Welcome to my first-ever web presence. Launched 11 December 2003. Updated weeklyish.

HOME FEATURES COLUMNS FILM LIT MUSIC THE WIRE BLOG CONTACT		Recent Articles Kanye West College Dropout and Wang Hui China's New Order reviews from the Village Voice Old Uncle Tupelo and Flowers in the Wildwood review essay from the San Francisco Bay Guardian Old Lester Bangs and Bjork reviews from The Wire Nas and Black Star essays from Classic Material Kevin Shields interview from Arthur Magazine Old Steinski interview from The Wire Do the Damn Miracle Special-ed teacher helps New Orleans's third-biggest rap label back its free-for-all up Village Voice The scales of justice may wobble but they won't fall down, even when cosmic weirdness lands cases like 02-0425: Positive Black Talk Inc. v. Cash Money Records Inc. on the docket. At stake: intellectual property, naming rights, a quibble between S's and Z's. More precisely: Whose idea was it to "Back That A** Up" first? Earlier this May, the court of U.S. District Justice Jay Zainey heard the grievances of New Orleans's Take Fo' Records and 37-year-old Jerome Temple, a/k/a DJ Jubilee, the local legend who claims to have first commanded area dancers to "Back That Ass Up" at mid-1990s block parties and again on his 1998 Take It to the St. Thomas album. Without a prayer of blowing that track up beyond his neighborhood, Jubilee was content until Terius Gray, also known as local boy-gone-platinum Juvenile of Cash Money Records, dropped 1998's "Back That Azz Up" and helped make the South a focal point of mainstream, commercial hip-hop. Go to article Invisible Cities, Invisible Men A Jazz Pianist and a Hip-Hop Poet Catch Language in the Balance Village Voice On April 15, 2001, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi deplaned at New York's JFK Airport on his way from a film festival in Hong Kong to one in Buenos Aires. Panahi was on a festival tour for his latest film, The Circle, and planners in both cities, as well as the attendants on his flight, told him that he did not require a transit visa. They were mistaken. Iran is on a short list of nations from which the United States requires all travelers to present visas regardless of the length of their stay, and in 1996 Attorney General Janet Reno had signed an order requiring the INS to fingerprint and photograph all Iranians upon entry into this country. With no transit visa and too much pride to have his mug shot taken, Panahi was chained to a wooden bench with similarly detained travelers from around the world. Ten hours later, he was sent back to Hong Kong, in handcuffs. Go to article Into Africa America Speaks, Africa Answers San Francisco Bay Guardian noise. supplement They think it's all jungles and huts, a local DJ from Johannesburg, South Africa, said with a laugh. The shock of travel nowadays is usually one of recognition. Go nearly anywhere on the planet and you'll likely find some familiar vestige of the Western comforts you thought you'd left behind. Thousands of miles away, listening to stories of famous rappers paying awkward visits to the motherland, I rediscovered some of the nasty complexities of being American: you speak with privilege, even if you reject it; the things you say travel, even if they aren't thought out. Others follow your cultural lead, even if your stuff is wack. Go to article Orienting the East U. Michigan Psychologist Richard Nisbett Asks: Do Asians and Westerners Think Differently? Village Voice In 1944, the eminent Chinese anthropologist and sociologist Fei Xiaotang accepted an offer from the State Department to spend a year working in the United States. Fei's stint began with all of the excitement and wonder promised by this still-rising star among nations, but as the months drew on he grew exhausted with the fidgety, restless nature that outlined every feature of American life. Go to article Foucault's Turntable Hip-Hop Scholars Bumrush the Academy Village Voice "Like Craig Mack said, here comes a brand-new flava in your ear!" Professor Todd Boyd is hyping his latest book, The New H.N.I.C.: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip-Hop (NYU Press), but it's not so much what he's saying as how he says it that captures the ear. His argument begins in a rich, methodical tone, elegantly scripting the fall of the previous generation alongside the rise of a new hip-hop ethos, occasionally punctuated with a line lifted from Jay-Z or Nas. Go to article Amerikkka's Formerly Most Wanted: Ice Cube's solo reissues and the fire next time San Francisco Bay Guardian IN 1992, Ice Cube was scary. A couple of months after riots had permanently wounded the soul of Los Angeles, the former N.W.A. rapper found himself onstage at the Shoreline Amphitheatre as part of that summer's Lollapalooza tour. In a scene that was surely replicated at all of that summer's shows, Cube prefaced "The Nigga Ya Love to Hate" by asking the crowd to yell at him "Fuck you, Ice Cube." The crowd--confused, a bit frightened--threw back a stale effort, the half-hearted words hanging in the air and dying somewhere short of the stage. "Louder," he teasingly boomed, until thousands who would probably cross the street if they saw him coming were cursing him to high noon. Cube laughed--it sounded like it was pointed back at the audience--"Good." Go to article		Currently THE WEBLOG Playing... Arthur Russell Calling Out of Context Eyedea and Abilities E&A Sabu Martinez Sorcery! 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