NYDN
BY Erin Durkin
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Monday, January 4th 2010, 4:00 AM
It was the day the music died at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex Sunday as the museum closed its doors just a year after opening.
......
The SoHo music-lovers' paradise fell victim to the economy and a down year for city tourism.
Some visitors were shocked the museum, which featured artifacts ranging from Elvis' jumpsuit to Bruce Springsteen's Chevy - as well as a special exhibit on John Lennon's New York years - didn't do better in a town with a rich rock heritage.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/01/04/2010-01-04_hall_of_fame_hits_rock_bottom.html#ixzz0biEKL5Jr
Read the story HERE.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Jazz Cover Surprise of 2009: Vijay Iyer doing M.I.A.
Probably pianist Vijay Iyer covering "Galang" by M.I.A. Her original below (which I love):
And his version, from his album Historicity:
And his version, from his album Historicity:
Career U.: Making College "Relevant"
NYT
January 3, 2010
Career U.
Making College ‘Relevant’
By KATE ZERNIKE
THOMAS COLLEGE, a liberal arts school in Maine, advertises itself as Home of the Guaranteed Job! Students who can’t find work in their fields within six months of graduation can come back to take classes free, or have the college pay their student loans for a year.
The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, is eliminating its philosophy major, while Michigan State University is doing away with American studies and classics, after years of declining enrollments in those majors.
And in a class called “The English Major in the Workplace,” at the University of Texas, Austin, students read “Death of a Salesman” but also learn to network, write a résumé and come off well in an interview.
Even before they arrive on campus, students — and their parents — are increasingly focused on what comes after college. What’s the return on investment, especially as the cost of that investment keeps rising? How will that major translate into a job?
......
The shift in attitudes is reflected in a shifting curriculum. Nationally, business has been the most popular major for the last 15 years. Campuses also report a boom in public health fields, and many institutions are building up environmental science and just about anything prefixed with “bio.” Reflecting the new economic and global realities, they are adding or expanding majors in Chinese and Arabic. The University of Michigan has seen a 38 percent increase in students enrolling in Asian language courses since 2002, while French has dropped by 5 percent.
Of course, universities have always adjusted curriculum to reflect the changing world; Kim Wilcox, the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Michigan State, notes that universities, his included, used to offer majors in elocution and animal husbandry. In a major re-examination of its curriculum, Michigan State has added a dozen or so new programs, including degrees in global studies and, in response to a growing industry in the state, film studies. At the same time, it is abandoning underperformers like classical studies: in the last four years, only 13 students have declared it their major.
......
In Michigan, where the recession hit early and hard, universities are particularly focused on being relevant to the job market. “There’s been this drumbeat that Michigan has got to diversify its economy,” says Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan.
Dr. Coleman says she had an “aha” moment five years ago, when the director of admissions was describing the incoming class and noted that 10 percent — some 600 students — had started a business in high school. The university has responded with about 100 entrepreneurship courses across the curriculum, including “Financing Research Commercialization” and “Engineering Social Venture Creation,” for students interested in creating businesses that not only do well financially but also do society good. Next year, the university will begin offering a master’s to students who commit to starting a high-tech company.
At the same time, Dr. Coleman is wary of training students for just one thing — “creating them to do some little widget,” as she says. Michigan has begun a speaker series featuring alumni or other successful entrepreneurs who come in to talk about how their careers benefited from what Dr. Coleman calls “core knowledge.”
“We believe that we do our best for students when we give them tools to be analytical, to be able to gather information and to determine the validity of that information themselves, particularly in this world where people don’t filter for you anymore,” Dr. Coleman says. “We want to teach them how to make an argument, how to defend an argument, to make a choice.” These are the skills that liberal arts colleges in particular have prided themselves on teaching. But these colleges also say they have the hardest time explaining the link between what they teach and the kind of job and salary a student can expect on the other end.
“There’s no immediate impact, that’s the problem,” says John J. Neuhauser, the president of St. Michael’s College, a liberal arts school in Vermont. “The humanities tend to educate people much farther out. They’re looking for an impact that lasts over decades, not just when you’re 22.”
When prospective students and their parents visit, he says, they ask about placement rates, internships and alumni involvement in job placement. These are questions, he says, that he never heard 10 years ago.
St. Michael’s, like other colleges, has adapted its curriculum to reflect demand. The college had to create new sections of chemistry labs and calculus on the spot during summer registration, and it raised the cap on the number of students in a biology lab. “I’d say, given the vagaries of the business cycle, people are looking for things that they know will always be needed — accountants, scientists, mathematicians,” says Jeffrey A. Trumbower, dean of the college. “Those also happen to be some of the most challenging majors academically, so we’ll see how these trends hold up.”
Still, Dr. Neuhauser finds the careerism troubling. “I think people change a great deal between 18 and 22,” he says. “The intimate environment small liberal arts colleges provide is a great place to grow up. But there’s no question that smacks of some measure of elitism now.”
There’s evidence, though, that employers also don’t want students specializing too soon. The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently asked employers who hire at least 25 percent of their workforce from two- or four-year colleges what they want institutions to teach. The answers did not suggest a narrow focus. Instead, 89 percent said they wanted more emphasis on “the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing,” 81 percent asked for better “critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills” and 70 percent were looking for “the ability to innovate and be creative.”
“It’s not about what you should major in, but that no matter what you major in, you need good writing skills and good speaking skills,” says Debra Humphreys, a vice president at the association.
The organization has conducted focus groups with employers before and heard the same thing. With the recession, she says, they weren’t sure the findings would hold. “But it’s even more intense. Companies are demanding more of employees. They really want them to have a broad set of skills.” She adds that getting employer feedback is the association service that “college leaders find the most valuable, because they can answer the question when parents ask, ‘Is this going to help in getting a job?’ ”
......
Read the full post HERE.
January 3, 2010
Career U.
Making College ‘Relevant’
By KATE ZERNIKE
THOMAS COLLEGE, a liberal arts school in Maine, advertises itself as Home of the Guaranteed Job! Students who can’t find work in their fields within six months of graduation can come back to take classes free, or have the college pay their student loans for a year.
The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, is eliminating its philosophy major, while Michigan State University is doing away with American studies and classics, after years of declining enrollments in those majors.
And in a class called “The English Major in the Workplace,” at the University of Texas, Austin, students read “Death of a Salesman” but also learn to network, write a résumé and come off well in an interview.
Even before they arrive on campus, students — and their parents — are increasingly focused on what comes after college. What’s the return on investment, especially as the cost of that investment keeps rising? How will that major translate into a job?
......
The shift in attitudes is reflected in a shifting curriculum. Nationally, business has been the most popular major for the last 15 years. Campuses also report a boom in public health fields, and many institutions are building up environmental science and just about anything prefixed with “bio.” Reflecting the new economic and global realities, they are adding or expanding majors in Chinese and Arabic. The University of Michigan has seen a 38 percent increase in students enrolling in Asian language courses since 2002, while French has dropped by 5 percent.
