[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duLds-TZMGw[/youtube]
This made my day.
“This is a farewell kiss, you dog!”
Man what I would have paid to see one of those size tens connect… Respect to Muntazer al-Zaidi for his guts, creativity, and accuracy with a thrown shoe. Did he plan it? Was it a spontaneous expression of disgust? Apparently this is one of the most insulting, not to mention hilarious, things you can do in the Arab world.
Gary emailed. He says he’s sorry. of course, choosing This or That once every four years isn’t a democracy, it’s complacency – but that’s another story.
NEW YORK—According to an alarming new study published Monday in The Journal Of Applied Behavioral Science, the time-honored American activity of swaggering, an extremely arrogant manner of walking, has dropped by nearly 90 percent since 2007.
From The Onion article
For extra laughs –
Cindy McCain Claims She’s “Just Like Any Other Female Human”
Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans
Did you notice how cool Barack was in the last debate? Have you notice how much gray hair has popped out of Barack’s head over the course of his campaign? Is Barack able to be himself? Can you really even get angry while in fear of being angry?
In that same/last debate, did you also notice how John McCain was blinking about a hundred thousand times a minute? Did you see the bulge in his neck? He was visibly upset, and you can tell by the way he was interrupting Barack and by his jagged responses. Did you also notice in the second debate when McCain referred to Obama as “that oneâ€? All Barack could do was just smile (and you know that somewhere in his bones, he would like to say that “this is some BSâ€.)
Anger is a natural emotion, but if you are black, Latino, a person of color, there’s no space in these United States for you to be angry. It has taken me years to understand that as a black person, it is not acceptable to be angry in America. People will be terrified of you, but this is not about me, (I am still angry and trying to realize the difference between proactive anger and reaction anger) this is about Brother Barack.
I pray that Our Beloved Brother Barack has some outlet. I pray that he and Sister Michelle have some private conversations about black stress and internalized racism. Black stress and internalized racism can lead to heart attacks and high blood pressure. I hear that he’s smoking again, that can only accelerate the process.
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J. Edgar Hoover (FBI Director for a very long time) constantly referred to black people, specifically civil rights leaders (including MLK) as communists or socialists. In the last few days, McCain’s criticisms of Obama’s economic/tax policies of “spreading the wealth†as socialism echo those old attacks and accusations of black leaders. That is racist and hypocritical, after McCain voted for the use of government funds to bail out Wall St.
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Here’s what inspired this post… Brand new DB!
[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/DavidBanner-WhenYouHearWhatIGotToSay.mp3]
David Banner – When You Hear What I Got To Say
David Banner talks Election ’08 with DJ Hyphen from DJ Hyphen on Vimeo.
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Tim Wise should not be one of the few white people in America who talk consistently about white privilege, but he is.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UJlNRODZHA[/youtube]
I think that Republican’s and Democrats alike are having a similar moment today upon learning of John McCain’s vice-presidential announcement this morning. Who? What? Why? Her name is Sara Palin and she has been the governor of Alaska for a year and eight months. Before that she was mayor of a town of less than 10,000 which although she calls herself a ‘fiscal conservative’ (do these even exist anymore?) she left with $20 million in debt. McCain’s response to Obama’s wonderfully eloquent acceptance speech stomping him and the Repugnant-cans is to throw what’s being described by red and blue alike as a political hail-mary pass. But I ask: “At what? To where?” I think he just took the ball and threw it as long and far as he could down the field, in the wrong direction. While Republican’s were saying things like “Who?” and “I don’t know, I’ve never met her” this afternoon when asked for comment the rest of us were getting a crash course on a vice-presidential nominee we had never heard of.
Palin as Miss Wasilla, Alaska in 1984
The fact that nobody seemed to know anything about her, including those on her own side, seems like pretty strong evidence that McCain watched Barack Obama’s speech and convention last night, shit in his Depends, and desperately reached for the wildest wild card that he could play in order to first: draw attention away from a speech that pundits are calling masterful, brilliant, tough, confident and Republicans are comparing to Ronald Reagan (crazy, I know) and second: to frantically try to claim the mantle of change in an election where he is being portrayed as the incumbent in an environment deeply hostile to the current regime.
