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Song of the Week: SABA Stays Fresh as Ever on the Reflective “Ziplock”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Chicago rapper SABA returns with a double-single, his first new music of 2021. Chicago rapper SABA has returned this week with another set of double singles, “Ziplock” and “Rich Don’t Stop”, continuing the dual-drop format he established throughout 2020. “Ziplock” was produced by D. Phelps and Coop the Truth and marks the first new music from the emcee in 2021. (He can also be found on the soundtrack for the Oscar-nominated film Judas and the Black Messiah, appearing on “Plead The .45th” alongside Smino.) A recent press release st...
Kenny Oliver, Producer of LMFAO’s Dance Classic “Sexy And I Know It,” Drops DJing to Join US Army
Kenny Oliver is making a career switch from serving up beats to serving his country. To the music industry, Oliver, a 29-year old artist who just enlisted in the U.S. Army, is known by his Audiobot moniker. In 2012, he hit it big by co-producing “Sexy And I Know It” alongside LMFAO. In total, Audiobot landed a handful of contributions on the final cut of LMFAO’s album Sorry for Party Rocking. His work intersected with additional mainstream musicians, including Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am. Despite having a Billboard Hot 100 chart topper to his name, Audiobot has considered it important to find new challenges for himself and felt a call to serve. Previously, he had a career playing shows and festivals, but after being sidelined by t...
INTERVIEW: Strengthening the ICT Sector in Ethiopia
The ICT sector is fast-growing. To unpack this, Co-founder and CEO of iceaddis – Ethiopia’s first innovation hub and tech incubator – Markos Lemma talks to his experience of the East African country’s innovation ecosystem: How do you picture the development of ICT in Ethiopia? When we started iceaddis in 2011, Internet penetration was less than 1% among the population; and the role of ICT was limited. 10 years have passed since then; the internet penetration rate is around 19% today. We have seen significant progress in infrastructure, service provision, human capital and research. There are key players in the ICT sector and there is political willingness to advance this sector. In this regard, the contribution of the private sector is unneglectable. The Ministry of Innovation & techno...
Serj Tankian on His New Elasticity EP: “I Definitely Thought These Songs Would Have Worked Out for System”
Serj Tankian has just released his new solo EP, Elasticity. The title is inspired, in part, by System of a Down’s landmark 2001 album,Toxicity, and the singer has made no secret about the songs being originally intended for his acclaimed metal band. The collection features five new songs, including the recent singles “Elasticity” and “Electric Yerevan”. One listen to the EP, and it’s not difficult to see how these tracks would have fit nicely into the System of a Down canon. Tankian approached System with these songs a few years back, and as he explained to Heavy Consequence, the band members even worked on a few of them. However, ultimately creative differences led to any recording plans coming to a standstill. We asked Tankian what he felt more: regret about not recording the songs with ...
How Cruz is Bridging the Gap Between Electronic and Latin Pop Music
It’s no secret that Latin pop and electronic music go together like wine and cheese. The two have lived in perfect harmony for years. However, unlike cheese, the ingredients of this unique marriage never spoil. In fact, like cheese’s boozy counterpart, the combination gets better with age. Cruz knows how to ferment the grapes of dance music’s vines to produce the finest wine. With an innovative approach to music production, the Grammy-winning artist has a profound ability to twist Latin pop and electronic music into his own unique blend. The proof is in the pudding: his global 2019 hit “Ya No Soy Asi,” a sultry collaboration with hotly-tipped singer-songwriter Thiago X, went viral on Spotify in 13 countries. Cruz’s latest crossover track, ̶...
Diablo in Disguise: Bid on an Ultra-Rare, Lambo-Based Vector M12
Fittingly, the corporate history of the ever-enigmatic Vector Motors is just as intriguing as the wild vaporwave twin-turbo doorstop supercars it produced. A condensed history of the company, including its pseudo-production Vector W8 and the subsequent stillborn Avtech WX-3, would be voluminous on the scale of War and Peace. So for now, we’re fast-forwarding to the mid-1990s, where the Vector story almost takes off in earnest just before burning up as it breaches the atmosphere—and it’s all centered around hostile corporate takeovers, a despot’s son, and a new supercar with a Lamborghini V-12—a supercar you can bid on at Barrett-Jackson’s upcoming Scottsdale sale. See all 9 photos Vector Motors (then Vector Aeromotive) struggled in the early 1990s. The late Ve...
