abode.

I'm back after somewhat of a hiatus. I've been writing on The Couch Sessions and The Glass House for a minute, but it's like staying in a really nice hotel for a couple of weeks--sometimes you just want your own rickety bed. Time's a tickin'. I have about approximately 29 days until med school begins. Right. I get to quit my job in 3 weeks, now that's why I'm stoked. Since I've been writing, reading everyone's blogs, I was thinking wow..should I go to med school? Then, I go out and realize that I don't really like the scene. I'm a writer at heart, music's a medium, but so are other things, esp. medicine. I write today b/c I was seeing a patient, 76 years old--her eyes were the size of a large worry. And rightly so, she was finding out about the status of her breast cancer, today, after seeing me. We talked, in my 1hr long interactions, I try to truly get to know the person. Today's 76 yr old, a former pianist and now a piano teacher, told me about her love for piano and teaching. So, I asked her--"how do you teach a person to not just play but to cultivate their own voice?" She said, no matter how long I've had a student, they've never heard me play. I will never do it. They are to read the page until they see their own intuition. Pretty dope, huh?

It felt good to get away, but it feels good to be back home.

Kanye Throwback: "Spaceship"

They finally released the video to Spaceship, off of Kanye's first album, College Dropout, my favorite track of his off that album and a lot others' favorite too.The video features GLC and Consequence. Thanks to ILL ROOTS and DCtoBC for posting the video. It made my day.

-k.scribe

The Stereotype Demos moves to YourFriendsMusic.com

Hi Everyone,

While I'll still be here writing music op-eds, ramblings etc. The StereoType Demos have moved to YOURFRIENDSMUSIC So surf on over and check out the latest episode, a hipster head banger, interlaced with hip hop.

YOURFRIENDSMUSIC has been around for a hot minute and features 3 other podcasts, heart beats weekly, red pandas for real!, and radiosinnation.

Hopefully, at this location more people can experience The StereoType Demos! Keep me bookedmarked also, here at The Prose..you know the rest.

peace,
kscribe

Pit full of Passion

Visiting home a week and some change ago, my friend plays a track by Passion Pit for me, and it completely shook me. So much, that I'm checking out their show on the 9th of June at the Black Cat (come with!). From what I hear, the new album Manners is the ill-nana. It's on this week's playlist, and look for something by them on the new podcast.

Here's one of the gazillion remixes to Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead."

Check out "Sleepyhead (Neo Tokyo Remix)."



I heart em'.

-kdotscribe

Mixtape Review--Kooley is High: Get lifted (lyrically, musically)

Kooley is High, Get lifted (lyrically, musically)

By: K.Scribe

“Arm strong like Lance my pen peddling/my Tour de France is a war of chance heard ‘til I’m touring France/And exploring foreign land/ bridging gaps, giving dap to foreign fans/exchange cash for the raps I’m pouring in/ to the beat so sweet like iced tea/ down south North Carolina a slight breeze.” -“Day Keeper,” Tab-One of Kooley High

And that’s just it. Kooley High is to listeners what sweet tea is to an estranged southerner returning home. As if we needed proof that urban soil doesn’t grow all muses, the six member group hails from the Raleigh, North Carolina. Tab-One, Charlie Smarts, Rapsody, Foolery (producer), Sinopsis (producer), and DJ ill Digitz are the voices and hands crafting the sound. The result is a composition dipped in the roots of 90’s boom bap, along with jazz, soul, annotated with a mellow southern drawl. The mixtape, Kooley is High, dawns several remixes that music fiends know and love, and offering a platform for Kooley to really transform into emcee-poets.

In the title track, “Kooley is High” DJ ill Digitz and producers, Sinopsis and Foolery use a score that captures the essence of the new cool—a confident, intelligent way of seeing sound and emanating poetry. This blending is definitely the pattern and not the exception for the mixtape. It’s evident that these six not only love what they do, but love doing it together. Thus, creating a progeny of tracks that reflect growth, passion, talent, and hard work. Giving props to those who inspire them, you’ll hear references to Tribe Called Quest, Talib Kweli, Thelonius Monk, J Dilla, Common, both verbally and musically.

