April: Prague Spring

Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention up until now, but I believe that Prague and Vienna are home to Western Europe's most violent statuary. Most statues I've seen usually involve a god playing a lyre or growing a beard, or an admiral fondling his piece-nez and leering sullenly. Prague and Vienna are filled almost entirely with statues of hulking brutes stabbing, maiming, clubbing, and otherwise assaulting other hulking brutes. For example:



But how can you front on a region that also features the world's only lion-drawn chariot?



That's gangsta.

Anyway, after a jaunt through the land of Freud, Kafka, and Kundera -- and an educational stopover in Bratislava, the land of... um... (guys?) -- I'm back with the April update. I've got an extended reflection on Detroit's hip-hop avant-garde, two new soul reviews from okayplayer, and some Nigerian pop. That's a lot of verbiage to spread between your twin vanilla wafers...

Enjoy.

(all photos copyright of T.M. Wolf, except the Vienna Fingers package, which I wouldn't claim to have taken even if I did -- unlike Spanish eateries, I like to keep food and art separate)

Detroit's Art Hop: Ta'raach and Black Milk

Detroit is still haunted by the ghost of the assembly-line worker, whose endless welding, pounding, and riveting fed a nation’s insatiable appetite for mass-produced tangles of steel and glass. Odd, then, that the former home of Ford’s legions has also produced a smallish clique of rapper-producers who have been steadily but quietly manufacturing boutique beats for the underground public. The passing of D-godfather J. Dilla might have monkeywrenched the operation briefly, but a year later, Detroit’s post-Fordist hip-hop formalism shows no signs of slowing down, at least as far as Black Milk and Ta’raach are concerned. Even with the recent release of Dilla’s resurrected, retooled Ruff Draft pointing back to pas[t/sed] greatness, the two are forging ahead as the new avant-garde of Detroit’s art-hop tradition. (More...)

Soul Review: Musiq, LUVANMUSIQ

Originally reviewed for okayplayer

BeHonest:Howmuchlawngercoodeyeritelikthisb4youdstopreedin’?iwuldimagineitculdbe “qte”or“charming”forlikealineor2butitgetsreallyannoyingreallyqwikly,likeeye’mcovering
upforalakof interestingcontentbyhyperstyl-eye-zingmywriting.

Translation: When is Musiq going to stop stylizing and start singing? (More...)

Soul Review: Ryan Shaw, THIS IS RYAN SHAW

Originally reviewed for okayplayer

“No idea’s original / There’s nothing new under the sun / It’s never what you do / But how it’s done.” – Nas

Eff the “anxiety of influence.” After a few spins of Ryan Shaw’s This Is Ryan Shaw, I’m more concerned about the boredom of influence. (More...)

Video: D'Banj, "Why Me"

The first time I heard this song -- sitting in a two-door hatchback screeching on two wheels through Northern London -- I thought I heard a harmonica. I quickly dismissed that thought as some sort of hallucination brought on by far too much Nigerian cinema. Imagine my surprise when I found the video. Dude - is - playing - a - harmonica. Is that what's really hot in the streets? Maybe it should be.

VIDEO: Buju Banton, MAGIC CITY

I've been a massive Buju Banton fan since my sophomore year of high school. It's a shame that his youthful homophobia continues to cast such a pall over his later career, because the man of 'Til Shiloh and Inna Heights is one of the most insightful, soulful, and, in my opinion, truly good (as in authentic and virtuous, not skilled... although he is that, too) artists in contemporary music. "Magic City" never made it onto a Buju album, but it easily ranks among my favorites. I wan yuh fi check it out...