Podcasts about Kembrew McLeod

Kembrew McLeod is a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He's written and produced several books and documentaries that focus on popular music, independent media, and copyright law. Kembrew is also well known for being proficient in the art of pranking, for which he's claimed national notoriety. Sarah Nelson is the former COO at Foundation 2 Crisis Services in Cedar Rapids and the current executive director at Community Crisis Services and Food Bank. The episode features music by Gossip Cult, Alex Body, and “Do U Follow Me?” by Halfloves for our Song of the Week. Thank you to Preucil School of Music for sponsoring this episode. Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Best Show Ever is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming. -------------------- Host: Elly Hofmaier Line Producer: Savannah Lane Audio Engineers: Gabi Vanek & Ioannis Alexakis Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/englert/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/englert/support

Listen closely to the start of the 2015 hit "Hey Mama" by David Guetta, Nicki Minaj, Afrojack, and Bebe Rexha and you'll hear voices intoning a chant: "Be my woman, girl, I'll be your man." It's sample from a 1948 recording called "Rosie," and it's the propulsive hook of "Hey Mama," driving the song to over a billion views on YouTube. The voices in the sample belong to CB Cook and ten other unidentified prisoners at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, aka Parchman Farm. These men never got credit for their work, even though it's been reused by everyone from Guetta to the Animals to Nina Simone. We investigate the story of "Rosie" to understand an inequity that lies at the heart of the music business and our national consciousness. Songs Discussed David Guetta ft Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha, and Afrojack - Hey Mama CB Cook and Axe Gang - Rosie The Animals - Inside Looking Out Grand Funk Railroad - Inside Looking OUt KRS-One - Sound of Da Police Jay Z - Takeover Nina Simone - Be My Husband Check out Kembrew McLeod's and Peter DiCola's book Creative License to learn more about the law and culture of digital sampling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The subtitle of Mcleod's book is "New York City and the Literary Punks, Renegade Artists, DIY Filmmakers, Mad Playwrights, and Rock'n'Roll Glitter Queens Who Revolutionized Culture." Our conversation with Mcleod unearths connections (and literally, maps) between the movers and shakers of mid-century culture in New York City, San Francisco, and eventually, middle America.

Kembrew McLeod discusses his new book, The Downtown Pop Underground

In 1703, London had a strange visitor, a young man who ate raw meat and claimed that he came from an unknown country on the island of Taiwan. Though many doubted him, he was able to answer any question he was asked, and even wrote a best-selling book about his homeland. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the curious question of the man from Formosa. We'll also scrutinize a stamp forger and puzzle over an elastic Utah. Intro: In 1892 a legionnaire in West Africa met a rifle he'd owned 22 years earlier in France. Americans and Canadians can visit one another's territory through a Peace Arch on the border. Sources for our feature on George Psalmanazar: Michael Keevak, The Pretended Asian, 2004. Frederic J. Foley, The Great Formosan Impostor, 1968. Tobias B. Hug, Impostures in Early Modern England, 2010. George Psalmanazar, An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, 1704. George Psalmanazar, A Dialogue Between a Japonese and a Formosan, About Some Points of the Religion of the Time, 1707. George Psalmanazar, Essays on the Following Subjects ..., 1753. George Psalmanazar, An Enquiry Into the Objections Against George Psalmanaazaar of Formosa, 1710. Memoirs of ****. Commonly Known by the Name of George Psalmanazar, a Reputed Native of Formosa, 1764. "George Psalmanazar," National Magazine 6:1 (1859), 123-127. "George Psalmanazar," Dictionary of National Biography, 1896, 439-442. Benjamin Breen, "No Man Is an Island: Early Modern Globalization, Knowledge Networks, and George Psalmanazar's Formosa," Journal of Early Modern History 17:4, 391-417. Michael Keevak, "A World of Impostures," Eighteenth Century 53:2 (Summer 2012), 233-235. Donald Rayfield, "Forgiving Forgery," Modern Language Review 107:4 (October 2012), xxv-xli. C. Macfie Campbell, "A Note on the Imagination and Its Exploitation: Psalmanazar and Hélène Smith," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 92:5 (November 1940), 605-613. Ben Downing, "Psalmanazar the Amazing," Yale Review 90:3 (July 2002), 46-74. Peter Mason, "Ethnographic Portraiture in the Eighteenth Century: George Psalmanaazaar's Drawings of Formosans," Eighteenth-Century Life 23:3 (November 1999), 58. Kembrew McLeod, "The Fake 'Asian' Who Fooled 18th-Century London," Atlantic, April 22, 2014. Benjamin Breen, "Illustrations From an 18th-Century Frenchman's Completely Made-Up Book About Taiwan," Slate, Nov. 6, 2013. Listener mail: Jessica Bineth, "Somerton Man: One of Australia's Most Baffling Cold Cases Could Be a Step Closer to Being Solved," ABC News, Jan. 1, 2018. Colin Gleadell, "Art Sales: The Finest Forger of All Time?" Telegraph, Jan. 9, 2007. Rosslyn Beeby, "The Rubens of Philately," Sydney Morning Herald, March 31, 2012. Elle Hunt, "New Zealand's New Flag: 15 Quirky Contenders," Guardian, May 14, 2015. "Are These The Craziest Designs for a New Flag?" TVNZ, July 15, 2015. "The Colourful Contenders for New Zealand's New Flag," BBC, May 15, 2015. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Michael Förtsch, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

