Third Coast: Outkast, Timbaland and Hip-Hop Became A Southern Thing / by Roni Sarig

For the longest time it seemed like the world of hip-hop derived from two exclusive geographical sources: New York City and Southern California. Having originated in the South Bronx in the early 1970's when independent funk acts like Grandmaster Flash, The Sugarhill Gang, DJ Hollywood, Kurtis Blow along with many others began combining looped percussion beats with rhyming samples of spoken word poetry, the form of musical expression called hip-hop, known as rap or beatboxing in the early days, became semi-permanently relegated to the country's top two media markets. For the entire decade of the eighties and much of the early nineties, this remained the case. No one really complained. It was an accepted fact that these two centers had always held the infrastructure necessary to support the entertainment mediums of music, movies and TV. But with the advancement of the digital age and the merging of mainstream music with the underground in the mid to late 1990's, everything changed.
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Author and music writer Sarig chronicles the complete history of Southern hip-hop beginning with the movement's roots in which recording artists like Jermaine Dupri, Pharrell Williams and Master P broke industry protocol and created their own production labels which promoted performers from the regions they were most familiar with--Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, et. al. Cataloging Southern hip hop through the last decade or so is no easy task and even the most casual music fans can appreciate the complexity of such an undertaking. But Sarig knows his stuff. He displays a remarkably encyclopedic knowlege about his subject, extrapolating on everything from the Luther Campbell's innovative lyrical style with 2 Live Crew and the Miami club scene to Outkast in Atlanta and of course the violent eruption of the Houston's own 'chopped and screwed' motif. It's not a purely informational resource though. Sarig, with his witty and enthusiastic candor, clearly enjoys detailing how hip hop from the Dirty South came to the forefront of the industry and engagingly describes the nitty gritty details of personal partnerships, stylistic tendencies and business agreements. Stories of record shops which were the legendary acts once frequented, nightclubs and street corners from Charlotte to Dallas and everywhere in between where up-and-coming rappers once exposéd their skills, are thoroughly revealed in this interesting chronicle of pop music history, sure to be a hit with fans. (782.4216 SARIG)

Star Island / by Carl Hiaasen

Novelist Carl Hiaasen loves to hate on his home state of Florida. A lifelong resident of the lower peninsula, he has stated that the "Sunshine State is a paradise of scandals teeming with drifters, deadbeats and misfits drawn here by some dark primordial calling like demented trout. And you'd be surprised how many of them decide to run for public office."* The hilarity of his novels make it hard for the reader not to find themselves in on the joke, laughing along with him at this often sleazy though steadily popular region of the country and his latest caper is among his most fantastic. With scathing satire, he follows the cult of celebrity to South Beach where the stardom of a local teen queen pop star is shakily held together by a colorful collection of parents, promoters, publicists, bodyguards, body doubles, paparazzi and drug dealers.

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Star Island in South Beach, Miami is exactly what sounds like: a place where celebrities and wannabe celebrities live in fabulously overpriced mansions. Julio Iglesias, P. Diddy, Madonna, Shaquille O'Neal and Gloria Estefan are just a few of the wealthy A-listers who claim residence on the artificial plot of imported sand which allows waterfront access to both the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. Currently it's being used to do a photo shoot of Cheryl Bunterman, a teen pop sensation known to all her fans as "Cherry Pye" and who's gearing up to go on tour to promote her new CD Skantily Klad. Despite the fact that Cherry has absolutely no discernible singing talent, her actual voice likened to "sackful of starving kittens", and can only lip synch her lyrics and dance competently on a good night, the 22-year-old has made it to megastardom through the shrewd marketing tactics of her parents and promoters. Particularly it's been the work of her mother Janet and veteran talent agent Marty Lykus who've manipulated Cherry's casual good looks into a blend of sex appeal and youthful rebellion to create a brand of entertainment gold they've termed BLS--"Barely Legal Slut".
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Of course with the fame and fortune have come some unpleasant repurcussions, namely Cherry's beyond addictive lifestyle to drugs, alcohol and promiscuity which have imperiled her legitimacy as a performer and the timing of her upcoming tour, not to mention her health and life exectancy. It's gotten so out of control that Cherry's handlers have hired a permanent lookalike, an out of work actress named Ann Delusia, to double as Cherry whenever the starlet herself OD's at a hotel or causes a scene at a club and needs to be stealthily evacuated away from the gloating paparazzi. Ann herself knows she's got a decent gig relatively speaking. Lately though things with Cherry have become so extreme, the pop tart's nightly binges needing medical attention and thus a stand-in to play her passed out in a backseat or even stretched out on a gurney, that Ann's decided to seriously reconsider her career options and definitely renegotiate her contract with Marty and the Buntermans. But before she can express any discontent to her employers, Ann is kidnapped. The peculiar looking man who abducts her goes by the name of Skink and is the type of Florida eccentric who lives in a shack in the Everglades and cooks his own Alligator meat. He's also an ecoterrorist who needs Ann as a pawn in one of his vigilante schemes to get revenge on a specifically greedy set of Florida real estate developers.
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Carl Hiaasen just may be America's best comic novelist. Star Island is one of those books which is so laugh-out-loud funny that rereading certain segments becomes something you do on a Friday or Saturday night in place of normal good times. While Hiaasen's other novels have showcased his obvious talent for lampooning things like crooked politics and corrupt businessmen, none of his previous work has quite encompassed the world of our celebrity-obsessed culture like this. Following the trail of Cherry and her colorful crew of exploiters and parasites, most of them thoroughly sleazy characters though sly enough to milk the situation for all it's worth, is a heck of a toboggan ride down the starlet's path of scandalous self-implosion, each turn of the page a creating a new player with a new angle and a new nugget of tabloid gold. Throw in a few recurring characters like Skink and Cherry's cattle prod-toting bodyguard Chemo, each featured in other Hiassen favorites like Skin Tight and Skinny Dip, and the author's longtime readers as well as a great many novices new to the writer's unique brand of acerbic wit and zany plots are in for a real treat. (FIC HIAASEN)

