Thursday, February 26th, 2004

BACK TO MY ROOTS

Thanks to the playlists in the great book by Tim Lawrence, Love Saves The Day, a review of which by our homie Philip Sherburne in the upcoming music issue of Boldtype is highly anticipated, I’ve been obssessed with Lamont Dozier’s “Going Back To My Roots”. (BTW even more highly anticipated in these parts is our boy Peter Shapiro’s book on the subject of disco, which will contextualize the movement against race, class, and generation in New York City, due out later this year!)

Anyway, back to the record. I’d only been familiar with the F.P.I. Project version which was a huge Dave Moss (kind of the Bay Area’s Larry Levan) track back in 1989, and my copies are probably sitting in a friend’s crate somewhere in Northern California. Found out more recently about the Odyssey version (early 80s). But this one, from 1977, is the original and a classic.

Interesting background on the track: it was inspired by South Africa’s post-Soweto uprisings in the mid-70s, which resulted in martial law being declared and thousands of student and anti-apartheid leaders, including Bantu Stephen Biko.

So here’s Lamont Dozier’s Pan-African manifesto. The version I’ve got–almost 10-minutes from the 2-CD Best Of set–is bracing. It starts with that famous Sunday morning piano line, then takes a while to wind up. About five minutes in, it takes on a distinctly West African feel, with highlife-style talking drums and vocal arrangements, and then in the last 3 minutes, it shifts into an almost township mbaqanga feel with a completely different rhythm and melody line. Just amazing. It could go for another 10-minutes, and would remain gripping.

The rest of the 2 CDs are just OK. Dozier’s arrangements are always interesting, but lyrics? That was for the Holland bros.

posted by @ 3:48 pm | 0 Comments

Thursday, February 26th, 2004

Reports from AP now have the Haitian rebels poised to attack Port-Au-Prince. Meanwhile, an interesting story from the Miami Herald in which a Haitian drug-lord argues Aristide was pretty much his boss, and Aristide’s lawyer refers to the rebel uprising as a U.S.-backed military coup. Any progressive Haiti-watcher knows both–or neither–could be true.

posted by @ 9:28 am | 0 Comments

Thursday, February 26th, 2004

Ernest Hardy on two recent, very worthy, but overlooked Left Coast gems:Ozomatli and the Hard Knock Radio rap compilation.

posted by @ 7:42 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, February 25th, 2004

PLUGOLA AGAIN + WEDGING THE GAYS

Come check us Friday night in Oakland talking hip-hop and electoral politics and partying with KRS-One and Jahi and The Life. It’s a benefit for On-Up Initiatives and the arrival of the Bay Area Local Organizing Committee of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention. The latter is an effort I’m really involved in and you’ll be hearing more from me on it as we get closer to the Convention in mid-June.

It’s been one of those weeks. Preparing to get back what will hopefully be the final draft of my book, I’ve been crazily tying up loose ends from last year, and for later this year. So I haven’t had time to really parse the two huge events of the week: Haiti (I found this blog) and gay marriage. Thankfully, Oliver did a great job of parsing the latter. To which I’ll add a little:

Gays are apparently the hip-hoppers of 2004. The same way that Bush I and Clinton used Souljah and Ice T to get over in 1992, Bush II will be using gays all year. I think the constitutional amendment thing is a ruse. It needs 2/3rds in both the House and the Senate to pass, but I can’t imagine them rounding the votes up in the House.

There will be moderate exurban Republicans and liberal urban Democrats who will vote against the amendment on principle. Then there are strict constitutionists, the kind of conservatives that pushed Clarence Thomas as an anti-activist candidate to the Supreme Court. These are legal beagles who hold an awful lot of power with the process and who will use their obsession with rules to block movement of the amendment within the House. There are just no Lyndon Johnsons to do the arm-twisting on this.

Neither I suspect is there enough will or urgency to push the amendment. The thing that leftist Dems have complained about for years–that party politics is about serving the center and stroking the margins–will come back to haunt the far right, at their weakest since Gingrich’s fall. The party heads will be happy with the bully pulpit and grandstanding the issue offers, and not overly concerned with the mechanics of passage.

All of this is not to say that the issue will be extraordinarily divisive, and will likely ramify in very bad long-term ways. Expect the culture wars around sex to come next. It’s a good year for Sex And The City to say goodbye. Next year (whether Bush won or not) it might have been facing the wrath of the cultural right, all revved up and with nowhere to go.

Polarization doesn’t begin to describe it, yall.

posted by @ 8:40 pm | 0 Comments

Wednesday, February 25th, 2004

FILL YOUR HEAD WITH CULTURE, SKIP THE ULCER

For Bay Area folks, PFA is holding a Charles Burnett retrospective! BTW the Romare Bearden is a must-see, as is their 90s overview. Also a must-see is my homegirl Aya De Leon’s hip-hop theater piece: “Thieves In The Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip-Hop”, a one-woman show that just rocks, coming in March.

posted by @ 8:24 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, February 25th, 2004

Re: the empty logic of rhetorical devices such as “homophobia is not the problem, racism is”, here’s Oliver on Bush and gay marriage and the Oppression Olympics.

posted by @ 8:11 am | 0 Comments

Tuesday, February 24th, 2004

Fun for hours: D U B S E L E C T O R! Thanks to Oliver for the link.

posted by @ 4:09 pm | 0 Comments

Monday, February 23rd, 2004

Today, and for the next three days at the very least, I promise not to flame anybody, particularly any SWM baby boomer rock critic. (Now let’s see the page-hits drop like Bush’s poll numbers!)

posted by @ 9:54 pm | 0 Comments

Sunday, February 22nd, 2004

WHOA!!!

Ralph Nader Announces Run for Presidency.

Ignoring Democrats’ Pleas, Nader Announces Run For White House.

Ralph Nader Announces Quixotic Run.

posted by @ 8:53 am | 0 Comments

Saturday, February 21st, 2004

The Blogship Connection is here. Where hip-hop blogs ping. (We’d better work on that logo a bit.) Note: not completely funktional yet. Thanks to Eric Nord.

posted by @ 4:08 pm | 0 Comments



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