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- Miriam Makeba 1932-2008
[Photo by the great William Coupon]As you probably already know the legendary South African singer Miriam Makeba passed away this week. I am an enormous fan, and it’s times like this that I wish I had more time to really work on this blog, because there are many things I’d like to say about Ms Makeba and what her music has added to my life. But for now at least I’ll have to keep it brief and unoriginal. For some background, here’s a selection from the New York Times obituary:
Widely known as “Mama Africa,” Ms. Makeba was a prominent exiled opponent of apartheid since the South African authorities revoked her passport in 1960 and refused to allow her to return after she traveled abroad. She was prevented from attending her mother’s funeral after touring in the United States…
As a singer, Ms. Makeba merged the ancient and the modern, tradition and individualism. Her 1960s hits “Qongqothwane,” known in English as “The Click Song,” and the dance song “Pata Pata,” which would be remade by many other performers in the next decades, used the tongue-clicking sound that is part of the Xhosa language her family spoke. Traditional African ululation was also one of her many vocal techniques.
But Ms. Makeba was also familiar with jazz and international pop and folk songs, and while South African songs would always be the core of her repertory, she built an ever-expanding repertory in many languages. Her voice was supremely flexible, and she could sound like a young girl or a craggy grandmother within the same song.
With tenderness, righteousness and playfulness, Ms. Makeba sang love songs, advice songs, spiritual songs, anti-apartheid songs and calls for unity. In bringing African music to other continents, she was a pioneer of what would be called world music, reworking her own heritage for listeners who might never hear it otherwise while creating fusions of her own.
Yet for all her internationalist hybrids, and through three decades as an exile, her music always made it clear that South Africa was her home.
As an exile Ms. Makeba lived variously in the United States, France, Guinea and Belgium. South Africa’s state broadcasters banned her music after she spoke out against apartheid at the United Nations.
“I never understood why I couldn’t come home,” Ms. Makeba said, as quoted by The Associated Press, during an emotional homecoming in Johannesburg in 1990 as the apartheid system began to crumble. “I never committed any crime.”
Here’s the earliest and latest clip I could find on youtube. This one is taken from Lionel Rogosin’s film Come Back, Africa:
This is from her performance on November 5, five days before her death:
Wouldn’t be right without some songs…
The first is Miriam’s first international hit and still probably her best known. Covered and sampled like crazy. This is the original…
Pata Pata (OG Version)
DOWNLOADNext is a wicked live version of maybe my favorite MM song…
Malaika (Live)
DOWNLOADLast here’s a more recent song made together with her countryman and husband Hugh Masekela. This one has a lot of sentimental value to me and I hope the person with whom I shared this song sees this post…
Vukani
DOWNLOADBut this is a weak selection really. If someone puts up a mix somewhere please let me know and I’ll include it.
UPDATE: Check this amazing interview conducted by Roger Steffens in 1988 to coincide with the release of Sangoma. (Thanks to Robin for hook up. XX)
Rest In Peace MM
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- Habitus 04: N.O.L.A.
A few months ago I mentioned a trip I made with my friend Josh to the great city of New Orleans. He was putting the finishing touches on the fourth issue of his magazine Habitus and I was tagging along. (Wrote a post about, want to hear it, here it go…)
The issue is out now and it’s very good, probably my second favorite so far. (Issue 02: Sarajevo is still holding down #1) Here’s a little blurb on the content…
Our edition features some of the leading writers and thinkers from the city and beyond: including Rodger Kamenetz, Andrei Codrescu, Nancy Lemann, and others. In addition to our usual array of terrific fiction and poetry, we have a meditation on disaster and memory from Ari Kelman, a celebrated environmental historian, a photo essay documenting the city’s unique and exuberant street culture from photographer L.J. Goldstein; an extraordinary memoir of the intersection of African-American and Jewish roots in one New Orleans family from Ronne Hartfield; interviews with musician-historian Ned Sublette and the Brazilian urban-planning innovator Jamie Lerner; and many more exciting features.
Regardless of the fact that’s its my friend’s project, Habitus really is a unique and constantly edutaining publication. Order a copy yesterday or better yet subscribe…
To celebrate the issue I want to post up a conversation that I sat in on while I was down in NO. It was between Josh and Ronald Lewis, an advocate and spokesperson for the city’s Lower Ninth Ward and the founder of The House of Dance and Feathers , a museum that honors the cultural traditions of the Mardi Gras Indians and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs of New Orleans. The conversation provides as much background as you’ll need, so I’m just gonna get to it. VERY good read for anyone interested in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, parade culture, or hearing a southern black man describe the horrors of eating Gefilte fish…
Joshua Harry Ellison: How did this place get started?
