Tuesday, April 26, 2016

the big big beat.

a video.

starring azealia banks. 

Saturday, April 23, 2016

suvivor.

a moment of clarity.

words. 

 "...There are guys over at the building and trades union hall in the San Gabriel Valley who sit all day and wait for their names to be called. I interviewed them when I was campaigning for healthcare reform in 2009. They waited and we drank coffee and ate donuts and they told me about why they chose to sit there for a union job: because they’d done it the other way before. Without a union. They were day laborers who sometimes worked a whole day and sometimes at the end of that day the guy who picked them up would drop them off and refuse to pay. Not just regular work either—hard labor. Sweat. Take all the bricks out the truck. Don’t mess them up. Nothing banged or boomed. And then, after it all, no pay: “Whatcha gonna do? Sue me? Am I gonna have any problems out of you? I can call immigration.” And maybe you’re documented but your brother who’s been working beside you all day isn’t—maybe your brother looks at you like please please please. You went by the rules. The bosses, they broke them.

This is wage theft. There are laws against it, but they aren’t enforced. Eighty-three percent of workers who hold a court-ordered claim to receive their unpaid wages never see a dime. In L.A., low-wage workers lose $26.2 million in wage theft violations every week. I’ve listened to janitors tell stories about not getting paid. I’ve met carwash workers who lived solely on tips—they were not paid wages at all. Carwash workers who were forced to sleep, live, in their cars.

Biblically speaking, there are two rules being broken here. There are sins of commission—when an employer pays a worker less than the minimum wage, or pays for fewer hours than were worked, or pays in cash to dodge payroll taxes (and workers comp and unemployment insurance). And then there are sins of omission—when senior managers, often of very large firms, pressure local store managers, branch managers, contractors or suppliers to keep costs low, without putting in place equally strong measures to prevent wage theft.

...Imagine dreaming of a place your whole life and then discovering it doesn’t exist. She discovered instead that this is a country for other people. A country with so many rules. You become an American when you realize that only with the right amount of money and the right amount of power, you can break these rules, or make them your own."

JEZEBEL: Who Gets to Break the Rules in America?

king.

words. 

"Antagonism has always been one of music’s animating forces. It runs through history: the cutting contests of Storyville jazz musicians, Bronx street corner battle-rap showdowns, Mozart versus Salieri, Beatles versus Stones, Whitney versus Mariah. But Prince may have been the most tenacious musical competitor of them all. His ambition was outrageous: With every song, every note, he aimed to be the best, the baddest, the most wizardly, the most unimpeachable. He seemed to have swallowed an encyclopedia of music history and developed world-historical ambition to go with it. He was a one-man band extraordinaire, the world’s best rhythm section and the world’s best background vocal choir. He could sing like Al Green or, if the mood struck, John Lennon; he could work a bandstand as fearsomely as James Brown and play a guitar as well as Jimi Hendrix. His death came as a shock because he had strode into his sixth decade in apparently undiminished form, with the waistline and hairline of a man half his age and the stamina of a man even younger than that. His hitmaking days were behind him, and his pop-culture profile waxed and waned, but whenever he resurfaced, he served notice that he was indomitable: He could still sing, dance, play instruments, write songs and produce records better than everyone else..."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Prince and the Competition

SEE ALSO:

VULTURE: Earth Was Lucky to Get 57 Years of Prince

ultra light beam.


purple rain.






THE NEW YORK TIMES: Prince Knew What He Wanted: Sex, Soul and You

mood.


coming attractions.



PAPER: Watch The Trailer For 'Check It', A Doc about DC's LGBT Gang

Friday, April 22, 2016

good love.

a video.

starring keith sweat. 

xr2.

a moment of clarity.

with tupac shakur.  



beggin & pleadin.

a video.

starring brandy. 

vs.

with nardwuar & snoop.

flem.

with a$ap ferg & kirk knight.


vroom vroom.



a video.

starring charli xcx.

STEREOGUM: Charli XCX – “Vroom Vroom” Video

tennessee.


for you.

a moment of clarity.

words.

"A friend said on Facebook yesterday, in all caps, that “THE ONLY THING WE CAN DO FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR IS BE AS SEXY AS POSSIBLE.” I chuckled at the comment when she posted it, and shared it with my friends, but the more I think about it, the more I think she’s 100% on point. What is the opposite of death? Living. Not just being alive. Living. Loving. Fucking. Laughing.

And doing it again in the morning, And god, if Prince’s music is about anything, it’s about that. “Life is just a party,” he sang on “1999,” “and parties weren’t meant 2 last.” But that only makes them more precious, right?"

FLAVORWIRE: The Opposite of Death: Celebrating Prince’s Life, Work and Revolutionary Fluidity

SEE ALSO:

PITCHFORK: How Prince’s Androgynous Genius Changed the Way We Think About Music and Gender

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

needed me.









a video.

starring rihanna.

stream here.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

i remember.

a video.

starring alunageorge.

ghetto walkin'.

a video.

from miles davis, robert glasper, & bilal.

boys & girls.

a video.

starring will.i.am & pia mia. 


love again.

a video.

from run the jewels & gangsta boo. 


