Nostalgia can go either two ways — it can cause sun-drenched memories to wash over you, leaving you feeling all warm and fuzzy, or it can be a punch in the gut and cast serious doubt on what you were all nostalgic for in the first place.

This summer should officially be called the nostalgia concert tour, as musicians of all stripes have been cashing in by performing classic albums in their entirety. On paper, it sounds amazing, and no one knows this more than the fine folks at Rock the Bells. Its website boasts no less than 12 acts, from Mos Def and Talib Kweli (Black Star), Raekwon and Ghost Face (Only Built for Cuban Linx (the first one!) to the Toronto performances of Nas and Lauryn Hill, featuring none other than two of the most preeminent producers in hip hop (DJ Premier and Pete Rock).

It makes sense to want to here Nas perform Illmatic in its entirety. It’s arguably one of the best albums in the history of hip hop, but it was also released in 1994. There are a lot of hits and a lot of years between Nas and his debut, and the distance was palpable on Thursday night.

As Nas, with the help of AZ, awkwardly rapped his way through N.Y. State of Mind in front of a backdrop designed to look like a vintage Queensbridge, N.Y. street, something was off. It could have been the persistent echoes blasting through the sound system, making words completely unintelligible (it’s a good thing most people knew the words), or AZ seeming to take control of the mic, constantly yelling over Nas. Or maybe it was the feeling that this was going to turn into nothing but a cash grab.

That said, it was great to see the audience singing along to The World is Yours and One Love, and there was nothing but a sea of hands in the air for It Ain’t Hard to Tell. And since Illmatic isn’t all that long, he even through in some other hits, such as, oddly enough, his Diddy-collab Hate Me Now.

Halfway through the set, Peter Rock and DJ Premier manned their respective booths for a producer best of battle. The potential there was great. Between the two of them they represent an endless catalogue of classic tracks going all the way back to the early days of hip hop in the ’80s. Unfortunately, instead of, say, blending one song into another, or even just playing with it a bit on the turntable, it came of more like two DJs with their iPods playing the first 30 seconds of their favourite songs, and then hitting stop just as the crowd gets into it. No blending, no mixing, no even fast-forwarding to the chorus, just “Hey, I produced the 10 Crack Commandments. Here’s a clip.” “Oh yeah, well I did Down with the King, check it out.”  It was all nostalgia, no effort, and it left a bad taste.

It was also an amazing opportunity wasted, which brings me to Lauryn Hill, the reason most people were at the show in the first place — they wanted to sing along to Ex-Factor, Doo Wop (That Thing) and everything else from her debut solo record, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Almost two hours (!) after Nas’ set, Hill came out, briefly apologized for the delay and started her set, and you could tell the crowd was a bit confused. Why did Lost Ones sound like a Janelle Monae song?

Miseducation was released in 1998, and other than an unplugged album and a few singles and appearances, not to mention having six babies, Hill doesn’t have much else to draw on. So she’s done what any respectable artist would do, and reimagined the entire album. In a lot of ways it works. To Zion opens with a similar flamenco-style guitar intro before embracing a full-on Caribbean vibe (it was only missing a steel drum to complete it).  But after a fairly recognizable version of Doo Wop (That Thing) that allowed the crowd to sing along a bit, Hill left the stage again for a break. And so did a large portion of the crowd, amidst grumblings of not recognizing anything, or just expecting better from The Lauryn Hill.

Or, in Hill’s own words: “Everything you drop is so tired / Music is supposed to inspire / How come we ain’t getting no higher?”

Verdict

Sometimes nostalgia is better played out through your headphones.

Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

New York actor Michael Rapaport (Boston Public, Higher Learning, among others) was 19 when A Tribe Called Quest dropped their debut album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. They followed that groundbreaking album up with two of the most beloved (if not best) albums in hip hop, The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders, so it’s fair to say that Rapaport came of age in one of the best times for New York hip hop. “All Tribe music is very nostalgic for me. Hip hop was really what I was listening to since the time I was 10, but with Tribe, as soon they came out, I was a big, big, big fan,” he said during a recent stop in Toronto to promote his documentary, Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, out July 29 in major cities across Canada. He spoke to me about the “beef” that’s been surrounding the project, the difficulties of working with his favourite rap group, and the pains of leaving some classic captured moments on the cutting room floor.

Did you always set out to do a documentary as your first film?

No, I had wanted to direct something for the last 10 years and I always wanted to do a narrative, but I was also curious about Tribe and was always asking about doing it, wondering if they would ever record again, which spawned the documentary: Why did A Tribe Called Quest break up and will they ever record again?

You’ve said that no documentary has been done on a rap group before (save for Public Enemy), so why do a doc on Tribe? Why not other influential rap groups, like Wu Tang, NWA, Run DMC, etc?