Of course, universities have always adjusted curriculum to reflect the changing world; Kim Wilcox, the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Michigan State, notes that universities, his included, used to offer majors in elocution and animal husbandry. In a major re-examination of its curriculum, Michigan State has added a dozen or so new programs, including degrees in global studies and, in response to a growing industry in the state, film studies. At the same time, it is abandoning underperformers like classical studies: in the last four years, only 13 students have declared it their major.
......
In Michigan, where the recession hit early and hard, universities are particularly focused on being relevant to the job market. “There’s been this drumbeat that Michigan has got to diversify its economy,” says Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan.
Dr. Coleman says she had an “aha” moment five years ago, when the director of admissions was describing the incoming class and noted that 10 percent — some 600 students — had started a business in high school. The university has responded with about 100 entrepreneurship courses across the curriculum, including “Financing Research Commercialization” and “Engineering Social Venture Creation,” for students interested in creating businesses that not only do well financially but also do society good. Next year, the university will begin offering a master’s to students who commit to starting a high-tech company.
At the same time, Dr. Coleman is wary of training students for just one thing — “creating them to do some little widget,” as she says. Michigan has begun a speaker series featuring alumni or other successful entrepreneurs who come in to talk about how their careers benefited from what Dr. Coleman calls “core knowledge.”
“We believe that we do our best for students when we give them tools to be analytical, to be able to gather information and to determine the validity of that information themselves, particularly in this world where people don’t filter for you anymore,” Dr. Coleman says. “We want to teach them how to make an argument, how to defend an argument, to make a choice.” These are the skills that liberal arts colleges in particular have prided themselves on teaching. But these colleges also say they have the hardest time explaining the link between what they teach and the kind of job and salary a student can expect on the other end.
“There’s no immediate impact, that’s the problem,” says John J. Neuhauser, the president of St. Michael’s College, a liberal arts school in Vermont. “The humanities tend to educate people much farther out. They’re looking for an impact that lasts over decades, not just when you’re 22.”
When prospective students and their parents visit, he says, they ask about placement rates, internships and alumni involvement in job placement. These are questions, he says, that he never heard 10 years ago.
St. Michael’s, like other colleges, has adapted its curriculum to reflect demand. The college had to create new sections of chemistry labs and calculus on the spot during summer registration, and it raised the cap on the number of students in a biology lab. “I’d say, given the vagaries of the business cycle, people are looking for things that they know will always be needed — accountants, scientists, mathematicians,” says Jeffrey A. Trumbower, dean of the college. “Those also happen to be some of the most challenging majors academically, so we’ll see how these trends hold up.”
Still, Dr. Neuhauser finds the careerism troubling. “I think people change a great deal between 18 and 22,” he says. “The intimate environment small liberal arts colleges provide is a great place to grow up. But there’s no question that smacks of some measure of elitism now.”
There’s evidence, though, that employers also don’t want students specializing too soon. The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently asked employers who hire at least 25 percent of their workforce from two- or four-year colleges what they want institutions to teach. The answers did not suggest a narrow focus. Instead, 89 percent said they wanted more emphasis on “the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing,” 81 percent asked for better “critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills” and 70 percent were looking for “the ability to innovate and be creative.”
“It’s not about what you should major in, but that no matter what you major in, you need good writing skills and good speaking skills,” says Debra Humphreys, a vice president at the association.
The organization has conducted focus groups with employers before and heard the same thing. With the recession, she says, they weren’t sure the findings would hold. “But it’s even more intense. Companies are demanding more of employees. They really want them to have a broad set of skills.” She adds that getting employer feedback is the association service that “college leaders find the most valuable, because they can answer the question when parents ask, ‘Is this going to help in getting a job?’ ”
......
Read the full post HERE.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Mastering with Bob Macc
A great interview via Hyperblazing (UK)
Some questions:
What do you do? What on earth is a Mastering Engineer?
I take the audio cakes that people bake, and put the sonic icing on them.
My job is to ensure that the final sound is balanced, in every possible sense. It should be appropriate for the genre while still sonically balanced within itself, and in line with the artist’s intentions while still satisfying my quality standards. The song presents the idea, the mix presents the song, and the mastering presents the mix – each stage should do its thing to the best possible degree. Then you’re onto a winner.
.....
How do you feel about sub-standard mastering? Does it make you cringe, or must there be bad mastering for people to appreciate the good mastering?
I dunno man, you have to be fair. Everyone wants their music out there. I mean, gawd knows I was keen enough to get stuff out when I was starting out. Thinking about giving out tapes where I’d overdubbed things by recording drums into a condensor mic, then putting one tape player next to the tape player’s condensor mic and the amp, same again for bass, more guitars etc… Then making ten copies of that and giving it to my mates at school. Haha, I mean, can you imagine how bad that sounded? I’m glad I cant remember! Point is, people always want to get their music out there, and now they can. That’s more important than mastering, just having it out there. I certainly wouldn’t say ‘you’re crazy to put out music without it being mastered’. Plus, the sound quality people are capable of compared to what I started with is ridiculous.
However, the easy availability of software does mean that there’s a huge amount of music being put out by people with very little experience. That – if someone is serious about their stuff – is where people can benefit from having more experienced, objective ears cast over it. Those are the key words – experience and objectivity. Anyone can ‘master’ a tune by adding bass and treble, compressing, limiting. Instantly it sounds ‘better’, it’s a glamour job, like a woman with too much makeup and fake boobs. You don’t need experience to do that.
So long as people are happy. That’s the most important thing. As their ears develop and they hear these masters out and about, they often start to be less happy. Then they start to look for more as they develop their listening skills. So (to answer the bloody question!) shoddy mastering is on the one hand a shame as some pefectly good tracks get spoiled; and a good thing on the other as the serious but inexperienced artist knows that there must be better out there and sets out to find it.
Read the full interview HERE
Some questions:
What do you do? What on earth is a Mastering Engineer?
I take the audio cakes that people bake, and put the sonic icing on them.
My job is to ensure that the final sound is balanced, in every possible sense. It should be appropriate for the genre while still sonically balanced within itself, and in line with the artist’s intentions while still satisfying my quality standards. The song presents the idea, the mix presents the song, and the mastering presents the mix – each stage should do its thing to the best possible degree. Then you’re onto a winner.
.....
How do you feel about sub-standard mastering? Does it make you cringe, or must there be bad mastering for people to appreciate the good mastering?
I dunno man, you have to be fair. Everyone wants their music out there. I mean, gawd knows I was keen enough to get stuff out when I was starting out. Thinking about giving out tapes where I’d overdubbed things by recording drums into a condensor mic, then putting one tape player next to the tape player’s condensor mic and the amp, same again for bass, more guitars etc… Then making ten copies of that and giving it to my mates at school. Haha, I mean, can you imagine how bad that sounded? I’m glad I cant remember! Point is, people always want to get their music out there, and now they can. That’s more important than mastering, just having it out there. I certainly wouldn’t say ‘you’re crazy to put out music without it being mastered’. Plus, the sound quality people are capable of compared to what I started with is ridiculous.
