Rocking Out to Afro-Pop Music!

Musings from Mothershiester: When I was living in Johannesburg, six years ago, my appreciation for music from the continent was born. Even though I grew up listening to music from Kenya, I associated that music with my parents and a country that I didn't want to be connected to. Now that I djay music for other people, I really want to share my love of the various beats that make my continent so hot. Case in point, the South African band that made my knees weak with energy when I first heard them--Mafikizolo . Their music is a blend of Afro-pop, kwela (a genre of southern african music that sounds sort of jazzy and is characterized by the pennywhistle--a six-holed wood wind whistle), marabi (indigenous to South Africa, and also has a jazzy sound like kwela but includes the use of the organs). Mafikizola's style is definitely a blend of the traditional with the new pop beats that we are so accustomed to. If I'm ever on the run, from the law or fighting to survive the apocalypse, I hope to have my Mafikizolo tape in tact....Hell, I'm already fighting to survive the apocalypse.

Here's a video of one of my fav songs by them. Keep an eye for the butch that is representing for us gender and sexual variants.

Hey, get out of your chair and dance!

The Price of Rice

Oh snap! Two posts in one day~ we are on a roll!

One clear sign to us at Radio Hybrid of the impending/existing apocalypse is the phenomenal increase in food prices. This has led to riots around the world, as well as rationing in various countries, and even here in the US, o land of plenty, Costco and Sam's Club have been limiting the number of bags of rice you can purchase. Ironically, while 88% of rice consumed in the US is grown here, the US also is one of the biggest rice exporters in the world - representing 13% of global rice exports (both according to the USA Rice Federation). Talk about capitalism at work!!! India and Vietnam each export a bit more rice than the US, and Thailand, biggest rice exporter of all, sells about three times as much as the United States.

Rice is a really important food staple for many people, and we have discussed its significance and what's going on with it and other food on our show over the past few months. While some people have said that rice production needs to be increased by developing new strains with higher yield, our friend dj starbane disagrees, and some facts support him. Starbane says it's a lot more complicated than manipulating rice plants to produce more, and that we should all put more emphasis on growing our own food. On the other hand, starbane notes that as some have observed, growth of the middle class in China and India is also a factor in the increase. "The answer is to destroy the middle class altogether and keep 99% of people poor," says starbane, "therefor nothing really needs to change."

At Radio Hybrid we do support class war, against the rich and middle class that is, but we also like eating food we grow ourselves. On wednesday we had a nice salad of the tiniest lettuce that we had thinned from front yard plot and roof-top boxes, delicious with some added cherry tomatoes, pickle and vinaigrette dressing. We've also been eating kale and collards from a roof box, and plenty of garlic scapes. We are excited about the growth of plants that bent and starbane planted in the front yard of a neighbor a couple doors down - including collards, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant!

Of course rice is not the only food rising in price - so is corn, wheat (even as its price falls on commodity markets, gotta love capitalism), dairy products and meat. And that is rough stuff for those of us who love to eat a piece of meat - like mothershiester, bent and Adesh Samaroo, who has a great song, "Eating Meat" (until we figure out this blogging thing and can stream here, you'll have to follow the links, sorry!)

dance tutorial

at gender fatigue we like to dance to many kinds of music and we like to know what the music is and the history behind it - who made it, where is it from, why did they do it, what is it connected to, that sort of thing. so apparently this year marks 20 years since house music got big in the UK and one blog reposted an interesting article from 1989 about house music and its roots and backing from black gay cultures in the US: The House the Kids Built
(altho in dc it would be called "The House the Children Built")

that blog, History is Made at Night, is pretty interesting to check out in general in addition to that post. another blog (fem.men.ist) has an interesting and related post on house music, masculinity and race: Thoughts on Jamaica, Masculinity, Performing Gender, Orishas and House Music

And a classic song with lots to consider regarding history, culture and race, gender and more... all while rocking out!




[George Kranz "Trommeltanz" aka Din Daa Daa]

Ground-Breaking Report on DC Police Department Abuses

Check out this important community driven research project on abuses by the DC Police Department towards sex workers and people profiled as sex workers.

The report, "Move Along: Policing Sex Work in Washington D.C.", was lead by Different Avenues in partnership with Dr. Salvador Vidal Ortiz (a sociologist from American University), Dr. Penelope Saunders (of the Best Practices Policy Project) and the Alliance for a Safe & Diverse DC.