All those groups are great and I love all of them, but I just had an emotional response to A Tribe Called Quest and while it’s hard to say favourite … they definitely mean a lot to me. The fact that they had such a run from ’88 to ’98 and were so prolific album after album, then it just stopped, that’s what really made me want to know what had happened.

I take it that when they broke up in ’98 it had an effect on you?

I didn’t understand why they broke up — I didn’t accept it. I was at their last show in New York in 1998, and at that show I felt like my parents were getting divorced. I just never really got over it — why A Tribe Called quest?

As an obvious fan, but also approaching this as a filmmaker, was it hard to keep your objectivity?

I was very conscious of trying to stay objective and not be biased and to not meddle in their business because I was so close while I was filming, but I would talk about it with my editor and constantly remind myself why I was there. I had to be mature and conscious of the fact that I was making a movie and not to get myself too involved in their personal business.

When was that moment where it set in that you were actually filming your favourite rap group?

As soon as I started filming in 2008 I was like, ‘holy shit.’ You know, it’s the first day and it’s the Rock the Bells concert and I’m interviewing De La Soul and starting to shoot Tribe. I was just so excited. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing it.

You’ve said that you wanted to give hip hop the rock n roll documentary treatment. What docs did you look to for inspiration?

There are so many. The Last Waltz, Gimme Shelter, I’m Trying to Break Your Heart, Hail Hail Rock n Roll … man, there are just so many I watched.

You often cite the lack of documentary on hip hop. Were you trying to get the ball rolling with this?

That wasn’t my agenda, but if this film inspires someone to start with someone else, that would be great, but I wasn’t trying to spawn a movement or anything.

Who else would you like to see get the treatment?

There’s plenty. Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, Cold Crush Brothers, X-Clan, Big Daddy Kane, De La Soul, there are a lot of women in hip hop that would have interesting stories …

Did you have a set out narrative in your head going into filming?

No. I just watched it unwind in front of me.

So the animosity highlighted in the film is just something that happened?

Ya, absolutely. It’s the beauty of documentary filmmaking.

Was there a lot of footage that as a music fan you would have liked to see in the film but needed to cut for the sake of narrative?

I know the film has to be forward thinking and story driven, and there was tons of stuff we had to cut out about songs being constructed or verses and lyrics, stuff about people who influenced Tribe and more people that Tribe influenced, but at the end of the day you have to do what’s best for the movie. Despite how interesting or fascinating a piece or a scene might be, you have to keep things moving forward.

One noticeable thing is the lack of Busta Rhymes (sometimes referred to as the unofficial fifth member of the group). How hard was it to cut him out?

It was hard to cut Busta out. He’s in the movie a little bit and I felt the way we used him was the best way for the film and based on the footage. There was an idea and a sequence about the making of Scenario that was really cool, but there was also J Dilla stuff, Large Professor stuff, there was a lot of stuff that had to go but we had to do what’s best for the movie. As a music fan that was tough, you want to hold on to it. Everyone know’s the importance of Scenario. There are certain songs that are iconic but you can’t do every one. I wasn’t there to do a making of thing. It wasn’t a ‘This is How We Did it’ video.

There is a lot of great vintage footage of Tribe. Was that easy to get?

It required a lot of digging. I knew certain stuff existed because I had seen it, but to actually get it is a whole rigmarole and we were very diligent. It was digging for gold. You get leads and follow them, like this person has this, this person has that, and you just track them down and hope it works out. The DVD extras are going to be really strong and have a lot of fun material.

Tribe has sampled everyone from Lou Reed to France’s national anthem, how hard was the sample clearance for the movie?

The music clearing was a mother fucker, man. Obviously, Tribe gave us clearance to their songs, but then you had to clear every sample to every song. We should have done a short movie within the movie about that because that was really, really challenging. You have to deal with huge artists, or artists that are hard to find, so it was tough.

Was there any reluctance from the original artists?

I felt like we would have been able to get every one, but the hardest one was clearing Can I Kick it? And that was essential. There were other songs that we just ran out of time for.

How long were you with Tribe?

It was 2.5 years of filming, editing, etc. It was a lot of back and forth because I’m in L.A., Tip and Ali are in New York, Jarobi is in Atlanta and Phife is on the west coast.

Did you have unlimited access?

No, it’s not like reality TV. I filmed with an agenda. I wasn’t just sitting there day after day after day. It was like, ‘You have three hours,’ or ‘You can spend half the day with me.’ I wasn’t waking up with them.

It seems that Phife gave you more access, what with going to the hospital with him and everything?

Phife gave me a little bit more but Tip was pretty good. What Phife was going through health wise was pretty compelling and it tells a lot about him — it’s major. At the same time, Tip had an album coming out (The Renaissance, 2008), which is a big deal but it’s not as, you know, severe as Phife’s health.

As a filmmaker, how did you perceive the characters of Phife Dawg and Q-Tip?

They were both very human, charismatic, funny, compelling and honest. Tip is definitely a perfectionist. He’s an artist. He’s going to be making music whether there is a music business or not. He just loves it. He’ll be the guy playing on the corner if that was his only outlet.

