TROPICAL HIBISCUS

by Lamin. July 23rd, 2008

Alright, it’s been a good minute, but I’m still digging through, cleaning and learning how to rip these vinyls proper. I switched from Audacity to Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit) and the sound of the rips are notably better–sound quality still needs improvement though. Next step up is ProTools or Ableton Live, I guess.

Here’s a sweet little pleasurable song from a rather obscure American funk/R&B group. Members of this band used to be songwriters and musicians for Motown, as part of the in-house production team in the 1960s. This song appears on the B-side to their most popular hit “I Can Understand It” from 1972. It’s funny, but this tune is strange and familiar at the same time. It reminds me of a Maxi Priest song, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.


The New Birth - Oh, Baby, I Love The Way

We are still in 1972, but let’s get away from Detroit and visit the Makossa Man, Manu Dibango in Yaounde. His album “O Boso” is recommended for warm, beautiful Summer nights, with smoke, steam and sweat –several counties in the tri-state area are under severe thunderstorm watch.  Anyway, among all my parents 7 and 12″’s I was able to get my grubby hands on (and actually listened to), this is one of the most surprising, varied, and unique 12 inches.


Manu Dibango - Hibiscus

…we are playing a music whose unity has it’s roots deep in African earth, but whose harmony and construction reflect the influence of all the branches which have grown in the common three century old tree of music.” - M. Dibango, 1972

Posted in african, american, everything, funky, optimism, rnb, soul, tropical | 4 comments »

JAHDAN EP LANDS JULY 7TH!

by Matt Shadetek. July 3rd, 2008

Jahdan Blakkamoore: We Are Raiders 12

Jahdan Blakkamoore: We Are Raiders, presented by Matt Shadetek and DJ /Rupture will be in your shops on July 7th. We’ve been labbed up and working hard to get this first taste into the world as quickly as possible while finishing the full length that these songs are taken from, and now: it’s here! Well, in a few days anyway. But trust me, unlike some of our past infinitely receding release dates, this one actually exists (camphone evidence by Geko Jones):

jd camphone art

It will be available in CD, digital and 12″, with instrumentals and a bonus tune on the CD and digital, vinyl is the four vocals only (CD cover pictured).

The CD EP tracklist is as follows:

1. Buss It Pon Dem (Produced by Chancha Via Circuito, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

2. Nice Green (Produced by me, Matt Shadetek, New York City, USA)

3. Go Round Payola (Matt Shadetek)

4. Pon Time (Produced by Stereotyp, Vienna, Austria)

5. Pure Riddim (Bonus Instrumental, Matt Shadetek)

6. Payola Riddim (Matt Shadetek)

7. Nice Green Riddim (Matt Shadetek)

8. Varela (Chancha Via Circuito)

Pre-order yours now (and hear samples) from Boomkat or Cargo, distribution by Cargo (UK & Europe) and Traffic (USA).

Jahdan and Rupture will be in the UK this month on tour promoting the release. Get dates and more info from Qujunktions.

Also get a sneak preview of Nice Green off the EP over at my myspace, along with Go Round Payola.

Posted in brooklyn, buyourstuff, dancehall, dubstep, everything, homegrown heat, jahdan, newyork, optimism, production, realness, reggae, releases, tropical | 3 comments »

AFRICAN DISCIPLES

by Lamin. July 2nd, 2008

Last week I checked out Big Brother Ruptcha and Mr Two Sevens Klash (with his two-man dance group) at the New Museum. Needless to say, both men did their thing. While Rupture’s set was sort of weird (fitting for the name of the event was/is Get Weird) with nearly everyone (including yours truly) sitting down, listening, and watching on the big screen as Rupture’s magnified hands trash needles, thumps, and twists vinyls. There was applause and cheers, and a woman sitting in front of me gasped and shook her head in protest, expressing disagreement when Rupture threw an explicit SpankRock track in the mix. 77Klash has bangers, and beats like coconuts, but his set was too short. The title track to his new release you must hear (heavy, unrelenting bass pressure with equally weighty lyrics.)

If you never heard the song below, I don’t know what to say you… R.I.P. Joseph Hill. I think this is my favorite song ever.

