While streetball has certainly has traveled beyond the borders of the five boroughs and dominated the globe, the co-directors found it nearly impossible not to lean on New York City as its central theme. Garcia explained during the film’s premiere, “New York City is the mecca of the sport, every kid from Japan to Ghana, to Iran to Bolivia, wants to play ball in New York.” There are more than 500,000 players in the region that hit up over 700 city-wide courts from the summer months of June to August, including the famed West 4th blacktop down in The West Greenwich Village, up to the infamous Rucker Park in Harlem. These courts lure competitors wanting to prove their worth in salt; a past-time that has captured the hearts of numerous players and followers of the sport over the last 62 years. Some have become local legends, while others excelled higher into the upper echelon of Basketball: the NBA. All of this is what Garcia and Couliau effortlessly do their best to convey in their documentary, which moves more like Warriors meets Hoop Dreams.

B-Ball fans will revel in the film’s interviews with street legends like Pee Wee Kirkland and Jack Ryan; NBA Legends like Julius “Dr. J” Erving, and countless other connoisseurs of the game. Part of examining the art of pick-up streetball is shining a light on often overlooked aspects of the culture, such as female ballers and how different pick-up games are in correctional facilities as opposed to the street. Can White boys really jump? What are race relations like on the court? After all the pushing, fighting and screaming in the game, is it really all good when the clock stops? Does calling “next” ever really mean you’re next?

Doin’ It In the Park answers all of these questions, and as Garcia summed it up, “You do not have to be a New Yorker to enjoy this film. We made a specific effort to make it understandable to anyone.” And it’s enjoyable too.

Doin’ It in the Park is currently seeking theatrical release this fall, with a digital release to follow.  The next NYC screening will be held outdoors at MT. Morris/ Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem on August 12. It is free and open for all ages. Showtime is at 7pm. Until then, check their Facebook page for updates.

Playing in her first band at age 10, and later on, in an all-teen cover group called Wild Youth, Chloe’s been making music far beyond her 17 years could truly account for. Music has always come naturally to her, from the very beginning. Her voice has a comfortable maturity (Think Gwen Stefani on No Doubt’s “Sunday Morning”), but it’s still fresh enough to explore new territory. It belies a power and playful nature that stands out without overpowering. As for Kitten, as a group they have a Pop sensibility, while leaning towards New Wave seamlessly. Actually, Kitten manages to occupy the space between Indie Rock and the more electronic and beat based genres fairly easily. With a new remix by the dubstep DJ, Kastle, and a new video for their single, “Cut it Out”, they band from LA is on the fast track. I caught up with Chaidez over the phone, while the band was filming their new music video for “Sugar,” in the ghost towns of California.

You’re shooting a new music video, is it going to be another ode to nightlife like “Cut It Out”?

We shot it in abandoned town in California where the dam broke and the whole town was flooded about 20 years ago, so all these fish died on the shore. Nobody lives there, with abandoned houses, and there’s graffiti everywhere. So it’s going to be more post-apocalyptic in nature.

So you’re from LA and grew up there. LA gets a bad rap sometimes, what are some of things that you love about the city?

I don’t think that people get to enjoy the good parts of it when they come here for a little while, because it’s so spread out. Call me cheesy, but I love the variety of LA. You can go to the beach, to the mountains; there are a lot of naturalistic aspects of it.

Your song, “Cut It Out” could easily fit nicely onto any John Hughes soundtrack. There seems to be a love affair with ’80s style music production these days, what is its personal appeal to you… that makes you want to incorporate it into some of your songs?

Well that’s definitely spot-on; we’re influenced a lot by ’80s music. I like a lot of the women of that time, like Annie Lennox and The Motels. They’re super influential as far as keyboard sounds and synths; I liked the style of female singers then. They were really quirky and weren’t afraid to put on a character with their voice. I like of lot of British bands from that time as well.

So you started out doing covers when you first started playing, I loved your cover of The Smiths’ “Panic.” What are some other covers you like to bust out while on the road?

“Panic” is a favorite of mine. We used to do “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order, that one’s really fun. We also did “Ziggy Stardust” by David Bowie.

You’ve talked a lot about the influence your dad [Mike Chaidez, drummer for the East L.A punk band, Thee Undertakers] has had in shaping your musical taste, and getting you into music at an early age. Has he always been encouraging of your music career?

