The University of Calgary’s student-run radio station, CJSW 90.9 FM, carries an awesome show every Saturday from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. called Caribbean Link-up, which plays some of the most amazing and upbeat reggae music around. I have an enormous amount of respect for the DJ who hosts it, Leo Cripps, as his show has been incredibly influential in developing my taste for reggae, hip-hop and even drum and bass. The incredibly wide array of music played on Caribbean Link-up has given me a better appreciation for exactly how much modern music owes to its reggae roots and the ongoing impact of that still-quite-alive genre of music.
The place I am about to mention is called by many other names—including the aforementioned—however, the single most important thing I’ve earned over the last few days has been a respect for the fragility of it all, and especially beauty.
This started to become apparent to me as I was lining up the press passes for the event in the week prior. We had been attempting to contact the Valhalla Music Festival for over two months in an effort to secure not only the passes but also the privileges that come with being able to cart a really expensive camera between a frantic crowd and a live stage show. We left emails, we left voicemails, we harassed them at the main office every fifteen minutes. Finally, after probably coming within a step of a restraining order, I was able to talk to a live human being:
Hi guys, it's me again, the person who runs the Lifestyle section of this site. We need to talk about some things.
The world in which we live right now is simultaneously a beautiful and awful place. It's beautiful where you look and desperate-to-the-point-of-nihilism everywhere else. We need to make it more beautiful. We need to make the world a better place.
Why us? Who is us, anyway? We are all of us. We are humanity, and we need to find a better way. The solutions we've been coming up with are only half assed and aren't really solving the problems we set out to solve in the first place. The problem of transportation has been "solved" by the problem of global warming. The problem of global warming will be probably be "solved" in some way or another by further marginalizing and, well, screwing developing nations. Problems like genocide have not been solved at all and will probably be "dealt with" through more death.
We need to stop listening to the bad ideas in society and start listening to the good ideas. We need to feverishly support the good ideas. And more than anything else, we need to stop living bad ideas and start living good ideas, ideas that enrich our lives, make people think, and indeed, help our global situation.
It’s two o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep. I have some work to get done tomorrow, but in the meantime, the only thing on my mind right now is the fact that in the middle of the day today—or rather, yesterday—someone was nearly shot to death outside my apartment. These things happen, and they’re usually not random. I’m not fearful and I don’t think I should find a new place to live. But it was something that was said on the 11 o’clock news that has me up thinking.
Artists: 50 Cent, G Unit and Soulja Boy
Venue: The Foothills Stadium, Calgary, AB, CA
What can truly be said about 50 Cent that hasn't already? The rapper and his eight bullet-wounds are quite possibly the strongest symbol of this rap generation's ethos, and in so being, 50 Cent has had the chan…
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