What's that sound?
Greetings,
Here are seven things I thought were worth sharing.
In my book, Listen To Your Footsteps, I have an essay titled For The Love Of Music. Randomly going through my archive, I found the first draft of it. I didn’t change much when editing but it was interesting looking back at how I first articulated my relationship with music compared to the final version. I have shared that first draft on my site HERE.
I have followed and loved Tricky’s music since I first heard him on Massive Attack’s Five Man Army from their debut album Blue Lines. I had that album on the one side of a cassette with Seal’s self-titled album on the other side. It was on high-rotation in my Sony Walkman. B-Boy Rock Star by Michael A. Gonzales is an interesting take on him from an American and hip hop perspective. I think I have shared it before, but here’s my Tricky playlist.
An album that changed my life at the same time I was listening to Blue Lines was Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet. I was living in Oldenburg, a town in the north of Germany and my uniform was jeans, t-shirt, Public Enemy bomber jacket with the album cover on the back, Africa and Malcolm X medallions around my neck and a high-top fade. I’ve been meaning to get the 33 1/3 book on It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back but, in the meantime, I have been listening to the podcast hosted by the legendary Prince Paul and featuring Chuck D and Harry Allen, The Media Assassin.
Writing requires that one is constantly working on the craft. Teju Cole’s Rules on Writing is something that I refer back to regularly.
I had Remy Ngamije on the Listen To Your Footsteps podcast and, in addition to writing beautiful stories and running the Namibian literary magazine, Doek!, he has gone and started a gym. And, in true Remy fashion, he has a dope photo essay on the beginnings titled Beyond The Smoke
I know I have shared this before but it is worth sharing again, for those of you who may have missed it the first time. Everything Writes Itself: An Interview with Black Thought. I can’t stop listening to his new album with Danger Mouth, Cheat Codes.
I am not much of a designer but I do love learning about how things are made. This is a dope Twitter thread of documentaries for designers. I have watched Helvetica, Rams, Abstract: The Art of Design (which I blogged about), Urbanized and The Toys That Made Us episode on Lego.
That’s it for today. If you enjoy receiving the Zebra Culture By Kojo Baffoe newsletter but are not subscribed, please do subscribe.
I would also appreciate it if you shared with a friend who might also like it.
I welcome comments, thoughts, etc. A big thank you to those of you who have sent me messages.
And if you would like a copy of my book Listen To Your Footsteps, it is widely available online and in bookshops (primarily in South Africa but also on Barnes & Noble and Amazon) both in digital and physical form.
Easy
Kojo