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SISTER FROM ANOTHER PLANET

20 Aug

1982: Sade & Pride’s First Foray to NYC

NYC 1982: Sade and her British Pride posse hang with the locals on the streets of Alphabet City Sade’s new band Pride need a UK record deal – so let’s go and make friends in Manhattan! by Shapers of the 80's The story of Sade Adu’s first steps into the pop world are told by her friend Paul Simper in his new book "Pop Stars in My Pantry", which draws on many unpublished celebrity interviews. This exclusive extract finds Sade, long before fame, invited to Sunday...

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20 Aug

1981, First Blitz invasion of the US

FASHION/STYLE, MUSIC

New York 1981: In braided short hair and hallmark narrow pants, Sade fits a model with her outfit on the Demob label. Sade once told Shapers that Princess Diana’s question to her after a Prince’s Trust concert was: “Do you always dress like a man?” Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s (I don't remember how I stumbled upon this amazing blog, but if you love everything early '80s, look no further than Shapers of the 80's. I was waved into this exclusive show...

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19 Aug

The Great 78 Project

Ever think the world could learn from, and protect better, the treasures that are 78rpm records? Lets do something about it, join the Great 78 Project! The Great 78 Project is a community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records. From about 1898 to the 1950s, an estimated 3 million sides (~3 minute recordings) have been made on 78rpm discs. While the commercially viable recordings will have been restored or remastered onto LP’s or CD, there is still...

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19 Aug

‘Loving Vincent’ Film Painted Entirely by Hand w/ New Trailer

ARTS, MULTIMEDIA

by Jordan Mintzer | Hollywood Review Directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman worked for 7 years on this entirely hand-painted film, which played in competition at Annecy. There have already been quite a few films about Vincent van Gogh, ranging from the heroic (Lust for Life) to the dramatic (Vincent & Theo) to the enigmatic (Maurice Pialat’s masterly Van Gogh). All of them offer up their own interpretations of the artist’s brief and tumultuous life, which ended abruptly from suicide at the...

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18 Aug

Professor Sun Ra

AFROFUTURISTIC, MUSIC

Sun Ra’s Full Lecture & Reading List From His 1971 UC Berkeley Course, “The Black Man in the Cosmos” by Josh Jones | Open Culture A pioneer of “Afrofuturism,” bandleader Sun Ra emerged from a traditional swing scene in Alabama, touring the country in his teens as a member of his high school biology teacher’s big band. While attending Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, he had an out-of-body experience during which he was transported into outer space. As biographer John Szwed records him saying,...

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18 Aug

Move Over, Pat McGrath!

OMG, this little girl is so hilarious and adorable! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJbTvFIwYr0...

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17 Aug

Glen Campbell, R.I.P.

(I have to admit, I forgot how incredible Glen Campbell was; how integral he was to the soundtrack of my childhood. I recently risked dropping "By The Time I Get to Phoenix" in the middle of a DJ set, and a young 20-something year old ran up and asked who it was, taking a picture of the album. Success. A friend posted this heartfelt tribute on FaceBook, saying it better than I ever could.) by Yusuf Lamont Even when you see it coming,...

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17 Aug

Trailer for “Digging for Weldon Irvine” Documentary

by Jordan Darville | The Fader (God I loved this guy's music; still miss him.) Weldon Irvine, jazz musician, playwright, pioneer of liberated black artistic expression, and mentor to rappers like Q-Tip and Mos Def, is the subject of an upcoming film Digging For Weldon Irvine. Watch a trailer for the film above.The film, directed by Victorious DeCosta, will cover Irvine's beginnings in Hampton, Virginia, into his breakout as Nina Simone's bandleader and the lyricist behind the civil rights anthem "Young, Gifted &...

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12 Aug

Google Marks 44th Anniversary of Hip Hop w/ Interactive Doodle

MUSIC, SUBCULTURE/LIFESTYLE

by Google On August 11, 1973, an 18-year-old, Jamaican-American DJ who went by the name of Kool Herc threw a back-to-school jam at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York. During his set, he decided to do something different. Instead of playing the songs in full, he played only their instrumental sections, or “breaks” - sections where he noticed the crowd went wild. During these “breaks” his friend Coke La Rock hyped up the crowd with a microphone. And with...

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11 Aug

‘A Girl Without a Sound’ by Buhle Ngaba

by Mbali Phala | The Daily Vox As an act of restoring power and agency to young black girls in South Africa, Buhle Ngaba wrote a story about a voiceless girl of colour in search of her own sound. For it to be the catalyst that reminds black girls of the power of the sounds trapped inside them. She describes the journey of her book, A Girl Without a Sound to Mbali Zwane. "The book was born out of defiance and as a response...