Listen for the tone setting track, Kooley High’s remix of The Foreign Exchange’s “Daykeeper.” Already equipped with a beat that stirs the soul, Kooley High delivers wordplay that matches the song’s steeping intensity. What’s more is they perfect the art of storytelling in this track, not by telling, but showing listeners the difficulty of the path that is chosen through a series of powerful lyrical deliveries by Tab-One, Smarts, and Rapsody. Kooley is careful to let open ears know that this challenge is met with a wit and depth fit for warring with obstacles. As evidenced in Smart’s verse,

And I will do all nighters to make my songs tighter than what y’all writing to make them broads light up../They say to make benjamins improve your producin’/then maybe then you’ll move in more units/I’m a friend with a pen for those who go through it. I grinned every since, my cents I throw two in.

The third emcee, Rapsody, continues to reinforce Kooley’s presence by easing her verse into the sound with,
Cause when the day is gone your favorite song on repeat will still be standing here like docks on the beach/can’t peace us good-bye we are so out of reach/Y’all kindergarten children/we are who professors teach/so each one turn your stereos up/and each one turn your stereos up.
Kooley High’s realness cannot be denied, as Smarts tells us in “Daykeeper,” I said we’re the future face it/It ain’t no fakin in the statements that we makin.

Perhaps this is true because something sustaining stays with you after hearing Kooley’s music because they stimulate more than the hip hop head bob (as if it needed to do more). It also begs us to listen to our own dreams and act to make them reality. So, make room for Kooley High on your iPods and your consciouness, because in the transient culture of music, Kooley High offers immediate relief, much like the way summer breezes and sweet tea rescue us from southern heat.

Additional Tracks to Listen for:
“Flow Glow” (Kooley High Remix)
“Getting Up” (remix)
“Soldier” (Kooley High Remix)
Jacques Costeau
“Due Process” (Kooley High Remix)
“G Building” (Foolery Kooley High Remix)
..basically the whole tape, on repeat.

DL it here.

-k.scribe
Keeping the pen bleeding and the cursor blinking…

Sound's Labyrinth.

My first electronic music cd was given to me by a good friend, JN/DJ Personify, we worked for the entomology lab at our University, picking bugs out petri dishes and he'd bring in his stack of mixes and the hours would pass just the way that time should--with a soundtrack. He passed these mixes on to me and though I didn't know the names to most (the permanent marker betrayed its name and eventually faded under the pressure of heat and thumbs)I remember those songs by heart. Such entropy. Such order. Such elation. Such melancholy. So me. Some wordless, some with lyrical snippets, but all able to express emotions that I'd always found so hard to release. I fell in love with it for all of those reasons. Those cd's are still in my drawer, but they're a mound of scratches. There's this one song that I ache to hear at least once a day, it's a heavy drum beat, and the lyric "Is there anybody, [that's] ever learned to share? Never had to teach it." Can't find it anywhere, and google's keeping it's lips closed. If you know it, tell me and I'll pay a heavy price for it (in cents!).

It's with that introduction that I'd like reccomend this documentary (as I'm a lover of docs anyways) Speaking in Code. It's the official selection of the Independent Film Festival of Boston. It highlights techno, which I've actually grown away from, but a good story is a good story, so spend some cheese on it. Not sure if POC were in the film, b/c you know we're part of the movement, fa sho. Additionally, I don't knwo when/if it's coming to DC, but I'm considering trying to get them to come screen it down here. It'd be dope, right? The website writes, "Speaking in Code is an intimate account of people who are completely lost in music."

Raise your hand if that's you, too. Keep em' high.

Still not convinced check the video (true).



audi5k,
kdotscribe

A little late, but I have a weakness for Phoenix. This is a track "Lisztomania" plucked from their album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, clever name for a clever band. It's a reference to that German conductor guy, Liszt.

k.scribe

The StereoType Demos, Episode 2: Music for Transitions

Here's Episode 2 folks, and I'm really excited about the way this one turned out, let me know your thoughts.





The StereoType Demos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.



