So last year I downloaded an album made by a new live-band, Denver based conscious hip-hop group called Flobots which features MC Jonny Five, aka Jamie Laurie, who I went to college with. I didn’t know Jamie well, but I dug the hell outta the album, flowing and offbeat and definitely presenting a unique sound, dripping with political consciousness. A few weeks ago the album got released BIG TIME by Universal, and now I’m seeing Flobots all over the place like Jamba Juice.
I went to check out the youtube video for “Handlebars,” the single off the album, only to find that it’s already been viewed 1.2 Million times. Props to Jamie, and hope the Flobots handle celebrity better than I would.
Amazing how distribution works, knowing a bit about that from the publishing world (One City is getting translated into German, y’all). Flobots have definitely moved into a higher echelon of visibility. The link to the video is below, but for some reason of Corporate Control I don’t get, Universal has disabled the ability to embed the video on this page. Don’t they want us to see it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK2A1ZqoWs
Handlebars is a great song, because it captures something that we’ve been talking about on Monday nights at the I.D. Project – Coemergence: the idea that each and every mental event we experience can manifest either wisdom and creativity, or confusion and destruction. To me, Handlebars is about the Coemergence of Pride, which is what we are talking about tonight, live 7pm from Bowery (or check it out on a podcast coming to you soon).
So, talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic. Coemergent Ego is neither wisdom nor confusion.
Discuss.