I first read The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a teenager in school. Though I didn’t buy into his hype for religion, I took much comfort and inspiration from his biography at a difficult time in my life. I was on the receiving end of bullying from a small but vicious clique of wannabe Nazis. I was a peacenik, who confused inaction with pacifism. Instead I should have been smart and quick enough to stop the bullying then and there. I didn’t, and rode it out for 2 years.

Not fun. But it showed me everyone got fucked over somewhere down the line, and made me aware that I could never tolerate that happening to anyone. Or as I read it in Malcolm X’s autobiography:

“Hence, I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”

Here Malcolm X is interrogated by a group of hard-headed white men, who can’t get beyond their own prejudice to discuss, as one human to another, Malcolm X’s thoughts on religion, history and life. Throughout Malcolm X is an example of intelligence, dignity and grace, never allowing himself to be goaded by his detractors. Recorded in Chicago, March 17, 1963, for City Desk, with Malcolm X, and journalists Jim Hurlbut, Len O’Connor, Floyd Kalber, and Charles McCuen.
 

 
This mix is a bit of a departure in my djing style, featuring as it does hardly any disco (gasp!) and instead quick cuts and layered mixes of drum-machine based tracks. NOLA Bounce, Miami Bass, Chicago House, Detroit Electro… you know, that kind of thing. Mixed fast and constantly moving, this is like aural caffeine. So if you are just waking up, hit play and get energised.

Oh, and can we start the hip-house revival now?

Tracklist [yes, some of these tracks are NSFW]:

BIG FREEDIA - Look At Her
BIG FREEDIA - Azz Everywhere
PRINCE - 1999 (New Orleans Bounce Edit)
MISSY ELLIOT - Joy
SOUL SONIC FORCE - Looking For The Perfect Beat
KRAFTWERK - The Man Machine (live)
NEWCLEUS - Jam On It
EGYPTIAN LOVER - What Is A DJ?
DEREK B - Rock The Beat (Bonus Beat)
RUFUS & CHAKA KHAN - Ain’t Nobody
MC TWIST & THE DEF SQUAD - Just Rock
FUNKADELIC (Not Just ) Knee Deep
SNOOP DOGG Who Am I? (Acapella)
THE NIALLIST Dance Club (Haunted Edit)
THE NIALLIST Dance Club (acapella)
SISSY NOBBY Lay Me Down (DJ Sega Mix)
A GUY CALLED GERALD Voodoo Ray
ADONIS Two The Max
JJ FAD Supersonic
HANNAH HOLLAND Transexual Bass
FAST EDDIE Hip House
HOUSEMASTER BOYS House Nation
PIERRE’S PFANTASY CLUB Dream Girl
AZEALIA BANKS Liquorice
LONE Pineapple Crush
THE 2 BEARS Bear Hug (acapella)
T-TOTAL & FERAL Phearsome Bitch
MASTER AT WORK The Ha Dance (KenLou Mix)
CUNT TRAX Beats Werkin’
THE 2 BEARS Bear Hug (Niallist Acid Mixx)
ELECTROSEXUAL Discolition (Niallist RoboVogue Edit)
STEVE POINDEXTER Work That Motherfucker
CHERIE LILY Werk (Nita’s Battle Ready Mix)
SPANK ROCK Put That Pussy On Me (Diplo Mix)
2 LIVE CREW Throw That D
MURK If You Really Love Someone (Murk Groove)
CAJMERE Percolator
TRONCO TRAX Walk 4 Me
LIPPS INC Funkytown
PHUTURE Acid Trax
DONNA SUMMER I Feel Love
THE NIALLIST Work It (acapella)
SEX BAND I Have Got The Answer
 

 
As Soundcloud seems to be cracking down on dj mixes and non-creator owned content, I am migrating all my mixes over onto Mixcloud - including the previously DM’d Skool Of Rock, Disco Argento and Disco Argento 2 mixes, and my ‘Best of 2011’ mixtape. You can follow me, The Niallist on Mixcloud, here. 
 
BONUS!

If you like 808s going boom and some funky dancing in a fly late-80s fashion, then check out Detroit’s The New Dance Show, clips of which have been uploaded to YouTube by the excellent Caprice87. This one is a particular fave, featuring Jesse The Body and some slick mixing (you can see more of these via Shallow Rave.)
 

 
One of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Travel Talks, with “Voice of the Globe” James A Fitzpatrick, who takes the viewer on a trip along Chicago’s Loop, from 1947.

‘Night descends on Chicago, the heart of the city, or the Loop as it is generally known, is brilliantly aglow with the glimmering lights that lure us to its many attractions.’