However, the easy availability of software does mean that there’s a huge amount of music being put out by people with very little experience. That – if someone is serious about their stuff – is where people can benefit from having more experienced, objective ears cast over it. Those are the key words – experience and objectivity. Anyone can ‘master’ a tune by adding bass and treble, compressing, limiting. Instantly it sounds ‘better’, it’s a glamour job, like a woman with too much makeup and fake boobs. You don’t need experience to do that.
So long as people are happy. That’s the most important thing. As their ears develop and they hear these masters out and about, they often start to be less happy. Then they start to look for more as they develop their listening skills. So (to answer the bloody question!) shoddy mastering is on the one hand a shame as some pefectly good tracks get spoiled; and a good thing on the other as the serious but inexperienced artist knows that there must be better out there and sets out to find it.
Read the full interview HERE
Muslim-Hindu punk rock bands in America
AP/Yahoo
Muslim-Hindu punk rock bands part of new movement
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS, Associated Press Writer Russell Contreras, Associated Press Writer 1 min ago
WAYLAND, Mass. – Artwork from the Punjab state of India decorates the Ray family home. A Johann Sebastian Bach statue sits on a piano. But in the basement — cluttered with wires, old concert fliers and drawings — 25-year-old Arjun Ray is fighting distortion from his electric guitar.
For this son of Indian immigrants, trained in classical violin and raised on traditional Punjab music, getting his three Pakistani-American bandmates in sync is the goal on this cold New England evening. Their band, The Kominas, is trying to record a punk rock version of the classic Bollywood song, "Choli Ke Peeche" (Behind the Blouse).
"Yeah," said Shahjehan Khan, 26, one of the band's guitarists, "there are a lot of contradictions going on here."
Deep in the woods of this colonial town boils a kind of revolutionary movement. From the basement of this middle-class home tucked in the woods west of Boston, The Kominas have helped launched a small, but growing, South Asian and Middle Eastern punk rock movement that is attracting children of Muslim and Hindu immigrants and drawing scorn from some traditional Muslims who say their political, hard-edged music is "haraam," or forbidden.
The movement, an anti-establishment subculture borne of religiously conservative communities, is the subject of two new films and a hot topic on social-networking sites.
The artists say they are just trying to reconcile issues such as life in America, women's rights and homosexuality with Islam and old East vs. West cultural clashes.
"This is one way to deal with my identity as an Arab-American," said Marwan Kamel, the 24-year-old lead guitarist in Chicago-based Al-Thawra. "With this music, I can express this confusion."
The movement's birth is often credited to the novel "The Taqwacore," by Michael Muhammad Knight, a Rochester, N.Y.-raised writer who converted to Islam.
Knight coined the book's title from the Arabic word "Taqwa," which means piety or God-fearing, and the word hardcore. The 2003 book portrayed an imagined world of living-on-the-edge Muslim punk rockers and influenced real-life South Asians to form their own bands.
South Asian and Middle Eastern punk bands soon were popping up across America and communicating with each other via MySpace.
At the time of book's release, Basim Usmani and Khan already were experimenting with punk and building the foundation for The Kominas, which loosely means "scoundrels" in various South Asian languages. When Usmani, now 26, came across the book, he was writing songs and sporting a mohawk — just like the punk rocker on the novel's cover.
Usmani contacted Knight, who agreed to buy a bus on eBay for $2,000 to help launch the nation's first "Muslim punk rock tour" in 2007. Kamel, the son of a Syrian father and Polish mother, bought a one-way ticket to Boston to join the tour, and Canadian drag-queen singer Sena Hussain met up with them along the way.
The musicians performed at various venues but were notably kicked off stage during an open mic performance at the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago. Traditional Muslims at the convention decried the electric guitar-based music as un-Islamic while others were upset a woman dared sing on stage. The episode was documented by Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Omar Majeed in his new documentary "Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam."
"These guys are not prophetizing or preaching anything specific about Islam," said Majeed, whose film is set for release in the United States in 2010. "They just happen to be young and Muslim, and they write songs and do art that expresses that idea."
Imam Talal Eid, executive director of the Islamic Institute of Boston, said some traditional Muslims may object to such music because they focus on its sexual attraction rather than its use for spiritual enjoyment. "But I think we can come up with a moderate opinion that distinguished what is forbidden from what is not," said Eid. "It's a new issue among Muslims."
The musical style of each group varies. Some songs on The Kominas' album "Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay" lean toward the humorous and ironic, including "Suicide Bomb the Gap." In their song "Sharia Law in the USA," the lyrics mock the portrayal of Islamists: "I am an Islamist/I am the anti-Christ/most squares can't make a most-wanted list/but my-my how I stay in style." Their sound mixes hard-edged punk, ska and funk.
Meanwhile, Al-Thawra sings about political events in the Middle East with songs like "Gaza: Choking on the Smoke of Dreams." Their music is closer to heavy metal.
Other bands include the Washington, D.C.-based Sarmust and the Texas group Vote Hezbollah.
Like most punk groups, bands produce their own albums and sell them at shows and online.
.....
The groups have toured since that first Taqwacore trip, playing in small clubs, in basements at parties and in Hispanic cultural centers. Typically, The Kominas and Al-Thawra say they play in front of 50 to 80 people.
The bands have noticed Latino punks getting into their music. Al-Thawra recently picked up a guitarist from Mexico City named Mario Salazar. The cover of Al-Thawra's next album will feature the image of the U.S.-Mexico border fused with the Palestinian-Israeli wall.
Alan Waters, an anthropology professor at University of Massachusetts-Boston, said it should come as no surprise that young Muslim and Hindu immigrants are expressing themselves through rock or that their music would strike a chord with other "disenfranchised" populations in the U.S., such as Latinos and other children of recent immigrants.
"If they're touching or singing about identity, it's going to make a connection," said Waters. "Punk rock is very American, and this is assimilation through a back door."
He called the bands "a good opportunity for stereotype-smashing."
The Kominas, who sing mostly in English, now are trying to break the image they are just a "Muslim punk band," especially since one of their founders, Ray, is Hindu. On their next album, Ray said the band will have songs in Hindi.
.....
Usmani said he grew up as a "nonreligious" Muslim-American so his journey into punk caused few problems, although he admits his family doesn't like the drinking and smoking that pervade the music scene. Khan and Kominas drummer Imran Malik, 25, also said they aren't as observant as their families might like.
"I mean, if you put a sword to us," said Usmani, "one of us might pray."
.....
Read the full story and related links HERE.
