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DJ Muggs recommended Step in the Arena by Gang Starr in Music (curated)

Step in the Arena by Gang Starr

1991 | Hip-hop, Rock

5.5

(2 Ratings)

Album Favorite

"Fucking loved that record, man. I met Premier and Guru early, before the first album; they were still on Wild Pitch. I was down at their video for Word I Manifest, before Cypress came out, in like ‘89. That was a good time in New York man; I loved New York in the late eighties. It was incredible. The creativity and the culture of the city was so raw. That’s where a lot of subcultures came out of, that rawness. You didn’t see a lot of shit come out of Beverly Hills… there’s a reason for that."

Source

Kudos

Live and Let Die (1973)

6.9 (12 Ratings) Rate It

Movie Watch

Several British agents monitoring the operations of Dr. Kananga, the dictator of a small Caribbean...

Ruth Wilson recommended The Warriors (1979) in Movies (curated)

The Warriors (1979)

1979 | Crime, Drama, Thriller

7.5

(28 Ratings)

Movie Favorite Watch

"The Warriors, only because it was such a brilliant… Well, actually, the reason why is because I did it as my first-ever stage play. We did a staged version of The Warriors, which is absurd, and it was, like, a lot of British kids running around hitting each other with polystyrene baseball bats. It was such a theatrical version of New York, of the gangs in New York, and it was visceral and sort of fun and energetic, and I loved it. I watched it when I was probably about 11, and kind of loved it."

Source

Kudos

Neneh Cherry recommended Down These Mean Streets in Books (curated)

Down These Mean Streets

Piri Thomas | 1997 | Biography, Gender Studies

(0 Ratings)

Book Favorite

"New York is where I go in my head a lot when I’m writing. I have deep imprints of the city in my backbone: sounds, smells, music, pizza parlors, Chelsea Hotel, TV, fire hydrants oozing, the Lower East Side, people everywhere living their lives inside-out, on top, and through each other… maybe there is something even more in the memories old New York in the ‘70s—unpolished, unclean, lived in. It’s all there in this coming of age story of a young Puerto Rican boy/man. I feel this story all around in my memory bank."

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Kudos

Moby recommended It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back by Public Enemy in Music (curated)

"It was a real wake-up call. Hip hop until 1984, 85 was fun but for the most part it was party music. Living outside New York we'd listen to WBLS and Kiss FM where they played a lot of hip hop and me and my friends liked it, but it was very lighthearted. The Fatboys are the perfect example, or the Treacherous Three, where they have disco basslines and this fun vocal. Then almost out of nowhere Public Enemy happened. Everything about it was different. The lyrics were different, Chuck D's vocal approach was different, the subject matter and the production, the Bomb Squad. I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking how did they do this, because they've basically made punk rock hip hop, the sounds they were using, the way they were distorting basslines, it was a lot of the same ways industrial records were being made but they were making hip hop. It was so revolutionary. You can refer to musical culture in New York as before and after Public Enemy, it changed the city. New York was so dangerous then, it had the highest murder count, people were getting stabbed and shot and the crack epidemic was decimating communities and people were dying of AIDS. You'd go out to nightclubs in the late 80s and you'd hear these apocalyptic Public Enemy songs that perfectly described the city that you lived in, but they were oddly celebratory and you could dance to them. For better or worse one of the reasons I've left New York is because the city I grew up with is still there, but it's become a much meaner, safer version of its former self. I still love New York, but it's become primarily the domain of hedge fund managers and wealthy tourists, so I don't know how many more Suicides and Silver Apples and Public Enemys and Eric B & Rakims are going to come out New York City."

Source

Kudos