The newest episode of Sound Philosophy is now live. It is my 28th episode and is entitled DJ Kool Herc, Deconstruction, and Synecdoche. That’s a fancy title, but don’t be concerned. Just about everything gets explained.
In this episode, I am joined by Matt Carter and Eric Taxier to discuss DJ Kool Herc (one of the forefathers of hip hop), his park parties, and his Merry-Go-Round technique–a method of extending the break of a song and linking it to other breaks. We discuss the issues of liveness (just what is “live” at a hip hop party using pre-recorded materials?), the art of DJing seen from the perspective of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction (that is, DJing as a series of reversals), and the break as a kind of synecdoche (a part that stands in for the whole and yet separates itself from that whole). For a quick example of the Merry-Go-Round Technique, see this VIDEO.
The image art for this episode comes courtesy of Mika Väisänen., via Wikimedia Commons; The file can be found HERE.
