By All Means Necessary a record that tries to consciously address a variety of issues in the communities of people listening to it, while not sacrificing the braggadocio and arrogant subjectivity that so often gives hip hop its energy and fun.
Expressing a desire to retreat from complex adult desire demonstrates how painful those desires can be.
I get a special thrill from watching Prince show them how a guitar can weep like a mourner.
The weird corniness of “She’s Leaving Home” comes from its perfect ability to stand for its own artifice
Like a great deal of science fiction Stevie Wonder’s “Saturn” presents an alternate future by imagining an alternate past
Dazzler is the perfect subject for looking at the representation of sound in comics
Frank Zappa may have said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, but fuck Frank Zappa
The very act of singing what he is singing is the woman’s work he sings about.
Hip-Hop does not eschew history, it honors it, it has a historical pluralism encoded and embedded in its foundational tracks.
Stevie is challenging traditional notions of white-washed American history and what kinds of accomplishments should be included in that narrative.
A hip-hop battle in comic form? Who drew this? I want a whole series!
Hip Hop and homage as critique
Pretty sure the dudes in XTC read Crisis on Infinite Earths
An important step in the commodification of black militancy
The Talking Heads simultaneously demystifying and mystifying.
Working class listening practice
The Middle Spaces 