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. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 