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Long snubbed, women of rap break old moulds and claim their due - art and culture

Long stereotyped as a boys’ club, not least for its braggadocious lyrics and objectification of women, the rap world has seen a bevy of female stars reclaim their space.Over the past decade, diverse talent has climbed up through hip-hop’s ranks, as women shun old ideas about what makes their acts marketable and the internet opens new avenues to stardom.Women were prominent players in rap’s formative years -- the fierce list includes Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte, Foxy Brown, Lil’ Kim, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott and Queen Latifah -- and set the stage for future generations, leaving indelible marks on hip-hop’s DNA.But if the 1990s saw women carve out room to shine, the 2000s saw them pushed aside, with labels fumbling to survive as illegal music downloads began upending standard procedure.“The industry took a nosedive -- when it came to cutting the costs of everything, of course women were the ones who felt it the hardest,” said Kathy Iandoli, whose recent book “God Save The Queens” details the trajectory of women in rap.Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, dozens of women rappers were signed to major labels at any given time, but by 2010, the number hovered at around three, according to the documentary My Mic Sounds Nice: The Truth About Women in Hip Hop.Women who did get a break were pigeonholed as either hypersexual or tough lyricists, with the industry often pitting them against each other -- perpetuating the idea that only one rap queen could rule at a time.- Major Minaj -Still, there was no shortage of innovation coming from artists even if labels weren’t supporting them.“Napster made record companies lose their minds, but it created a very strong underground,” Iandoli said of the pioneering music-sharing service.“It set up the ability to create a career in a way that had never been done before, because people weren’t so hellbent on getting a label.”Nicki Minaj, a provocative walking work of art with a lightning-speed flow, burst onto the scene in 2010 and began changing the game.“She was the first female hip-hop artist to really break through during that lull,” Iandoli said of the Trinidadian-born artist from Queens. “Nicki was the first in a very long time who was both sexy and lyrical, so she appealed to the street rap crowd, and then men who just wanted to hear women rapping about sex.”Minaj -- who announced her retirement from rap last year, though fans are skeptical -- herself has claimed credit for “reintroducing the successful female rapper back to pop culture.”“When I came out, there had been a drought of a few years where NO female rap album had gone platinum, females weren’t getting budgets, the industry did NOT believe in the female rapper anymore. They had stopped generating MONEY for labels,” she wrote on Instagram in 2017. “ showed big business we were major players in the game just like the boys were.”- ‘Unfiltered chance’ -The post-Minaj world features a growing pantheon including, but not limited to: America’s sassy brash sweetheart Cardi B, hardcore hottie Megan Thee Stallion, punk head-banger Rico Nasty, the fast-rising duo City Girls and surrealist auteur Tierra Whack.Queens rapper Dai Burger said platforms like the video-streaming service YouTube and the DIY discovery site SoundCloud -- not to mention Instagram’s self-promotion powers -- opened a wealth of possibilities for women shunned by mainstream labels.“Back in the 90s and the early 2000s, to be an artist, you had to have a big major label pushing for your video to be on TV,” she told AFP at her recording studio in Brooklyn. “The internet... gave us an unfiltered chance to do what we wanted,” said the statuesque artist with sparkling nail extensions, luxurious scarlet hair and leather overalls. Before, “you had to have those people... sign off on you, and you had to look a certain way and to be a certain way,” she continued. “Whereas when the internet came, I don’t need anyone’s permission to be in the public eye -- like, I’m just going to do it.”- ‘Camaraderie’ -Dai Burger -- who is queer and fuses sex-positive, unapologetic lyricism with heavy club beats -- said these days, “there’s more camaraderie with women” in the rap world.“There’s so much room for all of us. There’s a thousand guys in the industry, you know, doing their thing,” she said. “The girls want some action!”The ascent of hip-hop’s women is not without naysayers, of course: rapper and producer Jermaine Dupri last year complained the contemporary crop of women was sex-obsessed and lacked vision.Cardi B, who once worked as a stripper, clapped back: “First of all, I rap about my pussy because she my best friend.”“There’s a lot of female rappers that be rapping they ass off,” she said in an Instagram rant. “Y’all don’t be supporting them and they be mad dope.”Iandoli is “cautiously optimistic” the growing guard of women rappers is here to stay.She said “women work smarter” and are more strategic in their bids to get ahead.“The ethos is different -- when you’re buying into an industry where you know the odds are against you, you have to move differently than the guys.” “I don’t think there’s a single woman who takes for granted her ability to get in the room,” Iandoli continued. “This didn’t happen by chance, it happened by hard work.”(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Read the full article

