One of the best rappers alive, featuring the lady who sang the original hook on “You Got Me.” Off Monch’s ‘W.A.R. (We Are Renegades)’ – the album has been out for more than 6 months already, but the music video is new. The subtext is Monch’s battle with asthma. Director Terence Nance has done work for Blitz The Ambassador before. Is that Jean Grae hanging around in the studio? This is your music break.
It’s Friday night, so we’re unwinding with some nice videos. We start with Liberians Nasseman and Takun J, on a pan-African roots reggae tune.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG4cUzJeU_k
Last Wednesday the Brooklyn rappers collectively known as Black Star*–Mos Def (now going as Yasiin Bey) and Talib Kweli–were guests on the satirical news show,”The Colbert Report.” They last brought out an album, “Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star” in 1998. Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli then proceeded to effortlessly perform two songs–the first “Fix Up” from the 5:00 mark in the video above and the second, “Astronomy (8th Light)” which you can watch here. Too bad they cancelled their upcoming tour.
* Black Star refers to Marcus Garvey’s fleet of ships with which he planned to repatriate Africans in the Americas back to Africa.
Blitz The Ambassador talks about the initial reception of his music (“slow”), the musical Fela! (“it made the people more open and made the people understand the larger context”), his early records, his collaboration with Corneille for the track ‘Best I Can’ (“trying to express how I felt about where I’m at”), the future (“I don’t know what it holds”) and the internet.
My Brooklyn neighborhood is a center for Pulaar speakers in the United States. The community has its own association, a significant proportion of the local masjids’ membership, and plenty of great restaurants that provide food from countries like Sierra Leone, Guinea, Senegal, and Mali. Baaba Maal and Duggy Tee get together on a track that would make the neighborhood proud.
My neighborhood Fort Greene in Brooklyn, one of the oldest in the borough, is changing beyond recognition, but we still have the annual Fort Greene Festival on Saturday, June 25. This year’s headliner: Mos Def (above with Talib Kweli in the video for “History”). And if that’s not sick, the annual Afropunk Festival (this year on August 28 and 29), that used to be held in Fort Greene Park and moved to Commodore Barry Park, also in the neighborhood, has Janelle Monae, Cee Lo Green, Fishbone and Santigold on its bill. This year’s theme: “Free Fort Greene.” Separately, Antibalas will play in Fort Greene Park at a concert organized by the Fort Greene Park Conservancy on July 12.
* Meanwhile Pharoahe Monch and Baloji (July 2) and Meshell Ndegeocello (July 9) will headline the annual Weeksville Heritage’s Center summer concert series in Bed-Stuy.
As a bonus, see also the 10-minute video for “Clap” also off “W.A.R.,” below.
This is not your usual music video. This one is really a short film. I don’t want to say more about the plot except it is about police violence.
And, even better, here is the live version of “Clap”:
Charlie Ahearn’s new documentary of Brooklyn photographer Jamal Shabazz screening on June 26 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Youtube is streaming all of the 44-odd minutes of Blitz the Ambassador’s second studio album, “Native Sun.”
The album will be released May 3rd in North America, and May 6th Worldwide.
I have already pre-ordered my copy.
Writer Teju Cole– he has a new novel, “Open City”–talks and writes about identity and immigration to The New Yorker.
The media blog that is not about famine, Bono, or Barack Obama. For that, go to Newsweek. Frequent contributors are media expert Brett Davidson; academics Sean Jacobs (he started AIAC), Neelika Jayawardane, Kathryn Mathers, Marissa Moorman, Lily Saint, Melissa Levin and Dan Moshenberg; writer and health advocate Caitlin L. Chandler; filmmaker Dylan Valley; writer and academic Abdourahman Waberi; and graduate students Boima Tucker, Anni Lyngskaer, Sophia Azeb, Tom Devriendt, Loren Lynch, curator and filmmaker Basia Lewandowska Cummings, writer and journalist Elliot Ross, writer Orlando Reade; Hinda Talhaoui; and Mikko Kapanen. Pre-August 2009 posts are archived here.
