DJ Premier Keith "Guru" Elam Tribute Mix

Rest in Power GURU. Your work is a living legacy and testament to your life. Miss Info also uploaded Mister Cee's tribute he did on Hot97. You can download it here.

Keith "Guru" Elam Tribute Mix by DJ Premier Blog Radio on Mixcloud

This Weekend: Hester Street Fair

Yay! Its finally here! Suchin Pak's Hester Street Fair is finally touching down this weekend in the LES/Chinatown. An Choi, Frank's Chop Shop, Sigmund Pretzels and more will be dishing out snacks while the folks behind Gargyle, Devotte and my besties will be slingin' vintage finds. Come by and support the ladies of ADA&IVY!!!

Trains, Planes and Bicycle-mobiles...

Check out NONSTOP Suzette Lee's stellar debut! Its an ode to being on-the-go in the city that never sleeps.

NONSTOP from SML on Vimeo.

King of Spring

King of Spring 2010 from Kellen Dengler on Vimeo.

Check out the homie kellen's recap of yesterday's King of Spring competition for Mighty Healthy!!

Iraq is Flying

Beautiful shots from Iraqi photographer Jamal Penjweny. Check the full set of images here. Thanks Randa!
Iraq is Flying
Jamal Penjweny/ Iraq 2006, 2009
Jumping was my dream when I was a child. I wanted to fly through a highest jump to watch my house and the road from the sky and to see the entire city where I was born. It never happened! I had no chance to have a flight by airplane even once in my childhood. Now! I can see my city and even all Iraq from the tiny window of the airplane, but everything looks different.

Mr. Softee In China

Im not a huge fan of Mr. Softee but it is one of those things that seems quintessentially New York. The NYTimes reports that they're expanding their powdery cold empire into China, land of the lactose intolerant. Read the whole article here.

For more than half a century, Mr. Softee has been as synonymous with New York summers as open fire hydrants, its blue and white trucks and instantly recognizable jingle luring children throughout the city, from Washington Heights to Coney Island.

New York being a tough town, Mr. Softee has also endured its share of bumps and bruises. It has fought about noise with the city, which no longer allows Mr. Softee trucks to play their jingle while parked.

The company hired private detectives to spy on Mr. Softee impersonators, and Mr. Softee drivers have gotten into verbal and even hand-to-hand battle with rival ice cream vendors.

Along the way, this quintessential New York institution has pursued an unlikely road to globalization...

"It happened almost by accident. An American working as an English teacher was walking around the streets of the city where he taught and noticed a deluge of American fast food franchises, but found nothing resembling the kind of soft-serve ice cream that his college roommate’s family had turned into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

And that’s how Mr. Softee went to China.

Now this staple of New York City life is being served 7,000 miles away, on the streets of Suzhou, an ancient city of more than six million people about 50 miles west of Shanghai. Mr. Softee or Mr. Soft Heart, the English translation of “ruan xin xian sheng” — there is no Mandarin word for Softee — has been a hit, with sales doubling every year since the first truck started rolling three years ago...

"Customers like Meng Xiangbo, 19, a college student, have proved Mr. Conway right. He is a regular customer of the Mr. Softee truck that peddles its treats in Suzhou’s university district.

One recent balmy afternoon, Mr. Meng ordered a kiwi sundae.

“They have six flavors,” he said of the sundaes. “I eat a different one every day. On Sunday, I rest.”

DJ Eleven x Devin the Dude

DJ Eleven x Devin the Dude. Cant get much better than this. Cop Devin's new album dropping next week, "Suite 420." Download here for your listening pleasure!!

The Dude
It's A Shame feat. Pooh Bear
Ain't That A B-tch feat. UGK
F-ck Faces feat. Scarface & Too $hort
I Don't Chase Em feat. Snoop Dogg
Thinkin' Boutchu
I Can't Make It Home
Where Can We Go
Fa Sho (P-ssy) feat. The Odd Squad
Your P-ssy's Like Dope feat. The Odd Squad
Just A Man feat. Raphael Saadiq
Baby Phat feat. De La Soul
Dime A Dozen feat. CoughEE Brothaz
She Useta Be
What A Job feat. Andre 3000
F-ck You feat. Snoop Dogg
R & B (Reefer & Beer)
Whatever
Too Cute feat. Erica Morton
The Mule feat. Z-Ro
Southside: Houston Texas feat. Scarface
Back Up Plan feat. Chamillionaire
4 O'Clock In Da Morning feat. Mddl Fngz & Bun B
Lacville '79
Doobie Ashtray
Sticky Green feat. Scarface
Do Whatcha Wanna Do
Anythang

7000 Words

One of my favorite photographers of all time, Sue Kwon, is featuring her work on 7000WORDS.com, a website devoted to showcasing an image a day from a stellar cast of contemporary visual artists including Peter Dean Rickards, Brent Rollins, Alessandro Zuek Simonetti, Shaniqwa Jarvis, and David Perez Shadi. Love today's photograph shown above!!

