Tuesday, April 29, 2014

want it.

starring kelela & tink.



PITCHFORK: Kelela and Tink Collaborate on "Want It"

a sky full of stars.

starring coldplay & avicii. 



PITCHFORK: Coldplay Unleash New Single "A Sky Full of Stars", a Collaboration With Avicii

wedding day.

 starring courtney love.




a moment of clarity.

for your consideration...

words.

"... if we’re all going to be outraged, let’s be outraged that we weren’t more outraged when his racism was first evident. Let’s be outraged that private conversations between people in an intimate relationship are recorded and publicly played. Let’s be outraged that whoever did the betraying will probably get a book deal, a sitcom, trade recipes with Hoda and Kathie Lee, and soon appear on Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing with the Stars.

...Let’s use this tawdry incident to remind ourselves of the old saying: “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” Instead of being content to punish Sterling and go back to sleep, we need to be inspired to vigilantly seek out, expose, and eliminate racism at its first signs."

TIME: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Welcome to the Finger-Wagging Olympics

the past is a grotesque animal.

 with of montreal.



PITCHFORK: Of Montreal Film The Past Is a Grotesque Animal Hits Theaters in June

party girls.

a video.

starring ludacris, wiz khalifa, jeremih, & cashmere cat.


drunk in love.



SLATE: Jay Z Implies That Drake’s “Soft As a Lacrosse Team” in New Song

Sunday, April 27, 2014

-INTERLUDE-

think.

a moment of clarity.

words.

for your consideration...

"Obama is attempting to navigate the fraught, everywhere-and-yet-nowhere racial obsession that surrounds him. It’s a weird moment, but also a temporary one. The passing from the scene of the nation’s first black president in three years, and the near-certain election of its 44th nonblack one, will likely ease the mutual suspicion. In the long run, generational changes grind inexorably away. The rising cohort of Americans holds far more liberal views than their parents and grandparents on race, and everything else (though of course what you think about “race” and what you think about “everything else” are now interchangeable). We are living through the angry pangs of a new nation not yet fully born."

NEW YORK MAG: The Color of His Presidency

Saturday, April 26, 2014

a moment of clarity.

words.

"I don’t have a coming out story because I don’t think anyone needs to come out. I don’t get the fascination with being gay, lesbian, bisexual. There’s no separation between gay rights and human rights, it’s just fucking stupid.

Being gay in hip-hop is still really stigmatized. There are so many people in this world that are closet homosexuals. I guess I'm "out," but people ask me what my sexuality is all the time and I always tell them that it doesn’t matter, we’re not in a sexual situation so you don’t need to know. If we were in a sexual situation you would know exactly who I am sexually. But if we’re just having a conversation you don’t need to know what I do in private. Sexuality is not the most interesting detail about a person. It’s like me saying my favorite color is red all the time. After a while you’d kindly tell to me to shut the fuck up about it."

NOISEY: SOME RAPPERS ARE GAY. GET OVER IT.

Friday, April 25, 2014

two chainz.

a moment of clarity.

for your consideration... 

words. 

"Dividing traffic on the Internet into fast and slow lanes is exactly what the Federal Communications Commission would do with its proposed regulations, unveiled this week. And no amount of reassurances about keeping competition alive will change that fact.

...This would be a totally new approach to Internet service. It would essentially give broadband companies the right to create the digital equivalent of high-occupancy vehicle lanes for content providers, like Netflix and Amazon, wealthy enough to pay a toll.

In this new world, smaller content providers and start-ups that could not pay for preferential treatment might not be able to compete because their delivery speeds would be much slower. And consumers would have to pay more because any company that agrees to strike deals with phone and cable companies would undoubtedly pass on those costs to their users.

 ...The Internet has been a boon to the economy and to free speech because it is not divided into tiers and is open to everybody in the same way.

In 2007, President Obama said one of the best things about the Internet “is that there is this incredible equality there” and charging “different rates to different websites” would destroy that principle. The proposal from Mr. Wheeler, an Obama appointee, would do just that."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Creating a Two-Speed Internet

soul glow.



words.