Culture - Two Sevens Clash

(reggae pictures)

Posted in 77klash, everything, optimism, reggae, south, tropical | no comments yet »

TERCERMUNDIALISTAS

by Rupture. June 27th, 2008


Posted in optimism | no comments yet »

Part 2:Tiroteo vs the TV Gangsta

by Geko Jones. June 19th, 2008

Since the last post was about a mambo tune that I won’t be playing out anytime soon I thought I’d start out with a fun spanglish mambo party jam that I DO like and got a big forward at the last New York Tropical Dance. Bachata meets Mambo meets ATCQ.

Sakawaka by the official Dominican Pimp Makaraka y la Grande Liga

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Tiroteo [tee-roh-te-o] or alternatively Tiradera [Tee-ra-deh-rah]

1) A shoot-out

2) gunman lyrics in latin music

3) Battle tunes dissin other MC’s in latin music

I could draw on a million gun choons you’ve heard so I’m rollin with definition 3 here and offering a nugget from an unknown young Dominican duo called The Mr. feat Yankee Next. A ting called Ratata

Another bachata meets mambo tune, this one takes aim at the big boys of Mambo: El Sujeto, Jucafri, Tulile and Omega. The Mister who refuse to be pigeon-holed as Mamberos or Reggaeton artists fuse all sorts of urban and caribbean music and are comprised of Wagner Jesus Ortiz aka Mr. WJ and Franklin Emilio Gomez aka Mr. Frank. In recent hip-hop history this underdog tactic was deployed to career-launching success by one Mr Curtis Jackson on the now legendary How to Rob.

*********************************************************************************************

I went back and found the video of El Sujeto I mentioned in comments of the last post. Here he and up and coming latin hip-hop artist El Lapiz are in a parking lot cheezin for the camara, flashing loaded clips, matching hardware and rattling off lyrics…. they then take turns exchanging poetic two-line couplets of street verse (as u watch, think bomba improvisada)

*****************************************************************************************

Now, I’ve got guys and girls in my family that freestyle and act just like this on and off camara so here’s some thoughts on the gangsta/bling ethos infiltrating the jibaro homelands.

At home in PR, after a blunt, my cousins are easy enough to get along with. We spend our time together laughing at some of their admittedly moronic antics; a 26-man brawl with a police squad, pranks played on crack-heads, stealing cars (na dawg- sorry to break it to ya…. playing Grand Theft Auto does not a gangsta make), motorcycle crashes, bar fights, turf wars etc. Every visit is replete with new stories and matching battle scars. They boast of a revolving door at the local precinct that was recently installed, just to keep up with our brood. As they’re telling me all this, I watch two of them bitch up to raised hand from Titi Lulu, standing a towering 5′4 en chancletas y rollos.

This in-and-out of jail pattern that has developed for my cousins on the island (and in the Bronx), it causes grief to both their families and the community. Some of crimes are necessitated by survival, but most of it is carried out just to get a rep. (There is also a percentage of our cumulative arrests that is attributed to cops being pigs, racial profiling and babylon system)

I ask myself where they get it from because we were raised together outside of the fact that I left the island our biggest differences aren’t a formal education. I stand with them as a student of life educated by my environment who chose to go my own road while good friends opted to finish school and then college to get their degree. True enough, the experience of coming to the states lends me some advantages like mastering English as a first language but that gets balanced-out by other factors. They own their houses, while I pay rent. One even has a garage below his house which has rented as a tire and mechanic shop his whole life, so he’s learned a trade by osmosis. Neighbors come to him for the odd jobs they cant afford to pay a trained mechanic for. Nobody offers me gigs for my superior tele-marketing skills and DJ’ing has yet to re-coup the amount of money I’ve spent on music, my drug of choice.

Then there are my cousins in the Bronx. Like me, they are transplants that have been here in the states for more than ten years. They speak English as a first language and spent most of their lives here but they share equally riotous stories. Difference between me and most of these kids? Surprisingly, neither camp watches much TV so the best I can pin down is that Hot 97, La Kalle and NYC’s mixtape circuit dominate the South Bronx, PR is bumpin reggaeton and I’m the odd man out that listens to as many genres as they do artists. Obviously, I’m tuned into the internet streams on BBC radio, Samurai.FM and the elsewhere in blog-landia. Therein lies the discrepancy. Puerto Rico’s internet is still largely dial-up last I checked and neither they nor the Bronx camp are web-crawlers so they are subject to whatever information is given to them.

