Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

Asian Week Is Dead

Some folks are comparing this ridiculous Kenneth Eng editorial to the “Tsunami Song” incident at Hot 97 two years back. I am not going to disagree.

Talk of a boycott against Asian Week is already afoot. If these interweb activists are serious–and we can ask Abercrombie & Fitch about how serious they can be–they may be enough to actually shut down this tiny little weekly paper that claims almost 50,000 readers–which is, not coincidentally, equal to the number of all the people in the Fang family plus all of their friends and everyone they owe money to rounded up to the nearest half hundred thousand.

It is truly jaw-dropping that the same pressure to be not just stupid, not just anti-“PC”, but completely frickin’ moronic, has not affected only media monopolies (think radio, TV, the New Times) but even Asian American-targeted free weeklies, that is, the alternative alt-weeklies!

Trust me, I get that community papers don’t always have access to the “best and brightest”, who are all, um, going to work for Google. But in Eng, we have a 20-something dude who barely leaves his house, doesn’t seem to hold anything in esteem–Blacks, religion, whites, Asian Americans–except for his writing abilities, which are not yet developed enough to allow him to be able to write coherently about anything for more than 400 words, except for sci-fi stories, as Poplicks points out none-too-subtly, about dragons who pack swords and guns. Isn’t fire-breath enough any more?

(For kicks, you can read Kenny’s rabid description of his recent college-going experience, click here and scroll down to the article gently entitled, “DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ASIANS AT NYU”, all caps his. Yet another jaw-dropper in the way it manages to cheapen the real experiences of discrimination all too many Asian Americans experience every day.)

Eng has now been sent packing–and we can rest assured he will not be recruited to go work at some competitor ala Star & Buckwild because even Viacom now thinks this niche is just too damn small.

The financial damage to Mr. Eng will also be miniscule. He could make more money washing dishes, if he would ever bother to leave his bedroom. Perhaps he’ll get called for that new “comedy” show on Fox News Channel. Even Jon Stewart has one black guy working for him.

But someone named Fang ought to be seriously questioning Asian Week’s Email-Forwarder-In-Chief Samson Wong’s judgment. If this was s’posed to be an expose of real tensions between Blacks and Asians, who let it past logic check? (Russo-Japanese war–huh?) If this was s’posed to be edgy humor, who the hell thought it was funny?

Here’s Asian Week’s tepid, at best, apology which reveals, by not saying so, that essentially the Fangs’ last serious journalistic venture–whoa, who knew those words after ‘last’ would ever appear together in a sentence?–is getting out in the world with no one at the wheel. It doesn’t take that famous Asiaphile Paul Haggis to tell you that such cars will eventually crash, and afterward, often burn.

So anyway, it’s not as titillating as the fake Antonella Barba pictures (I’m not linking those you perves), but Hyphenblog is hosting a funky feedback fiesta. For me, the best of all is Claire Light’s angry screed–I consider Emil “Amok” Guillermo a friend, but whew! just read this–entitled all too aptly, “Embarassed 2 B Azn”.

Yup, I think I’ll stay home tonight, too.

posted by @ 5:31 pm | 4 Comments

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

God Bless Forest Whitaker

For representing to the fullest. Who shouts out the ancestors when they are the only reason we can do what we do? Only Forest. That’s all I gotta say.

posted by @ 9:09 pm | 2 Comments

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

Beyond Beats and Rhymes


What’s really going on?

Tomorrow, we’ll be featuring a screening of Byron Hurt’s important new movie, Beyond Beats and Rhymes, at San Francisco State University . It’s a documentary that will be airing on PBS nationally on February 21st. It’s a must-see, a bracing examination of issues of sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and masculinity. Due to personal reasons, Byron will no longer be able to make it, but we will be featuring a panel including Davey D, Deep Dickollective’s Juba Kalamka, and UC Berkeley’s Dr. Leigh Braiford.

I suggest watching Byron’s movie in light of this heartbreaking short, A Girl Like Me, made by high school student Kiri Davis. Kiri revisits the important Kenneth Clark thought experiment that formed part of the NAACP’s argument over Brown V. Board, to unpredictably devastating effects.

Join us Thursday night at SFSU for this important discussion.

posted by @ 11:47 am | 4 Comments

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007

Plug Three With The Whole Committee

In my talks, I’ve often asked my audiences if anyone knows what the 1996 Telecom Act was about, and how it affected the quality of hip-hop we are hearing and seeing. I’m usually met with blank stares. Yet the story of media consolidation explains a lot about why reactionary shock jocks of color rule urban radio, why there’s so much crap on TV, and why the media justice movement has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last three years, especially in hip-hop circles.

