Zack O'Malley Greenburg's Blog, page 5

Pioneering Hip-Hop, Inventing The Scratch

The following is adapted from my book, 3 Kings, ahead of my subscribers-only Zoom interview of hip-hop pioneer Grandwizzard Theodore on Friday, December 1st, at 3pm ET. This excerpt should give some context for the “Zogblog Book Club” event, where we’ll discuss how the Bronx-born DJ invented the scratch, what it was like growing up in the early days of hip-hop, and where the genre is going. DM me if you’d like me to send you the link to join.

On a snowy night in 1967, Clive Campbell and his siste...

Zogblog Book Club: Grandwizzard Theodore

As hip-hop’s 50th anniversary festivities continue, founding fathers like DJ Kool Herc have been getting their flowers. But another South Bronx legend also deserves credit as one of hip-hop’s great innovators: Grandwizzard Theodore, who invented the seminal DJ technique known as “the scratch.”

Given his role as a pioneer, Theodore seemed like an ideal first person to chat with for something I’m calling the Zogblog Book Club. The idea is to interview a key source from one of my books live via Zoom...

Not Easy Being Green: How Climate-Friendly Touring Can Be Especially Tough For Indie Acts

“It's awful to think that just filling the landfill with more shitty t-shirts is the only way that indie bands can make any coin,” says Nicholas Allbrook, the frontman of Australian psychedelic rock band Pond. “It's kind of something that people should be thinking about.”

Clearly, Allbrook is one of those people. Ahead of a recent U.S. club tour, he looked into buying a silk screen or heat stamp machine and bringing it on the road. Instead of buying brand-new shirts, he figured, fans could pay to...

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" Was Almost Called...

The following is adapted from my book, Michael Jackson, Inc.: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of a Billion-Dollar Empire, on the occasion of Halloween.

In the summer of 1982, Michael Jackson summoned Quincy Jones to the Westlake Recording Studio in Los Angeles to record the album that would become Thriller. But it was known by a different name at first: Starlight.

Veteran songwriter Rod Temperton initially gave that name to the title track (with a chorus of “STAR-light! Starlight sun…”) It probably w...

We Are All Musicians Now: Acknowledgments

With all the atrocities we’ve heard about in recent days, I’m feeling acutely grateful for the good stuff in my own life. I’m grateful, above all, to be able to raise my child in a safe and loving environment—it’s my deepest wish for all parents, though it may be painfully unattainable in so many places right now.

It’s a privilege to have the headspace to write, to have a newsletter at all, to reach such a supportive community of readers. So today, I’d like to express my gratitude to everyone wh...

Nas, Wu-Tang, And Hip-Hop's Long Game

Last night at the Barclays Center, Nas strode to the stage for the latest stop on the NY State of Mind tour, his co-headlining venture with the Wu-Tang Clan. Decked out in all black from his leather jacket down to his Air Force 1s, he serenaded the crowd with hits like “One Mic” and “Got Ur Self A Gun” before delivering a message as classic as his look.

“If it wasn’t for the Bronx, the whole world would be boring,” he proclaimed. “Happy birthday to hip-hop music—50 years. And happy birthday to me...

Berner's Billion-Dollar Blueprint

On an unseasonably warm October afternoon last year, the grand opening of the Cookies flagship store in New York felt like the Super Bowl of cannabis. And the company’s Herald Square space, across the street from Macys in a five-story building once occupied by Desigual, wasn’t even selling weed yet.

But outside, the line stretched two blocks down 6th Avenue before curling east along 34th Street toward the Empire State Building. Hundreds jockeyed for a chance to buy the latest Cookies gear—or perh...

MTV's Multibillion-Dollar Miss

Last week, I did my monthly spot on my pal Dan Runcie’s Trapital podcast to explore the rise and decline of MTV. We talked about how the network transformed the music video genre from throwaway clips to short films, how it paved the way for the rise of stars from Madonna to Michael Jackson, and why it’s now mostly a vessel for Ridiculousness, the oft-maligned clip show that accounts for as many as 113 of MTV’s 168 weekly programming hours.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of our conversation, whi...

The Artists, The Writers, And The President

The Artists & Writers softball game turns 75 this year, and though its 94-year-old chairman Leif Hope hasn’t been on the field for every contest, he can recall details of each summer’s tilt as well as anyone. Except, perhaps, for a certain former U.S. President: Bill Clinton.

“I saw him three or four years ago when he came out for the game,” says Hope. “I said, ‘How nice to see you, Mr. President … you were first here in 1989.’ And he corrected me. He waved his finger at me and he said, ‘ ‘88! ’ ...

Flowers For Herc

This past Friday evening, as the sun sank below the grandstand at Yankee Stadium, an unlikely figure stood on a stage in center field: Senator Chuck Schumer. The majority leader told the crowd of thousands how he spearheaded the effort to save a nearby apartment complex and its “beautiful rec room” from being torn down by greedy developers.

“We stopped ‘em dead in their tracks,” Schumer roared. “I introduced a resolution, which has passed, declaring today—on the 50th anniversary of hip-hop—nation...