I think he warned me for a little while—not warned, but he wanted to make sure I really wanted to do this, and after that, he supported it. When I got more into Electronic music, he didn’t really understand that fully. So I think with a lot of the new things we do now, he doesn’t really understand it. He kind of wishes I did the straight-ahead ROCK!, you know, [the] rock’n'roll kind of thing.

We’ll he’s old school, that’s understandable. You’ve got to blaze new paths. I heard your first concert was the Go-Go’s… definitely not a bad introduction to strong,female-driven music. Do you recall the first album you bought?

I was definitely about 8, and it was something like Avril Lavigne’s Let Go. I know straight up, that is not very cool.

No judgment, mine was probably Vision of Love or some other ballad-y album. Being a younger act in Rock, do you find that promoters or audiences treat you differently?

As far as shows, I don’t think people really realize unless they ask. As for industry people, I think it can be a turn-off for some. They initially think the music is going to sound kitschy or it’s some kind of shtick. But after they hear the music or see a show, hopefully their minds are changed. People’s minds just go to a certain place. They picture a girl playing on her computer or a Britney Spears type. It’s natural and I get it, but then when they see us, they realize we’re something completely different than what they expected.

It’s always good to surprise people. Like how you started out on the bass first and then moved onto guitar? Which was is your favorite to play, and do you see yourself experimenting with any other instruments in the future?

I actually started out on drums, and thought bass was be an easy place to start. But guitar is better to write music on and to come up with more ideas.

What inspires your songwriting? Any process you use?

I guess it can be best described as a stream of consciousness, really putting words on paper in rhythm with the song. I think I’ve grown a lot, because in the past, I could never make the song sound like how I wanted it to. And now, I’ve learned to write in the style I’m trying to get at. Instead of writing a Folk song and trying to make it sound like a New Order song, I’ve learned to start with the style I want in the first place.

Because you started your musical career at such an early age, do you ever have the fear of burning out earlier than others?

I feel like as long as I’m building my career organically and in the right way, I’ll probably know when it hits a peak. But at the same time, I think I’ll just be able to make more records and have a solid fan base earlier. As long as I pace it out right and keep building slowly, I think it’ll turn out all right.

Look for Kitten’s [Chloe Chaidez, Andy Miller, Chris Vogel] new EP, Cut It Out, on August 28. In the meantime, catch them on their nationwide tour this summer, and download “Sugar” and “Cut it Out” Here.

Follow Kitten on twitter, @KittenMusic

This might seem random to the average Gen-X-er, but I had to admit that when reading it her observation was pretty damn accurate.

The song got mixed reviews in the hood when it dropped in ‘96— still the heyday of true gangstas, players and pimps skittish about their swagger, the song made it into crossover R&B. Two, Morrison was from the UK, had a weird haircut and there weren’t enough girls in the video.

But I have a theory on what’s happened since then; ’96, after all, was a loooong time ago.

As music in young people’s lives tends to serve as their soundtrack to everything, like theme music from moment to moment, we often fail to actually listen to the lyrics. “Return of The Mack” is about a relationship gone bad, that moment when ‘he’ realizes that ‘she’ is no good for him.

As it tends to usually be the other way around, the wounds women give men tend to be deeper, scarring ones. And they don’t happen until we’re truly committed to a real relationship. When we take it on the chin, we go down for the count. But it sometimes takes years to accept just how hurt we were.

We grow up. We learn to be responsible. We get married, have kids and stop being out every night. We forget about the songs of yesteryear that we dismissed. But then they return.

The song was background noise for me until a Halloween party last year at Marvin in DC, when I found myself dancing with an angel (or who was at least dressed that way) leading the charge. The DJ cut into the infamous track. Then I remembered when I last felt Morrison’s pain.

When I looked around, several dudes were following my lead, giving me nods as they threw hands in the air, West Coast gangsta-style. When Morrison sings “You lied to me” with full force, it recalls a number of big money betrayals I had to smash like Bruce Banner angry.

It’s good to remember. That way you don’t forget. The scandalous girls get their just desserts, usually when their biological clocks get to ticking.

