The Assimilated Piano

They're calling it "the fluid piano"; I'll just call it a "culturally assimilated piano", since that's longer and more cumbersome to say or write. In either case, here we have an instrument of art that dares to step outside of its western music roots/tradition like artists themselves occasionally do. how fancy!



Pretty awesome. I mean hip hop/electronic music producers etc. have been doing this for a while through sampling, keyboards etc, but this seems like a serious breakthrough with all the never-seen-before tuning/modulating options now on the instrument itself.

if kanye gets wind of this it might be the piece that finally lets him be great. we could also call it the Lady Gaga of pianos. or maybe the tiger woods of steinways since it's kinda-sorta cheating on the plain ol' regular notes. or maybe the michael jackson of [piano instrument] for reinventing how black-white notes sound when children play with it ...(?) hmm, that last one is a little off-tune but you know what i mean if you think about it. right? RIGHT???

Celebrating National Fist Bump Day!

TAN celebrates National Fist Bump Day on Slate: Black The Root today. Here's a teasing snippet:

... This mainstream outreach may seem warm and fuzzy now, but at the time, some writers wondered if white folks had even noticed the gesture. And oh, they did. (To the point of not even paying attention to the perhaps more dubious booty-love tap that followed right after.) For a fascinating few weeks, the fist bump, a functional, hyper-hygienic descendant of the handshake and high five, was the topic du jour around America's water coolers. First came the blogs and tabloids, both here and across the pond. Then came the satirical cover of The New Yorker depicting the first couple as a Muslim Constitution-burner and an Angela Davis wannabe. This controversial image inspired parodies of the parody. And of course, the conservative response to Hurricane Obama made the whole thing feel like a game of “telephone” gone wrong: Fox News host E.D. Hill asked on-air, with fevered eyes: “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?”

So why take us back there? If anything, the fist-jab furor represented a profound moment in interracial misunderstanding. For blacks, the salutation was nothing new. We wondered, were white folks really so ignorant, our worlds so segregated, that they couldn’t tell what a good old-fashioned dap looked like? ....

The Bump Heard 'Round The World [The Root]

The Assimilator: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, and the Hammer is Gawker

So Gawker is known for their gossip and *snarky* (sigh) take on current events. The writers -- certainly the ones I've known or met -- are all smart and generally sympathetic/aware of celebrities being human, or the deeper issues at play when a magazine is shuttered; but as per their job, usually need to cut to the witty, pithy chase at the expense of indulging, say, the modern window into the human condition The Hipster Grifter provides.

All to say, Gawker is not what anyone instinctively thinks of as a home for "panel discussions" on culturally resonant news/themes/stories. But we're trying to do just that on the weekend, via The Assimilator, and so far so good. We're still working on facilitating the "discussion" element, as it's tough to get professional opinion/taste-makers to stand where you want in line sans $ or significant lead-time. But we've got cool people, and opinions, and a space to share and exchange these things. So that, as the kids say, is something.

Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, is the guiding spirit here. Specifically: The Revaluation of all Values. Seems most writers, artists of sound mind and clear conscience are motivated by this impulse to reassess the world around them; "The Assimilator" is another on-ramp to merge -- mind meld? -- with the rest of those in the struggle.

We've finally got enough in the can to start the archived list, so that's what this is, in no particular order:

On the Recession Possibly Being Over?: Melissa Lafsky (Discover), Jozen Cummings (Vibe), Abiola Abrams (Planet Abiola)

On Double X Launch and Feminism: Pt. 1 - Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon), Jill Filipovic (Feministe), Pt. 2 - Jess McCabe (The F-Word), Matt Ufford (Warming Glow)

On White-Rapper Asher Roth: Byron Crawford (XXL), Touré (Rolling Stone), Tom Breihan (Pitchfork)

On University Reform: Pt. 1 - Dan Kois (New York), Kate Perkins (N+1), Pt. 2 - Macy Halford (The New Yorker), Jeff Chang (The Nation)

On Dan Baum vs. The New Yorker: Emily Gordon (emdashes), Troy Patterson (Slate), Eric Easter (EbonyJet)

On the Hipster Grifter: Doree Shafrir (Observer), Gavin McInnes (Street Carnage), Big Time Book Editor (Big Time Book Publisher)

On a Prospective Hipster Reality Show: Becky Sharper (Pursuit of Harpyness), Rachel Shukert (The Nosemaker's Apprentice), Robert Lanham (Hipster Handbook)

On Eminem's "We Made You": me (School of Hard Knocks, etc.)

The Assimilator [Gawker]

cartoon: via

The Ten Tat Commandments

Five of which are on gawker this weekend.

What's going on with this particular tattoo? Might have to get Negropedia Brown to investigate this one.



And speaking of the old testament, how did they never do a video for Ten Crack Commandments? That was a missed opportunity.

this song contains multitudes. And I revel in any chance to play it.



Anybig, here's Oprah with dumbbells on someone's belly forever.

Blipster Bingo

Ha. missed this first time around:


working with hipster dewds on gawk this weekend, totes stokedness TK!!

previously/related:
On Blipsters: Smells Like Negro Musk [Gawker]

B-Bingo via: HRO

Can Someone Tell Diddy About Black Cab Sessions?

For real, hip hop heads need a knockoff on this quick; its not straight biting, it's "inspiration." And Black Cab Sessions is a fairly inspirational idea: One song. One take. One cab. Tell me you're not a Lykke Li fan after this:



Now I know what the hipsters are talking about!

