New York, NY (October 24, 2008) - No, not De La Soul. Some friends of SRC are releasing an album and would like for any and all tri-state area reggaeton heads to be in attendance. Spanish mami’s galore at this one. Check it out October 28th, featuring performances by Zion y Lennox, Jowell y Randy and Guelo Star. Camilo will be on the wheels, along with DJ Eddie One. Any additional info, check the flier or hit up De La’s MySpace.
New York, NY (October 2, 2008) - A friend sent me this today in an email. It’s hard to put into words why hip-hop holds the kind of power of me that it does… but this piece at least tells the story of where that power came from. Read:
…On August 11, 1973, in the rec room in an unassuming brick apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, hard by the Major Deegan Expressway, a 16-year-old Jamaican immigrant changed pop music forever. This is the night that Clive Campbell, later known as Kool Herc, invented hip-hop at his little sister Cindy’s “back to school jam,” which was actually a moneymaking venture to fund a shopping expedition to Delancey Street.
For the hip-hop faithful, the story of that party is something close to sacred, but the bland building itself had sunk into obscurity. As had Herc himself, who never cashed in on the rhythmic innovations that ultimately led to the blingy universe of Puffy and Jay-Z. But lately both Herc and his old house have been back in the news, after a private-equity firm tried to buy 1520 and take it out of the state’s Mitchell-Lama middle-class-housing program. This would lead to higher rents, which alarmed housing activists. When they realized that this was no ordinary building, they called in Herc to help get the media’s attention, and possibly prevent the sale.
Hip-hop music gave definition to a culture that comes from a place where life wasn’t as it should have been. Yet somehow, at the moment of it’s inception, it was perfect. The music took on a life of it’s own because it spoke of the highs and the lows of the people and the times; it captured the energy of the crowd by playing to it’s weaknesses; the entire creation of the music was about risk and chance, continuous elevation and experimentation. It was nothing short of pure.
Nas made the bold statement a few years ago, and since then, hip-hop has often been declared dead in the water, swallowed by record labels and white America. But the culture is alive and well; it’s just changed. In that process, though, the music has become less a dialog of the people in the street and more a dictator of the people in the street. Because in that evolution, hip-hop, to me at least, has lost it’s identity. It pains me to say that… but that’s how I feel after reading this article. And it’s a sad state of affairs when what was once the voice of the street is now the voice FOR the street in a time when the street no longer has a direction.
Selling the birthplace of a music that defined a culture is an exact caricature of where we are now. If that were to happen, what else would we have left?
New York, NY (September 1, 2008) - Internationally renowned/infamous graf head Banksy took to the streets of New Orleans recently (I think - no indication of when these were done). Some great shots, props to GrandGood for the post and Eskay for the heads up. I like the one above the best.
Not much is known about him, but for more of Banksy’s work, click here and check out his book, “Wall and Piece.” It’s excellent. It chronicles most of his work since 2000, from Rats to Monkees to his own personal art collection.
