5th Floor - Right To Left

Some 5th floor music to get you acquainted with their sounds before Sunday.

Plus here is some information on the group and their vibe.

5th Floor is a 12 strong Cape Town hip-hop outfit that was assembled in 1996. '04/'05 saw the crew release their debut album called Attention To Detail. 5th Floor then independently launched a second album called “Sex & Revolution” in March '09 through So Treal Music.

Sex & Revolution is Camo & Kasual T accompanied by a 4 piece band.

The crew performs and produces hip-hop music, as well as providing platforms for urban-art expression within their immediate community.

5th Floor is a proud product of their environment and to reflect their heritage they have chosen poetry & live music as their medium. Their lyrics reveal meaning in everyday life while drawing on lessons from our common ancestry.

In keeping with the ethics of real music the 5th Floor encourages Knowledge-Of-Self. This is an element that has motivated and inspired the crew in many ways. The relevance of universal concepts apply to the local and abroad underprivileged communities where there is a large hip hop audience.

Collectively the Fifth Floor Unit has shared platforms with artist world wide. The caliber ranges from poets like Sarah Jones, Timbuktu, Loop Troop to Lesego Rampoalekeng, artists like Tumi & the Volume to Black Thought of The Roots, Zaki Ibrahim, John Robinson, People Under The Stairs, Slum Village, Talip Kweli through to outfits like Blk Sonshine, MXO and Bongo Muffin.

The presence of 5th Floor has been felt globally. Their work appeared in the award- winning graffiti documentary “Over Spray” & they have shared platforms with artist in all elements of the culture. Dj’s like South Africa’s no. 1 Ready-D & Mr Len of Company Flow (NY) & Black Noise & Even POC (Prophet of da City)


5th Floor featured on the Harambe Dope Sessions Compilation, MK89(DSTV), Hype Magazine(Oct ‘09), Merge Magazine Compilation, Sunday Sun, Channel O(DSTV), Latitude(SABC), Street Journal(SABC), Whats On Cape Town(CTV).
The 5th Floor has been felt in venues nationally Like The Assembly Cape Town, Car Fax & Roka Bar Gauteng, Tings & Times Pretoria & Oppikopi & Synergy Music Fest, Artscape Theatre Hip hop Connected ‘09 & Cape Town Fest ‘10 to name a few.

“Hip-Hop artistic/ original- we don’t bite/ From b-boys to DJ’s to graff work we stay tight!” – 5th Floor 2005

Style Icon

Like it or Not... Mos Def is a style icon. Like this chilled out look.

Thesis Social Jam Session is featured in The latest Shook Magazine. This issue is largely dedicated to South Africa and was done before the World Cup and features other prominent players in the South African music landscape, both underground and commercial. We proud of this achievement as it has helped us spread the love. Thanks to Jez, Sam and Ben from Shook magazine and Allan Nicoll aka Kid Fonque for the shook up.

South Africa has got it going on right now. Forget football (the country’s footballing heritage was decimated by apartheid), in 2010 it’s South Africa’s young party starters, streetwear entrepreneurs, dance music moguls, grassroots organizations, and Pan-African publishers who are attracting the eyes of the world.

South Africa has never considered itself anything but a First World country and this is what a new generation is out to prove. In our special South Africa issue, headline artists BLK JKS meet guitar hero Dr. Phillip ‘Malombo’ Tabane; international dance music stars Black Coffee and Culoe de Song provide an entry point into the ubiquitous house music scene; and in the beating heart of Soweto we meet the country’s future leaders. We also revisit the radical 1960s jazz players through Basil Breakey’s photography, the multi-racial 1980s hip-hop movement in Cape Town and highlight new movements like the Pan African Space Station.

