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Quantic Y Su Conjunto Los Miticos Del Ritmo: Get UR Freak On
They Reminisce Over You
From Hip Hop En Cumbia EP (Tru Thoughts 2011)
Been waiting for this one to come out for months now – Quantic and company take on a few hip-hop classics and run it through the cumbia-treatment. Quantic first started this a couple of years back with his “Cumbia De Dilla” and then followed that last year with “Dre En Cumbia.” Here’s the entire tracklisting:
A1. Step Into A World (Rapture’s Delight)
A2. Dre [...]
Continue reading QUANTIC: HIP HOP EN CUMBIA EP
This post has been years in the making, dating back to when I first picked up Don Julian’s soundtrack for Savage!. Apart from having a dope cover (which I jacked for a mix-CD), it’s also one of the best blaxploitation OSTs out there, which is to say: it doesn’t sound like every wanna-be Shaft ripoff out there. It still has its share of chicka-chicka-wow-wow moments, but the album is far more sophisticated than you might otherwise suspect.
That owes much to Don Julian, an important figure in Los Angeles’ R&B history (though still [...]
Continue reading SOUL KALEIDOSCOPE: THE SOUNDS AND STYLES OF DON JULIAN
It’s been a surreal year for Adam Mansbach, to say the least. He’s an old friend and the last time I saw him, we were driving around Philadelphia, eating hand-pulled noodles and record shopping, and he was telling me about a list of upcoming projects, one of which included a “children’s” book called Go the F— to Sleep. This had begun as a joke – a Facebook status update after a frustrating night with his daughter – but Adam managed to spin it into a real book though one [...]
Continue reading SIDEBAR #9: ADAM MANSBACH, AUTHOR OF “GO THE F— TO SLEEP”
In honor of the first day of summer (and in acknowledgement that my summer songs series has been folded into The Sidebar but won’t be free-standing this year), please read this excellent interview by the Village Voice‘s Jason Newman with DJ Jazzy Jeff about the enduring beauty of “Summertime.”
By the way, how the hell did I not know about this Jazzy Jeff/Mick Boogie “Summertime” mixtape from last year?
Michael Barnes is the host of KPFK‘s groovealicious Sunday afternoon show, The Melting Pot (and maintains the blog of the same name where you can find past archives of his 2-hour show). Michael and I have crossed paths often through the years – we first met at Berkeley where both of us were working at KALX FM. (Michael is also a scholar of sociology and popular culture and teaches in my department at CSU-Long Beach.)
Radio remains a core passion of his; in moving down to Los Angeles a few years ago, he [...]
Continue reading SIDEBAR #8: MICHAEL BARNES OF THE MELTING POT
I’ve seen Joe perform quite a few times now but I’m still jealous of my Bay Area folks who may get to see him at Yoshi’s next weekend. Joe tends to come through L.A. with some frequency but his Bay Area trips are fewer and far between.1
At least this time around, Joe is doing things up proper, with several appearances. On Thursday, he’ll be at the Bayanihan Community Center (free!) and one night later, he’ll be at the Milk Bar. If you don’t catch him this time around; you have no excuse!
As it were, I [...]
Continue reading JOE BATAAN: BACK IN S.F. NEXT WEEKEND
Thomas Brenneck keeps a few pots on the stove, including as the guitarist for the Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and is also a part of the Budos Band and the El Michels Affair. In the last few years though, he’s gone from sideman to bandleader with the Menahan Street Band and their work with Charles Bradley. He and the MSB have been touring behind Bradley’s recent album and he’s currently at work on a new MSB album. We talked about his songwriting history, sitting across the table from Jay-Z and why his latest [...]
Continue reading SIDEBAR #7: TOM BRENNECK OF THE MENAHAN STREET BAND
Adam Mansbach has been a friend for years now – we still rap about records every time we link up – so it’s been with a mixture of happiness, pride and complete incredulity that I’ve witnessed the phenom that is his “children’s” book, Go The F— To Sleep which managed to become a best-seller with no formal marketing at all.
I’ll have more to say about all this in a couple of weeks when Adam joins me, in studio, to tape an episode of The Sidebar but this was just too good [...]
Continue reading SAMUEL JACKSON READS “GO THE F___ TO SLEEP”
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