like the moon
Among other recent publications, I’m especially happy to share a paper I co-wrote last year with my ol’ friend and colleague, Pacey Foster. As some of you surely know, Pace has been working for several years to collect, curate, and explicate a very special cassette archive documenting the early Boston rap scene. (Check these articles […]
Read More →Despite my relative silence here this summer — about which, more soon — big tings a gwaan, especially as the fall semester rolls around. First up, I’m thrilled to report that I leave today for Rotterdam, my first visit to Holland / the Netherlands! I’m fortunate to have been invited to participate in a conference […]
Read More →This Saturday I’ll be at Cornell, speaking on a panel alongside some esteemed colleagues. The subject at hand is, more or less, the animating force behind this blog in recent years: “(post-)regional dance musics and their transformation through the internet” — The students organizing the event have an ambitious agenda for digging deeper into this […]
Read More →So, yeah. There’s rearing; and then there’s rearing — Slightly older kids, well enculturated & irrepressibly motivated, can tend to take things to the next level, bumping body parts with acrobatic abandon and lighting rooftops (and laptops) on fire — Devotees of dancehall reggae and reggaeton will no doubt recognize elements of perreo and daggering […]
Read More →If I were writing my mega-essay on reggaeton today, I’d want to make a lot more space for the Dominican Republic’s local take on the genre. Generally referred to as dembow (rather than reggaeton) — or dembow dominicano, to signal a certain national(istic) distinction — the Dominican artists and producers working in the style essentially […]
Read More →orthogonal image copied from some website or other I’ve been working on this monstruo post since last January, and hinting at it here and there, making it feel all the more urgent to finish though I haven’t had the time to tie it up. And yet, what has made finally publishing this post so hard […]
Read More →Next week I begin teaching my second course at MIT. It’s a new syllabus, though it draws on certain materials I’ve used before. In contrast to previous offerings, however, this will be the first time I teach a class with a primary focus on reggae outside of Jamaica — on what I’m calling here “global […]
Read More →Next Tuesday (Feb 2) will be the initial meeting of the first class I’m teaching at MIT. I’m excited about the course, a new one, which invites students to read along with me and collectively investigate what I’ve been calling music industry — that is, a broader understanding of musically-propelled cultural practice than something like […]
Read More →I’m excited to announce, for a couple reasons, that next week PBS will begin airing the 4-part series, “Latin Music USA.” Episode 1 (Latin Jazz, Mambo) and Episode 2 (Salsa) will air on Monday, October 12; Episode 3 (Chicano Rock, Tejano, Norteño) and Episode 4 (Latin Pop, Reggaeton) will air the following Monday, October 19. […]
Read More →The Story Behind The Story Behind The Roxanne Shante Story By Wayne Marshall and Jeff Chang If a rapper claims to be a killer, no one cares. If she says she has an education, they send in an investigative reporter, or at least someone who purports to be. Oh don’t we love gotcha journalism. But […]
Read More →Ubuweb is a deeeep archive of avant art, music, speech, etc. I spent some time today on Marshall McLuhan’s page, delighted to find his classic work (recently reissued) in audio collage form! Side A [audio:http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/mcluhan_marshall/Mcluhan-Marshall_The-Medium-Is-The-Massage_01.mp3] Side B [audio:http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/mcluhan_marshall/Mcluhan-Marshall_The-Medium-Is-The-Massage_02.mp3] a few rndm pull quotes, some sarcastically spoken — We shape our tools and thereafter our tools […]
Read More →I think I’ve finally got my linkthink flow resolved, so there should be a more consistent stream of delishish posts from here on out. For whatever glitchy reason, my recent taggage has gone un(re)published here, so I’m going to paste it in below just to throw all you loyal readers a bone or two. Plz […]
Read More →Berkman Center pioneers steer the course of cyberspace – USATODAY.com gwaan charlie & co.! (tags: berkman harvard internet academia education activism charlie) DTLBASSTOWN.mp3 (audio/x-mpeg Object) crazed dance mix by dropthelime, as played recently @ basstown (tags: DJ mix mp3 house techno club remix boston) Energy Flash | Gas (director’s cut) simon reynolds on gas (wolfgang […]
Read More →Banned in the U.S.A. (Almost) – washingtonpost.com “What is so unspeakably wrong with saying that justice, secularism, tolerance and equality of citizens — rather than privileges granted on the basis of religion — should be among the values of a state?” (tags: book op-ed middleeast religion government politricks israel palestine censorship) THE VICE GUIDE TO […]
Read More →GHETTO BASSQUAKE: Kuduro Wants You vamanos keeps the torch aloft for kuduro, resisting flavor-of-the-month global-gtech consumption (tags: kuduro blogpost angola africa global ghettotech mp3s video dance blogging) New York to Back Same-Sex Unions From Elsewhere – NYTimes.com first, a pardon for slick rick, and now this?! i’m starting to like this paterson guy (n/h) (tags: […]
Read More →SSRC Books » Blog Archive » Structures of Participation in Digital Culture “Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, edited by SSRC Program Director Joe Karaganis, explores digital technologies that are engines of cultural innovation…” (tags: academic book pdf digital culture research tech web2.0) Day 2 of the R. Kelly trial: The “Little Man defense” and […]
Read More →zSHARE – 02 live set 2.mp3 – “Where They At” vintage nawlins bounce live performance — triggerman & raunch galore (via twankle&glisten) :: http://twankleandglisten.blogspot.com/2008/05/lil-sumtn-sumtn.html (tags: neworleans bounce hip-hop live mp3 vintage digitized) zSHARE – boss man mood. original soul jazz cl.mp3 tis the season for killer instros :: a new reggae-soul-jazz mix c/o dr.auratheft :: […]
Read More →Dr Pepper Sabrosura Radio Ad Dr. Pepper propels its latest campaign con cumbiaton! :: “Treat your taste buds to Dr Pepper while you indulge in our latest radio ad featuring the best Cumbia to a Reggaetón beat you´ve ever heard!” :: i think calle 13’s got em beat on that count, tho (tags: cumbia reggaeton […]
Read More →My ol fren Derrick Ashong continues to grain traction with his impromptu, utterly eloquent explanation of why he supports Obama. The latest to shine some light: the Grey Lady. Pull quote — Mr. Ashong, with an audience of more than a million so far, thinks he knows what made the difference for him. “My ears, […]
Read More →global media coverage, proportionally (via) Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business chris anderson’s latest :: on the freeconomy (tags: book business commerce free culture tech economics) Neil Gaiman – Neil Gaiman’s Journal the author discusses making (his) books available for free (tags: books blog free culture literature comics) The Charms of Wikipedia – […]
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