THE PITCH: Black Joy on Television: The Cultural Legacy of Soul Train

palo alto.



PITCHFORK: Blood Orange's Dev Hynes Scores James Franco Movie Palo Alto, Shares Title Track

birthday.

a video.

starring katy perry.





king james.


words.

"Long before it was fashionable to argue that race was a social construct, Baldwin famously said, “Insofar as you think you’re white, you’re irrelevant,” during a 1979 speech in Berkeley, Calif., a sentiment he repeated in his writing and public appearances. Racism was not a stain on American exceptionalism, Baldwin argued, but a deliberate feature of a country that he said routinely terrorized black people. He moved to France in the late 1940s to escape racism, but he returned home often, and he helped to articulate the pains of the civil rights movement.

“He was one of the fiercest critics of the American race problem who ever put pen to paper," said Khalil G. Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Trying to Bring Baldwin’s Complex Voice Back to the Classroom: James Baldwin, Born 90 Years Ago, Is Fading in Classrooms

Next Time (Won't Give My Heart Away).

a video.

starring keyshia cole.


friday.

FILE UNDER: LOS ANGELES/BROTHAS/DUDES/CAMARADERIE/UPINTHESESTREETS


nikki nack.


an album stream.

stream here. 


Thursday, April 24, 2014

thanks.



PITCHFORK: Kanye West and Rick Rubin Team With Mark Romanek on Crazy Award Acceptance Speech Video

reasons.

a moment of clarity.

words.

"Some history may help explain the situation. The new rule gives broadband providers what they’ve wanted for about a decade now: the right to speed up some traffic and degrade others. (With broadband, there is no such thing as accelerating some traffic without degrading other traffic.) We take it for granted that bloggers, start-ups, or nonprofits on an open Internet reach their audiences roughly the same way as everyone else. Now they won’t. They’ll be behind in the queue, watching as companies that can pay tolls to the cable companies speed ahead. The motivation is not complicated. The broadband carriers want to make more money for doing what they already do. Never mind that American carriers already charge some of the world’s highest prices, around sixty dollars or more per month for broadband, a service that costs less than five dollars to provide. To put it mildly, the cable and telephone companies don’t need more money."

THE NEW YORKER: Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination

justice.



words.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Justice Dept. Expands Eligibility for Clemency

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

coming attractions.

starring coldplay.



PITCHFORK: Coldplay Debut New Song "Oceans", Announce TV Special

action.

a moment of clarity. 

words. 

 "...In the real world, if hundreds or thousands of black students have their opportunities constrained because of a system that places obstacles in their particular path, then most of us shrug and say, that’s just the way things are, and there isn’t anything that can or should be done about it. But if an affirmative action program should result in a single white student having to go to her second choice school? Then we must change the law, and move heaven and earth to make sure it never happens again.

Meanwhile, the preferences whites enjoy remain firmly in place. There have yet to be any successful laws or ballot initiatives to ban “legacy admissions,” in which applicants who had a relative who attended the university are given special preference. No one can come up with rational grounds for retaining this affirmative action for wealthy white people, yet universities all across the country do. And there are other only slightly less blatant forms of favoritism; for instance, the reliance on standardized test scores provides a boost for wealthy students, most of them white, whose parents can afford expensive test prep courses and tutoring. Again, no serious person contends that SATs or ACTs are a pure measure of “merit,” yet they continue to play a huge role in college admissions."

THE PLUM LINE: The Supreme Court and the reality of racial preferences

SEE ALSO:

the firm. 

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Why Care About McCutcheon?

no rest for the wicked.

a remix.

from lykke li & a$ap rocky.


water fountain.

a video.

from tUne-yArDs.



PITCHFORK: tUnE-yArDs Revive "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" for "Water Fountain" Video

oceans.

starring coldplay.

live on bbc radio 1 live lounge.


mariyln monroe.

 a video.

starring pharrell williams.


the firm.

a moment of clarity.

words.