Kenji Jasper is a Los Angeles based writer and journalist. Follow him on tumblr, HERE

For those who remember having to dig in the crates at local record stores, sifting through mounds of music is no easy task, although cathartic. In today’s age, that process of finding the right music is pretty much obsolete. The information superhighway consistently bombards us with all that is “new”: new collabs, new releases, new artists, new genres. Platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Pandora and the once innovative, Rhapsody, have all had their share in turning most of us, if not all of us, into playlisters. By default, they have collectively removed the need for us to search relentlessly for tunes that move us with their one-click algorithms that aggregate “recent hits”, while serving up “if you like this artist…” functionality that save us on time and act as virtual A&R’s. And yet, interestingly, despite how integral these digital music sifters have become in our day-to-day exploratory existence, none of these platforms have unlocked the code for presenting a live experience (Could it ever be that simple?) and nothing beats feeling like you’ve “discovered” an artist first.

Enter Shawn Lawrence James. The proverbial Brooklyn cat with three first names; a music journalist-cum-music supervisor and talent finder; the man behind DOPE . Under the company banner Central Booking, James selects a handful of artists to perform at his weekly music showcase (better known as DOPE) to a slew of 20-somethings, industry insiders, artists, creators, hipsters and all those who simply want to be in the room. They’re usually set in some Downtown Manhattan or Brooklyn locale, most usually, in an untapped dive bar that features a heavy-handed bartender and the one true caveat; a killer sound system.

It’s an idea that is not new in the least, when it comes to presenting new musical acts. Much like earlier winners—Amateur Night at the Apollo, Lyricist Lounge, R&B Live or Live at the Loft—that once conquered the Apple, DOPE ushers in a fresh crop of talent that is rarely afforded the opportunity to perform anywhere else in the city. But what makes this musical movement different four years later is that, while it steadily builds up steam, former acts, who were once hungry to perform live, sometimes for the first time ever at DOPE, are blowing up one by one from Theophilus London to Zoe Kravitz, to Bridget Kelly and J. Cole; and it’s not genre-based nor is it pretentious, so you never know what eclectic mix of musicians, singers, rappers, dj’s or personalities you will find once you step onto a DOPE set. Lenny Kravitz and Questlove blessed one of his events. When a performance venue fronted on him on show night, Dame Dash looked out and let him use the former DD172 space as a venue. And it’s because Shawn has that “it” factor that the major labels are so desperately trying to return to; that thing that allows him to truly know what a great artist should sound like and the ability to identity the next batch of artists who can change the game.

I had the pleasure of watching DOPE come about in it’s early days, having known Shawn (We endearingly call him SLCool James or SLJ) for years. He was a 19-year old intern at Trace magazine way back when, when I was the rag’s Managing Editor. He is a Bed Stuy, Brooklyn native, who grew up just blocks away from the infamous Notorious B.I.G. streetside summer battle, and a hop, skip and a jump away from Roosevelt and Marcy, the projects that gave rise to Yasiin Bey (the artist formerly known as Mos Def) and Jay-Z respectively. His Trinidadian roots made him a natural born hustler and restless entrepreneur. And SLJ always knew that music was his rock, so his objective rested in finding the best way to sling it—he once told me that in a manner of shared words as we walked home together one day after work. He lived right around the corner from my place, and whether he was working or not, whenever I saw him, notepad and pen in hand, he would be scribbling down ideas, random thoughts, strategies and the things that inspired him—everything, including the things he learned during his stint in Queen Latifah and Bruce Willis’ Art Start program, that would lead to now.

It’s kind of weird interviewing you, Shawn [Laughs].

Yeah, I know. It is what it is. [Laughs]

You know, you sent me an email the other day… I never knew that you were 15 when you started in this business. How?

My best friend Carlton found like a flyer on the floor to become a street team member of Murder Inc. So once I started doing street team [work], a lot of the interns, you know, were college kids or late high school, and they were not taking it seriously. So I decided to basically live in that office if I wasn’t in school. And I went from doing street work to doing actual intern work, that’s the way I found out about Soundscan and BDS, and really just understanding the business. That’s how it started; they used to give me sampler CD’s to give out and I would just sell them because they were full of new Ja Rule material, and he was hot at the time, you know. I would have other people selling it, giving me back $1.50, just finding a smart way to hustle, you know.

The original hustle! [Laughs] But you said street team, which kind of threw me off because it feels so ’90s. Street teams are pretty much non-existent now.

