seen.´s non-hippie reggae and dancehall blog

“People say, ‘It’s the next best thing to having a system in a car.’ But it’s better because you don’t even have to roll down the windows.”

I have to admit that recently I havent found the time to check the Times´ website regularly myself. Thanks god, there are enough people out there who do a good job in selecting the must reads. There are two of them this week.

One is “Bicycles That Carry Powerful Beats, and Even a Rider or Two” by Corey Kilgannon and the other one is “Setting the Beat, and the Style” by Ruth la Ferla.

The first article deals with youngsters that turned their bikes into mobile discothèques. Most of them have a Caribbean background and carry their homeland tradition of looking at music as a common good of the people for the people to the streets of Richmond Hills, Queens, NYC.

“Stephan Sonnylal, 17, worked on his yellow Mongoose motocross bicycle, bearing a 200-pound system, which features a 50-CD changer bearing a map of Trinidad. It puts out 3,000 watts of power and has three 10-inch speakers, a bank of midrange speakers and two tweeters. It cost $800, he said.”

Read the whole article, look at more pictures and a short video here. (via De-Bug /BoingBoing)

The second article is on female DJs and their role of being the modern fashion icons. (more…)

Here are the official HBO trailers for the 5th and final season of The Wire (via Zentronix):

 (more…)

“So crisp, so tailored. And perfectly accessorized: the black fedora is subtly underscored by the ninja head wrap, and the gold rings are nicely accented by the burning spliff.” (Hearing Test)

While “Bounty or Beenie?” is usually the first question being asked when telling a Jamaican that you care about contemporary Dancehall - the most popular artist (at least when it comes to stage shows) for the natives often seems to be none of them. It´s Ninja Man.
He´s the one who stands way above all the real and artificial feuds between the “Poor People General” and “Betweenie”. He´s the one who makes fun of both of them. In fact, he´s actually the one who makes fun of everybody in the dancehall circus. Why? Because he can.
On wax however, there aren´t too many recent Ninja releases that would pop up in my mind when thinking about the latest hits. Two days ago, however, I accidentally found a Ninja tune while skipping through the new album of Berlin´s hipster electro-tagteam “Modeselektor” on iTunes (which btw. is the shit - check “Happy Birthday” or “2000007” feat. TTC): I had one of those Web 2.0ish “user that bought this, also liked that”-experiences and clicked on an EP called “Weed Wid Di Macka” (01/07, Tigerbeat6, Run Things Records) which among others features a “Deerhunter” and a “Modeselektor” RMX of an infamous anti-coke-track of Ninja. Both of them work pretty nice. While the “Deerhunter”-version is more like the typical Dancehall/Dubstep stomper, Modeselektor make the tune sound like a relick of the Beastie Boys´ “Intergalactic” on exactly the drug Ninjaman swears off in his lyrics. Must buys.