100% real talk 50% of the time.
- A handshake from Lok
My friend Lok Jansen is an architect, illustrator, and all around awesome person. He lives in Tokyo with his equally awesome wife Naoko and I don’t see them enough. Fortunately, Lok occasionally hits me off with some of his latest work, and somehow the space between here and there feels smaller. Yesterday was such a day - in my inbox, amongst the boring work shit and junk mail, I found a glowing orb of flavor in a the form of email from Lok with 4 sketches attached. The sketches are inspired by the urban villages around southern China. (I wrote a little bit about a visit I made to one in this post from a while ago.)
Anyway, these sketches are off the hook. Here’s what Lok said about them:
I’m doing these for a new cityscape or two about the Urban Villages. Went and spent time in a couple of them in Shenzhen and in Guangzhou. Places like the Handshake Apartments (Wo Shou Lau) in Shenzhen, and Ba Deng Cun (巴登村). After the mostly Japanese cityscapes I was looking for something new and was of course struck by the very high density, the amount of life, activity, struggle and joy. Which is why I added people to these for the first time - to have them contrast with the wild machine-like surroundings, and have the environment stand for the overwhelming situation the people are trying to overcome. I was impressed by peoples ‘let’s make some money’ attitude, but also struck by the vulnerability of each individual. And of course I wanted to do tribute to the pajama stylo.
Here they are (click to enlarge highly recommended):
And as an extra bonus, here’s a short film Lok made while walking through the “handshake apartments” (我手楼, so named because the buildings are packed in so tight that neighbors can shake hands out of their windows) in Shenzhen. I think a lot of what Lok mentioned is evident here and it makes the sketches that much more amazing.
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- Back on the grime
If you’re anything like me, you’re an irritating American hipster. Like so many of your kind, you were all excited about grime music around 2004-05. You heard Dizzee Rascal and bought into the hype, especially the hype emanating from your British friends who observed his mainstream success and assured you that there were “loads” better MCs than him. Then you heard Lethal B’s “Pow” and decided to go all in. Perhaps you ordered some records from uptownrecords.com or even made the trip to London to buy from the actual store and maybe make polite small talk with Cameo, your favorite grime DJ, who through the magic of the internet you could listen to every week on 1Xtra. You may have bought Lord of the Mics or another of the grime DVDs that were coming out like 80 a week at that point. If you were DJing at the time you probably tried to incorporate some grime into your sets, mostly instrumentals though since the MCing was usually too aggro and put the girls off. At the time it felt exciting and new. Hip hop was stumbling between the codeine-fueled lethargy of Houston screw and red bull-ecstasy-coke-whatever those dudes were on hyperactivity of Atlanta crunk. Grime felt like a breath of fresh air, the first fully-fledged foreign rapform.
Overtime, though, the thrill sort of went. Dizzee kept rocking, but all the guys who were supposedly so much better than him - Kano, Lethal Bizzle, Wiley, etc. - never managed to do what he did, i.e. make a coherent, complete album that takes risks and contains hits. Then there were just so many other kids making records and it was hard to tell them apart. And then the sound started splintering into subgenres like Dubstep and Sublow or maybe these were all still part of grime, did it even matter? Then all the gimmicky beef started and the gun talk started popping up in every record and the whole thing just kind of lost its appeal. And then, if you were a for real deal irritating American hipster like me, you just kind of tossed it off and moved on to other trendy sounds like baile funk, Baltimore club, cumbia, hyphy, etc…
But even though the fair weather friends may have abandoned ship, grime is still in effect and still moving forward (no pun intended). I mention all this, because today a friend who turned me onto grime way back when and never left hipped me to Grimepedia, an amazing site that operates like Wikipedia, but is dedicated exclusively to grime music. It is the shit and perfect if you’re a regretful American hipster like me and want to quickly catch up on what you’ve been fronting on the last couple years. Plus they have lots and lots and lots of downloadable audio. Radio rips, mixtapes, shit you cannot find elsewhere. Crazy.
