News & Events, December '04

Conversations

"Hands on the vinyl, ears to the bass­--eyes on the room. Rakim, Memphis Bleek, Arvo Part, Common's Resurrection; what they want to hear­not as they know it . . . not in the same body, or speaking the same language as before. Sound layered over intonation­--something familiar constructed from scratched vowels and stretched notes . . . a simple change in rhythm creating ducts of conversation. DJs are architects too­build rooms for people to walk around in, rooms inside of rooms­--walls colliding into walls." An excerpt from Asphalt, Carl Hancock Rux's new novel.

"Do culture and memory really matter in a time where we are told the most prudent step the best minds of this generation can take is to go into business?" asks South African writer Khulile Nxumalo.

Tunde Giwa and Howard French remember the Black Prez and his Republic.

"The first time I performed at the Afrika Shrine, they actually tried to silence me with jeers and boos. Femi Kuti and Dele Sosimi informed me that this was what I should expect delivering a new style and that I should keep at it." A conversation with 'Afrobeat poet' Ikwunga Wonodi.