*Kroft, Steve: "Florida: A Paradise Of Scandals" CBS News 60 Minutes, April 17, 2005

High Fidelity / by Nick Hornby

Rob Fleming sees things in fives. For anything and (nearly) everything, he's got his top-five lists: his top five girlfriends, top five most memorable breakups, top five bands, top five bands for each genre, top five songs of each top five band, top five dream jobs (including several choice gigs set in bygone eras), top five songs to play at a wedding, " " at a funeral, etc. and so on. A London record store owner/manager, Rob's definitely a connoisseur of all things popular music, and he's never ashamed to set someone straight about, say, The Kinks top five greatest concerts or which song on the Beatles White album is the most euphonic. Though, being a proprietor, he tries to maintain a somewhat professional demeanor. He's not quite as fanatical or finicky an aficionado (read: snob) as Dick and Barry, his two nerd-extraordinaire store clerks who each possess an unhealthy excess of opinionated verbage.

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After breaking up with his longtime girlfriend Laura (who he's always considered his soulmate despite the fact that her record collection is, incidentally, intolerably incompatible with his own), Rob employs various diversions to comfort his broken heart and dissatisfied worldview. In addition to rearranging his music into the order in which he bought each album, Rob tries to reconnect with many of his previous girlfriends (some of them top fivers and some not), each encounter odd in its own way. He also forms an interesting relationship with a troubador-esque American named Maria de Salle, whose free-flowing, less pretentious outlook on life offers Rob a different outlet for his constant, perpetually neurotic ruminations.

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Hornby, author of bestsellers Fever Pitch and About a Boy as well as recent YA favorite Slam!, has been one fiction's most readable novelists for the past two decades and most people, especially Gen X'ers, are easily able to tap into his upbeat style and plethora of cultural references. In High Fidelity, his second major novel, published in 1995, Hornby excels at characterizing the cult of "musical elitism", a trendy, satirical term for describing the ambiguous, often over-the-top world of pop music criticism. Hornby is a fun writer and this is a fun book, entertaining and comedic but with a nominal serious streak and reflective aura. (FIC HORNBY)

Thank You For The Music ♪♪

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ABBA Super Troupers: A Celebratory Film from Waterloo to Mamma Mia! (DVD)
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Say what you will about their peppy rhythms, folksy gaiety and ridiculous outfits, not to mention bankable good looks, ABBA had some catchy tunes--quite a lot frankly. By the late 1970’s, they were Sweden’s biggest export, more marketable than Volvo and so wildly successful (their rabid fans frequently so uncontrollably frenzied the foursome would be trapped in their hotel) that popularity partially contributed to their disbandment.
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Often overlooked in the context of the band’s tacky getup and mammoth commercial success (grossing over $1 million per day) was their talent. Composed of two married couples Bjorn Ulvaeus/Agnetha Falkstog and Benny Andersson/Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad (hence each member’s first letter of their first name forming the band’s title), the quartet had an astonishing blend of musical skill, artistic ingenuity and vocal harmony. Immediately identifiable, basically on every track (and of course in the existing video footage), are the two women usually singing in unison. Both sopranos, each possessed unmatched angelic voices with extraordinary range, strength and command, able to execute complex, vocally rigorous melodies synchronized within exhausting multi-octave songs. Agnetha’s routinely recognized among the premier female vocalists of the twentieth century with Frida not far behind. It was the incomparable tandem of Benny and Bjorn though, composer/keyboardist and lyricist/guitar player respectively, which essentially made the group what it was, the pair virtually a machine cranking out hit after hit after hit at their Stockholm studio. Production engineer Michael Tretow, who mixed each record with ample amounts of synthesized material, would help give ABBA its trademark feel-good sound.
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ABBA Super Troupers is a typical music documentary, conventionally profiling the supergroup’s folk-rock roots, its evolution as a Swedish pop band, swift movement up the European billboard charts and international stardom with a raucous fanbase (particularly in the UK and Australia). Yet the film justifiably reveals the essence of the band's phenomenon, detailing their proficiency at creating such an appealing brand of pop music and how the relatively normal coming together of four exceptionally gifted artists produced such a substantial collection of timeless songs. Especially apparent is how the heart of ABBA, the likely reason for its immense success, was their artistic passion and resonance. They really were in it purely for the music. The group's disintegration in 1982, initiated by each couple’s divorce along with Agnetha's growing agoraphobia and reluctance to travel, was the true end. All inquiries into reuniting are just that, questions, put to a stop immediately with each member ardently opposed to a comeback—they were offered a sum of over $1 Billion to do a reunion tour and promptly turned it down—considering any attempt at reunification to be a blight on the original ten-year trek.