SOUNDTRACK: MALI MUSIC-Tiny Desk Concert #366 (June 21, 2014).
Mali Music is one man, born in Savannah, GA, but with a somewhat Jamaican vibe. He plays three songs in this Tiny Desk Concert and each one is quite different.
In the first track, “Fight for You,” he raps over a beat and sample mix played by his DJ (DJ Slow Motion, who is behind the desk with him). It’s interesting in that he raps with himself (his voice is played by the DJ as well, not looped). His singing voice in this song tends towards the whiny which I don’t care for, especially since his main voice is so powerful.
The second track, “Make It In” he plays on an acoustic guitar. The song is clever with lots of amusing asides and slight laughs in the lyrics too. he more or less raps the verses but sings the chorus.
For the final song, he switches to keyboard (he says he learned piano at a very young age) and he plays a simple, uplifting ballad called “Beautiful.” There’s a funny moment when he asks the crowd to sing along and then the DJ plays a sample of a crowd singing a long, which makes Mali laugh.
Mali is a pretty positive guy–he talks about things getting better and about himself really making a difference through his music. It sounds like prideful boasting (and it will be interesting to see if he really does take off), but he also seems sincere in his desire for happiness. The set reminds me a little of K’naan, at least in spirit.
[READ: June 19, 2014] “The Christmas Miracle”
After really enjoying “The Toast” a few months ago, I was delighted to get another story from Rebecca Curtis and her bristly narrator.
The story opens with the comment that cats were dying, “This happens, of course.” But in this case they were dying in gory ways not to mention the cats belonged to her nieces. The girls had seen the dead cats. The narrator also points out that it is now Christmas, “The most magical, horrible, spiritual, dark, and stressful time of the year.”
Like with another Curtis story, this one is being told to someone, in this case, someone named K, a Russian Communist and “Jewish person who doesn’t believe Jesus was the son of God.”
The narrator explains her situation–she was teaching creative writing but hadn’t written anything herself in years She had contracted Lyme disease (does this all sound familiar from her other stories?). The disease causes inflammations and bouts of madness and “frank or rude speech, usually set off by eating carbohydrates.”
I love the way that Curtis writes although I’m unclear what Curtis herself believes because her narrator is just so contrary. Like this awesome sentence:
“If cake was nearby I wasn’t always able to prevent myself from having one bite, then the sugar fed the Bartonella bacteria, which commanded me to eat more, and I would, and then I’d go insane.” So she asked her sister not to have any sugar filled treats at Christmas. Which her sister ignored, of course. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 