10 Years Ago, The Strokes Triumphed Through Adversity to Create Angles
Throughout the 2000s, New York quintet The Strokes were considered the kings of post-punk revival. Drawing from artists like The Doors, Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Bob Marley, and most notably, The Velvet Underground, their charming indie/garage rock raucousness was virtually everywhere for several years. Of course, it all started when they inspired their own set of peers and protégées — including LCD Soundsystem, The Killers, and Kings of Leon — while skyrocketing into critical and commercial favor with 2001’s debut LP, Is This It, which topped our list of “The Top 100 Albums of the Decade” in November 2009. Although 2003’s Room on Fire and 2005’s First Impressions of Earth weren’t as widely celebrated by the press — due mainly to a perceived lack of newness and a penchant for safe...
How Digital Adoption Across Africa Supersedes the World
Sourced from Redbubble and iStock. Although Africa currently trails other regions in terms of digital adoption and maturity, the pace of adoption and infrastructure buildout is happening faster on the continent than any other region in the world. This creates the opportunity to unlock enormous economic potential, according to a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in partnership with Casablanca Finance City. “The COVID-19 crisis has also focused minds, accelerating digital adoption among consumers and digital transformation among companies,” says Jan Gildemeister, Managing Director at BCG. “For success going forward, we believe that companies and governments need to coordinate on three fronts: creating scale, nurturing and attracting digital talent, and building ecosystems and innov...
58% of Data Backups are Failing, According to Research
Data protection challenges are undermining organizations’ abilities to execute Digital Transformation (DX) initiatives globally, according to the Veeam Data Protection Report 2021, which has found that 58% of backups fail, leaving data unprotected. The report also found that against the backdrop of COVID-19 and ensuing economic uncertainty, which 40% of CXOs cite as the biggest threat to their organization’s DX in the next 12 months, inadequate data protection and the challenges to business continuity posed by the pandemic are hindering organizations’ initiatives to transform. “Over the past 12 months, CXOs across the globe have faced a unique set of challenges around how to ensure data remains protected in a highly diverse, operational landscape,” says Danny Allan, CTO at Veeam. “In respo...
Dirt Every Day Builds a Suzuki Samurai Rock Crawler Pickup!
Remember the 100th episode special of Dirt Every Day? Neither did Fred Williams or Dave Chappelle; they kinda forgot where the count was and celebrated the milestone, officially, at 103. But, boy was it a big one! Going to the island of Java in Indonesia to wheel with Fred’s long-time friend, Widodo, and the ProRock Engineering crew in that awesome Daihatsu Taft pickup conversion—fun times. But this is season 10 and it’s time to go bigger and better! How? By building a Suzuki Samurai rock crawler pickup conversion thingy! Hey, the Samurai is marginally bigger than the Taft, so that counts. And Fred and Dave don’t have Widodo and his enormous workshop full of skilled fabricators to do most of the heavy lifting this time. Building Your Own Rock Crawler See all 14 phot...
Can a Ferrari 550 Maranello with a JDM Attitude Readjustment Satisfy?
The 550 Maranello was a Ferrari that wasn’t necessarily on everyone’s wish list. Successor to the Testarossa/512, many felt its shark-mouthed styling was too reserved. Others didn’t think a Ferrari V12 engine belonged ahead of the cabin (myself included). Despite not being mid-engined and having more of a grown-up, touring car appeal, it was still one of the best cars $200K could buy you in the mid-to-late ’90s. Highly praised by journalists, it was more of an elegant coupe you’d spot on a swanky road trip up to Monterey, not something you’d encounter at a testing day at Fuji Speedway, which is what makes this particular 1997 550 Maranello the absolute business. See all 27 photos All Business, Little Grand Touring I like my Ferraris aggressive, loud, eve...
Women’s History Month Tribute: Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane’s music has had a huge influence on me in several aspects, perhaps most significantly by broadening my musical horizon and igniting my interest in jazz. Her music was my first contact with spiritual jazz, the genre which she pioneered throughout the ‘60s and into the ‘70s. I vividly remember my introduction to her music. In November of 2017, following the reissue World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, The Sai Anantam Ashram Singers came to Copenhagen to perform the album and screen the documentary titled Ashram. <!– // Brid Player Singles. var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ “div”: “Brid_10143537”, “obj”: {“id”:”25115″,”width”:”480″,”h...
