jalwhite:

SPIN: Buzzing New York Rapper Le1f Responds to Homophobia

From Afrika Bambaataa to André 3000 to Danny Brown, rap has long been full of flamboyance, but no gifted MC has quite flaunted his originality in the manner of New York’s Le1f via the just-out video for his bounce-addled track, “Wut.” In one scene, wearing high purple daisy dukes, he slides across the floor, working his skinny legs like mechanical cranks edging him closer to the camera. In another, after a brag about “getting light in my loafers,” he straddles the knee of a buff male model, fast-rapping with flair.

Yes, Le1f is a gay man. His profile has been slowly growing since Greedhead (the label run by Das Racist’s Himanshu Suri) dropped the free Dark York mixtape back in April. With beats by left-fielders like Nguzunguzu and Matt Shadetek, it’s hardly the usual rap blog fare, but ever since the Fader debuted the “Wut” video on Thursday, the headlines have been accumulating, and some are downright shameful.

The worst comes courtesy of Bossip with the words, “See What Frank Ocean Started?” Meanwhile, the comment sections of the same blogs are on fire with the hate, homophobia and confusion that Ocean was seemingly spared (to some extent). In the Fader profile that ran yesterday, Le1f seems unshaken by the anger, and likens his swag to that of any other showy, sex-obsessed male in the business.

“I am gay, and I’m proud to be called a gay rapper, but it’s not gay rap. That’s not a genre. My goal is always to make songs that a gay dude or a straight dude can listen to and just think, This dude has swag. I get guys the way straight rappers get girls. I’m not preachy. The best thing a song can be called is good.” [Source]

People deserving of success: Le1f

(via thefistofartemis)

buscateunnovio:

joan jett + cherie currie (the runaways)

buscate un novio is on tumblr! of course they are, probably everyone else already knew this *feels silly*

crankyskirt:

ISBN 978-1-935950-05-9
Softcover 6″ x 9″, 240pp
Coming September 2012

What Are You Doing Here? investigates how black women musicians and fans navigate the metal, hardcore, and punk music genres that are regularly thought of as inclusive spaces and centered on a community spirit, but fail to block out the race and gender issues that exist in the outside world.

“We can neither reflectively choose our color identity nor downplay its social significance simply by willing it to be unimportant… but our color no more binds us to send a predetermined group message to our fellow human beings than our language binds us to convey predetermined thoughts.”—Amy Gutmann

“Sometimes I think nothing is simple but the feeling of pain.”—Lester Bangs

I’ll be the first to admit that, like any other book, What Are You Doing Here? is partly self-serving. I wanted to find other black women like me: metal, hardcore, and punk fans and musicians that were rabid about the music and culture and adamant about asserting their rightful place as black women within those scenes. I wanted to find other women who put aside the cultural baggage that dictates that we must listen to certain musical styles, and simply enjoy the music that influenced us, not just as black women, but as individuals who grew up in an era when, thanks to technology, a large variety of music is accessible and available to everyone. I found many black women and have shared their stories, but I also realize there is still a lot of work to be done.

Sweet! Looking forward to reading this.

(via fuckyeahbrownandbutch)

In early 1979 I carved a linoleum block portrait of Pat Bag, the enchantingly sinister-looking bass player for The Bags, one of the first and most notorious late 70s punk rock bands in Los Angeles. At their earliest performances band members wore bags over their heads, and each was assured anonymity by taking “Bag” as a last name. It was in ‘79 that the band posed for me; soon after Pat left the group and began performing under her own name, Patricia Morrison. She eventually ended up joining The Damned, the first U.K. punk band to have recorded a single, an album, and to have toured the United States. (via » LA Punk ‘79: Pat Bag)

pamelalovenyc:

punk rock feminist icon and memoirist ALICE BAG (best known for fronting popular LA band The Bags)

Alice Bag interview. Doing a readings tour for her book Violence Girl atm. Another interview for any riot grrrl followers who’ve never heard of her…

She was Punk before you were Punk

Alice Bag busted up the punk-rock patriarchy in September 1977. At Hollywood’s Masque, she and three female bandmates walked onstage wearing brown paper grocery bags over their heads, with slashes for eyeholes. This was their first headlining show, and they played extremely loud. They called themselves The Bags.

