La mala would mean “bad girl,” but Mala Rodriguez is anything but. Christened Maria Rodriguez in Cadiz, Spain and raised in Seville, she later moved to Madrid where she was reborn as Mala in the late 1990’s. Rodriguez, 29, got her start with SFDK — a hardcore Spanish rap duo from Seville.

For 10 years since then, however, she’s been on her own grind, gracing the Spanish masses with feminist, socially conscious lyrics — one song, “La Nina” was banned for its portrayal of a young girl selling drugs — and flamenco-inspired tunes.

Her latest album Malamarismo — released after a three-year hiatus spent collaborating with the likes of Vico C, Kultama, Calle 13 and Akon — is her most mature sounding one yet. The album, her third, not only solidified her already golden place in Spanish hip-hop, but furthered her international exposure. This time around, Rodriguez follows up her successes quickly with her fourth album, Grandes Exitos, released last week (Universal Latino).

Check out her video for “Nanai”, off Malarmismo — the outfit might throw you off but the song is hot, te prometo.

You can also catch la Mala Rodriguez live if you’re around Barcelona this Friday.

I was going to recommend a sweet music edition of Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series on Wednesday, done in conjunction with Sufjan Stevens’ record label Asthmatic Kitty, featuring Daphne Carr, Rob Sheffield, Alec Bemis, and music from My Brightest Diamond, but Joe’s Pub’s website indicates it’s sold out. If you know of some mystical way to get in, do so, then e-mail me at shawnandrew@gmail.com.

Tuesday, April 1, 7:00pm
Union Square Barnes & Noble (33 E. 17th Street, North side of the park)
Jhumpa Lahiri: Unaccustomed Earth

I don’t like recommending readings at B&N much, but this is Jhumpa Lahiri, so I make an exception. The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies and the recently adapted-for-film The Namesake has a new collection of short stories out, and she’ll be at the B&N in Union Square to read, do a Q+A, and sign books. I recommend getting there early if you want a seat (like an hour early). The last time I caught her doing a reading and discussion with Mira Nair there regarding the movie, the place was packed to the back of the top floor.

Thursday, April 3, 7:30pm
Solas Bar (232 E. 9th Street, between 3rd and 2nd Aves)
The St. Mark’s Bookshop Reading Series

St. Mark’s Bookshop has started up a reading series, and you can expect good things to come of it. Tonight’s the second inaugural night, and it features A.M. Homes (The Mistress’s Daughter), Charles Bock (Beautiful Children), and Samantha Hunt (The Invention of Everything Else). I’ve already plugged a couple of those titles, but this should be a good night.

It’s that time of year again here in NYC. The tangy fragrance of the nouveau riche clouds the West Side of Manhattan as people crowd Armory 94, the home of the annual Armory Show. Unlike Art Basel Miami Beach — the Armory Show’s only US competitor in terms of scale — there are no café con leches, no quick breaks on South Beach and definitely no thongs. Instead, we get a crappy Londontown drizzle.

But brave this weekend’s winter weather redux with this To-Do List, New Yorkers. Here’s a map. Now, go get your culture on.

1. Armory Show
The show is $30 but, hey, it’s massive. I wouldn’t expect to see much in terms of cutting-edge work here. This is the marketplace, this is where the big bucks stroll. Think of it as an uber-museum juiced up on green-dollar Viagras.

2. Scope
Scope is the David Letterman of the fairs: a happy #2. It’s scope (sorry!) is focused on younger, more experimental artists. $15.

3. PULSE
Also $15.

4. Bridge
Bridge parties all weekend, topping off with the Williamsburg After Dark After Party at Supreme Trading on Saturday. Keep in mind that all Billyburg galleries will be open late this weekend, just in case you want to keep it anti-commercial or what-have-you.