I wanted to hold off on the following for a next conversation but I welcome your thoughts this: Gangsta rap’s ideology, the image of guns and bling being cool wasn’t made popular by the general American public or the hip hop community at large. Industry force-fed it to us with little alternative until we got used to it and its now grown past our borders and is affecting other communities. This isn’t my opinion as much as a springboard for dialog I’d like to engage in with you in the comments section. If you wanna go deep in the hood chronicles dig up Bushwick Bill’s album Lil Big Man and try that on for size before writing your response. What I’m getting at with this is until recently, when $mall Change invited me to play on WFMU, no one ever asked me what I wanted to hear on the radio, much like no one I know has ever participated in the political poles that CNN and other media outlets wave as hard statistical data.

Now, back to my hick relatives. Talking to most of my primos (i’m the fourth oldest of 32 blood-related cousins) I find they all share a highly-animated sense of reality, one in which being gangsta is how u gotta be ‘cuz that’s what its like in the streets yo! But when I look down the hill we all grew up on in Puerto Rico, there is still a huge field that horses graze. Behind that, the race track belonging to El Recinto de la ‘Yupee’ Bayamon (University of PR). Standing there, I often myself pondering if I had stayed would have stayed in Puerto Rico, living that close to a great university…

The oldest of the my cousins back on the island has enough crack-heads and ganja smokers in the area to pay the bills, but overall its really not that gully in Barrio Juan Sanchez where we’re from. The neighborhood remains mostly friendly jibaros, who now lock their doors because scattered corrillos of kids with shaved legs and plucked eye-brows are tryna act hard?!? These kids perceive their world through a lens calibrated by the gangsta-ideology that permeated reggaeton and now merengue and what we are seeing are consequences of allowing music and other forms of media to go off into the wilds uncontested.

One of our daily newspapers in Puerto Rico is named El Vocero. On more than one occasion and from both younger and older generation sources I heard it described like this…. when you pick up El Vocero, (holding it out pinched between thumb and index finger) ….it drips blood. During a two-week stay there, I read 3 separate articles about mercenary style killings; bag over head. hands tied to their feet behind their back- shot in the back of the head; all of them within a few miles of where I was staying and suspected to be carried out by guys my age and younger. These were separate articles over the span of a few days but there was no visible thread between them one was a car robbery, one over a girl, one over drugs. It seemed to me at the time, that several one-up ‘a ver quien es mas gangsta’ disputes had climaxed in tandem, resulting in copy-cat atrocities.

I’m not blaming artists or their music for the violent acts committed by individuals. But denying that the demeanor and attitudes which have become prevalent in the current generation is not in some way affected by the music these kids are digesting seems beyond naive. We can take a lot of what singers say with a grain of salt but the question I’m posing is why is the line so far off center? Does calling a spade a spade have to = censorship? I’m not saying these guys shouldn’t have the right to make their music or that it shouldn’t air. But is there a forced emphasis on new jingles or the dance of the week and an oppression of air-play for thought-provoking music, or is it me? What I see is a bunch of kids setting the coordinates to stat quo and forcing themselves into the cookie-cutter gangsta image in hopes of making it so they can get outta the hood.

I speaky di inglesh and my native tongue and I understand quite clearly the words that are coming out of their mouths.… so when do we get to the scene where bubble-gum gangstas get knocked the fuck out by artists with more talent and a different set of standards? At the very least lets call them out on their shit and ask them to elaborate. There are circumstances where letting art speak for itself is useful but when you have so many clones I think we would all be better off to challenge an artist on what they are trying to accomplish with this a piece of art beyond just making money. Those who put thought into their art will usually rise to the occasion. You can get into the ‘why does art have to mean something’ question if you wish, but I won’t be taking part in that with you. I’m busy looking for art with substance or both new and old genres to explore and learn from. Too busy working with MC’s that CAN break the mold. To watch artists hide behind the stage persona and do and say ridiculous things while in character seems a cop out even when factoring in that being an entertainer is, in rare cases, a well-paying job opportunity to someone who comes from bleak circumstances.

