I read the following over at a site called http://www.obeydjshadow.com/:
"DJ Shadow, acclaimed hip-hop and electronica artist, and Obey's Shepard Fairey, "street art" pioneer, are proud to announce the release of a limited edition clothing and music box set entitled PUBLIC WORKS."And I am very disappointed. I couldn't care about whether the release of a "limited edition clothing and music box set" is a good idea or not, but the fact that DJ Shadow is described as a "acclaimed hip-hop and electronica artist" is really breaking my heart. I suppose that he wasn't involve in the writing of this, but seeing as this is an official statement about DJ Shadow, it's still a sad day. In a way it brings back the old notion that Europe and the US is so very far apart in some ways. I can not explain exactly how important the idea of DJ Shadow being an hiphop artist is to me. He is (was? turning against your heroes is sad) the person that has been most important to me in constantly redifining what hiphop can and will be and if that is going to be destroyed through him being portrayed as an electronica artist, then...(to put a hiphop vocabulary spin on things)...SHIT.
A few hours after reading this, I am listening to "The Private Press" for the first time in months. And it's a hiphop album. And it needs to be a hiphop album. And if you think this is about something so trivial as "genre classification", then you are obviously dead wrong so do not even go there.
---
The other day I was re-reading a review of William Basinskis performance at Instal.04, written by Alan Cummings and published in The Wire n. 250 (December 2004):
"William Basinski was noticably absent from the beginning of his piece, leaving just two tape machines looping in front of some softly shimmering visuals. When he finally did appear, sharp as a pin in a mod suit, his presence seemed to do little to alter the cyclic and systemic logic of his loops. Bucolic and melancholy tones swelled up and decayed, but as a performance this was simply too static to really engage."To me, Cummings description of this performance (except the very last line) is a picture of the best show on earth. I can only hope that I will be able to witness a William Basinski performance some day.
|