Friday, April 15, 2016

mood.

pt. 2. 


mood.

pt. 1. 


for your consideration.


first things first.

starring freeway & girl talk.

all in.

starring kid cudi.


farrakhan.

a video.

starring joey fatts & vince staples.

house of love.




starring fomo, chaka khan, taka boom, & mark stevens.

PITCHFORK: Chaka Khan Goes House Music on FOMO's New Single "House of Love"

timeless.

starring james blake.


space oddity.

a video.

starring the flaming lips.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

nobody speak.

starring dj shadow & run the jewels.



STEREOGUM: DJ Shadow – “Nobody Speak” (Feat. Run The Jewels)

struggle love.

a video.

starring jaheim.



strive.

starring a$ap ferg & missy elliot.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

human performance.

rough trade sessions.

with parquet courts.


the sickness.

starring j dilla, nas, & madlib.

stream here.

famous.

a ("kanye west") video.

starring aziz ansari & eric wareheim. 

real talk.




a moment of clarity

words. 

"...Whoever wins the Republican nomination, it’s too late to address the concerns of Mr. Trump’s core constituents before November. The anger felt by so many will not be eased until Washington takes affirmative steps.

To ease the immediate pain, we need a much stronger safety net: extended unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed, wage insurance, a higher minimum wage and the like. Cutting our irrational austerity frenzy to step up investment in infrastructure is a no-brainer. All of this can — and should — be paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy.

Mr. Trump may have succeeded in directing the anger of his supporters toward Washington in general and President Obama in particular. But Republicans should take heed: Given your shutdown of legislation that would help downtrodden Americans, their anger should really be focused on you."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: By Opposing Obama, the Republicans Created Trump

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

mr. 2 face.

starring action bronson.



PITCHFORK: Action Bronson Shares "Mr. 2 Face": Listen

solo.

a video.

starring ilovemakonnen. 

most of all.

a video.

starring jmsn.

Friday, April 08, 2016

hungry ham.

starring a$ap ferg, skrillex, & crystal caines.

 

boy problems.

a video.

starring carly rae jepsen.




no broken hearts.

a video.

starring bebe rexha & nicki minaj.


wristband.

starring paul simon.



FLAVORWIRE: Paul Simon Announces New Album, Shares “Wristband”

life on earth.


an album stream.

starring musiq soulchild.

stream here.

glowed up.

a video.

from kaytranada & anderson .paak.



boyfriend.


starring tegan and sara.

stream here.

the orange monkey.


starring pj harvey.

stream here. 


your creator.

a video.

starring deradoorian.




just let go.

starring classixx & how to dress well.



PITCHFORK: Classixx Team With How to Dress Well for "Just Let Go," Recruit T-Pain, Passion Pit, More for New Album

Thursday, April 07, 2016

angels.

a video.

starring chance the rapper. 


Wednesday, April 06, 2016

that's what I get.

a nine inch nails cover.

starring spirit club.



PITCHFORK: Listen to Wavves' Nathan Williams' Spirit Club Cover Nine Inch Nails' "That's What I Get"

a moment of clarity.

words.

for your consideration...

"... any time white folks do something that people of color have been doing forever, they manage to take all the damn credit. I learned this lesson before I learned my timetables. It's an essential fact of American life. In elementary school, my teachers told me that Christopher Columbus had discovered America, regardless of the fact that some of the greatest civilizations that ever existed thrived on this continent long before he arrived. They talked at length about the Capitol Building and the White House, but conveniently forgot to mention that it was enslaved Africans who actually built those shining symbols of democracy. What's crazy is that the same sort of shit happens in culture, too—Elvis was named the King of Rock 'n' Roll, when we all know Chuck Berry really wears the crown; Miley Cyrus became the face of twerking, even though I was getting twerk long before Miley was even Hannah Montana; and business magazines proclaimed that Iggy Azalea ran hip-hop, despite the fact that she can barely recite the rhymes T.I. wrote for her.

Yes, black folks have a problem when we see white people angling to dive into our culture. It's not that we don't wanna share it and embrace the sort of melting pot ethos that makes this country an exciting place to be. We just don't wanna see white people rocking dreads today, because we know that they will be telling us that they invented them tomorrow. This loss of credit isn't just an ego thing. The dissociation of black people from the very real contributions we've made to this country has done incalculable damage to the psyche and socio-economic standings of black Americans. This country was literally built on black bodies. And yet, blacks have very little to show for the sacrifices and suffering endured by our ancestors in making this place the economic and cultural powerhouse it is today..."

VICE: Justin Bieber's Dreadlocks Show How White People (Still) Steal Everything

paradise.

a video.

from benny benassi & chris brown. 

i wanna be.

a video.

from katy b & chris lorenzo. 

for your consideration...


FLAVORWIRE: Blondie’s Complicated Relationship to Gender: An Excerpt From 33 1/3’s ‘Parallel Lines’

i can't give everything away.

a video.

from david bowie.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

gangsta boogie.

starring j dilla, snoop dogg, & kokane.



PITCHFORK: Hear J Dilla's "Gangsta Boogie" Featuring Snoop Dogg and Kokane

drum machine.

a video.

with big grams + skrillex.

stop where you are.

a video.

starring corinne bailey rae.





Friday, April 01, 2016

eyes on you.

a video.

starring veruca salt.