This leads me to ask: no, seriously, what was he thinking? Was he thinking that he would be able to swing some of the disgruntled Hillary supporters because his new running mate has a vagina? If this is the idea, not only will it not work but I can see it triggering a terrific backlash. First of all, Palin is the opposite of Clinton on policy positions. As someone who is pro-life, pro-gun, anti-environment (she’s against polar bears for god’s sake, didn’t she see those cute Coke commercials?) and vetoed solar, wind and coal initiatives as governor she is basically an evil anti-Clinton mirror twin from Bizarro World. Further she is a 44 year old former beauty queen political lightweight with zero, repeat, zero experience on the national scene. She is as far from Hillary as you can get and still be a female politician. The message I read from this from McCain to Hill’s supporters is: you’re women, she’s one of you, you’re all so blind and stupid that you won’t care that she’s diametrically opposed to everything Hillary fought for for years and years and endured terrible humiliation to get to, vote McCain. You might as well spray them with mace. Bonus negative million points: Hillary will be SO MAD about this that she is going to be back in this campaign spitting acid and SWINGING. So, way to go McCain. You did, I think, the only thing possible to motivate Clinton to campaign as hard as she possibly can for the man who beat her in the primaries.
Next: Age is officially on the table. The fact that McCain could, on his seventy second birthday, nominate a woman who is so deeply, clearly, dangerously unprepared to step in as commander in chief should he succumb to a fifth bout with cancer just illustrates to both sides how much McCain is willing to risk our national security and stop at nothing to win an election. And he accused Obama of being willing to lose a war to win an election? Are you kidding?
Lastly, McCain just picked up the experience stick he’s been beating Obama with all summer, really one of his few legitimate claims, no one can take away the fact that he’s been in Washington for 26 years, and broke it over his own head. By nominating a VP who is both younger, less experienced and also less known than Obama he’s effectively neutralized that argument for himself and his surrogates. The upside for him is that should he be elected he’s pulled an effective Bush-ist move in that absolutely no one will dare to assasinate him for fear that this woman will be running the country.
PS: to those of you are thinking: what is wrong with Matt Shadetek, why is he only talking about politics and writing these weird ranty essays and not talking about music? Well, sorry, this is what I’m thinking about right now and I’ll be damned if I can’t rant about in on my own blog. This is mainly because I feel so strongly that America needs to dump the Republicans and put Obama in the White House that I literally cannot shut up about it.
Oh and PPS: Fuck Daddy Yankee for endorsing McCain (another giant WTF?!?! with a biillion explanation points and question marks) and respect to Fat Joe for dissing him. What a jackass!
I’m really hoping this is McCain’s “Macaca” moment. Interviewed and asked how many houses he owned: “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”
Mannnnn. I can tell you exactly how much I’ve got in the bank right now (not enough), and how many houses I own: none. I also don’t have a staff to keep track of these things for me, I just remember. For someone who’s supposed to be running the country and keeping track of a lot more information than that, this is not a good look for the McCain campaign. David Gergen has been quoted again and again as saying “Obama needs a game-changer” due to the fact that he is not further ahead in the polls. This might be it.
Obama’s hitting hard on it now, something I’m happy to see since a lot of Democrats have opted not to fight dirty in these kind of fights in the past and some would argue lost because of it (Kerry’s swift boating anyone?) and I personally want a candidate that is gonna take it to the Republicans with two fists and throw mud, rocks and whatever else is handy in order to WIN. Let’s hope Obama and his surrogate’s stay on message with this one and just keep beating McCain with this right up to November. I don’t really see a lot of outs for the McCain people either, aside from attacking back, which they’re trying, using the same elitist celebrity tactics they’ve been on but I really doubt they can get much traction against this. Oh, and the number did come out, it’s not “More than four” (wtf kind of answer is that?!?!) it’s actually SEVEN, including houses on both coasts and more places in between. If you live in a swing state like Ohio, Florida or Virginia be sure to let as many people as you can know about this one.
For the two videos click through to watch the Obama commercial and remarks.
Also, while I’m talking about the election, which I’ve been following avidly, I’d just like to point out how quickly Obama’s organization has responded to this. McCain slipped up yesterday, I got this ad in an email from the campaign today. Talk about rapid response. McCain can’t rapidly respond to a question about his own financial life. If you want evidence of who will be a better head of the executive branch of our government look at how Obama is executing strategy for his campaign. A short list: A) record number of small, non-special interest donations due to excellent internet fund-raising B) volunteers on the ground in fifty states opening fights in places McCain thought he was safe and bleeding his already poorly organized resources C) the rapid and pointed response to this opportunity. Contrast this to Hillary’s campaign which was top-down, rife with infighting and only stayed afloat due to her own cash injections which she’s now taking a huge loss on and (sorry Clintonites) but you see who is ready to lead on day one.
