Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Brasilintime :: The Event Of The Summer

Forget Transformers, The Bronx Is Burning (so far, the book is much much better), or The Police. This is what you have been waiting for.

Brasilintime–the second of B+’s journeys into rhythm, time, generation, diaspora, and the future–is a transforming event. It’s impossible to describe all the ways it will make you see, hear, and touch the world differently.

For the LA premiere next week, B+ and Eric Coleman (our esteemed Westside BC, not our esteemed Beantown BC) have lined up these happenings:

July 17 :: Movie Premiere @ The Egyptian Theatre
July 18 :: Photo Exhibition Opening by B+ & Coleman @ Turntable Lab LA
July 19 :: The Concert! @ The Mayan :: Featuring: Paul Humphrey, James Gadson, Derf Reklaw, Babu, J.Rocc, Cut Chemist, Madlib and direct from Brasil João “Comanche” Parahyba, Ivan “Mamão” Conti & DJ Nuts.

Tickets for the movie premiere and concert and pre-orders for the DVD can be purchased here.

If you can be there, you should.

posted by @ 12:22 pm | 0 Comments

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

Haruki Murakami :: "Rhythm is the thing"


To bite an old Jay Smooth line: This is not a picture of me.

Really inspiring piece by the great Haruki Murakami today on how jazz inspired him to make a crazy move at 29 and try his hand at becoming a novelist.

This piece hit home. I was 29 when SoleSides ended, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could write for a living. A decade plus later, we’re still seeing about that, but so far I have nothing to complain about.

The last few graphs have some crazy parallels to Adam Mansbach’s essay in Total Chaos too. (BTW here’s a link to a podcast of our final Total Chaos Hip-Hop Forum held June 14th at the Walker Art Center. It was a great night.)

Anyway, enjoy:

When I turned 29, all of a sudden out of nowhere I got this feeling that I wanted to write a novel — that I could do it. I couldn’t write anything that measured up to Dostoyevsky or Balzac, of course, but I told myself it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to become a literary giant. Still, I had no idea how to go about writing a novel or what to write about. I had absolutely no experience, after all, and no ready-made style at my disposal. I didn’t know anyone who could teach me how to do it, or even friends I could talk with about literature. My only thought at that point was how wonderful it would be if I could write like playing an instrument.

I had practiced the piano as a kid, and I could read enough music to pick out a simple melody, but I didn’t have the kind of technique it takes to become a professional musician. Inside my head, though, I did often feel as though something like my own music was swirling around in a rich, strong surge. I wondered if it might be possible for me to transfer that music into writing. That was how my style got started.

Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more…

Read the whole thing…

posted by @ 4:53 pm | 3 Comments

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Sly Stone :: That’s When I Had Most Of My Fun Back


Hi hi hi hi there!

David Kamp’s piece on Sly Stone in this month’s Vanity Fair reveals another wonderful family affair-type story. Big up Vet Stone! And Vallejo!

Not to mention it blames the whole madness thing on him leaving the Bay for SoCal. Like we didn’t know that already here in the neighborhood?

(BTW Greg Errico is one of the nicest people in the industry I’ve ever met. Just thought you should know.)

Here’s an excerpt:

On the designated day, Vet and I arrive early at the designated meeting place: Chopper Guys Biker Products Inc., a Vallejo business that manufactures parts and frames for custom motorcycles. Sly, who lived in L.A. on and off for 36 years but recently relocated to Napa Valley, gets his bikes serviced here. As Vet and I kill time chatting, we eventually notice that it’s about 10 minutes past the appointed start time of our meeting. Nothing worrying, but a long enough period to have faint thoughts of Hmm, maybe this won’t work out. Vet tells me how many doubters she’s had to deal with in booking those summer European dates, “people who wouldn’t take my call, people who hung up on me, people who think I’m a delusional woman.” She has been the catalyst of Sly’s tentative re-emergence, the one who pulled him out of L.A. and found him a home up north, who persuaded him to play with her band and get back out on the road again. It’s exhausted her, and she’s openly daunted by the logistics of planning for her brother, never the smoothest of travelers, to fly to Europe and then zip from Umbria to Montreux to Ghent.

But she’s gotten this far, which fuels her faith. “All I can say,” she says, and it’s something she says a lot, “is that I’m his little sister, and he’s never lied to me.”

Read it all…

posted by @ 7:17 am | 0 Comments

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Mark Anthony Neal :: What’s in Your Hip-Hop Canon?

When you get to our age, making hip-hop canons is definitely a Steely Dan kind of thing–“Hey Nineteen, that’s Aretha Franklin/She don’t know the Queen of Soul”–done out of being aghast, AGHAST at how little, LITTLE the kids know.

What a false emotion. That’s why I try not to do it.

But then your homie comes along and does something like this and this, and you go, wait, Very Necessary? Not Hot, Cool & Vicious? Drop the crack pipe, old man!

I do heartily co-sign my man’s opinion on this though.

Anyway, all this is to say, if you liked this, you will LOVE THIS. Guaranteed.

posted by @ 6:33 am | 0 Comments

Thursday, July 5th, 2007

A View On School Integration From A Young Black Woman

In this powerful piece from Pop+Politics, artist Vivianne Njoku talks about being front-row at the school integration wars:

I was thirteen going on fourteen and already sure of what I was going to be as an adult: an artist. For as long as I can remember, I have known that I receive a great deal of satisfaction and even feel a sense of “completion” from creating art. The year I turned fourteen, I found myself spending a great deal of time with my older brother and his best friend, a bona fide artiste who studied at a very faraway school that, despite its reputable art-immersion program, was known throughout my county, Prince George’s County, Maryland, as a “rough one.”