So, anyway, here’s a track that I just downloaded off the site:
Mohammed Ali (ripped from Logan Sama’s show on KISS FM)
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right-click + save link as (mac) / save targe as (windows)It’s by Chipmunk - a teenager from Norf Lunden who’s actually the reason I started checking for grime again. I was roaming around youtube and found this clip of a 16 year old Chipmunk holding it way down with Wiley and Ice Kid on Westwood (verse kicks off at 2:00):
Much more at grimepedia.
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- Pic of the day
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- Nice to see you.
One of the most interesting and cutest stories I read this week was the case of a guy from the UK who bought an iphone that came preloaded with photos of the factory workstress who put it together. This one was apparently already chosen as phone’s desktop.
Sweet. Anyway, this got me thinking about all the photo essays and documentaries on Chinese sweatshop labor I’ve seen and how you rarely get a chance to see images of the workers as they would choose to present themselves. You’re aggressively encouraged to pity them and to admire the intrepid journalists who bring their stories to light. You see much fatigue and administrative neglect, but simple mundane and seemingly happy moments like the one above somehow never get included. And I think that’s a shame, because the default assumption of most of us is that Chinese factories are horrible as are the producers that subcontract to them. Knowing several people who manufacture in China, I know this is usually not the case, and I’m glad this girl shined light on that part through her adorable little piece of exhibitionism.
Given the hyped-up, scandal-centric nature of media these days, it’s important that people get a chance to present themselves on their terms, not exclusively through the distorting Babel Fish translation of outsiders who either paid to be there or are being paid to be there. That’s happening more and more of course, but there’s still a lot more to be done, and thankfully a lot of smart and generous people are working on it. Here a few recent examples: (As always, this is a random and thoroughly unprofessional inventory. If you know of any more please school me…)
“Touch Sight” Camera for the Blind
A little while ago I made a post about blind photography. All of the photographers featured in that were using more or less standard SLR cameras. I didn’t really question that until I saw an article about Samsung’s “Touch Sight”, a prototype camera for the blind that includes some ingenious features like a Braille display instead of LCD so the photographer can review her shots.
Here’s the project blurb from designer Chueh Lee:
Touch Sight is a revolutionary digital camera designed for visually impaired people. Simple features make it easy to use, including a unique feature which records sound for three seconds after pressing the shutter button. The user can then use the sound as reference when reviewing and managing the photos. Touch Sight does not have an LCD but instead has a lightweight, flexible Braille display sheet which displays a 3D image by embossing the surface, allowing the user to touch their photo. The sound file and picture document combine to become a touchable photo that is saved in the device and can be uploaded to share with others–and downloaded to other Touch Sight cameras.
The Scope Camera for Kids
Says the TED website where I found out about this project:
Inspired by James Nachtwey’s TED Prize wish, designer Bas Groenendaal shares this prototype camera with TED. The Scope camera has a fresh look and a singular purpose, he says:
To be used as a therapeutic instrument for underprivileged children, e.g. children living in (former) warzones. Children can take photographs and self-portraits in order to rediscover their environment and identity, and share their point of view with others.
With its open-steering-wheel design (you click the shutter by squeezing the sides), Scope invites a new perspective on picture-taking, removing the distance between the photographer and her subject.
Groenendaal took the Scope prototype to an asylum-seekers center in the Netherlands, where the kids quickly figured it out: “A funny observation was that the children used Scope to frame their own heads: hold the camera really close to their face and — while talking — look at everybody around them. The children seemed very conscious of themselves, their position, what they were seeing.”
Check out more of his work on his site basgroenendaal.nl
CatCam Camera for Cats
This is a simplest and most next level one of the bunch. CatCam is the genius stroke of Jürgen Perthold. Here’s his description of how the idea came about from his very detailed website Mr. Lee Cat Cam
Sometimes I have some challenging ideas, or crazy like some other people would say. This time I thought about our cat who is the whole day out, returning sometimes hungry sometimes not, sometimes with traces of fights, sometimes he stay also the night out.
