[Salsa] is Cuban music. But the idea came because we had Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans in the Fania All-Stars; two Jews and an Englishman. And when you make a salsa, you have different condiments. I said, 'This is perfect to call a salsa. It's a New York sound but with Cuban music. | | | | Willie Colón performs with the Fania All-Stars in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Oct. 18, 2013.
(Gladys Vega/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “[Salsa] is Cuban music. But the idea came because we had Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans in the Fania All-Stars; two Jews and an Englishman. And when you make a salsa, you have different condiments. I said, 'This is perfect to call a salsa. It's a New York sound but with Cuban music.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// It's been three months since the music industry paused for a day of reflection in the wake of the police killing of GEORGE FLOYD, and the two women who set BLACKOUT TUESDAY in motion have made it clear they're going to hold the industry to account for promises made in the wake of that self-inflicted timeout. On Wednesday, the three-month anniversary, JAMILA THOMAS of ATLANTIC RECORDS and BRIANNA AGYEMANG of the artist-services company PLATOON laid out a set of demands for any "company that conducts business in the world of Black music," on behalf of their platform, THE SHOW MUST BE PAUSED. It's a smart list. It's long and it asks for serious work and demonstrable progress, but every item seems reasonable and achievable. Nothing pie-in-the-sky, nothing radical. No one's being asked to give artists their masters back. No one's being asked to resign. They're being asked to provide health insurance benefits to artists and road crews. They're being asked to address internal pay disparities and convert long-term temp jobs to staff jobs. They're being asked to diversify their C-suites and provide concrete timelines for doing so. They're being asked to add anti-racism and anti-sexism clauses to touring contracts. They're being asked to actively recruit Black employees and to make internships available to people who aren't in college. They're being asked to contribute to social justice causes and give employees to time off for "community-facing programming." It's a long list of change-begins-at-home asks. To put it in terms of politics, this isn't a campaign for the White House. It's a campaign for city halls and state houses. And like an employer laying out a plan of action for an employee, Thomas and Agyemang are also asking for paperwork: regular reports to the Show Must Be Paused on how this is all going. There are asks for both annual and quarterly reports. There are asks for active participation in the Show Must Be Paused. There are lots of opportunities for a record company or a promoter or a management company or an agency to say "sorry, but no" or "this is a little too much" or to gently push back. (Can you afford all that new health insurance? Can your employees and artists afford not having that health insurance?) But I can't imagine a significant music company responding with a blanket no, or not even responding. I'm pretty sure everyone understands that's not an option anymore. Right? Right??... A dozen Black indie promoters whose clients have included JAY-Z, MARY J. BLIGE, SNOOP DOGG and STEVIE WONDERh ave joined forces as the BLACK PROMOTERS COLLECTIVE... The New York Times' JOE COSCARELLI goes one-on-one with 6IX9INE, who does not give a f*** and who may not even know how to give a f***, which I offer neither as compliment nor criticism, just observation. Q: "Why not try to be more thoughtful in your music"? A: "My fans don’t want that. You don’t go to MCDONALD’S and get filet mignon"... The stone wall that surrounds GRACELAND was tagged Monday night/Tuesday morning with a combination of BLACK LIVES MATTER and QANON graffiti that pissed off most of Memphis while allowing news orgs to tilt their coverage of the vandalism in whichever direction best suited their needs... DAVE, LITTLE SIMZ and JAMIE CULLUM won IVOR NOVELLO AWARDS, and JOAN ARMATRADING was recognized for lifetime achievement... Your audio on ZOOM, you can make it better... RIP IAN MITCHELL and BOBBY ENGEL... RIP also the amazin' TOM SEAVER, who, for the purposes of this newsletter, was the younger brother of KATIE SEAVER, who in the mid-1950s dated a STANFORD classmate named DAVE GUARD. Her parents introduced Guard to this song, which he would record a few years later with his band, the KINGSTON TRIO, for a blockbuster debut album that would end up spending nearly four years on the BILLBOARD album chart. The DARK SIDE OF THE MOON of its era. Eleven years after that album came out, young Tom Seaver would lead the most amazin' baseball team that ever played the game to the most amazin' World Series championship that ever was. In his honor, this is a song, too, written by RUTH ROBERTS—who also, by the way, wrote this—and BILL KATZ. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | Real Life | | On algorithmic culture and the creation of coercive “fun.” | | | |  | The New York Times | | In his first interview since being released from prison, the polarizing rapper, who testified against his former gang, addresses his “snitching,” his horrible reputation and his record of abuse. | | | |  | Billboard | | Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang of #TheShowMustBePaused outline demands for music companies. | | | |  | Level | | There’s no better time for young ones to dive into hip-hop - but where have the edited versions gone? | | | |  | The New Yorker | | Watching Megan perform with such gusto, without reciprocity from an audience, felt like a compact had been broken. Meanwhile, Uzi treated the spectacle as what it was: a dress rehearsal for real life. | | | |  | The Guardian | | New music by Ulver, Enslaved, and Emperor frontman Ihsahn is staying true to Norwegian black metal’s original spirit, while rejecting its violence. | | | |  | Tidal | | As he turns 70 (or, rather, 29), the NEU! and Harmonia maestro reflects on a half-century of musical exploration - including radiant new solo work. | | | |  | Office of Copyright | | Streaming was supposed to save the music business. It hasn’t. Fourteen years into the Spotify experience, music industry revenues are still stuck at half the amount they were in 1999. Spotify provides millions of songs at your fingertips, all for free. Is this why the public thinks all music should be free? Does the public know how much works goes into creating a great song? | | | |  | The Quietus | | Crystallising the euphoric moments where sound and vision collide, the Quietus contributors sift through the archives to celebrate their 50 favourite music cues on the big screen | | | |  | Okayplayer | | We talked with Entertainment Attorney Karl Fowlkes about when artists should lawyer up and what they should look out for before signing a record deal. | | | |  | Longreads | | Remembering the woman who outsang Ray Charles. | | | |  | The Atlantic | | The English-language single’s massive success is a career milestone for the South Korean pop group-and a reflection of America’s entertainment market. | | | | | The New York Times | | Boris Johnson came into office aiming to defund the BBC and let in rivals. The coronavirus has delayed that, but the broadcaster again finds itself a punching bag for Conservatives. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | With cringe-worthy stereotypes and the trivialized aria “Nessun Dorma,” invoked recently by the White House, Puccini's "Turandot" requires open ears. | | | |  | The FADER | | Between her 32nd birthday and the release of her remarkable second album Inner Song, Welsh producer Kelly Lee Owens discusses climate change, Black Lives Matter, and the “nitty gritty, dark, shitty emotional work” that led to her new record. | | | | | The Guardian | | Facebook phishing schemes charge fans to view events’ free live streams. | | | | | Billboard | | "Zoom fatigue" is real, but so are the cost savings of introducing new acts remotely. Labels and artists are seriously reexamining what has long been a rite of passage in the genre. | | | |  | Talkhouse | | Kjell Hansen (Spring Silver) on the 10th anniversary of Daniel Lopatin’s influential record. | | | |  | iHeartRadio | | Host Steve Greenberg delves into the colorful history and influences that drove the decadent decade of Disco, from a clandestine club in Nazi occupied Paris to the underground urban clubs that heralded the beginning of the gay pride movement all the way to disco's dominance of Top 40 Radio. | | | |  | Afropop Worldwide | | Soul singer and multi-instrumentalist Ralph Weeks (second from the left above) left Panama for Brooklyn, New York, when he was 17. Today he's a hearty 77, and still takes the stage with his finely honed falsetto to offer the enduring classic of a song he wrote more than 50 years ago, "Something Deep Inside." | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | From "Explorando," released on Fania Records in 1978. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
