music video
Image via "Pa'lante"/YouTube
“Pa’lante is a very Puerto Rican mindset,” Kristian Mercado Figueroa, who directed the music video, said. “Be it a family struggling to stay together, or recovering from the hurricane, the Puerto Rican people are strong and they will always stand and move forward.”
Image via Amy León Facebook
The first time I saw Amy León, she was standing in a church that was about to explode. Or had already exploded — I couldn’t tell. I was watching the music video for her song “Burning in Birmingham,” a reenactment of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that took the lives of four black girls on Sept. 15, 1963 in Birmingham, Ala.
Screenshot via Albert Ofere/Youtube
He was born and raised in Nigeria and works in London, and both experiences — oh, and he’s a Roman Catholic priest — have inspired the Rev. Albert Owie Ofere’s fascinating singing career, one that fuses Afro-pop and gospel music.
“I love singing and listening to music,” Ofere told The Vanguard, a Nigerian media outlet.
Image via "Wildest Dreams"/YouTube
Taylor Swift’s controversial new music video, “Wildest Dreams,” is intended to evoke awe of the “wildest” of African landscapes: pure natural beauty, “undiscovered” and “untarnished” — and entirely without Africans.
Perhaps because this video launched soon after Ms. Swift’s recent race- and privilege-related feud with Nicki Minaj, or because at the time of writing, the video has reached nearly 25 million views since its release on Aug. 30, response to the video has been intense. Reading articles on both sides was a conflicting experience, as a young white woman raised on fashion magazines, classic cinema, and the idealization of “old Hollywood.” Can we love and appreciate those films without endorsing that oppression? Is it possible to create an homage to them without endorsing them entirely? In short — how can we free ourselves from the cognitive dissonance of outwardly condemning racism, misogyny, and colonialism while still internally glorifying images and ideals that are built upon them?
The answer to this question may lie in other, more nuanced, portrayals of midcentury American culture.
The Super Bowl is right around the corner, which means tons of sweet commercials (OK GO among the most recent buzz), but more importantly, Puppy Bowl VIII. Also in today's links: Stephen Colbert chases Jon Stewart around NYC, and the basics behind the new alternative activity known as hockern, or extreme sitting. Plus bits on David Lynch, Ira and Philip Glass, Arrested Development, and the 2012 Light Festival.
Ken and Meredith Williams have been waiting 79 days for the Bank of America in Georgia to close on their home loan.
The bank has delayed the closing three times. And the Williams, who live outside Atlanta and want to buy a modest home in the city nearer to their work offices, have grown frustrated with the hold-up and ... clever couple that they are ... their ire turned to humor.
They started a blog chronicling their misadventures with the banking behemoth, created a Twitter account to bombard the bank with message through it's @BoA_Help account, and then made a music video — Ken plays the guitar and sings while Meredith, in one scene, dances in the background in the parking lot of the Bank of America branch in Lawrenceville, Ga.
It's hilarious and, they hope, effective.
See the video and read the Williams' tale of woe inside...