Enjoy.
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
Unlimited bandwidth is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I am using gigabytes of bandwidth just to use it. That’s not totally true, but it may as well be. Anyway, here’s post #1 of the music I’ve brought back.
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One of kwaito’s early superstars, this is one of my favorites from him.
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Because somehow a track based around a Destiny’s Child melody just seems great.
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This one is big in the townships these days, though it’s been out for like a year. To the left, to the right, everybody say.
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
I was just gifted about 30 or 40 world-music/South African cds, and I am stoked. Putumayo runs such a great compilation series, but who knew that Buddha Bar was so weird? I’ve already posted about Freshlyground, but I finally got my hands on some Oliver Mtukudzi. A performer from Zim(babwe), his music is just so incredibly light-hearted. “Chido Chenyu Here” is worth checking out for an idea of his sound, and the guitar is heavily reminding me of Paul Simon’s “I Know What I Know.” Kind of screwy, considering that Paul Simon’s work on Graceland was based on South African music, so I guess it should be vice-versa. Ah well, you have to start exploring music somewhere, right?
Just realized that I have about 13 days left here in Africa, can’t believe my life here is ending so soon. It’s been one helluva semester.
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
If you’ve slept on these two, it’s time to get familiar. Odds are, at this point, you are unable to avoid hearing of them: their viral youtube videos, their performance at Coachella, and their recently-acquired hipster fame.
Die Antwoord is an Afrikaans duo (their name translates to “The Answer”) from just outside of Cape Town, and they’re pretty amusing. It’s “Zef Rave,” which basically means it’s trashy rap-rave music. But that’s the thing: it’s pretty damn self-aware. Family friends in Cape Town told me that when they met these two on the street they were two of the most normal, nice, people they’ve met. Would you ever know it from the videos or the music? Probably not. Turns out the MC “Ninja” has been involved in a number of other projects, most of which are much less outrageous (apparently – given my internet costs, I can’t really afford to verify that).
Their album $O$ should be available somewhere out there on the internet (and trust me, it’s pretty good). Check their website if you want to know more.
Oh, and a note on terminology. Bru = Bro. Dagga = Weed. Wat kyk jy = What are you looking at?
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
I’ll be playing at Fiction’s Untamed Youth party this coming tuesday, get excited. 10-11:30pm, lots of disco house, and hopefully a little heavy bass depending on how fast the crowd gets going.
I’ve finished a few mixtapes since last we spoke, and at some point I’ll share them. One is a loungey kind of thing, and the other is some gritty bass/dubstep/afro-rhythm stuff.
Also, I owe you stories, I will be sure to get those up here soon. Sorry, I’ve been a bad blogger recently, but I’ve been busy getting things like this ^ squared away.
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Pop music is pop music. That’s what I’ve learned. It doesn’t matter where you are – the US, UK, Australia, France, Italy, or Germany. Take a look at the Top 10 on iTunes and dollars to donuts you’ve got some pretty similar lists. I mean really similar lists.
But South Africa is on a different continent, maybe we’ve got something different?
Nope. Most of the clubs here play straight Top 40 – Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Ke$ha, David Guetta, Kanye West. You name it, and I’ve heard it here.
A few weeks ago, when I visited a middle school in Oceanview (a township outside Cape Town), we heard that some kids had a hip-hop dance troupe and were going to be performing. And I was stoked to hear some local hip-hop. There was a DJ there, who played with them. What did I he play? Top 40 hip-hop. Some TI, the David Guetta remix of Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling,” and a few other songs that just weren’t very noteworthy. They were amazing – apparently they’re internationally ranked – but I couldn’t shake the idea that middle school students in a poor suburb are growing up and listening to our incredibly materialistic music.
I think it’s interesting that South Africa imports music from the US like it does – it’s such a different culture, but they want the same things we want in their music. I don’t know if that’s escapism, or consumerism, or what, but I do know that they like our music, and absorb our messages. For us Americans, our pop music sometimes just feels like stuff we happen to listen to because its on the radio. But by importing it, are South Africans tacitly saying “I support that message, I like the lifestyle they’re selling”? Maybe, it’s hard to tell. Maybe it’s the same reason white kids love gangster rap.
As my hipster-ish professor of African culture likes to say, Cape Town thinks of itself as “a city in the world.” It wants to be global and cosmopolitan, which often has the effect of really pushes aside a lot of issues and local culture.
That’s the other thing – there is SO MUCH GREAT LOCAL MUSIC. Either the really rough kwaito sound or the incredible deep and jacking house sound, they’re so lush and emotive. They have a sound that is definitely not like the music of the US. Now I just have to find some places to actually hear it.
All of this is to say that I don’t really know how much any of this matters – is music just music? Are we making a statement when we listen to particular kinds of music? Is there anything even wrong with that? With the internet making the world global and the easy access to mp3s, is this even a valid conversation anymore? And maybe I’m just being ethnocentric.
Music:
This is kind of a weird selection, but I’m going through old stuff on iTunes and I felt like sharing. It’s hardly new, this song got leaked to a blog in October of 2008. The quality is terrible, because it samples a video game commercial. Seriously.
But it’s so good – I love how playful this thing is. I don’t have a direct mp3 link – I’d upload it, but there’s no way I’m paying $1 just so that you don’t have to wait 15 seconds.
Camron – Oh No You Didn’t [4shared link]
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
With some new music. I’ve got a whole weird variety of things to share.
First and foremost, I’m (basically) on Thanksgiving break and it is wonderful: I’m re-reading Strunk & White, I only have one Theories of Religion book left for the year, and I have the chance to finish up another mixtape.
If you haven’t seen the new stuff Clipse has been up to you’re missing out majorly. This song has been going so hard, and the video is equally phenomenal.
Popular Demand (Popeyes) (feat. Camron) [mp3]
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Also floating my boat is this new Sting project, If On A Winter’s Night (see the album art above). There’s something so pleasant about an album that fits perfectly with Rochester’s weather without even trying. Though I suspect Sting was thinking a little more about dark european winter nights, but he really nailed it for upstate NY. The last album that did it this well must have been Fleet Foxes.
Sting – Soul Cake [mp3]
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Lastly, has anyone else heard the new John Mayer album? It’s phenomenal, but upsetting that one of my favorite songs happens to feature Taylor Swift. That is so not good for my street-cred.