Wednesday, March 16, 2005

The New York Times Does Hip-Hop

Following up on my earlier post, I wanted to kiss Mr. Frere-Jones' ass a little more. Read his post here on the New York Times' Back to the Future adventure. He beat me to the punch on some articles that appeared in the Friday Times, the paper of record. It was shocking to see two articles dealing with that genre of music, hip-hop, that so frightens and confuses their readers, writers and editors on the same day. Of course, as Sasha notes, these were op-eds that would have fit in nicely in the paper decades ago.

Thankfully, Kelefa Sanneh saves the day, writing about the new song by Jennifer Lopez, "Get Right". You know the one, with the crazy, looped saxophone for an intro, and the video featuring J.Lo playing various female characters. Yeah, that one. A great song, and a great reminder of the quality writing Sanneh brings on a consistent basis.

Finally, check out an alternate take on the 2005 Mixtape Awards, written by Julianne Shephard. Bringing this post full circle, she went with Mr. Frere-Jones, and got to enjoy the company of Chamillionaire, Pitbull and DJ Vlad! I cannot begin to put into words how jealous I am of these two, hobnobbing with the glitterati and mixtape legends. Of course, did they get to watch drunk people falling down outside of Dirty Frank's Saturday night? Did they get to watch two drunk guys fight at Fado right in front of them, while contemplating what had become of their life? Jealous much?

Check out Ms. Shephard's blog, Cowboyz 'n' Poodles, as it is another essential stop in the blogosphere. Yes, I did just write that word. And what?

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