Ronald Lewis: Well, you know, I started this before Katrina. I had a little building called The House of Dance and Feathers…
JHE: Here?
RL: Yeah. But it was a smaller building that faced the street. That picture in front of you there, that’s how the interior of the original building looked. And Katrina took all of that. And I remember, right after the storm, me and LJ [Goldstein] made contact with each other, and he came out with his little club - the 69 Social and Pleasure Club, Krewe du Jieux, and everybody - and got me some help to clean out my house and get my life back started.
Then I spoke at a conference called Reinhabiting NOLA at Loyola University, with Rachel [Breunlin]’s husband Dan Etheridge and Dr Helen Regis. I spoke and told them that I needed help to rebuild to show that this could happen after all of this devastation. And the help came, and out of that came this: the new House of Dance & Feathers - a living story out of all this pain and suffering and misery.
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- YES WE DID: The Obama Victory Ecstatic House Mix
Since the election, I’ve avoided talking much about my reaction. Being abroad, I’ve sort of missed out on the communal catharsis that my ride-or-die Obama supporting friends back home have enjoyed. I wasn’t sure what to do about that, then last night my friend Jeremy suggested that I make a mix to express the joy of the moment. So I went ahead and did that and contrary to my initial plan, it ended up being nothing but house. Uplifting, joyful, soul cleansing house. So this is how I feel. As they say, a mix is worth a thousands words.
Expensive Jewelry - The Obama Victory Ecstatic House Mix
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right-click + save link as (mac) / save target as (windows)Or DL it here.
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How sweet it is…
UPDATE: As I mentioned before, I’m in China these days and I can report that the citizens of Beijing give exactly 0% of a fuck about Obama’s victory. Things are very different in America of course. Based on the conversations I’ve had with my friends there, the mood is jubilant. If you’re looking for a visual, this seems about right…
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Well November 4 is finally here. I’ve sent in my absentee ballot, hassled my unregistered friends, written a few respectful, pleading emails to my undecided relatives, I even attempted to bribe my on-the-fence Grandma with a free lunch at Pizzeria Uno. All there is left to do now is wait.
This is by far the most important election in my lifetime. The stakes have never been higher or the choice clearer. I’ll be watching the results from Beijing, where I’ll be working for the next couple months. In some ways I’d rather be back in the USofA tightly snuggled into a pro-Obama pocket somewhere, surrounded by kindred citizens in whose company I can celebrate/mourn tomorrow. But I spent most of this election cycle abroad, monitoring obsessively online so I guess it’s appropriate that I end it that way.
I’m not a religious man, but I may even pray tonight. In addition, I may have a nervous breakdown. Such are the wages of hope. But before I tune in and drop out, I want to post up one final artifact from the election. My friend Josh put me on to this and I actually consider it a powerful argument in defense of America’s much maligned democratic process. It’s a clip of students from Ron Clark Academy in ATL performing (with gusto) their song ‘You can vote however you like’ at a UN event. This was bit of a sensation in the US last week and I think it speaks volumes to the pride, energy, and (corny as it sounds) hope that the Obama campaign has inspired within a country that’s been running on empty. It also indisputably supports my theory (first arrived at on the dance floor at the opening of ‘Rio Cruzeiro’ last week) that human beings grow progressively less interesting as they age.
In case you’re wondering, the song is an interpolation of this song, which is ubiquitous in America at the moment. Enthusiasm trumps clarity at a few points there, but it’s worth reading the lyrics. Check em out after the jump…
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- Studs Terkel: Born to live
This weekend Studs Terkel, a giant of American literature and a personal hero of mine, passed away at the ripe old age of 96. Over the course of his 6-decade career Studs played a lot of roles - from script writer to actor to host (radio then TV then radio again), but these titles don’t even provide elementary sense of the man. To quote from the Guardian’s obituary “to register him as “writer and broadcaster” would be like calling Louis Armstrong a “trumpeter” or the Empire State Building an “office block”. For many (including me), Studs Terkel is best described by the title given him by the writer Calvin Trillin - “America’s preeminent listener”.
Studs was an oral historian who over five decades interviewed more than 9000 people from all stations of life about life. He didn’t achieve literary fame until well into his fifties, when he released his first masterpiece Division Street, a transcript of 70 conversations he had with citizens from his adopted hometown of Chicago. Although over his career Studs interviewed many famous people - from Bertrand Russel to Bob Dylan to Marget Mead to Arnold Schwarzenegger - he spent most of his time in discussion with the Z-List, providing a venue for the voiceless and insisting on the importance of every person’s story.
