THE CASUAL SEX RADIO SHOW

This week on the 'Is Black Music' radio show on Resonance FM we explored the theme of Casual Sex.

Casual relationships, non-monogamous relationships, hooking-up, friends with benefits... This is rarely talked about directly, or used in art. Perhaps that's cause they're too busy doing it...?

On the show we wanted to isolate the concept of pure casual sex, and see how it works in and through black music. So songs like Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On' were omitted because the characters appear to be in a pre-meditated dating situation. 'Sexual Healing' was also not chosen, because again the protagonist's relationship seemed to have a history.

The archetypal casual sex encounter is improvisational and spontaneous by nature. We chose Gaye's under-rated composition 'After The Dance' instead, because there you have a situation where the singer has clearly just met the girl for the first time at a dance.

We also omitted songs that were about infidelity, cheating or polyamory.

Casual Sex to me is when two people just have sex. That's all. That's where it begins, and that's where it ends.

Simple.

Or is it...?

Listen to the Casual Sex Show here:
http://m.soundcloud.com/resonance-fm/00-00-00-is-black-music-26

DANIEL CHAVIS & THE NY ALTERNATIVE ROCK EXPERIENCE

We play and refer to a lot of music that is from the Big Apple on our radio show.

New York has consistently been a central focus for underground and subversive art. It was where the Harlem Renaissance nurtured the undiscovered African American artists of the 1920s. It was where much of the European Avant-Garde fled to escape the rise of Nazi fascism in the 1930s & 40s, and it was where experimental musicians, writers, & visual & conceptual artists created the Downtown loft scene in the '60s.

Speaking with Daniel Chavis on last night's show helped me realise that these "scenes" in New York are often disjointedly connected.

The Chavis brothers came from North Carolina in the late '80s, to a New York City that was not sure how to relate to Black musicians performing music that was not easily recognisable as 'Black Music'.

Like many of the artist who have come looking for a home in New York, the brothers Chavis' experience was unexpected and incomparable.

Listen to our show with Daniel Chavis here:
https://soundcloud.com/resonance-fm/00-00-00-is-black-music-25?in=resonance-fm/sets/is-black-music-2014