Aisha Fukushima: Leave on the Light

En sang inspireret af irakerne i Brorsons Kirke.

Fra beskrivelsen på YouTube:

A collaborative song by Aisha Fukushima and the Glendorf Brothers. “Leave on the Light” is inspired by the experiences of Iraqi asylum seekers who were in sanctuary at Brorsons Church in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Aisha sings the chorus and raps the second verse in English. Mads Glendorf raps the first and third verses in Danish. His brother, Rasmus Glendorf, made the instrumental.

Follow the progress of Aisha Fukushima’s international hip hop project “RAPTIVISM” at: http://aishafukushima.tumblr.com

Se den og spred den!

Fildeler retsforfølges for 25 millioner og fortæller sin historie

Joel Tenebaum fortæller i The Guardian om sine genvordigheder, efter at pladebranchen har sagsøgt ham for fildeling, og han har nægtet at bøje sig og erkende, at han skulle have gjort noget galt:

To a certain extent, I’m afraid to write this. Though they’ve already seized my computer and copied my hard drive, I have no guarantee they won’t do it again. For the past four years, they’ve been threatening me, making demands for trial, deposing my parents, sisters, friends, and myself twice – the first time for nine hours, the second for seven. I face up to $4.5m in fines and the last case like mine that went to trial had a jury verdict of $1.92m.

When I contemplate this, I have to remind myself what I’m being charged with. Investment fraud? Robbing a casino? A cyber-attack against the federal government? No. I shared music. And refused to cave.

No matter how many people I explain this to, the reaction is always the same: dumbfounded surprise and visceral indignance, both of which are a result of the amazing secrecy the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has operated under. “How did they get you?” I’m asked. I explain that there are 40,000 people like me, being sued for the same thing, and we were picked from a pool of millions who shared music. And that’s when a look appears on the face of whoever I’m talking to, the horrified “it could have been me!” look. […]

in August 2007, I came home from work to find a stack of papers, maybe 50 pages thick, sitting at the door to my apartment. That’s when I found out what it was like to have possibly the most talented copyright lawyers in the business, bankrolled by multibillion-dollar corporations, throwing everything they had at someone who wanted to share Come As You Are with other Nirvana fans.

I had assumed that as an equal in a court of law in the United States, my story would be told and a just outcome would result. I discovered the sheer magnitude of obstacles in your way to get your say in court. And even if you get to trial, (which only one other person, Jammie Thomas Rasset, has done) you’re still far from equal with the machine controlling 85% of commercial music in the US. […]

My sisters, dad and mother have all been deposed. My high-school friends, friends of the family too. My computer’s been seized and hard drive copied, and my parents and sister narrowly escaped the same fate for their computers. And the professor who supervises my teaching is continually frustrated with my need to have people cover for me, while my research in grad school is put on hold to deal with people whose full-time job is to keep an anvil over my head. I have to consider every unrelated thing I do in my private life in the event that I’m interrogated under oath about it. I wonder how I’ll stand up in a courtroom for hours having litigators try to convince a jury of my guilt and the reprehensibility of my character.

Er der nogen af mine læsere, der kan genkende denne følelse af “det ku’ have været mig!”, som jeg har fremhævet?

Tak, Morten Jørgensen!

Link: How it feels to be sued for $4.5m, Joel fights back

Niña de los Peines: Manantial del cante jondo

La Niña de los Peines (1890-1969) var endnu en legende i flamenco-musikken.  Hun rammer en let tone, men med en dyb undertone, der virkelig kunne bevæge publikum. I løbet af sin meget lange karriere mødte hun bl.a. digteren Federico García Lorca, der karakteriserede hende med disse ord:

This woman’s voice is exceptional. It breaks the moulds of all singing schools, as much as she breaks the moulds of any built music. When she seems to be out of tune, she is not out of tune: on the contrary, she is incredibly in tune as, owing to the special miracle of this style and the passion with which she sings third tones and quarter tones, impossible to record on the staff.

Hør også: La niña de los Peines y Federico García Lorca

Mzungu Kichaa – Bongo Flava med skør hvid mand

Mzungu Kichaa alias Espen Sørensen er en dansk-tanzaniansk Bongo Flava-rapper, der netop har udgivet en plade. Om hans og musikkens baggrund kan vi læse i Gaffa:

Oprindelsen er pæredansk – østjysk helt præcist – men gennem forældrenes arbejde i forskellige lande i Syd- og Østafrika, voksede Kichaa – der i øvrigt også bærer navnet Espen Sørensen – op og blev til den afrikansk-danske hybrid, der fra starten i 1990’erne var del af den voksende undergrundsscene i Tanzanias hovedstad, Dar Es Salaam. En undergrundsscene, hvor musikstilen Bonga Flava er fremherskende.

Bongo Flava kombinerer stilarter som reggae, ragga, rap med forbilleder som Tupac Shakur, samt traditionel musik, en musik, der er kraftigt mikset op med inspirationer fra cubansk musik. Kort sagt er Bongo Flava en massiv smeltedigel, hvor det sungne sprog desuden for det meste er swahili. Musikken har sine stjerner, der selvsagt går fra de rendyrkede politiske kommentatorer på gadeplan til rendyrket pop. En spændende musikform, der har en stadig større udbredelse i hele det østafrikanske område.

Mzungu Kichaa – som betyder “Tosset hvid mand” på swahili – havde omkring årtusindskiftet et massivt lokalt hit og har siden helliget sig uddannelse, men er nu tilbage med denne plade, som er ret overbevisende. Her gør han i forskellige stilarter, og hans allestedsnærværende guitar er et element, som både har et klassisk østafrikansk flow og peger på den Hendrix, som i sin tid var det store forbillede. Ligesom sangene, der som oftest kører i enkle akkordforløb, har en vuggende og smittende karakter, mens der overbevisende rappes på swahili.

Spændende. Jeg forstår bare ikke noget af det, de synger på videoen, men musikken går rent ind.

Link: Mzungu Kichaa på MySpace