links for 2009-11-16

  • It turns out that some of my favorite hip-hop artists were all members of a loose affiliation that are united by their "positive-minded, good-natured Afrocentric lyrics, and for pioneering the use of eclectic sampling and later jazz-influenced beats." De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, The Jungle Brothers, Talib Kweli, and Prince Paul were all members.
    (tags: hiphop music)
  • We’re doing something a bit unusual at work that I want to point out here. We commissioned a 16,000 word article from Jason Motlagh about the Mumbai terror attacks one year ago, and rather than publish it in the magazine, we’re serializing it on our blog over the course of four days this week. For reference, a 16k article is extraordinary. That's something like 50 pages long.
  • How bad is the unemployment situation? Remittances are moving north now, from Mexico to the U.S. It's swell that the recession is over, but some jobs would be handy.
  • Not long enough, but I'll take it. Corruption at this level has a corrosive effect on Democracy. I want politicians to be terrified of being caught to the point at which they would never consider taking bribes.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

2 replies on “links for 2009-11-16”

  1. Really? You were unaware of Native Tongues until now? In retrosepct, I feel like they mentioned it at least once per song… but maybe it wasn’t that often. (at least, they DID appear on each others’ albums constantly, but hey — it was the early 90’s…)

    I have a HUGE soft spot for those bands, having essentially been raised on them (musically) throughout my late High School years… (Plus a healthy dose of Beastie Boys and Public Enemry) — but these days I’m more enthusiastic about the DITC (Diggin’ in the Crates) Crew (Big L, Lord Finesse, Showbiz and AG), the Cold Chillin’ label stuff (Biz Markie, Roxanne Shante, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap), and more or less anything produced by Pete Rock or DJ Premier. But heck, it’s all pretty great.

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