5. Art Now Fair

6. DiVA
Some video art for ya, stationed in storage units lining the streets of Chelsea. Yup, it’s free.

7. LA Art in New York
$10? Really?

8. POOL
A must-see, three thumbs up.

9. Red Dot
Very consistently worth a peek.

10. Volta
Use the Armory Show card to gain admission here as well.

One way to attack all this art is either go big or go small. Go Armory, or choose two or three parasitical fairs. Besides that, enjoy! Notice, I haven’t listed the Dark Fair above because I’m keeping that one for myself. (Probably the most interesting offering this season.)

For those of you who love contemporary art, the place to be this weekend is New York City’s extensive annual Art Fairs. Yesterday, I headed down to Chelsea’s Waterfront to first check out the Bridge Art Fair (The Waterfront; 222 12th Ave. & 269 11th Ave.), known for stellar shows of emerging contemporary art in London, Chicago, and Miami.

Marking the transition of Bridge from a national to an international art fair, this year’s spotlight is on never-before-seen contemporary work from Asia. Invited galleries are participating from Taipei, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo and elsewhere across the Pacific Rim.

One of the best showings was the Ark Galerie from Jakarta, Indonesia, which brought a brilliant installation by young Indonesian artist, Eko Nugroho (see image below). The Yogyakarta-based, politically savvy artist is known for his humorous visual commentaries on the socio-political tip and is at the forefront of a new generation of rebellious Indonesian artists who mark the departure from the gloomy, violent aesthetics that characterized the arts during the tumultuous 1980s and 90s in Indonesia.

Blending classic Chinese painting techniques with a 21st-century pop aesthetic, the works of Taiwan’s leading artist, J. C Kuo (Asian Art Center; Taiwan) were also remarkable. Given the focus on Asia, two pieces of Warhol’s Mao series were also on display. Sweet.

After feasting on the eye candies at the Bridge Art Fair, I also checked out the LA Art in New York fair (125 & 135 W. 18th St.). Here, I would highly recommend the collection of Roberts & Tilton and the Mary Goldman Gallery for an edgier, more daring collection of multimedia works. The Roberts & Tilton gallery featured, among others, a lovely piece by legendary street-artist Barry McGee, as well as representative work from LA’s thriving pop surrealist scene.

The exhibitions will run from March 27, 2008 through March 30, 2008.

Acronym-izing “you’re only young once”, Yo Yo is the infamous night pioneered by Seb Chew and Leo Greenslade. The West London urban hot spot has played host to talent across the board including TRACE sweethearts Lilly Allen and Santogold and it’s not uncommon to see Mark Ronson dropping by for a spin.

The music policy is varied with an eclectic mix of everything from 80’s classics through to hip hop, R’n'B, ragga and even a touch of old skool drum n’ bass. Leaving their usual weekly London spot for the first time in six years, Yo Yo will be gracing Miami’s Delano tonight and tomorrow with spinsters DJ Medhi, A-Trak and, of coruse, Mark Ronson.

So if you fancy a little boogie, or are already there lapping up the energy that surrounds the Miami winter music conference, check it out here.

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.

Relevancy is a double-edged sword in art. Work has to resonate with the generation that views — and buys — it, but if it’s too grounded in the right-here-and-now, the work has an expiration date. What would future generations of art-heads want with it?

Of the current avalanche of designed-based and site-specific poster, performance and installation art inspired by the messy Iraq headlines, most won’t stand that test of time.

Stephen J. Shanabrook’s visceral creations, however, are just sharp enough to balance on that edge of relevancy. There’s something delicate — if deeply discomforting — about the chocolate casts of body wounds, artfully arranged to rival any Parisian confection display for maximum hunger to ingest. Usually, chocolate melts at body temperature; here, it is a fossil.

But alongside the the oscillating, bodily desire to consume and repulse the violence and life of others, there’s also a sweetness — an untwisted and un-nostalgic reflection on what once was; a film of torn slides from stock childhoods floating endlessly in oil.

Check out Shanabrook’s newest work at the Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York, which will likely have a much longer expiration date than some of the materials he uses. Open to the public starting tonight, with an opening reception on April 3rd from 6 to 8pm.

