Tuesday, November 25 2008
I’d Like to Thank…
I'm thankful for my wonderful girlfriend, the Boston Celtics taking home the NBA championship, and Wu-Tang, Nas, People Under the Stairs...
Tuesday, November 18 2008
Hip-Haute Couture
Although "hip-hop" means different things to different people, everyone seems to be confident that they know what "it" is. Through this subjective lens, there is also a unique brand of investment and ownership in the meaning of "hip-hop".
Monday, November 17 2008
Bleary Eyed Duty: The Unflinching Testimony of David Eugene Edwards
In a world where you can have a Christian version of pretty much any genre, Woven Hand's David Eugene Edwards is a real outlier because you wouldn't know where to put him if he were a secular artist.
Monday, November 10 2008
Forty-Nine Hours at T-Dot Town’s Annual Small World Music Festival
Today's global music is an extension of the culture that has been emerging over the last century, when airplanes and vinyl recordings made social exchanges possible to an extent previously undreamed.
Thursday, November 6 2008
R.I.P. Smooth Jazz, Round Two
Smooth Jazz truly is the music of the gesture. It is music of the pose. It is music -- maybe particularly when it is made by a skillful musician -- that hints at real music without being real music.
Wednesday, November 5 2008
Wetnurse: Not Just Weaned on Metal
Wetnurse's Curran Reynolds talks about growing up in the isolated Maine woods, recording with NYC mainstay Martin Bisi, and how his band expresses "love as well as angst".
Monday, November 3 2008
Electoral Relaxation: The Myth of the Hip-Hop Achilles Heel
Either Obama's "hip-hop candidacy" makes him appeal to a heretofore disaffected and/or untapped voting bloc, thereby legitimizing his claim as a candidate of hope and change; or this unwelcome connection to a controversial art is a liability.
Tuesday, October 28 2008
Murder, My Sweet
They might kick me out of the feminist club for this, but I love murder ballads, even the ones in which women get killed—though, to be fair, I am an equal opportunity advocate when it comes to a good killing narrative.
Thursday, October 23 2008
Songs in the Key of Rap
The relationship between singing and rapping has had a transforming effect on hip-hoppers and singers alike.
Tuesday, October 21 2008
Parents Just Don’t Understand
For every tween who raids his parents' record collection, there are 30 more who can't get in the family car without headphones plugged in to their own tunes.
Monday, October 20 2008
Countrypolitik: What’s Right and What’s Left About Country Music
At a first glance, country music seems traditionally allied with the sort of down-home, small-town ethics and values touted by the Republicans. But the politics of country music has never been a simple red or blue.
Thursday, October 9 2008
Selling the Melody
From the lips of Melody Gardot -- heard in her swinging Cole Porter for an automobile -- there's another tentacle of jazz pushing forward, finding its way into our ears.
Monday, September 29 2008
We Don’t Die, We Multiply: Heartbeat Props
The Digital Underground party has apparently come to an end. If so, we must acknowledge the group for more reasons than popularizing "The Humpty Dance".
Monday, September 22 2008
Fela! Here Comes the Black President
Great art such as Fela! inspires us to make the choices we need to make, and not give up our responsibilities because it is easier to allow someone else to make decisions for us.
Tuesday, September 16 2008
Workingman’s Death
All That Remains' Phil Labonte talks about exercising restraint in creativity, recording the band's new album, 'Overcome', and not taking metal too seriously.
Tuesday, September 2 2008
Event Etiquette
Enthusiasm at sporting events and concerts is great. But when your spirited dancing turns into a one-man mosh pit, it's a damned annoying distraction.
Thursday, August 28 2008
The Dusty Foot Philosopher Kicks Up America
K'Naan stood on stage, drum in hand, focused on the two instruments that comprise and compose the totality of African storytelling: the voice and the drum.
Monday, August 25 2008
He’s Lost Control
The kids who grew up in the '90s had the haunted Kurt Cobain; my generation had the tormented Ian Curtis.
Thursday, August 21 2008
Looking Back at Brubeck
Dave Brubeck has been incredibly popular, neither simplistic nor crass, yet critics have never much liked his music. What if you listen to him -- to his long career -- with fresh ears?
Wednesday, August 20 2008
We Don’t Die, We Multiply: Hip-Hop Groups
Group identification creates interesting scenarios within hip-hop culture, from the formation and maintenance of group identity to the difficulties of promoting the lyrical skills of a group's various members.
