Take your average front man during a band’s period of creative hiatus. Damon Albarn is not that guy. Instead of focusing the pursuits of his off-time on reality variety shows or eco-friendly clothing labels, this lead vocalist of the legendary Britpop band Blur has worked as main man behind the Gorillaz, and the Danger Mouse collaboration The Good, the Bad, and the Queen.

In 2002, he co-founded the Honest Jons Record label which Entertainment Weekly refers to as “the hippest world-music label going.” Their Lincoln Center musical revue promises a swift education in contemporary black music with Cadi Staton performing (remember “Young Hearts Run Free”?) alongside Simone White, Tony Allen, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, and many others.

More info here.

Saturday, July 12th
8PM
Avery Fisher Hall
Part of the Lincoln Center Festival 2008

“Primordial Punk,” reads their mission statement, “represents what’s been missing from the cultural dialogue of beauty. It calls upon the talents of professional artists to challenge, confront, rearrange, and revisualize the standard against which AFRICAN-AMERICAN beauty is measure.” What better way to celebrate a new aesthetic for beauty than with some funky pictures and a party?

The Pictures: The 1st-ever BLACK PUNK PIN-UP CALENDAR 2 Primo Pin-Ups, Tamar-kali, Imani Coppola, Sylvia Gordon, MilitiA, DJ Reborn, dj.shErOck, Ife Mora, Nneka Bennett, ninja.bot.body.rock, Josiane, Lesley J, and Bailey Davis. Each model was styled after song lyrics written by a Black rock artist or band. The Calendar ships out in October with proceeds benefiting the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and the Black Rock Coalition. But until then, we can satiate our punk pin-up cravings by sinking our teeth into…

The Party: Primordial Punk’s 1st Annual Debutante Ball runs in conjunction with the 4th Annual Afro-Punk Fest in Brooklyn. The event will feature 4 hot numbers by our loves, Brown Girls Burlesque with live accompaniment by Mackie Riverside & the Street Pushers, live sets by Apollo Heights, Betty Black, Chewing Pics and Sweetie, DJ Tjade on decks, and live painting by Fly Lady Di. Information will be on-hand to pre-order the Black Punk Pin-Up Calendar for $10.

Debutante Ball Launch Party
Friday, July 11th
Galapagos @ 10PM
70 North 6th Street in Williamsburg
FREE and open to the public

Guillermo Scott Herren (aka. Prefuse 73), an Atlanta artist of Catalan and Irish/ Cuban descent currently working in Spain, composes vaguely jazzy experimental hip hop tracks so beguiling they emit a strange sense of déjà vu. I remember the first album Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives with a story of my own, sitting on the roof of a college apartment during the slowly cooling early autumn, Prefuse slinking through the living room from the outdoors, in an oversized sweatshirt and bare feet. Something in the way Herren produces allows his music to feel both fresh and comfortable at the same time.

Prefuse 73 comes off much lighter than hip hop studies by similar artists Madlib, Danger Mouse and GirlTalk; almost Ibiza beachy at certain points. But make no mistake. His subtle musical repertoire makes for compositions far more far more substantive than the average gamine + electronica = eargasmic construction of comparable lounge and house. His music bares striking similarities to the speckled collages adorning his album covers: a classily psychedelic mix of harmony, texture, and balance.

Herren’s fourth album under the moniker Prefuse 73, Preparations, has a slightly more orchestral feel than his earlier work as he lends his classically trained instrumental ear to the P73 alias. The merger makes him a wise choice for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Whitney Live series. The series showcases a new pairing of cutting-edge performers each weekend in addition to “pay-what-you-wish” Friday admission to the museum itself. Prefuse will play as part this June’s Wordless Music series with “adventuresome chamber music from the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME)” and Jad Abumrad (Host of WNYC’s RadioLab) appearing as the MC.

Friday June 20

Whitney Museum

945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY 10021

For more info, click here

Donnis sounds a little bit like old school Atlanta with a slick coat of disco glitter. If you are searching for clean beats and candy-coated lyrics to accompany summer’s heat, look no further. Donnis’ sound is young, but stylish, and his backing by two severely talented DJ’s (Genre and Benzi) makes for a great tour with geeky-digital flair of international proportions.

I caught up Donnis while he drove through the outskirts of Toronto and had just passed the original site of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. His crew listens to a Pharell mix-tape created by DJ Genre, an artist Donnis refers to as his “Big Brother.” His tour accomplice is DJ Benzi; the love shown towards DJs like Benzi and Kool Kid on previous engagements will take the team through several gigs in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway) before returning to the states for performances in Ohio, Florida, and New York.

