by JAY WATTS III

Similar to the Cambodian Rocks compilations that so enthralled oh, about 40 record collectors a couple of years back, the Awesome Tapes From Africa blog (http://awesometapesfromafrica.blogspot.com) is a tightly-wrapped gift from another globe-trotting trust-fund brat (one assumes), this time sharing the booty and bounty from African wanderings with the audiophile public. Leaning towards more Ghanese material (highlife, in particular), the blog also features bolly hip hop, Soweto soul and a stutter-rap-alike track called “Obaa Sima” by Ata Kak, who resembles a more denim-clad Bobby Brown. The sound quality might not be up to the 320KBP-rate MP3s of Fluxblog, but this is the sort of archiving and digging that make MP3blogs an exciting and, hey, let’s say even vital medium, if only to the emotionally crippled folks like yours truly who spend the majority of their lives escaping from cold and crucial realities into the claustrophobic embrace of the arcane and obscure corners of the world of music.

Cocaine Blunts (www.cocaineblunts.com) is just another site that fights valiantly against the constant fetishization of the nouveau that plagues so many other blogs, dealing in MP3s ripped from cassette: the majority of them being out of print albums and singles, with little hope of re-issue. Out of New Jersey, Andrew Nosnitsky’s handsomely designed site has archives stretching waaaay back to the fall of 2003, that reveal that Nosnitsky has one hell of a record and cassette collection. He’s recently contributed a couple of gangsta rap retrospectives to XXL’s site too (http://xxlmag.com/online/?cat=29). Hip hop, rap and affiliated and bastardized sub-genres are the order of the day here, and Nosnitsky is kind enough to de-guiltify the site by offering up studied and wordy texts to accompany your Live Squad MP3s. This site is like coming across an alternate, far more interesting version of that Rap Traxx cassette that got me through grade 5.

In two weeks, I’m going to be taking a look at the phenomenon of the summer song in recent years. You’re welcome to send me some predictions as to what this year’s will be.

HOLIDAY IN CAMBODIA goldkicks@gmail.com

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