Music
Untangling RATKING: Wiki comes into his own as a solo artist
By Gary SullivanOn August 25, twenty-three-year-old rapper Wiki, the most conspicuous third of New York hip-hop trio RATKING, released his first official full-length solo album, No Mountains in Manhattan. The 16-track download from XL Recordings features cameos and production from an array of peers and elders, including Ghostface Killah, beatmaker and high school chum Tony Seltzer, Earl Sweatshirt (as randomblackdude), and a dozen others.
What Are They To You?
By George GrellaFor every culture there’s a counter, in every niche there are yet further discrete splinters, internal disputes that boil down to who has the purest values. Then there are the rare instances of individuals who are cultures solely of themselves, who are sympathetic to this group or that, but who ultimately never conform to anything except their own view of things.
In Conversation
MARC SABAT with Ondrej Vesely
Marc Sabat (born 1965) is a Canadian composer of Ukrainian descent living in Berlin since 1999. He is a pioneer in the field of contemporary just intonation music. Together with Wolfgang von Schweinitz he has also developed the Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation system.
Outtakes
By Steve DalachinskyHello again from the city of light. I’m sure I’m, ha, greatly missed. I know I’ve missed you and all the good music, poetry, and art in New York this past month. One thing about Paris, it hasn’t completely become an overcrowded ghost town filled with designer dogs, designer donuts, and endless lines of folks waiting to buy fancy milkshakes and raw cookie dough—or maybe I just haven’t seen it yet, zombie that I am.