Muslim-Hindu punk rock bands part of new movement
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS, Associated Press Writer Russell Contreras, Associated Press Writer 1 min ago
WAYLAND, Mass. – Artwork from the Punjab state of India decorates the Ray family home. A Johann Sebastian Bach statue sits on a piano. But in the basement — cluttered with wires, old concert fliers and drawings — 25-year-old Arjun Ray is fighting distortion from his electric guitar.
For this son of Indian immigrants, trained in classical violin and raised on traditional Punjab music, getting his three Pakistani-American bandmates in sync is the goal on this cold New England evening. Their band, The Kominas, is trying to record a punk rock version of the classic Bollywood song, "Choli Ke Peeche" (Behind the Blouse).
"Yeah," said Shahjehan Khan, 26, one of the band's guitarists, "there are a lot of contradictions going on here."
Deep in the woods of this colonial town boils a kind of revolutionary movement. From the basement of this middle-class home tucked in the woods west of Boston, The Kominas have helped launched a small, but growing, South Asian and Middle Eastern punk rock movement that is attracting children of Muslim and Hindu immigrants and drawing scorn from some traditional Muslims who say their political, hard-edged music is "haraam," or forbidden.
The movement, an anti-establishment subculture borne of religiously conservative communities, is the subject of two new films and a hot topic on social-networking sites.
The artists say they are just trying to reconcile issues such as life in America, women's rights and homosexuality with Islam and old East vs. West cultural clashes.
"This is one way to deal with my identity as an Arab-American," said Marwan Kamel, the 24-year-old lead guitarist in Chicago-based Al-Thawra. "With this music, I can express this confusion."
The movement's birth is often credited to the novel "The Taqwacore," by Michael Muhammad Knight, a Rochester, N.Y.-raised writer who converted to Islam.
Knight coined the book's title from the Arabic word "Taqwa," which means piety or God-fearing, and the word hardcore. The 2003 book portrayed an imagined world of living-on-the-edge Muslim punk rockers and influenced real-life South Asians to form their own bands.
South Asian and Middle Eastern punk bands soon were popping up across America and communicating with each other via MySpace.
At the time of book's release, Basim Usmani and Khan already were experimenting with punk and building the foundation for The Kominas, which loosely means "scoundrels" in various South Asian languages. When Usmani, now 26, came across the book, he was writing songs and sporting a mohawk — just like the punk rocker on the novel's cover.
Usmani contacted Knight, who agreed to buy a bus on eBay for $2,000 to help launch the nation's first "Muslim punk rock tour" in 2007. Kamel, the son of a Syrian father and Polish mother, bought a one-way ticket to Boston to join the tour, and Canadian drag-queen singer Sena Hussain met up with them along the way.
The musicians performed at various venues but were notably kicked off stage during an open mic performance at the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago. Traditional Muslims at the convention decried the electric guitar-based music as un-Islamic while others were upset a woman dared sing on stage. The episode was documented by Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Omar Majeed in his new documentary "Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam."
"These guys are not prophetizing or preaching anything specific about Islam," said Majeed, whose film is set for release in the United States in 2010. "They just happen to be young and Muslim, and they write songs and do art that expresses that idea."
Imam Talal Eid, executive director of the Islamic Institute of Boston, said some traditional Muslims may object to such music because they focus on its sexual attraction rather than its use for spiritual enjoyment. "But I think we can come up with a moderate opinion that distinguished what is forbidden from what is not," said Eid. "It's a new issue among Muslims."
The musical style of each group varies. Some songs on The Kominas' album "Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay" lean toward the humorous and ironic, including "Suicide Bomb the Gap." In their song "Sharia Law in the USA," the lyrics mock the portrayal of Islamists: "I am an Islamist/I am the anti-Christ/most squares can't make a most-wanted list/but my-my how I stay in style." Their sound mixes hard-edged punk, ska and funk.
Meanwhile, Al-Thawra sings about political events in the Middle East with songs like "Gaza: Choking on the Smoke of Dreams." Their music is closer to heavy metal.
Other bands include the Washington, D.C.-based Sarmust and the Texas group Vote Hezbollah.
Like most punk groups, bands produce their own albums and sell them at shows and online.
.....
The groups have toured since that first Taqwacore trip, playing in small clubs, in basements at parties and in Hispanic cultural centers. Typically, The Kominas and Al-Thawra say they play in front of 50 to 80 people.
The bands have noticed Latino punks getting into their music. Al-Thawra recently picked up a guitarist from Mexico City named Mario Salazar. The cover of Al-Thawra's next album will feature the image of the U.S.-Mexico border fused with the Palestinian-Israeli wall.
Alan Waters, an anthropology professor at University of Massachusetts-Boston, said it should come as no surprise that young Muslim and Hindu immigrants are expressing themselves through rock or that their music would strike a chord with other "disenfranchised" populations in the U.S., such as Latinos and other children of recent immigrants.
"If they're touching or singing about identity, it's going to make a connection," said Waters. "Punk rock is very American, and this is assimilation through a back door."
He called the bands "a good opportunity for stereotype-smashing."
The Kominas, who sing mostly in English, now are trying to break the image they are just a "Muslim punk band," especially since one of their founders, Ray, is Hindu. On their next album, Ray said the band will have songs in Hindi.
.....
Usmani said he grew up as a "nonreligious" Muslim-American so his journey into punk caused few problems, although he admits his family doesn't like the drinking and smoking that pervade the music scene. Khan and Kominas drummer Imran Malik, 25, also said they aren't as observant as their families might like.
"I mean, if you put a sword to us," said Usmani, "one of us might pray."
.....
Read the full story and related links HERE.
Friday, January 01, 2010
NYT: Japan's Capsule Hotels Become Homes in Recession
NYT
January 2, 2010
For Some in Japan, Home Is a Tiny Plastic Bunk
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — For Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas, home is a cubicle barely bigger than a coffin — one of dozens of berths stacked two units high in one of central Tokyo’s decrepit “capsule” hotels.
“It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep,” he said, rolling his neck and stroking his black suit — one of just two he owns after discarding the rest of his wardrobe for lack of space. “You get used to it.”
When Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 opened nearly two decades ago, Japan was just beginning to pull back from its bubble economy, and the hotel’s tiny plastic cubicles offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home.
Now, Hotel Shinjuku 510’s capsules, no larger than 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in, have become an affordable option for some people with nowhere else to go as Japan endures its worst recession since World War II.
Once-booming exporters laid off workers en masse in 2009 as the global economic crisis pushed down demand. Many of the newly unemployed, forced from their company-sponsored housing or unable to make rent, have become homeless.
The country’s woes have led the government to open emergency shelters over the New Year holiday in a nationwide drive to help the homeless. The Democratic Party, which swept to power in September, wants to avoid the fate of the previous pro-business government, which was caught off-guard when unemployed workers pitched tents near public offices last year to call attention to their plight.
....
Mr. Nakanishi considers himself relatively lucky. After working odd jobs on an Isuzu assembly line, at pachinko parlors and as a security guard, Mr. Nakanishi, 40, moved into the capsule hotel in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district in April to save on rent while he worked night shifts at a delivery company.
