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Hip-hop in South Korea has made it over to the mainstream, partly due to the massively popular music competition show “Show Me the Money,” which is like is like “X-Factor” with more hypebeasts in bucket hats. As the reality TV program has gained popularity, major Korean record labels have become more willing to invest in burgeoning rap stars instead of the typical idol or group. XXX’s Kim Ximya, who raps on top of production by the duo’s other half FRNK, has suggested that the commercialism of Korean rap has killed the authenticity of the genre, as it increasingly mirrors the formulaic nature of K-pop. “For most of the Korean rapper population, I feel they did not write about what they actually felt or what they were actually doing,” Kim said in an interview with Billboard. “They were making music they thought people would like to hear.”

On their debut album Language, XXX present themselves as the alternative to the sanitized, hyper-glossy rap music typically pumped out by the billion-dollar Korean music industry. If BTS are measured and subtle about their politics, XXX cuss in two different languages to get the point across. Kim launches invectives against the corporate K-pop machine, money-thirsty rappers, and oppressive standards of “success” (as defined by capitalism). He’s at his best when he’s absolutely seething with rage—a refreshing mode of delivery that doesn’t appear often in K-pop’s biggest hits.

“Y'all wanna know what the fuck hip-hop is?” Kim spits with vitriol on “S_it,” before he answers his own question: “Such luxury does not exist in Korea.” And although Kim’s intermittent English lyrics are sometimes clunky, they help non-Korean speakers get a sense of the themes he’s tackling here. It works best in “Sujak,” when he starts off by rapping in English: “Strip club/Casket/Body in that basket.” Kim charges the song with nihilistic energy before switching over to Korean to elaborate on living in a soul-sucking society that values money over people. It seems almost utilitarian, like how other K-pop stars add in random English interjections in order to appeal to as many international listeners as possible. But his bilingualism is more impressive in the moments when the shift is seamless and the two languages flow together, like when he rhymes Korean words with English ones and vice versa.

While Language repeatedly takes aim at the overwhelmingly high pressures of the Korean music industry, Kim’s rage never becomes monotone or boring. His frustrations are nuanced, as he portrays his internal conflict of wanting to succeed within the system that he’s actively trying to fight. On “Ugly,” Kim admits that he ascribes his self-worth to his success as an artist. “This ranking system and poverty is fucking my mentality/In the end, my music doesn’t reach the charts,” he raps. And on “What You Want,” he illustrates how easy it is to find himself slipping back into the capitalistic ethos. His train of thought begins to unravel: “Art is human/Human is greed/Ergo greed is money.” He snaps himself out of the cycle and starts over, until he inevitably finds himself talking about money yet again.

Since they’ve gained attention globally, Korean rappers have been accused of biting off their American counterparts and even “mocking” black culture. But XXX seek out their own identity by opting for dark, intense production that would fit in more at a warehouse rave than an upscale club, bolstering their anti-establishment attitude. On Language, FRNK veers towards Arca’s Stretch 2-era twisted experimental trap and leans into the bombast of Hudson Mohawke and Lunice’s TNGHT bangers. In a standout moment at the end of “S_it,” a fascinating breakdown chops up the sound of knives unsheathing with ominous plucks from the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument. Instead of lifting sounds from another scene, XXX take cues from their own culture and mash them up with weirder found sounds, proving that Korean rap can innovate, not just replicate.

XXX have lamented the fact that they’ve started to gain more recognition in America than in Korea. (Kim said: “I really wanted to break the system first back home.”) But they’ve carved out a space on the internet instead of on TV or venues in their native country, where the music industry might not want to champion two iconoclasts who don’t fit the status quo. Their exile from mainstream Korean rap and pop, of course, is why Language is such a thrill to listen to.

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Marina Benjamin's Playlist for Her Memoir "Insomnia"

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.

Marina Benjamin's Insomniais more than a memoir, the book haunts with its journeys into what unsettles us in the night.