Phife was never as emotionally invested. It was just something he was really good at and I think that was a big difference between the two of them. They both come off well rounded. They both get to show sides of themselves that fans have never seen, but in the context of the film, they get to show themselves as great but not perfect.

You and the members of Tribe, most notably Q-Tip, have been in the media a lot over certain creative differences? Did you ever think this part of making the movie would be this difficult?

No, I never thought it would be this much. But the fact that I’m sitting here and the movie is coming out in Canada and the U.S., I’m just proud of it. I don’t look at it as work, despite today being my toughest day, just with travel and everything. To be doing this for something I care so much about, I’m happy.

There was an early trailer called Beats, Rhymes and Fights. Is that where the animosity started?

I guess that started it. It was hacked off the Internet and it was an old trailer with a title that they didn’t like. And I was fine that they didn’t like it. There was a chain of events that started the whole thing. I’m not happy that it went that way but it did and fortunately in the last week or so me and Q-Tip have agreed to disagree on certain things. He’s been supportive of the movie and doing some press for the movie, so it’s sort of moved past that. It was a a lot to deal with.

What was the main source of fighting after the film was done? Did Tribe want more say on the editing?

In an nutshell that would be it. They wanted less emphasis on the relationships and more on the music, and to me I don’t know how to tell a story that way. That’s not a story, it’s a concert film, and I never said I wanted to do just a concert film. In the beginning they would have been happier if that’s what I’d done, but I made the movie because I wanted to know if A Tribe Called Quest will ever make more music, and in answering that you have to roll up your sleeves a little bit.

Do you know if Q-Tip has seen the movie?

I don’t think Tip has seen it with an audience. He’s seen it on a computer though.

How important was it to have Tip on board?

I was never trying to get him on board once I realized where things were. I stopped reaching out, but then the movie was getting ready to come out and the response was so good, we decided to disagree on certain things and I’m glad he’s been supportive of the film. I had other dreams and hopes for what the band would do for the movie and themselves, but none of that stuff really panned out, which is the wacky world of A Tribe Called Quest.

What role did Nas have in starting this whole project?

Nas was never a day to day producer and at one point he talked about producing it with me, but then he just got busy with his own stuff. He’s been supportive of the film, but it took a lot of time to make the movie so he decided to be supportive from afar.

What about the idea out there that it was his idea?

No, no no. That conversation that was put on MTV did not happen. I came up with the idea to do a documentary, I asked them in 2006 at the Wiltern Theatre, I called Q-Tip myself. Nas was thinking about doing something at the same time, and it’s just coincidence we were thinking along the same lines. This is my idea though. I didn’t make the movie by myself, but I will definitely take credit for thinking about making it, initiating it, and financing it at first. I will not let that misinformation be out there because it’s not the case.

What do you think about the comments that only the rap community should be telling its own stories?

It’s fucking retarded. It doesn’t make any sense. I think that was not the smartest thing to say.

Are you on good terms with them now? Do they like the movie?

They’re supportive of the movie, they know it’s good, but some of the dysfunction that you see in the movie within the group fell over onto my lap. The group doesn’t move as unit. That dysfunction spilled over to me. It’s not a surprise that this has happened. Anybody that’s ever done business with them has always said, as great as the product is, it’s never easy getting it.

You know, if this was a doc about Wu Tang this would be deemed as a joke. People would be like this is bull shit, this ain’t Wu, if all they were doing was bickering a little bit, but because it’s Tribe it’s hard to accept. If this was NWA or EPMD, you’d be like, ‘That’s it?’ But because its Tribe and the music is so positive and the spirit of the music is so positive, I think it’s been hard for fans to swallow the fact that they’re not perfect. What they go through is the same thing The Beatles have gone through, N Sync, The Supremes, it happens. Groups have there shit, families have their shit, businesses end. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

You end the movie on a positive note, about their outstanding record deal with Jive Records. Is that you as an optimistic fan, or do you really think they will record another one?

I did it as an optimistic fan, I did it to inform the fans, and I did it to remind A Tribe Called Quest that it’s there if you want it and the people would be excited about it. I was definitely conscious of what I was doing with that. I wanted people to understand that if Tribe wants to do it, they can.

OK, just some quick ones: Favourite Tribe song?

Lyrics to Go

Favourite Tribe album?

Midnight Marauders

Top 5 ’90s albums

Midnight Marauders, A Tribe Called Quest

Enter the 36 chambers, the Wu-Tang Clan

Illmatic, Nas

Ready to Die, Notorious B.I.G.

Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, Outkast

Any current artists excite you as much as Tribe?

A handful of people excite me today. Talib Kweli, Common, Jay Electronica, Mos Def, I like this kid Tyler the Creator and his whole little deal that he’s doing. I’m not going to sit here and say the music is easy to listen to, but I like his personae and like his style, and I heard him rhyming on this track yesterday with Pusha T from Clipse, and I think he has a real interesting flow and the things he says, he’s very witty.

