Mature, soulful, wholehearted. All that and then some in The Louie Gee Ensemble’s sophomore effort, You belong to me. Monique Harcum’s vocals and the Ensemble’s musical pedigree lend this track a ‘worldwide’ feel. Homegrown, quality entertainment. I bow humbly.
The Louie Gee Ensemble – You belong with me ft. Monique Harcum (LDBK, 2009)
Big up to Julius for keeping me in the know. Much appreciated.
For more quality music by The Louie Gee Ensemble, play some Scrabble.
From the PR professionals who brought you (and still are bringing you) TheMediaIsDyin, now comes TheMediaIsHirin, a twitter account designed to help “laid off media employees find new work 140 characters at a time.” That being said, I’m still not tweeting. I prefer the old school feel of a blog. Does that sound media illiterate?
Via blogherald.com
As I’ve blogged before, I’m currently writing up my PhD, an intertextual account of print journalists writing business news. In the run-up to actually submitting (late June) and defending (late August), the plan is to post chapters, extracts and other drafts here. Below is the preface (with some minor changes). Comments are deeply appreciated!
Preface (draft version, revised 19 April 2009)
Long before he coined the phrase gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson worked as a sportswriter for El Sportivo, the Caribbean’s bowling tabloid answer to Sports Illustrated. After the magazine’s demise, Thompson returned to the US in the early 1960s and fictionalized his island adventures in The Rum Diary, a sweaty tale of lust, journalism and heavy drinking. Set in the post-war boomtown of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thompson’s protagonist and narrator is Paul Kemp, a 30 year old journalist who feels that time and women keep passing him by.
During the past week, I’ve enjoyed the rare luxury of working in quiet solitude. On the lake shores of the Donkmeer – resort town on weekends, ghost town on weekdays – writing conditions have never been better for me. No schedules, emails or meetings to distract me and plenty of scenic riverside towpaths to cycle (Appels!) or run on.
Such a privilege merits an epic track. I am the black gold of the sun is quite simply one my all-time favorite songs, and 4 Hero’s remix of Nuyorican Soul’s rendition of the Rotary Connection classic (yes, it’s that deep) is the version I like best. In essence, 4 Hero seduce with layers of
subtle harp arpeggios leading into the three-minute mark followed by the sparkling electric piano beneath the strings, all working together to set up that drum break.
“That drum break” refers to the jungle drums breakbeat three minutes into the remix, adding yet another layer to this musical masterpiece.
Nuyorican Soul – I am the black gold of the sun (4 Hero remix) (Raw Canvas, 2004)
Available on The Remix Album, Vol. 1 or at Loudersoft.com.
Jan Blommaert‘s latest book project (scheduled to appear in the Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact series and available as a Word file here) is once again a theoretical tour de force. In A Sociolinguistics of Globalization, he formulates a theory of language which tackles space (geography) and time (history). Here’s what he has to say about the global spread of hip hop (links added).
Hiphop (Pennycook‘s main target of analysis) is a case in point. It is a multimodal (or better: transmodal) semiotics of music, lyrics, movements and dress, that articulates political and sub-cultural anti-hegemonic rebellion as well as aesthetics, a philosophy of life and a particular range of identities; that has its origins in the US inner cities among African-American youths but has spread all over the world and appears everywhere in a recognizable form, in spite of very significant local differences. Hiphop artists all over the world use similar patterns of semiotic conduct (including the use of English stock terms and expressions), but wherever it occurs, Hiphop offers new potential for local identity formation (see also Richardson 2007). What happens with Hiphop is therefore “the global spread of authenticity” (Pennycook 2007: 96ff), not just a flat distribution of cultural forms, but a layered distribution in which local forces are as important as global ones. There is always “a compulsion not only to make hip-hop locally relevant but also to define locally what authenticity means” (id.: 98), and while many ‘global’ (including English) features of Hiphop are adopted in this search for authenticity, many others are rejected as well, and alongside the globalized African-American English Hiphop register we often see the emergence of similar registers in the local languages as well, sometimes (like in Tanzania) leading to a new, localized, fully-fledged vernacular Hiphop tradition.
In a dramatic Paris-Roubaix, Tom Boonen (Dutch for ‘beans’) delivered a phenomenal performance, fighting off his RvV shadow Pippo Pozzato.
Tom Boonen in the lead at Paris-Roubaix (Bikeradar.com)
Deep, deeper, Henrik Schwarz remixing Bill Withers’ Who is he. Nuff said.
Bill Withers – Who Is He (Henrik Schwarz Edit) (CDR, 2009)
Download at Needledrop.net
I realize I am not breaking new ground by plugging the Information Architects‘ brilliant Web Trend Map 2009, but I can’t resist. What WTM does is map the 333 most influential domains and 111 most influential internet people onto the Tokyo Metro Map. History in the co-creative making. Via Nalden.
Twin Six is to cycling apparel what Zipp Speed Weaponry is to road racing wheels: a cut above the rest. Having seen enough of “unwilling billboards, moving color explosions and unfortunate cartoon characterizations“, Twin Six offers stylish, high-quality and surprisingly affordable alternatives. Ride in style. Some Zipp 404s won’t hurt, either.
These are the kind of photographs I would like to see on display in a museum. Thomas Sanders‘ intimate style reminds me of Stefan Vanfleteren‘s portraits. Via Lost at E Minor and Feature Shoot.
Thomas Sanders The Faces of WWII
Tom Van Hout 