 "“This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable,” Sotomayor wrote. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.”

She added: “As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society.”"

THE WASHINGTON POST: Sotomayor accuses colleagues of trying to ‘wish away’ racial inequality

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Saturday, April 19, 2014

motown.

words. 

"Easily missed among the gags and laughter, was that Martin was actually a weirdly beautiful show about a flawed, interconnected community. The characters: all absurd. But the reality was that none of them truly had it figured out, and quite often had to look in the most unlikely corners for help. And at some point, everyone needed help. Everyone constantly got on each other’s nerves, but everyone also kind of needed each other. Money, rides, food, hook-ups, relationships, a couch, clothes, jobs — anything, just to keeping making it in Detroit."

GRANTLAND: Martin Lawrence’s Motown

twenty y.o.

words.

GRANTLAND: Whose World: The Strange, Wistful 20th Anniversary of Nas’s ‘Illmatic’

the breakdown.



starring prince.

pop.

words. 

"“In 2014, nothing starts a fight more quickly than a huge pop song,” reads the intro to Powers and Wilson’s exchange. Setting aside the hyperbole—or embracing it, maybe—let me add that this has also been the case in every other year that pop music has existed. The prejudices backlighting these arguments are familiar: Pop is shallow product forced on minds too young or dumb to know better; rock is uncut truth transmuted from a powerful and probably male god. Pop is about play and transience; rock is about timelessness and authenticity. Pop is a preprogrammed drum machine; rock is the wild expression of the soul through an electric guitar.

...I sometimes worry that serious music can only be served by serious talk, or worse, that people who like serious music can only have serious reasons for doing so. The truth is that you will probably meet just as many shallow people at a National show as you will at a Miley Cyrus show, the difference being that people at the National show are more likely to think they’re important, while people at a Miley Cyrus show are more likely to think they’re having fun..."

THE PITCH: It's Not What You Like But How You Like It: Some Thoughts on Pop

i'm less here.

a video.

from mazzy star.

love myself.

starring jmsn.

tree of life.

Friday, April 18, 2014

jam session.



THE A.V. CLUB: Watch Nick Kroll, Seth Green, Paul Scheer, and more do a live reading of Space Jam

-INTERLUDE-

indy.

starring santana & miguel.



STEREOGUM: Santana (Feat. Miguel) – “Indy”

a moment of clarity.


words. 

"The Republican attack machine, fueled by millions of dollars from the Koch brothers, has Democrats so rattled about the health reform law that many don’t want to talk about it. They’re happy to run on equal pay for women, or a higher minimum wage, or immigration reform — all of which provide important contrasts with a do-nothing Republican Party — but they haven’t said much about the biggest social accomplishment of the Obama administration.

...It’s important to move on to jobs and the economy, as Mr. Obama urged Congress to do. But first voters need to be reminded that government programs can improve life for all Americans. When one of those programs begins to do its job, its authors shouldn’t be afraid to say so."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: How to Run on Health Reform

coming attractions.

L.A. WEEKLY: Tacolandia 2014 is Coming!

MIXTAPE FRIDAYS!!!


whip appeal.

a playlist.

1/saturday love/cherrelle & alexander o'neal
2/portuguese love/teena marie
3/this is for the lover in you/shalamar
4/let's wait awhile/janet jackson
5/i wanna be your lover/prince
6/two occasions/the deele
7/tender love/force m.d.'s
8/tonight is the night/betty wright
9/through the fire/chaka khan
10/whip appeal/babyface
11/tell me/groove theory
12/your love is king/sade
13/uncle ace/blood orange
14/suavecito/malo
15/you give good love/whitney houston
16/the lady in my life/michael jackson


ezra's interlude.


starring chromeo & ezra koenig.


girl.

starring jamie xx.

stream here.

i won.

a video.

starring future & kanye west.


a moment of clarity.

words.

"To the extent that the word “desegregation” remains in our vocabulary, it describes an antique principle, not a current priority. Today, we are more likely to talk of diversity—but diversification and desegregation are not the same undertaking. To speak of diversity, in light of this country’s history of racial recidivism, is to focus on bringing ethnic variety to largely white institutions, rather than dismantling the structures that made them so white to begin with.