An article based on this interview originally appeared in the National Post.  

So needless to say, skepticism was high for their new album, I’m With You, as was the pressure on new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who has the advantage of already touring with RHCP as well as being close friends with Frusciante.

And so their first single, The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie, the ridiculous name sounding like it was plucked from an Uplift Mofo Party Plan B-Side. Interestingly enough, the song is the result of an hour-long jam, Keidis told MTV.com, that was originally just going to be played in its entirely as a B-Side. But when people started hearing Maggie, it became apparent this was going to be their first single.

The first thing you notice is a funky bass line, the result of Flea’s quest for a “classic bass line,” as Keidis said in the same interview. In that regard, it’s fair to say that Flea succeeded. And then we hear Klinghoffer’s guitar, just sort of floating in the background, before it finally sneaks up and comes to life on the chorus in a wailing, distorted, almost Josh Homme-esque style. It serves as a nice complement to Flea’s playing, and if it means that I’m With You is going to play up more of said bass, with Klinghoffer laying back until it’s time for his screaming guitar to kick in, then that’s definitely a good thing.

You’ll be forgiven if you think you’ve heard the chorus before, because it definitely has a Snow (Hey oh) kind of vibe to it, both in the delivery and the lyrics (“Hey oh, listen to what I say-oh” vs. “Hey now, we’ve got to make it rain somehow”). It’s not perfect, but it should definitely be enough to keep the nay-sayers at bay until the album drops Aug. 30.

- You can listen to the The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie at redhotchilipeppers.com.

Verdict: In terms of the RHCP canon, Rain Dance Maggie definitely has its place, and it’s miles above Aeroplane. And as an added bonus, drummer Chad Smith gives us plenty of cow bell, because we all know you can never have enough of that.

This post originally appeared on the National Post’s Ampersand.

The CBC’s Canadian hip-hop documentary, Love, Props and the T-Dot, aired yesterday, wrapping up all the hip-hop coverage they had been doing earlier this year with the Hip-Hop Summit.

It was a busy weekend, so just in case you were otherwise occupied with Pride, or your leftover Canada Day firecrackers, or were busy getting your BBQ on or getting your face melted by Transformers 3, you can catch the entire film below. Narrated by Dwight Drummond! (As my entire life should be.)

Jazz pianist Vijay Iyer is a Yale mathematics graduate who also holds a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in Technology and the Arts. This might seem slightly incongruous until you read the title of his 1998 dissertation, according to Wikipedia: Macrostructures of Sound: Embodied Cognition in West African and African-American Musics. There’s a real cerebral element to Iyer, who speaks carefully and at length but not without laughter, that anchors much of the free-form associated with jazz’s improvisational nature. Iyer also attributes much of this to a 25-year-long obsession with dramatic, oblique melodies of Thelonious Monk. Last year, Historicity by the Vijay Iyer Trio was nominated for a Grammy; it included a cover of M.I.A.’s “Galang.” Iyer has also worked with a slew of rappers as a composer and writer, including a recent collaboration with post-postcolonial weirdo rappers Das Racist. A first generation curio of sorts, the unique position Iyer’s found himself in has meant courting a mix of ambivalence, naive curiosity, and ferocious pride, from a varied audience from labels to critics, long-time jazz fans to inquisitive South Asians. Of course this means Ethnic Aisle had to real talk with him about what the hell it’s like to be a brown jazz musician ahead of his Toronto Jazz Fest performance Tuesday, June 28, at the Glenn Gould Studio. – Anupa Mistry

In everything written about you, the phrase “Indian-Americans” always shows up, but I’ve also read you saying that the racial paradigm is frustrating, so does that phrase ever get annoying?

Well, it’s in my bio because either people look at my name and get it or, more commonly, they look at my name and have no fucking idea what it is, you know? So that’s to kind of diffuse that tension in the first or second sentence. But also, I’m not ashamed of it: it’s made me who I am. It sets up the dynamic of difference at the beginning, but really, that dynamic is there before I even show up, say anything, or play anything so I may as well claim it.

How important is that visibility, do you think, in terms of being in a line of “non-traditional” work?

Our community only started existing in this country in the ’60s, really. That’s when the immigration law changed and the first big wave of immigrants came to the U.S. and had children. When I was growing up there weren’t any of us in culture whatsoever. This was before there were people like, even, Rushdie, you know? Now we’re on TV, and in politics (for better or worse), and in the corporate world too—and also we’re having our own scandals now! We’re in the news in a lot of different ways, some of it is tremendous, some of it is horrible—but its good when that representation gets tweaked a little. Traveling around the U.S. and meeting other Indian-Americans who come to my shows, I can see that it’s been an inspiration—especially for people who are 10 to 20 years younger than me. To be out there and doing this has, and I don’t want to self-aggrandize or anything, made some kind of difference: it’s been said to me many times and it’s meaningful and one of the reasons I keep doing it.

