Blog

C. Hannibal cultural history, los angeles, music

Fresno raps

—

This is a bit of independent NorCal raps for you. Straight out of Fresno. It´s not the only song dedicated to the phrase ¨¿I Know Huh?¨ For sitcom fans, this blog´s title has little to do with Tonantzin Esparza´s TV character. I did work on a movie with her, though.

It has more to do with a street colloquialism specific to much of California urban culture (though–according to my ears—Latinos say it the best, and most often). I can´t define it better than the UD, it´s definitely a saying of ¨understanding and agreement.¨ Very flexible and adaptable, like street slanguage should be.

**The toys used in this video are from the popular Homies line.

C. Hannibal cultural history, music, visually speaking

Post-race in the Americas III

—

This is the first time the World Cup has been staged in Africa.  Historically, there´ve been so many raw and degrading images of Africa and people of African-descent.  What are some images of Africa that have been popping up in media during the mundial?

I know, not as many people trip off skin color as we in the United States, or so I´m told. But I´m always happy we´re uptight enough to mostly dismiss these kinds of images. I think that if those types of graphics didn´t signify such dislike for dark skin color, that I would be cool with it.  Laugh along with the joke. But normally, I can´t. Too much going on underneath.

I flipped on the program halfway through and didn´t catch this guy´s name, but I heard the cast members refer to him as ¨Negro¨. Of course.  This is normal programming for the Televisa Saturday morning gab fest,  Hoy Sábado.  It´s the type of morning show that´s so bad, it makes Jillian Barberie´s work look excellent and useful.

I figured the character, who handed out yellow cards to certain announcers during the telecast, was making fun of World Cup referee Koman Coulibaly from Mali.  He made a series of iffy calls during the recent U.S. game. Here´s the Telegraph´s story on calls I think cost the squad a goal.

___

___

___

___

Continue reading “Post-race in the Americas III” →

C. Hannibal mexican culture

FIFA Fan Fest in Zocalo

Walking to the angel after a big soccer match is a tradition in D.F.

I was a terrible  soccer player in junior high. Our team sucked, despite the Italians, Eastern Europeans and Haitians on our squad. Bad coaching I blame. Never scored a goal, maybe had one assist.  With that disgraceful past, I´ll tell you straight up: I´m not a huge  soccer fan.

But you can´t run around saying that kind of stuff during the World Cup. Kill joy.  And besides, I live in Latin America, so as they say, when in Rome…

I went to the Zocalo to participate in the FIFA Fan Fest, an international program put on by the governing body of the World Cup and supported by a bevy of big-ticket sponsors.  That´s Cuauhtémoc Blanco on the screen.  He´s the elder statesman on the Mexican national team, and one of the heroes of the 2-0 win against France this day.  He´s from one of the roughest hoods in D.F. Maybe he´ll retire after this year.

Police presence was welcome. Not too much, not too little.

The disbanded electrical worker´s union used the gathering to continue getting their voices heard.

There were plenty of people taking a day off work or school to witness their national team play. With all the soccer fanaticism running around a place like Mexico, these sorts of mass displays really make a gringo wonder about nationalism and sports.

Of course every Mexican soccer fan has his own team hero. Maybe it´s  Giovani dos Santos?

Every country, I assume, has its own sporting rituals. The finger wave is a popular one here.

There´s a generational soccer fandom here that I don´t think exists in the United States. Maybe in the next few decades we´ll get there. The Zocalo was sectioned off into different viewing spaces, one for each jumbo screen.

Of course once Mexico started scoring in the second half, the celebrating began, and didn´t stop until sometime early this morning (around 3 a.m.?)

Now you know the nickname of the player who scored that important second-half  first goal against France in the 2010 World Cup.