Mr. Nakanishi, who studied economics at a regional university, dreams of becoming a lawyer and pores over legal manuals during the day. But with no job since Christmas, he does not know how much longer he can afford a capsule bed.
The rent is surprisingly high for such a small space: 59,000 yen a month, or about $640, for an upper bunk. But with no upfront deposit or extra utility charges, and basic amenities like fresh linens and free use of a communal bath and sauna, the cost is far less than renting an apartment in Tokyo, Mr. Nakanishi says.
Still, it is a bleak world where deep sleep is rare. The capsules do not have doors, only screens that pull down. Every bump of the shoulder on the plastic walls, every muffled cough, echoes loudly through the rows.
Each capsule is furnished only with a light, a small TV with earphones, coat hooks, a thin blanket and a hard pillow of rice husks.
Most possessions, from shirts to shaving cream, must be kept in lockers. There is a common room with old couches, a dining area and rows of sinks. Cigarette smoke is everywhere, as are security cameras. But the hotel staff does its best to put guests at ease: “Welcome home,” employees say at the entrance.
“Our main clients used to be salarymen who were out drinking and missed the last train,” said Tetsuya Akasako, head manager at the hotel.
But about two years ago, the hotel started to notice that guests were staying weeks, then months, he said. This year, it introduced a reduced rent for dwellers of a month or longer; now, about 100 of the hotel’s 300 capsules are rented out by the month.
After requests from its long-term dwellers, the hotel received special government permission to let them register their capsules as their official abode; that made it easier to land job interviews.
Read the full story and view accompanying photo essay HERE.
The film "Sugar" (2009)
Just saw the film sugar. If you love either the Caribbean or baseball, this is a film for you; if you love both, it's definitely for you. The film begins in the Dominican Republic in a Major League Baseball farm league development camp and follows the exploits of a pitcher nicknamed "Sugar." Seeing the minor leagues through Caribbean eyes is a nice change from standard baseball movies. The novel setting aside, though the film's trajectory starts out ordinarily, following Sugar as he finally gets a call to go to a pro camp and try out for Kansas City Single-A minor league affiliate, it does not end as expected, and though some of my viewer expectations are frustrated, I actually really appreciate the film for what it does. It's an original, understated, brave little film, and it's good. I won't throw out spoilers, but wanted to give this movie a plug. If forced to rate it, I'd give it three out of four stars, or a strong B+.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Story on Jazz Arranger/Composer Sammy Nestico
SD-UT
Musician’s talent takes him places
Superstars and presidents are part of his adventures
By Michael Burge, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.
What do you say to the president after he insults your life’s work?
Absolutely nothing.
That was one lesson no one had to teach Sammy Nestico, who was working as the White House chief music arranger when then-President Lyndon Johnson said, “You call this music?”
“I didn’t answer, although I didn’t think his concept of music was worth a damn,” Nestico said.
Nestico, 85, a jazz musician and La Costa resident, was recently nominated for a Grammy in the Best Large Ensemble category, for his album “Fun Time,” which he recorded with the SWR Big Band of Germany.
He composed 11 of the album’s 15 tracks and arranged all 15.
“I’m going to conduct it in March in Germany,” he said.
His living room is occupied by a large composing console. A Yamaha keyboard is plugged into his Macintosh. As he plays chords, the corresponding notes pop onto the screen.
He’s been arranging jazz and big-band pieces on a computer since 1999. He also has drawers full of handwritten music that he produced for some familiar musicians: Barbra Streisand, Bing Crosby, Count Basie, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra.
The names are so numerous they would fill a book, so Nestico wrote one “The Gift of Music,” his memoir.
“The Library of Congress came and took 600 of my publications,” Nestico said, standing in the middle of a room full of mementos. It’s the only place in his home where he shows off his achievements. He and his wife, Shirley, call it the “brag room.”
He considers his collaboration with jazz pianist and band leader Count Basie the pinnacle of his musical sojourn.
“Count Basie and I did 10 albums, and four of them won Grammys,” Nestico said. “Count Basie was my favorite person in the world.”
He recalled a recording session when they had to stop to fix an error in the music charts.
After correcting it, “I said (to the sound engineer), ‘Play that back, I want to hear the tempo,’ ” Nestico recalled. But Basie waved him off and started tapping his foot.
“He had radar in his shoes,” Nestico said, marveling at the memory.
The two worked together from 1968 until Basie died in 1984.
Dressed in a cream-colored argyle sweater, brown slacks and white tennis shoes, Nestico looks much younger than his age.
He said he tried to retire, but couldn’t.
His collaboration with SWR Big Band started in 2003, when he and the band were nominated for Grammys separately and met at the awards ceremony.
“Europe still loves big bands,” Nestico said.
Nestico discovered music at age 13, as a high school freshman in Pittsburgh.
“After two years I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my life,” he said.
When he joined the Army in 1941, the big bands of Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and Duke Ellington ruled the music world.
“When I came home (in 1946) the swing era was still in bloom, then it all ended,” Nestico said.
So what was a trombonist with dreams of conducting to do?
Re-enlist, this time with the Air Force as arranger for its concert band and jazz ensemble. The Air Force still gives an annual award, The Sammy Nestico Arranging Award, in his honor.
In 1963 he became arranger and leader of the Marine Band in the White House, serving Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
He liked Kennedy and was arranging something for him when the president was assassinated.
“I started in May and with Nov. 22 it was over,” he said.
Asked what music Johnson liked, Nestico grimaced. “Hello, Lyndon,” he said, sung to the tune of “Hello, Dolly.” It was Johnson’s campaign song.
After his White House stint ended, Nestico came to California. “I wanted to make my way in Hollywood.”
He said he got his big break with Capitol Records, but added, “A break is when preparation meets opportunity.”
He recalled recording with some of the great musicians, including Crosby, whom he admired. But he said recording with Crosby was a disappointment.
“Bing came in, sat in a booth and overdubbed,” rather than standing in front of the band and singing. “He lost that spontaneity.”
Sinatra, on the other hand, “stood in front of the orchestra, his hand cupped over his ear,” and let it rip.
“It was electric,” Nestico said. “I thought he was the greatest singer of the 20th century.”
Before his guests left, Nestico logged onto his iTunes library and queued up Michael Bublé singing Nestico’s arrangement of “Mack the Knife.”
As the song played, Nestico’s hands waved in the air as he conducted the virtual musicians from his chair. His face glowed.
“It humbles me, that people like my music,” Nestico said after the song ended.
But, he said, “The more I give the more I get back.”
African Drums as Possible Cause of NH Anthrax Case
Yet another reason to avoid drum circles! :)
AP/Yahoo
Drums probed as possible cause of NH anthrax case
By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer Holly Ramer, Associated Press Writer Tue Dec 29, 7:45 pm ET
CONCORD, N.H. – A New Hampshire woman diagnosed with a rare gastrointestinal anthrax case may have swallowed spores propelled into the air by vigorous drumming, a state health expert said.