And so, sixty years after Brown, it is clear that the notion of segregation as a discrete phenomenon, an evil that could be flipped, like a switch, from on to off, by judicial edict, was deeply naĂŻve. The intervening decades have shown, in large measure, the limits of what political efforts directed at desegregation alone could achieve, and the crumbling of both elements of “separate but equal” has left us at an ambivalent juncture. To the extent that desegregation becomes, once again, a pressing concern—and even that may be too grand a hope—it will have to involve the tax code, the minimum wage, and other efforts to redress income inequality. For the tragedy of this moment is not that black students still go to overwhelmingly black schools, long after segregation was banished by law, but that they do so for so many of the same reasons as in the days before Brown."

THE NEW YORKER: The Failure of Desegregation

purple reign.


PITCHFORK: Prince Reissuing Purple Rain, Promises New Music Under New Warner Bros. Deal

Thursday, April 17, 2014

sanctified.




THE NEW YORKER: The Woman Who Put the Soul in “Sanctified”

ghetto.

words.

for your consideration...

"Topshop's use of the term "ghetto" is meant to be neither descriptive nor interrogative. The retailer used it for the same reason that most people who have never lived in one do — because they think it's a cute and edgy thing to say. Same reason the friends I made in college called the supermarket near my childhood home "so ghetto" with wrinkled noses. Same reason my white friends in L.A. seem to relish calling the police helicopters that fly overhead at night "ghetto birds." Same reason people loved calling nameplate necklaces and gold chains "ghetto fabulous" 10 years ago — although now we've moved on to "ratchet," a term that's slightly more coded and thus gives its user even more insider cred.

There really isn't any good reason to name a shoe "ghetto" or to use it as a throwaway adjective at all. This is not about being PC or on a linguistic high horse. This is about the fact that ghettos are real places, right now and in every city, where generations of people are stuck in institutionalized poverty. Ghettos are a serious human rights problem, not a cutesy dismissive descriptor for anything vaguely "urban." So, you know, can we just...not?"

REFINERY29: So...Why Is Topshop Calling This A "Ghetto" Shoe?

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

the boondocks.


a mixtape.




here.

starring pharrell williams.



SLATE: Hear a New Song From Pharrell. It’s an Acoustic Ballad.


i blame myself.

a video.

starring sky ferreira. 

here. 


henny.

a remix video.

starring mack wilds, french montana, mobb deep, & busta rhymes.


get ya money.

a video.

from august alsina & fabolous.


Monday, April 14, 2014

warm winds.

a video.

from sza & isiah rashad.


food.






an album stream.

starring kelis.

stream here.

west coast.



drop.


an album stream.

starring thee oh sees.

here. 

EARLIER:

BOUND: The Albums, 2013: 22/Thee Oh Sees/Floating Coffin 

julia/tiberius.

starring daphni & owen pallett.

stream here.

turn blue.

starring the black keys.


sweatpants.

a video.

from childish gambino & problem.


sea change.

beck.

live.

at coachella.


reflektors.

live.

at coachella.




it's on again.

a video.

starring alicia keys & kendrick lamar.



Sunday, April 13, 2014

chromeo.

live.

at coachella.

girl talk.

live.

at coachella.

coachella.

with nas.

queens.

live.

at coachella.

lorde.

live.

at coachella.

coachella.

with pharrell williams.

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Monday, April 07, 2014

sing.

starring ed sheeran.

 

RAP UP: New Music: Ed Sheeran – ‘SING’ 

disco//very. keep it healthy.

a video.

starring warpaint.


summer.

a video.

from calvin harris.


magic.

a video.

from coldplay.


Sunday, April 06, 2014

see also:

words.