COTORRA
[ko-toh-rrah]
1) Castillian word for parrot.
2) A motor-mouthed chickenhead.
3) Dominican slang for game, rap, the things one says to seduce.
see also labia or en ingles runnin’ gums
*****************************************************************************************************
Sigue El Mambo
This posting is in large part a response to Wayne&Wax‘s post on smut/slackness in dancehall music. Beat-junkie that I am, I have a far better memory for artist, title, label, BPM than lyrics. Still, I make it a priority to assess my selections and make sure that the music I play reflects my ideology. If I am to have the luxury of playing for rooms full of people I choose to at least attempt to balance fun and reason. If I really don’t agree with the content of a tune, it’s not getting air on my shift. I make it a point not to dance when I hear ‘Boom Bye Bye’ out. My own silent protests. You might remember me as the kid in class that opted not to pledge the flag but this isn’t me on soapbox-pulpit. I’m sure some of things I play and approve aren’t in someone else’s bag for various reasons. There’s plenty of fun bad-man, gun, and audio-porn dance tunes that the powers-that-be will stamp an advisory warning on and DJs will bang out this year.
But if we are to have real discourse on raw international music that promotes sexuality or violence and whether or not cautions should be taken toward audience, I think the following is a great tune to dissect.
A while back DJ/Rupture threw up a tune from Omega on the Mudd Up and mentioned this Mambo Violento movement out of the Dominican Republic. Although Omega’s band goes by the same name, Mambo Violento as a genre, is street-merengue defined mostly by hyper-rhythms, braggadocio and sexual innuendo. My first exposure to the sound was sitting in the backseat of a Dominican gypsy cab speeding home from a gig. Beyond the 200+ gabber-like BPMs what caught my ear about the compilation the driver was playing was the flagrant raunchiness of the lyrics.
Perreo is one thing but this was a whole new level of slackness in latin music. Here’s a really minimal sounding tune called ‘La Menor’ (The Minor) by El Sujeto that reminds me more of Detroit Grand Pubahs than any merengue derivative. In the tune, you’ll hear El Sujeto hitting on an underage girl, whose refrain “Es que soy menor, Es que yo no doy” translates into I’m a minor, I don’t put out. He spends the rest of the tune dando le cotorra and letting her know that her age won’t be a problem. My inner-feminist and pedophile radar blipped. Its now flagged as a don’t-play tune worth keeping in the collection for the when they book me to play at Playboy Mansion someday-
At first listen, I really liked the minimal aspect of the tune as it was recorded. It sounds like it was made low-budget shitty and smells of dirty minimal electro ala Peaches, with a side of mangu. The strange keys at the intro and the guido-like hi-hat that comes in, all so left-field from their origin yet the roots still visible at surface level. Lyrically, my concern was that the chorus was talking about having sex with a minor which falls outside my personal comfort zone. Until you find yourself in a room sitting and conversing with a questionable couple and are forced to clarify where you draw that line for yourself, I think one could easily live without processing the gravity of this. The tune isn’t insanely offensive and talks mostly about the same old: Watch the bling, I’ve got an SUV, I’m not taking any back-chat so go tell your parents I’m gonna take you back to the cabin and beat the punnany.
Take a second and picture that in the context of an adult saying it to a fourteen or fifteen year old.
In a live performance of the same tune below El Sujeto and the band bring it back to the realm of merengue, but the first thing that I notice is the LACK of back-up dancers in micro-skirts that is common in a lot of videos for the genre. The girl’s chorus from the original is also being carried by a trio of three male back up singers. All male back up singers is normal but scantily-clad women are usually in the budget for these types of performances. I could be wrong here but my intuition tells me that though there’s a chance this was filmed on a morning show with some level of humility what’s likely is the artist knows this tune is on the wire and he balanced his stage act to compensate. If thats the case, respek mi doopz, balance is good.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK0ZFXQLcEI[/youtube]
Behind the stage persona, I bet this guy too loves and respects his momma.
