Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: PSY (Gangnam Style) to try RAP (video)

Saturday, December 8, 2012

PSY (Gangnam Style) to try RAP (video)

Boo, Tee, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Idolator; LA Weeky; Rolling Stone; Yahoo!; MTV

PSY's "horse dance” comes from 1,000-year-old Buddhist ceremonial dance (Korean Bodega)

Jazz impressario Dave Brubeck joins the Choir Invisible leaving a noteworthy legacy for musicians pushing the envelope

Korean Buddhist and the top draw in the short history of YouTube, PSY has his eye on rap. As he approaches a billion hits for "Gangnam Style," he fears becoming an irrelevant one-hit-wonder. Solution? Work with 2 Chainz and Diplo to create the next great hit.

2 CHAINZ? Yes, Wisdom Quarterly's resident rapper is heading for the big time. In a week he is returning to Los Angeles to participate in the Power106 FM "Cali Christmas" with Big Sean, Rick Ross, and others. But what PSY has in store for him with choreography, lyrics, and a non-stop dance mix is likely to break all records and make GOODE Music's Kanye West wish he'd included the Atlanta rapper in his inner crew.

ROLLING STONE magazine has released the Top 50 Rap Songs of all time. Grandmaster Flash gets top honors; Will Smith left off list. (RS)

RAP GENIUS, a great idea with venture capital backing, is not a hit with the stylemakers in the rap community. The Wikipedia-for-rap lyrics gets hits. But its founders, principally Mahbod Moghadam, are not making any friends in the business (LAW).

KENDRICK LAMAR, meanwhile, took it to the streets as crowds flowed out of the Lakers' game in downtown h*ll. A double deck bus served as a stage before police swarmed in with helicopter support to disperse the crowd that had the audacity to dance in the streets. If rap won't contain itself, the growing police state will contain it.

(Yahoo!) The "Swimming Pools" rapper tweeted about a secret LA show (Crash Concert) across from the Staples Center where the Lakers had just played. The encroaching police state had other ideas.

Buzz Worthy (Idolator.com)
VIDEO: Live on LA streets (audience view)
PHOTOS: Kendrick Lamar - Crash Concerts

"I wanted to do something special…that actually made a point, made a statement," he says during an exclusive Yahoo! interview. "Better to do it in our hometown, right after the Laker game." The massive crowd spilled onto the street. After performing "Swimming Pools," "The Recipe," and a bonus from his "Section 80" release, the police dispersed the crowd as a chopper hovered making the evening news.

RAP NOSTALGIA Country music took off when most Americans no longer lived on the farm (Prof. Fox, RadioLab.org). Why? It became glamorized, powered by nostalgia. How many of us still live in ghettos? Most of us live in cities but certainly not in the megalopolises that create most of the most popular rap music.

Dads can't rap for shizzle! But pops, they try.

Chris Brown was acting like a 17-year-old stoner who traveled to Amsterdam for the first time. Breezy posted a bunch of marijuana-centric photos from what was surely a fruitful trip to the Netherlands [Oh No They Didn't]. Ellie and Skrillex may have called it quits earlier this year, but the two are “still big fans of each other,” according to Ellie. In fact, she hopes the two can work together again, like they did on the Breaking Dawn - Part 2 song “Bittersweet” [MTV].