decibal cooper

Sega Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog vibes with those synths in the first section, delightful!

Tangentially related to Israel/Palestine conflict, but a most unwelcome development: https://stefanik.house.gov/2023/11/stefanik-mccaul-resolution-declares-a-nuclear-iran-unacceptable-and-to-use-all-means-necessary-to-prevent-iran-from-becoming-nuclear-ready/e3fb180e-0ce2-4140-8a1c-1d258374c68a

I recently signed up for X so that I have access to tweets. There are times where you can get wind of new stories breaking (about global political events), and even if the content is presented in an overtly ideological way, it can still be a basis for which to do your own research and look for verification from foreign presses and other reputable sources. At the same time, I have done what you do as well, basically liking and retweeting things to tailor my feed. My feed is pretty much just animal videos and MF DOOM or Hip Hop related content it's awesome.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/vladimir-putin-revokes-russias-ratification-of-nuclear-test-ban-treaty/articleshow/104913528.cms Also, this gem from about a year ago, a legit nuclear attack public service announcement aired in NYC:

There are a few American former military men who became disillusioned with American foreign policy and are very critical of it, and I too wish ppl here in the US would listen to them. Another one is retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Bush for Powell. He left office when Powell did, had a falling out with Powell, and he later said that the Guantanamo torture scandal was when he saw the writing on the wall. He talks about some of the deaths at American prisons (all around the world) and how they were homicides. Older 'terrorist suspects' who were 'interrogated' at such facilities suffered cardiac arrest during 'interrogations' and died, tortured to death. He now teaches graduate classes at a university in Maryland and also works behind the scenes in DC to advocate for peace. His outlook and analysis are not too far from someone like Noam Chomsky (very critical of US empire), but he has more insider knowledge of the types of dealings which occur in America's capital city and obviously a more clear understanding of the US military. I've watched some of his videos when I was younger and learned a lot and still try to keep up with his interviews and analysis. For his classes, he basically has his students choose a research question and then pursue it, and he talked before about one of his students who looked into the creation of Israel from a military perspective. The student found through archival research that Truman's advisors considered the creation of Israel "a strategic deficiency" because it would pit the US military against all of the surrounding Muslim countries in perpetuity. Truman was surprised, and basically was like "well, there are more Jewish people than Muslim in New York", and he had democratic votes in mind, trying to secure re-election for his party. All of this a good reminder that historically in America, whatever is happening domestically either determines or directly reflects/reinforces America's choices abroad, especially in the Middle East.

I never got into him that much either, but he has some incredible music. His music definitely influenced East coast Hip Hop too in a way. I saw an interview with DJ Premier where he talks about his early days working at records stores and getting into music, and how him and his boys would anticipate any new releases from Prince and play them on the first day they came out (and also looking forward especially to twelve-inch releases that had alternate mixes of singles). I like the Prince album Dirty Mind, one of his earlier ones. Has some bangers and also some cool synthesizer work:

I like this explanation, and I imagine that this process you describe might be similar to how musicians feel about their favorite music or music that they might be trying to reference. You highlighted TBM2 in relation to the harmonic or melodic content that is hinted at or suggested, and I sometimes notice this in relation to beats in their music. Like the song M39 Diffain. Even though the song's focus is the wild soundscapes happening, there is a lot of beat-madness happening throughout the track too. However, at around the 4:20 mark of the song, a relatively straight-forward hip hop and electro beat emerges. How I wish they'd have let that beat ride! The odd beats and soundscapes that sound like rain and trains in subways comes back full force, and that beat I love ends up being a fleeting kind of suggestion. Still love this song, though. Know I am not alone in wishing they'd come out with some basic straight hip hop songs, but ultimately that probably would not suit them because it's too simple or not in line with how they like to be fresh and also their quality control standards. You highlighted a part of their music that fascinates me, and I cannot find the interview, but there was some quote from sean talking about how he had a recording of an old Melle Mel song that had been re-recorded so many different times on cassettes (and the original source of the recording was a radio broadcast), and that he really liked the sound of it, and that it was like a ghost of the original recording, that it ultimately bore very little resemblance to that original, but there were suggestions or hints of it. He mentioned the same thing in droid's new interview when talking about funk and a specific recording of the Run DMC song Sucker MC's.

Happy birthday to beat maker The Alchemist

Yes, that's accurate imo. I feel like his films (the ones I've seen) are interesting and fun to watch nevertheless. He has a unique documentary style, and the way he edits together archival footage to present his arguments is very fascinating, even if he overreaches and is ultimately unpersuasive on key points. My key criticism with his arguments is that he deals in hasty generalizations when trying to offer a coherent explanation of why the world is the way that it is. In some of his films, like the one about the early days of the internet (forget the title) and also the one about Edward Bernays, this is not an issue. But for the big ones like Hypernormalisation and Can't Get You Out of My Head, it seems to be a glaring issue. Even with their problems, those two in particular are ambitious and I like them the best. Even if his argument falls flat, the film making is terrific and I ended up learning a lot about world history in the 20th century. Also, I think he deserves props for posing big questions that few others do and having the courage to at least try and offer answers. Soundtracks are killer too.