The 22-year-old Atlanta native’s career took off while emceeing in Japan at the age of 19 where he was stationed by the U.S. military. Japan greatly influenced his dancehall sound and the country’s stance on the cutting-edge of futuristic music and fashion gave Donnis’ presence a style that is tailored but not contrived.

After conquering the English-speaking club market in Japan, Donnis returned home to look for new challenges, booking a spot on the AKA Tour — a hip hop conglomerate featuring the likes of Lil’ John and T-Pain. Although conflicts kept the tour short-lived, Donnis’ block-rocking aspirations remain undaunted. Check for him on his myspace page here or while he makes mischief in Manhattan this week.

May, 12 2008
Donnis and Dj Benzi @ Sway, NYC
305 Spring Street

May, 15 2008
Donnis, DJ Benzi and Mickey Factz @ Love
179 Macdougal Street and 8th Street

On April 24th the Somerset House will open Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture as the inaugural exhibition of its riverside Embankment Galleries. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (LA MoCA) this sublimely transcontinental exhibition showcases the similarities present in architecture and fashion during the past two decades.

Perhaps it was the 80’s mix of cocaine, Prince, and an encroaching millennium that brought the towering cinematic works of Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, and Shigeru Ban to shadow over the terrestrial in flesh, steel, and paper.

Whatever the reason, the world has seen beautiful tectonic design in the spheres of fashion and architecture since that time. And this exhibition captures the sharpness, shock, and amazement that met its forward-thinking designers during the height of urban innovation. “Forty-five of today’s most brilliant and creative fashion designers and architects are represented by a wide range of more than 300 objects: from stunning one-of-a-kind haute couture gowns to intricate architectural models and special full-scale installations,” LA MoCA promises.

During a season where retrospective runway collections and cut-and-paste condominiums run rampantly, an exhibition comparing cross-disciplinary design principles through a poetic matrix (“Wrapping,” “Folding,” “Draping,” “Pleating,” “Printing,” “Suspension,” “Canteliever”) sounds like the kind of thing to shake design to its very bones.

Milan tries its chic hand at a tradeshow this weekend. Cosmit’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile, together with the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition, will host an international showcase of contemporary Italian furniture design. Running from April 16th to 20th, the event will open to the public at the Milan Fairgrounds in Rho on Sunday. Think of Saloni 2008 as a commercial/consumer treasure hunt for the next Cassina.

In addition to showcasing domestic constructions of “every conceivable style” at the fairgrounds, Cosmit will also host the opening of the Peter Greenway’s performance piece Leonardo’s Last Supper. A superb contrast to the aesthetic eye-candy exhibiting at the fairgrounds, Greenway’s Last Supper turns the infamous fresco into a multi-media digital spectacle.

So says Arteamericas, the Latin American art fair exhibiting this weekend in Miami Beach, Florida. Unbeknownst to many, Miami boasts a contemporary art scene that rivals, if not surpasses that of international art metropolis New York City. Blame it on the beaches or provocatively sunny weather, but has just the right amount of desire, will and affectation to make it fierce competitor for the media-buzz celebrity-driven cultural arts attention long coveted by New York City.

Although only in its sixth year, Art Miami Beach (the American counterpart to the famously chic Art Basel Switzerland) is likely the most important annual arts showcase in the United States—sorry, Whitney Biennial. Arteamericas provides Miami tantalizing respite necessary to bridge the time between the exhaustive Art Miami/Design Miami city takeover during December and the tourist playground the city becomes during the summer months.

Less monstrous than its winter cousin, Arteamericas appears quirky and intimate. The event bills itself as “the premier art fair from Latin America” and encompasses seventy one high-quality galleries “representing 300 emerging artists and renowned masters.”

I love Latin American art and it’s in the midst of a revolution no art institution can afford to ignore. Works by Eugenio Espinoza and Grupo Escombros show promise.

Get a little hot here.

The Barbican in London, which has been serving up a tantalizing array of reggae cult classics since March 12th, only has a week left in its Film Jamaica series. The series runs parallel to the Barbican’s seasonal run of The Harder They Come, a musical adaptation of the groundbreaking, seventies Jamaican feature starring the legendary Jimmy Cliff. And while the musical runs in the theatre, the original celluloid headlines the Film Jamaica series.

The Harder They Come tells the country-boy-meets-world story of a young musician who moves to Kingston with dreams of becoming a singer, but who quickly becomes an outlaw. The soundtrack features seminal reggae hits “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” “Many Rivers to Cross,” and the eponymous title track.

This Wednesday, Film Jamaica will premiere Rockers, a 1970s documentary-style exploration of the Robin Hood myth in roots music culture during Jamaica’s music industry heyday.

For your viewing pleasure, check out the Film Jamaica series here and the musical here.