“I heard “Sucker MC’s” for the first time. It was a wrap. I had to rhyme.” But for RepLife, a.k.a. Daniel Gray-Kontar, it has never just been about rhyming. He’s even tried to put down the mic and start new projects several times since his first engagement with rhyming on Cleveland’s streets at the age of 12.

An MC, poet, publisher, award-winning journalist for The Village Voice and The Source, youth mentor, and advocate for public education, RepLife belongs to the generation of musicians who actually walk the walk by being actively involved with improving the lives of underserved youth and fighting for social justice.

Lucky for us, RepLife’s childhood passion kept calling him back to the world of rhymes and music production. Since 2004, he has been busy recording his solo album — to which Belgian producer Cris Prolific has contributed a track –and working on other collaborative projects, appearing on a couple of songs on Montreal-based, nu-jazz producer Don-Ray’s forthcoming album, and is planning to release a joint EP with Mark de Clive-Lowe this year.

The hip hop, future soul, broken beat and nu-jazz culmination of RepLife’s solo efforts, The Unclosed Mind, released this week and is one of the most innovative musical projects of this year.

(more…)

No one actually knows who Skullphone is. Sometimes he is known as Spazmat, another graffiti artist; sometimes he is rumored to have been Spazmat, but is now someone else. It doesn’t matter who he is though, as much as what he’s doing.

Skullphone has placed himself as a solid part of graffiti’s 21st century revolution by more than sheer force of his ubiquity (and he is everywhere). The Los Angeles-based graffiti artist doesn’t tag so much as infiltrate Southern California’s landscape.

From stickers to dumpsters to rooftops and abandoned gas stations, Skullphone has spawned his own cottage graffiti industry with his trademark stamp…a skull on a phone.

Earlier this week, the usually surreptitious Skullphone hijacked Clear Channel’s digital billboards in Southern California, leaving passerbys — and no doubt the techies at Clear Channel — wondering who, what, and how. Skullphone’s not just bombing the system, he’s literally infiltrating it. And he’s coming to New York.

Get a free taste of Skullphone’s subversive spree tonight at a special event hosted by Fuse Gallery at Lit Lounge. Skullphone and his work will be in town for the night and DJ’s Zen Zane and Hit & Mrs will be joined by a special guest DJ on the turntables.

Subversive tasting at Lit here and at Skullphone’s home here

Somewhere between the pop love-fest of Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and Puffy’s dancing in shiny suits to shake off pre-millennial tension, hip-hop had a message.

One of the earliest political rap songs, Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines” track about cocaine use and addiction in the early 80s, was followed by a succession of other messages as people in urban communities across the U.S. and around the world struggled to express what was going on in their hoods and the importance of getting the word out NOW.

In Somebody Scream: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power (Faber and Faber; released today), journalist and author Marcus Reeves explores the dynamic between the music and the politics that gave shape to the lyrics and the genre in the 80s and 90s. Placing hip-hop in a 30-year context of urban political movements, Reeves hopes, will keep us from focusing on a few bad headlines (of which there are plenty — you know what I’m talking about).

Erika Parkins: Hip-Hop seems less political now than it did in the 80’s or even the late 90’s with the rise of “conscious” rappers such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common and Dead Prez; why do you think that is?

Marcus Reeves: Well, the tone [of hip-hop] has been changing for awhile. Rap can be divided into two periods, before “The Chronic” and after “The Chronic”. “Chronic” came out of the L.A. riots [of 1992] and you had rappers speaking about aggression, white supremacy, police brutality, and the government’s hand in what was going on in the community.

After the LA riots, the Time Warner rap controversy, the rise of police brutality, and the rap brouhaha between Clinton and Sistah Souljah, there was prevalent and accessible material for rappers to talk about.

Then comes an album like “Doggystyle”, out of Dre’s camp, by his protégé and homeboy Snoop, who represented the next wave.
(more…)