In “If I ruled the World,” Nas raps: “I’d open every cell in Attica send em to Africa.” Then in the 1998 Hype Williams feature film “Belly” (costar DMX), Nas’s character wants to move his girlfriend and child to the continent as a way out of his life as a gangster. (He does not specify […]
The new 5 minute trailer for the new Nas-Damian Marley collaboration, “Distant Relatives”–out next month–where they engage with the music of Africa. (I’ve blogged before about some of the leaked tunes from the album.) Can’t wait for this. They’ve announced a tour schedule in the US and Europe this summer to promote the album. Sadly, […]
It’s Friday so here’s some links and stories I have managed not to give the proper treatment to this week. * What’s Jeffrey Gettleman problem? This week he has a story in The New York Times about Somalia’s Radio Mogadishu, “the one and only relatively free radio station in south central Somalia where journalists can […]
The Ethiopian jazz master has a new album. This is the first single. Maybe this is his blueprint for carbon emissions. Via The Fader.
The Economist has a great little story on the revival of local jazz–including musicians like Mulatu Astatke (in the video above with the Heliocentrics in London)–a tradition that dates back to the 1920s when “… when Armenian orphans from the massacres in Turkey were adopted by Ethiopia’s imperial court and formed a band called Arba […]