Yeah, it’s not [alive anymore], but it was a very effective way of marketing, and I try to use that mentality when I promote my stuff now by having flyers and passing them out on the street, after shows or going to industry parties, or just hitting people up on the train. We live in a viral age, but still, in order to be successful you still have to do the same street approach so that they can go online and see all of that material [you have] online. You can never forget the personal interaction. That’s very important.

I’m glad you said that because I know you very well. We have a personal interaction and I know what I’m about to say is a bit cliché now, this whole idea of being a “cultural curator”—everyone is using it and calling themselves that. But I know you, and I know that you really take time to craft every element of your show. So with that sensibility in mind, how do you maintain the balance between keeping it creative and appealing to the industry set?

What I’ve learned is not to appeal to the industry because when you try to appeal to them, they always front on you. And that kind of cold shoulder that I’ve gotten from the industry has allowed me to really just incubate and develop myself as an executive. You can go to a Jay-Z concert or anybody’s that’s really popping right now, 99% of the crowd are people that have regular jobs and students who just have a natural passion for listening and enjoying music. I rather appeal to them straight and create my own industry. I have my own set of photographers. I have my own set of really creative people that I work with, you know. If the industry is not going to give us a job, we’re not going to appeal to them; we’ll just work together and do our own thing because the people are what’s important. The industry will ride with you one day and be done with the other. And you really can’t stop the people. I love when I do shows and people are thoroughly entertained.

Right, and you have a talent for breaking acts too, who have become your long-term friends that you can call on at any moment—both of which you don’t see often. Like you said, the industry has this sort of disposable complex, where you’re good one day and out the next.

And that’s just from people believing in that system instead of creating their own system. You know, people forget that Jay-Z went to every label and couldn’t get signed so he had to hit the streets. He created his own system; he started off independent and then signed to a major—even though his imprint is distributed by a major, he’s still independent. He still owns all of his masters; he still owns most of the revenue that comes from sales. So I feel like we apply that same mentality into what we’re doing at Central Booking. We don’t care about what anybody else is doing. I know a couple of people who are like, “I want to get cool with this guy, this guy and this guy,” but you know, it’s a bunch of flakes. And I’m not saying the whole industry is fake or whatever; the people who have good jobs like yourself and other people that are really putting it down, ya’ll earned ya’ll space, you know. I respect that and you got your own imprint, which is more important to me. So I just respect the entrepreneurial spirit, you know.

You’ve mentioned Jay-Z a couple of times during this interview and we’re only a couple of minutes in [Laughs]. Who are some of the other people that have influenced you or have said things that kind of resonated with you and stayed with you as you’ve embarked on your entrepreneurial hustle?

Wait, what was the question?

[LAUGHS], I said, that you’ve mentioned Jay-Z a couple of times and we haven’t even gotten deep into this interview yet. And I’m wondering who are some of the other people that have influenced you or have said things that have resonated with you or fueled your entrepreneurial hustle?

Definitely Lyor Cohen. Actually Lyor Cohen is my greatest influence. He believed in getting your hands dirty, and he really believed in doing great work before expecting great revenue. You know, that right there is the blueprint for really becoming a great executive and being brave enough for making as many mistakes as possible. If you make a mistake, then you automatically know how to do it right the next time even if you’re under the big watch of someone else. You learn that you can really perfect your craft and your hustle. So definitely Lyor Cohen, that’s basically it.

So how do you make money in a recession? How do you get the people in the building to spend money?

You just have to make them believe. You really have to be a stand-up individual. You have to be known as a person of integrity. You really have to be able to articulate yourself and what you believe because more than anything, people smell passion. And if they smell passion, they’ll be curious as to what you’re so passionate about.

And you’ve made some tremendous artists believe. I know I touched on that before, but we didn’t really talk about the artists that you’ve discovered. We could talk about J. Cole. We could talk about Zoe Kravitz. We could even talk about Theo London, technically.

Yeah. That’s my guy, man. Shouts to Theophilus, man. That’s my guy. I fuck with him hard body.

Do you think these artists smelled your passion and that’s why they decided to rock with you so early in their careers?

The thing is, the thing that separates me from everybody else is that I’m the only entity that offers artists a consistent outlet for them to express themselves and express their talent. You know, because a lot people are concerned with getting signed and getting raped as opposed to building up brick by brick. And I’m there at the very first brick, you know. I really care about building something that’s long-lasting, and I think people really respect that because everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon, but nobody wants to do the work for somebody to get there, you know.