Here’s an all-star line up of MC’s with real street-cred that aren’t afraid to face the wind and are ready to blow the current whackness out like the flickering flame that it is. Jahdan Blakkamoore the man Guyanese from Crown Heights Brooklyn, Princesa hailing from Argentina, recent unsigned hype inductee Homeboy Sandman outta the Qboro serving nourishment to the masses, Durrty Goodz in the UK whose Axiom EP raised the bar for grime MC’s, and MV Bill who lives in the City of God, Brazil (his documentary Falcao is story more people should be aware of- large up to Maga Bo on this one). All of them have wicked flows and make it a point to challenge norms plus know how to rock a party. Show them some love ya’ll

Now, I’ll admit to getting older, ornery and detached, having not owned a TV in 8 years. I still manage to enjoy the art of story telling in rhyme, slang and street context. Can you admit a large percentage of new artists out there offer very little lyrical song-writing ability and rely on good publicists to determine for the audience what’s hot? I have to believe at some point society should hold people accountable for their words and actions and at the same time strive and get to the root of our problems. As a Latino, I take it upon myself not sit idle and watch apathetically as my family and culture are brainwashed. I’m happy that Immortal Technique is doing his thing but he’s got a way too much M.O.P. in ‘em for the average listener, myself included. Nobody likes Debbie Downer so I search far and wide for party-rockin music I can stand up for because, often times, that can’t afford a publicist. Challenge yourselves to create play-lists that work well on the dance-floor and balance lyrical content. You’ll find its a lot harder than keeping your eye on what everyone else is playing but infinitely more rewarding. That’s how we go ’round payola. Thank you for pushing good music forward via your blogs and the encouragement to air these ideas. -

run go tell dem come…we ready fi dem- Gex

Posted in crackheads, everything, jahdan, newyork, optimism, ouchmybrain, politricks, radio, realness, tropical | 18 comments »

YOU GO GOV!

by Matt Shadetek. May 27th, 2008


In one of his first acts in office New York’s new blind, black Governor David Patterson (replacing hypocritical philanderer Elliot Spitzer after his scandalous flame-out) issued a full gubernatorial to Slick Rick to prevent him being deported away from his two teenage daughters back to England where he was born.  As a long-time Slick Rick fan and hater of both the US and UK immigration bureaucracies I personally am delighted.

Posted in american, border, everything, hiphop, optimism, politricks | 1 comment »

NJ GARAGE: TODD EDWARDS

by Matt Shadetek. May 22nd, 2008

Rabid Todd Edwards fans, don’t get mad if I leave something out, this is by no means a definitive or informed post. People who have no idea why I need to make that disclaimer? You’re in for a treat. Here are a few YouTube clips of music by Bloomfield, NJ based dance producer Todd Edwards. To my ears this guy is very responsible for a big fat slice of the main ideas in 2-step garage, speed garage, UKG or ‘old school garage’ as they now call it in England. Like Burial’s cut-up distorted vocal style? This guy created it. Akufen? Yup, another fan of Todd “The God” Edwards (as his obsessed fans call him). JME’s “Tropical” mixtape? This is the blueprint.

People have called his style “micro-sampling” which is pretty appropriate, displayed to excellent effect on the below clip, a mix by UK legend EZ (ask any DJ in grime now who inspired them to start mixing, it’s EZ). Listen to all those little dots and chirps of sound, many of them in different tempos, keys etc, woven together into a delirious, delicious whole.