Sure, other L.A. punk bands like The Alleycats and The Eyes had female bassists who occasionally sang a lick or two, but The Bags were the first with a frontwoman ­— and a bisexual Chicana frontwoman at that. Although the group never recorded a full studio LP — it broke up only a few years after the show — Bag herself retains a long list of admirers.

“[S]he was in one of the bands that got the whole thing started,” Henry Rollins wrote in his L.A. Weekly column last year. “She helped put a lot of females on the stage, where normally only men were allowed.”

Queercore shows became more than just entertainment — they became places to cruise, to network, to take self-defense lessons. (via Queer to the Core )

Queercore artists oral history/interview at OUT mag. Bruce La Bruce, Kaia Wilson, Vaginal Davis, Tribe 8 etc.

Девчонки из PUSSY RIOT захватывают транспорт (by PussRiot)

via Kathleen’s blog

The formation of Pussy Riot in Moscow last September was not a culmination of long-harboured musical ambition, songcraft or that strange alchemy of notes, lyrics, personalities and desire that sometimes spawns a rock ‘n’ roll band; rather it was reactionary – a furious two-fingered salute to Vladimir Putin’s decision to return to the presidency, a protest writ large in music and femininity.

Pussy Riot are an all-female punk band. More, they are part of an increasingly vocal young-and-disgruntled generation in Russia, railing against political corruption, the state’s monopoly on the media and the culture of illegal protest (to name but three sizeable gripes) and finding novel ways to display their dissent: the Blue Buckets group have run over official cars while wearing buckets on their heads; the art collective Voina painted a 65-metre phallus on the drawbridge opposite the Federal Security Service headquarters in St Petersburg, and activists in the Siberian city of Barnaul circumnavigated the protest laws by assembling a crowd of small placard-wielding toys.

via Pussy Riot’s Kremlin protest owes much to riot grrrl.  guardian.co.uk

No idea how accurate, but the article does cover Pussy Riot and their riot grrrl influence in way that’s not patronizing to the notion of women’s protest music. Awesome that they’re gaining attention after homophobic and racist Russian artists have been given state art prizes.

I’d LOVE to know what their views of Putin are, beyond the western riot grrrl comparisons, but being monolingual in English with a bit of Spanish = unable to translate any of their interviews on You Tube.

insaniyat:

Imagine a dream.
Eyes closed, Mouths open, as if in a dream. Standing facing us with their backs to the darkness, they sing, soundless; they have been standing here, singing for themselves for a long time, imagining us, hearing. Standing, facing days of tedium, facing a world that has adorned them with a false crown.
Standing, waiting.

For ‘Listen’, a project inspired by Newsha Tavakolian’s childhood dream to become a singer, she made six studio portraits of professional women singers, who are not allowed to sing solo, perform in public or produce CD’s in Iran because of Islamic tenets.

Inspired by her feelings about her society, she made six extra images, which are also imaginary album covers with titles for the singers. As a statement, the CD cases are left empty.

The works are accompanied by a video installation with silent clips of the women singers performing. 

Check out the rest of the collection here via azaadi

(Source: , via globalvoices)

Singer Aretha Franklin said, “I just can’t talk about it now. It’s so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn’t believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen. My heart goes out to Cissy (Houston’s mother), her daughter Bobbi Kris, her family and Bobby (Brown).”

Dolly Parton, who wrote “I Will Always Love You,” said, “mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston. I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, ‘Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.’”