When he finally returns, I wonder where he was and what he did during his day. This brought me to the idea to equip the cat with a camera. The plan was to put a little camera around his neck which takes every few minutes a picture. After he is returning, the camera would show his day. First I thought about transmitting live pictures from a remote RF camera, but the equipment is too expensive and battery consumption is too high.So the idea was born and split into these parts:
* find small, lightweight, inexpensive digital camera
* develop a controller for the camera
* protect the camera from cat attack
* mount equipment to catHere are a few snapshots from his cat Mr. Lee’s day:
And you might think this is a joke, but this project has blown (the fuck) up. They’ve got crazy press from all over the world on the site. Here’s a piece from a German news show: (Only in German, but I think it has universal appeal)
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- The Making of The Miseducation of
It’s hard to believe, but this week marks 10 years since the release of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the first (and only so far) solo album by New Jersey’s favorite rapper, musician, songwriter, producer, and film actress, Ms. Lauryn Hill. It was a worldwide smash, selling 8 million copies and winning almost as many awards. It proved she could thrive without her group the Fugees and secured Lauryn’s position in the pantheon of American music gods and goddesses.
I consider this album a masterpiece and a milestone record - not in Lauryn’s career (although it obviously is) but in my own life. Its release coincided with a period of intense happiness and open-heartedness for me. It was the soundtrack to Fall 98 in New York City and anyone who was there knows what I’m talking about. I usually resent people who try to possess music by tying it to a specific time and place. Truly great music speaks to experiences and emotions that transcend any single city or season (cliché I know but still true), and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill demonstrates that as well as any album ever made. But still, for me, at that time in that place, Miseducation was a much an album as a manifesto - a call to passion and fun and self-defense for people in a city that was stuggling to maintain its vitality against the stunting influences of city hall and free market. It was a struggle that, I recognize now, was more vital (and inadequate) than I realized at the time. So I’ll always feel a tinge of sadness when I hear Lauryn Hill’s music. But I’ll also always remember the love and the communication. And I’ll remember all the people from that time, friends and non-friends, who shared Lauryn Hill’s vision and answered her call to live life heart first.
Rolling Stone has a fantastic feature up now, on oral history of Miseducation made from the testimony of most of its creators. Check it here.
Here’s a sample, the telling of the song “To Zion”:
Jayson Jackson (former manager, Lauryn Hill): She called me and sang a verse of “Zion” and I was literally in tears. I went through that with her as a friend, Wendy Williams blowing her spot about her pregnancy on the radio. No one knew! It was definitely a Where’s Waldo moment ’cause no one knew who Lauryn was dating.
Rohan Marley (Bob Marley’s son/father of Hill’s five children): She ended up having a child from myself and ones telling her she need to abort the child. Those songs, it’s all her experience.
Che Vicious (formerly Che Guevera; producer): I’d gotten into a bunch of Spanish records. I lived in a brownstone in Brooklyn and there was this little studio apartment on the top floor that didn’t have air conditioning. I could only go in there for 20 minutes at a time to make tracks because it was too hot. And one of those 20 minutes is when I made “Zion.” I came in with the track and Lauryn teared up and said, “I have this idea to do a song about my baby and I didn’t know what the music should sound like until I heard that track.”
Nobles (producer/programmer): Out of all the records, “Zion” was her baby because it was about her child. Can’t nobody interfere with that right there. That drum roll inspired Kanye’s “Jesus Walks,” I know it did!
Commissioner Gordon: I remember the first time she sang “To Zion” to me I almost started crying on the spot. Che put together a drum loop and she came over right next to me at the board and started singing “Zion” in my ear. These circumstances she’s singing about I know first hand. I’m at the label hearing everybody say, “How’s this girl gonna get pregnant now?!” Then Carlos played his guitar in Miami at Circle House Studios. It was a swap. She wanted Carlos to play “Zion” and she did a song for Supernatural.