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Agatha Christie for an Indian audience - art and culture

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, an iconic detective fiction, written by Agatha Christie was adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Rachel Wagstaff, who has also adapted Paula Hawkins’s The Girl On The Train, among others. The play was directed by theatre-director and designer Melly Still. Now, re-contextualised for the first time, for an Indian audience, by writer Ayeesha Menon, the play will be staged at the NCPA.Still, who is also directing this Indian version, says she came to India last year and spent some time meeting people to find out what they thought about the story and if it would be an interesting prospect to reimagine it for an Indian audience. She also believes that all of Christie’s stories spoke of the socio-political times she was living in. “Everyone seemed to be excited about the idea and that’s why we went ahead with it. I asked people I knew and met, if the story were to be made in India, where and when should it be made because it needed to have that social background,” Still says.Set in 1976, the mystery revolves around a fading Bollywood actor Mamta (Sonali Kulkarni) hosting a dinner party at her villa in Goa, following a drinks session, the night ends in a murder. “This is the first time I am getting to work with such a fantastic crew. It didn’t feel like we were in rehearsals but it felt more like an acting workshop. All the actors discovered the script together. We spoke about each other’s characters and it wasn’t about mugging up lines. Our director is extremely frank and sincere. She had done this play earlier but she wanted to explore the play with us all over again,” says Sonali, who has acted in numerous plays and films.Shernaz Patel, who will be playing a house-bound Miss Mistry (the Indian Miss Marple) says the story is not about “who did what”, but “one gets to know a lot about each individual character.” Talking about her own character, Shernaz says, “Miss Mistry is a 76-year-old spinster. The world looks and perceives her as a spinster. She is extremely well-travelled, bright and intelligent. She loves solving murders, it gives her a new lease on life. She is also grappling with ageing. She is vulnerable but at the same time has this ability to go about solving mysteries by understanding what people are like. It’s about the emotional ability to unmask and unravel people which she has, and playing that has been rewarding and satisfying.”

Actor Shernaz Patel during a rehearsal sessionActor Denzil Smith, who plays Superintendent of Police Daniel D’Mello, emphasises on how this traditional whodunnit tries to focus on the ‘why’ as much as the ‘who’. “Agatha Christie has always been relevant and people seem to enjoy the whodunnit as a genre and nobody better than Christie who epitomises it,” he says.Then, does Mirror Crack’d makes sense in an Indian context? Kulkarni is of the belief that the play is a very clean Indian adaptation. “We are all Indian actors with an Indian accent, you will not smell anything foreign in this adaptation,” she says. Shernaz is of the opinion that a Bollywood actor might move to Goa to pursue a quiet life.Smith says, “A good story is eternal. If the story is good structurally, it can be set anywhere, and this is one of those stories.”More Info:What: Mirror Crack’dWhere: Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA, Nariman PointWhen: January 30 to February 9, at 7.30pm. Read the full article

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Performing in harmony - art and culture

To keep the ‘Guru Shishya Parampara’ (a succession of teachers and disciples) thriving in classical music, twelve years ago, flautist and composer, Vivek Sonar, came up with a new concept. A disciple of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, he decided to bring together a bunch of flautists on the same stage to orchestrate a flute symphony. “I have been Panditji’s student for the past twenty years now. Bringing together so many flautists, every year, on one stage is quite a task, but I have been doing it because it is the only way we could keep the tradition of ‘Guru Shishya Parampara’ alive,” he says.And, with that idea, the Bansuri Utsav began in 2007. Now, the festival takes place annually. Noticing its growth and popularity over the years, Sonar is now looking forward to its twelfth edition on January 19. The number of flautists keep changing. This year, there are 80 flute players and 20 violinists, who will be accompanied by tabla Maestro Ustad Fazal Qureshi, keyboard exponent Atul Raninga, violin player Milind Raikar, Gaurav Murkar on side rhythm and Sachin Nakhwa on the octopad. The evening will also feature a flute jugalbandi by Rakesh Chaurasia and Shashank Subramanian, with Satyajeet Talwalkar on the tabla and Jayachandra Rao on mridangam. The event will conclude with a solo recital by Pandit Chaurasia.

