Category: hip hop
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Artist a Day: John Coltrane
Today’s post combines math, data visualization, and mysticism all within a single song. Yesterday while I writing, I was listening to some jazz and John Coltrane’s 11383 (Take 1) randomly played. About three-quarters of the way through the song, a bass solo by Jimmy Garrison suddenly reminded me of a hip hop sample that was…
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Booths Without Borders at DesignerCon 2017
For pop culture enthusiasts, there’s an unlimited number of conventions where you can connect with your tribe. There are gamer cons, comic cons, anime cons, dragon cons, quilt cons and even a con that celebrates inclusion. I love spaces where art and kitsch collide and for the past 10 years, DesignerCon has become one of…
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Artist a Day Challenge (24): Mark Bradford’s Homage to the Roxy
I have this mythologized view of New York that I have created entirely from the city’s nightclub scene between 1973 and 1987. The Loft, the Gallery, the Paradise Garage and the Roxy sit at the center of this utopia, with the music in these venues acting as the heartbeat of the city. Notice I didn’t mention Studio 54, because in my…
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In Memoriam: The Legacy of David Mancuso
In San Francisco in the 1990’s, the club scene fell into one of two camps: the heavily promoted, large scale parties at Club Townsend and the Sound Factory or the smaller word-of-mouth underground parties like Informal Nation, the Beer Cellar and Sophies, (Raves rested somewhere between the two). My world revolved around the underground. You wouldn’t hear about…
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Common Reveals Hip Hop’s Lost Soul
The beautifully close cropped faces staring into the camera for Common’s latest video for Black America Again dare the viewer to look each subject directly in the eye. Their gaze is strong, inquisitive and evocative; you quickly get the sense that their gaze is knowingly somehow directed at you, challenging you to see them as complex individuals with unique stories,…
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Stand on the Word: TGIF Edition
….and Disco begat breaks… While Larry Levan didn’t make this track, he made it known. TGIF! Go get your life.
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Camilo Jose Vergara’s “Old New York”
Camilo Jose Vergara’s work takes a historical photographic look at the dramatic evolution and dissolution of New York’s neighborhoods over decades. I really love his early early 1970’s work. For me, the most captivating series is “Old New York”, a body of photos that exposed the neglected, desolated, apocalyptic cultural landscape existing in the South Bronx. In these pictures you…
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What I’m Listening To: the Proto Disco Edition
Here’s some music for your Saturday. Love this mix of amazing songs from the early days of disco, Proto Disco. If this doesn’t get your day off on the right foot I don’t know what will. 🙂 Enjoy!
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The Fire and the Lotus: Proto Disco in New York
When I think about disco in New York in the 1970’s I think of the lotus flower. You can get so lost in the complexitiy of its beauty that it’s easy to overlook the murky waters the flower emerged from. We are entranced by a mythoized notion of disco marked by flashing neon lights and ribald…
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SUPERNOVA: The Rebirth of Disco
I have a slight obsession with disco. I honestly don’t know where it began but I’ve loved it since I was a little girl. Because of my love for disco, I get very defensive when it is routinely dragged as a vapid musical art form. WHY DO PEOPLE HATE DISCO? My quest to answer this…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 