There have been a raft of books in the media justice movement recently, but none as good as NYU prof and progressive journalist Eric Klinenberg’s new book, Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media. Eric breaks down the massive changes that have occurred and their human toll, including the firing of Davey D from KMEL. If you’re in the Bay, Eric will be appearing at the Commonwealth Club on Tuesday and the Berkeley J-School on Wednesday. Check his website for more info.

2007 seems to be the year to talk hip-hop arts. Spelman prof and all-around brilliant dude Jelani Cobb also has a book out now on the aesthetics of hip-hop, called To The Break of Dawn that is definitely worth checking. If that wasn’t enough, he’s got another book coming out in March–a collection of his essays provocatively entitled The Devil and Dave Chappelle: And Other Essays–and he also makes an appearance in Byron Hurt’s essential documentary, “Beyond Beats And Rhymes”, which airs nationally on PBS on February 21st. Much more about that important movie to come.

My man Keith Knight has been called America’s most dangerous man with a Sharpie. He’s got a new collection out called Are We Feeling Safer Yet? and it was so funny I put my back out again while reading it. Click here to see why, or if you’re in the Bay, just open a San Francisco Chronicle “96 Hours” section on Thursday and go straight to the back. Then, if you’re like me, just make sure you’re strapped into an ergonomically correct seat.

posted by @ 10:34 am | 4 Comments

Wednesday, January 17th, 2007

The Past and Future of Hip-Hop Dance :: Me on Rennie Harris


Illadelph Legend :: Rennie Harris Puremovement celebrate their 15th anniversary next month.

Ah it’s great to be writing again. Here’s a piece I’m particularly proud of. It’s on Philadelphia hip-hop dancer/choreographer Rennie Harris.

Folks in hip-hop’s dance community know who he is and how important he’s been to the culture, from his work with Magnificent Force back in the day to the pinnacle of the global dance theatre with his company Puremovement to his founding of the Illadelph Legends Festival, probably one of the central events in the hip-hop dance revival.

Hip-hop dance remains the least well documented of all the original hip-hop arts. But the dancers retain that one-to-one folkloric tradition-passing much more than any of the other arts. The dance community is close-knit and well organized, and often presents a unified front on questions of its own history. That itself is a situation that Rennie has played an important role in helping make happen.

So, for me, Rennie’s story helps shed a lot of light on the story of hip-hop dance. Let alone the fact that he’s an incredible storyteller, and his journey has been a truly amazing one.

(If you find yourself jonesing for more of the real deal, get with someone like FABEL or Mr. Wiggles or the Rock Steady Crew or any of the many pioneers who are still around. Plus, check Rennie’s site for info about this summer’s Legends Festival.)

Rennie has been the Rakim of hip-hop dance and hip-hop theatre. His impact can be seen in the rise of the new generation of brilliant hip-hop dance companies and solo artists who are making noise all around the world, like Rubberbandance Group, or Compagnie Kafig, or Jonzi D and Marc Bamuthi Joseph.

If you’re luck enough to be in Philadelphia in 2 weeks, Rennie and Puremovement will be presenting a rare retrospective of their body of work over the course of three nights at the Kimmel Center. Those tickets won’t last long…

You can download the article here or preview it here. An edited transcript of the interview with Rennie is included in Total Chaos.

posted by @ 10:52 am | 3 Comments

Wednesday, January 17th, 2007

DJ Drama, Major Labels & The New Rap Distribution Game

By now, it’s probably old news that DJ Drama and Don Cannon have been arrested. (24 hours, damn, welcome to the wired world.)

I think Noz is on point when he says: “As far as I know, it is the first time they have cracked down on an artist rather than a store. In case you were wondering the RIAA is not a government agency. They are a private sector trade group that represents many of the larger record labels and distributors. But they will use your tax dollars to kick in your door if they think you’re fucking with their money.” Emphasis on “fucking with their money.”

But what I find most interesting is how the situation actually reflects a larger change in the distribution of rap music. It all starts with the inability of major labels to meet the demands of the rap market.

Mixtapes have surged in popularity over the past 5 years because they meet the demand for rap that the major labels can no longer fulfill. As media monopolies have grown bigger and labels have consolidated (look for EMI to be sold very soon), there are fewer hip-hop artists receiving major distribution and release dates come fewer and further between.