The Los Angeles Times wrote of the book:

"A svelte work of nonfiction that bridges memoir and the history of sleeplessness . . . Benjamin has written three other memoirs and she knows her way around the form, drawing out personal details and reminiscences and connecting them to a larger history of sleep and its discontents . . . She pings between mythological stories of sleepers and gods of sleep, dreamers and insomniacs, as well as cultural and literary approaches to sleeplessness. Like a night-ride through an insomniac’s mind, Benjamin’s book moves from thought to thought, driven by tangential linkages rather than logical progression . . . But the writing itself is so luminous that you hardly notice . . . It’s writing like this, effortless as a sleeping dog, that carries you through Insomnia, the kind of book for those late hours of the night, keeping you company when you’re most alone."

In her own words, here is Marina Benjamin's Book Notes music playlist for her memoir Insomnia:

My memoir Insomnia is a deliberately unsettling account of an everyday condition that is no less troubling for being widespread or routine. That state of lack and desperation and longing that comes from wanting sleep and not being able to get it, and growing more and more fatigued by its evasiveness, is simply tortuous. But Insomnia is a different kind of journey into darkness, one that dares to peer into the abyss – the dark night of the soul! – and then trip lightly through the lucid experiences of being sleepless. In the book, I describe the edgy, jittery highs of night-waking, and I look beyond the horrors of insomnia to take stock of its inspirations and ambivalent gifts – especially the way sleeplessness offers lightning glimpses of profound truths that elude us by day, about life, love and creativity.

I once wrote an entire book – an earlier book – listening over and over to Mozart’s Requiem for weeks on end. But these days I prefer to write in silence, or else against a backdrop of white noise: a big bustling public library suits me just fine. If I do listen to music while writing it is as an interlude. Or as a way of pumping me up for the next section to come. My tastes are bipolar, which is to say I have a nostalgic bent that cherishes music from my youth, but since my teenager is now a budding singer-songwriter, I’ve also grown to love some of the music she listens to, even as it ricochets around the house, booming and unapologetic.

Some of the music I list here works like an earworm, especially when I’m up at night, when it goes round and round my turntable head. It is amazing to me that I retain any affection for it, really. But then insomnia is nothing if not contrary.

‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen
This track is a favourite of my teenager, who at the age of about 6, went to a fancy dress party as Freddy Mercury, dressed in a white wife-beater vest and a painted-on, cruiser-style moustache. The wand from her magic set doubled up as a mic. ‘Somebody to Love’ can keep me up at night for hours. The extraordinary thing is that when it whirls round my insomniac brain, I imagine hitting all those impossible high notes, just like Freddy did, and that is truly thrilling. But the pleasure dies all too quickly when the thumping anthem beats of the middle section bang pots and pans against my skull.

‘Born Slippy’ by Underworld
This song is emblematic of the kind of music that pumps me up – hypnotically rhythmic and yet still tuneful, and with enough of a druggy House vibe to it to really get me into the zone. Music like this makes me feel slightly reckless. Which is a good thing when it comes to writing, especially memoir, where one’s instinct to self-censor is always rather too close to the surface. I happen to really believe that in order to produce your best writing you need to find a quality of carelessness in yourself that bypasses stylistic concerns and gets to the heart of a feeling or idea.

‘Big Love’ by Fleetwood Mac
Through the months of 2017 when I was writing Insomnia against a live soundtrack, a shifting troupe of musicians shuffled across my mental landscape. As my teenagers fads changed monthly– 21 Pilots, Nothing but Thieves, Bad Sounds, Declan Mckenna – each artist took their bow. At the same time, she was rehearsing ‘Big Love’ in preparation for an important exam. This fiendishly difficult song is one that many adult guitarists find impossible to master, but through sheer bloody-mindedness my teenager became more than competent at playing it. Her efforts inspired a similar blood-minded ambition in me (I would finish my book, and it would be more than competent!) and so between us, we gave the Puritan work ethic some strenuous exercise.

‘Death of a Bachelor’ by Panic! at the Disco
There’s so much of the night in Brendan Uri’s beautiful ballad. It is lounge music, but of the best kind. It makes me think of low-lit nightclubs, satin tuxedos, tall colourful drinks, ambient whispers and melancholy flirtation (“Share one more drink with me / Smile, even though you’re sad.”). Only someone with Uri’s remarkable vocal range can sing this song. Well, maybe Harry Connick Jr could attempt it. I love the way that it somehow manages to be romantic and unsentimental, in other words, it’s prickly. Like insomnia, it also brims with longing. I actually find it painful to hear Uri sing the line ‘How can I live?’

