boston progress radio

Ten long years ago, I was working as a delivery driver, passing the summer before college started up again wearing a tuxedo shirt and bow tie, drinking customers’s sodas, then telling them, “Sorry, we ran out of Sprite, do you want Poland Spring instead?” In other words, they were good old damn days. I could drive around the city - and surrounding areas - with my new license, my mom’s car, and a tape deck that worked most of the time. People sometimes ask how I got to know my way around Boston so well, and I tell them they can trace it back to the summer of 1997.

Getting sick of hearing Natalie Imbruglia and Eagle-Eye Cherry every 45 minutes on the radio, I turned to my boy A+ - shockingly, not his real name - for some music I could record onto a cassette that wouldn’t get boring through the grind of 10 hour days spent mostly behind red lights, counting out tips in coins, and looping in circles trying to find where Atlantic Ave actually starts.

A was ready for me. “These some West Coast Chinese rappers man,” he said. “Like a mix between the Pharcyde and Ras Kass - but Chinese!” A isn’t Asian, so please forgive him for not knowing that Key Kool and DJ Rhettmatic (formerly of Brotherhood Creed) - collectively known by some as Kozmonautz - were actually of Japanese and Filipino descent respectively.

Those who know, know that one of the standout tracks on their independently-released debut was “Reconcentrated,” Key’s dedication to the 120,000+ Japanese Americans unjustly incarcerated during WWII. I could write an entire post about what that song has meant in my life, but I’ll save it for another time. I’m really back in 1997 right now because I want to get to Day One of the Visionaries, the supergroup that first recorded together on “Visionaries (Stop Actin’ Scary)” off the Kozmonautz joint. In fact, they recorded the song two years earlier, but it didn’t make its way into my tape deck until 97.

Read more

Tags: Appreciation, Commentary, Video.

Back in my Asian American student conference attending days, I acquired this compilation CD of Asian American artists, Plugged In 2. Honestly, back when I got this CD, it wasn’t something I was really in to. I think this was mostly because I had horrible taste in music while I was in college. Horrible.

I loaded up the CD this past weekend, and it was funny to listen to each track again, nearly a decade later. I remember that the track I probably listened the most to was 5th Platoon’s “And We Do It Like This.” I remember being shocked to learn that one of the members of 5th Platoon was a woman. I don’t think I knew what turntablism was before I went to college, and I certainly never could have dreamed up 5th Platoon and Kuttin Kandi.

The other track that I can specifically remember listening to was “Letter to Our Unborn Children” by I Was Born With 2 Tongues. This was also probably my first exposure to spoken word, and spoken word performed by people that looked like me. It was almost strange to listen to these voices coming out of my speakers, without seeing the faces of the people performing.I was lucky enough to see both of these groups perform live (again, I owe a debt to all the multitudes of student conferences that I was part of). I think that’s where it all started to come together for me - to be able to experience this live, to think about the people behind the music, to come together over their words, to experience this with other people that I feel connected to. That’s when I started to feel connected to these tracks, these songs, this community.

I think music has the power to transport you. And as I listen to these tracks again, now, I can remember what it felt like to listen for the first time, to process over and over what it means to be plugged in, to be in the middle of searching for that place where you feel at home, where you fit in. And where you don’t.
Here’s the track listing of the cd:

Plugged In 2

1. Visions, The Pacifics
2. When U Think About Me, One Vo1ce
3. Hostile Takeover, The Mountain Brothers
4. I Wanna Be Your Man, Kai
5. Letter To Our Unborn Children, 2 Tongues
6. Comet, Mango Pirates
7. Self Sufficient, The Visionaries
8. Girl It’s You, Devotion
9. X-Games, The Wisemen
10. Fender Bender, Kid Koala
11. Balcony Beach, Lyrics Born
12. When I Get Close To You, Jocelyn Enriques
13. Snapshot, Mitsuo Downer Sounds

Does anyone have Plugged In 1?

Tags: Appreciation, CD, music.

I thought I told you that we won’t stop. Check the below paragraphs for info about music recently added to the BPRLive streaming Internets radio station. I loves this Internets!

Chicago emcee Mestizo has jumped up on our playlist. He - and the rest of the Galapagos 4 heads - has always been supportive of our projects. His CD is available at our store in Cambridge too. Make sure to check out more info and definitely peep his live show if he comes through your town.

We have also added new music - and by new music, I mean old music - from the Visionaries. We’ve been playing a couple tracks off their newest release We Are The Ones (We’ve Been Waiting For) steadily for several weeks now, but recently got a couple tracks off their previous effort Pangaea up on the playlist. If you haven’t been knowing about the Visionaries, then definitely do your homework now. They are one of the most consistent underground acts in hip hop history, releasing calssic material every time out the gate. Keep watching this space, because as long as they keep dropping dope music, we will keep talking about it.

And speaking of new old music, we at Boston Progress Radio are showing our age by uploading tracks off Kozmonautz, put out by Key-Kool & Rhettmatic back in 1995. A lot of new jacks think API hip hop started with Jin. But if you ask Jin, I’ll bet he might trace it back to three artists: Mountain Brothers, the first Asian American hip hop group signed to a major label and who bounced on them when they were asked to exploit and disparage their ethnicty and race on stage; BOOYAH Tribe, who were some of the originators of the West Coast gangsta rap scene and were all Samoan; and Key-Kool & Rhettmatic, who released Kozmonautz independently in 1995 and have maintained steadily on the scene ever since. The album featured guest shots from the aforementioned Visionaries, as well as West Coast lyrical wizards Ras Kass and Saafir and a bunch of others. Hip hop fans: do not sleep.

More updates about the playlist as they happen. Have a pleasant day.

Tags: News, Online Radio.

Today, we embark on a new journey. Today, Boston Progress Radio is more than just a blog. Today, Boston Progress Radio is an online radio station. To tune in, please use the following link. You will need a player capable of playing MP3 streams (e.g., iTunes or Winamp). At the moment, we have no shows or DJs, but we hope that that will change.

Our station has a limited music selection, but we believe that we have some quality artists that you will enjoy listening to. Speaking of the artists, we here at Boston Progress Radio would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the following artists for graciously allowing us to play their music on our radio station:

Alfa, Annie Lin, Bao Phi, Big Phony, Blip Blip Bleep, Cynthia Lin, Denizen Kane, Eugene Song, Exit Clov, The Francis Kim Band, The Ides, Ishle Park, Isul Kim, Jay Legaspi, Johnny Hi-Fi, Jungli, Kevin So, Kite Operations, Kiwi, Koo Chung, Magdalen Hsu-Li, Magnetic North, Native Guns, The Praxxis, re: verse, Taiyo Na, titofelix, Visionaries, and Vudoo Soul.

Tell all your friends. Tune in and let us know what you think. We want your feedback on the station and our blog posts. Happy listening.

Peace + love:
Ash, Dave, Delia, Eugene, Giles, Long, Tricia, & Vidya

Tags: News, Online Radio.