Sometimes, being technologically behind the times is a real kick in the pants. Normally, I don't care all that much. When I finally ordered a phone with a camera the other day for the first time, I was chagrined to realize that my choices were few if I (a) don't listen to music on my cell phone and (b) spend SO much time online already, I'd rather be nibbled to death by a duck than carry the internet in my purse. The salesgirl was kind of embarrassed for me.Don't get me wrong. I'm light years ahead of a lot of folks, but I just stay shuffling along behind the wave -- well behind it. And while I'm usually just fine, thanks, hanging around back here with the not-very-with-it older folks, sometimes I feel the pinch. Like tonight.
Thanks to this blog, I've been offered the opportunity to download a new album by a group that's shortly going to be even bigger than they already are and I don't have MP3 capability. It's enough to make me wanna buy an iPod.
The group is called Soulfege. The album is Take Back the Mic. And you've probably already seen Derrick Ashong (aka DNA), one of the band members, on YouTube, if you're one of the more than a million people that have watched him explain health care to an antagonistic interviewer at an Obama/Clinton debate last winter.
Ashong, a 32-year-old Harvard graduate, is quite a guy, as you can see by watching this:
But Soulfege is a long way from being an interesting, talented guy backed up by some adequate hangers-on. Soulfege is a record label's dream: highly attractive and super-talented songwriter/performers putting out a reggae/hip-hop/funk/West African highlife blend and greatly committed to a serious political agenda. Shades of Bob Marley! Have we been needing this or what?
If you're like me, you need to hear a group before you want to read about them, so trip on over to MySpace and check out songs with titles like "From the Soul," "[What Would You Give] To Be Free?" or the electrifying "Damoshi" (Stand Up). Then, you can read about them on their website or in The Boston Globe or in Vanity Fair. Clearly, Soulfege is on the move. I mean, their music is already in more than fifty countries. So, don't be one of the last ones on your block to know.
And for those of you who, unlike me, are digitally endowed, the band's new album Take Back the Mic will be available on iTunes for download beginning Tuesday, July 15th. I'm gonna have to wait till it comes out in a store.
*Sigh.*