On The Gist, has conventional become synonymous with lame? Mike’s advice for Hillary Clinton. Then, Kembrew McLeod discusses the musical legacy of the Blondie album Parallel Lines, and offers connection between teen pop and punk in the 1970’s. He’s the author of Blondie's Parallel Lines (33 1/3). For the Spiel, we will not allow members of the media to get away with saying, “Donald Trump is executing a pivot.” Let’s begin the #contradictionnotpivot movement.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On The Gist, has conventional become synonymous with lame? Mike’s advice for Hillary Clinton. Then, Kembrew McLeod discusses the musical legacy of the Blondie album Parallel Lines, and offers connection between teen pop and punk in the 1970’s. He’s the author of Blondie's Parallel Lines (33 1/3). For the Spiel, we will not allow members of the media to get away with saying, “Donald Trump is executing a pivot.” Let’s begin the #contradictionnotpivot movement.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One hallmark of important art, in any medium, is a thoughtful relation with artistic precursors. Every artist reckons with heroes and rivals, influences and nemeses, and the old work becomes a part of the new. In Adam Bradley’s seminal monograph on hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes, legendary MC Mos Def describes his desire to participate in posterity: “I wanted it to be something that was durable. You can listen to all these Jimi records and Miles records and Curtis Mayfield records; I wanted to be able to add something to that conversation.” In the last thirty years, technology has transformed the conversation between past and present musicians: it is now possible to quote a previous work not only note for note, but byte for byte. The turntable and the sampler are the hip-hop artist’s quintessential instruments. The culture of hip-hop bricolage, coupled with intense commercial pressures in the recording industry and an inevitable proliferation of rip-off artists, has created difficult challenges for copyright law and for the concept of licensing. Several cultures must adapt to each other, and often they are doing so in the courtroom. In a study both comprehensively theoretical and rich with the voices of musicians and producers, Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola have addressed together both the legal and the cultural implications of digital sampling in the music industry. Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (Duke University Press, 2011), in tandem with related multimedia projects from the Future of Music Coalition, lays out what they have learned and suggests a way forward for the industry in the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One hallmark of important art, in any medium, is a thoughtful relation with artistic precursors. Every artist reckons with heroes and rivals, influences and nemeses, and the old work becomes a part of the new. In Adam Bradley’s seminal monograph on hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes, legendary MC Mos Def describes his desire to participate in posterity: “I wanted it to be something that was durable. You can listen to all these Jimi records and Miles records and Curtis Mayfield records; I wanted to be able to add something to that conversation.” In the last thirty years, technology has transformed the conversation between past and present musicians: it is now possible to quote a previous work not only note for note, but byte for byte. The turntable and the sampler are the hip-hop artist’s quintessential instruments. The culture of hip-hop bricolage, coupled with intense commercial pressures in the recording industry and an inevitable proliferation of rip-off artists, has created difficult challenges for copyright law and for the concept of licensing. Several cultures must adapt to each other, and often they are doing so in the courtroom. In a study both comprehensively theoretical and rich with the voices of musicians and producers, Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola have addressed together both the legal and the cultural implications of digital sampling in the music industry. Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (Duke University Press, 2011), in tandem with related multimedia projects from the Future of Music Coalition, lays out what they have learned and suggests a way forward for the industry in the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One hallmark of important art, in any medium, is a thoughtful relation with artistic precursors. Every artist reckons with heroes and rivals, influences and nemeses, and the old work becomes a part of the new. In Adam Bradley’s seminal monograph on hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes, legendary MC Mos Def describes his desire to participate in posterity: “I wanted it to be something that was durable. You can listen to all these Jimi records and Miles records and Curtis Mayfield records; I wanted to be able to add something to that conversation.” In the last thirty years, technology has transformed the conversation between past and present musicians: it is now possible to quote a previous work not only note for note, but byte for byte. The turntable and the sampler are the hip-hop artist’s quintessential instruments. The culture of hip-hop bricolage, coupled with intense commercial pressures in the recording industry and an inevitable proliferation of rip-off artists, has created difficult challenges for copyright law and for the concept of licensing. Several cultures must adapt to each other, and often they are doing so in the courtroom. In a study both comprehensively theoretical and rich with the voices of musicians and producers, Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola have addressed together both the legal and the cultural implications of digital sampling in the music industry. Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (Duke University Press, 2011), in tandem with related multimedia projects from the Future of Music Coalition, lays out what they have learned and suggests a way forward for the industry in the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One hallmark of important art, in any medium, is a thoughtful relation with artistic precursors. Every artist reckons with heroes and rivals, influences and nemeses, and the old work becomes a part of the new. In Adam Bradley’s seminal monograph on hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes, legendary MC Mos Def describes his desire to participate in posterity: “I wanted it to be something that was durable. You can listen to all these Jimi records and Miles records and Curtis Mayfield records; I wanted to be able to add something to that conversation.” In the last thirty years, technology has transformed the conversation between past and present musicians: it is now possible to quote a previous work not only note for note, but byte for byte. The turntable and the sampler are the hip-hop artist’s quintessential instruments. The culture of hip-hop bricolage, coupled with intense commercial pressures in the recording industry and an inevitable proliferation of rip-off artists, has created difficult challenges for copyright law and for the concept of licensing. Several cultures must adapt to each other, and often they are doing so in the courtroom. In a study both comprehensively theoretical and rich with the voices of musicians and producers, Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola have addressed together both the legal and the cultural implications of digital sampling in the music industry. Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (Duke University Press, 2011), in tandem with related multimedia projects from the Future of Music Coalition, lays out what they have learned and suggests a way forward for the industry in the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One hallmark of important art, in any medium, is a thoughtful relation with artistic precursors. Every artist reckons with heroes and rivals, influences and nemeses, and the old work becomes a part of the new. In Adam Bradley’s seminal monograph on hip-hop lyrics, Book of Rhymes, legendary MC Mos Def describes his desire to participate in posterity: “I wanted it to be something that was durable. You can listen to all these Jimi records and Miles records and Curtis Mayfield records; I wanted to be able to add something to that conversation.” In the last thirty years, technology has transformed the conversation between past and present musicians: it is now possible to quote a previous work not only note for note, but byte for byte. The turntable and the sampler are the hip-hop artist’s quintessential instruments. The culture of hip-hop bricolage, coupled with intense commercial pressures in the recording industry and an inevitable proliferation of rip-off artists, has created difficult challenges for copyright law and for the concept of licensing. Several cultures must adapt to each other, and often they are doing so in the courtroom. In a study both comprehensively theoretical and rich with the voices of musicians and producers, Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola have addressed together both the legal and the cultural implications of digital sampling in the music industry. Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling (Duke University Press, 2011), in tandem with related multimedia projects from the Future of Music Coalition, lays out what they have learned and suggests a way forward for the industry in the digital age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim and Greg look at the role of sampling in music today. They talk about the history of this postmodern art form and subsequent legal debates with Kembrew McLeod, producer of Copyright Criminals.