Here’s the song:
Lauryn Hill - To Zion
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right-click + save link as (mac) / save target as (windows)But I don’t really believe in hanging too fiercely to the music of the past, even it is charged with as many auxiliary pleasures as this one. Lauryn sort of retreated from music and celebrity after Miseducation, and it’s not clear if she’ll ever fully come back. Towards the end of the Rolling Stone piece, a couple of very unnecessary shots are taken at Jazmine Sullivan, a 21-year-old singer out of Philadelphia whose style is clearly influenced by Lauryn’s but who I think shows a lot of potential and deserves support. So here is the song that a couple of Lauryn’s collaborators refer to as eerily Hillesqe. I agree that it’s no “To Zion”, but I think if there’s any message to take from Miseducation it’s that we have to take pleasure from where we can, according to our own needs and definitions. And the beat bangs so…..
Jazmine Sullivan - Need u bad
DOWNLOADUpdate: A new Lauryn song is out and circulating. As they say in Japan, LET’S ENJOY!
Lauryn Hill - The world is a hustle
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- Pic of the day
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- My President Is Black (the VP is not)
I was planning to lay off the Obama posts til I finish my O-inspired mixtape, but then I got up a couple of days ago and found in my inbox the photo above and the mp3 of Young Jeezy’s Barack tribute “My President is Black”. The combined force of these two things made me rethink the policy. Then I went to dinner with my father tonight and he mentioned that one of the best things about the Olympics is that it distracts us from obsessing over the Presidential election. And I agreed, then I got home and opened up Google News and saw the great question of who will serve as Obama’s Vice President has been answered, and I figured it’s time to put the medals in the cabinet and get back into obsession mode. So here it is…
Word of warning: There are several aspects of this song that are going to make want to ignore the lyrics. That would be a mistake.
Young Jeezy feat. Nas - My President is black
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right-click + save link as [mac] / save target as [windows]Heartfelt thanks to Amelia for the pic and Jimmy for the track. Fuck the naysayers, yes we can.
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- Mo’lympics
I realize that I’m in danger of turning this into some sort of Olympic blog, but fuck it, you can’t fight the zeitgeist. Anyway, I just wrote a little account of my trip to the Bird’s Nest for Art Review’s site. It’s a lot like something I would put on here, but this time I got paid. ((Michael Phelps fist pump))
Intro:
What can be said at this point about the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games? They are awesome. They are big and pretty and well organized. Zhang Yimou’s shock-and-awe opening and the physical domination that followed slammed the door on 100 years of humiliation for the Chinese and signalled to the rest of us the passing of the torch (!) from the old superpower to a much older one.For years now, the Chinese media have presented the Olympics as a kind of referendum on the nation’s status in the world. Now, based on the montages of awe-struck visitors and the gold medal count that scrolls triumphantly along the bottom of nearly every TV channel here, it is clear that the results are in: China in a landslide.
The Beijing Olympics’ televised image (provided by American network NBC) has been as slick and selective as Zhang’s intro. The viewer, here and everywhere, is exposed to majestic shots of the National Stadium (aka the Bird’s Nest) and National Aquatics Center (AKA Water Cube) detached from their surroundings, their neighours cropped out, either by camera angle or cloak of darkness. A jump cut brings you suddenly inside the stadium, where the world’s greatest athletes are busy straining themselves within some sort of rectangular shape, surrounded by thousands of flag-waving fans. Knowing the great lengths to which Beijing has gone to disguise its blemishes – a cluster of dilapidated buildings next to my apartment was walled off from public view a few weeks before the opening – and knowing that the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube are anomalies in Chinese architecture, I was curious to see what else is going on at the Olympic venues. What is there beyond the edge of our TV screens? I travelled to the Olympic Green a couple days ago. Here’s what I found:
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- Jamdown moving
Well, to quote my man 80, What Usain?
Jamaica is running everybody out of the Bird’s Nest. They’ve even managed to interrupt the relentless stream of Chinese Olympic highlights that currently constitutes 80% of CCTV’s programming. Men and women of Jamaica, VERY FEEL feels you.
So to celebrate here’s “On the go” by Mavado, my favorite dancehall artist. He recorded it before the Olympics to hype people up (and sell sneakers) back on the rock. Seemed a little over the top to me originally. No more.
