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From Stephen Elliott
Previously, we linked to a Feminist Wire post about being a black fan of a white musician who has said racist things. They have another great post up about race and music fandom, this one by Safy-Hallan Farah:
...moreFor a lot of black men like Drake, it’s way less insidious.
Jay Shells, an artist currently working in New York, is taking favorite rap lyrics and putting the tracks on the map … all over the Big Apple.
This project, which Shells calls “Rap Quotes,” consists of homemade but very official-looking street signs bearing rap lyrics at the specific locations of the songs they appear in.
...moreWhom do we have to thank for the line “I’ll teach you how to flow”? LL Cool J? Method Man? Actually, it’s Antonio, Prospero’s villainous brother in The Tempest.
HTMLGiant collects this and other Shakespeare quotes that sound like 1990s hip-hop lyrics.
...more“Some barriers aren’t as impermeable as we think. Telling a story on a page and telling a story against a backing track certainly are different, but they’re not irreconcilable.”
The Line interviews writer and rapper Dessa of the Doomtree collective. Dessa discusses collaboration, what attracts her to hip-hop, and the Twin Cities music scene.
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Rafael Casal is known in the Bay Area hip hop community from his three appearances on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and his music video Bay Area Slang, where he rattles off 100 slang terms invented in the Bay Area.
Good news! Your humble Rumpus Sunday editor, who was locked inside the Public Storage in North Berkeley for the better part of last night while helping his nine-months-pregnant friend move, has been rescued by the cops! And today, I’m excited about life and the book blogs because I’m free, so free, and because this week, the book blogs are a little bit brilliant.
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Mark Blatte’s hip-hop-crime novel brings a touch of philosophy to New York’s mean streets
Adam Serwer peels back the layers of how hip-hop has helped to repropagate traditionally American ideals, even while struggling against the stereotype of being a race-related, superficial youth genre.