Sleep by Max Richter
Richter’s 8-hour lullaby was something I turned to in search of an alternative to opiates and other chemical sleep aids. It’s a remarkable composition, inspired by the brain science of sleep, and its 31 ‘songs’ consist of otherworldly arias, ‘whispers’, ‘patterns’, ‘solos’, ‘constellations’ , ‘dreams’ and ‘paths’. The music is minimalist, meandering, enchanting, ambient, as it echoes back the brain’s cyclical rhythms that dip then rises again through beta and theta waves, to the deep, pulses that characterise delta waves, and back. Sometimes Sleep offered up these magnificent shimmering walls of sound, resonant but tuneless – like the soundtrack to a sci-fi flick, as wonderstruck cosmonauts drift within admiring distance of a resplendent alien or – and I could drift off happily under the music’s hypnotic spell.

‘Been Around the World’ by Lisa Stansfield and Barry White
Everyone needs a song to dance around the house to when stressed. This is mine. My musical fidget-spinner. My guilty pleasure. You don’t want to be there when I’m crooning it, believe me; and now that I’ve made my confession you can go away. I’m not saying any more about it.

‘Protection’ by Massive Attack
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I search out music for it restful qualities. I may not nap during the day (a real sleep hygiene no-no is napping), but I will lie on the sofa and close my eyes and more often than not at those times I’ll listen to Massive Attack. 'Protection' in particular is a polished, sexy, slick track, at once dreamy and uplifting. It takes me back to more youthful days, since I was at turning point in my life when the song came out, and listening to it I re-live that dizzying feeling of choice and possibility. 'Protection' reminds me that I find thresholds exciting, and Insomnia is precisely about thresholds – between darkness and light, waking and sleeping, love and abandonment.

Marina Benjamin and Insomnia links:

the author's website
excerpt from the book

Evening Standard review
Kirkus review
Los Angeles Times review
NPR Books review
Spectator review

Vulture profile of the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

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Book Notes (2015 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays

Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
weekly music release lists

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Electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre has partnered with social VR platform TheWaveVR for his new album.

The partnership will give TheWaveVR’s global community access to his new album Equinoxe Infinity.

Users will have the opportunity to remix tracks using the in-app virtual decks and host listening parties for other users to attend.

The Equinoxe Infinity VR shows will be available to any HTC Vive or Oculus Rift VR headset owner through TheWaveVR’s free app, on Steam and Oculus Home.

Featured concerts may also be broadcast on Jean Michel Jarre’s social channels.

Additionally, famed comic book illustrator and digital artist Sutu has created bespoke 3D artwork inspired by Equinoxe Infinity for the partnership.

Jarre will be hosting a one-off Q&A in TheWave on December 12 at 3pm GMT, which will be preceded by a special live show hosted by Sutu at 2pm GMT to showcase the Equinoxe Infinity visuals – Sutu’s first ever live VR show in collaboration with an artist. Sutu’s live show will premiere on 9 December at 3am GMT.

“Virtual reality is part of the next frontier of music.”

Jean-Michel Jarre

“Virtual reality is part of the next frontier of music,” said Jean-Michel Jarre.

“The Equinoxe Infinity album considers where we are going as a society, including the ways artificial intelligence and machine learning may impact us.

“I’ve always been passionate about the potential of music to merge with future technologies.

“When I experienced TheWaveVR, I loved that spatial art – one of the specialities of my live shows – isn’t limited to scale or real-life constraints. Creators can host the concert of their imagination. This is where Equinoxe Infinity belongs.”

“When we met with Jean-Michel we realized he had an instant understanding of the important role that immersive, visual experiences like ours have to play in the future of music.”

Adam Arrig, TheWaveVR

TheWaveVR CEO Adam Arrigo added:: “Visit TheWaveVR offices and you’ll see the book Push Turn Move: Interface Design in Electronic Music proudly on display.

“Jean-Michel wrote the foreword to that book, and we feel like we’re kindred spirits with his music interests and passions.

