seen.´s non-hippie reggae and dancehall blog

Illustration © Chris Dent (via Bored & Beautiful)

Today´s the day. My flight to NYC will take off in the afternoon. I´m pretty excited to visit the city of cities and meet not only my graphic designer who returns from Kingston, JA, and a few early days university friends, but quite a few of those people whose work I´ve been appreciating via the internet for many years now in real.

Of course, I´m also excited to spend some money I don´t have in some hipster boutiques and downtown clubs. Here´s some stuff Gabe and me already have on our schedule:

- 22.05. - Max Glazer (Federation Sound) ls. DJ Gravy (Anchor Bar)
- 25.05. - K-Salaam, Max Glazer & 77 Klash (Midway)
- 27.05. - Collie Buddz (S.O.B.´s)

Any other tipps regarding NYC (Brooklyn in particular)?

P.S. On the flight, I´ll of course listen to the next hot mix out of Tim Turbo´s living room.

Toddla D “Soundtape Killing”

Robyn “Cobrastyle”

Diplo @ Tape Club, Berlin

© Gabriel Holzner, seen.

Only a few weeks after Peter Dean Rickards featured “Thursday Nights at the Fights” in the online magazine we set up together with him, and only a few days after the story appeared in Lodown magazine, the Tivoli Gardens fight night made it on international TV. The BBC´s Nick Davis just covered the event and called his piece “The ’safe’ fights hitting Jamaica”. Click here for the whole article and video footage. (via FIRST Magazine)

Yes, yes! First is finally getting the attention it deserves and will be happy to take it to another level in the upcoming weeks and months.

Maybe everybody but me knows this already. But hey, I finally have to post something again. So I decided to share what is news for me: the video for Gnarls Barkley´s new single “Going On” was shot in Jamaica and features some nice dancing scenes. (via Dancehall.Mobi)P.S. There´s some fresh freeloads over on the Fader blog. E.g. the new Bugle & Mavado “Set me free“.

Lodown magazine #61 is out and features FIRST´s “Thursday Night at the Fights” story (pictures by Peter Dean Rickards, words by JJ). Go get your copy now.

Another Byte FM show that sounds worth being listened to: “Hardcore Riddimwise“. Lars Brinkmann, author for Spex and (!) Riddim magazine, will present first results of his studies on “Hardcore & Reggae” following Kevin Martin´s legendary quote:

90% of all music is crap. It´s that 1 percent (sic) hardcore in every genre that draws my attention.

Interested? Tune in on www.byte.fm. Tonight, from 8 to 11 p.m. CET.