Hip Hop Prof A.D. Carson slinging dope. (Credit: Jeremie Bailey)

Hip Hop is Dope, and America is a Dopefiend Hooked on the Fruit of Its Own Brutality

I’m driving with Truth, a friend who is a music producer. We both make rap music, but he makes beats, too. I’m an undergraduate at the small, private university in my hometown, Decatur, Illinois. He finished his undergraduate degree a couple years ago. We are leaving Jay’s house — he’s another friend — driving from his West Side neighborhood toward the campus at its edge. It’s remarkable, while driving through this neighborhood, what distinguishes the town from university grounds. It’s not the manicured hedges and lawns. They aren’t greener, neater, or more meticulously trimmed on one side or the other. It’s the wrought iron fencing that separates them. The gates are a portal between worlds.

https://www.spin.com/2023/08/hip-hop-is-dope-and-america-is-a-dopefiend-hooked-on-the-fruit-of-its-own-brutality/

Book Cover of “Don Giovanni” Captured Performance, Media, Myth by Richard Will

The Ambivalences of ‘Don Giovanni’

Opera’s most famous libertine, who embodies freedom not only from social and political constraints but from sexuality, religion, and morality itself, has always been a disturbing figure.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/08/17/the-ambivalences-of-don-giovanni-mozart-ivo-van-hove/

MT Joy
Story Music

Arts on the Hill: MT. JOY

April 5, 2023
Laban Carrick Hill and Theodore Taylor’s 2013 picture book When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop (New York: Roaring Brook Press)

Libraries and 50 Years of Hip-Hop

Not every musical genre can pinpoint the date and location of its start, but hip hop is distinctive in that way. Hip hop was born in the Bronx on August 11, 1973 when graffiti artist and b-girl Cindy Campbell threw a back-to-school party and had her brother Clive, who performed under the name DJ Kool Herc, play music in the recreation room of an apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Celebrations and other events are marking the 50th anniversary, and libraries are playing a part in ways that would have been unimaginable decades ago. What was once a fringe genre slowly gained commercial dominance and cultural legitimacy. Although “rap” and “hip hop” are sometimes used interchangeably, the former refers just to the vocal style while the latter incorporates the whole culture, which also includes DJing, break dancing, and graffiti art.

https://www.charleston-hub.com/2023/08/libraries-and-50-years-of-hip-hop/

David J. Baldwin
Story Music

Tuesday Evening Concert Series Selects New Executive Director

August 23, 2023
John D’earth

On a High Note, French Piano Virtuoso Joins Local Players for an Evening of Jazz Excellence

John D’earth knows Charlottesville music. Since settling in town in 1981, he’s come to define the local jazz scene—and beyond—with his considerable crossover into pop genres, and reach as a music teacher. So when D’earth decides to bring a French jazz pianist stateside for a local residency, culminating with a show alongside himself and the University of Virginia Jazz Ensemble at the Paramount Theater on April 28, the ears of jazz aficionados and casual music fans alike perk up.

https://www.c-ville.com/on-a-high-note

Lewis Reining

Current Names WTJU's Lewis Reining a “Rising Star in Public Media”

Current, the source for news about public media, announced its first cohort of early and mid-career employees to be recognized as Rising Stars in Public Media who are making a mark on their organizations and communities. “There’s so much talent in public media,” said Current Executive Director Julie Drizin. “We wanted to recognize exceptional individuals and raise their profiles on a national level.”

https://www.wtju.net/current-names-wtjus-lewis-reining-a-rising-star-in-public-media/

Detail from “Pérégrinations D'une Comète” (Wanderings of a Comet), a fantastical illustration from the French caricaturist J.J. Grandville’s 1844 “Un Autre Monde” (Another World).

A Treasured Collection of Illustration & Whimsy

A great book collection doesn’t assemble itself. It requires a person with a singular focus, a discerning eye, and a bibliophile’s unwavering devotion. Josephine Lea Iselin, a retired attorney who practiced law for 35 years and was a partner in the New York law firm of Lankenau Kovner Kurtz & Outten, specialized in intellectual property, litigation, and trusts and estates. She also assembled, over the course of many years, one of the finest collections of 19th-century French and English caricature and graphic humor in private hands, and one that would be almost impossible to duplicate today.

https://giving.virginia.edu/stories/a-treasured-collection-of-illustration-and-whimsy

VAFF Logo on a screen in a dark theatre with an audience. Photo by Jack Looney

VAFF to Continue 2023 Year-round Film Series

The Virginia Film Festival will continue its popular VAFF at Violet Crown Series this summer with a pair of highly acclaimed films including director Charlotte Regan’s inventive father-daughter comedy Scrapper and Fremont, the story of a young Afghan refugee adjusting to her new land.

https://virginiafilmfestival.org/vaff-to-continue-2023-year-round-film-series/

Book Cover for QUEER BEHAVIOR: SCOTT BURTON AND PERFORMANCE ART

Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art by David Getsy Wins the 2023 Robert Motherwell Book Award

David J. Getsy (Eleanor Shea Professor of Art History, Department of Art) received the 2023 Robert Motherwell Book Award for outstanding publication in the history and criticism of modernism in the arts, given by the Dedalus Foundation, for his book 'Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art.' The award carries a $10,000 prize for its author.

https://dedalusfoundation.org/programs/fellows-recipients/recipient/queer-behavior-scott-burton-and-performance-art/

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