Lazy Camper subverted my expectations. When I heard Alex Le’s stage name, I figured I would be interviewing another singer-songwriter guy with a guitar and a pocket of love songs. What I instead found while browsing his bandcamp was a blend of trip-hop and chillwave, intermixed with samples and handmade piano and guitar grooves. Speaking candidly, I explained how...
Most college lectures focus on one specific subject for the purpose of benefitting students within that field of study. For example, one can assume that a math major would have blundered if they attend a "Math Used in Music Theory" lecture, and it would be equally confusing for a theater major to learn about "The Latent Causes of Behavior"...
In Sophocles’ “Antigone,” the titular character breaks the law when she decides to give her brother — who was killed in battle — a proper burial. Creon, the ruler of Thebes, sentences her to death for defying him, claiming “Simple obedience saves the lives of hundreds of honest folk.”
“But when do those laws cease to protect?” is a question...
This week’s RADAR Sessions moved away from the more traditional notion of a university musician as someone with a guitar and a great voice. In exploring the talent at Riverside we have come to find musicians who work within all genres. For this week’s Sessions we had Clayton Pangelinan in the office. Also known as Illin Mic, Pangelinan has...
When The Sugar Hill Gang released “Rapper’s Delight” in the fall of 1979, not only did it introduce all but New York to the exciting, new, distinctly black genre of music known as hip-hop, but it frustrated those at the heart of the culture’s origins. MCs and DJs like Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash and the community around them...
In its first in-person rendition since the pandemic, the Tómas Rivera Conference returned to UCR’s campus with an array of authors that Endowed Chair, Alex Espinoza, introduced to writers and readers alike. In his opening introduction, Espinoza said, “I reached out to some colleagues and asked them, ‘Who would you like to be in conversation with?” The selected authors...
A live screening of the previously recorded 94th Academy Awards ceremony ran short of three hours long, but just one moment in the top of the third hour has pervaded public discourse in the week following the Sunday night airtime.
It was not the moment Ariana Debose earned her monumental win as the first openly queer Afro-Latina to win best...
The annual Block Party of 2023 was met with much anticipation, evident from student responses to ASPB’s first Instagram post revealing the hyped lineup. With DJ Lex hosting, the featured artists were R&B talents Jordan Ward and Tinashe, the fiery EDM artist Knock2 and the headliner Ski Mask the Slump God, the master of rap ridiculousness. The popular beginning-of-school...
Every year, the announcement of the annual Grammy nominations provokes criticism, and this year is no different. This year, in an effort to diversify, the Grammys changed the urban contemporary category to progressive R&B, best rap/sung performance to best melodic rap performance and world music to global music. Despite these hollow gestures, too much remains the same, again calling...
Sunrise to sunset, from Hawthorne to Boyle Heights, Los Angeles houses a mosaic of culturally ethnic residents whose hopes and dreams are centered on the revered city skyline. The burning sun beams scorching the backs of the community’s hustlers and humble hard-workers bears no comparison to the late-afternoon city set ablaze.
In "April 29th, 1992" (1996) the subversive guitarist on...