Remember when famed DJ and tastemaker, Diplo, got mad at Africa is a Country’s Boima for a post Boima did about global dance music and cultural appropriation? (Click here for the post and scroll down for Diplo’s outbursts). Anyway, Okayplayer’s Eddie ‘Stats’ Houghton (check out his Large Up blog btw) got the two to sit down (and even shake hands) recently in New York City. You can read the transcript of the exchange on Okayplayer’s blog. It is all very civilized. In related news, Diplo is the subject of a rambling Rolling Stone profile that went up today in which vague reference is made to “critics [who] have accused [Diplo] of hipster imperialism.” I hope they weren’t talking about Africa is a Country. Later today (Friday) Boima will join Eddie, Wayne Marshall (of Wayne and Wax) and Venus X Iceberg (it was her twitter ‘beef’ with Diplo that first prompted Boima’s post btw) at New York University for a roundtable discussion at the EMP Museum’s 2012 Pop Conference on “Tropical Music, Appropriation and Music “Discovery” in the Global Metropolis.” Let’s hope there’s a tape.

Further Reading

Goodbye, Piassa

The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture.