Author: Alex Winnick

What a week of cold snowy winter we have had. Generally speaking I like to leave my house to do work, protecting my kitchen and bedroom so as not to taint those spaces with stress or procrastination. As I cycle through my favorite study spots I’m able to preserve home base and maintain a refuge. But this week has been so bitterly cold that once making it home, if there is no absolute need to seek the outdoors, my feet slide into slippers and my legs into sweatpants before I have time to properly blow my nose. To my delight, I’ve managed to find equal levels of productivity at my kitchen table as I usually discover at the wooden tables on the first floor of the Grad. With the wind whistling and piercing my windows from outside, I’ve fallen into a routine of lighting candles, cooking up some stir fry while painfully trying to make it through the opened box of Franzia from weeks ago’s party, and steadily completing my work. But the element that has really enabled me to find solace and warmth at home has been the soulful pleasures of Tom Misch.

Mixing jazz, hip-hop, soul and funk, Tom Misch is a music producer from London. He is relatively new and unknown, despite his extraordinary talent. Tom sings, produces beats and plays the guitar and violin, combining all of these skills into his impressive repertoire of tracks. If a friend had not sent his Soundcloud page to me, I doubt I would have come across him in any foreseeable future. He’s so new that there’s no Wikipedia page about him, and none of my favorite blogs have mentioned his name yet. He appears a handful of times on the conglomerate music blog “The Hype Machine,” but mostly through UK blogs. His youth can only be seen as a hopeful characteristic; with such a strong start he surely has a spectacular career ahead of him.

Two of my favorite Tom Misch tracks also feature his sister, Laura Misch, who plays the saxophone. Together, the siblings shine and create Tom’s best kind of music. Laura’s soothing grooves on the saxophone create a wavy, relaxed and pleasant tone. They compliment her brother’s singing voice and even carry the songs. For instance, on “Follow,” Laura’s saxophone melodies actually serve as the dominant force in the track, even though Tom sings throughout the whole thing. His voice is not the most amazing sound around, but on top of Laura’s saxophone vibes it soars and the two blend together seamlessly. But after I’ve shut my laptop and continued on my day, the melody of the saxophone stays with me, not Tom’s words.

<Follow> 

In close competition with “Follow” is another track from the siblings called “Eems to Slide.” Here Tom’s guitar is much more noticeable than before, and masks the influence of Laura’s saxophone. The lyrics of “Eems to Slide” are catchy, unusual and quirky, adding another element to Tom’s sound. It is clear that Tom is first and foremost a producer, but he proves that he can also write and sing on top of his own beats. This track is a little bit bumpier and the flow is purposefully interrupted. It loses the strong jazz sound of “Follow” but gains a more electric and edgy tone that sets the stage for more ear-catching lyrics.

 <Eems to slide>

The final realm of Tom’s music repository is Hip-Hop. The majority of his Soundcloud page consists of wordless beats, which are much more obviously Hip-Hop than jazz. On a few he even samples famous artists, like A Tribe Called Quest on the track “Got It Goin’ On.” He pays tribute to legendary beatsmith J Dilla on the track “Dilla Love,” sampling a few of the master’s beats into his own creation, and also incorporates lyrics from a Mos Def song on another beat.

Tom Misch is doing what few other producers can: creating an authentically musical sound, with real foundations in jazz and soul, while still making marketable Hip-Hop beats. Instead of the loud and abrasive house music that most producers are trying to create, Tom is making true, fundamental music. And he’s just getting started.

The only thing better than a powerful spoken word piece is a powerful spoken word piece performed as a duet. Kai Davis and Safiya Washington deliver this intoxicatingly sharp, hard-hitting, spot-on, middle-finger-to-white-hipster-racism slam poem as a part of the Brave New Voices competition in 2012. I love this poem for many reasons, not the least of which is how aesthetically pleasing it is to hear. Their voices work together to infuse energy, passion, aggression and force into their poem. Their belief and fervor in their words is unmistakable. Moreover, it is so evident that this poem is grounded in their daily thoughts, relevant and directly related to their lives. As such, the stage and microphone become tools to elevate voices, which, given the subject matter, is essential to the art of poetry. Their rhymes are quick, pointed and direct. They portray precisely the images they want to with few words and laudable brevity. Best of all, their ability to bounce off one another, sometimes sharing lines, sometimes alternating, is unique and spectacular to watch. And, of course, their critique is warranted. May this always serve as a reminder to make sure our privilege is not the most prominent thing about us.

Brave New Voices

Once again comin’ atcha with some quick finals breaks and necessary distractions. Who better to bring some quality laughs and antics your way than the man himself, Jimmy Fallon. To be honest, I know nothing about him or his show, or any of those late night-one-man “news” (?) shows of which there are so many, but Jimmy Fallon certainly looks funny on youtube.

One of his best recurring segments is the “History of Rap” routine with Justin Timberlake. Together, the two provide the vocals for a mashup anthology of rap– approximately four minutes of song snippets beginning at rap’s origins and moving through at  hyper speed to the current state of pop-rap, all the while covering everything in between. Besides being unexpectedly good at rapping, Jimmy and Justin clearly treat this bit with nothing but a relaxed and carefree attitude. And true to all of the best Jimmy Fallon clips, The Roots are the driving force behind its brilliance. As integral parts of the History of Rap, themselves, the goal of reenacting a full timeline in under five minutes is only made possible with their help. There are four installments of this hilarious routine, but here are parts 2 & 3, in my opinion the best ones. Highlight: their back-to-back duet of “Killing Me Softly.” Take a few minutes away from your notes and clear your mind with these antics. If two white comedians are going to try to cover the history of rap, one of them for sure better be Justin Timberlake..

History Of Rap

For a more festive touch, here’s Jimmy Fallon singing the classic “All I Want For Christmas” with some help from Mariah Carey, The Roots playing children’s musical instruments (apparently straight from a FisherPrice toy collection) and some children themselves. Happy holidays, y’all.

All I Want For Christmas Is You

We’ve all reached that point now; the pile of missed readings has stretched into something that more closely resembles a mountain; powerpoint slides of past lectures clutter our desktops and the library becomes a room to eat, drink, study, sleep, youtube, repeat. The stress, or perhaps more accurately, the familiar regret at not having paid better attention the first time around in discussion section, can be enough to warrant unhealthy amounts of caffeine intakes and a diet of vending machine snacks. However, once the initial panic disappears, the routine of studying for finals becomes comforting, a pattern of checking off to-do lists, exercise, cooking and note taking. There’s something fulfilling in reaching, albeit potentially minimal, clarity at the end of a course. Something liberating about walking out of each final, ticking them off one by one.

At the time when we are most often alone, most often operating on our own studying-based schedules, there is no greater need for a quality playlist. Enjoy these few tracks while you settle into your ziplocked granola and highlighters; the sounds of studying.

1) It’s cold out. You’ve been sitting next to this window long enough to see the sun begin and end its descent out of sight. Before you rush through the frost-covered sidewalks, spend the last final minutes of studying against this unfailingly reassuring song. Jose Gonzalez will help the deep, calming breaths do their job. Long live bouncy balls. Heartbeats

2) This one’s for the intermediary moments of studying. The flash-card making. The notebook organizing. The productive tasks that gracefully don’t require much deliberate effort or attention. Allow Solange’s repetitive and soothing vocals apply gentle massage-like pressure to your overworked synapses. If you’re at all a Solange skeptic, still wondering whether she’s talented or just Beyonce’s younger sister, I’m right with you. But this track should definitely help sway your allegiance onto team Solange. Groovetown: Stillness Is The Move

3) You’ve earned a break. Put the pen down. Close powerpoint or your coding software. Throw on some headphones, lean back and imagine the ultimate dance party in your kitchen. I want to sing dance eat exercise sleep work and drive to this song all at once. I want to take it everywhere and play it as I walk through empty hallways. If you need to stretch a little, upper-body chair dancing is perfectly allowed. You can even get a little weird with it. Who the heck are Wookie and Eliza Doolittle, you ask? No F’ing idea. Get hype: The Hype

4) Time to ease back into the grind. As you make minor seat adjustments to make sure your legs will last another hour in this same chair, let the relaxing vibes and perfect harmonizing of BenZel and Jessie Ware guide you back into focus. If this is the first time listening, throw this one on repeat. You won’t get bored for at least a half dozen plays, and the consistency will save you from other distracting tunes. If You Love Me

5) Finally, for the long haul. Sometimes you just have to buckle down, throw away the headphones and start memorizing. But we haven’t gotten there yet. Before you forego all ties to human contact and socializing, finish the playlist off with a lovely little acoustic jaunt that will make even Virgina Woolf’s writing more pleasurable. Xavier Rudd has it figured out. Messages

Best of luck y’all. Head down until the finish line.

An open letter, to my former co-worker, who once told me on a rainy day, beside an empty pool, that he would never want to attend my high school. When prompted for a reason, he replied “The Ghettoness of it.”

An open letter, to a sheltered moron.

Dear Moron,

You know nothing of “Ghettoness,” know nothing of the lines between white and black; the juxtaposition of segregated and integrated, of knife fights and rumors of drive-by’s; of cafeterias split almost entirely by race, almost perfectly down to the person.

You do not know, for example, what it is like to form friendships in a homeroom where you are among only a handful of white students, where the first smiling face– one of the most charismatic, kindhearted and unforgettable people you know– tells you, upon first introduction, that at age 15, he is the father of a beautiful baby girl, Tatiana.

You do not know, for example, what it is like to see news reports showing pictures of your friend’s face, with the caption: “Body found in river, died at age 19.”

Most especially, you do not understand the differences between you and I; the subtle contrasts between being exposed to “The Ghettoness” and being isolated from it.

You’ve never realized that coming from a largely black high school does not make you less white. That your understanding of urban public schools and exposure to youth poverty does not make you any less privileged.

You wouldn’t understand that my proximity to “The Ghettoness,” in actuality, makes me farther from it than you will ever be. You wouldn’t understand my non “Ghettoness,” when placed directly alongside real “Ghettoness” removes me entirely from the “Ghettoness.”

You do not know of the lines between the two.

If you did, you would not have said that. You would not have used the word “Ghettoness” to describe a school with a large population of black students. You would not have been afraid to learn in that school, to sit in that segregated cafeteria, to average your friends’ estimates of how many guns are in that school at any given time and land on a number larger than five. You would understand that this estimate, while probably exaggerated, could illuminate in some small way, the issues some of your classmates face. It could reveal the realities of facing discrimination, teen violence, unsafe neighborhoods and assumptions made about the color of your skin. You would realize, that instead of hiding from these problems, witnessing them will actually allow you to live your life in a more enlightened, guided manner.

You may also have to realize that you are taking pride in knowing people who are directly affected by discrimination and teen violence and unsafe neighborhoods and racist assumptions. You may have to realize that you are taking pride at their expense. You may have to be aware of that pride.

The complexities of my school cannot be articulated in a word like “Ghettoness.” They cannot be worked out until we start acknowledging them, understanding them, and realizing when they are misrepresented. You misrepresented my school, you assumed things because of the student body’s skin color, and years later, I’m acknowledging your ignorance.

Please never use the word “Ghettoness” again. You know nothing of the complexities– of the lines between, of the distances from– you and I to the word.

You know nothing of “Ghettoness.”

Your former co-worker.

For two hours yesterday I witnessed the power of youth expression. At an Open M.I.C. event at Ben Carson High School of Science and Medicine, students, teachers, faculty, community members and several UofM students shared a space of art, expression, music, ideas and creativity. The group transformed the school’s entrance hall into a dance floor, a cheering competition and most importantly, a stage. The only requirements to make this transformation were a microphone and an audience; the artwork that immediately started emanating throughout the room did the rest.

Had this been a different Friday, the final bell would have rang and the students would have gathered their things to leave school. They would have left in cars or in buses or on foot, and some would have waited outside until their rides came.

Instead, they piled into their forum space, which looked and felt and sounded different than the space through which they entered the school that morning, and spent fifteen minutes cheering and chanting and screaming for their school and their fellow students. Around 75 people stayed to dance to the Cupid Shuffle, including the principal and several teachers. They wore beads and bandanas and got to dance to music that otherwise is not allowed in the school.

Then, for an hour, students performed incredible, moving, talented art in front of their peers. Students rapped, read poetry, sang and danced. Multiple students came up to the microphone more than once to share two or three different kinds of art. Three students spoke about ending bullying. Two performed poetry about violence in their neighborhoods. One girl’s poem about the death of her father caused her teacher to cry. One boy painted his face completely white, and performed a five-minute dance routine as a mime, as a call to end youth suicide. The guest performer, a Detroit-area rapper and former member of the group Binary Star, said that he’s never seen an open mic like this, and that he wished he had this program growing up. A group of three freshman, triplet sisters, sang two songs together about family. One boy mentioned in a poem that he thinks people should start showing more respect for Detroit. We finished in a group huddle by chanting “Teamwork Makes the Dream Work.” Students took it upon themselves to start beat boxing and dancing along with the chant in the middle of the huddle.

I was struck, during the mimed dance and the poetry and the singing and the huddle, that there was nothing but raw, untested talent in that room, in these students. The only thing they needed, the only restraint any one of them had in pursuing a medium for arts was the opportunity– the space itself. There are no arts classes in this high school; the students received no training or instruction or help or mentoring in their artwork. If anyone in that room was moved or inspired or proud or impressed, it was because of the students– the ninth, tenth and eleventh grade teenagers– who used alternated using a microphone as a means to discuss relevant issues, share skills, make a call to action or think spontaneously.

If this were a math equation, it would look like this:  microphone + speakers + students = creative expression

Although the teachers and the UofM students and the community members were there to encourage and share and provide the equipment, the students deserve the credit. They proved, in no uncertain fashion, that an outlet– a medium in which to express oneself– can be an important vehicle for school change. In the course of those two hours, I saw an emerging rapper/singer/songwriter with no shortage of confidence and enthusiasm. I saw a boy so dedicated to his cause that he spent twenty minutes getting in costume to perform a dance routine even without his two other group members. I saw a girl use poetry in order to express something that can’t easily be expressed without prose.

I saw students create a space of their own; all they needed was a microphone.