If little me in Durham, NC, who uses the same internet, social media, streaming services as everyone else, can find and help these artists from my tiny platform, why can’t you? | | | | Are you glad to be in America? James Blood Ulmer in New Orleans, April 26, 2005.
(Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “If little me in Durham, NC, who uses the same internet, social media, streaming services as everyone else, can find and help these artists from my tiny platform, why can’t you?”
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| | rantnrave:// Read this. In this season of stories about artists to watch in the year ahead, PIOTR ORLOV's provocative essay about the ethics of music journalism—who we choose to cover, who we choose not to cover, what inconvenient details we write around or simply leave out, what signals we boost, what signals we miss—is a timely, important gut check. Especially for editors and writers but also for anyone in the business of musical signal boosting, which applies to circles well beyond the media audience the essay is aimed at. "What kind of stories are being pursued/assigned? From what angle? And what are their merits?" RIYETA (recommended if you ever think about): ARIEL PINK, JOHN MAUS, TEKASHI6IX9INE, KANYE WEST, DOMINICK FERNOW, JOHN LENNON, MILES DAVIS... Meanwhile in the charged environment of Washington, D.C., in January 2021, which is where the above essay partly takes place, MADONNA found herself name-checked at Wednesday's impeachment hearing, because who hasn't contemplated blowing up the White House after a pop star literally explains at a women's rally why she wouldn't do that. And TAYLOR SWIFT's name was invoked 24 hours earlier in a lengthy discussion at the SUPREME COURT about asking for nominal damages, like the one dollar Swift was awarded in 2017 when she successfully sued a Denver radio DJ who groped her before a concert. Swift wanted justice, not money, and it appears she may have helped establish a legal precedent in doing so. Three Supreme Court justices spoke approvingly of Swift's motives in an unrelated case involving students who say GEORGIA GWINNETT COLLEGE violated their free-speech rights. They suffered no monetary damages but they want a judgment against the school. Swift's principled stand may help them, and future plaintiffs in similar situations, get it. (Hopefully she also established a precedent of DJs not groping singers before concerts.) In a dark room in the White House, unlit by any kind of public announcement or media presence, PRESIDENT TRUMP on Wednesday awarded the National Medal of Arts to bluegrass mandolin master RICKY SKAGGS and country singer/songwriter TOBY KEITH, which we know about only because Bloomberg News broke the news in a tweet quoting unnamed sources, which is a weird thing to need unnamed sources for but, hey, January 2021. A year ago, when the administration was willing to publicize these things, the same honor was bestowed on ALISON KRAUSS, in case you're wondering about the president's bluegrass bona fides (disclaimer: I am in fact wondering). In a more well lit part of Washington, the KENNEDY CENTER, whose annual HONORS the current president has never attended, announced that this year's honorees will include GARTH BROOKS, JOAN BAEZ and MIDORI. Instead of the usual live tribute gala, this year's show will consist of several days of filmed performances—and, the Kennedy Center hopes, the first White House reception for the honorees in five years... LADY GAGA will sing the national anthem at JOE BIDEN and KAMALA HARRIS' inauguration on Jan. 20... New York's WINTER JAZZFEST, which kicked off Wednesday night, will be held across three months this year, entirely online and entirely free. Tonight, TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON, MAUREEN MAHON and SAMORA PINDERHUGHES discuss "Jazz & Gender," and on Friday, BRANDEE YOUNGER, LAKECIA BENJAMIN and others perform a tribute to DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.... RIP VANILLA FUDGE and BECK, BOGERT & APPICE bassist TIM BOGERT, Mexican hip-hop manager/promoter ALEX MALVERDE and British skiffle star JOHN PILGRIM. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| Contemplating the ethics and responsibilities in music writing and journalism circa the 2021 Capitol Hill coup. | | |
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| Your favorite rap producer’s favorite rapper on Alfredo, the Grammys, and his Jeezy beef. | | |
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| Dennis Bovell wrote "Silly Games" after watching a TV ad for a cassette tape. Forty-plus years on, it's the heart of Steve McQueen's "Lovers Rock." | | |
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| The mogul and hip-hop legend Percy Miller came on to talk about his grand plan to build generational wealth. | | |
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| The prolonged closure of a fully-functioning live music industry allows for more time to consider questions around who benefits from these shows, who governments are choosing to support, and what kind of future is in store for live music in 2022 and beyond. | | |
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| The pandemic has decimated the livelihoods of those who work in the arts. How can the new administration intervene and make sure it doesn’t happen again? A critic offers an ambitious plan. | | |
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| As a kid, Jeffrey Sherman told his dad about getting a polio vaccine. It sparked Robert Sherman to craft "A Spoonful of Sugar." | | |
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| With multi-platinum No 1 albums featuring tracks about suicide and the psychology of paedophiles, the Congolese-Belgian MC has carved his own lane with total determination. | | |
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| First project from new Los Angeles-based division is a virtual performance from Epic Records-signed singer songwriter Madison Beer. | | |
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| While he's being impeached, the president gives the National Medal of Arts to Toby Keith and Ricky Skaggs. What is this award, and who typically gets it? | | |
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| Like so many other arts and industries, the side-craft of film music has been slow to acknowledge and to hire Black composers, believing them to be a specialty act, valuable when, for instance, the setting of a film was ethnically colored or historically specific – but perhaps not right for everyday, mainstream film subjects. | | |
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| Sam Cooke didn’t need Malcolm X’s help to write his “Blowin’ in the Wind.” | | |
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| Shacked up in the suburbs of Kansas City, Katie Crutchfield and Kevin Morby are making some of their best work. | | |
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| After the US recently increased visa costs by 50 per cent with another potential 24 per cent rise looming, it is feared that the odds are stacked against UK bands wishing to break America. | | |
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| What's so unfunny about disruption, hate and misunderstanding? Ask Anti-Trump activist and punk-rock avatar Jello Biafra, who says, "I always thought, Hey, what if horror lyrics were about real monsters?" | | |
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| Synesthesia is a neurological condition where one sensory experience gets combined with another, meaning someone might hear sounds when eat, or see colors when they listen to music. So what exactly is synesthesia? And what’s it like to go through life with these unique sensory connections? | | |
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| In 2020, Yusuf / Cat Sevens approached his classic song in an astonishing way — he recorded the part of the father, but for the part of the son, he used a live recording of himself from 1970. So the two parts are still both sung in his voice, but 50 years apart. In this episode Yusuf / Cat Stevens tells the story of how he created, and then re-created “Father and Son.” | | |
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| A plague rave in Paris this summer raised a question for me, how can you be a participant in a scene that pretends to be the heirs of the 90s rave era only to dilute the craft of DJing into a rat-race? | | |
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| India's eden is under threat. But youth activists -- with the help of a global dance craze - have no intention of letting their Goa go. | | |
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| With internships, apprenticeships, mentoring, and workshops, this Black-owned recording studio in Blue Island bypasses white industry gatekeepers. | | |
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| What our artists need today is compassionate support. | | |
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| © Copyright 2021, The REDEF Group |
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