Fresh Reads: Links for June 13-19, 2011

[justindburton]

You're certainly going to read something interesting this week. When you do, post the link here. Anything that's engrossing will do the trick.

[justindburton]

This is a couple of weeks old, but at Racialicious Isaac Miller provides a reading of Beyonce's "Run the World (Girls)" and then turns to Diplo, all while considering the dynamics of race and power in sampling between so-called first and third world countries. Reading it felt like reading Mientjes' essay on Paul Simon's Graceland album written a couple of decades ago, just with the names and places (but not all of the places!) changed. That isn't to insult Miller, whose reading is insightful, so much as to comment on how little has changed twenty years later...

[justindburton]

Sad news at Bonnaroo, as two deaths were reported this year. Was anyone at Bonnaroo this year? Was this news at the event, or was it something the attendees didn't really know about?

I guess the bigger question here is about large music festivals and whether these sorts of tragedies are practically inevitable. If I'm being honest (and kind of cynical), I'm a little surprised that in eleven years, Bonnaroo has only logged three deaths at the event.