Karen Cooper Complex - "Jerkin' Pretty" - Shinjuku Birdwalk [1981] [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Bum Creek - "Bollywood" - The Sound Of Young Canberra [V/A] [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Kidkaneivel - "Zo0o0o0p!!! feat. Oddisee" - Jus Like Music & Apple Juice Break present: Oscillations Part 2 [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] ACT - "ESPioNS" - Revenge Toy [Dogmazic's FMA mix // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] Music behind DJ: Smoked Meat Fax Machine - "Slums of Heaven" - Slums of Heaven [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] Girl Talk - "Jump On Stage" - All Day [ Girl Talk @ Illegal Art // All Day Samples dot com // Creative Commons BY-NC] Set: talking Girl Talk w/ Peter DiCola On November 14th, the Illegal Art label dropped All Day, the first release in over two years by the world's most renowned mashup artist Girl Talk. The free, purportedly "Creative Commons" release is a pop culture kaleidoscope with 372 overlapping samples of songs by the likes of The Rolling Stones, Prince, Nirvana and Beyoncé. Girl Talk claims this is a transformative fair use, and we'd like to believe him, but then again, it was released on a label called "Illegal Art". So why hasn't Girl Talk been sued? We'll address this question and more with law professor Peter DiCola, an expert on copyright law’s regime for digital sampling, and co-author (with Kembrew McLeod) of the forthcoming book Creative License: Digital Sampling, Culture, and the Law. End of set Sushishooshamp - "Funambule (hip-hop version)" [Dogmazic's FMA mix // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] Amanda - "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mama" - Power Child FMA Sampler [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] The Sediment Club - "Panic Berlin Fun" - Live at WFMU on Talk's Cheap 7/7/2009 [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Mazing Vids - "Could You Die" - Drastic Mirth [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Sharitah Manush - "Beyond the Universe" - Dogmazic mix [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Hayvanlar Alemi - "Guarana Superpower" - Demolar 2007-2008 [ if you think this sounds good, you should hear this Turkish group's new Sublime Frequencies LP!] http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/38164