EZ mixing older Todd tracks, recorded 2004:

Shadetek fans surprised I like this stuff? I sort of am too, I was talking to Rupture about it this afternoon and he said “Everybody secretly or overtly loves house.” I replied “Secretly even from myself!” But actually I sort of grew up around New York House, being a teenager in the city in the nineties and although I hated it at the time (really hated it, as only a teenager can) somehow House was programmed into my mind and now when I return to it in my twenties I actually have a real soft-spot for it (the good bits anyway). Also the more music I make and the more I work with music the more I realize how stupid genre-tribalism is and how a good song is a good song is a good song. Music is a technical language of emotion and someone who can speak that language honestly and clearly can communicate across most borders. Todd is also a born-again Christian (and proud) and this may well have something to do with the unashamed, delirious happiness in his music. There is no posture of coolness or cynicism here (witness the Enya remix below), just someone taking a great deal of pure pleasure in sound which is one of the things I especially love about his music.

NEXT TO YOU

This is a very very weird video, apparently made by Todd himself. It has this weird digital apparition of Björk in it and it sounds like her on the track but she is referenced no where else besides in that clip. A below the radar collaboration in spite of label disapproval? That’s my guess. This is one of the more recent things available.

ENYA REMIX:

Yes, there’s an Enya clip on Dutty Artz. And what? I love this remix, beautiful breathy stuttering. There’s also a REALLY funny argument between some trance DJ Enya fan and Todd’s fans in the comments to this.

JUSTICE REMIX:

I sort of really don’t like Justice, much too big-beat cock-rocky for my taste, but strongly in spite of that this Todd remix is great, also an example of his more recent work.

Here’s an interview that Matt Mason (former editor of RWD and all-around interesting writer posted on the Todd thread on Dissensus). He’s got some interesting stuff to say.

FROM RWD MAG MARCH, 2003:

So tell us about the new album?

It’s a collection of some of the singles I’ve put out since the last ‘Full On’, some of the ‘New Trends’ tracks and some fresh stuff with different elements coming through. I spend a lot of time on sampling, on average I spend about a week just gathering samples and a week or so building a tune. Even when it’s something like a remix I put my all into it and it can be very draining. I know I was blessed with a certain amount of talent. But it’s not just me. I’m doing it for God. I believe God is using me as an instrument to spread love, I’m not in control. I don’t want to force it down anyone’s throat, I try to keep the positivity out there and keep the message there, but it’s subliminal. It’s only there if you need it.

Was it always a conscious thing to put spiritual messages in your music?

Yeah pretty much from the start. From my mid twenties, when I was 27 I guess, I got bolder with it. I’m proud of who I am and my relationship with God. It’s not about preaching to people or making them follow rules, it’s about having hope, having a friend and someone to turn to. The messages I put in tunes like ‘Shut The Door’ are very religious, very personal, but you don’t need to hear that to enjoy the tune. I’m trying to put something positive back, there is so much hostility in the world, in the clubs, and what with the war building up…

Talking of clubs you were recently over here for EZ’s 4 by 4 event. How was that and what did you think of the scene in the UK?

4 by 4 was brilliant. It was very humbling. I was… beside myself. I knew I had a following in the UK, but being in New Jersey you don’t realise… I have friends in Jersey who like dance music but here I’m just Todd! It was very re-affirming. The garage scene in the UK is really interesting. There is definitely a power there, there is so much energy it borders on hostility. I went to a few clubs with EZ, and we saw some fights even break out. There are two types of energy, spiritual energy and hostile energy, I saw a bit of both in the UK but in both cases the DJ interaction was there.

Your music is so inspiring to so many. What music inspires you?

Recently it has been soundtrack music and orchestral music. I love sampling orchestra. Orchestra has chord changes that really change, that doesn’t happen so much in dance music. I don’t like doing the same thing. I’ve always said Mark Kitchen (better known as house producer MK) was a big inspiration, a lot of ’70s music, disco, pop, everything inspires me. I’m not sure what genre the music I make is, I don’t think it’s my place to say where I fit in. I don’t consider myself a house producer, even R&B and hip hop influence me, I don’t know if you could tell but the Beckon Call remix was influenced by stuff Timbaland and the Neptunes are doing.

You get bootlegged a lot. Does that bother you?

It kinda sucks that people are stealing, I work hard, it’s not all about the money but it’s not really fair. It’s also a form of praise though, if someone thinks my stuff is worth the risk of pressing up that’s good, when you stop getting bootlegged is when you’ve got a problem!