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11 Aug

Basquiat Before He Was Famous

(I met Alexis Adler around 1979 walking down St. Mark's Place, the hub of the East Village. I was wearing an English Beat t-shirt and she stopped me, pointing at the shirt exclaiming "My friend Malu Halasa is married to the guitarist!" That was all it took to make lifelong friends in those days. It was in that 12th Street apartment I befriended Jean, heard Fela Kuti for the first time and fell asleep to the lullaby of Bowie's 'Low'....

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9 Aug

Ava DuVernay Adapting Octavia Butler’s ‘Dawn’ for TV Series

by Shadow & Act O.M.G...

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8 Aug

Africa Enters Space Race w/ Ghana’s First Satellite Orbiting Earth

by Jake Bright | Tech Crunch The GhanaSat-1―Ghana’s first satellite―began its orbit recently, with a little help from some friends. The cubesat, built by a Ghanaian engineering team at All Nations University, was delivered to NASA’s International Space Station in June on a SpaceX rocket that took off from pad 39aat Kennedy Space Center, a NASA spokesperson confirmed. The GhanaSat-1 deployed into orbit from the Center in July, and is now operational, according to project manager Richard Damoah, a Ghanaian professor and assistant research scientist...

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8 Aug

P.P. Arnold’s Album w/ Barry Gibb & Eric Clapton Cleared for Release

by Paul Sexton | Billboard American soul singer P.P. Arnold's "lost" album The Turning Tide, with songs produced in the late 1960s and early '70s by Barry Gibb and Eric Clapton, will be released for the first time by independent Kundalini Music on Oct. 6.   The unheard album showcases the authentic R&B credentials of the vastly experienced Los Angeles-born vocalist, who went on to work with everyone from Nick Drake to Peter Gabriel. Arnold made the recordings in London, where she arrived in...

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7 Aug

Kheris Rogers, Previously Bullied is Radiant in Photo Series

by Cree B. McClellan | AfroPunk ATTENTION: To all the confused, brain-washed bullies who tried to call Kheris Rogers out for her skin, we say, “Thank You!” because look at her now: unapologetically slaying and making moves comfortably. Oh yeah, and she’s just 10-years old. In stunning new series from Creative Soul Photo, the young designer–known for her empowering t-shirt line “Flexin’ In My Complexion“–flaunts her beautiful skin in angelic fashion as she sets an example of self-love for all. If Kheris can teach...

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7 Aug

Dorothy Ashby: Fierce Pioneer of Jazz Harp

by Nick Millevoi | Flypaper A few years ago, I had one of the most powerful live music experiences of my life when I went to see Stevie Wonder on his Songs in the Key of Life Tour. He delivered one of the greatest collections of musical material ever composed and performed at the highest level with the emotion, energy, and musicality of a true master. The band was massive: two drummers, three guitarists, bass, two or three other keyboardists behind him, a full string section with...

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5 Aug

The Digital and Black Hair: Technology & African Material Culture

ARTS, MULTIMEDIA

Screenprinted floor tiles. I reproduced two patterns in Adobe Illustrator, one straight, one curved. These module allow me to create infinite braided designs. NM NONTSIKELELO MUTITI: THE DIGITAL AND BLACK HAIR The term Ruka in the Shona language is used to describe the processes of braiding whilst also being assigned to the production methods of weaving and knitting. These analogous processes are closely related to the development of coding languages and computation. As an artist and educator I situate African Hair Braiding within...

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2 Aug

F&%K ‘Confederate’, ‘Black America’ Speculates on Post-Reparations Alt-History

Will Packer & Aaron McGruder ‘Black America’: Amazon Alt-History Drama From Will Packer & Aaron McGruder Envisions Post-Reparations America by Nellie Andreeva | Deadline EXCLUSIVE: A century and a half after slavery was abolished in the U.S., the wounds left by one of the darkest periods in American history are far from healed, as evidenced by the controversy surrounding the recent announcement of HBO’s upcoming drama series Confederate, from Game Of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, which explores an alternate timeline of seceded southern...

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2 Aug

My Buddy: Patti Smith Remembers Sam Shepard

ARTS, SUBCULTURE/LIFESTYLE

Sam Shepard and Patti Smith at the Hotel Chelsea in 1971. Photo David Gahr/Getty by Patti Smith | The New Yorker He would call me late in the night from somewhere on the road, a ghost town in Texas, a rest stop near Pittsburgh, or from Santa Fe, where he was parked in the desert, listening to the coyotes howling. But most often he would call from his place in Kentucky, on a cold, still night, when one could hear the stars breathing. Just...

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30 Jul

‘Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History’ Children’s Book

ARTS, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

Author/illustrator/filmmaker Vashti Harrison: "I sat down for an interview with Anna Sterling from AJ+ about my new book Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. We chatted about the origins of the project, why representation matters and some of the most inspiring stories from the whole experience! *There is one little teaser in there: My book will feature 40 American women, so my Hatshepsut drawing will hopefully make into another book! ;-) ...

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