Erykah Badu:: Return of the Ankh

Erykah Badu is one of my favorite artists, an inspiration in her life and music. Listening to her newest album, New Amerykah: Return of the Ankh, it really reminds me of her early work. The roots of the album draw from Baduizm and the pacing and vibe really make me nostalgic for the late '90s. Check the video for Window Seat, her first single off Return of the Ankh below. Like most politically minded work it's been labeled "controversial" in the press.

Jean Nouvel in the Desert

Nicolai Oroussoff has a beautiful piece in today's NYTimes about Jean Nouvel's new National Museum of Qatar. Read the full article here.

Few architects have invested more time trying to bridge the gap between the high-tech aesthetics of the West and the traditions of the Middle East than Jean Nouvel.

His design for the Arab World Institute in Paris in 1987 was dominated by mechanical, light-regulating apertures arranged in a pattern that evoked Islamic motifs. A planned branch of the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi will be shaded by a gigantic dome that turns its grounds into a kind of oasis. And workers are putting the final touches on an office tower in Doha, Qatar, that is sheathed in aluminum latticework and capped by a filigreed, mosquelike dome.

But Mr. Nouvel’s design for the National Museum of Qatar, scheduled to be unveiled on Tuesday at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, may be that French architect’s most overtly poetic act of cultural synthesis yet. One of a number of major museum projects in Doha, including I. M. Pei’s year-old Museum of Islamic Art, it is part of a government push to encourage the exchange of cultural traffic — between East and West, tradition and modernity — after many years in which it seemed to move only one way. Every level of Mr. Nouvel’s project, from its materials to its dominant forms to its sprawling layout, reflects a richly imaginative effort to retain a connection to the fading world of the Bedouins from which modern Qatar sprang, while also embracing the realities of a rapidly urbanizing society.

ESPO's Love Letter for You

A Love Letter for You is an amazing collaboration headed up by Steve Powers aka ESPO and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Over 40 local and international artists participated in the project to paint a love letter to Powers' hometown on the walls facing the Market elevated train. I love the way this public art project encompasses so much community-focused programming including a hand-painted signs workshop for businesses on Market Street!! Awesome!

The project will encompass 50 painted walls between 63rd and 45th street on Market Street, a documentary film with scripted elements, a sign school and shop that will provide training for area youth and free signage for businesses on the market street corridor, and 2 books documenting the project. One of the books will be a small paperback that will be distributed to area businesses free of charge, for them to sell to visitors. The other book will be a larger hardcover book that will document not only the artwork, but the neighborhood and the inspirations of the Love Letter Project.

Baloji in Kinshasa

Shot in the streets of Kinshasa, site of Muhammad Ali's legendary 'Rumble in the Jungle', Karibu Ya Bintou ("Welcome to Life in Limbo") is a short film with music from the 2010 album 'Kinshasa Succursale' by Baloji.
Dope Congolese artist Baloji's new single featuring the Congolese likembe (thumb piano) group Konono no. 1! Skeleton body suits, Kinshasa wrestling, and some awesome style looks. Thanks Blk Jks!

Vietnamese New Wave Party

Growing up in Houston in the 80s you couldnt be chinese and not jam out to synthpop -- that special in-between genre combining top 40, electronic, and british angst lyrics. New Order, Erasure, Depeche Mode and Anything Box. The hair was big, the makeup was serious and the fashion was out of control! It looks like some Vietnamese kids from the group Keep on Music in LA are reviving the moment with an 80s revival costume party coming up on March 27th. The folks at Amoeba did a great interview with even better pictures. Check out the full coverage here. It really took me back to riding shotgun in a dropped Integra on my way to Rainbow Karaoke on Bellaire.

Thanks Catzie and Julie for the Lynda Dai shout!!!

Hoodie Heaven

I love the japanese carry-all cloths, furoshiki, and now the folks from Conceptual Devices have created the project, Just Undo It. Transform your hoodie from pull-over to backpack, computer case, or baby hammock with a few easy steps! thanks SwissMiss!

A hoodie is not just a hoodie. In a world full of stuff, smart items should be transformable, editable. They should engage the possibility to be transformed into something else. We do not need a new object. We rather need to get rid of some of them, to reduce the complex network of things around us. Just undo it is a collection of reversible objects that could be made from a hoodie at no cost.

Cultist Shop Friends and Fam Sale

Check out the great selection at Cultist in LA this weekend!!!

Brent Rollins is Badass

I was super excited to hear that TheRapUp just posted an interview with the talented designer and artist Brent Rollins. You might know some of his work through Ego Trip and on the album covers of your favorite hip hop artists. Check out the full interview here.

