Here are some videos from the release show for Start A Fire, the debut EP from producer Big Cats! and MC/poet/activist El Guante. Sorry about the poor lighting, some of the Nomad’s lights were broken that night.
Archive Page 2
13
May
09
Video from Fong Lee Rally
Here’s a short video I put together from Monday’s rally for Fong Lee. For more information, see the Twin Cities Daily Planet.
Check out these performances from the first ever Urban Griots Spoken Word Awards. I’ll have a couple more up from this event in the next week, hopefully, and watch for video in the next couple of weeks of both the St. Paul and Minneapolis Slam Finals! See my good friends over at Minnesota Microphone for more information.
15
Apr
09
New Videos!
13
Mar
09
Somali Rap in Minnesota
The first in my series of articles on Somali rap in Minnesota is live at the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Over the next few months, I’ll discuss the many dimensions of Minnesota Somalis making and listening to rap, from its relationship to Islam, the controversy surrounding its links to gang violence, as well as how artists and fans use hip-hop to connect themselves to the global Somali diaspora.
06
Mar
09
New Video – Dem Supa Staz
My latest video posted to YouTube, an interview with the young Somali rap group, Dem Supa Staz.
The Electric Fetus is starting a new program, MinnEconomy, that’s encouraging people to shop locally, since so much more money goes to the local economy from a local store than a big-box or chain store. This isn’t just music, but everything the Fetus sells from records to shirts and jewelry and whatever else you can find in the front of the store.
They’re celebrating the kickoff tomorrow with a set of special free in-store performances tomorrow at all of their locations. Here’s the lineup for the Minneapolis location:
Lucy Michelle & the Velvet Lapelles – 6pm
Solid Gold – 7pm
Rocket Club – 8pm
Check out the Fetus website for more details or for lineups in Duluth and St. Cloud as well as the host of benefits for artists through this program.
Here’s a short review and concert preview I wrote for the Daily Planet on the Somali MC K’naan. It’s an early show, doors are at 6pm, with M.anfiest and Muja Messiah opening.
05
Feb
09
e.g. bailey – Mshale
Check out my profile I wrote of the multi-discplinary artist e.g. bailey for Mshale, one of the great African newspapers here in the Twin Cities.
29
Jan
09
New EP from FranzDiego.com
Building on the momentum from Illuminous 3’s debut album Room in December, FranzDiego.com recently dropped his own debut effort. With beats from Fire Like Water, PC, Noam the Drummer and Big Quarters brothers Medium Zach and Brandon All Day, the self-titled, 7-song EP is available for free download here.
Big upped for both his musical skills as well as community organizing efforts, especially as part of Yo! the Movement, both elements get expressed on Franz’s EP. Whether it be his shit-talkin’ and boastin’ on the laid-back opener, “Oh Geez,” spit over thumped upright bass and scratchy-record keyboards, or the more explicit political emphasis on the underrepresented in the Twin Cities (and Everywhere, USA, really) on “Old Man.” Throughout, of course, he’s always reppin’ the Southside (“my diction’s a depiction of wear I’m living at”) and you can almost see the thumb-and-index-finger “Southside” gesture thrown up to the music. But there’s also a number of thoughts on mixed-race kids, which Franz is proud to call himself, and the particular spot they hold in the Cities, something that’s not normally heard, here in the Cities or elsewhere. On the back end of “Who I Are,” he raps:
The Half Latino who spits raps to Gringos
and gets patronized as a token backwards people
I rep for my brethren
even though I don’t fit the description of a kid’s skin filled with melanin
In fact, the chorus of the radio-destined “Who I Are” (“Build, Build!”) might be a summation of the entire album, a short but packed expression of all the ways politics meets hip-hop, and how these intersections can be dope and enlightening and beneficial all at the same time, for those on the dance floor and the shop floor.