These include the Bismarck, where we will see Don Julian and Marjorie do “their fantastic cape dance”; and Chez Paree, “where internationally famous artists have entertained the public for a quarter of a century or more”; to the Ambassador Hotel’s “renowned Pump Room, where food and drink are served with all the formalities of a Royal banquet”; and on to the Edgewater Beach Hotel, which served such famous guests as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead, and Nat King Cole, and U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The men look old, their hair sleek, their suits formal. The women younger, framed by jackets and skirts in blues and reds, smile, smoke, wear hats. Everyone looks as if they are on show, pretending to have fun. It’s a different landscape, far away, and slightly out of focus, the images seem hand-painted, water-colored.

Hard to imagine this is the same year that began with the murder of Elizabeth Short (aka the Black Dahlia) in Leimert Park, Los Angeles; while Jack Kerouac traveled across country, an experience that formed the basis for On the Road, and worked on The Town and The City; and in Conroe, Texas, Joan Vollmer gave birth to her son named after the father, William S Burroughs; Marilyn Monroe made her film debut as a telephone operator; and back in LA, Kenneth Anger shot his dream-film Fireworks over a weekend, while his parents were away. And all of this happening, bubbling out-of-frame, of these streets fireflied with lights, and Julian and Marjorie cape-danced; gold lame draped girls kicked heels; and a cowboy turned rope tricks on a hay scattered dance floor.
 

 
Traxman – Thiz Is Da End
 
Here at Dangerous minds, we’ve both deconstructed a good amount of classic rock and exposed a bit of Chicago’s footwork culture. So it only makes sense to bring it all together by spotlighting (with the help of the Dave Quam’s great It’s After the End of the World blog) via the MPC3000 skills of the Windy City’s legendary Geto DJ Traxman. Appropriation rules!

 
Speculating on how an 85-year-old Lenny Bruce would be celebrating his birthday today is as fun as it is pointless.

But it’s pretty easy to guess that edgy comedy’s patron saint would not have been able to stretch out casually on TV for 25 minutes in conversation with a legendary publisher and lifestyle creator like the Hef.

That’s what happened in 1959 on the first episode of Playboy’s Penthouse, Hugh Hefner’s first foray into TV, which broadcast from WBKB in his Chicago hometown. This was the first mass-market exposure of the erstwhile club-bound Bruce, and its high-end hepness set the tone for the show’s two-season run, which featured a ton of figures in the jazz culture scene.

Of course, the dynamic between the eloquent snapping-and-riffing Long Islander Bruce and the perennially modest Midwestern Hefner is classic as the comedian covers topics like “sick” comedy, nose-blowing, Steve Allen, network censorship, tattoos & Jews, decency wackos, Lou Costello, integration, stereotypes, medicine and more.
 

 
Part II | Part III | Part IV

 
Take a look at Brandon “N2ition” Riley’s video for rising Gary, IN rhymer Freddie Gibbs’s tune “The Ghetto” below, and you’ll notice that you’re looking at something different. The flossy clichés—bling, cars, cash—are absent. Instead, we see high school running tracks, lake beaches, and theatres. We see kids, grannies, murals, dirty piano keys, and broken basketball backboards.

In short, we see real atmosphere, an element that can take something as commodified and played-out as a hip-hop video into a profound direction. Says Riley:

I’m trying to take the hip-hop music video into a more cinematic direction. And I don’t mean cinematic as in ‘Let’s add dialogue at the beginning of the video and then jump into the club scene.’ It takes a real commitment from the artist and their team to believe in a track enough to come up with a unique concept and follow it through. To plan on taking 2-3 days to shoot it. To audition actors to play key roles, etc. You have to be inspired by the music first.

After making videos for his own rap group in college in Charleston SC, Riley started shooting for other acts and building his aesthetic. One of his vids became a top-20 finalist in a YouTube rap video contest judged by Common, 50 Cent and Polow The Don.

Since then, Riley’s made Chicago his home and has shot for local talent like Lungz, LED, Nascent, Big Law, Jay Star and others. His N2ition Productions continue to specialize in videos that eschew the vapid, party-up paradigm for a gritty tone that almost seems inspired by the ghosts of Midwestern blues.

Riley notes a bounty of video talent in his territory:

There are some other great directors in Chicago. Guys I’ve worked with like Travis Long from Ike Films and Noyz from Da Visionaryz and GL Joe from HYSTK. These guys are going to be national names in no time. They really have the borderline genius talent.

Upcoming N2ition projects include a video for “Linen” by Mikkey Halsted and Twista (“Some amazing shots of Chicago in the summer”), and another with LEP and Gucci Mane that he says “should be a nice Chicago anthem.”

And I’m supposed to be working some more with Freddie Gibbs in the near future. I also shot a documentary on Twista that should be out in November. But I’m just as excited about moving into more feature length projects. I just completed a feature with Ike Films and Ill be shooting something in early 2011 with Noyz from the Visionaryz…everything I learn on those shoots only makes my music videos that much better.

 
Bonus clips after the jump: Another N2ition production starring Gibbs working with Mikkey Halstead, plus some workingman’s-blues-style hip-hop from Jay Star.