But hip-hop will always find a way to get to its audiences with the newness, major labels and their big clunky distribution be damned. So mixtape masters like Drama fill the void by keeping up the excitement amongst the hardcore heads. (As often as not, they’re funded either directly or indirectly out of major label promotional budgets.) Mixtape DJs can work as fast as the artists want to get the stuff out, which is about as fast as the kids want it.

At the same time, indie distribution companies are stepping into the breach–getting mixtapes some decent placement in stores and through digital download spots like iTunes and eMusic. For major labels, it brings back bad memories of the period through the early 90s when indie labels controlled the rap business (an intolerable situation that caused majors to go on a crazed buying spree in the mid 90s). This is new, and it’s an important development. Not a few years ago, when you asked about mixtape distribution, folks stammered.

As for the question of demand, since production has sped up again via mixtapes and distribution is more and more viable, we as fans have now conditioned ourselves to pick up and rip the mixtapes, or download them as opposed to sitting around and waiting for the major label product. Why wait on this corner forever when there’s another one open up the street? The product eventually isn’t too different.

And then everyone goes home wondering why the rap industry has come off one of its worse years since the 80s.

That’s even more of a reason that major labels don’t want to go back to a time when they didn’t dominate the rap game and have a hand in most of all the dollars being made. So whether or not the artists approved the music on the mixtapes, whether or not the majors’ own funds made them possible, and despite the fact that the whole mess is one of the major’s own failures to meet the demand in the first place, the main issue at stake here is that the labels still aren’t getting their cut.

The RIAA had to move on someone making mixtape money. DJ Drama has become the first casualty of the new hip-hop distribution game.

It will be interesting to see in the coming months how the major labels try to move on:

1) the big mixtape distributors to either shut them down or cut a deal, and
2) their own artists to enforce the exclusivity and copyright clauses in their contracts…

Mixtapes won’t die. But 2007 may be the year that the mixtape begins to really be absorbed into the machine, which may be a kind of a slower death.

UPDATE 1 :: RIAA: “We don’t consider this being against mixtapes as some sort of class of product. We enforce our rights…”

UPDATE 2 :: Chief James Baker of the Morrow Police Department said this is the second raid in an effort to stop pirated CD sales. “Our first raid also happened in Atlanta on Metropolitan Parkway on Oct. 11, 2006,” says Baker. “It was run by a bunch of immigrants, the majority here illegally, from West Africa. We seized over $14 million of counterfeit CDs, five vehicles, cocaine and marijuana.”

UPDATE 3 :: Davey D breaks down an industry insider perspective + Aishah Simmons, acclaimed filmmaker and the sister of DJ Drama, brings the context…this is a must-read.

posted by @ 10:27 am | 10 Comments

Sunday, January 7th, 2007

Moving On Up: Me on Jay-Z


How good is it to be king?

Better late than never: me on Old Hov in The Nation. Holla.

posted by @ 11:16 pm | 8 Comments

Thursday, January 4th, 2007

Best Books of 2006


The best hip-hop scholarship book of 2006 (& maybe 2007?)

More roundup lists for ya. This one’s for the books. Most, if not all, were originally published in 2006…

Zen’s Favorite Books of 2006 With More Pictures Than Words
* Jessica Abel :: La Perdida (Pantheon)
* Robert “Wisk” Alva and Robert “Relax” Reiling :: The History of Los Angeles Graffiti Art (Volume 1, 1983-1988) (Alva & Reiling)
* Banksy :: Wall and Piece (Century)
* Boogie :: It’s All Good (powerHouse)
* Charles Burns :: Black Hole (Pantheon)
* C100 :: The Art of Rebellion 2: World of Urban Art Activism (Publikart)
* Martha Cooper :: Street Play (From Here To Fame)
* Per Englund & Mlamli Figlan :: The Beautiful Struggle (Dokument)
* Vincent Fedorchak :: Fuzz One: A Bronx Childhood (Testify)
* Zaha Hadid: Thirty Years of Architecture (Guggenheim Museum)
* James and Karla Murray :: Burning New York (Ginkgo)
* The Nasty Terrible T-kid 170 (powerHouse)
* Murray Walding :: Blue Heaven: The Story of Australian Surfing (HGB)