"...the response to Miley’s VMAs performance was a low point. It all stems from this delusional notion that women should be reserved and void of confidence. Fuck that. I have sisters. I want them to go out into the world and demand what they’re worth the way I was always pushed to. When I see Nicki Minaj explaining why she deserves premium amenities, or Rihanna snapping on paparazzi, or Miley Cyrus shocking America at an awards show, I can’t help but think of them as great role models. Justin Bieber gets to wear his brashness as a badge of honor and a mark of resolve, and I simply think bold women should be able to do the same without people freaking out about it.

I want women to be brazen and audacious because that passive, subservient shit that civilization has been trying to cast on them for centuries is ancient and boring. Build an empire, curse some motherfuckers out, and piss off everyone in the proximity in the process. Miley Cyrus has done it expertly and I enjoyed her show, because I know that after watching her do whatever she wants on the Bangerz tour, at least a few thousand girls will stop letting boys have all the fun and go do the same."

COMPLEX: Miley's "Bangerz" Tour Will Save the Young Women of America

lovely.

words.

THE PITCH: Death, Dogs, and Delirium: Miley Cyrus Does New Jersey

austin city limits.

with nin.



PITCHFORK: Nine Inch Nails Perform, Trent Reznor Interviewed on "Austin City Limits"

nightmare field.

a video.

starring black lips.

thug dove.

coming attractions.

Friday, April 04, 2014

Meanwhile in 2014...



PITCHFORK: M.I.A. and Janelle Monáe Perform "Bad Girls" and "Q.U.E.E.N." Together as Holograms

box chevy v.

a video.

starring yelawolf.


money stretch.

an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.

words.

"Reformers like to complain about the malign influence of money in politics. The real problem is big money in politics, and here a gap has opened between the parties.

...Early on, an Adelson-backed Super PAC paid for Gingrich ads that were some of the first in the 2012 cycle to blast Romney’s ties to Bain Capital, an issue that the Obama campaign later used to great effect. Gingrich said to reporters, “You have to ask the question, ‘Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and walk off with the money?’ ” The corollary might be: Is democracy really about the ability of one man, representing no one but himself, to have his voice resonate so loudly, and maybe walk off with something beyond two White House latkes?"

THE NEW YORKER: McCutcheon Meets Adelson: What a Donor Wants

there is no other way.

a video.

from klaxons.


Thursday, April 03, 2014

onward & upward.

words.

for your consideration...

"Our campaign finance system is doing a great disservice to the country, but not in the way the usual whiners suggest. The problem isn’t too much money — after all, who is to say how much is too much? Ultimately, campaigns should be between candidates, parties and voters. We should seek ways to regulate and exclude everybody and everything else. If a campaign wants to take a jillion dollars from a billionaire, the campaign should be able to take the money and then be required to report that contribution. Again, let voters decide how they feel about it. Of course, the Democrats don’t like the idea of too much transparency because they want to keep a secret the support of their billionaire contributors and the extensive role the unions play in elections."

THE WASHINGTON POST: The Insiders: On campaign finance, the Supreme Court should do more

capitol

an ongoing discussion.

words. 

"...Since 1980, however, their fortunes have swelled again — at the expense of everyone else. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher slashed taxes on wealth, workers lost the ability to bargain for wages and, crucially, the population growth of many nations ground nearly to a halt. Capital, again, was accumulating faster than the overall economies were growing. In the United States, Piketty shows, the incomes of the top 1 percent have grown so high — chiefly due to the linkage of top executive pay to share value, a form of capital — that they soon will create the greatest level of income inequality in the recorded history of any nation.

...Piketty’s primary contention is that it is inherent to capitalism that the returns on capital generally exceed the growth of nations’ economies, save in times of epochal population growth or almost unimaginable technological breakthroughs, and that this leads to ever-rising concentrations of wealth and power. “No self-corrective mechanism exists” within capitalism to retard this descent into plutocracy, he writes. Rather, he concludes, its prevention requires political action: He suggests a global tax on capital, which, he acknowledges, is a utopian solution, though others — empowering workers again, increasing the social provision of goods and services — are more readily attainable..."

THE WASHINGTON POST: How capitalism enriches the few rather than the many

the bad news bears.

an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.

words. 

