“You can play us and repeat us, and then take us home and read us – line for line…” – Talib Kweli on Definition by Black Star If you’re tired of bemoaning the pathetic state of hip hop and yearn for the long-gone days when you could expand your intellect and world-view by studying and joyously memorizing […]
Read More Jay Electronica: The Return of Hip Hop.Radio Saudade: Episode 3. “Devoção e paciência. Mixtape é como uma procissão de um homem só.” – Rodolfo Viana. (“Devotion and patience. The Mixtape is like a procession of one man.”) Enjoy. or DOWNLOAD Radio Saudade Episode 3 (mp3) here. Ismael Quiñones – Control – Freak Off: Latin Breakbeats, Basslines and Boogaloo, 2001. Electro Côco – Quem […]
Read More Radio Saudade: Episode 3Radio Saudade: Episode 2 at your disposal to satisfy your sybaritic head-bobbing needs. or DOWNLOAD Radio Saudade Episode 2 (mp3) here. Eivind Groven – Tveitanvise – Nordisk Sang, 1991. Andrés Landero y Su Conjunto – La Pava Congona – Cumbias y Gaitas de Colombia Vol. 1, 1996. Juana Molina – Un Día – Un Día, 2008. Joe Harriott – Jaipur – […]
Read More Radio Saudade: Episode 2Saudade Brothers kicking it up a notch. Radio Saudade: Episode 1 at your fingertips. Press play to enjoy the tunes. or DOWNLOAD Radio Saudade Episode 1 (mp3) here. Radio Citizen – The Hop – Berlin Serengeti. 2006. Buy it here. Sun Ra – Twin Star of Thence – Lanquidity. 1978. Buy it here. Slavoj Zizek – […]
Read More Radio Saudade: Episode 1There are few musical geniuses who can be properly credited with founding a genre of music: Fela Kuti and Afrobeat, Miles Davis and Jazz Fusion, King Tubby and Dub. Here at my place in Recife sipping cachaça with the pescadores, peixeiros, and the paulistano sun-bathers everyone will tell you that when it comes to Bossa Nova João […]
Read More João Gilberto: Original GIn recent days, my mind has been awash in a cascade of Hawaiian saudades, a phenomenon that has occasionally accompanied me since the 80’s, when American television networks forced their viewers, even here in Europe, to choose between tropical miniseries. The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Magnum P.I. battled weekly for supremacy in the working […]
Read More Haoles on the Pequod“No wrong turns – they do not exist. You cannot diverge from the path – it’s impossible.” Daniel Higgs Inimitable and visionary, the singer, musician, poet, painter, and tattoo-artist Daniel Higgs is a modern-day troubadour, or better yet perhaps a shaman from the post-industrial state. Lyrically and visually Higgs has constantly turned symbols and concepts […]
Read More No Wrong Turns: The Daniel Higgs Appreciation SocietyWUGAZI. Fugazi meets the Wu-Tang Clan in a mash up produced by Cecil Otter and Swiss Andy. Skeptical? Me too. Being a hard core fan of both groups, I initially rolled my eyes when I heard of the project: I had an instinctive aversion to the thought of mashing up Fugazi, who based their sober […]
Read More WUGAZI: 13 CHAMBERSComing straight outta Oxnard, Otis Jackson Jr., a.k.a. Madlib is the youngest member of our illustrious league of Appreciation Societies. Hip hop DJ, producer, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, expert musicologist and crate-digger extraordinaire, Madlib (also known as The Beat Konducta in addition to a wide host of aliases and alter-egos) is arguably America’s most creative and certainly […]
Read More The Otis Jackson, Jr. Appreciation Society (aka MADLIB Sound System)Recently a youth I hold in high esteem asked me about some hip hop to listen to. Kindly allow this not to be a comprehensive hip hop history, but rather, my hip hop history, from the remote island of Tristan da Cunha to here under the starry skies on the beach in Recife, Brazil. For […]
Read More Hip Hop Saved My Life
saudade brothers 