Mavado - On the go (faster than bullet)
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right-click + save link as (mac) / save target as (windows)Oh shit update - I was just watching a replay of the 200M and realized Bolt’s theme song is Untouched by The Veronicas. That shit is hilarious to me. I’ve got to put that up for posterity.
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- Pic of the day
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- Take me out to the ballgame
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- Shameless Plug 2
[image courtesy of divine-interventions.com]I just arrived back in Beijing after months away, and a few of the things that I worked on before I left are coming out now, so I thought why not put together another one of those awkward self-promo posts to spread the word…
Plug 1 (Posdnuos):
I haven’t been doing much freelance writing these days, but the last two articles I wrote come out this month in the new issues of Domus and AD magazine. The Domus one is about the new museum at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, designed by Arata Isozaki. The AD article is about the new residence of the Dutch Ambassador to China, designed by Dirk Jan Postel. Cop that!
Plug 2 (Trugoy):
The book MAD Dinner that I wrote about a while back is finally out. It took ages, and actually I’m not even sure if it’s in western stores yet, but they’ve got it in Beijing an on the publisher Actar’s website so….
Here’s a description form the press release:
MAD Dinner is the first book by the Beijing-based architectural office MAD. Organized around the metaphor of dinner table conversation, the book is a collection of ideas and opinions about topics ranging from politics to ecology to fame to the future. The dinner’s “guests” include people from all levels of Chinese society: a government official, hairdresser, migrant laborers, a doctor, a taxi driver, and a developer are all brought together to offer their views in an atmosphere of openness and exchange. MAD’s work is embedded in a series of extended conversations with international advisors, including the Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, British writer Ian Buruma, filmmakers Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke, and the artist Ai Weiwei. The conversations work in tandem with MAD’s proposals to create an essential account of the architect’s experience inside the fastest urbanization in world history. (2008, edited by Brendan McGetrick)
So as they say, the book emphasizes conversations. I learned a lot working on it, and got to meet a lot of cool people. Here’s a list of the MAD Dinner guests:
Hans Ulrich Obrist_curator/ 小汉斯_策展人
Yang HongJun_delivery man/杨红军_快递员
Zhu XiaoDi _ architect/ 朱小地_建筑师
Lao Dong_taxi driver/ 老董_出租车司机
Ai WeiWei_artist/艾未未_艺术家
Qu HongYuan_construction site foreman/ 渠洪源_现场工程师
Wang MingXian_art historian/ 王明贤_艺术史学家
Hu LiZhong_ doctor/ 胡力中_ 医生
Jia ZhangKe_film director/ 贾樟珂_导演
Ian Buruma_critic/ 亦安·布鲁马_评论家
Wang BaoJu_curator/ 王宝菊_策展人
Jiang QiHong _state-owned businessman/ 蒋启虹_国企领导
Shi Jian_critic/ 史建_ 评论家
Huang Yan _city governor/ 黄艳_首规委领导
Tony_hair dresser/ 托尼_发型师
Zhang YiMou_filmmaker/ 张艺谋_导演
Mies Van der Rohe_architect / 密斯·凡·德罗_建筑师
Cao Fei _artist / 曹斐_艺术家
Kuku_3D renderer/ 酷酷_渲染图师
Peter Cook_ architect/ 彼得·库克_建筑师
Lei Jin _model maker/ 雷进_模型师
Ma QinYun _architect/ 马清运_建筑师
Li MengXia_fashion editor/ 李孟夏 _时尚主编
Jiang Jun_editor/姜珺_主编And since it’s topical, here’s a selection from the conversation we had with Zhang Yimou, the director of the Beijing Olympic Opening that everybody’s raving about. I personally found the opening’s heavy emphasis on Chinese history a little clunky and against the internationalist spirit of the Olympics, but I think from what he says here, you can get a sense of why it ended up that way…
MAD: As director of the Olympic opening ceremony you seem to have the obligation to juggle many different representations – first a kind of traditional Chinese culture taken from imperial times, then the mass spectacle associated with the communist era, and then a future vision that gives the event a feeling of hopefulness and modernity. How will you balance these different qualities?