So yeah, fairly brilliant. And there's opportunity because it's an indie/rock dominated artist list; not trying to be racist or nothing, but I know if I pimp this site at an assimilated negro party they're not gonna know at least half the artists listed on the home page. And that's being generous and NYCcentric about it. So we could definitely get some black people up on this. Though it would officially kill the "black people can't get cabs" industry.

Mad emcees would rock the Black Cab though, and once Kanye got involved you know his cab's gonna glow or be a spaceship or something.

Hmmm, I wonder if Kanye can beatbox. It'd be hot to have him do the b-box for nas, jay, common maybe. Someone like that with strong presence, skills-cachet. Then they switch-off. You could get The Roots to rock that in a heartbeat, with Black Thought and ?uest and Scratch or Rahzel. Other duos: Dre and Em, RZA and someone from Wu. Doom and Mos Def. Andre and Big Boi. Then you could get the acoustic heads, i don't know who they are but ... oh yeah, wyclef. Lauryn Hill and someone. There's also the Def Poetry Jam type stuff from the urban cab-eligible oeuvre, which somewhat surprisingly is one of their most viewed clips:

Music to Mention at Cocktail Parties: Op Swamp 81

Hat tip to Phonte of Little Brother and The Foreign Exchange, his itunes review put me up on some hot fire that goes by the name of: OP Swamp 81. He says:

"WOWSERS

Anything with Bilal Salaam's name on it is automatic coppery, but "Decompose" had me sittin in my living room rockin back and forth fannin myself with that good church fan (you know the one with martin Luther Kaing on the front, and an ad for a funeral home on the back?)

Excellent work, peoples. I am officially on the jock of everyone involved in this project.

*scraps next album, goes back to the drawing board*


word, well with support like that, I had to peep. And consider this the blog co-sign. Up on the right is the ep cover, how it should look in your itunes coverflow.

"Decompose" is the joint, but not online. Here's a song called "Another Day"



Even better than the music, their myspace isn't all littered up yet with fan crud, so if you start talking about them TODAY you can definitely still put "ahead of the curve" on your business card. I used helvetica typeface on mine! Also, you can stop talking about Kanye and Lil' Wayne as much as you do. And maybe impress a hipster chick who doesn't go to cocktail parties. Jeah.

The ep is on itunes, and only has a handful of songs. Kind of like the "Yeah Yeah Yeahs" and "The Strokes" before they blew. Not sure if they have that kind of upside in terms of notoriety/celebrity, but they have that kind of skill.

More fuel for your too-cool-for-blogs cachet: the name "Op Swamp 81" references some realness, and they describe their sound as a mix of :



and this:



now all you have to do is go find a mainstream dude on the street still talking about Gnarls Barkley, and blow their medulla oblongata with some style and substance.

Let Us Upgrade U

me and Gawk rolling like Bonnie and Clyde ... on the weekends, for a lil' while at least.

image via: kanye

Presenting iDaft: iBiggie, iEm, iWeezy Soon to Follow?

iDaft makes your laptop better faster stronger etc.

click on the pic. play with the sampler. rinse. wash. repeat.


lots of what we in the business call "Annoyance Upside" here, be sure to share the link with the kidz.

this is fun, but it's even funner to imagine all the songs you can lay out in samples on your iMPC3000-phone, i went with the recognizeable-hip-hop-names playlist, but how soon until your whole music library can be rendered into 16 pad samples? Good times, good times.

The Daily Beast Records, Featuring The Notorious John Forté

So yeah, that mean Tina Brown is Diddy.

You know we had to do a remix, right....

Ti-Na, come out and plaaaay-ayyyy ...

Exeter, Stand Up!!!

But like, for real tho, when I think about my own assimilated resume (Choate's first Obama, book that will shatter earth space time continuum, etc.) I talk to my imaginary Carlton friend -- assimilateds often have an imaginary Carltons, cause we're all Will Smith in our minds -- and I'm like, "yo Carlton, I was thinking about how my facebook profile would be even hotter if I, like, actually went to jail, and if I, like, didn't just rhyme but had real success as an emcee." Exeter, Fugees Credits, plus Jail, that's a perfect storm of hot-like-fire realness. That's like the TAN Trifecta: You want suit-and-tie sensibility, I got you. Oh, I got to rock this crowd in Brooklyn, wordemup. Oh, you want me to teach and talk to these kids on the street, I'm feeling that.

That's being strapped for the war ahead, no matter what happens. And that's Forté right now ...

John and I were in Prep 9 together, we were never ace-ace boom, but we were cool, and there's only like 25-30 of us. And Prep homeys are fairly tight and fraternity-like with ours; I always got a pound for a Prep dude, and vice versa. So I'd be interested in this story regardless, but I think there's probably more here since so many of us Preps have followed the same formula: go to prep school, do the college thing (with hit-or-miss achievement levels) and then step out, at least for a minute, to do some creative shit, most likely hip hop.

I'm getting a feeling with this current leveling-of-all-fields apocalypse going on, something like The Daily Beast Records is not necessarily far off from reality. Maybe this is the jumpoff right here, in which case regardless of your feelings about the song it's kind of hot just to realize how Forte's video on The Daily Beast is a kinda-sorta iconic snapshot of America in 2009 ...


John Forte "Runnin Up That Hill" from The ICU on Vimeo.

image via