Even though the program accepted students based on potential for artistic growth as well as academic merit, the school itself possessed a high minority and underprivileged population and what appeared to be a lot of “troubled cases” flowing in from the nearby District of Columbia; infamous for being home to more than a fair share of “rough ones.” Regardless, I set my sights on making this school and this program the place I was to spend my high school years. I still vividly remember driving to the school with my mother on the evening of my audition; it was a very long forty minutes…

Read it all here…

posted by @ 5:15 pm | 0 Comments

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Oh The Unfairness


Note to Joe Torre :: Overwhelmed Yet?

After Chad Gaudin one-hit the Stankees on Saturday, Joe Torre sniffed, “He wasn’t overwhelming”. This despite the fact that if the A’s #3 pitcher were on the Hankees’ staff, he’d be their frickin ace. (Roger Clemens never need to throw another strike. He’s banking his great-great-grandkids retirement fund thanks to Brian “Don’t Know How To Spend Steinbrenner’s” Cashman.)

Yet these guys still get 3 all-stars? Well if it makes the Pankee fans feel like they’re getting their money’s worth, I guess.

Anyway, thanks for helping us getting out of our rut. 7 runs (and 2 homers) off Petite in the 2nd felt great yesterday. Maybe everyone will be burning their gear before the All-Star break. And maybe Torre might want to head down Mike Hargrove’s road.

posted by @ 7:19 am | 0 Comments

Friday, June 29th, 2007

Integration’s Twilight and Brown V. Board’s End

Yesterday was a huge news day, with the third Democratic debate focusing on race issues, the fallout from the end of the immigration bill, the US Social Forum, not to mention the Warriors trading J-Rich (who will always be remembered as one of the greatest Warriors ever). But it will be written in history for the de facto end of Brown v. Board. Yes, while everyone worried about Roe V. Wade, we (literally) lost the race.

Lots of reading here (more to be posted as it comes in):

–RaceWire says the real issue is that schools are more segregated than ever

–Junichi loses his mind

–Adam B. in the Kos, including discussion of Clarence Thomas’s crucial role and Breyer’s fears

–Is Juan Williams on crack or truth serum?

–The whole enchilada (PDF)

–Harvard Civil Rights Project, center of ongoing research on education and segregation. Their studies show, for instance, that white students make up 58% of the nations’s public school enrollments, but the average white student attends a school that is 80% white.

posted by @ 7:23 am | 1 Comment

Friday, June 29th, 2007

Fans Revolt Against Lauryn Hill In The Town


Save Me :: Lauryn does Nina Simone

The saddest thing we’ve ever known? Nah, it’s probably the drugs. Lee Hildebrand breaks down the fan revolt at Lauryn Hill’s Oakland concert:

Her hair in an unkempt rust-colored Afro, Hill wore a green-and-yellow plaid jacket that appeared to be made of wool and an ankle-length black skirt, looking not unlike a bag lady one might encounter at a taco truck on International Boulevard. She held a microphone in her right hand and a black handkerchief in her left, frequently wiping sweat from her face as she paced the stage.

At one point during the show, the singer tripped and fell, landing flat on her backside. “That’s what I get for wearing high heels,” she said as she rose to her feet.

…

Some concertgoers who had paid as much as $89.50 for tickets were requesting refunds even before Hill hit the stage — two hours and 15 minutes after the concert’s scheduled 7:30 start and 80 minutes after the opening act, Jupiter Rising, had finished its set…Other patrons started their exits during her first song, and the trickle turned to a flow after a speech late in the show during which the vocalist attempted to explain her new musical direction.

“When you’re young, gifted and black — and female — you have to have a lot of endurance,” she said, borrowing from the title of a song made famous by Nina Simone, a singer who’d had a somewhat similar meltdown more than three decades earlier.

“I can’t fit into a stereotype that makes me comfortable for you,” she added. “If that makes me feel uncomfortable to you, I need to find some new company.”

posted by @ 7:13 am | 4 Comments

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007

Journalism, Like Hyphy and Hip-Hop :: Not Dead

From last week’s Chronicle book review, a great piece about the future of media by Todd Oppenheimer. And not incidentally, both a fine argument for the continuation of book review sections (if you miss my meaning, check this) and a nice counterpoint to my last screaming post on the topic. Long but worth the read:

Even if all these moral issues were resolved, we still would be left with a gaping practical question: How will news producers make money tomorrow, as they increasingly move online? The question leads to another, at the heart of the media’s chicken-and-egg dilemma: Is the gradual decline in newspaper readership and network TV viewership forcing big media to make the cruel financial decisions we all read about — such as laying off reporters and editors, rolling over for advertisers, cutting back on investigative work and other valuable but expensive “products”? Or is big media losing its audience precisely because it’s making such choices, which it does to maintain the 25 percent profit margins that were viable only in the pre-digital age? Unfortunately, both scenarios are true. And fortunately, both also miss the real story in new media, which is that morality and money can walk hand in hand.

In a scattering of metropolitan areas, including some of our smallest ones, a few smart newspaper publishers and TV news producers are stepping quite profitably into the digital future. And they’re doing so while maintaining, even reviving, traditional journalistic values…

posted by @ 2:27 pm | 2 Comments

Wednesday, June 20th, 2007

Hillary Picks Theme Song, A Nation Cringes

Complete with Sopranos-style introduction, here it is.

Quote of the day from Maureen Dowd: “It doesn’t bode well for the cultural health of the country that Hillary picked a song by Celine Dion, who combines the worst of Vegas and Canada.”

posted by @ 10:56 am | 2 Comments



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