crucial

Brooklyn 2006

NYC brooklyn HipHop

New York City is always a parody of itself, and its still developing its act. On the subway from the airport I get the crazy guy, blabbing away about God and Jesus (Jews are always so obsessed about Jesus) and how his mind isn't what it used to be hasn't been for a long time when you're 16 you are at your peak but now he sees double of everything. Some white sludge is starting to drip out of his teeth, and he's leaning over my bag. He learned latin in school, but now... The food drips out on to my bag. He has a brain tumor, he has the chance to have it removed but he won't do it; his father has given up trying to convince him. I let him have it finally: in Africa or India you would be dead ! you have the chance to have it removed, get it done, how dare you waste your good fortune ! But the part of him that makes the decision is the part that is rotted out. Soon the tumor will explode and he'll die. In the meantime he blabs at people on the train, occasionally gets arrested. He's polite though, he apologizes for blabbing and offers to move on so he doesn't annoy me too much. I don't mind‚— this is great tourism, and maybe he'll take my advice. Probably not. He'll die soon.

Coming in through Brooklyn on the A; a 40ish guy is talking to a slightly younger guy who he has just met. They are both MCs; modestly talking about projects they did, videos they were in, what they think about the rap game right now (its shallow), keeping the right attitude, enjoying music. "Yeah, I don't know everything," smiles the younger one. "I grew up around music with my family, you know back stage at The Jacksons in Madison Square Garden." They trade numbers.

As always the HipHop zombie crew are in effect: plugged into The Culture through iPod headphones, they rap out loud for the rest of us, blessed with that natural Brooklyn accent. "I was told to sign my checks..."

On the G at Classon (Fort Greene / Bed Stuy) a guy with brooklyn-hip-hop style dreads stuffed up in his cap sits flipping through Hip-Hop beats on his shiny white iBook, speakers blazing.

Links and things

I am timeblind on myspace. thanks for the add.

I am crucialfelix on del.icio.us which is where I link to all the interesting shit I come across.

I put my photos up on flickr

NYC events iCal : anything that looks good.

Berlin events (parties, shows, vernissage, films): subscribe to google calendar / iCal

When I listen to music at home it all gets echoed onto here and on my Last.fm page. Most of the time I don't use that cause I don't want you to see me obsessively listening to my own mixes, really bad working titles.

You can read some posts I thought were interesting from various feeds.

I've been doing the Dance Music Business Resource since 1995, back when it was on hyperreal.org. Articles and info for artists and small labels. Recently I've been posting interesting industry news items and adding some new content about downloads etc.