Karen Cooper Complex - "Jerkin' Pretty" - Shinjuku Birdwalk [1981] [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Bum Creek - "Bollywood" - The Sound Of Young Canberra [V/A] [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Kidkaneivel - "Zo0o0o0p!!! feat. Oddisee" - Jus Like Music & Apple Juice Break present: Oscillations Part 2 [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] ACT - "ESPioNS" - Revenge Toy [Dogmazic's FMA mix // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] Music behind DJ: Smoked Meat Fax Machine - "Slums of Heaven" - Slums of Heaven [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] Girl Talk - "Jump On Stage" - All Day [ Girl Talk @ Illegal Art // All Day Samples dot com // Creative Commons BY-NC] Set: talking Girl Talk w/ Peter DiCola On November 14th, the Illegal Art label dropped All Day, the first release in over two years by the world's most renowned mashup artist Girl Talk. The free, purportedly "Creative Commons" release is a pop culture kaleidoscope with 372 overlapping samples of songs by the likes of The Rolling Stones, Prince, Nirvana and Beyoncé. Girl Talk claims this is a transformative fair use, and we'd like to believe him, but then again, it was released on a label called "Illegal Art". So why hasn't Girl Talk been sued? We'll address this question and more with law professor Peter DiCola, an expert on copyright law’s regime for digital sampling, and co-author (with Kembrew McLeod) of the forthcoming book Creative License: Digital Sampling, Culture, and the Law. End of set Sushishooshamp - "Funambule (hip-hop version)" [Dogmazic's FMA mix // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] Amanda - "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mama" - Power Child FMA Sampler [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-SA] The Sediment Club - "Panic Berlin Fun" - Live at WFMU on Talk's Cheap 7/7/2009 [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Mazing Vids - "Could You Die" - Drastic Mirth [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Sharitah Manush - "Beyond the Universe" - Dogmazic mix [Free Music Archive // Creative Commons BY-NC-ND] Hayvanlar Alemi - "Guarana Superpower" - Demolar 2007-2008 [ if you think this sounds good, you should hear this Turkish group's new Sublime Frequencies LP!] https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/38164