At Pop!Tech 2007, five-time Grammy award-winner John Legend moved and motivated Pop!Tech participants, weaving stories from his Show Me Campaign—a movement he launched to help eradicate extreme global poverty—in between each soulful song.
Now in a February 2 release, John joins ranks with Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and director Jesse Dylan (son of Bob) in their new celeb-studded music video in support of Barack Obama. The video is a musical performance of Senator Obama’s Yes We Can speech, his “concession” speech following Senator Clinton’s win in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary.
In spite of the fact that we live in controversial times, today’s North American music scene increasingly emphasizes music that’s materialistic, sexually charged or violent, over and above music that’s politically controversial. This moving example of musicians coming together and speaking directly to their audience in order to have a positive influence, is a reversal of that trend, and regardless of one’s politics, this reversal is important.
Check out the video, and read about the backstory here.
John also recently shot and released a music video in Tanzania for the Show Me Campaign to introduce his fans to critical global issues. Watch this story of a young boy overwhelmed by the weight of the world who is asking questions and searching for answers.
The character in the video is inspired by the real life story of two young boys, Yaguine Koita (aged 14) and Fodé Tounkara (aged 15), stowaways who froze to death flying from Guinea to Belgium, on 28 July 1999. The boys were carrying plastic bags with birth certificates, school report cards, photographs and a letter to the world asking for solidarity and kindness in providing relief to Africa. Check out their letter on John’s site under the “music video & explanation” tab here.
While talk of AIDS has become nothing but white noise for many, Zinhle Thabethe, a counselor working on the frontlines of the South African HIV epidemic, is taking action. Through home visits, working with AIDS orphans, educating nurses and doctors, and singing in the internationally acclaimed HIV-positive Sinikithemba Choir, Zinny’s goal is to fight stigma by raising awareness, and to ensure that people with HIV get plugged into treatment and stay on treatment – all in one of the most resource-constrained environments in the world.
Now, National Geographic is recognizing Zinny’s extraordinary contributions by naming her one of the 2008 class of Emerging Explorers – individuals who represent the next generation of world-changing talent from many different fields.
We continue to work with Zinny and her colleague, Dr. Krista Dong of iTeach, on Project Masiluleke, a Pop!Tech Accelerator project focused on using mobile devices to improve HIV care in South Africa and beyond. And we join in congratulating Zinny on her National Geographic nomination.
Bill Shannon brought the house down at Pop!Tech 2007, reminding us that anything is possible. Armed with a set of rocker bottom crutches, at times a skateboard, and two legs compromised by remnants of Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, Shannon danced, jumped and glided effortlessly across the stage. Now, after many years of performing his distinctive style of dance, Shannon, aka the Crutchmaster, has begun systematically cataloging the components of his style.
In a new YouTube video, Shannon demonstrates various grips of the crutches, transitions used to move about, and describes the position of the body in relation to the floor. Shannon seems to defy physics, which is exactly the point.
Superficially his performance could be seen as eye candy, but Shannon’s practice goes much deeper with roots in performance art and his explorations of popular perceptions of disability. For more about this, check out his amazing online project “what is what” commissioned by Creative Time in 2003.
outside of the opera house
she asked me “if poptech
were a poem what kind of poem would it be”
and i said it would be a bridge poem
a poem of hands and hearts and blood and connective tissue
reaching across the distance wide and long
it would be
a reaching-out-to-touch poem
an imagine-that poem
a lookit-what-i-did poem
an open-mouth-in-awe poem
an open source poem
it would be
a 20minutes on the clock poem
a slow down poem
a prayer to the infinite joy of dr. victoria hale poem
a van jones for president poem
a medicine will heal poem
an andrew zolli was meant to do it poem
a where are alla the black people in camden poem
a tell the story poem
a kiss yo’ kids and call yo’ mama poem
an electricity of joy poem
a this is not a dream
but i dreamt it and here it is poem
a poem for a young lily in the arms of her father
poem in the shape of heidi’s smile
bright and wide and beautiful
as a song on the lips of the sky
even at midnight after 12 hours
on her feet in the heat of the
proverbial kitchen poem
it will be a you poem
an us poem
a we together poem
it will be
a human contact poem
a yell it out from the balcony of the opera house poem
a my gratitude is but the seed of the edge of a sea of gratitude poem
a you changed the world and i saw it poem
a one-person-at-a-time poem
it will be a risky poem
a love poem
a power of love poem
a lookit-what-love-did poem
an i-took-my-students-to-the-ocean-poem
an ah-ha poem
if poptech were a poem
it would be a poem with toenails.
For this July 4th release, we have selected three amazing Pop!Casts that are celebrations of the human spirit, and feats of exploration, independence and civil rights.
First up, Ben Saunders will amaze you with tales and images of his expedition in the Arctic. He was the first person in the world to cross, solo and unsupported, the Arctic Ocean - that’s a 1,240 mile journey across one of the most challenging climates on the earth. After crossing areas of unprecedented thinning ice and open water - experiencing the effects of global climate change first hand - Ben has begun to raise international awareness on the changes. How does he do it? His answer is an inspiring one: “don’t underestimate what ‘man’ is capable of when we have a strong belief system about our goals and destiny.”