Another entertainment legend, Quincy Jones, said he was “absolutely heartbroken” by the news. “She was a true original and a talent beyond compare,” he said.

via Singer Whitney Houston dies at 48

Oh god, i just heard, she was so young! An artist who can really sing like her could have been performing for decades yet :(

ETA: with so many iconic singers/artists of her generation passing, who are the next ones gonna be? Where does a WOC artist like her, who starts young, who’s really talented and doesn’t put up with being completely appeasing and trend based marketed in their work, get any support/sustain their career now?

thejulieruin:

The first time I was in a recording studio was in 1989 when my band Viva Knievel recorded 4 songs in Minneapolis while we were on tour. It was almost the 90’ s, and,  being ahead of the curve, we were all freaked out about being documented, plus digital cameras didn’t exist, so I would’ve never thought to photograph the recording process back then.

Why would you? There was no Facebook or Tumblr or band websites back then. Maybe you’d want to document being in the studio for personal reasons, so you could remember, but it seemed like such a pain to me. Buying the film, bringing the camera into the studio, dealing with grouchy hungover bandmates who didn’t feel like having their pictures taken.

Also I was 19 and totally freaked out about being in the studio. It was horrifying when the engineer would solo my voice and force everyone to listen to me shrieking acapella. It’s still hillarious to me remembering that in the 90’s I routinely demanded to not have anyone put reverb or “any other shit” on my voice because I felt it was the equivalent of airbrushing and I wanted to sound like a real girl, not a girl dipped in honey. It’s funny because I was so nervous back then about what people would think of my lyrics and how weird my voice sounded that I can’t believe I refused any attempt at making myself sound more appealing. I just had to let it be painful.

So on Saturday I was walking to the studio to record with my new band, after not having recorded for like 6 years and I was thinking of everything that’s changed. I use reverb now. I’m not as obsessed with “realness” anymore and I am way more excited about recording than I am nervous. I was walking to the studio on cloud nine actually. I wasn’t worried about not sounding good or impressing everyone with my vocals. I was more excited to do my best to inspire the band while they were recording their parts, and just really happy about our songs.

I was also thinking about this thing my Mom told me once about how everyone thinks you are staring at their pimple when really they are worried about their own pimple AKA we are all insecure and once you realize that it, is so much easier to stop caring and just move on, into the moment.

So I brought my camera to the session and didn’t really know what to do with it. I didn’t wanna kill the vibe by taking pictures of Kenny and Carmine and Sara and Kathi while they were playing so I took some self portraits of me fake singing and waiting around, which is a lot of what happens in the studio.

Nowadays everyone in bands records everything. Here we are eating sandwiches, putting new strings on our guitars, holding a koala up in Sydney. I’ve written tour diaries and posted snapshots myself  a zillion times now but still it’s hard for me to get used to.

I think I’m gonna try and take more pictures though and stop being so weird about it. I am so excited about our record and I know someday I’ll be happy if I took a couple pictures of the whole thing. Who knows I may even put some of them on Tumblr!!!

Kathleen

Liz Phair - Flower - Girlysound [by snesjenn]

Poly Styrene interview 1978 (by chatham43)

i cant believe the interviewer asks her about wearing braces and compares her negatively to Linda Ronstadt. OTOH discusses her approach to style and punk being as derivative as any other genre, which was a big part of her appeal re: not being sidetracked by the more insular ‘uniform anti-conformism’ aspects of punk.

thetouristzine:

Fatima Al Qadiri was born in Dakar, raised in Kuwait City and is now based in Brooklyn. Working across a bunch of mediums, Al Qadiri is both a visual artist and a producer. With regards to visual art, she takes photographs and collaborates with other artists (she’s a member of the K48 Kontinuum collective) on site-specific installations to which- if we’re not mistaken- she contributes sound designs. With regards to music, she has released several electro albums that are eclectic and feature music that, according to Pitchfork has, centered around the “spectral chanting of traditional Islamic songs in Arabic.” Al Qadiri has created soundtracks for several films and created scores for collaborations with fashion designers. Having exhibited her work around the world, Al Qadiri often uses Middle Eastern customs and rituals as the basis of her work yet reconstructs them with altogether different meanings- both subverting them while simultaneously celebrating them. Make sure to check out her amazing website here (it has awesome Mac-like functionality) and read her great column on global music here.