Officials haven't confirmed how the woman contracted the disease but are focusing on a drum circle gathering she attended Dec. 4 at the United Campus Ministry center in Durham shortly before becoming ill. Public health officials who learned of her diagnosis last week immediately began investigating, and earlier this week shut down the ministry center after anthrax spores were found on two drums.
Some health officials believe it's the nation's first case of gastrointestinal anthrax, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is unsure.
Dr. Elizabeth Talbot, an adviser to the state's public health division, said one theory is that the woman ingested airborne spores from a drum's animal-hide covering.
"This was a wild type of anthrax that is found ubiquitously in our environment. It can become stirred up or agitated to a place where it briefly suspends in the air, and this patient likely contacted it on her fingers and introduced it into her mouth or inhaled a ... spore into her mouth and then swallowed it," she said.
Two recent U.S. anthrax cases involved African drums covered with animal hides, but those involved spores that were inhaled or entered through the skin.
On Tuesday, officials said spores also were found on an electrical outlet and that antibiotics and vaccines would be offered to about 80 people, including about 60 who attended the drum circle as well as University of New Hampshire students who lived in the building and those who worked there.
Samples have been sent to the CDC to determine whether the patient's anthrax strain matches that found on the drums or electrical outlet.
The ministry center is not part of the university, but it houses students and runs a variety of campus-based programs. Pastor Larry Brickner-Wood, the center's director, said the monthly drum circles involve people playing hand drums and other percussion instruments to build community spirit and promote well-being.
"Our thoughts and prayers remain with this young woman and her family," he said.
Anthrax is a potentially fatal disease caused by bacteria. There are three types of infection based on where the disease manifests itself: inhalation affecting the lungs, cutaneous affecting the skin and gastrointestinal affecting the digestive tract. Infection from natural sources such as animal skins, soil or contaminated meat is rare in developed countries, but occurs regularly in poor nations. It is not transmitted from person-to-person.
In 2007, two members of a Connecticut family were treated for skin anthrax traced to animal hides used to make African drums. In 2006, a New York dancer and drum maker who collapsed after a performance in Pennsylvania recovered from the first case of naturally occurring inhalation anthrax in the United States since 1976.
According to state public health officials and The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, there have been no previous confirmed cases of gastrointestinal anthrax in the United States. A Minnesota farm family was believed to have symptoms of the disease in 2000 after eating meat from an infected cow, but blood test results from exposed family members were negative, state health officials said.
read the rest HERE
AP/Yahoo
Drums probed as possible cause of NH anthrax case
By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer Holly Ramer, Associated Press Writer Tue Dec 29, 7:45 pm ET
CONCORD, N.H. – A New Hampshire woman diagnosed with a rare gastrointestinal anthrax case may have swallowed spores propelled into the air by vigorous drumming, a state health expert said.
Officials haven't confirmed how the woman contracted the disease but are focusing on a drum circle gathering she attended Dec. 4 at the United Campus Ministry center in Durham shortly before becoming ill. Public health officials who learned of her diagnosis last week immediately began investigating, and earlier this week shut down the ministry center after anthrax spores were found on two drums.
Some health officials believe it's the nation's first case of gastrointestinal anthrax, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is unsure.
Dr. Elizabeth Talbot, an adviser to the state's public health division, said one theory is that the woman ingested airborne spores from a drum's animal-hide covering.
"This was a wild type of anthrax that is found ubiquitously in our environment. It can become stirred up or agitated to a place where it briefly suspends in the air, and this patient likely contacted it on her fingers and introduced it into her mouth or inhaled a ... spore into her mouth and then swallowed it," she said.
Two recent U.S. anthrax cases involved African drums covered with animal hides, but those involved spores that were inhaled or entered through the skin.
On Tuesday, officials said spores also were found on an electrical outlet and that antibiotics and vaccines would be offered to about 80 people, including about 60 who attended the drum circle as well as University of New Hampshire students who lived in the building and those who worked there.
Samples have been sent to the CDC to determine whether the patient's anthrax strain matches that found on the drums or electrical outlet.
The ministry center is not part of the university, but it houses students and runs a variety of campus-based programs. Pastor Larry Brickner-Wood, the center's director, said the monthly drum circles involve people playing hand drums and other percussion instruments to build community spirit and promote well-being.
"Our thoughts and prayers remain with this young woman and her family," he said.
Anthrax is a potentially fatal disease caused by bacteria. There are three types of infection based on where the disease manifests itself: inhalation affecting the lungs, cutaneous affecting the skin and gastrointestinal affecting the digestive tract. Infection from natural sources such as animal skins, soil or contaminated meat is rare in developed countries, but occurs regularly in poor nations. It is not transmitted from person-to-person.
In 2007, two members of a Connecticut family were treated for skin anthrax traced to animal hides used to make African drums. In 2006, a New York dancer and drum maker who collapsed after a performance in Pennsylvania recovered from the first case of naturally occurring inhalation anthrax in the United States since 1976.
According to state public health officials and The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, there have been no previous confirmed cases of gastrointestinal anthrax in the United States. A Minnesota farm family was believed to have symptoms of the disease in 2000 after eating meat from an infected cow, but blood test results from exposed family members were negative, state health officials said.
read the rest HERE
Monday, December 28, 2009
Chile's New Museum of Memory and Human Rights
LAT has a story on Chile's new Museum of Memory and Human Rights:
By Chris Kraul
December 28, 2009
Reporting from Santiago, Chile - What they'll leave in and what they'll leave out -- that question haunts Margarita Iglesias as she considers next month's opening of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights.
That Chile is recognizing victims of its military dictatorship in a striking new "monument to memories" is positive, said Iglesias, both a victim and a historian of Augusto Pinochet's bloody 17-year rule. As a high school student activist in Santiago in 1975, she was tortured before fleeing with her family to France.
"It can't be just a horror show. The political movements and conditions that led to the coup and its aftermath must be explained. If not, how can you understand how state terrorism came about?" said Iglesias, 51, now a University of Chile professor.
The $19-million museum that opens in downtown Santiago on Jan. 11 is dedicated to the 31,000 murder, torture and kidnapping victims of the 1973-90 military dictatorship of Gen. Pinochet.
Museum directors are keeping a tight lid on the specific exhibits, hoping for maximum effect.
read the rest HERE
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Another Liam Clancy obit (NYT)
NYT
[Columbia]
December 5, 2009
Liam Clancy, Last of the Folk Group, Dies at 74
By BRUCE WEBER
Liam Clancy, an Irish troubadour and the last surviving member of the singing Clancy Brothers, who found fame in the United States and helped spread the popularity of Irish folk music around the world, died on Thursday in Cork, Ireland. He was 74.
His death was announced by his family and reported on the Web site www.liamclancy.com. He had been treated for pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease, The Associated Press reported.