I’ve always been never afraid, whether it was with my style of dress or my musical taste or anything. Nobody could tell me anything. I always stood up for what I believed in. I also gave people around me confidence as well, to do what they wanted to do. Smart people know to fuck with that, you know.

Let’s talk about the do-it-yourself generation. I feel like you’re part of the generation of young people like you said, it is about if someone is not offering you something, you create it yourself. But in that frame of thought, with everyone doing it themselves, there oddly seems to be more room for dilution, repetition and sameness. Thoughts?

I can’t really speak on that. But my do-it-yourself approach just really comes from necessity and me having to make something happen. All of my flyers I design. And I do that because at a point, I had a graphic designer that cost some money that I couldn’t afford. So I really had to teach myself to design my own flyers. I am a one-man staff. I do my own PR; I do my own marketing. I do my own booking. I do my own A&R; I do my own artist development as far as artist’s performing. I do everything, you know. As we become bigger then, I will be able to have some assistance. And I’m not going to let anything stop me, and I feel that’s what a lot of up and coming entrepreneurs need to get. You have to do it yourself because no one else is going to do it for you, and you can’t use the fact that no one is going to do it for you as an excuse for not getting it done. It’s going to have to get done somehow. It’s like a natural thing and once you find out that you’re really good at it, you know what, fuck it.

[Laughs] And your flyers are very dope actually…

Yeah, literally. [Laughs] And it’s just not me, I deal with an amazing photographer and one of my close friends, Ray Kairos. He’s one of the most disciplined and just skilled photographers of our generation. He’s done a lot of amazing work and I feel so blessed to work with him. Without him, the flyers would not be as innovative and forward-pushing. Cause we’ve seen a lot of whack flyers; there are a lot of whack flyers in the game. And we make sure that artist, from the visual representation, from the experience —everything has to be top notch for us to even compete. That’s that.

How do you go about finding talent?

Really, I just thank God. It’s really God, you know, because each situation just happens so organically. Like Katrina Bello, she was the door girl for a listening party for one of the DOPE alumni that I had worked with. She was just a door girl and she was telling everybody that she was an intern at Def Jam, but when I spoke to her she told me that she sings. And she actually came to one of my events, you know, and actually enjoyed one of my events. And so did everyone else that I’ve worked with, so everything just happens like that. Like J. Cole I know through his girlfriend, you know. So she put me in contact. Things just kind of come to me and I just kind of like live and let things happen. I just live. I don’t have a direct technique.

Isn’t that the opposite of hustling though?

What do you mean?

I don’t know. I guess when you think of the word hustling, it feels more aggressive or assertive, or at the very least being proactive in a search for something or an attempt at something.

Well, one thing that I learned from Lyor Cohen, he said to wait for the hits. Be patient enough to wait for the hits. And I feel like I have to be patient enough to wait for these artists, because I just can’t put anybody on my stage, you know. In all of four years that I’ve been doing DOPE, I can honestly say that I’ve only had two bad performers. So I just really believe in being patient. That’s the one thing that takes time, finding great artists. And then when I meet them, then I can hustle and push. When it comes to my hustle, it’s part of promoting, doing the networking and getting the exposure. But finding the artists, I just kind of let that happen organically.

Any shout outs to your other artists? I feel like you’re being super humble right now.

Meridian, they’re awesome. Charly & Margaux, who I met—what’s crazy, my boy Royce told me about them about three years ago. He was like, “There are these chicks man that play the violin by my job and you gotta check them out.” And I just happen to see them last summer, while I was hoping out of the train and that’s how I met them. I just really sat there and watch them play and was blown away. And once I get blown away, I know other people will get blown away. Steeve Sam, who’s one of the greatest performers that I’ve ever worked with. Sophia Urista, she’s like the fucking new queen of Funk and Funk is not even a live genre anymore. She really brought the Funk back. Blind Benny are like stupid talented. I can’t even put into words how talented they are. Stickz Greenz. Dreamshow is just like fucking sick. And my girlfriend DJ’s the shows and she’s excellent at that. I work with other credible DJs as well, like Hannah Bronfman. Maya Nicole is fucking awesome too. Just really cool and amazing artists, man. Every artist that I named are going to be well-known.

For someone who is looking up to you wanting to get in the game, what words would you share?