And so, over the years, a 10-year-old immigrant girl found the courage to tell him “I may not live to grow up; my life was not promised to me.” Another interviewee described being black in America as “like wearing ill-fitting shoes”. A US serviceman, speaking of Hiroshima, recalled: “We were sitting on the pier, sharpening our bayonets, when Harry dropped that beautiful bomb. The greatest thing that ever happened. Anybody sitting at the pier at that time would have agreed.”
My favorite Turkel book is Working (I’m not alone in that feeling, he won a Pulitzer Prize for it). It’s full title ‘People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do’ sums up the basic premise. The book brings together all sorts of people - from Lovin’ Al the parking valet, to Dolores the waitress, to Babe Secoli the supermarket checker - and bonds them in a shared discussion of labor with its myriad irritants and salves. It was published in 1974, at the heart of what Tom Wolfe described as “the Me decade” and in that era of psychoanalysis and self-finding Studs work heroically denied the zeitgeist by insisting that the most important question to ask is not ‘Who am I?’ but ‘Who are you?’.
He was an interviewer of enormous curiosity and subtlety and an understanding (even loving) editor. In an age in which many journalists smother their subjects’ voices with their own simplifying personal commentary, the generosity and discretion shown by Terkel seem like more than virtues, they’re almost super powers. Particularly as we head toward ‘the worst economic crisis since the Depression’ I can’t help but feel the world is much, much poorer without him, but immensely richer for the body of work that he leaves behind.
One of the highlights of Studs radio career was ‘Born to Live’, a program of interviews, spoken word and musical responses to the nuclear age. Listen to it here
Here’s also a lot of good material at the site of WFMT, Studs radio station for over 40 years.
Not to mention at his site, studsterkel.org
Thank you ST.
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- Rio Player
I’m back in NY now, feeling cold and understimulated after a week swirling around in the joy-misery-apathy-hedonism smoothie of Rio de Janeiro. I brought a lot of music back with me, and it’ll take a while to sort through it all. But just to put an end point on it I want to post some songs from the trip. I’ll start with the one I heard most of all…
MC Pojeta - MSN
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right-click + save link as (mac) / save target as (windows)MAN this riddim. I can’t even count the number of times I heard this shit. The thing I like about it is the fact that it combines a weird Bobby McFarenesque organic rhythm with sounds from our futuristic age of instant messaging and robot pets. Rio’s a place of harsh contrasts, so I guess that makes sense. Plus I’m into all the pornographic yelling - but that’s a given. There are so many versions on this track, this MC Pojeta one is as good as any.
Here’s a slightly different version over the same beat. Baile is notoriously sexual music, but if you don’t speak Portugese it’s hard to know just how horny/amused/offended/confused you should be. This song is good because it removes words for the most part and relies instead on the universal language of female orgasm. This is one of my favorites, and there is a very high probability that this joint will open my next mixtape.
Montgem - Aquecimento do tesao
DOWNLOADBut actually as baile funk goes, I’m more into the earlier electro-inspired version. So I also bought a bunch of old school compilations with names like ‘Funk Memories’ and ‘Clássicos de Montagens’. A lot of it is bailefied versions of US freestyle and bass music. Here’s a couple favorites from those…
Shy D - I’ve gotta be tough (baile rmx)
DOWNLOADLisa Lisa & Cult Jam - Can you feel the beat (baile rmx)
DOWNLOADWhich reminds me, one of the pleasant surprises of the trip was my re-discovery of old freestyle songs from my youth. This Stevie B song is STILL getting regular play in Rio. Anyone who grew up in my hometown in 80s with even the vaguest interest in dancing and/or rollerskating knows and loves this joint.
Stevie B - Spring love
DOWNLOADOn the subject of classics, here is a funky masterpiece by the late Tim Maia, an artist who I’m just beginning to check out. He covered a lot of genres in his four decades as a musician, and this is from his soul period. This is a where-have-you-been-all-my-life type record for me.
Tim Maia - Ela Partiu
We also heard some really good samba one night at a huge dancehall outside of which you could buy coke & weed from friendly, very heavily armed teenagers under a little tent. Here’s one of the big samba songs right now…
Exaltasamba - Eu chorei
DOWNLOADWhile I’m at it, it might be nice to put up some other non-Brazilian songs that I was exposed to during the trip. My friends and I had a couple very potent music exchanges down there, so in that spirit I’d like to, as Barry O would say, ’spread the wealth’.