If you’ve bought any good hip hop albums in the last 15 years, chances are you have some work by Brent Rollins sitting in your collection right now. Rollins is the design mastermind behind classic album covers by the likes of Gang Starr, Blackalicious and Black Star. His most recent work was the album packaging for Freeway & Jake One’s Stimulus Package LP.

We sat down with the man to find out about the difference between working for majors versus independent labels and his design aesthetics. And who’s that kid wearing orange socks on Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ film poster?

Francis Lam Hearts Biggie

On the anniversary of Biggie's death, one of my favorite food writers Francis Lam connects the dots between hip hop and food.

I didn't think much of Biggie Smalls while he was alive. He had a few hits, he had ridiculous sunglasses, he was the opposite of a handsome man and he rapped about his girl-stealing suavity with a mushy mouth. But after he died, after I wondered why there were marches in the street for him, after my friend Eric handed me a cassette with the words "Best of Big" scrawled on the label, I came to love him, in that way where the best artists become, you hope, a part of you. He rapped about the life of a street hustler-turned-playboy, about blunts and broads and sex in expensive cars, but along the way he taught me who I would be as a writer on food.

A collection of Biggie's finest food rhymes

Biggie was a funny man, and he mastered the silliness of sex and food. Back to "Juicy":

The Moet and Alizé keep me pissy
Girls used to diss me
Now they write letters 'cause they miss me
I never thought it could happen, this rappin' stuff
I was too used to packin' gats and stuff
Now honies play me close like butter played toast
From the Mississippi down to the East Coast

And he built a legacy in masterpieces of carnal seduction like "Big Poppa":

We can rendezvous at the bar around two.
Plans to leave, throw the keys to Lil' Cease.
Pull the truck up front and roll up the next blunt,
So we can steam on the way to the telly. Go fill my belly –
A T-bone steak, cheese eggs and Welch's grape.
Conversate for a few, 'cause in a few, we gon' do what we came to do.
Ain't that right, Boo? (True.)

I mean, if he can make your girl leave you for that level of romance, what couldn't he do? Outside of sex appeal (when "b**ches used to go, 'Ewww!'") Biggie also rapped often about his fabulous wealth, invoking culinary luxuries, like here, in "Hypnotize":

I can fill ya wit real millionaire shit: escargot.
My car go
160, swiftly. Wreck it, buy a new one –
Your crew run run run; your crew run run.

And just imagine him, all 300-plus pounds, lazy eye and top hat, rollin' through his English gardens, contemplating seafood as he does in "I Love the Dough":

Country house, tennis courts, and horseback
Ridin', decidin': cracked crab or lobster?
Who says mobsters don't prosper?


Read the full post here.

BLK JKS Album of the Year

The BLK JKS' debut album, After Robots, has been nominated for the South African Music Awards album of the year! Congrats!!!!! Check out their video for Molalatladi below.

Vajazzling your Vajayjay

Who knew you could vajazzle your vajayjay? Thanks for the heads up Catzie!

Ashkahn Show!!!

For all my LA heads, this show is not to be missed!

YOU FORGOT THIS ON THE WAY OUT
New Prints & Things By ASHKAHN

Saturday, March 13th
7-10PM

Flock Shop
943 N. Broadway #103
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Village Voice Choice Eats

The folks over at the Village Voice are bringing together over 50 of the cities most diverse and delicious restaurants together for a food extravaganza in the third annual Choice Eats Tasting Event!! Some of my favorite restaurants including the homies from An Choi, Mantao Chinese Sandwiches, Pinche Taqueria and Kuma Inn will be dishing a selection from their menus. Check the full list of participants here!

The Village Voice’s Third Annual Choice Eats

Monday March 22, 2010 6:30 - 9:30pm
The 69th Armory at Lexington Avenue
68 Lexington Ave @ 26th Street, NYC

Featuring eclectic culinary favorites of resident food critics, Robert Sietsema and Sarah DiGregorio, The Village Voice is proud to present our third annual curated Choice Eats tasting event. Handpicked restaurants from all five boroughs featured in the Fork in the Road and Counter Culture columns are represented, along with complimentary craft beer pairings, wine and liquor beverages.

Ask Lee a Question

Lee Quinones, amazing artist and friend, is being featured on NYTimes' City Blog this week! Ask him a question and he'll be responding here!

This week, Lee Quiñones, an artist who emerged from the subway art movement of the 1970s, will be responding to readers’ questions about his life, work and the evolution of graffiti as art in New York City.

