Another Dead HipHop Hero - Biggie

I not only discovered the youtube video service, but also this nice freestyle video: enjoy the unique style of 17-year-old Notorious B.I.G. (he was killed on march 9, 1997, at the age of 24).

Zoomquilt - rediscovered

Now, to manage the transition from sad to entertaining, check out the fascinating Zoomquilt, a piece of internetart that perfectly uses all the advantages of its medium.

Jay Dee Tribute on WorldWide

Listen to this week's Jay Dee tribute on Gilles Peterson's WorldWideShow (BBC Radio 1), including some nice remembrance shout outs and stories by Jazzy Jeff and many others. Man, it definitely is tragic.

By the way, Gilles Peterson's WorldWideShow every Sunday night (European time) is probably the best regular radioshow throughout the world (at least in my eyes 'n' ears). In one of the next posts, I will give you some more nice webradios.

J Dilla Memorial Video - Common - The Light produced by Jay Dee

Jay Dee - Rest in Peace

The day before yesterday, on Feb 10, Jay Dee (a/k/a J Dilla, born James Yancey), one of the most brilliant HipHop producers unfortunately passed away because of kidney complications, three days after his 32nd birthday. He has created an exclusive style of beat making including ingeniously drawling drums. A couple of days ago he released his new album Donuts on Stones Throw Records. May he rest in peace.

(Okayplayer.com offers several possibilities of remembrance and 3030 radio has a tribute live stream of Jay Dee tracks)

56th Berlin International Film Festival - Block Party

Nice: yesterday the 56th Berlin International Film Festival (a/k/a Berlinale) started. Although I do know next to nothing about most of the freaky cineastic movies they'll show, there is one flic I really wanna see:
Dave Chappelle's Block Party directed by Michel Gondry.
Michel Gondry has been a director of music-related videos (Bjork, Massive Attack etc.), before he shot the cinema oeuvre Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, starring Jim Carrey and definitely located in upper regions of my "StillToWatch" Chart.
Anyways, the story is that David Chappelle threw (i.e. financed) the optimal party slash concert, since he had received big money for his TV show. The place and line-up was kept secret, and the tickets were free. It must've been a real happening since America's Finest performed: Common, Mos Def, The Roots, Jill Scott, Dead Prez, Kool G. Rap, just to name a few.
I am gonna watch it and tell you how it was.

MIT World Open Material Part II

There is even more great MIT material available online, which I forgot to mention in the last post: a lot of recent and high quality lecture streams can be found at http://mitworld.mit.edu/. Very fascinating: Nicolas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT Media Lab, introduces his ambitious "OneLaptopPerChild" project. More information on this idea can be found at: http://laptop.media.mit.edu/.