I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BOOGIE-Live at SXSW (March 21, 2015).

At this year’s SXSW, NPR had a showcase featuring 5 artists.  One was Courtney Barnett (see Saturday’s post).  The other artists were Stromae, TV on the Radio and Shamir.  I assumed that they’d be posting full shows from all the artists.  But aside from the Courtney Barnett show and two songs from Stromae, the boogie show is the only other one that we can view.

The first artist was rapper Boogie. Boogie is from Compton and he defied Compton stereotypes by not only not singing about gangs (well, he does but not as a gang member) but actually speaking about love and change. Like many rappers he has a weird tic (most seem to say Uh huh, yeah, but he says “wuh wuh” a lot). It’s a bit tiresome but not the end of the world.

I didn’t enjoy his first few songs because although his introductions to the songs were really nice—about love and respecting women while disrespecting bitches etc, I thought his lyrics were really poor.  Just a ton of repeated fucks and bitches. It was lazy.  And the second song “Bitter Raps” was just list of things he doesn’t like, which I also thought was weak—although may be the crowd enjoyed it.

And the beats weren’t all that interesting to me—I don’t really like the music behind West Coast rap so that’s a strike against it for me anyhow.

But by the end of his set I thought he really showed some good stuff.  “Gangbangin’” was a really good song (rhyming bullshit with pulpit was clever). “God Work” was also good, but “Oh My” was the best song of the night—a great chorus of “Oh my goodness” was funny but also effective.  Using his 5 year old son as a sample was also fun as the boy really enjoyed putting so words down for his dad.

By the end of the set with “The Change,” he had won me over, and while I won’t be listening to him again, I imagine he was a good warm up for the night.

You can watch his set here.

[READ:March 25, 2015] “Forbidden City”

I enjoyed this story a lot more than I was expecting to.  It’s not that I thought it would be bad, I just didn’t really have any expectations.  I barely know Dyer at all.  But it proved to be really enjoyable.  Although I feel like the ending was a bit of a let down (and how could it not be, with the way it was set up?).

James is a (British) author on a tour of China.  He has been to many cities in China and he is exhausted.  He had been to Shanghai and Beijing and he had been plied with many many drinks.  These combined with his jetlag to wipe him out.

He was being chaperoned by Min, the coordinator from his Chinese publisher and although she had done just about everything with him, she was relentlessly cheerful and up.  And on his last day the last thing he wanted to hear was that she had scheduled a tour of the Forbidden City.  He feared the well meaning and knowledgeable tour guide would bore him silly as they walked around the huge Forbidden City in stultifying Beijing heat.

But it turns out that the Forbidden City is way cooler than his expectations.  He expected it to be big but he had no idea!  And it turns out that the tour guide can’t make it. So instead Min introduces James to her friend Li.  Li is a beautiful woman with near perfect English.  She studied in England (where James is from) and even makes some snarky comments about Camden where she lived for a time.  She pretends to give him a tour of the Forbidden City and by the end of their “tour,” he is really smitten with her.

He thinks that she likes him as well, but there’s really no way for him to find out without breaking propriety.  But he manages to arrange to meet up with her after dinner (with the publishers).  Of course, meeting up for drinks means that Min and her entourage accompany them as well.  Which takes some of the pressure off but also means less time together.  And, of course, his flight home is in about ten hours.

The thing that I found really interesting about the story was not so much the romance, but the way the story described the city.  Beijing was so crowded and busy–more so than any city that James had been to before.  It took an hour to drive a few miles on the busy streets.  i also enjoyed that the romance was entirely seen from his side so we genuinely don’t know how she feels about him.  And he is exhausted and on his last day, so he may not even be thinking clearly.

I’m interested to read some of his other stories –I’m especially intrigued by the title of his book Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.