Next, political activist Ivan Marovic was one of the founders of the Serb student-resistance group Otpor, which helped remove former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic from power. Ivan continues to champion political and human rights with a video game he helped to create that teaches users the tactics of nonviolent resistance. Players control characters, groups and movements - building them into coalitions, sending them to carry out tactics, and dealing with government responses. Ivan walks us through a graffiti campaign, street rallies and a benefit rock concert that finally brings down the game government.
We finish this week’s Pop!Casts with a stirring presentation by orator Eloma Simpson Barnes. Eloma delivers a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. in what seems like a direct channeling of the great civil rights leader. Her transcendent performance will move you.
Pop!Tech performers have been a prolific bunch in the first half of 2007. Several artists have new releases (Ethan Lipton, Zivani Masango) and Rodrigo y Gabriela will be headlining at Central Park’s Summer Stage this year.
Renee Stahl (who brought her “melancholy pop” to our stage in 2005) is no exception - besides giving birth this year, she has recently released two new albums. The first album, hopeful.romantic, described by Renee as “on the electronic side or, as some call it, folktronica” is available exclusively at Barnes and Noble stores and at bn.com
The second is an album of lullabies called It’s a Big World! and is available at CDBaby.com.
Both albums feature Renee’s soft, moving voice and contemporary lyricism. More about Renee at her website Reneestahl.com and at ReneeandJeremymusic.com
Zivanai Masango, who shared his unique sound at the conference back in 2005, has just released a new album titled DUTU-STORM. Zivanai is a guitarist, performer, and teacher of Zimbabwean music and culture. His style is a lively mix of traditional South African sounds with Funk, Rock to R & B, Reggae, Soul and Jazz. Of the album, Zivanai writes, “DUTU-STORM is a result of my being a ‘world-citizen’, and not forgetting that I am Zimbabwean at my very core!”
The album is currently available for purchased as a hard copy or as downloads from his website www.zivimusic.com.
This weekend, Pop!Tech Balladeer Jonathan Coulton was featured in the New York Times Magazine article “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog” . The article describes how the internet and social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster) have changed the relationship between musician and fan. Rock stars need MySpace pages, blog entries, and they need to respond to fan-emails because–they need the fans. Today fans are expecting all these things. No wonder Jonathan has become a poster-boy for this New Music Paradigm. Besides being an extremely approachable human being, he is also a decidedly accessible rock star as well. In fact, his accessibility has become something of a vocation for him.
He says: “People always think that when you’re a musician you’re sitting around strumming your guitar, and that’s your job,” he said. “But this” - he clicked his keyboard theatrically - “this is my job.”
Jonathan’s a kind of Internet Superstar. While standard means of sales and distribution such as retail CD sales, top 20 radio play or MTV appearances still prevail, the Internet has spurned a whole new channel for reaching audiences and has also created a new metric for determining popularity. Jonathan currently has 5,359 MySpace Friends alone - writing notes to him, emailing with him and, more often than not, getting a response back from him. Not too shabby!
Right now, “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog” is the #2 most-emailed article on the newspaper’s site, which translates to a spike in traffic to
Coulton’s blog at www.jonathancoulton.com
The article is also chock full o’ links to videos of Coulton’s songs and a great NY Times exclusive “Decoding Code Monkey“.
It’s been about over a week since we have made our very first batch of Pop!Tech Pop!Casts available online and we’ve had some great movement since then.
We are featured on the homepage of iTunes, we’ve been linked around the web (Thanks to everyone who have been moved to write about the release of the Pop!Casts). All in all - not a bad start. And that was only with our first 22 podcasts.
We have two more to share with you today:
Brian Eno - Musician, producer and artist Brian Eno shows how simple things can give rise to complex things—in art and life. See how he uses Darwin’s ecological model of the world as a roadmap for human culture now and in the future.
(I still admire him for his lovely purple velvet jacket)
Rodrigo y Gabriela - The Mexican acoustic guitar duo sensation Rodrigo y Gabriela put fast fingers to strings for a performance that will put you on your feet and keep you moving. There’s no better way to say it: they rock!
(They inspired me to pick up my guitar again, but I quickly realized that my playing compared to theirs is like those of a monkey with socks on its hands)
There are also some new features on the Pop!Casts page to make it easier to share these amazing talks and performances with your friends. Now you can send an email, share a permalink or embed the Yahoo! Video player on your website or blog.
Last month, at the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town, South Africa, there seemed to be a veritable Pop!Tech reunion. Brian Eno was one of the speakers at the design conference and had personally invited Reggie Watts to perform at the closing of the conference.
Watch Reggie try his hand at some traditional African dancing and some “not-so-traditional” moves.
Reggie recently sent over a video clip of his gallivanting about town with Eno (who is holding up a video camera and in yet another sharp suit) and in the background you can see Alex Steffen and Cameron Sinclair, other Pop!Tech alums.
AND don’t for get to check out the recording, ANTIBABEL, that Reggie Watts and Yungchen Lhamo made exclusively for Pop!Tech and to promote sustainability in rural Tibet via the Machik organization. You can purchase the CD HERE.
Pop!Tech's mission is to inspire people everywhere to change the world by fostering visionary conversations about science, technology and the future of ideas.
Pop!Tech Pop!Casts: Now you can take the energy and inspiration that is Pop!Tech with you anywhere. Pop!Casts let you join the conversation and engage in the extraordinary work that had its start in Camden, Maine. Are you ready to accept the challenges issued by the thinkers and innovators who move Pop!Tech audiences, year after year?