Okay, so my parents were weird about me listening to rap music even though they bought me Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise tape when I was, like, 8. How did you grow up with music?

I remember the first record my older sister bought was Saturday Night Fever. I was probably four or five. We had plenty of pop stuff in the house. I remember buying Prince’s Purple Rain right when it came out and Thriller too. In terms of jazz, part of it was that I learned to play piano by improvising—it wasn’t structured or guided in any way. The piano was there, and my ear had been trained because of violin so I was able to pick things out. I would try and play the songs I heard on the radio—Michael Jackson and the Beatles. My high school had a good music program and I was in the orchestra but they let me join the jazz ensemble. When I first auditioned, I didn’t know how jazz was structured so I kind of made my version of it without knowing what was going on. My band director said it was important to learn about the music—the history, the theory, the repertoire and so on. So I did that every day in eleventh and twelfth grade.

Do you remember connecting with a particular record?

I remember seeing Billy Taylor, who passed away earlier this year, on the CBS Morning Show that my dad used to watch. This was the mid-’80s so Wynton Marsalis was becoming prominent; he was on Saturday Night Live! I would check stuff out at the library— Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis—and look at who is playing on the record and wrote the songs. That path led me to Thelonious Monk. I’d heard so much about him. I think it was Monk In Tokyo and Giants Of Jazz that made me think, ‘Wow, he’s barely playing.’ There’s all this wide open space in the music and when he did play it was just one or two notes, and they’d have this elemental force. It was really mysterious to me. It was much more structural and would have this kind of cataclysmic effect, compared to other musicians who were orbiting around the music like mosquitoes. I was like ‘Is he even playing music right now?’ And that’s a good feeling, I love that feeling. I became obsessed with him and I still am really, and that’s like 25 years later.

“It was grounding for me to have elements in my own work that were linked to my heritage…It was a way for me to be myself in the music which I’d never really seen before.”

When did you first start exploring Indian forms?

It’s more about rhythms for me. I do deal a little with ragas, but it’s sort of hard on a piano. I was never trained in Indian music—well, but I wasn’t trained in piano either, so who cares?! I moved to California when I was 20 for graduate school and it was sort of an identity-driven mission. Early memories of seeing Carnatic music made me curious about what the percussionists were doing, and especially in South Indian music, they’re improvising and responding to what’s happening. So I got more into the structural side of that. I was starting to become more of a composer so that knowledge was helpful in creating more variety and rigor.

But also, it was grounding for me to have elements in my own work that were linked to my heritage. In the Bay Area I connected with Asian Improv Arts. They are community organizers as well as creative musicians, so they dealt with identity in this empowering way. It wasn’t just ornamental, they had this radical sensibility that connected music to activism, so working with elements of your identity or heritage in the music was part of the whole mission and ideology. That was really inspiring; it was a way for me to be myself in the music which I’d never really seen before, at that time.

Does race still play a role in jazz?

For me, to be playing jazz is to be dealing with race. It’s such a fraught, racially-charged subculture and it is polarized. You’ll find whole communities of white musicians, who only play with other white musicians. You’ll also see other African-American musicians who only play with other African-Americans, but often for the purpose of hiring or collaborating for empowerment reasons. Elder African-Americans will hire younger African-Americans because they want to nurture them. When white people do it, that’s basically what it is but it doesn’t get named as such—that’s sort of a privilege of whiteness, not having to name yourself as white.

That reminds me, I wanted to ask you about that New York Times top 10 composer list you tweeted, kinda angrily, about…

Did you know they have SIX classical critics? It’s disproportionate! Anthony Tommasini made a list of the top 10 composers and, of course, they were all dead white males. Like, why are these guys so great? Well, basically because you and everyone in your scene says so! I mean, they’re completely influential, but can you honestly say that Mozart was the greatest musician that ever lived? Particularly though, Tommasini’s not dealing with any artists from the 20^th century before 1950, and also there were no women on it. It’s just dumb. He would also happily admit that it’s a biased list and he is who he is but this was on the front page of the Times’ website for months—it wasn’t some inconsequential list on a blog. At least acknowledge how influential you are! (Laughs) It’s a cultural institution and it affects the way people think and yet this happens all the time.

The media is beyond diversity training, I think.

Well also, in a way, the language of diversity has kind of regressed in the last decade or so. I feel like, somehow, since the culture wars of the late ’80s and early ’90s, there’s been this deep backlash. People don’t even know these basic things about race and power and they act like ‘Oh, that’s all PC nonsense’ without even knowing what they’re talking about. You have such a spread of levels of awareness.

“Either you’re white and neutral or else you perform your ethnicity, like Lil Wayne or something. You can’t be in between.“

Does this kind of tie back into why you think visibility is important?

