Wednesday, June 20th, 2007

Barefiles Is Back

Dubsteppas rejoice! Check here.

posted by @ 9:10 am | 0 Comments

Monday, June 18th, 2007

Matt Birkhold on Hip-Hop and Patriarchy

Great piece in WireTap Magazine today by Matt Birkhold:

By the end of the 2005 Feminism and Hip-Hop Conference, it was clear that hip-hop was central to the identities of many people present. After Joan Morgan, author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, said that hip-hop as she knew it was dead, many audience members grew visibly upset. They were further angered when Black Noise author Tricia Rose said that, because the music had internalized capitalism and misogyny, it was time to let hip-hop go.

The intellectual conflict between those angered by Rose and Morgan and those who were not was apparent during a panel that included video model Melyssa Ford and video director Jessy Terrero. Ford argued that there wasn’t a problem with her portrayal in videos because she was in control of her image. Terrero stressed that women were portrayed in videos in a manner that guaranteed profit for both the director and the label.

Terrero’s “sex sells” position was interrogated during the question-and-answer period, when Tricia Rose asked panel participants, “If having the Klan come through your video and lynch black folks is going to make you money, are you going to do it?” Terrero responded “No.” Rose followed up by saying, “We have drawn a line with race. When will we draw a line in regards to gender?” Terrero responded evasively (and elicited applause) by saying that if education were better, viewers would be equipped to make informed viewing choices and women dancing in videos would peruse other options.

Terrero’s response is problematic because it indicates an unwillingness to take responsibility for the sexist images he creates which are then televised around the country to a market that awaits subhuman, hypersexual images of black women. The crowd’s approval demonstrates their unwillingness to hold him accountable and also illustrates that they too would rather engage in a conversation concerning the failures of education than discuss the ways in which hip-hop has internalized patriarchy and sexism.

This squares with my recollection of the event as well.

A small sidenote: in Ms. Morgan’s defense, I’ve been on several panels with her since the 2005 conference. She taught a class on hip-hop journalism this past spring at Duke, and has told her students and her audiences her personal truth, which is that she no longer is as passionate a hip-hop fan as when she was in her 20s. I think she might say that, even though she said what she said at the University of Chicago, she certainly doesn’t believe hip-hop is dead.

posted by @ 1:22 pm | 3 Comments

Friday, June 15th, 2007

USA TODAY: Can rap regain its crown?

Cover story on USA TODAY: Can rap regain its crown?

Response from Hip-Hop World: Yawn.

posted by @ 8:09 am | 12 Comments

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

For Lovers (Of Art and Democracy)

So you say you were a lover–before this war? Fall in love again Friday night at the Picture Progress 2007 event tomorrow night in San Francisco. Serious art (Judy Chicago?!) and serious change will be afoot to benefit some of our favoritest hellraisers at the the League of Young Voters.

posted by @ 10:04 pm | 0 Comments

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Eric Arnold :: Hyphy Not Dead Yet!

The debate over whether hyphy is dead continues, with Eric Arnold weighing in on the subject in The Chron. Here’s an excerpt including my mane D-Sharp:

Take Super Hyphy 17, an all-ages, alcohol-free event held Memorial Day weekend at Petaluma’s Phoenix Theater. That’s where about 1,000 youngsters of various ethnicities went dumb, shook their dreads and made thizz faces all night to live performances by Mistah F.A.B., Zion-I & the Grouch, the Pack, Haji Springer, J-Billion, J. Diggs and other local acts.

A palpable surge of energy moved through the crowd when the DJ spun the late Mac Dre’s now-classic 2002 anthem “Thizzelle Dance”; live renditions of recent hits like the Pack’s “Vans,” Zion-I’s “The Bay” and F.A.B.’s “Kicked Out Da Club” were greeted with equal exuberance. Though the tightly packed crowd was “in the building and feeling itself,” as they say, the negatives associated with hyphy were absent — there were no fights, no gunshots and nobody spinning doughnuts after the show.

“Is hyphy over? Not in Petaluma,” said concert promoter D-Sharp, looking around at a hall full of excited youngsters sporting multicolored hoodies, special-edition Oakland A’s hats, shiny grill pieces, Thizz Fo Life T-shirts and the oversize sunglasses — called “stunna shades” — which have become ubiquitous to hyphy culture.

Backstage, even more of the culture was on display, much of it emanating from Mistah F.A.B. The 25-year-old Oakland native who’s become hyphy’s official spokesman held court, dressed in a brightly colored airbrushed T-shirt bearing his likeness and sporting a matching bejeweled chain.

“How can hyphy be dead? They ain’t seen hyphy yet,” F.A.B. insists

posted by @ 5:07 am | 2 Comments

Monday, June 11th, 2007

Why It Sucks To Be A Journalist Now

These days the color is pink, and not Cam’ron Pink or Code Pink, mind you. Truth is, as outgoing managing editor Robert Rosenthal put it to disheartened SF Chronicle staffers recently: “We all are caught in the greatest upheaval our industry and the institution of journalism has ever faced.”

Rosey, whose office featured a massive picture of an African lake covered with pink flamingos, at least went out with truth on his side. He told Editor & Publisher: “The reality is that in the last 10 or 12 years, the biggest creators – the journalists – have not been part of the conversation, the decisions…Most newsrooms are getting smaller. The industry for 12 years has been in retreat.”

The Chron has begun the process of laying 100 of its 381 people in the newsroom, including 20 management positions and 80 staff positions.

Deputy Managing Editor John Curley announced his departure last week here on Flickr.

