Music

Ownership of the means of production

vinyl music records with labels

It is both disheartening and convenient when you are struggling to write an essay, forcibly putting words together that do not work, trying ideas that make almost no sense, and working in a direction that isn’t clear, and finding an essay that says what you are trying to say more clearly and cogently than your efforts could lead you. I was trying to write such an essay recently, when today I came across the following spectacular essay by Ken Lowery Eugene Ahn at The Bureau Chiefs. It is a response to Rachael Maddux’s cover story for Paste,...

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Crack Rock or a Jump Shot

basketball park

In the school where I work, there’s a fifth grader who wears a Notorious B.I.G. jacket. There are a few staff who covet it. Though I don’t say anything, I’m one of them. The boy is 11. Biggie Smalls died 13 years ago, today. He doesn’t know anything about Biggie. Couldn’t name an album or even a track, couldn’t give me any 16 bars, let alone 16 Bars. I want to talk about it with him, to school him on Biggie, to get on his level in a way I can’t with their hip-hop idols. God knows...

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