Wu-Tang Clan - Life changes
DOWNLOADThis song is dedicated to the late Ol Dirty Bastard. I’ve always thought about Wu-Tang as something more than just a musical group. They share so much in common that sometimes listening to a posse cut by Wu-Tang feels like hearing the ravings a single schizophrenic person. I feel that especially on this song where everyone is talking about the same subject and after a while it starts to sound like a catalog of grief.
Jaheim - Like a DJ
DOWNLOADAAAAND on a totally different tip, here’s a smoothed-out club ballad by Jaheim. I’m a fan of Jaheim and in this case I give him special props for coming up with an original metaphor to describe the much discussed subject of love loss. I’m not sure why this song never hit.
And on the subject of love, I want to send out special birthday vibrations to my man Barend, who is currently the most loved up person I know. In celebration, here’s ‘Love is all around’ by King Tubby, a genius over whose music Barend and I bonded a decade ago and who is still ruling.
King Tubby - Love is all around dub
DOWNLOADFrom Barend’s lady love Aura, I got this jam (and others)…
Bonobo - Nightlite
DOWNLOADAnd to finally wrap it up, here’s one of the sweetest songs I’ve heard in a long while. It comes from Angola and is a good example of the Kizomba sound coming from there. Love to my man Jeru for this and so many of the amazing songs I got hipped to in Rio…
Kizomba - Cre Voltar
DOWNLOADLight your lighter…
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- Haas & Hahn in the house
UPDATE: I wrote a short piece on the project for Art Review. Check it here.
I’m still in Rio and it is pretty damn mind-blowing. I plan to write something about this trip, but I’m not sure when. I estimate I’ll need approximately 3 weeks inside a sensory deprivation tank to recollect myself, and I’ll hopefully get to work after that. For now I want show some images from the thing that brought me here - Rio Cruzeiro, an amazing painting that my friends Jeroen & Dre (aka Haas & Hahn) just completed in Vila Cruzeiro, a favela in Rio. I’ve written about their project a few times, so for some background check these posts: 1 2 Or better yet check their site Favela Painting.
Here’s a tour of the painting I made on my first day here. The weather wasn’t good that day, so hopefully I’ll take some more before I leave…
There’s some really nice photos from the painting’s ‘grand opening’ last weekend. They were taken by Douglas Engle. Check em here.
Props boys.
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- Round III Round Up
UPDATE: The third debate is over and while it did cover some new territory (Supreme Court, etc.) I think most of the people who’ve watched all three continue to be frustrated at the redundancy of both candidates. George W Bush, in a rare moment of eloquence, once said (and I quote) “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” This strategy worked for W and now we’re seeing if from everyone else. Luckily there are some wily editors out there who are hard at work exposing it. The Daily Show was at the forefront, but they’ve been joined by many others. With debate 3 in the tank, here’s a masterpiece of newsplice from a satire site called 23/6. Funny and scary.
Well, the last debate is going to start in a few minutes and tomorrow I’m leaving America and this exhausting election for a while. It’s been kind of a mix bag of emotions (inspiring, horrifying, drunkenly disorienting) to be back in the States for the past few weeks, but one of my favorite things about the fatherland is that it manages to be so many violently contradictory things simultaneously, so I guess I’m upbeat overall.
The Daily Show has been consistently great during the past few weeks, so as tribute and for “my friends” (©John McCain) abroad who may not be familiar, here’s their coverage of the debates til now…Obama vs McCain I:
Elderly Jews watch Obama vs McCain I:
Biden vs Palin:
Joe Six Packs & Hockey Moms in Wasilla watch Biden vs Palin:
VP Debate’s Greatest Gaffes:
Obama vs. McCain II:
Laugh to keep from crying in 08
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- SFW XXX LOL
I’ve had this clip on ice ever since my friend Jeremy sent it to me a couple weeks ago. I wasn’t really sure if I should put it up, what with the thousands of hits this site receives from community centers, childrens’ hospitals, and nunneries around the world. But the atmosphere is getting so dark around here that I think a bit of levity will do some good. So check this shit out…
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- DJ Spinna Appreciation
Last night I had the unhappy experience of seeing the great DJ Spinna play to a crowd of about 12 people at an overpriced bar in the Meatpacking District.
I understand that these are uncertain times - we are living in a ‘world on edge’ (according to the Economist), the stock market is ‘cratering’ (according to the New York Times), and even crazy ass Jim Cramer is pleading for fiscal conservatism. But there is something fundamentally wrong with a society in which an artist of DJ Spinna’s quality can’t get more than a handful of people to pay to see him. As the kids say, SMH.