Zen’s Favorite Books of 2006 With More Words Than Pictures
* Paul Beatty, ed. :: Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor (Bloomsbury)
* Will Blythe :: To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry (HarperCollins)
* Taylor Branch :: At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (America in the King Years) (Simon & Schuster)
* T. Cooper & Adam Mansbach :: A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing) (Akashic)
* Mike Davis :: Planet of Slums (Verso)
* Ewen + Ewen :: Typecasting: On the Arts & Sciences of Human Inequality (Seven Stories Press)
* Amde Hamilton :: Me Today You Tomorrow: Journey of A Street Poet (Classic Cut Musiz)
* Marlon James :: John Crow’s Devil (Akashic)
* Rattawut Lapcharoensap :: Sightseeing (Grove Press)
* Michael Pollan :: The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin Press)
* Simon Reynolds :: Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 (Penguin)
* RJ Smith :: The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance (Public Affairs)
* James G. Spady, H. Samy Alim, and Samir Meghelli :: Tha Global Cipha: Hip-Hop Culture and Consciousness (UMUM Press)

A special note on this last book, because it came out really late in the year, and I think it’s a really important one.

Philly journalist James Spady’s works–including Nation Conscious Rap (1991) and Street Conscious Rap (1999)–have been an essential resource and reference for serious hip-hop scholars for years. I used his books heavily in Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. (I was also very honored to lecture at one of UCLA professor Samy Alim’s classes last year.)

Spady, Alim, and Meghelli’s Global Cipha picks up where those classics left off. All the books in this series are eclectic collections of interviews that span a wide range of artists, from pioneers to of-the-moment rappers, DJs, and b-boys. They’re also critical snapshots of key moments in hip-hop history. The arc of this trilogy moves from the Afrocentric American rap of the late 80s and early 90s toward the rise of African rap in the diaspora at the turn of the millennium.

Spady is an unsung hero of hip-hop studies. For me, he’s up there with Davey D as one of the finest hip-hop journalists in the world. Like Davey, he knows the culture up down and sideways, and he’s a fine, probing interviewer. (When Spady interviewed me, I think I learned more about myself than he did about me!)

And, like B+ in It’s Not About A Salary, Spady, Alim and Meghelli are keenly concerned with letting the artists speak for themselves, not mediating their voices. There is an essay at the beginning of Tha Global Cipha that provides a context for the decentered hip-hop being produced now–the hip-hop of a thousand local scenes, all with potential global audiences, a network of infinite creativity and possibility. But then the authors mostly stand back and fire questions to their subjects, some of whom people like me have always wanted to but never been able to track down. Now, these books tend to be over 500 pages each–this one is 700+. So some interviews are more compelling than others. But overall the words are truer and more enduring than a lot of the hip-hop scholarship that is out there.

To get the first two books, you may have to hand over a small big fortune to an internet seller. But to cop Tha Global Cipha, head over here right now or contact the authors directly at Black History Museum Publishers, P.O. Box 15057, Philadelphia, Pa. 19130. They tell me they’ll knock off 10% off the $25 list if you note that you read about it here. (You still gotta add $5 for postage and handling.)

Fam, trust that I wouldn’t plug it if it wasn’t worth it.

posted by @ 7:05 pm | 1 Comment

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

RIP JB

From Davey D:

“He delivered the drum front and center. Vincent noted that James Brown brought out a more prominent rhythmic foundation for the music and introduced the important concept of ‘Hitting on the One’. James Brown focused his entire band including the complex horn, rhythm guitar and keyboard arrangements of his band mate Fred Wesley, Pee Wee Ellis and Nat Jones to ‘deliver on the one’. James Brown punctuated his efforts by using his voice with his vintage grunts, groans and screams as a binding force which also drew everything ‘on the one’. It seems so simple and commonplace today, but back then it was groundbreaking.”

posted by @ 12:09 am | 3 Comments

Sunday, December 17th, 2006

Best Music of 2006

Ten is not enough. Especially this year, which sucked for sales, but has been a well above average year for enjoyment. It’s possible this may even be looked at in the future as a historic year for a few reasons.

1) Dubstep. Check back with me in 2008 to tell me if I was wrong. In the meantime, get Mary Ann Hobbs’ epochal January 2006 Breezeblock set and see what we mean.

2) Youth movement. Lupe Fiasco, The Pack, Skream, JME, Cassie, Pigeon John, Arctic Monkeys, the list goes on. It’s true that for old gunz like us everything gets younger every year. Still it seemed like young artists this year sounded very new. 30 isn’t the new 20, as much as many of us would like it to be. But maybe 19 is. See what happens by the time they all hit their mid-20s.