Pandit Hariprasad ChaurasiaBefore 2007, Sonar says, there was no other concert which gave utmost importance to the flute. “Usually, flautists play as part of music festivals featuring different instrumentalists and vocalists. So, I thought of having many flautists play together in harmony,” he says, and despite there being other instruments, the flute remains the main focus. “I ensure that the other instruments do not outshine the flute,” he says.The idea, Sonar explains, is to “celebrate the flute”. “If you will notice, the symphony consists majorly of flautists, the jugalbandi is between flautists, and the solo act is by flute maestro Pandit Chaurasia,” he adds.In a western symphony orchestra, Sonar says, notes are kept in front of the artiste. But in the Guru Shishya Parampara, “we tend to memorise what the guru teaches us, and we perform without seeing the notes. It is a way of paying tribute to our guru.”Taking place at the Dr Kashinath Ghanekar Natyagruha in Thane, it is after five years that the town will witness the flute festival again. “The last Bansuri Utsav in Thane was held in 2014. Post that, I took the event to auditoriums in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. I am very excited to bring it back to Thane again,” Sonar shares.Dripping with enthusiasm, Pandit Chaurasia believes that this year, Thane’s music connoisseurs will have the opportunity to witness the “uniquesnees” of the flute symphony again. He says, “The 12th edition of this utsav (festival) has especially been organised for the Thanekars.”Sonar points out towards another interesting aspect of this year’s festival — there will be 37 girls, who will be part of the symphony — something that’s never happened before. When asked if classical music is a dying tradition, Sonar says, there is enough hope. “Classical music festivals have been increasing and I don’t think it is dying.Once you’ve listened to Indian classical music, then you will come for it again. You will also see that there has been an increase in the young crowd attending these events.” The event will also felicitate Pandit Jasraj with the Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia Puraskar for his contribution to Indian classical music for over seven decades.More InfoWhat: Bansuri UtsavWhere: Dr Kashinath Ghanekar Natyagruha, Thane (W)When: January 19, at 7pm. Read the full article

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Performing in harmony - art and culture

To keep the ‘Guru Shishya Parampara’ (a succession of teachers and disciples) thriving in classical music, twelve years ago, flautist and composer, Vivek Sonar, came up with a new concept. A disciple of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, he decided to bring together a bunch of flautists on the same stage to orchestrate a flute symphony. “I have been Panditji’s student for the past twenty years now. Bringing together so many flautists, every year, on one stage is quite a task, but I have been doing it because it is the only way we could keep the tradition of ‘Guru Shishya Parampara’ alive,” he says.And, with that idea, the Bansuri Utsav began in 2007. Now, the festival takes place annually. Noticing its growth and popularity over the years, Sonar is now looking forward to its twelfth edition on January 19. The number of flautists keep changing. This year, there are 80 flute players and 20 violinists, who will be accompanied by tabla Maestro Ustad Fazal Qureshi, keyboard exponent Atul Raninga, violin player Milind Raikar, Gaurav Murkar on side rhythm and Sachin Nakhwa on the octopad. The evening will also feature a flute jugalbandi by Rakesh Chaurasia and Shashank Subramanian, with Satyajeet Talwalkar on the tabla and Jayachandra Rao on mridangam. The event will conclude with a solo recital by Pandit Chaurasia.