A lot of it is down to your stuff not getting an official release. Like the ‘Fully Loaded’ project and several mixes which have only come out in Japan etc. Why does that happen?

Fully Loaded just got really complicated, what with everyone having their own really tight schedules as individuals; I don’t think anything will be happening with that this year. With things like Bonnie Pink and M-Flo, who knows why people do what they do, just because you’re a record exec it doesn’t necessarily mean you know what the right thing to do is. But what are ya gonna do?

What is your favourite piece of studio kit?

The Akai S6000, it’s a quality sampler, it’s not without its bugs though… Also the Ensoniq EPS sampler which was the first one I ever used, it’s a keyboard sampler with a really good swing feature. I bought it for $1400 and built an entire studio with the money it made me!

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

I want to do some more singing like on Beckon Call 2003 and Face to Face (with Daft Punk). I have a whole bunch of tracks that need vocals, plus I have some very interesting remixes on the horizon. 2002 was a very inspiring year for me, I felt I made some really good tracks and I’m looking forward to DJing more after New years Day. It looks like it will be a really good year.

top photo from Stylus magazine, from their interview with Todd from last year.

Posted in american, everything, house, optimism | 9 comments »

SHeBANG!

by Lamin. May 18th, 2008

I got this bad boy Sunday morning. Brand new groove from Mutamassik! A thoughtful, generous gift and a pleasant way to kick off the week! Gentle, delicate, thrilling, and exuberant.

MUTAMASSIK-B_SHEBANG_mx-3

~love & respect!

Posted in download, dubstep, everything, hiphop, optimism, soul | 1 comment »

DUTTY REMIX ZERO

by Rupture. April 29th, 2008

is FINALLY in the UK shops! we had ALL MANNER of production delays on this one, but now that Dutty Artz has turned on, we can safely say that we’re gonna keep sprinting for a long time to come.

you can cop the 12″ at Boomkat and many other fine shoppes

here’s the Boomkat review: “Two of our favourite rhythm and bass scholars Matt Shadetek and DJ/Rupture join forces to present their new imprint Dutty Artz, dedicated to dubstep/grime tempo bangers with a four track disc rammed full of primed dancefloor winners. Matt Shadetek brings up the A-side with ‘Can’t breathe remix’, taking advantage of his outsider position within the scene to draw a number of significantly heavy strands of plasticky synth ridden grime styles with R’n'B styled vox and a killer conga pattern reminding us of Skepta’s crazy ’stageshow riddim’. The real shocker on this side is the insanely effective ‘Girlfriend rmx’, obviously inspired by the ghetto house styles currently ruling sections of African dancefloors at the moment and spilling into Grime and Funky London styles, Matt kills it with a charging batty wriggler riddim with heavily autotuned vox and stupid fresh bass for a cut that is guaranteed to liven up any floor.

Cauto keep up the pressure built on the A-side with an mean update of Shy FX’s classic ‘Original nuttah’ augmenting the original vocals and licks with a dubstep/breakstep riddim and freshened bass rubs that will be demanding a lot of attention very soon. ‘Bona vida’ leaves us on cool dubbers tips, structuring a forward thinking dub riddim in the finest Disrupt style, before adding some angular breaks to wipe any dancefloor dilettantes, rough styyyyles. This is definitely an imprint to be keeping a close eye on in the future, and a definite must buy for any fans of Werk, Hyperdub, Hot Flush, Heatwave, or any of Ruptures legendary mixtapes. Well recommended!!”

Posted in cauto, dubstep, homegrown heat, optimism, releases | 5 comments »

HOPEMONGER (GO BAMA PT.3)

by Matt Shadetek. February 21st, 2008

Another great speech from Barack who is ahead of Clinton  for the Democratic Party nomination and a shot against McCain at the presidency. If he wins I do actually feel like America and the world will be quite different, in a better way.