Wearing white Aran sweaters, the Clancy Brothers, joined by a fellow Irishman, Tommy Makem, won fans with musicality, sentimentality and irreverence, not unlike the Smothers Brothers a few years later, though without their penchant for patter.
Both authentic Irish and expatriate Irish, they were cultural crossovers, and, for a while, celebrities. When they were criticized, it was as the epitome of staged Irishness, as a documentary about Liam Clancy put it.
Mr. Clancy played guitar, sang in a bell-clear baritone, wore a friendly, slightly roguish expression and exuded a humorous world-weariness that made him beloved by his countrymen as quintessentially Irish. But he and his musical clan made their name in America.
It was in 1956 that Mr. Clancy, then 20 or 21 and intending to be an actor, immigrated to the United States, joining two of his older brothers, Tom and Paddy, in New York. He achieved some success as an actor; he and Tom starred as prison guards in a well-received stage dramatization of the Frank O’Connor story “The Guests of the Nation,” and he appeared on Broadway in a short-lived production of James Costigan’s “Little Moon of Alban.”
In the meantime, the brothers and Mr. Makem, a friend of Liam’s who had also immigrated, began singing together, performing rowdy and sentimental Irish folk tunes at clubs and fund-raisers and developing a local following. They recorded on a label established by Paddy Clancy, and in the early 1960s, billed as the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, they made a career-changing appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” They soon found themselves in the midst of the folk music revolution, touring and recording several albums.
Liam Clancy lived in Greenwich Village, where he befriended another young folk singer, Bob Dylan. They dated a pair of sisters, Mr. Clancy told interviewers. Recalling that time in an interview on Irish television two years ago, Mr. Clancy said that he, a Roman Catholic from rural Ireland, and Mr. Dylan, a Jew from a small Minnesota town, shared an important quality.
“People who were trying to escape repressed backgrounds, like mine and Bob Dylan’s, were congregating in Greenwich Village,” he said. “It was a place you could be yourself, where you could get away from the directives of the people who went before you, people who you loved but who you knew had blinkers on.”
Mr. Dylan told an interviewer in 1984: “I never heard a singer as good as Liam ever. He was just the best ballad singer I’d ever heard in my life. Still is, probably.”
....
read the rest HERE
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Liam Clancy, last of the Clancy Brothers, dies at 74
MSNBC/AP
Irish folk pioneer Liam Clancy dies at 74
He was last member of Clancy Brothers, which took U.S. by storm in ’60s
updated 1:38 p.m. PT, Fri., Dec . 4, 2009
DUBLIN - Irish balladeer Liam Clancy, last of the Clancy Brothers troupe whose feisty, boozy songs of old Ireland struck a sentimental chord worldwide, died Friday in a Cork hospital. He was 74.
Clancy died in his hospital bed flanked by his wife Kim and daughters Siobhan and Fiona, his manager and family said. He suffered for years against incurable pulmonary fibrosis, the same lung-destroying disease that claimed one of his older singing brothers, Bobby, in 2002.
Ireland's arts minister, Martin Cullen, led nationwide tributes to Clancy, praising his "superb singing, warm voice and gift for communicating in a unique storytelling style."
"It was always so obvious with Liam Clancy that he loved what he was doing and his very presence made you feel welcome," Cullen said.
Clancy, the youngest of 11 children in a County Tipperary household filled with folklore and song, emigrated to the U.S. in 1956 to join two elder brothers, Tom and Patrick, in New York City who were singing on the side as they pursued budding careers as Broadway actors.
But after recording a 1956 album of Irish rebel songs, they grew a New York following as musicians and formed a partnership with Northern Ireland immigrant Tommy Makem. Soon they were earning more as weekend singers in Manhattan bars and clubs than as full-time stage actors.
Scouts for U.S. television's flagship “Ed Sullivan Show” spotted them performing in Greenwich Village's White Horse Tavern, and their 16-minute appearance in March 1961 on the program — extended because of the last-minute cancellation of another act — turned them into an Irish-American folk phenomenon.
Their agent cultivated a schmaltzy appeal to Irish emigrants worldwide, encouraging the Clancy Brothers and Makem to perform in cream-white Aran wool sweaters hand-knit from home as well as tweed fishermen's caps.
But their up-tempo resurrection of traditionally slow, sad Irish songs made a deeper impression on much of America's emerging folk artist movement, including Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to Liam Clancy as "the best ballad singer I'd ever heard in my life."
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed Carnegie Hall, toured Ireland, Britain, Australia and repeatedly throughout the U.S., and recorded more than a dozen albums before breaking up amid arguments over bills, babes and booze in 1974.
....
read the rest HERE
Irish folk pioneer Liam Clancy dies at 74
He was last member of Clancy Brothers, which took U.S. by storm in ’60s
updated 1:38 p.m. PT, Fri., Dec . 4, 2009
DUBLIN - Irish balladeer Liam Clancy, last of the Clancy Brothers troupe whose feisty, boozy songs of old Ireland struck a sentimental chord worldwide, died Friday in a Cork hospital. He was 74.
Clancy died in his hospital bed flanked by his wife Kim and daughters Siobhan and Fiona, his manager and family said. He suffered for years against incurable pulmonary fibrosis, the same lung-destroying disease that claimed one of his older singing brothers, Bobby, in 2002.
Ireland's arts minister, Martin Cullen, led nationwide tributes to Clancy, praising his "superb singing, warm voice and gift for communicating in a unique storytelling style."
"It was always so obvious with Liam Clancy that he loved what he was doing and his very presence made you feel welcome," Cullen said.
Clancy, the youngest of 11 children in a County Tipperary household filled with folklore and song, emigrated to the U.S. in 1956 to join two elder brothers, Tom and Patrick, in New York City who were singing on the side as they pursued budding careers as Broadway actors.
But after recording a 1956 album of Irish rebel songs, they grew a New York following as musicians and formed a partnership with Northern Ireland immigrant Tommy Makem. Soon they were earning more as weekend singers in Manhattan bars and clubs than as full-time stage actors.
Scouts for U.S. television's flagship “Ed Sullivan Show” spotted them performing in Greenwich Village's White Horse Tavern, and their 16-minute appearance in March 1961 on the program — extended because of the last-minute cancellation of another act — turned them into an Irish-American folk phenomenon.
Their agent cultivated a schmaltzy appeal to Irish emigrants worldwide, encouraging the Clancy Brothers and Makem to perform in cream-white Aran wool sweaters hand-knit from home as well as tweed fishermen's caps.
But their up-tempo resurrection of traditionally slow, sad Irish songs made a deeper impression on much of America's emerging folk artist movement, including Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to Liam Clancy as "the best ballad singer I'd ever heard in my life."
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed Carnegie Hall, toured Ireland, Britain, Australia and repeatedly throughout the U.S., and recorded more than a dozen albums before breaking up amid arguments over bills, babes and booze in 1974.
