be performing this Monday night @ Lava, alongside residents Zebo, Hess, and Chump, & we ago run the big chunes from start til stop. You done know, star. I Wayne too —

Read More →
May the Snow Rise Up to Meet You

Sure, I traded a chance to see the Chicago River dyed green for a late-season Boston Nor’easter, but when your loved ones are back on the coast and your brutha’s offering to cook up a big boiled dinner, well, such trade-offs seem worth it. But whether you’re in Chicago or Boston or some other outpost […]

Read More →
Reggae(ton) Bangara

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 →
New Wine, Old Bottles

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 […]

Read More →
What’s Real eHood?

Hot off a week of steady jukeboxin, I got to see/hear/feel DJ Nehpets — Chicago radio’s juke ambassador — alongside localtronix partyrockers Flosstradamus Friday night at Sonotheque. It was a treat to hear those bassy beats through something other than my laptop, and I love that juke — at least as represented by Nehpets — […]

Read More →