Remember though, visibility doesn’t always shift the power balance. Like, black people are visible but they’re disproportionately unemployed and incarcerated and have the highest infant mortality rate. There’s still this deep power imbalance that persists well because, I don’t know, white people don’t like to share? (Laughs) My parents worked hard and created a stable environment for me, I never wanted for anything, I had a really good undergraduate education and they paid for it. So, in a lot of ways, I’m a child of privilege. But entering culture was a different thing: trying to get a record deal it was always, ‘Are people going to buy a record with your name and face on it?’ Certainly in the ’90s and during most of the last decade the answer was ‘No.’ This is still true because now they can really track statistics on different factors and variables. And it’s purely about money. So it’s on a consumer level first, then on a label decision-maker level. Either you’re white and neutral or else you perform your ethnicity, like Lil Wayne or something. You can’t be in between.

This is why I like following you on Twitter! You’re totally present and engaged instead of just being, like, quiet about all these weird machinations. Is jazz still political then?

It is for me. There are a lot of jazz musicians today who are completely apolitical, which I find beguiling. It partly has to do with who is making the music now and why. One thing that’s happened in the last couple of decades is the proliferation of jazz schools. So people will get undergraduate degrees in jazz studies or performance, usually in some sort of conservatory model, and that’s for people who can afford to do that and would over something that’s a bit more lucrative. So it’s for people who are more privileged, basically. We’re almost two generations into that dynamic.

It’s much rarer to find people who grew up in the ghetto now playing jazz, because that path was, for the most part, not available to them. Whereas 20 years ago you would find those people, and certainly 50 years ago that was all you found. That was where the music came from: that kind of real edgy (as in ‘being on the edge’) marginality and not having anything. Trying to do the impossible is what jazz is to me. You can hear the defiance in the music, and that’s partly why it has had this universal impact: not just because people were virtuosos, but there was this storytelling quality and it literally came from struggle. Maybe people hear that in some hip-hop, certainly in the early days of hip-hop. But nowadays that stuff is on display in a grotesque way because that’s what makes money, and that theatricalism is what teenaged white kids want to buy. But anyway, in terms of jazz, most people who do it today went to school for it and because they’re good at it—privileged prodigies. Those my age or younger came through that scenario, and therefore have no reason to be political because it was never their problem.

Being the first Indian-American jazz musician, I had to create possibility from impossibility. I don’t want to say it was the type of struggle that people like Monk had just to survive, but it inspired me because of that. Like, Monk was born to a single mother who moved her three kids to New York in the ’20 so her kids could legally go to high school. It’s heartbreaking. What’s my excuse for not making it? Why can’t I? I don’t find that many younger people in this music are inspired by that aspect of it, they’re often inspired by the sound and virtuosity, the beauty of music, which is itself a great thing, but it’s not the only thing.

Is that path-forging what draws you to people like M.I.A. and Das Racist?

Yeah, absolutely. It’s the same force.

Das Racist is good, but are also kind of crazy.

In terms of ‘working’ with them, this was about 75 minutes of my life! (Laughs). It was a blast, but it was also kind of a blip. They’re hilarious and we had a good time. One of the reasons we connected is that Heems (Himanshu Suri) said he liked the way I’d make jokes on Twitter. He said something like, ‘If you didn’t have mad jokes, man, I don’t know if I’d be working with you. I respect you but if you can make me laugh that makes me feel okay.’ That makes me feel glad.

What about the M.I.A. cover from Historicity?

The M.I.A. cover wasn’t something I thought people would hear and then think that I was hip. (Laughs) I admired her because of the inventiveness and the force she brought into music that was just so powerful and inspiring and seductive and kind of hilarious. It’s outspoken and not just because she talks about Sri Lankan politics, but because her identity is so undeniable. Musically, there’s nothing there that seems accessible to an acoustic jazz trio—piano, bass and drums have no place in that music! (Laughs) It’s proudly synthetic and from the digital junkyard of the third millennium, like it was put together by consumer electronics and it’s cheap but it has improbable power. I wanted to see if I could force an alignment between my group and just that one track, ‘Galang.’ It would be so unstable that it could only last the length of the song, so I was looking at the inner workings of the track, transcribing it and orchestrating it for our instruments for something we could use. It happened in a day, which is basically how our records are made anyway—they’re a snapshot of what a band is doing.

Who are you listening to now?

Craig Taborn just put out a solo piano record that’s not like any other. To me, he’s the number one pianist living today. He’s from my generation as well, but is really interesting and eclectic and aware of all types of music. I’ve been going back to folk music too, like Gnawa music from Morroco. It’s a world I can just listen to it and be in for a while. I saw Flying Lotus play live the other day here in New York. He’s really onto something. There were two or three opening acts that were cool, but when he came on it was just… I mean what I wrote on Twitter was “uncanny rhythmic truths” (laughs) because he’s found a way to make irregular sound regular. There’s lopsidedness to a lot of the beats, but the effect it has is so undeniable. It’s kind of coming out of Dilla, sort of? It’s visceral: played at that volume at a club you feel pockets of air flying around your body and you’re moving in a way that’s tethered to rhythm. That’s what I mean by rhythmic truth, truth about human motion. Musically speaking, I don’t think it’s something that’s been articulated to that degree before. I also really like Georgia Anne Muldrow, Muhsinah and Shabazz Palaces.