Pandit Hariprasad ChaurasiaBefore 2007, Sonar says, there was no other concert which gave utmost importance to the flute. “Usually, flautists play as part of music festivals featuring different instrumentalists and vocalists. So, I thought of having many flautists play together in harmony,” he says, and despite there being other instruments, the flute remains the main focus. “I ensure that the other instruments do not outshine the flute,” he says.The idea, Sonar explains, is to “celebrate the flute”. “If you will notice, the symphony consists majorly of flautists, the jugalbandi is between flautists, and the solo act is by flute maestro Pandit Chaurasia,” he adds.In a western symphony orchestra, Sonar says, notes are kept in front of the artiste. But in the Guru Shishya Parampara, “we tend to memorise what the guru teaches us, and we perform without seeing the notes. It is a way of paying tribute to our guru.”Taking place at the Dr Kashinath Ghanekar Natyagruha in Thane, it is after five years that the town will witness the flute festival again. “The last Bansuri Utsav in Thane was held in 2014. Post that, I took the event to auditoriums in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. I am very excited to bring it back to Thane again,” Sonar shares.Dripping with enthusiasm, Pandit Chaurasia believes that this year, Thane’s music connoisseurs will have the opportunity to witness the “uniquesnees” of the flute symphony again. He says, “The 12th edition of this utsav (festival) has especially been organised for the Thanekars.”Sonar points out towards another interesting aspect of this year’s festival — there will be 37 girls, who will be part of the symphony — something that’s never happened before. When asked if classical music is a dying tradition, Sonar says, there is enough hope. “Classical music festivals have been increasing and I don’t think it is dying.Once you’ve listened to Indian classical music, then you will come for it again. You will also see that there has been an increase in the young crowd attending these events.” The event will also felicitate Pandit Jasraj with the Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia Puraskar for his contribution to Indian classical music for over seven decades.More InfoWhat: Bansuri UtsavWhere: Dr Kashinath Ghanekar Natyagruha, Thane (W)When: January 19, at 7pm. Read the full article

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Pongal delicacies 2020: Sakara Pongal, Kuttu, Ellu Urundai - art and culture

Divya Hasnani has been living in Chennai for the last 22 years, and if there’s one thing that has made Divya fall in love with the city, it is the festival of Pongal. “ Every year, for the last twenty two years now, we celebrate Pongal, just like any other ordinary family from Chennai,” she says. “The first day of Pongal is to celebrate the spirit of new, and discard old unwanted items in your house. So the first day, we too, burn wooden chairs, or anything that is unwanted. Second day, we make sweet Pongal, which is then offered to Sun God. Third day is about worshipping cows, so we do that and the final day is meeting family and friends, and celebrating the festival with them,” she says. While every household celebrating the festival has a very different way of making the festival’s signature dish – sweet Pongal, the basic ingredients – rice, jaggery and clarified butter (ghee). “One most important delicacy is rice made in raw sugar and desi ghee – this is served as prashad in temples. People decorate their cows, feed them prashad and worship them. Now, in hotels you can find the rice and sugar dish spiced with elaichi, coconut, nuts or other flavourings,” says chef Rakesh Sethi. B077TH72WQThe theme of university in diversity reverberates through the four day festival. Another homemaker, Anupama Narayna, follows her mother’s recipe of making Til Ka Laddoo and Mixed vegetable curry – two common dishes made in her household in Hyderabad. Yet Anupama insists, there is a big difference in the taste, as compared to he mother’s cooking. “There is a big difference in the tastes of dishes made by mother and me. The simple reason is the usage of amounts of ingredients we use to make our dishes. For instance, I tend to use lesser ghee than her, when I am making Laddoos. I tned to add more green chillies than her when I am making the mix veg curry,” she says. Here are some recipes:Sweet Pongal or Sakkara Pongal : Ingredients: Two cups of sona masuri rice, 1/4 cup moong dal(yellow lentils), 250 gms jaggery syrup and cardamom powderMethod: Water for cooking rice and 1 cup of milk(optional)In a pressure cooker add soaked rice n dal together and pressure cook for 2 whistles adding the cardamom powder. When the pressure released check to see the rice is evenly cooked. Add 1 cup of milk as it gives an extra flavor and cook on low flame till milk is mixed well. Now add jaggery syrup n boil till it gets dissolve completely with the cooked rice. When it gets dry take a small pan and heat pure ghee adding cashew nuts frying well. Add this to ready pongal with raisins n mix well. B07TH98RJHKottu recipe ( Mix Vegetable ) : Ingredients: 5 cups of mix vegetables like egg plant , broad beans , carrots, potato , ash gourd (one cup each), onions, chopped tomatoes, turmeric powder, red chillies and water. Method: Saute one onion in a pressure cooker. Add all the veggies along with salt, tomato, turmeric powder, red chillies and water . Pressure cook for 2-3 whistles. When the pressure released, check if all the veggies are cooked properly. Now, add cup of grounded coconut to it. Finally, take a small pan, add to low heated oil, mustard seeds , curry leaves , hing and mix it to with veggies. Best served with boiled rice.B078T9QMNTil Ke Laddoo Ingredients: 500 gms Til, 450 gms jiggery and 2tsp ghee Method: Take the 500gms of til and, wash it and dry. Then, take a pan, and dry roast til in it, till it takes a light brown colour. Keep it aside. Take the same pan, put ghee in it, and after the ghee has melted, put grated jiggery and stir it well, till it becomes and bubble. Switch off the flame, and put the roasted til with the mix, and then mix it well. After allowing it cool down for a few minutes, take the mixture on a plate and start making laddoos with your hands. If the mixture gets hard, put them on a pan for about a minute. Read the full article