"The fact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) hit its original goal this week of signing up more than 7 million people through its insurance exchanges ought to be a moment of truth — literally as well as figuratively. It ought to give everyone, particularly members of the news media, pause over how reckless the opponents of change have been in making instant judgments and outlandish charges.

...The ACA is doing exactly what its supporters said it would do. It is getting health insurance to millions who didn’t have it before. (The Los Angeles Times pegged the number at 9.5 million at the beginning of the week.) And it’s working especially well in places such as Kentucky, where state officials threw themselves fully and competently behind the cause of signing up the uninsured. Those who want to repeal the law will have to admit that they are willing to deprive these people, or some large percentage of them, of insurance.

...Perhaps more importantly, will we finally be honest about the real argument here: Do we or do we not want to put in the effort and money it takes to guarantee all Americans health insurance? If we do — and we should — let’s get on with doing it the best way we can."

THE WASHINGTON POST: The GOP must admit it was wrong on Obamacare

elvis has left the building.

starring hot chip's alexis taylor.



PITCHFORK: Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor Announces Solo LP Await Barbarians, Shares "Elvis Has Left the Building"

11 O'Clock Friday Night.

a video.

starring (the walkmen's) hamilton leithauser.


repeat pleasure.

starring how to dress well.



PITCHFORK: How to Dress Well Announces New Album "What Is This Heart?", Shares "Repeat Pleasure"

days in the east.



starring drake.


Wednesday, April 02, 2014

(baby) i surrender.

an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity. 

words.

"In addition to (Sheldon) Adelson, two of the world’s other top-10 billionaires, David and Charles Koch (combined net worth: $81 billion) are pouring tens of millions into the 2014 midterm elections in an effort to swing the Senate to Republican control. These and other wealthy people, their political contributions unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, are buying the U.S. political system in much the same way Russian oligarchs have acquired theirs. (Super-rich liberals such as Tom Steyer are spending some of their fortunes to help Democrats, but they are pikers by comparison.) Spending by super PACs, a preferred vehicle of billionaires, will surpass spending by all candidates combined this year, predicts Kantar Media, which tracks political advertising.

This pay-to-play culture is, at best, unseemly. What makes it ugly is when it becomes obvious just how much the wealthy corporate interests get in return..."

THE WASHINGTON POST: GOP candidates kiss up to billionaire Sheldon Adelson

SEE ALSO:

SLATE: The Shocking Rise of Wealth Inequality: Is it Worse Than We Thought?

heroes.

a (david bowie) cover.

starring janelle monae.


enter the slasher house.

an album stream.

starring avey tare's slasher flicks.




PITCHFORK: Stream Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks' Album Enter the Slasher House

"WORST!"


"say cheese."

EARLIER:




APRIL TWO:














Tuesday, April 01, 2014

coming down.




PITCHFORK: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Share "Coming Down" Featuring the National's Matt Berninger, Announce New Album Only Run

big homie.

a video.

starring puff daddy, rick ross, and french montana.


tolerated.

a video.

starring girl talk, freeway, & waka flocka flame. 





a moment of clarity.

words.

"One in seven Americans uses food stamps today—that’s more than twice 2000’s number. The fastest-growing group of participants is people like Ballard: people with jobs, who work all year round. Many of these workers are employed by big retail chains that take in tens of billions of dollars in food stamps.

In politics and in the news, a lot of focus is put on the many Yolanda Ballards of America. Whether they deserve the food stamp money they get. What they spend it on. Whether they abuse the system. Those were the kinds of questions clinging to recent debates in Congress over funding for food stamps. But throughout those debates, which resulted in more than $8 billion in cuts to the program over the next decade, one subject got relatively little attention: what happens to those food stamp dollars after people like Yolanda Ballard swipe their EBT cards and the money becomes store revenue..."

SLATE: The Secret Life of a Food Stamp

high ball stepper.

 starring jack white.



PITCHFORK: Jack White Announces New Album Lazaretto, Shares "High Ball Stepper"