Posted in everything, optimism | 2 comments »

GO BAMA (PT.2: YES I CAN *OBAMA SONG)

by Matt Shadetek. February 4th, 2008

Apparently I’m not the only musician who likes Barack Obama. Will.I.Am from Hip-Pop supergroup Blackeyed Peas does too, so he took Obama’s victory speech from New Hampshire (see below) and recorded this song with a bunch of his famous friends. People are calling it “The Obama Song” but I think it’s actually called Yes I Can. Good for you Will I Am, fucked up as this world is people are more likely to listen to a pop musician for musical advice than many others (politicians, parents, the media). Don’t know what that reflects on worse but hey… I’m officially throwing my hat in with an endorsement of Obama for president as well (Hilary, don’t get mad).

Posted in american, everything, optimism, videos | no comments yet »

GO BAMA

by Matt Shadetek. January 4th, 2008

In a change from our semi-usual editorial policy of hyping our music, attacking other people and posting things that are stupid yet funny, I’ve decided to put on my amateur-political-analyst fake New Era fitted hat and take a look at this years upcoming presidential election.

The event that’s inspired me to do so is Barack Obama’s shocking and very public political beat down of Hilary Clinton. For those who don’t watch politics, you may not have noticed that last night not only did he win, but beat her embarassingly into not second but third place, behind John Edwards. Obama took just under 38% to Hilary’s just over 29%, for a nine point difference. For someone who’s only been a senator for three years going up against one of the beloved political dynasties of our age, this is a big deal. The fact that he did so in a state that’s 95.9% white pretty much blows out of the water a lot of people’s claims that Amerika would never elect a black man for president as well as evaporating all the talk about Clinton’s “Inevitability”. Personally, I think it’s great.

And for those who will say “But America is still racist, he can never win!” I will point you to one of my new favorite subjects, the Republican candidates. Basically, you could run a one-legged chicken against ALL of these people and beat them. Let’s take a look.

In the lead, we’ve got Mike Huckabee (20%), former baptist minister and governor of Arkansas. With much less money and Republican establishment support he blew a big hole in the candidacy of the Republican directly behind him, Mitt Romney(18%). Basically coming from nowhere he leapt to the front of the race primarily based on the fact that, in the eyes of the Evangelical Christians who make up 60% of Republicans in Iowa, there is no other “socially conservative” Republican in the race that they can stomach.

Romney, as a Mormon, has ZERO chance winning over these people. They’ve all seen Big Love, they’re not convinced. Behind him is John McCain (13%). I actually have some sympathy for this guy out of all of them because as strongly as I disagree with him and think he’s basically insane, he seems like he believes in his insanity and is willing to stick up for it. Fair play. Still, his sticking to his convictions, including his recent statement that he wouldn’t mind if the Iraq war went on for another 100 years, is not going to win him the general election. Even Republicans are embarassed about the war by now, there were no weapons, we didn’t get to steal any oil and worst of all we can’t even win the damn thing. Whoops.

Next we’ve got Fred Thompson (13%), that actor guy. Nope, you’re not the governator, it’s not gonna work. Ron Paul (2%), who seems crazy in a good way, is great on the Iraq war and came in fifth. I’d say he’s probably too good for any serious number of republican’s to vote for, not bad-crazy enough at all.

Which gives me great GREAT satisfaction to announce, that bringing up the rear in sixth place is my personal least favorite person on earth, Rudy Giuliani. Let me just take a moment to say, you thought you were going to win Rudy? Nyeah nyeah! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You 9/11-exploiting, adultering, police-murder-endorsing fascist, you FAIL! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Having lived through 8 years of Giuliani time personally in NYC I have many many reasons to hate this guy, not the least of which is that he is a giant asshole. What he will be good for, in true form, is attacking and taking the air out of the other hopeless Republican candidates.

I tell you, Tuesday night I will be sitting watching the NH primaries with a big bowl of popcorn and laughing my head off as the Republicans step on each others faces trying to climb to the top of the mountain of loserdom that they are swiftly becoming. It just goes to show, that there is a limited amount of evil insanity that ANYONE, even the pathologically misleadable American people, will put up with and vote for. I think for the first time in my life I may actually enjoy a presidential election.

All statistics are loosey-goosey and un-fact checked. It’s a music blog, if you don’t like it go read someone else.

edit: fixed McCain and Thompson percentages, thanks Lamin (we are fact checked after all, though not by ourselves). And in response to your question about disinformation, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.

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