The cultural age of sexual consent varies greatly from city to town to pueblo. Your position on this is as irrelevant as my position on this tune. Thats your opinion bruv, next caller….. It makes no difference if you think its right or not, we’re two thousand plus miles and several income brackets away from that truth.
Tell a single mother in the Dominican Republic that letting her 15 year old find a husband is a bad idea when she has 4 other kids to take care of and a 24oz can of powdered milk costs 240 pesos ($1 = 33 pesos). No mother wants their daughter to marry a skeevy guy but in villages where a college education and opportunity are hurdled by real-world hunger, the decisions people make are about essentially about survival. The main concern is that said daughter finds a provider, gets married and moves out, thus continuing the cycle. There is a great deal of room for improvement of worldwide cultural norms and we could do a whole separate post on that issue, but it’s a digression from the point I’m driving at. Don’t be that fool out there playing ignan’t shit and putting on dampers.
It seems that the IN thing right now is collecting and playing out international ghetto music, and little thought seems paid to the content and meaning of the songs. I’m all about getting peoples hands up, dancing and making out at a party but if you insist on co-opting cultures please do try and have some idea of what is being said in the tune. If you don’t know anyone who speaks Portuguese, try asking your friend that speaks Spanish to break down that kuduro song for you. There is a a great depth of cross-cultural significance to be found in Tego’s lyric “los negros se entienden.”
I grew up on the island and in later years, seeing first-hand the decisions friends and family made in terms of relationships I have been forced to internally process similar issues. For instance, the story of my cousin who at age 18 dated a younger girl, moved into her mom’s house, broke up with the girl and started dating her mom in the same house where they sold ganja to feed the family and a horse. Imagine my face as he’s explaining all this sitting next to both these women and factor in his older brother dating the teenage girl before he did. He had to explain it three times for my brain to process that in rural parts of the world and even rural America, stories like this pop up far more often than some would think.
Here’s a great rendition of that same tale as captured in a Perico Ripiao recorded by Luis Quintero y su conjunto Alma Cibaena so many years ago
Luis Quintero – La Mama y La Hija
If you’re searching for more current latinoid stuff check out recent gene-pool mutation Miti Miti based in Harlem for even weirder minimal merengue business.
First, here’s an all Steve Gurley mix I’ve been listening to quite a lot lately. I am flagrantly ripping this from the dubstepforum, where it was ripped from Uptown Music Forum, where it was posted about a year ago. The mix was done by someone named AverageJoe, an ordinary DJ with a funny Homer Simpson gif as his MySpace default.
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And now some pictures from last Friday.
The first is of Mr Eliel Lucero skankin’ (to some really good Roots music Matt was playing earlier in the night) in his brand new Dutty Artz tee! Get yours!
And here I am, standing around (yeah, i’m mad bcuz i’m only) in my plain old regular tee— waiting for that lite tropical pink.
And here’s Yellowman, AKA Geko Jones. This man spins and dances behind the decks like a mutha, (but then again, he falls into a state of deep concentration at times.) I’m not sure who’s the better dancer behind the decks, Matt or Gex? I don’t think Rupture dances behind his decks. Maga Bo doesn’t either. Well, I’ve never seen them dance behind their turntables anyway. Have you? If you have, I need photo-or videographic evidence of these two men getting down. 
Maga Bo, author of Archipelagoes —a monster I can’t find the words to describe—, here manning the controls at the bottom of a bluest ocean with weird fishes and creatures swimming over his head and around him, while at the same time modeling tee shirts by designer Ghislain Poirier. Oh, Big Poppa Ghis (© Rupture), thanx 4 D Gros Beats. One beer wasn’t enough.
(I don’t have a single picture of Matthew Shadetek for some reason, and the man wasn’t scarce either. I apologize for that.)
And the people, the people, the party people…
Yes, lady on the left can shake it like a salt shaker.
My, my.. dazzling, beautiful brown eyes…
Go ladies.. all you stereotype ladies
Getting hazy and sweaty right about here.
Goodnight.
Who says late-capitalism isn’t violent? Look what they’re doing to these women! Or at least their photos. When real just isn’t real enough, go on then, go on then draw for the Photoshop. Some of these are just snarky nerdery about clone tools and bad compositing but some are just… EEK. Like this one:
How did that get past the many layers of corporate approval and get published into the world? The only conclusion I can draw is that these people are on drugs. This was another favorite of mine. Body issues anyone? Seriously, you just need to diet more, go to the gym instead of sleeping and get all of your internal organs removed by someone with a Wacom tablet.