You retweeted my idea about the harmonium being really conducive to the melody of Fabolous’ “You Be Killin’ Em.” Any chance of making that happen?

(Laughs) Well, I actually have a harmonium but I don’t play it much. The question would really be, why?

This post is part of the Ethnic Aisle blogging project. If you’re interested in race, ethnicity, diversity and the GTA, check it out.

We all know white people listen to bands with white people in them, so why can’t I be partial to bands with brown people in them? Oh, you ain’t know there exists a significant body of work beyond M.I.A.? THERE DOES:

1. Das Racist: Here’s a sample lyric from “Ek Shaneesh” which basically made me feel 75 per cent less alone in the world:

Listening to Three Stacks, reading Gaya Spivak
Listening to KMD and feeling weird about Naipaul
Fly or style warz, war style Warsaw
Listening to jams with they pops about dem batty boys
Listening to Can while I’m reading Arundhati Roy
Yeah, yeah, my pops drove a cab homes
Now I drop guap just to bop in the cab home

I MEAN, WE ALL FELT WEIRD ABOUT NAIPAUL, RIGHT???

2.  Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers: Shilpa Ray, the coolest possible incarnation of a harmonium-playing Bad Indian Girl (I can’t believe that website still exists).

3. Yeasayer: Anand Wilder: a name I’d hate on a white guy (judgy face, Devendra Banhart), but turns my eyes into hearts on a brown.

4. Woodhands: They’re Canadian so I want to take Paul Banwatt to my former Brampton high school and make him play songs in the cafeteria underneath a sign that reads, “Choices: You Have Them.” (Only I’M allowed to make these jokes about Brampton.)

5. Bat For Lashes: Her name is Natasha Khan and she painted her face, minus the lazy “tribal” connotations, before Drew Barrymore and Kelly Osborne. And, OMG, Gwyneth Paltrow in that “I AM AFRICAN” campaign, which makes me feel both embarrassed for her + pukey. Back to Bat For Lashes who also rules because she did Kings of Leon’s song better than them!

6. Vampire Weekend: I actually don’t really give this band a pass because their music is basically colonialism in MP3 form. But Rostam Batmanglij is Iranian and gay, and I always give it up for the gay ethnics (hey parents, they exist!). OH, but Vampire Weekend is all happy sounding and shit, and how can I not be into that? All the more reason to be suspicious. Shout out Miriam and Amadou!

7. Jai Paul: Drake’s lifting of Jai Paul’s one and only song, “BTSTU,” means it is obviously the hottest shit out. Know how I know I’ve got a trace of “Hindustan Zindabad” in me? Because hearing Jai Paul’s whispery-sweet vocals used to fuel sub-par rapping (“too fucking busy/too busy fucking”) put me in a faux-murderous rage for at least five hours. Oh, shiiit!

8. Norah Jones: ROYALTY. Aside from owning a few 70s pop LPs, my parents basically don’t pay attention to any Western music. Here’s what my mom listens to now: bhajans, Bollywood oldies, Norah, bhajans. ALSO, OMG:

9. The Kominas: In grade six, I had the biggest crush on Tony Kanal from No Doubt because he was the first cool Indian musician I had ever seen. MY ultimate 90s couple broke up before I even knew they existed: Tony + Gwen = 4eva. The Kominas have multiple (!!) brown guitar players for maximum crush potential, plus they covered a Bolly classic at BBC’s Maida Vale studios, PLUS PLUS they are like, actually, part of a movement.

10. Vijay Iyer: A former mathematician turned jazz pianist who covered M.I.A.’s “Galang” on his Grammy-nominated album, Trio? Bestill my “Marry Up” heart.

Can’t not mention: Ramesh Srivastava (formerly of Voxtrot), Baria Qurieshi who left The XX, Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, Panjabi MC, and the brown dude from Sum 41.

This post is part of the Ethnic Aisle blogging project. If you’re interested in race, ethnicity, diversity and the GTA, check it out.

Go out and do something you enjoy today. At least that’s what this video makes me feel like doing. Also, you know, buying some hipster clothes and wearing them with a loosely tied tie. The key is to tie it loosely. I think.

Ever since Bon Iver, aka Justin Vernon, locked himself away in a cabin and produced his seminal album, 2008′s For Emma, Forever Ago, anticipation has been high for his full-length followup (Bloodbank and his contributions for Kanye West and the Twilight soundtrack only adding to the hype). Well, here is the first taste of his self-titled, second album.