Kelis feat. Andre 3000-Millionare [Tasty, 2003]

Lykke Li-Little Bit [Youth Novels, 2008]

Dizee Rascal feat. Vanya-Get By [Showtime, 2004]

Bjork-Desired Constellation [Medulla, 2004]

Erlend Oye/Jurgen Paape - So Weit Wie Noch Nie [DJ Kicks, 2004]

First Time-Diamond District [In the Ruff, 2009]

The Avalanches-Tonight [Since I Left You, 2000]

XO, Marky, Ra The MC-Practice Your Art [Us Vs Them, 2008]

Hot Chip-The Warning [The Warning, 2006]

The Five One-R3valulion [2009]

Nyle-Let the Beat Build [2009]

Telepopmusik-Breathe, Extended Mix [Genetic World, 2006]

Cool Kids-Broadcasting Live [Gone Fishing, 2009]


To download click here.

*Thanks to those who let me use their tracks! For those of you who I couldn't get in touch with and you want me to take it down, let me know that too!*

She Said-He Said.

FF Cypher 5.9.09: Tanya Morgan x Kenn Starr x Oddisee from jben.ok on Vimeo.

T.Morgan saucing up the mic with Kenn Starr and Oddisee (The Diamond District).

I love these fellas, they make me want to write masterpieces--sometimes only a sentence. Check out hip hop dx's feature on them, as well as one from The Couch Sessions.

Play it at work, write about it, b/c as Aesop Rock says, "we the American working population hate the fact that 8hrs a day is wasted on chasing the dream of someone that isn't us. We may not hate our jobs, but we hate jobs in general that don't have to do with fighting our own causes." When your boss walks by to see what all that "noise" is, just say, "Tanya Morgan, what," plus the screw face. Next week, he'll ask you to burn him a cd. 

soak up some sun,

-k.scribe

Feast Your Ears/Eyes on This.

One Day - Introducing Kooley High from BECAUSEUS on Vimeo.

Kooley High. DL the mixtape. Stay tuned for a review.

-kdotscribe

Knee Deep in Sound

I'm in the process of making Episode 2 of The StereoType Demos, and it's going to be my best yet. Transitions will be tighter and some have suggested that I should add more commentary (you know who you are). The process is pretty healing--I'm in the basement of the library, a dark room with mac monitors, mixer, and an external hard drive trying to string together music-thoughts. Seeing what works and what doesn't. No one can reach me and I don't sign into my e-mail. My first episode taught me so much and I feel like I'm ahead of the game. At any rate, in this dark room, adding & subtracting, I feel pretty happy. Just thought I'd let y'all know.

Yes.

"And it is unspeakably difficult to be a poet in a language that is hostile to your existence."-Jelani Cobb

Still, I write.

Coolest Moment of Today (4/25)

I'm riding by on my bike today, extra cool-like, right? I'm moving at a snail's pace b/c I haven't quite gotten my pre-flu strength back. So, I look over and see this old guy waving fiercely at the sky. I laugh..and look up, only to see Obama's helicopters, making their way across DC's spring sky.
I stopped and waved, too.

-kw

The StereoType Demos: Episode 1

The StereoType Demos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Episode 1:
Features recycled tracks, aka my music library staples. Newer stuff to come!

Peter Bjorn and John, Feat. Victoria Bergsman-Young Folks- (Diplo Youngest Folks Remix) [2009]

Broken Social Scene- 7/4 (Shoreline) [Broken Social Scene, Single 2006]

The Faunts-Memories of Places We've Never Been [High Expectations/Low Results, 2005]

Aphex Twin-Xtal [Selected Ambient Works 85-92, 1993]

Cee-Lo Green- Evening News [Cee-Lo Green ... is the Soul Machine, 2003]

Her Space Holiday-The Young Machines [The Young Machines, 2003]

Calm (via Nik Weston)-Dubbing For The Nature #2 Waltz for the Virgin Forest [Sakura Aural Bliss, 2003]

Moby- Another Woman [18, 2002]

Kings of Convenience-Know How [Riot in an Empty Street, 2004]

Final Fantasy-Library [Has a Good Home, 2005]

Erykah Badu-Telephone [New Amerykah, Pt 1: 4th World War, 2008]


To Download:
http://www.divshare.com/download/7176088-314

The StereoType Demos

It's arrived. After hours of procrastination by re-doing the intro 1000x (really), I've finished The StereoType Demos. The name is borne out of some adolescent and young adult ish when I got these hurtful responses to my music taste--"why do you listen to white people's music?" or "you're not like other black people." In effect, I was labeled "less black" because of this curiousity. In effect, I felt trapped within the confines of stereotypes and was so embarrassed that I adored the Counting Crows or The Ghetto Boys. (Now of course, there are race/class politics shaping my taste of music, but I don't want to go into it here. We can talk about it in person.)

