Diplo in the dock

Chief Boima (government name: Boima Tucker; and AIAC collective member) was invited to OPEN ARTI in Milan recently to talk about art and politics and to DJ. In the video of the event (above), Boima is joined by fellow DJ, Venus X (profiled here in The New York Times). AIAC gets some shout-outs. A lot of things get referenced: music and race, how we listen to music, Shakira, cumbia, hard style, LMFAO, David Guerra, Rihanna, etcetera. But the elephant in the room is Diplo, the famous DJ and tastemaker. It’s Venus who speaks frankly, and openly, about her run-ins with Diplo (he attacked her on Twitter after she objected to him recording her set and then bringing out a mixtape). Boima discussed the implications of the Venus-Diplo feud in this AIAC post. (At the time Diplo felt compelled to comment on the post; just scroll down.) In the video, Boima also gets to talk about that meeting with Diplo set up by Eddie ‘Stats’ Houghton (of Okayplayer/Large Up) in the wake of our post. This new video–given the viral quality of the web–will sure ignite this debate again.

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‘We found love in a hopeless place’

The central point of this song and music video by violinist Lindsey Stirling (the singer is one Alisha Popat) begins with an invocation of a familiar trope: Africa is a hopeless place. But African love springs eternal. So much so that it has the ability to save and teach privileged people from the west, who arrive with fancy hopes of ‘saving’ picturesque Africans. Hell, I’m sure you could even save the elephants if you spent long enough prancing around them playing the violin and the elephants somehow managed to resist the temptation to grind you into the dust with their massive feet (note to American celebrities). And people love this kind of thing. By late last night, this video had nearly half a million views since it was first posted on Youtube on Monday, May 7.

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Must Be Something in the Water

Seriously, this is not ironic. UNICEF is bottling Rihanna and other celebrities’ tap water and raffling it off.

This is all–to coincide with Water Week–to raise awareness about “… the lack of access to safe, clean water for nearly 900 million children and adults across the globe.”

Who dreams up these campaigns? We give up.

Rihanna: Back in Black…face?

Apparently not content with her (failed) attempt at igniting controversy last year with her questionable spread in Italian Vogue, Rihanna has decided to try her hand yet again at the latest epidemic sweeping the globe. This time through her new and, let’s be honest, particularly boring video for “Rockstar 101.” In it, she doesn’t wear much, she writhes around, she impersonates Guns N’ Roses drummer Slash, as well as someone who may or may not be Vogue editor Anna Wintour.  Oh, and in some scenes (perhaps as an ode to the pioneering work of Tyra Banks?), her entire body is covered in what looks to be black body paint or makeup…while she is wearing chains (see picture below). Good girl gone real bad or “fierceness out of control”? You decide. But maybe she should have a look at the Blackface user guide before she proceeds next time.

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