ZYM: It is not personal work but team work, and it’s relevant for so many people and their expectations. Just look at all the buzz about it on the Internet or as text messages - there are as many sarcastic remarks as [hopeful] anticipations. It’s indeed impossible to appeal to everybody.
Here’s how I look at it: this is doubtless a very, very important presentation, but you still have to stay calm and treat it as it is - it’s still just an entertainment show, and you need to follow the rules and remain sane. Yes, we Chinese think it’s a centuries-old dream come true, so we have to grab the chance and comb through our 5000-year history, but in the end it’s nothing but a one-hour show.
No matter how great you are, it’s not possible to tell a 5000-year story in one hour. What you want to do is to present the story in visual, aesthetic, and emotional terms. It would be ridiculous to expect anything more than a show from it simply because of the unprecedented anticipation. I mean, why don’t you just write an editorial piece instead of producing a show then?
So I think I have a proper attitude towards it, and I won’t be bothered with all of that. I know it won’t be perfect, but the most important thing is to be entertaining and innovative - we also want to have general appeal. We need to have a universal, humane perspective, which is able to strike a chord in, say, an 18-year-old African youth’s mind. He who knows nothing about China should be able to say, “I seem to know a little bit of the Chinese elements now.” These are all important. When facing such a complicated creative project, I think it helps to start by simplifying things.
Plug 3 (Maseo):
Last, Becoming, a book I made earlier this year together with Ai Weiwei, had its launch event this week. It’s basically a collection of photos taken by Weiwei during the construction of Beijing’s new Air Terminal 3. For the book, I asked Weiwei and the airport’s designer Norman Foster to answer the same set of questions. I didn’t go exactly as planned, but there were a few points where I think the vast differences between the two men are spotlighted.
Here’s Norman Foster:
BM: What insight do you try to offer the students who work for you?
NF: Architects have a duty to design well and to design responsibly – whether that is at the scale of an airport or a door handle. The design process can question our assumptions about buildings and can reconcile needs which are often in conflict. That may mean breaking down social and physical barriers between user groups, or finding ways to bring different functions together under one roof. In that sense, design is a process of integration. The holistic thinking we apply to buildings applies equally to infrastructure – transport systems, streets and public spaces – the “urban glue” that holds a city together.
BM:What have students taught you?
NF: An amazing amount. Every year in the studio we have an evening when recent graduates show their work. The quality and intelligence of the work on display is extraordinary. Every person gets to present his or her work, and that generates a discussion. For me, it is one of the most challenging events of the year. Nobody stands on ceremony and the discussion can be very fast moving. If you begin by thinking you’ve seen it all and know everything, then you’re in for a very big surprise.
And here’s Ai Weiwei:
BM: What insight do you try to offer the students who work for you?
AW: To share the knowledge and to examine it.
BM: What have students taught you?
AW: The students told me it is very difficult to be a student.
LOL. Anyway, Becoming is also my first foray into graphic design, so I’m mostly excited about that. Here’s a couple of images…
And here’s a few of my favorite photos from the book. Click to enlarge…
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- In Memory of Moses
I realize I’m way late on this, but I’ve been coach-ridden with Olympic Fever and just found out today that the legend Isaac Hayes passed away. I’m a huge fan of his work, both as an artist and as a songwriter for so many of the great Stax artists of the 1960’s.
It’s a little bit spooky for me, because I was just thinking about Isaac earlier today, when I was going through a hard drive and stumbled on this picture from my old apartment in Rotterdam, where the epic fold-out from his Black Moses album was basically the only decoration we had…
Anyway let’s celebrate the man’s amazing music, today and forever.
Here’s a clip of Isaac in his prime performing Burt Bacharach’s timeless lover’s pitch ‘The look of love’Here’s the beginning of his performance at Wattstax (the rest of it’s on youtube). I think this one shows not only the man’s superhuman soulfulness, but also the sense of showmanship and humor that led to his later incarnation as Chef on South Park.
And here’s a highlight from that era - Chef’s chocolate salty balls:
Yup. Check out more at the South Park Studios site.