On my podcast, you'll hear snatches of music from a few different genres. However, they all converge to create sounds that speak to me in a particular way. The making of this podcast has been extremely liberating (but terrifying) and I'm working through "my stuff" in creating it.

I really dislike it when someone takes credit for "putting you on" to different artists--I like to think that music finds a way into a life in a more poetic way than that.
With that being said, big ups to all of my friends who slipped me mixed cd's along the way or dropped some on my hard drives. From time to time, you may hear song that are familiar to you. They are blessings, really. Some of these tracks have become as good of friends as you are to me.

Tat-Tat Tatt'd up

A wonderful friend of mine shared a poem with me this weekend. As I prepare/anticipate/freak out about the start of school in the fall, I need a bit of something to hold onto before the whirlwind starts. It was a great sedative for my anxiety about losing me in the midst of books, grades, and pace. Also, I read somewhere that Maya Angelou told her son once, when he was young, to find a poem, lock it within and it would get you through...This is going tobe mine.

The Blue Star

"Show me the place," he said.

I removed my shirt and pointed

to a tiny star above my heart.

He leaned and listened. I could feel

his breath falling lightly, flattening

the hairs on my chest. He turned

me around, and his hands gently

plied my shoulder blades and then rose

to knead the twin columns forming

my neck, "You are an athelete?"

"No," I said, "I'm a working man."

"And you make?" he said. "I make

the glare for light bulbs." "Yes,

where would we be without them?"

"In the dark." I hear the starched

dress of the nurse behind me,

and then together they helped me

lie face up on his table, where blind

and helpless I thought of all

the men and women who had surrendered

and how little good it had done them.

The nurse took my right wrist

in her strong hands, and I saw the doctor lean toward me,

a tiny chrome knife glinting in

one hand and tweezers in the other.

I could feel nothing, and then he said

proudly, "I have it!" and held up

the perfect little blue star, no longer me and now bloodless. "And do

you know what we have under it?""No," I said. "Another perfect star."

I closed my eyes, but the lights

still swam before me in a sea of golden fire. "What does it mean?"

"Mean?" he said, dabbing the place

with something cool and liquid,

and all the lights were blinking on

and off, or perhaps my eyes were

opening and closing. "Mean?" He said,

"It could mean this is who you are."

-Philip Levine

Following the poem, the author (not Levine) wrote of a friend who was about to start medical school and how she was goint to get the blue star mentioned in the Levine poem, b/c she too was an artist, poet to be exact, and feared just as I do, losing that self. How apt, right? The author argued with his friend, didn't understand why she'd do such a thing, as she'd be changed by this experience, and later might even be embarassed of the tatoo. She met his comments with her own, saying (something like) if she was in fact embarassed, years later when she saw the tattoo..then she should be b/c she never wanted to forget that she is an artist.

So this all inspired me to get a tattoo before school starts. It's too coincidental to not be the universe dropping hints. I think I know what it'll be, but where and when are undecided details. I'll keep you all posted--and will drop pics also.

The music's got my tongue:

via videosift.com

Today's been one of those days where I hide behind my noise cancelling head phones and dare my officemates to speak to me. So in between working, I've been surfing and came upon one of my loves, DJ Shadow's (Joshua Davis) Midnight In a Perfect World. There are so many types of DJ's out here, and he's the serious type. He's basically like a neonatal cardiac surgeon when it comes to suturing samples. This track is off his album Endtroducing, just a beautiful piece of music, each track flows into one another as if we're witnessing the path of water and the earth it takes with it. Whenever I hear his music, I get the feeling that this is pretty close to truth for him and those who love his music. Digest y'all.

A fix.