....
read the rest HERE
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Pakistani rappers
MSNBC
Forget the Taliban – Pakistani teens just wanna rap
Posted: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:25 AM
Filed Under: Islamabad, Pakistan
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The beat was good. Even the song's title, "Turn Your Swag Off," was catchy – but the lyrics needed some explanation.
"What does it all mean?" I asked.
"It’s just about me rapping how cool and bad I am," said Adil Omar, an 18-year-old Pakistani rap artist.
"I don’t get it," I told him.
"Look," he tried to explain, "I guess you could call it a protest song, but having fun with it, instead of taking myself too seriously. The violence is all comical and the sex is all comical. It’s just a funny song."
"Oh, I see," I said, pretending to get it.
Omar went on to explain that he often writes fictionalized or outrageous lyrics as metaphors for other things.
"In Pakistan today," Omar explained, "there are certain things you can’t do, you can’t promote. There are certain topics you can’t tap into because it’s a bit dangerous – like religion and politics." He said he is not an activist and stays away from rapping about governments. "You can’t target certain individuals in Pakistan," he said, "but if you speak out against the West, then no one really cares."
Some Pakistani musicians have made headlines by tapping into the anti-Western and especially the anti-American sentiments gripping the country. I asked Omar about the band "co-Ven," and their song, "Ready to Die" which was singled out recently by the New York Times for its anti-American lyrics.
Omar didn’t think that was cause for too much concern. "It [the song] was probably for shock value and people are just taking it too seriously," he said. "It’s has always been either the really violent and explicit side of rock, rap and hip-hop that gets the news coverage or it’s the protest side. It’s always been a genre, its entertainment," he argued with a conviction that belies his years.
Privileged Pakistani rappers
Rap music was born out of rage. It began, over 20 years ago, as a cry against the deprivation and unequal opportunities in America’s urban ghettoes. But today’s Pakistani rappers, by contrast, are from the country’s educated and privileged classes and at least by Omar’s account – they are "just having fun."
Omar is a well-mannered and soft-spoken teenager who lives in a posh suburb of Islamabad. He attends a private high school and is hoping to get into an American university next year. He started to write rap lyrics, as a hobby, when he was 9 years old. But it may well have been the death of his father one year later when Omar decided his life’s ambition was to become a full-time rapper.
"My mother thinks it’s a bit extreme, but she is supportive of my music. She understands that it’s the only thing I am probably good at," he said.
I asked him about the lyrics to his song, "The Writer," which say, "The world hates me so I hate the world."
"That’s pretty strong stuff," I said. Omar laughed. "That was all about being so involved in your work that you have the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world," he said, grinning.
He advised me not to take his writings so literally. "You thought it was anger," he said. "I’m not angry. I'm actually pretty happy, but maybe if I didn’t have this outlet to write this stuff, I would be angry," he said.
Taking it to the Internet
Omar is not the only Pakistani teenager turning to rap music to voice their feelings. Earlier this year, Bakhtawar Bhutto, the 18-year-old daughter of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, mourned her slain mother in a rap rhythm she released on YouTube.
In her song, "I Would Take the Pain Away," Bhutto rapped about her grief: "Shot in the back of your ear, so young in 54th year, murdered with three kids left behind."// "Why did you have to go?"//" Why did you have to leave?" The teenager sang out her pain over a simple hip hop beat and edited video clips of her mother.
Like young musicians across the world, the Internet is the vehicle of choice for young independent Pakistani artists who are looking for their big breakthrough. Omar uploads his music on YouTube, as well as on Facebook and MySpace for maximum exposure.
.......
Forget the Taliban – Pakistani teens just wanna rap
Posted: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:25 AM
Filed Under: Islamabad, Pakistan
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The beat was good. Even the song's title, "Turn Your Swag Off," was catchy – but the lyrics needed some explanation.
"What does it all mean?" I asked.
"It’s just about me rapping how cool and bad I am," said Adil Omar, an 18-year-old Pakistani rap artist.
"I don’t get it," I told him.
"Look," he tried to explain, "I guess you could call it a protest song, but having fun with it, instead of taking myself too seriously. The violence is all comical and the sex is all comical. It’s just a funny song."
"Oh, I see," I said, pretending to get it.
Omar went on to explain that he often writes fictionalized or outrageous lyrics as metaphors for other things.
"In Pakistan today," Omar explained, "there are certain things you can’t do, you can’t promote. There are certain topics you can’t tap into because it’s a bit dangerous – like religion and politics." He said he is not an activist and stays away from rapping about governments. "You can’t target certain individuals in Pakistan," he said, "but if you speak out against the West, then no one really cares."
Some Pakistani musicians have made headlines by tapping into the anti-Western and especially the anti-American sentiments gripping the country. I asked Omar about the band "co-Ven," and their song, "Ready to Die" which was singled out recently by the New York Times for its anti-American lyrics.
Omar didn’t think that was cause for too much concern. "It [the song] was probably for shock value and people are just taking it too seriously," he said. "It’s has always been either the really violent and explicit side of rock, rap and hip-hop that gets the news coverage or it’s the protest side. It’s always been a genre, its entertainment," he argued with a conviction that belies his years.
Privileged Pakistani rappers
Rap music was born out of rage. It began, over 20 years ago, as a cry against the deprivation and unequal opportunities in America’s urban ghettoes. But today’s Pakistani rappers, by contrast, are from the country’s educated and privileged classes and at least by Omar’s account – they are "just having fun."
Omar is a well-mannered and soft-spoken teenager who lives in a posh suburb of Islamabad. He attends a private high school and is hoping to get into an American university next year. He started to write rap lyrics, as a hobby, when he was 9 years old. But it may well have been the death of his father one year later when Omar decided his life’s ambition was to become a full-time rapper.
"My mother thinks it’s a bit extreme, but she is supportive of my music. She understands that it’s the only thing I am probably good at," he said.
I asked him about the lyrics to his song, "The Writer," which say, "The world hates me so I hate the world."
"That’s pretty strong stuff," I said. Omar laughed. "That was all about being so involved in your work that you have the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world," he said, grinning.
He advised me not to take his writings so literally. "You thought it was anger," he said. "I’m not angry. I'm actually pretty happy, but maybe if I didn’t have this outlet to write this stuff, I would be angry," he said.
Taking it to the Internet
Omar is not the only Pakistani teenager turning to rap music to voice their feelings. Earlier this year, Bakhtawar Bhutto, the 18-year-old daughter of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, mourned her slain mother in a rap rhythm she released on YouTube.
In her song, "I Would Take the Pain Away," Bhutto rapped about her grief: "Shot in the back of your ear, so young in 54th year, murdered with three kids left behind."// "Why did you have to go?"//" Why did you have to leave?" The teenager sang out her pain over a simple hip hop beat and edited video clips of her mother.
Like young musicians across the world, the Internet is the vehicle of choice for young independent Pakistani artists who are looking for their big breakthrough. Omar uploads his music on YouTube, as well as on Facebook and MySpace for maximum exposure.
.......
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