Just don’t stop.

You sound like Diddy. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Don’t stop, can’t stop. Hehe, heha. [Laughs]

Don’t stop. Always be curious and keep the number of your close friends low, you know. Don’t get caught up by the bitches, the scene—none of that. Don’t get caught up by none of that shit. You know, just invest your time into doing excellent work and God will attack those other things for you. That’s why those great artists that I’m working with now are attracted to me. I attract them and they attract me, and we make great work.

Tickets for tonight’s DOPE show are available now. Visit Central Booking on their tumblr page for more information, HERE.

If Kanye West sought a unique experience he certainly got one in Cannes. Arriving for the world premier, the select list of guests to his personal screening were asked to wait in a carpark in front of a pyramid shaped marquee (a white apex gave way to black curtains draped down the sides). While the director was nowhere to be seen, his girlfriend Kim Kardashian was happily chatting away with friends, dressed in a short silver dress, embroidered with a design seemingly chosen for it’s fusion of Arabic and American influences.

High heels and champagne glasses were the only signs of the natural order of things.

The first image appears on the screen of the ceiling. Kid Cudi opens a grill leading to a set of stairs that he starts to descend. As he does so, boots appear on the screen to the front of the audience and it’s when he enters a garage that the multiple screens play in earnest.

A voiceover kicks in, “Tonight I have the tough choice of Ferrari, Mclaren or Lamborghini.” As the cars whizz through a skyline that first looks like an American metropolis, it reveals itself as Doha’s West Bay. The music kicks in, with the bass causing tremors underneath the backsides of the audience.

By now, Kanye, dressed in white blazer over jeans and sitting one-row behind me with Kardashian’s hands on his thigh was swaying back and forth. One advantage of the images crisscrossing from all directions is that to turn my head and have an occasional glance [at them] didn’t’ seem out of the ordinary. It was all part of the experience. Occasionally he whispered to her, no doubt explaining the not altogether clear narrative.

The car thief ends up in a palace and some of the problems with putting this experimental set-up together at such short notice begin to emerge. The audio was muffled, if you’re looking at a screen in one direction and a sound comes from another the peripheral sound is hard to process, just like what happens when one is talking to a friend in a café. The narrative gets lost. West later revealed that they also had trouble with the sound mix and what we were watching was essentially a rough cut.

The plot is that the car thief sees and falls in love with a blind princess and they must overcome obstacles to find love. And it’s this love story and how it came about, that provides the intriguing back story to the production and how a Hip-Hop star went about wooing the Middle East.

The actress called Sarah A in the credits is the daughter of Doha artist Amal Al-Athem. One of the so-far unheralded aspects of West’s directorial effort is that in recruiting a local girl, he was challenging the regional gender norms.

Amanda Palmer, Executive Producer on the film and Executive Director at the Doha Film Institute, which collaborated with West on the project reveals, “We really wanted to find a Khaleeji beauty and a woman that would represent the Gulf in a postitive way. I had met Sarah’s mother, Amal, six months before, she’s a really well known local artist who has really fought for her art and the representation of women. We could have gone all around the world to find someone for this role, but everybody wanted someone from the Gulf to represent this region because it’s underrepresented.”

Sarah, a media communications student who looks like a model, was persuaded to audition for the part. “I wanted to portray how girls from the Gulf are. Some people might not accept it, but I wanted to portray them in a good way and show what Khaleeji girls are really like. The media represents us as covered and not having a voice, but Qatari girls have a voice.”

West had been hunting across the Middle East for somewhere to shoot his film, as the soundtrack reveals that the Eastern influence on the album is enormous. As the risks and challenges of using a local girl were explained to West, he excitedly proclaimed, “That’s what I do!”

The concept that West had for the story was in the mode of famous Middle-East folk tales such as Antar and Abia and Quais and Layla. “To give Kanye’s team references, cultural advisors sent out a BBM asking locals what their favorite love story is,” says Palmer. “She did this discretely and they came back with Antar and Abia, it’s about a man who is challenged by a king and father, to prove he’s worth the love of his daughter. Usually there are three challenged, but because we didn’t have 90 minutes in Cruel Summer we had one main obstacle. We told them about the reference points and the Middle East, and they began to get the reference points.”

