I once made the statement that Nomadic Massive was single-act embodiment of international hip-hop, but Maga Bo just might make me eat my words. A DJ / Producer based in Rio de Janeiro, Maga Bo has recorded in Morocco, South Africa, India, and Senegal. In World Up’s Mixtape, Maga Bo blends traditional and contemporary sounds from around the globe, providing a diverse soundscape for hip-hop giants Saul Williams, Gift of Gab, and K’Naan, to name a few of the English speakers that I could detect. The mix, almost 62 minutes long, can be heard in its entirety on the player below:

mp3: “World Up Mixtape by Maga Bo”

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In other news, Flight 808 is growing every day! Whoddathunk it? That said, we’re looking to add a few more writers before we get into all sorts of trouble this summer. Really, all sorts; it’s going to be an exciting time. If you’re interested, there are opportunities to do interviews, short pieces, long pieces, whatever. It’d probably be more professional to figure out if my @ flight808 email addy is working, but I’m just going to leave my personal email address up here for a few days so people can get at me: tommyabu @ gmail . com

Think it over yo! More goodies coming up in a few days. Peace.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine…

It’s the 10 Crack Commandments

Nicholas Conway aka DJ Sho Nuff (Yale University Hip-Hop professor, Flight 808 Contributing Writer) releases the first chapter of his new novel Fuck You Biggie about a member of the Hip-Hop generation struggling to make sense out of our ultramodern world. Framing each of the ten chapters around one of the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments”, the novel explores contemporary issues (i.e. racism, misogyny, public versus private space, the prison industrial complex, homophobia, religion, etc.) through the use of social satire.

Much as Hip-Hop music and culture did thirty-five years ago, the novelist looks to buck tradition by releasing the novel chapter by chapter via the website www.fubiggie.com. Celebrating Hip-Hop as collage art, the site (visit for detailed explanation) was specifically designed as a means of encouraging online readers to actively participate in (and be rewarded for) the editing process of each individual chapter, the novel as a whole, and the website itself. Every two weeks, a new chapter plus the reader-edited version of the previous will be released.

Visit the site to read Chapter 1: The First Crack Commandment, see if you can recognize Biggie and other Hip-Hop allusions (classic Hip-Hop lyrics and songs are woven into the text), and offer your feedback directly to the author and other online editors.

To round out this week’s focus on Dr. Osumare’s book, we’ve got our first ever interview featuring none other than the good Doctor. If you are truly interested in the global aspect of hip-hop, pick up her book. It’s a great read and one of the only texts out there that covers the global spread of hip-hop from an academic perspective. Enjoy!

Part 1:

Part 2:

5 tracks from Flight808 are featured in the latest edition of iconocastic.com’s Hip-Hop podcast.

Give it a listen

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Check out their other episodes as well. Good stuff.

Firstly, I’d like to welcome everyone aboard Flight808. Secondly, I’d like to swear on my great-grandmother’s grave to stop using such clever (see: irritating) flight wordplay. It’s even making me sick, at this point— “site launch” … “leave your tray table down” … “enjoy the ride,” etc. So, seriously, you have my word.

Our first featured nation is Brazil. Just a word about Brazil before we get into it—the emergence of hip-hop culture in Brazil was quite similar to that of hip-hop culture in the South Bronx, albeit several years later. In Sao Paulo, breaking caught on first, and later on b-boys became emcees. This was in the ’80s. Today, Brazil is perhaps best known in hip-hop circles for having what could be the most innovative (and straight ill) graffiti scene in the world.

To the music…