Tonight, I stepped out of Border's feeling quite powerful--you see, I just bought my own copy of The Souls of Black Folks, and with the weather just cold enough to keep my senses open, I finally heard Radiohead's, All I Need. (Not as it relates to their valiant yet poor attempt to depict white privelage in their video.) The song's intro, a build-up, the calculated advance of a lover. The song progresses this way, picking up speed until the last 40 sec. of the track. It's like
being f-cked, and not being able to think--just crave, thirst, and need in a desperate, but beautiful way. All at once you cross over into this grey area of something feral and something tame. One threatening to surrender, while the other is threatening to escape. And once you get "it" whatever your "it" may be, it is all you need. However, does this satisfaction mean that your senses won't go searching for it again? For me it doesn't. And Yorke manifests this same feelings in his vocals. In short peeps, it's a dope track. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I'm a Radiohead junkie that's addicted to "enough. "

my mic sounds nice. (check one)

I'm resurfacing, never fear! I'm putting the finishing touches (vocals) on the podcast. At least the sound of my own voice isn't repulsive, anymore. I shall return. Most importantly, the podcast has a name "Spoke." More on that soon!

-kw

Todays' dose of pain

Because, I'm all about research.. I signed up to be a part of this study where they basically want to see if exercising to the beat of music 1) makes working out more enjoyable and 2) gets you in better shape, physiologically. It sounded great at first, a personal trainer, free pulse hardware, fancy pedometer, mp3 player on loan. That is..UNTIL I heard the music selection. Of course white people are running the story, and the Principal Investigator says to me in his most polite voice, "We have a REAL diverse set of music on here. I'm sure you'll like it." There is so much f'in Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Reba M., and basically ish that does not make me want to work out on this Sandisk. They have 2 Outkast songs on the damn thing and I'm supposed to go crazy?? Rrrright. So, today, I'm taking a stand. I'm going back to my own iPod. Rhythm doesn't mean anything unless it's one you like.

I'll give anyone a blog shout out if they can tell me the other 5 artists of color that appeared on the Work-Out SanDisk MP3 player.

-kw

Rebirth of Soul

This is NOT a blog about music. This is a blog about the way in which a life, my life, finds rhythm-- whether it’s in writing, colors, sounds, or silence.
Back to blogging after a hiatus that involved a marriage to a process that’s been paused until I get a decision letter. I’ve probably been doing other shit, too, but that’s too boring to write about. For those of you who only know today’s me.
Past:
(Playback) I was conceived by the rhythm of hips, in a vehicle, on some God’s church ground. Radio on or off? Still there was rhythm. Grew up listening to vinyl voices, horns, and skips. My dad never let me touch them, not even the covers. If music was playing on Sunday morning, then everything was okay. Until the next thing happened. Made Sony rich on walk/disc-mans. Recorded music off the tv (I can remember my little brother’s 3 year old self ruining a perfect recording, by coming into our room/studio and asking for something, juice, probably). Bought my first tape, Ghetto Boys. Got in trouble for scratching my grandmother’s gospel record (trying to be a DJ—they made it look so easy) on her new record player, lied about it for 10 years and finally came clean before she died. MP3 age hit—Napster. CD-Burners. Became a playlist fiend—even had one titled, “Walking.” Age 27, found my dad’s records, unguarded and took the ones I wanted, because they make me think of the time when I knew him best. I don’t even own a record player.
FFWD
Presentish:
Ate. Issued heartaches, but one mended. Slept. Gained and lost friends. Fell in love/got a bed/moved in with her/got a joint banking account—found one kind of rhythm. Cut off my locs/got a mohawk. Was a victim of bike theft. Applied to med school. Got a new iPod. Read, A LOT.
Music is still a constant in my life, which is a good thing, but could be a better thing. I realized that about 75% of my music collection is the same as it’s been for the last four years. This basically means that my iPod has been on repeat even while shuffling. In the past couple of months, I’ve felt the thirst growing for new sounds and voices that have not coursed through my headphones wires before. While I resided in libraries all over the city, music was being born, dying, and resurrecting itself (even if only to become the same thing all over again). Without the MCAT to serve as an excuse, what remains to prevent me from becoming a part of the dialogue of rhythm? Nothing. Hence, the blog.
Future:
Birth of a podcast. New soundtracks to live by. I repeat: This is NOT a blog about music. This is a blog about the way in which a life, my life, finds rhythm-- whether it’s in writing, colors, sounds, or silence.