Once that second goal was scored, sealing the fate of the French, the day turned into a national celebration for Mexico. Dudes were risking their lives waving a flag at soccer fans down on Paseo de la Reforma. Thousands were making their way to the Glorieta del Ángel, the city´s official symbol, which I´m pretty sure was a gift from France. You hear mostly five syllables in a crowd like this (and all day long): Vi-va Me-hi-co

C. Hannibal visually speaking

Google Video pick of the week #013

—-

After I saw Daughter´s of Darkness (1971), I had to put it in my top5 favorite vampire flicks list. It´s easily one of the sexiest out there, filled with that never-really gone away early 70s Euro fashion. Sunglasses. Kinky Shakespeare.

New York Times, May 29, 1971:

Want to see a fascinating vampire movie? Then catch the Belgian-made, English-language “Daughters of Darkness,” which arrived yesterday. Subtle, stately, stunningly colored and exquisitely directed by Belgium’s young Harry Kumel…

Chicago Sun-Times, April 6, 1972

The countess excites the young man with tales of vampire feast, sadistic orgies and invocations to the devil. The young man then beats his wife, who falls sobbing into the clutches of the countess while the young man is seduced by the red-lipped Ilona. Everyone slinks mysteriously up and down the stairs. Bodies drained of blood are found in a nearby town.

C. Hannibal cultural history, mexican culture, music

Internationally Screwed & Chopped

—-

In about a month, certain parts of Houston and the world will remember the birthday of DJ Screw, and November marks the 10th Anniversary of his death.

Austin Surreal properly informed me recently about the latest DJ Screw spin-off, “Screwed Anthologies“. Think Nortec, but improvising over plodding bass lines and drooping renditions of popular rap songs. Go here, for an audio sample. The Houston-based musicians should be stopping in Ithica and Boston this week

In Mexico, there´s a reminder of Screw. It´s not in the super slow-paced way you handle bank transactions here, or the syrupy slow wait in the line at Wal-Mart Mexico. I´m talking about the wound down accordian-jamming sound of  cumbias rebajadas. Rebajada,  means to bring it down, as in the pitch.

The realm of digital cumbia isn´t complete without a walk in this slow dimension. There´s a certain gangster quality to listening to cumbia this way. Not unlike those guys in Texas who have Screw blasting out of their cars.

I´m interested in getting a good story together on the subject.  People on both sides of the border are discovering the music again, and again. But no clear answers as to what connects Screw to rebajadas, or if there´s a definitive creator for pitched down cumbia.

According to  Dr. Auratheft:

Story tells …. early low-key/ghetto cumbia gigs in Mexico would use really shitty/dysfunctional turntables, not only slowing down but also fluctuating. This launched a genre somehow and kids in Mexico are just all about rebajadas”.

Or are the origins of cumbia rebajadas as Toy Selectah told me in Austin a few months ago? He suggests that boomboxes at Monterrey block parties would slowly run out of batteries, leaving people to bailar to slowed cumbia.

Whatever´s true, most of what´s written about Screw dates chopped and screwed music to the early 90s, and rebajadas mixtapes are said to have been available since the 80s, coming directly from Monterrey DJs and making their way throughout Mexico y el mundo.  Let´s see if we can get this all on the record. Until then check out this rebajadas mix by Dr. Auratheft:

Rebajadas_El_Maldito Acordeón

And this 1998  chopped and screwed mixtape by Houston rap landmark Swishahouse:

Barre

Look here for normal cumbia.

Track listing for both mixes after the jump.

Continue reading “Internationally Screwed & Chopped” →

C. Hannibal buildings, cultural history, mexican culture, music

I Know Huh X Wayneandwax X Postopolis!

Above, Rapper 2Phase on the mic (center), at a January 2010, rap event near Centro.  It was a 7 hour rap show in a hall connected to Cría Cuervos, a punk/goth space. Pictured is the entire concert stage, the bar was off to the right.

For my presentation today, I invited 2Phase and Yoez. More about them during our chat, but I wanted to give a little background on why I chose these two, of the literally hundreds of rappers trying to get their voices heard in D.F.

2Phase was one of the first rappers I saw perform when I got here in the winter of 2008  (Listen to some tracks from his 1st album, here and here.). He was performing in another punk space, El Under, in Colonia Roma. The reason why I picked him is because, first, he speaks English. And, two, he´s not only a rapper, but a producer for Revolver Productions. I felt that he could talk about, not only the rap scene, but also the technical aspects of production and getting product and merch out to the masses.

