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This year’s Grammy awards show made it impossible to ignore how utterly clueless today’s music industry is. The past year has seen…
Alexander Billet
I'm a music journalist, writer and activist living in Chicago, and sit on the editorial board at Red Wedge magazine. A regular contributor to SocialistWorker.org, the Electronic Intifada and Green Left Weekly, my articles have also appeared at TheNation.com, Z Magazine, New Politics, CounterPunch, PopMatters.com, Dissident Voice, the International Socialist Review, the Washington Peace Letter, MR Zine and Razorcake.org among others.One of my articles “Is Russell Simmons Playing Politics with Hip-Hop?” appears in the academic collection At Issue: Should Music Lyrics Be Censored For Violence and Exploitation? released in 2008 by Greenhaven Press. My first book, Shake the City! How Crisis and Resistance Are Reshaping Music, is currently being written and will be released in early 2014.I have discussed music and politics on WBEZ's "Eight Forty-Eight," on Radio Free Adelaide in Australia and W.E.A.L.L.B.E. radio show. I'm a member of the National Writers Union/UAW 1981, a founder of Punks Against Apartheid and is a longtime activist in various movements for civil rights, economic justice and international solidarity. If you're interested, an archive of my work can be seen at my website Rebel Frequencies, and I can be reached at [email protected], or through my Facebook and Twitter.
This may be the make or break year for American Idol. With its eighth season underway, the producers are scrambling for anything…
Dear Ms. Franklin, First thing’s first: much respect to the Queen of Soul! To be even writing a letter addressed to…
To say that Tha Truth is eager is something of an understatement. The Philly MC is downright fanatical–a term this writer uses…
In many ways, 2008 was a predictable year in music. In the constantly shifting and swaying world of music, one of the…
The (International) Noise Conspiracy’s moment in the sun should have come a long time ago. One would think that a group who…
If there’s one word that can sum up what happened last Tuesday, it would have to be "catharsis." The election of Barack Obama…
The image of the pampered pop-star is an insidious one. But for every artist living the high-life, for every Madonna, U2 and…
On their new release All Rebel Rockers, Michael Franti and Spearhead have done their best to channel the insurgent spirit of that…
Watching the Democratic and Republican National Conventions each election year is a lot like sitting through a festival of Elvis impersonators. There…