Brussels is a boogie wonderland

I find romance when I start to dance in boogie wonderland

Wholly recommended: Strictly Niceness @ La Bodega. Your monthly shindig.

Hip Hop is cultural representation

“In the early 1970s a musical genre was born in the crime-ridden neighborhoods of the South Bronx. Gifted teenagers with plenty of imagination but little cash began to forge a new style from spare parts. Hip-hop, as it was then known, was a product of pure streetwise ingenuity; extracting rhythms and melodies from existing records and mixing them up with searing poetry chronicling life in the ‘hood, hip hop spilled out of the ghetto.”

Kurtis Blow

Continue reading at LDBK

“Breakin” by Stijn Coppens

A boom bap continuum: beats to live by

2tall, DJ Clockwork and Kper. Raise your hand if you had ever heard of these three cats. I hadn’t, but am sure digging their meticulously mixed ode to the boom, the bip, the boom bip. ‘A boom bap continuum’ is a mixtape with a mission:

to highlight the lineage of hip-hop production and beat making from the turn of the millennium to the present day, and perhaps shed some light on the fairly quiet revolution that has been taking place under the surface of mainstream media in recent years.

Download the mixtape and the artwork. Check the killer tracklist. And spread the word.

[H/T: ilovenewwork.com]

Excursions in hip hop theory

It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time but never really found the right outlet for: write about hip hop scholarship. Presenting: Excursions into Hip Hop Theory, a 10 post series about what hip hop is and what it is not. I’ll be posting a new episode on a weekly basis on your other favorite space: laid-back.be. Big up to Julius.

Picture by Anattitude Magazine @ Flickr.com

A keynote lecture on body & work literacy

Monday rush. I’m supposed to skip
but I just found Sunday in your hips

It sounds too good to be true. A Marxist hip hop band from Oakland, California. How could I have slept on The Coup? Especially when Boots shares his insights on “the study of how bodies may be tossed and folded”:

Thoughts wrangled up, legs tangled up,
baby do this feel good angled up?
Can’t be expressed by a sangle fuck
Wanna gently caress it and bang it up

I could wax poetic about this track, but That Good Good really nails it:

[Boots] flips a paradoxical metaphor with a claustrophobic outside and a universe under the weight of his girl and then thoughts of “lost aerobics” are oddly accompanied by a double time handclap creating a mini flamenco-fire with a [Stevie] Wonder-esque harmonica meandering over it. Suddenly his sex/work debate spurs a thought of burning his workplace down if not allowed to head home by 5:02. He taps into a working-class disgust of not getting paid for every second he has to be in service to the boss. Strings come in as he struggles to make his decision. At least the cymbals of the trap set and symbols of the political set (a Jesse Jackson? speech reiterates Day’s query) combine to make beautiful music together…

Those strings. Oh those strings.

The Coup – I just wanna lay around all day in bed with you (Epitaph, 2006)

Download if you really must, spend a buck if you like quality music.

[H/T: Orsii, aka lil’ miss sunshine on LDBK]

Give yourself the freedom, let’s bounce

For some sports you need a ball. For triathlon you need two. Writing a PhD however, requires a third. While said to be benign, the growth is known to induce severe moodswings, bouts of paranoia and insomnia. Other side effects are self-indulgence, weight loss and Sehnsucht.

One way I try to escape from it all is by running. Long distance running. Ran a 20k trail race yesterday with long time buddy Danny and was able to run consistently and comfortably at my (ideal) marathon pace of 12km/h. All along, I ran to Vaughn Mason & Crew‘s timeless bassline.

Vaughn Mason & Crew – Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll (Brunswick, 1980)

Quietly taking over the world: LeFto

His taste in music is cut from the same eclectic cloth as Gilles Peterson, he’s a Nike sneakerhead, a resident DJ at  GP’s Worldwide festivals and a Brownswood regular, a radio show host at StuBru and quietly making a name for himself internationally: LeFto.

Playing with the big boys: Bruno Clerbout

Hometown favorite Bruno ‘Bruce’ Clerbout made a phenomenal Kona debut, taking 25th place overall with an astonishing 3:01:01 marathon. I have never seen Bruno this ecstatic. Way to put your name on the international triathlon map, Bruce. Ditto for Pieter Hélin (53rd place overall, as an agegrouper!). Here’s a hip hop mix to celebrate your achievements.

The Strictly Niceness magic formula

Grown folks music, good times and strictly niceness, courtesy of Phil & Bernard. Strictly niceness are monthly shindigs in our nation’s capital. Recommended. I’d never thought I’d say this, but Brussels is really growing on me. For everyone who says Brussels is a soulless bureaucracy, think twice.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

A Marvin Gaye ‘audiobiography’

Jimmy Green, I salute you. You’ve made an instant classic mixtape of Marvin Gaye gems, audio snippets, blends and beats. You call it an ‘audiobiography’, I call it a masterpiece. ‘After the Dance’ featuring Biggie? Damn right. Thanks for this, Jimmy. Download. Spread the word. Dance.