Yoez is a rapper I heard a lot about, because she was a member of D.F.´s  first all-girl rap group Rimas Femininas. I researched this group for a story that appeared in Latina magazine, but I never got a chance to talk to Yoez. Her work is personal and she´s got a stage presence that can´t be ignored. I´ve seen her destroy crowds at Foro Alicia, usually over some heavy West Coast beat.

*Super shouts to Wayne Marshall for inviting me as a guest.

C. Hannibal cultural history, music

Beat conductors Postopolis!

Sometime ago, Harvard stopped producing Simpson´s  writers and started producing DJs. Above, the byproducts of the late 90s.  To the right, the Pitchfork-approved, globetrotting soundboy intellectual, DJ/Rupture. To the left, the M.I.T. professor and ethnomusicologist whose curiosity about Mexican rap gave this blog a humongous boost. Thanks for including us, Wayne (Friday at 5:30 pm, CDT), live streaming.  Party on.

For upcoming Mexico City gigs featuring this Postopolis! duo,  check here.

C. Hannibal mexican culture, visually speaking

Shine in D.F.

¨Elitism is just a fear-based concept. Art belongs to everyone¨

–Wendell McShine (via)

—–

—

McShine, who goes by the artistic name “Shine” will be talking about his work at 4p.m. (cdt),  at Postopolis! Check the live feed, here.

As with so many artists, Mexico City is the muse he´ll talk about.  Look at what he said to London Black arts magazine catchavibe.com:

“I love it here – the colours, textures and most definitely the diversity of different indigenous tribes. They all bring that special uniqueness that makes Mexico. My inspiration really is universal, but Mexico is where I feel alive. Everything here is on a higher vibration. It’s as if there’s another dimension unfolding right before our eyes and my work reflects that.”


Wendell McShine is one of the coolest guys I´ve met during my time in Mexico.   It´s rare to make these types of connections in the heart of the capital.

He´s from a part of the world known as the Anglophone Caribbean.

Things are developing fast for the Trini artist. A recent art prize and inclusion into the Upper Playground family, have been small pieces in an artistic rise that he hopes takes him to the Tate gallery.

His Mexico City show closes in 2 days, at the Fifty24Mex gallery in Condesa.

¨A watcher, and a seeker¨, titles one of his main cut-out works in his “Behind the Blue Door” series. You can buy some of his stuff  for around $4,000 to $5,000 pesos.  His works will culminate with a show in San Jose, followed by a final chapter in the trilogy in England. He wants to retire when he´s 45. Or was it 40? Get him while you can folks.

If you´re in D.F. , go see Wendell´s show at the Upper Playground gallery, Fifty24MX.

Amatlan 105, Colonia Condesa, 1pm to 9pm, Friday and Saturday, 52561444

C. Hannibal mexican culture

Along San Pablo, the oldest profession

—-

I went to San Pablo Avenue near Centro to buy a bike. I didn´t know it was one of four zones in Mexico City where an open air sex market is allowed to thrive. Just so happens it´s also a street lined with dozens of bike repair/sales shops.

Families walk the street looking straight ahead most of the time, ignoring the girls propped up against the walls, or mingling near bus stops—always in site of a bike shop. Many of these women are brought (or forced) from pueblos throughout Mexico to come work the streets of D.F. Cops drive by, maintaining a presence, but doing very little. This isn´t lawlessness, it´s how it works out here.  Nothing on Sunset Boulevard can compare.

On Sundays, it´s an odd site, since the nearby La Merced market gets heavy post-church traffic. I can just imagine how some of the parents explain to curious little ones why those women are dressed like that.  They´re hustlin, man.

My bike, with annoying decals reading ¨Samurai¨along the frame, was only $900 pesos. Best bike I ever bought.  Just the bike.

Cyclo Partes (bicicletas), San Pablo No. 24-B, Col. Merced Balbuena, 55-22-17-47