3) The ongoing disintegration of the album as a profit center and as an artistic end. Soon, if not already, the only folks who will care about albums will be thirty-plus-somethings and critics. (Guilty of both, but please note that I didn’t say mixtapes or DJ sets.) Some of my favorite records this year–like the homie Shadow’s misunderstood “The Outsider”–were less great high-concept albums than great works of taste and craft and passion and concision.

You can find me Tuesday on WNYC’s Soundcheck talking about all this, if you’re interested. (Podcast will be here.)

So here we go. I don’t rank, I just list. Post or link yours or comment, too, fam.

Toppa Di Top

Albums Extended Mix

Matt Africa & B-Cause :: Soul Boulders
Aloe Blacc :: Shine Through
Arctic Monkeys :: I Do Not Want Whatever You Say I Am If I Wasn’t Then Why Would You Call Me That You (or whatever it’s called…)
The Bamboos :: Step It Up
Burial :: Burial
Cham :: Ghetto Story
The Coup :: Pick A Bigger Weapon
Cut Chemist :: The Audience’s Listening
DJ Shadow :: The Outsider
E-40 :: My Ghetto Report Card
Ghostface Killah :: Fishscale
Honeycut :: The Day I Turned To Glass
Kode9 + Spaceape :: Memories Of The Future
Lupe Fiasco :: Food and Liquor
Pigeon John :: …And The Summertime Pool Party
Scritti Politti :: White Bread Black Beer
Skream :: Skream!
Youngsta & Hatcha :: Dubstep Allstars, Volume 4

Singles

Alaine :: “Deeper”
The Bamboos feat. Alice Russell :: “Step It Up”
Buju Banton :: “Driver A”
Cassie :: “Me & U”
Clearlake :: “You Can’t Have Me”
The Clipse :: “Mr. Me Too”
Digital Mystikz (Coki) vs. Richie Spice :: “Burnin'” remix
Digital Mystikz (Coki) :: “Tortured”
Digital Mystikz (Mala) :: “Anti-War Dub”
DJ Zinc, Makoto + Stamina :: “Thinking Back”
Fat Freddy’s Drop :: “Cays Crays” (Digital Mystikz remix)
The Federation :: “18 Dummy”
Lady Sovereign :: “Love Me Or Hate Me”
Lupe Fiasco :: “Kick Push”
Jay-Z :: “Show Me Whatcha Got”
JME :: “Serious”
Juvenile :: “Get Ya Hustle On”
The Pack :: “Vans”
Pearl Jam :: “Worldwide Suicide”
Perfect :: “No Badda Mi”
Redeyes :: “Pusherman”
George Rrumbarru + Birdwave :: “Gating”
The Team :: “Just Go”

Reissues

Ammunition & Blackdown Present :: The Roots of Dubstep
Big Apple Rappin’
The Celluloid Years
DJ Spooky Presents :: In Fine Style 50,000 Volts of Trojan
The Fania Catalog!
History of Hip-Hop Radio, Volume 1: 1986-1991
Incredible Bongo Band :: Bongo Rock
Jackie Mittoo :: Wishbone
Jamaica To Toronto, 1967-1974
Soul Sides, Volume 1
Tortoise :: A Lazarus Taxon
What It Is!
Greg Wilson :: Credit To The Edit

Also Nice

Long and Short and Mixed, Players

4 Hero Presents Brasilika
120 Days :: 120 Days
Beck :: The Nymphormation
Benji B :: T5 Soul Sessions No. 5
Black Milk :: Broken Wax
Blue Scholars :: The Long March EP
Booka Shade :: Movements
Boxcutter :: Oneiric
Buju Banton :: Too Bad
The Clipse :: Heaven Hath No Bloggers
Congotronics 2
Dabrye :: Two/Three
The Decemberists :: The Crane Wife
J Dilla :: Donuts
J Dilla :: The Shining
The Eternals :: Heavy International
Los Abandoned :: Mixtape
Lyrics Born :: Overnight Encore
Nas :: Hip-Hop Used To Be Dead
Public Enemy :: Bring That Beat Back
Quantic :: Announcement To An Answer
Rhymefest :: Blue Collar
Spank Rock :: YoYoYoYoYoYoYoYoYoYo Yes!
Tommy Guerrero :: From The Soil To The Soul
Traxamillion :: The Slapp Addict
TV On The Radio :: Me Want Cooookie Mountain Ahhmnumnumnumnum!
Vex’D :: DeGenerate
Mary Anne Hobbs Presents Warrior Dubz

posted by @ 2:23 pm | 6 Comments



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