First thoughts: It’s definitely more reflective of recent work from him, losing that lonely, sad guy locked in cabin vibe, which is understandable: Trying to recreate the beautiful sound that came from a very distinct sound and place (suffering from mononucleosis with a broken heart) in his life would probably be impossible. In place is a richly produced choral arrangement of soft voices and organ. It’s still sad, just not as lonely anymore, which perhaps has something to do with Colin Stetson and Greg Leisz being added to the band.

Verdict: Like Bon Iver’s first album, still good to listen to over a romantic dinner, or when you just need to lie down and have a good cry :(

When is the last time you saw people crowd surfing and stage diving while a guy on stage played acoustic guitar? If your answer is ‘Never,’ then take a look at the video above of The Rural Alberta Advantage playing Dethbridge in Lethbridge to a capacity crowd at Toronto’s Phoenix Concert Hall on April 29.
Sure, it’s not your Rage Against the Machine or F-cked Up, but it goes without saying that The RAA know how to make a lot of noise.

The above song closed an already adrenaline-driven set from the Toronto three-piece band, and I wouldn’t have been so surprised (pleasantly, I might add) had lead singer, Nils Edenloff, not said this just two weeks earlier over the phone during a break in their Alberta tour.

“When we’re playing shows, we didn’t want to just be hammering you over the head the whole time. The live shows reflect that we’re trying to have an ebb and a flow to the songs that we’re making.”

The ebb was there from the opening notes of the night with Don’t Haunt this Place, but after that it was all flow (and I mean that in the best possible way). The band even managed to make some sleepier tracks from their new album, such as Two Lovers and The Breakup, sound intense.

While Edenloff certainly brings a lot of emotion and energy to his singing and relentlessly hammers the strings on his acoustic, credit for all that noise also has to be given to Amy Cole, occasionally on keyboard, sometimes on standup drum or xylophone, and Paul Banwatt, who is truly mesmerizing on drums. In fact, there is so much bass coming from Banwatt’s drum kit that it’s easy to forget that there is no bass guitar player in The RAA.

That said, the show did slow down, twice, when both Cole and Banwatt left the stage and Edenloff performed Eye of the Tiger, dedicated to UFC weekend in Toronto, and again later when he sang the theme song to The Littlest Hobo because, well, just because.

“Thank you so much,” he told the crowd before Eye of the Tiger. “I never thought this place would work out.” “This place” meaning the Phoenix, with a capacity of 1,100, making it the band’s largest show in Canada yet (they sold out to a crowd of 1,600 in Minneapolis).

As they finished out their set, interspersing crowd favourites such as The Ballad of the RAA, Frank AB and Drain the Blood from their first album with an equal amount of songs from their new album, including their latest single Stamp (video of that performance below), the walls started to sweat, the crowd heaved, a very mini mosh pit formed and crowd surfers became a regular sight. By the time the stage divers started, there was no doubt that the next time the RAA play Toronto, they’re going to need a bigger venue.

Set List
Don’t Haunt this Place
Under the Knife
Sleep all Day
Tornado 87
Ballad of…
Two Lovers
The Break up
Eye of the Tiger.
Four night rider
Edmonton
Coldest Nights
Frank AB
In the Summer Time
Drain the Blood
Dead Roads
Stamp

Encore
The Littlest Hobo Theme Song
North Star
Barnes Yard
Dethbridge in Lethbridge

The chef Raekwon’s been on a roll since releasing Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.. Pt. II in late 2009. But some of us (i.e. Anupa) are pretty partial to his latest, Shaolin v. Wu-Tang, too (and not just because the title invokes all that legendary Wu mythology). Raekwon tours a lot and has become a semi-regular fixture in Toronto, but his Friday show will hopefully be more intimate than usual since it’s going down at The Opera House. Plus, T.O. rapper Miles Jones, who released the awesome Runaway Jones last year), is opening! So we’re really happy to be giving away two pairs of tickets (courtesy of The Union) to see Raekwon in Toronto. Tell your friends to enter and guarantee yourself as their plus one to increase your chances of winning!

Here’s how to enter:

1. Raekwon might not be the funniest Wu-Tang Clan member (my vote goes to O.D.B.), but even stoic-ass RZA and U-God have some unintentionally hilarious rhymes, so make us gut-bust laugh with the funniest Rae lyric you can find and post it in the comments.

2. Please leave your FULL, REAL first and last name to enter as well as your e-mail address. No initials, no aliases. This makes it easy for everyone involved.

3. You must be 19 or older to attend so do not waste anyone’s time entering if you are “12, but can pass for 18.”

Contest closes at midnight on Wednesday, and we’ll choose and announce the winner’s on Thursday morning.

Raekwon w/ Miles Jones

The Opera House, Toronto

April 15, 2011

19+

****THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED!

Thanks for entering and making us laugh (I see you Kenny and Damian). We chose winners by draw since humour is often subjective, so congratulations to Nicholas and Matt! Tickets are still available!