“When we met with Jean-Michel we realized he had an instant understanding of the important role that immersive, visual experiences like ours have to play in the future of music. It’s a huge honour to bring his music to TheWaveVR community.”Music Business Worldwide

While bouncers and indoor surveillance cameras do a good job of protecting your music venue and the guests inside of it, you may be overlooking the outside of your club. Night after night, the outside walls of your business run the risk of serving as a graffiti artist’s canvas. Graffiti is unsightly and sometimes difficult to remove, so it’s important you take steps to prevent problems.

Add Plants

Graffiti artists can’t paint what they can’t reach. Make your walls harder to reach and see while adding greenery to the area with plants. Install flower beds or boxes along your exterior walls and fill them with trees, shrubs or climbing vines. This will form a natural barrier around your walls to help keep them safe. If you opt for this approach, remember to stay on top of your landscaping maintenance. Keep your plants trimmed away from sidewalks and walkways and choose varieties that won’t drop fruit or other litter on the ground. Evergreens are an excellent low-maintenance option.

Paint Smart

Dark paint colors make graffiti harder to see and easier to paint over. Many graffiti artists simply skip dark walls and target lighter colors that will more readily showcase their work. Whatever paint color you choose, choose an anti-graffiti paint. These products create a non-stick surface that repels spray paint and cleans up easily.

Beef up Security

Since graffiti is illegal, perpetrators tag walls they can get to quickly and discretely. Make your building a far less appealing target by installing lots of outdoor lighting and security cameras. Install a few cameras (or fake ones) in highly visible areas so painters looking for a target know you’ll catch them on camera if they color your walls.

Embrace the Medium

Depending on the look and feel of the neighborhood, you may find it easier to embrace graffiti rather than curb it. Some venues now offer permission walls where they welcome graffiti on a certain wall or in a specified spot. Encouraging locals to create or contribute to a mural on your walls takes away the thrill for mischief-seekers while embracing locals who are serious about what they view as their art.

If you do get tagged, remove the graffiti as soon as you can. It’s easiest to remove within the first 24 hours. Mineral spirits, oven cleaner and turpentine all cut graffiti, as do cleaning products made for that purpose. After cleaning up the mess, start implementing anti-graffiti measures right away to prevent future incidents.

Tagging Fail: How To Keep Your Music Venue Free Of Graffiti

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During this week’s Thursday Night game, the Dallas Cowboys defense absolutely locked down the Saints high-powered offense and only allowed 10 points from one of the highest scoring teams in the league.

After the game, Saints fans believe the Cowboys cheated after spotting a staffer standing on the Saints sideline holding a cellphone which is illegal in the NFL.

The Cowboys have finally addressed the situation and said that the mystery man is part of the stadium’s entertainment crew.

Via Pro Football Talk

“It’s a member of the game day entertainment staff. He stands next to the ‘green hat’ who is the network TV person who works with the officials to coordinate TV timeouts. His job is to communicate to our internal video board people when a TV time out is coming and how much time is left in that timeout as they come out of a break. He does not stand in the team bench area. They stand just outside the bench area on that side of the field.”

Hopefully that clears things up for Saints fans.

Actress and comedian Amy Schumer has been detained at a protest of the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

MSNBC tweeted images of dozens of protestors at the Hart Senate Office Building atrium on Capitol Hill being detained and escorted out of the building. Schumer appears to be one of them, and several images and videos show her being detained by police have made their way onto Twitter. One video features a police offer saying, "You want to get arrested? Exit. Now."

Before the arrest, Schumer filmed a video for a fan whose mother was at the protest, saying, "Hi Zola, I'm here with your mom. She loves you very much. I think we're going to get arrested, and we're so proud of you."

Talk about a one of a kind celebrity shout-out!

Piper Perabo Arrested at Brett Kavanaugh Senate Hearing

Schumer is the latest in a line of celebrities who've made appearances in Washington, D.C., to speak out against the Kavanaugh hearings. Piper Perabo (Notorious, Covert Affairs) was arrested last month when the hearings began, and Alyssa Milano attended the hearings and has spoken out on several occasions against Kavanaugh.

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