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German opera great Harry Kupfer dies aged 84 - art and culture

One of the world’s most celebrated opera directors, Germany’s Harry Kupfer, has died at the age of 84 in Berlin, his agency confirmed on Tuesday. In a career spanning 44 years, Kupfer worked at opera houses across Germany and was chief director of Berlin’s iconic Komische Oper for more than two decades.Born in 1935, Kupfer studied in Leipzig and first worked in then-communist East Germany.But he rose to fame in 1978 with a production of Richard Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” at the world-renowned Bayreuth festival.He took the reins at the Komische Oper three years later in 1981.A student of Komische Oper founder Walter Felsenstein, Kupfer staged works by Mozart and Wagner and oversaw two world premieres at the opera house before bowing out in 2002.He returned to Bayreuth in 1988, staging Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung” alongside Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kupfer cooperated with Barenboim again on an ambitious project to stage one Wagner opera a year over the course of a decade at the Berlin State Opera.He continued to work until right up to his death, directing around the world and staging Georg Friederich Handel’s Poro in a triumphant return to the Komische Oper earlier this year. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text)Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Read the full article

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Languages differ in way they express emotions despite being equated in English translations - art and culture

Love is an emotion that cuts across all cultures, languages and individuals world over, but the intrinsic meaning of the words that are used to describe it in different languages varies greatly even if their literal translation in English remains the same.For instance, the Turkish word ‘sevgi’ or Hungarian word ‘szrelem,’ which translate to love in English, do not convey the same feeling.This same also applies to a whole range of other emotions and the words that are used to describe them in various languages.By mapping the meaning of the words used to communicate emotions over more than one-third of the planet’s spoken languages, researchers find that there is a significant variation in how emotions are expressed across cultures.The results of the study were published in the journal -- Science.The lexicon of many human languages contains a rich selection of words devoted to expressing emotions. Many emotion words appear to name fundamental human emotions across languages, such as love or anger, but not all emotion words are common.For example, the Portuguese word Saudade, which refers specifically to the deep melancholic feelings caused by the longing for something absent or lost, has no direct translation in English.Thus, while emotions are a defining facet of the human condition, the semantics of the words used to describe them can be nuanced. As well, whether or not emotions share semantics across cultures remains unknown.Joshua Jackson, one of the researchers and his colleagues used ‘colexification,’ a new method from comparative linguistics that measures the variability and structure in word meanings, to identify semantic patterns in a sample of 2,474 languages from 20 major language families, including small, understudied languages with comparatively few speakers.The results revealed that emotion words vary greatly in their meaning across languages, despite being equated in translation dictionaries. Patterns in this variation, however, could be predicted by both the geography of the language as well as by whether the related word described positive or negative feelings, says Jackson. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Read the full article