So I think it’s high time for an appreciation post. I don’t have the time to go into a full breakdown of Spinna’s long career, but there’s a pretty good bio on his site www.djspinna.com.
I personally became aware of him while I was living in NY in the late ’90s. That was the golden age of independent hip hop here, and Spinna was probably the scene’s most influential producer, and I saw him play many, many times back then. It’s sort of sad to think about how little ultimately came of that movement, but it felt good at the time, launched a few careers (Mos Def, Kweli, even Eminem in a way), and produced some excellent, timeless (in my opinion) music.
So here’s one of my DJ Spinna jams from back then. The vocal featured Kweli & Apani B, but somehow I think the instrumental captures the vibe of that time better…
DJ Spinna - Timezone (instrumental)
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It’s taken from Spinna’s 1999 album Heavy Beats Vol. 1 and since the label it was released on folded, I’m pretty sure it’s out of print. So feel free to download the whole thing here… If I’m wrong about the out of print thing, let me know and I’ll take it down…
But Spinna never stuck to strictly underground hip hop. His beats were sourced from lots of places and over the year’s he’s produced a lot of great remixes for old soul, jazz, and R&B. I think there’s perhaps no better example than his epic remix of J5’s ‘We’re almost there’. A summertime cookout staple to this very day.
Jackson 5 - “We’re almost there” (DJ Spinna Remix)
DOWNLOADAll that is ancient history though. These days Spinna is best known as a producer of soulful house. He's ruling at this too, applying the same gentle touch to um-tiss-um-tiss-um-tiss that he once did to boom-bap. Here's his masterpiece, 'Days like this', a ray of sunshine for a dark age and the song I used to convince my friends Charlie & Adrian to come to club.
Shawn Escoffery - “Days Like This”
DOWNLOADAnd last but definitely not least, here’s a live set from a couple of summers ago. This probably gives a better view to Spinna’s landscape than anything else. There’s a couple of janky moments at the beginning where the audio cuts out, but after that it’s good.
DJ Spinna - Live at Plan B July 2006
DOWNLOADCheck out:
Spinna on Myspace
This interview with Spinna & Bobbito on their ongoing Stevie tribute Wonder-full. Here’s a sample:Why do you think the parties are so highly regarded?
Bobbito: We’ve had people faint in the crowd. We’ve had people have orgasms in the crowd.
(DCist chuckles)
I’m dead ass. I’m not even joking. Spinna and I have cried in the deejay booth. It’s a very deep and emotional party.Spinna: It may not be the man himself but you’ll capture the same type of emotions as you would at his show.
Support great music.
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- Wall Street
September 29 2008, 4:30-5:00 PM EST
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- We fly high
For the past hour or so I’ve been mesmerized by this simulation of 24 hour’s worth of global air traffic. It was created by the power thinkers at Zurich University of Applied Sciences and sent to me by the power drinker Julius.
I think the most beautiful thing about this is the way it plots the motion of the sun across earth and shows each region coming to life in the light. You might have to watch it on full screen mode to see it clearly, so if you want to watch a bigger, clearer version, I’ve uploaded the original quicktime file. It’s 1024×512 px, better resolution and worth it. Watch it/DL it here.
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- Recordnize
Paul Mawhinney is a former paper salesman from Pittsburg. He is also the world’s most off the chain record collector. He currently maintains the largest record archive in the world - over 3 MILLION pieces, including thousands and thousands of albums and singles that were never transferred to CD/MP3. He popped up in the int’l press earlier this year when he announced that he needs to sell his beloved collection to the highest bidder. An e-bay auction took place, but the eventual winner (who’s high bid was (only) $3,002,150) couldn’t actually come up with the money, so it was ultimately voided.
Filmmaker Sean Dunne visited Paul at his meticulously organized record cave and made this. Amazing and sad.
Thanks to Jeremy for the tip. See you soon dude…
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- Tip Drill
As is apparent to anyone paying attention, the US Presidential Election has devolved into a grotesque festival of lies. At this point, I find it too painful to invest emotion in this multi-million dollar demonstration of human dumbness and so, as a coping mechanism, I’ve begun to take pleasure in it. And with that in mind, I submit this: “Sarah Palin (I wanna lay pipe)” by John Brown (of White Rapper fame), to my knowledge the first “protest song” ever to request sex from its subject.
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right-click + save link as (mac) / save target as (windows)laugh now, cry later
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