Sunday, December 01, 2024

On Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, The Hardest Diss Song Is A History Lesson

 “Sometimes the moments that never happen matter the most.”


How the Ancient Sumerians Created the World’s First Writing System Literary Hub

Macron unveils ‘sublime’ Notre-Dame Cathedral after ‘impossible’ restoration Le Monde


Many worlds, many selves aeon 


What Food Was Served at the First Thanksgiving in 1621? Smithsonian (Anthony L). As you are still working on your leftovers…


Nietzsche’s Eternal Return in America American Affairs 



Kendrick Lamar hurled plenty of damning judgments in Drake’s direction throughout the course of this year. He’s spoken about the Canadian star’s history with women, his shallow, stream-seeking music, his siphoning off of young artists’ untapped energy to stay relevant. A compelling case could be made for each of those accusations, though their stench has seemed to largely fade with time. The most pointed and persistent of these indictments, however, is the one that was introduced in “Euphoria,” sculpted the shape of “Not Like Us,” and is now the driving force behind the sonic direction of Lamar’s newest album, GNX: the idea that what separates Kendrick and Drake, the two faces of hip-hop’s Millennial generation, is Drake’s perceived refusal of a spiritual — and maybe even ancestral — obligation to contribute and call back to a specified cultural lineage that precedes him.

On Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, The Hardest Diss Song Is A History Lesson



       Murakami Haruki profile

       At Esquire Jonathan Russell Clark writes about The Cult of Haruki Murakami, as Murakami's The City and its Uncertain Walls is just out in English.
       Clark finds:

Murakami’s global appeal, then, might exist in the heightened contrast between the unruly, traumatizing, consciousness-splitting, ghost-filled world beyond and the comforting, drama-less certitude of the conventional life


Murakami Haruki Q & A

       At The Guardian John Self has a Q & A with the The City and Its Uncertain Walls-author, Haruki Murakami: ‘My books have been criticised so much over the years, I don’t pay much attention’


FASTER, PLEASE:  Scientists Discover Molecule That Heals Intestines and Combats Cancer Growth.


Life in a rock band. “Today I feel like a tired old whore. Some days I feel like a god. Most of the time I feel like an ambitious T-shirt salesman”... more »