The Chron has started a blog to mourn the layoffs, with the somewhat grotesque but typically Bay Area-earnest title of “Colleagues Remembered”.

posted by @ 11:33 am | 2 Comments

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

Marley Marl Has A Heart Attack

Nobody’s smiling. Article at AllHipHop.com is here. Link via Noz.

posted by @ 8:48 am | 1 Comment

Wednesday, June 6th, 2007

This Weekend For Bay Heads


Summer weekend, lots of great music to go around.

Tune in Friday night to the Uhuru Maggot’s long-standing, definitive History of Funk show, 10pm on KPFA FM 94.1. We’ll be getting behind the Betty Davis story.

And on Saturday night, at The Independent, the Writer’s Block DJ crew–that loose-knit federation of writers who DJ and DJs who write organized by Weyland Southon of Hard Knock Radio, and featuring a growing cast of folks like Susie Lundy, DJ Ripley, DJ Emancipacion, Eric Arnold, the tragically Bosux-loving (1-3 vs. the A’s this year) Adam Mansbach, and yours truly–will be warming you up for the great Meshell Ndegeocello!

Come early to catch the vibe…

posted by @ 9:50 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

KRS-One on Can’t Stop Won’t Stop

Back from being underwater swimming with the honu and hanging with fam far away from all the madness.

Just closing up the loop begun last week on KRS-One and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.

Here’s an interview published last week where KRS-One outlines his problems with my book generally and particularly with the section I did on “Stop The Violence”. I’ll leave it to yall to read my argument in the book and KRS’s argument and determine what you think.

Most debates are good debates. They reflect people taking this shit seriously, which is the most important thing at the end of the day.

Listen. Lots of folks act like Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is it. Like, you read it and it’s done. Don’t need to know nothing else. But that was never my intention.

That’s why I’ve always been insistent on being humble about my own contribution to hip-hop scholarship. People think it’s cute or just Asian of me to deflect praise sometimes. It’s not an act. I recognize the fact that people sometimes place a burden on this book that I just don’t want.

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop was and is never meant to be the last word on anything. It’s meant to be a small contribution to the larger wave of thinking about the hip-hop generation (not just rap music).

If it’s the first word for some of yall, that’s great–now go on and get you some more. Lots more. One perspective–even if, like mine, it’s filtered through hundreds of other people’s perspectives–is never enough.

KRS’s criticism is on point in one sense: I wasn’t able to speak to everyone I wanted to–Grandmaster Caz and the Cold Crush were at the top of the list, as well as many other b-boys, b-girls, graf writers and other pioneers, especially women pioneers.

Should I have waited to do so before releasing the book? In the best of all possible worlds, yes. Could I have waited to do so? For many personal reasons that you will never know…No.

Luckily some of the information that KRS cites is lacking in CSWS (and lots more that is just as crucial) is already out there. Let’s big up Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn’s Yes Yes Y’All: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade and Cristina Veran’s essay in Hip Hop Divas as just two of the major undersung contributions to the field, not to mention Steven Hager’s Adventures in the Counterculture: From Hip Hop to High Times (originally printed in a now stupidly expensive, out-of-print paperback called Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti).

(BTW that piece he says about H. Rap is on point too–it’s all there in CSWS, just not as explicit as he lays it out in the interview. In fact, you can check p. 186 to see how Whipper Whip flipped the script.)

But the bottom line–not to sound redundant, because this is all in the CSWS Prelude, and it undergirds the entire Total Chaos project as well–is that if we all take this as seriously as we should, there ought to be many many other perspectives other than mine under consideration. Period.

If there’s gonna be disagreement and arguing about this one is better than that, hey that’s human.

I respect KRS’s perspective a lot–and he shaped this book and my thinking more than he may ever know, just check the essay I did on BDP for Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide. Nothing more need be said.

I did say I got a strong enough ego to try to step on. And in the end, it ain’t about me, it’s all about building this…

Holla if you like, KRS.

UPDATE 6/24 :: Another interview with KRS from Robbie Ettelson can be found here. When KRS refers to me working at Def Jam, he’s probably meaning 360hiphop.com. I noticed I’ve been getting another wave of emails about this and a bunch of new commenters coming through. I guess it’s because there’s been another wave of links to this page. It’s a little strange to be hosting a debate on your own book in your personal blog, but hey! That’s hip-hop. Step in the cipher. Take your knocks. Move on.

posted by @ 10:47 am | 26 Comments

Monday, May 21st, 2007

Save 1520 Sedgwick Avenue


Respect where it all began…

The birthplace of hip-hop is being threatened with gentrification. From David Gonzalez’s piece in todays NYT:

“This is where it came from,” said Clive Campbell, pointing to the building’s first-floor community room. “This is it. The culture started here and went around the world. But this is where it came from. Not anyplace else.”

O.K., Mr. Campbell is not just anybody — he is the alpha D.J. of hip-hop. As D.J. Kool Herc, he presided over the turntables at parties in that community room in 1973 that spilled into nearby parks before turning into a global assault. Playing snippets of the choicest beats from James Brown, Jimmy Castor, Babe Ruth and anything else that piqued his considerable musical curiosity, he provided the soundtrack savored by loose-limbed b-boys (a term he takes credit for creating, too).

Mr. Campbell thinks the building should be declared a landmark in recognition of its role in American popular culture. Its residents agree, but for more practical reasons. They want to have the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places so that it might be protected from any change that would affect its character — in this case, a building for poor and working-class families.

Throughout the city, housing advocates said, buildings like 1520 Sedgwick are becoming harder to find as owners opt out of subsidy programs so they can eventually charge higher rents on the open market.

posted by @ 5:22 am | 6 Comments



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