Adam Neely video on rap covers

I have been enjoying Adam Neely’s videos for a few years, so it was pretty exciting when he asked me to help out with his recent examination of white supremacy and music theory. It was even more exciting when he invited me to do an interview on the problem of the white rap cover. See …

Toni Blackman interview remix – What is hip-hop education?

For my dissertation on hip-hop educators, I’m creating a mixtape of remixed interviews with my research participants. Here I talk through the process of remixing an interview with Toni Blackman that I recorded on August 20, 2020 in Prospect Park. The remix is made from the eighteen most interesting/pertinent/relevant minutes of an hour and a …

Flava In Ya Ear

It is my duty as a hipster dad to introduce my kids to all the classics of 90s rap, and they have been especially taken with this one. We’ve been enjoying making up our own lyrics to the hook. First we kicked flava in ya nose, then ya mouth, then ya eye. From there we …

Classical music as ancient alien power source

Classical music is both familiar and strange to me. My parents played classical radio constantly when I was growing up, and I have primal memories of Robert J Lurtsema intoning “This… is Morning… Pro Musica… on National… Public… Radio.” My dad in particular was a huge opera buff, with a floor-to-ceiling collection of tapes and …