And now that I think about it? What is she doing? Standing next to a couch tipped on its end? Sexxxxxxy. Many more at Photoshop Disasters.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxfsvhWVqBM[/youtube]
This has been floating around for a little while…
Courtesy of Versetti
Seeing as there’s been such a good run of either important biz promotional or thoughtful, conversation provoking posts on here I thought I’d just throw this in the mix and bring the level of discourse down a little. It’s a cat biting a theremin, making funny sounds.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ONJfp95yoE[/youtube]
Shameless reblog from prancehall.com
What does it mean when young white people want to do this to themselves?
(please note, to the best of my knowledge this is a totally serious, non-ironic “look how good my spray on fake tan I look like a carrot” scenario)
Further complicating the picture is the distinct influence of the far-east. Someone has obviously been travelling around the suburbs of New Jersey promoting the idea that it is cool to style your hair like a space mutant from Dragon Ball Z.
Finally:
Why are they doing this with their lips? 
I will leave interpretation to you. Note that the guy on the left looks like an androgynous clown who is melting. These men must spend a fortune on beauty and hair products. Obviously, identity politics is very complicated in America.
[we keep rollin! here’s the debut post by Geko Jones, Dutty Artz vibe springer & flyspace ambassador. We’re cooking up some of his refixes for public consumption this weekend , but until then, check the words of Papa Gex — Rupture]
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=gslu9WVQBCA[/youtube]
I don’t remember when exactly it stopped bothering me, but being Latino in the U.S. means that at some point, some moron is gonna look you up & down and say “You’re a Mexican, right?” I by no means fit the commonly-held profile of my Mexicano bredren but in the back of my mind I brush it off on the premise that we’re gonna be the voting majority in this country in like two weeks. What I do have a problem with, however, is the standpoint that our country, which was entirely built by immigrants, has taken on its borders.
Here in the states, where we strive so hard to keep public face and remain politically correct, our administration has an apathy, if not disdain toward economic conditions south of the border and are considering funding to build a wall from Texas to Cali. Did we learn nothing from Berlin? Or better still look toward Gaza.
The Egyptian foreign minister sent a blunt message to Palestinians during a television interview being picked up by media outlets stating that “anyone daring to cross the recently re-sealed border between Egypt and Gaza will have their legs broken.” [BBC article] Imagine yourself living in a place where basic human needs and supplies are cut off by embargo except for a small trickle of goods being smuggled in by a network of underground caves. This is a complete 180 from the announcement made on Jan 24th by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak when he told Palestinians to “come in, eat, buy food then go back- so long as you do not carry weapons”.
Living in an increasingly globalized world it’s amazing to me that despite all the law regarding crimes against humanity that no international court can find grounds to hold someone accountable for keeping 1.4 million people penned in a roughly 25×7 mile cage and denying them food, medicine and goods.
Big up all my smugglers, hustlers and I.N.S. troublers.
They say that drugs make you dumb, but if that’s the case then what the fuck are these police taking? They must be in and out of the evidence room all day. I just saw this piece by ABC News and actually laughed out loud.
“Savvy criminals are using some of the country’s most credible logos, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, DirecTV and the U.S. Border Patrol, to create fake trucks to smuggle drugs, money and illegal aliens across the border, according to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”
In my mind this just goes to show that when people are hungry and committed enough, they can do almost anything. US Drug Warriors: you’re losing, you losers, think up another plan. I recommend some kind of controlled legalization. At least then we could have quality controls, cheap clean needles and people would not be killing each other over this stuff quite so often. You don’t see the executives of the Altria group going and shooting up the corporate offices of Anheuser Busch do you? I know in an election cycle this will be an unpopular idea due to the huge number of American jobs that would be lost (hustlers, smugglers, prison guards) but still, from my soapbox over here it all seems very clear. In the meantime, if the ganja pays your rent, keep on hustling!
The RIAA has done gone lost their minds.
Not really, actually I got this from Boing Boing. Still, you believed me for a sec didn’t you?
The music industry is flopping, gasping, dying. I will be loudly drunk wearing a party hat at and stained hawaiian shirt at the funeral.
David Byrne has some smart things to say about it at Wired. Yes, I know, another post of content boosting, but substantive blogging is hard work. More real content, for those of you who like that, very soon.
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