Long-time URB scribe and everyone's favorite rap writer Jeff Chang discusses Jay-Z's legacy and explains the relevance of J-Hova to those crafty liberals for The Nation–the country's oldest weekly magazine. Contributers to the “flagship of the left” have included Albert Einstein, Hunter S. Thompson, Martin Luther King Jr and John Steinbeck.
Chang's article, “Moving On Up,” puts Jay-Z's career into the larger perspective of the world at large…looking at the reflexive relationship that the “CEO of the ROC” has had with the American economy and pop culture. We May not have a better scribe in this hip-hop journalism bit, so anything this man writes is worth 20 minutes of perusing. And while we're at it–and in case you missed it–check out info on Chang's new book Total Chaos.
The Good, the Bad and the Queen The Good, the Bad and the Queen ★★★★
Gorillaz leader takes it back to Old Blighty with punk, shoegaze and afrobeat veterans
——————————— (Virgin) Joe Meek was a famed and tragic English record producer whose 1962 song “Telstar” (a spacey instrumental tribute to the world’s fi rst communication’s satellite launched that same year) became the fi rst British record to hit #1 on the U.S. charts. It’s hard not to imagine Damon Albarn as a modern day Meek—an oddball British auteur whose musical vision has surprisingly captured the interest of American audiences in a time when most English musicians can’t get arrested on these shores. Of course, thus far Albarn’s success has been tied to an easily digestible cartoon pop group whose main inspiration comes from hip-hop. Albarn’s new “supergroup” is an …
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