Phantogram

I've been feeling super nostalgic for the days of trip hop recently. It might be the weather, it might just be that time, but my old Portishead, Massive Attack and Morcheeba albums sound completely on point. I just downloaded the Winter Mix from Chirp, a seasonal "mixtape" put out by Kevin Byrd and Co. Each quarter he gets a homie to design a cover for his compilation. I jam out on it on the regular. I was psyched to discover Phantogram, a duo comprised of Sarah Barthel and Joshua Carter from Saratoga Springs, NY. Their part of the Ghostly International family and I loved the record As Far As I Can See from their debut album, Eyelid Movies.

Documentary Fortnight @ MoMA

With the blizzard outside, what better time to head inside and check some art and film. This is the last weekend to catch some of the amazing documentary films on view through MoMA's Documentary Fortnight program. Established in 2001, this annual event brings some of the world's most compelling non-fiction stories to NYC. The dynamic programming covers stories big and small ranging from the housing market in Williamsburg Brooklyn to the amazing collection of Western masterworks housed at Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art (see below). Check out the full program here and a selection from a series of films focused on Iran that are screening on Saturday.


The Treasure Cave
2009. Iran. Directed by Bahman Kiarostami. Residing under one of the most vehemently anti-Western governments in the world, Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art possesses a treasure trove of masterworks that—virtually unseen for all but a few of the last three decades—are all but forgotten outside knowledgeable art circles. The film recounts the history of a museum that, despite possessing the most extensive collection of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western art outside the West, has been transformed into a place for honoring the martyrs of the revolution and Iran/Iraq war. In Farsi; English subtitles. 43 min.

Statues of Tehran
2008. Iran. Directed by Bahman Kiarostami. Statues of Tehran provides a brief overview of sculpture in Iran’s capital city, with a focus on two works. One of the first modern works to be erected in Tehran was created in the 1970s by Bahman Mohassess for what was then the Royal Family. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, the city’s public displays were limited to revolutionary and ideological works, and Mohassess’s sculpture was destined to disintegration and storage. In contrast, Iraj Esskandari’s statue in Enghelab (Revolution) Circus has been standing in a prominent location of Tehran for the last twenty-seven years, a symbol of the revolution and the war. Now this statue is set to be dismantled and replaced by a subway station. Presented by Howard Weinberg, President, New York Film/Video Council, in collaboration with the New York Film/Video Council. This program is supported by the E Ike Eshagian Foundation. In Farsi; English subtitles. 60 min.

Saturday, February 27, 2010, 4:00 p.m. , Theater 1, T1 (U.S. premieres. Followed by discussion with Bahman Kiarostami)

Act of God @ HSNY

Act of God is a feature documentary about the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning. The event represents the paradox of being singled out by randomness, and so precipitates questions about chance, fate and meaning in life. The film explores seven stories from around the world that raise and respond to these questions, while keeping the sky and what comes out of it as a central visual metaphor and thread. Paul Auster, who was struck as a teenager, philosophically anchors the film, along with Fred Frith, the improviser, who both imaginatively underpins it and personally demonstrates the ubiquity of electricity in our bodies and the universe.

Thursday, 2/25
Horticultural Society of New York
148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor
Doors open at 6pm; film starts promptly at 6:30pm
Refreshments served
RSVP via email at hsny@hsny.org or call (212)757-0915 x115

todo el mundo - everybody everybody

Todo El Mundo (Everybody Everybody) (Original Version) Ricky y Nelson Proyecto Uno 1991 PNP Records Merengue version of Black Box's classic house track oww!

Photoshop Cooks

A video made in stopmotion for competition AdobeYouGC. What if you could use photoshop to whip up cookies instead of images?

Watching

USPS Automated Postal Center

Topping the list of folks' most dreaded errands is probably a trip to the Post Office. Long lines, unfriendly counter ladies, and screaming kids make the absurd waiting times nearly unbearable. I was anticipating a pretty long afternoon at my local post office when i was overjoyed to discover a newly installed USPS Automated Postal Center. They were rolled out in select locations last year but i hadnt encountered one until today. The process is as straightforward as buying a Metrocard or Self-Check kiosks at the airport cutting my wait time down from a 20+ person lineup to about 2 minutes start to finish. Kudos to whoever spearheaded this effort to bring our postal system into the 21st century.

Food Print NYC Mini Conference

Foodprint NYC is the first in a series of international conversations about food and the city. From a cluster analysis of bodega inventories to the cultural impact of the ice-box, and from food deserts to peak phosphorus, panelists will examine the hidden corsetry that gives shape to urban foodscapes, and collaboratively speculate on how to feed New York in the future. The free afternoon program will include designers, policy-makers, flavor scientists, culinary historians, food retailers, and others, for a wide-ranging discussion of New York’s food systems, past and present, as well as opportunities to transform our edible landscape through technology, architecture, legislation, and education.

Date: Saturday, February 27

Time: 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Location: Studio-X (180 Varick St., Suite 1610, New York, NY 10014)

Free and open to the public