For my requisite year-end wrap-up I ganked the title from Louis CK’s recent appearance on Conan. This was a year of reassessing our relationship with technology, and that’s part of Louis’ aim in the clip (embedded below[runtime: 4:12]; with thanks to Linda Stone). I rounded up most of the books on the topic for 21C… Continue reading 2010: Everything is Amazing and Nobody’s Happy
One of my favorite Hip-hop studio tales is from the recording of “Brooklyn’s Finest.” The story goes that Jay-Z and Biggie were sitting in legendary D&D studios in New York City listening to Clark Kent’s beat, a pen and a pad on the table between them. “They’re both looking at the pad like, Go ahead,… Continue reading Rappin’ is My Radio: New Books on Rap Poetics
Darby Crash had the perfect punk-rock plan: takeover the L.A. punk scene in five years, commit suicide, and become immortalized as a legend. Little did he know that Mark David Chapman would derail that plan very shortly after Darby followed through. Biggie Smalls never had such a plan, but after a five-year ascent to the… Continue reading It’s Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away.
As elated as many of us are that we elected Barack Obama our next president, dälek is here to remind us that it ain’t all good. Opening with a minute-plus excerpt from a Reverend Wright sermon, Gutter Tactics (Ipecac, 2009) lets you know from jump that dälek isn’t caught up in the hoopla of hope.… Continue reading Blessed Are They Who Bash Your Children’s Head Against a Rock: dälek’s Gutter Tactics
Watching the studio clips from the making of The Black Album on Jay-Z’s Fade to Black DVD is so inspiring. Watching the energy of the creative process as it unfolds and bears fruit is rarely captured so vividly. It reminds me of watching BMX and skateboard “buddy” videos and how they depict just how much… Continue reading WU: The History of the Wu-Tang Clan DVD