Music-wise it’s so hard to choose, but here’s a personal favorite: the full-on nineteen minute version of ‘By the time I get to Pheonix’ from Hot Buttered Soul , an historic album and essential listening for anyone who enjoys pleasure.
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right-click + save link as [mac] / save target as [windows]The Isaac Hayes song everybody knows is Theme from Shaft of course, so I’m not gonna bother putting that up. But check out Versions Galore, a cool new cover song blog, for a crazy selection of Theme of Shaft covers.
Isaac was also one of the most sampled artists around, and the Jamsbio blog has put up a nice little overview of a few of the most famous ones. Check it here.
*Serious Update* - DJ Wonder made a very thorough mix of original and sampled tracks for Shade45. It’s available on his site. Download this shit.
**Serious Update #2** - Producers Cookin Soul out of Valencia, Spain have just released Hot Buttered Soul: Isaac Hayes Instrumental Tribute via Nah Right. And man, it is good. Art in tribute to art. Get it now, get it here.
We’ll miss you.
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- Favela Update
I’ve written a couple of times before about Favela Painting, an amazing project that my friends Jeroen & Dre are doing in Brazil.
They’ve spent most of the last few years making movies, music videos, and murals in Vila Cruzeiro, a
slumshantytownfavelacommunity in Rio. The neighborhood became world infamous in 2002 when a journalist named Tim Lopes who’d been working undercover investigating a local drug gang was viciously beaten and burned in a roadside ditch. The incident caused a lot of employers to pull out of Vila Cruzeiro and the area still suffers from a reputation as an ultra-violent, almost uninhabitable place.The Favela Painting project was created partly to counteract this image and raise awareness of the people who quietly endure behind the haze of shock stories and homicide stats. It launched in 2006 with ‘The boy with the kite’, a mural that Jeroen and Dre created together with local kids on the side of a building that eventually became the neighorhood’s first art gallery. It generated a lot of positive press for the area. Here’s one piece from The Guardian.
And here’s a short clip about the mural with interviews with Vito and Mauri, two of the guys who helped make it.
On the strength of that, last year Jeroen & Dre started working on a much more ambitious painting - a 2000M² monster depicting a carp-filled river, rendered in the style of Japanese tattoos and woodblock prints. The work is ongoing, but here are some of the latest pics…
They’ve also been putting videos of the process up on youtube, including some awful ones from when they need the shut down and run for cover when gunfights break out.
This is a great project, one that deserves support. You can read a lot more about it on their website - www.favelapainting.com . There’s also an option for giving donations, which I know they’d appreciate.
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- Recession Roundelays
As part of an ongoing effort to avoid all China and/or Olympic news stories, today I read an article on the state of the British economy. It’s mostly conjecture and graph interpretation, but I was touched by the following passage:
Denmark has the dubious distinction of being the first developed country to move into recession and the latest figures from Germany suggest that the economy may have declined in the second quarter. It is possible that the eurozone economy as a whole will have contracted during the quarter.
Having just been in the States, where all anyone is talking about is job cuts and gas prices, I think it’s clear that a large chunk of the world is heading for hard times. The music there has already started to reflect this, so I thought why not assemble a few recent recession-inspired songs in the hopes that they might soothe us or at least distract us. I’ll try to add more as new ones pop up. It’d be cool to get some from elsewhere. Share em if you got em…
Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West - Put on
This one is more about the video than the content of the song, but the video is strong and Jeezy’s new album is even called The Recession so….
Big Boi feat. Mary J Blidge - Something’s gotta give
Two of my favorite artists speaking on the problems of the material world. Good beat, Obama shout out and everything. Love this song.
Janelle Monáe - Mr. President
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No video for this one yet, but this is actually my favorite song of the three. I can not say enough about Ms. Janelle Monáe. I’m gonna make a tribute post to her one of these days. She is a true original, and I strongly urge you to check her shit out. She’s released a couple of EPs that are floating around cyberspace, but she signed to Bad Boy a little while ago, so hopefully she’ll take off properly soon. Her new album METROPOLIS: THE CHASE SUITE (SPECIAL EDITION) is dropping on August 12, according to her website….Popularity: 1% [?]