If that wasn’t already a challenge enough for West, his main cultural advisor was Amal Al-Athem, Sarah’s mother. Luckily they became friends rather than enemies. “To be honest, I’d only heard of Kanye through my daughters,” states Amal. “I soon realised he’s not a showoff like some rappers, he’s very kind and sweet.”

Australian born Palmer weighs in, “What Kanye goes through is very similar to what happens with the Middle East, it is stereotyped; it is simplified, everybody is sensationalized. You look at what happens in his career and so much of the world wants to say he’s a rapper who has got no time but for himself and all the navel gazing in Hip-Hop. But he’s the opposite, this angel got off the plane and collaborated with everyone on every level.”

And with West willing to collaborate, the ambitious project began in earnest. The Cannes deadline was perhaps way too ambitious for a project that saw a new camera designed from scratch and a whole cinematic auditorium built from scratch. It shows in the results in Cannes and West’s willingness to reveal that Cruel Summer is a work-in-progress is perhaps the biggest sign that he’s still not happy with it.

The best scenes are those that are most abstract. The cars whizzing across the screens like a computer game, a falcon captured in super slow-motion flying through the air, and then as the car thief gets stranded in the desert, a close-up of grains of sand moving on the floor. Currently it’s a visual rather than a narrative experience. As for the forthcoming album, the soundtrack promises an album influenced by Qawalis and sounds India as much as the Middle East.

West revealed that he originally got the idea of the multi-screens from a colour pencil drawing he made at school. He reveals that he has synaesthesia, the ability to see sounds and shapes. This revelation made his musical talent seem so much more understandable.

It was the technology that got the Doha Film Institute excited, “If Kanye’s team had said we just want to collaborate on a story, we might have needed some more convincing,” says Palmer. “But because we were collaborating on something that was pioneering, that could be an art installation and a new cinematic experience, that took it to another level. The technology was so challenging and the experience was the pay off. Honestly, collaborations are a big headache, so they have to be worth it.”

Flying with him to Cannes on a night off from the UK dates of their Watch the Throne Tour was Jay-Z, who had gone unnoticed in the auditorium until Kanye gave him a “brother” shout out.

Given that the installation was put together in two months is a remarkable feat. The word is that the film may show in New York to coincide with the long awaited release of the G.O.O.D album. One thing for sure is that by then some of the rough edges will have been ironed out. As for the immersive seven screen set-up, West hopes it gets used by other directors and the idea certainly shouldn’t be ruled out as the experience, on first sampling, is better than 3D.

Kaleem Aftab is a film journalist, producer and author. Follow him on Twitter @AftabAmon.

It was circa 1991 when Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) emerged from the cultural bedrock of Havana, Cuba. Since then, the peculiar art duo has innovatively managed to produce what’s considered some of the most pertinent work to come from the island in the last decade of the twentieth century. While the group’s very inception borrows a more traditional guild of artisans, letting go the notion of individual authorship, the works made by Marc Antonio Castillo Valdés and Dagoberto Rodríquez Sánchez (collectively known as Los Carpinteros) boast a stark contrast every time the two present their art. Their focus, which rests on the relationship between art and society, concurrently mixes architecture, design and urbanism in staggering, but abnormally funny ways. Some of their pieces are quite astonishing, like their 2008 chaos space titled “ShowRoom,” and or humorous like their “La Montaña Rusa,” a piece that features a pink bed outstretched into a rollercoaster and “Free Basket,” the mind-bending basketball court.

Having both graduated from the Superior Art Institute of Havana (ISA), Los Carpinteros show no signs of yielding in the realm of modern art. Twenty-one years later the Cuban art collective has consolidated a pool of some of their greatest works yet, and are currently exhibiting an insider’s look into their world for the first time at the FAENA Arts Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

How far is it good to be civilized?

That is the question that begs of Los Carpinteros’ major solo installation at FAENA, which encompasses three pieces: “Avião” (Plane), “El Barrio” (The Neighborhood) and “Alumbrado Público” (Street Lighting). A strikingly grand Piper Comanche four seat, single-engined aircraft pierced by a swarm of wooden arrows makes up “Avião”, a large-scale installation, which refers to the development and conquest of space, and symbolizes the cultural disturbance caused by technological progress in various different civilizations… by far civilized.

