Location:
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Avenue
6PM
http://www.newschool.edu/eventdetail.aspx?id=69952 Part of an ongoing afro-fucha series at the new school. H/t to boima
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The hosts of the party were – of course – the Space Hijackers, a squad of self-styled “anarchitects” who have spent the last twelve years executing increasingly in-your-face actions to reclaim London’s public space. Most recently they made headlines from BoingBoing to the BBC World Service for launching a fake “life offsetting” company during the DSEi arms fair. There’s a lot to say about the Hijackers, but rather than try to sum up their work in a few paragraphs, I’ll leave you with a clip of them driving their own tank toward some police officers. OWS, take notes.
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LV & Joshua Idehen – “Melt”
from LV & Joshua Idehen‘s album Routes, an album which came out on Keysound Recordings a few months ago. I’ve listened to the album countless times, played some tracks on the radio, and at parties prior to the unrest in London. I highly recommend it. It’s an impressive, imaginative, muscular, and fun album. On “Melt” Idehen, a Londoner of Nigerian heritage talks about growing up in London on top of a ridiculously good kwaito-informed funky jam provided by LV (very impressive vocal cut ‘n past & repeat action.) So much is said in such little time (youth, class, perseverance,…) & so much understood even when the words aren’t clear!
This one dropped on Numbers. last year, but this video made my afternoon. #dancers #rewind
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when does a battle mix become a ceasefire mix? avant-garde was originally a military term – the foremost guard in the army advancing into conflict. battle mix. myself and jon hanuman. the peace was brokered by the abstractor blog (based in Caracas/Barcelona/Elsewhere) and is therefore bilingüe.
it’s available with tracklist and even interview here.
here’s a couple of my selections in full. happy to spread the love/weaponry further. requests down below…
first, an old UK Garage cut from 99. future garage is a simultaneously occurring future which is also happening in the past…
m dubs feat lady saw – bump n grind (original mix feat secret agent)
second: adesh samroo is from trinidad. he makes chutney soca (that’s soca made by trinidad and guyana’s large populations of south asian – imperial – extraction). This tune is from his ‘thanks to all’ album. It makes a good case as to why cat meat is better than dog meat.
To cure post-holiday blues, smoke Christmas trees or listen to the new album from Hype Williams, Find Out What Happens When People Stop Being Polite, And Start Getting Reel on repeat – or just do both to further enhance that collapsing feeling as you watch people (including hard working class people) waste money and resources. Like a bouquet of xmas flowers on fire, the album is an absolute mess; a slow-burning, swirling, hallucinatory fantasy, a wicked affair involving Ms. Helen Folasade Adu.
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Becoming Real – Showdown In Chinatown feat. Trim from Spectre EP (Not Even, 2010)
Greetings from the darkside, Londoner Toby Ridler’s Becoming Real project recently unleashed a vicious EP entitled Spectre, outright insane beats with vocals from one vocals/raps from one of grime’s most amazing/underrated MCs Trim. There is also a wicked juke refix of the lead track by DJ Rashad.
Also, don’t sleep on his FACT mix.
]]>Ramadanman refixes Jamie Woon‘s latest single “Night Air.”
Props to Blackdown/Martin Clark.
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“There are so many Africas, and so many arts of Africa. Picasso and Matisse thought they had hit on the essence of Africa during the first decade of the 20th century. The African masks and sculpture that influenced such works as Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (1909) seemed to be the very embodiment of a youngish Spaniard’s priapic idea of the primitive: wonderfully, savagely stylised; bursting with a toe-curlingly alien erotic charge. How patronising of Picasso to think that that’s what African art amounted to. Well, perhaps that’s a little unfair. The point was that Picasso, ever grasping, ever restless, was seeking out new ways of representing the female body.
Yes, anthropologists quickly began to prove that Picasso was either wrong or telling just one tiny part of an immensely complicated story. In 1910, the first major excavations took place at Ife, a site in what is now south-western Nigeria, not too far from Lagos. (The walled city-state of Ife, legendary homeland of the Yoruba, flourished for 300 years, from about 1100-1400 AD). Thirty years later, in 1940, another great cull of objects from the same site hit the headlines again: “Worthy to rank with finest works of Greece and Italy”, shrilled the Illustrated London News.
Many of the works that those anthropologists found are now on display in this major show of north-west African sculpture, and the works here lend credence to that headline writer’s claim. At the same historical moment that Andrea del Verrocchio was doing his wonderfully painstaking, high-Renaissance drawing of a female head which can be seen elsewhere in this building, anonymous artisans in Ife were working with brass, bronze – yes, these Africans knew all about bronze casting long before the Europeans arrived to show them how – copper and terracotta to produce a series of exquisite heads that are not only the equal of Donatello in technical brilliance, but also just as naturalistic in their refinement. So much for African primitivism.” – Michael Glover (The Independent) reviews Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa, British Museum, London – read the full article here.
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Big tune from Wiley’s forthcoming album. The beat is by Shy FX which apparently was a remix that became the main mix. Very nice house/old school hiphop something or other vibes. Wiley in top form as always, picked up from Marcus Visionary’s blog where there’s lots of other good stuff. ]]>dubstep choir, London collective, AN ALTERNATIVE TO BURLESQUE, SHIT TV AND BAD BOY BAND WATCHING – Gaggle “I Hear Flies” from their forthcoming Life Stand.
]]>Sticky‘s “Jumeirah Riddim” has been out for some time. It is a massive tune that has appeared on several dope funky mixes. This Natalie Storm version titled “Look Pon Me” is simply undeniable – sweet, catchy bashment/funky monster. & don’t sleep, look for the 12″ out on Mixpak – it boasts a Dexplicit remix, guaranteed heat!
]]>The world will be tested by Texas Instruments and English diction…
One of my favorite bands released an album sometime in mid-2009, and I’m only coming across it/listening to it now. They have been gone for so long, and their buzz so quiet now. Nevertheless, it’s great to see Tjinder Singh & Co. return with more brilliant tunes. When I Was Born for the 7th Time is their most cited album and it’s charm is undeniable, a true classic— but (in high school and college) I found myself listening to Handcream for a Generation and Woman’s Gotta Have It more than anything else.
]]>Summer of love ’09 = amazing heat & humidity
Friend = Tropical Chinese Traditional R&B, London
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