“This is the person who would play the piano to calm me down before all of my big games in high school.”
– Craig Robinson on his sister Michelle Obama

http://www.demconwatchblog.com/2008/08/remarks-of-craig-robinson.html—–;

Music as a civic strategy: books reviewed in this week’s Economist –

“FOR Plato the art of music was so firmly anchored in moral and political reality that any alteration to the musical system would necessarily require a corresponding political shift.”

Great Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls it “Interbeing” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Interbeing). The intellectuals reviewed in this week’s Econimist call it Music: http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11959117

The Music Public Service Movement is real: http://www.musicnationalservice.org—–;

As most athletes know, music can help create a winning mind-frame. Boxers often walk out to the ring with their favorite track blaring in the background. Football and basketball teams can usually be found getting amped up in the locker room to a playlist of songs specifically designed to gear them up for the game. So what does an 11-time Olympic gold medalist listen to while readying himself to break more world records? When asked this question by The Today Show, Phelps paused before replying “Lil Wayne- ‘I’m Me.’”

Pumping up America’s latest golden boy, Lil Wayne’s lyrics are (sans beats):

“The hottest under the sun/ aint nobody fuckin’ wit me, man/ and you already know that pimpin’/…fuck up my dreams; somebody gon’ die tonight” and “Aint nothin’ gonna stop me, so just envy it/ Hey, I’ll accept a friendly quit/ I’m me/ bitch, I’m me/ so who you?/ you’re not me/ you’re not me/ and I know that aint fair, but i don’t care”

Source, NYT and: http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.7503/title.lil-wayne-is-the-music-of-champions-ask-michael-phelps—–;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7553117.stm—–;

Kiff takes a few minutes on his vacation to discuss MusicianCorps with Plum TV.

“You can’t walk down the street with a ukulele without being asked about it,” said Chris Johnson, who plays the instrument with the Deedle Deedle Dees, a Brooklyn-based rock band for children. “I teach some kids music lessons, usually starting with piano, but they are all interested in ukulele.”

What the world seems to need now is something tiny, fun and inexpensive.

“In darker times there is something appealingly light about it,” said Jim Beloff, who wrote “The Ukulele: A Visual History

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/fashion/10ukulele.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=resurgence%20ukulele&st=cse&oref=slogin

Mr. Gabriel, the son of an inventor, keeps devising new ways for musicians and record labels to use the Web to control their work and to make — not lose — money. Twenty years ago, Mr. Gabriel says, the idea of tying a recording to an ad would have felt sacrilegious. “Today I have a different view: it’s a way to hold onto income for creators,” he says.

Friends and business associates say Mr. Gabriel has always been entranced by the lure of new ideas.

“In the early days, we’d go skiing together and Peter would have an idea every 30 seconds,” says the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group includes more than 200 companies. “We’d be sitting on the lift with me scribbling madly in my notebook, trying to get everything down. He’s worse than me.”

On being a musician and and entrepreneur:

“It grew from that in terms of our own career into wanting to own as much of the industry as we could. It’s very important for Peter to have control over his own destiny.”—–

…performing West African rhythms with his students from Umana Barnes, Public Middle School in East Boston, MA.

cool huh? he tells me those kids never skip his class…

check out Jeremy’s party here: http://www.thisworldmusic.com/whoweare.html—–;