Almost the same manifests in “El Barrio”, an assembly of cardboard houses that grows and pile up, epitomizing the uncertainty and chaos with which urban life of modern societies are constructed. “Alumbrado Público”, however, was created specifically for the Molinos showroom at FAENA Arts Center and denotes the ever-evolving growth of a western city amidst a savage world by way of a lengthy multitude of interconnected fused electric lamps, resembling a natural proliferation.

Los Carpinteros’ current exhibition opened May 17th and is up on view until August 12th. For more information about Los Carpinteros and their exhibitions, please visit their site HERE.

The story behind Kilo Kish’s rapidly growing popularity in the music world seems like a simple game of fates. Destiny’s hands swept hither and dither until familiar souls joined together in artistic conceptualization. You take a NYC textile design student—Kish, who happened to move in with a rapper from Atlanta named Smash Simmons and an uptown producer named Mell Masters, and together they form the kooky music collective, the Kool Kats Klub (and yes, the all Black members of the group are well aware their initials spell KKK, I asked). Kish describes the results of her studio work with Smash and Mell in their apartment as “a mix of whatever happens when we’re together, which is always just a mix of stuff that’s really fun or funny, and just like goofing around and stuff like that…” The visuals for KKK’s track “OKKK” seem to perfectly display that sentiment.

Kish’s foray onto the music scene was natural, innocent and mostly unplanned, and yet the experience has led her to a feature on the song “I Want You Still” on Odd Future’s Journey to the Fifth Echelon mixtape; the release of her Homeschool EP; performances in LA and NY at some of the most exclusive venues; and the collaborative backing of OFWGKTA offspring group, the Internet. She details her chance encounter with producer and one-half of the Internet, Matt Martian:

“That was a random occurrence as well…Matt went to high school with Smash and my manager [DJ] Justin [Scott]. So Odd Future was in NY one day and [Matt] ended up having to stay at our house because he lost his wallet. [At the time] I was making songs with Smash like doing the KKK thing, and then I was like ‘Oh you should hear one of the songs.’

And he’s like, ‘Here, I’m gonna give you a beat for Odd Future’s Fifth Echelon tape and you can do whatever you want and send it back to me, and we’ll see how it goes.’ So then I sent it back, he loved it and then he kept it on the tape. Then it ended up being one of people’s favorites on that tape, so he’s like ‘I want to put together an album for you, we should work on something.” So I flew out to LA in the summertime. I met Syd [the Kid, the other member of the Internet] and we kind of worked for like a week on stuff. It was kind of like an organic process that just randomly occurred.”

While it may seem by all appearances to be one well-timed coincidence after another, the talent exemplified by Kish on her new EP is by no means random. It’s more of an intuitive process that she feels her way through. “I actually wrote that song in my ex-boyfriend’s apartment, like sitting on the floor,” she says of her favorite track, “Sick,” and continues. “I don’t really have songs written that I have in my repertoire and I just pull them out when I have a beat that fits. Like I’d go to record and Matt’s just like, ‘Oh here are [the beats],’ [with out] much time to think about it.”

So how does a girl who’s a little more than artistically inclined get to the heart of a record intuitively, while keeping on par with the overall structure necessary for song-making? Sometimes her amplified creative visualization process offers a catch-22. Kish sheds a little insight: “That beat to me is kind of like waves and ambient, and like lush. So I thought of just taking a sick day, and skipping school or work to go do something really cool. So that was the idea behind that song. I think it’s like the most complete song I have. I usually get bored like halfway through a song and don’t ever finish it. [Sometimes] I’m just like ‘Whatever, I don’t feel like writing another verse for this. It’s done.’ So that’s the one I kept thinking of stuff for like, ‘Yay I finally finished this song from like minute 0 to 3 and a half!’”

Though it is clear that there are some strong forces at work behind Kish’s rising star, setting her obvious talent, precocious cool-zen disposition to new heights in the Hip-Hop sphere of influence. A few nights ago at the Boom Boom Room, where she was performing for the first time in front of a mixed, high fashion crowd known for galavanting in NYC’s Meatpacking district, Kish shined. Cute and somber, donning an American flag themed-sequined vest and denim shorts, the young Orlando native strutted atop the bar as she recited her songs with a cocky “I run this town….KK bitch!” attitude.

Follow Kilo on Twitter @KiloKish.
You can also hear Kish’s entire EP on her website and check out her Tumblr HERE.

Zoy Britton is an associate editor at STARK. Follow her on Twitter @ZoyMB.