Elsewhere in the issue, Bilal gets us all hot in the middle, DJ Spinn gives us a brief history of Chi-Town’s Footworkers and how he needs Juke Music All Night Long. There’s Sun Ra’s Arkestra, The Now Sound of Brasil, Colombian soundsystems and much more…

Preview the magazine here

Wireless G doing it Big

Our resident DJ and fellow creative, wireless_G is doing it big with his second international gig this year. He will be opening up the Blu and Exile gig happening this Saturday at Townhall (Old Song writers Club in Newtown). Also billed to play are Tumi (from TATV), 5th floor (The night before TSJS), XO. Joining G on the decks will be Raiko and Akio ID all the way from CPT. Show love and support for this gig. Tickets are R120 at the door and pre sold for R100 at Grayscale store in Brammfontein.

TSJS Tribute to Stan

Stan The Man with the plan.... This session is dedicated to Stanley Parkies our first host. He has passed on, but the beat must go on and this is our farewell to him.

In order to keep things fresh and expose new people to the streets, we have a live act line up with two groups that have never performed in Soweto before and its a blessing that we have them with us. First is Bongiziwe Mabandla and The Fridge. This is a three guita...rist band that sings folk music. 5th Floor is a hip hop duo from the streets of Cape Town that is breathing fresh air to the hip hop infested market of South Africa. They have already blessed Party People hosted by DJ Kenzhero.

On the DJ line up we have the Residents, Khumza with a selection dedicated to Stan, Omi ( On a visit from Durban), Skindeep who last graced the decks last year and Wireless_G our WWUD (Worldwide Under Ground) DJ.

Our Host is Tall Ass Mo and he will be keeping you laughing with Skhumba. These two comedians are bubbling under the surface in the comedy circuit of South Africa.

Live Acts
Bongiziwe and The Fridge
5th Floor

DJ Line Up
Khumza
Omi
Skindeep
Wireless_G

Host/Comedy Act
Tall Ass Mo
Skhumba

Cover Charge
R20 with No Thesis Gear
R15 with Thesis Gear

Playstation 3 portals will be available and are brought to us by Liquid Gamez.
Food and Drinks will be available...

LV Ft. Okmalumkoolkat_ Boomslang (snaake)

Big things be happening for one half of Dirty Paraffin member Okmalumkoolkat. He has a single dropping out on Hyperdub.




Directed/ Edited by Mello Moropa
DOP Justin McGee
Styling by Jamal Nxedlana and Smiso Zwane

term garment-spring '10

dear all:

this was my term garment for the SPRING '10 semester.

I worked on it during my 2nd year abroad(in Milan, ITALY) for my knitwear design and knitwear draping course. It was part of my "trans-automa-sitosys "collection, of which i will post pictures (that was the project we did for our fashion art portfolio class) soon.

I wanted to combine hand work with machine work to "humanize" it a bit. The main pieces of the dress(pewter blue) were machine knitted on a brother machine using plain knit stitch and dropped needles to create "water bubbles". I combined 2 yarns: a cotton one, and a metallic one to give some sort of sheen. The whole collection was about the irregularity of nature and how its beauty is perfect in a very imperfect way... so I didn't want to create any pattern- to do that, I changed the amount of needles to be dropped every three rows and after having used 3 sizes i created 3 vertical lines that resembled the evaporation/natural cycle of water purification...

the drape of the dress changed a lot while i was assembling it- and ended up being a very very open armhole. I crocheted the "straps"with a bulky/irregular cotton yarn and let some loose pieces hang to add movement.

FOR THE BOTTOM...

i suspended from the dress, a part of "moss" by crocheting mustard yellow loops into the hem of the dress... the moss was alluding to the "creative moulding" process and was made by combining both the machine techniques and by hand....I changed yarns, dropped needles, used ottoman, fisherman, and other combination of stitches to create the most irregular/imperfect look!

whalah!

NYC... i am back

my fellow blog readers:

after 2 years abroad- I AM BACK!

i am back to the city that never sleeps.

Italy is far now, and so are my Italian habits:

• taking breakfast at the bar [caffé marrocchino+pastry],
• cooking a full meal every evening and actually sitting down with my roommate for a couple of hours to chat
• running to the gelatteria a couple of blocks away to get some home-made gelatto before they close at midnight
• Taking the train to other regions, especially to Florence where my italian step-mom/mother in law cooked amazing (I REALLY MEAN AMAZING) meals
• asparagus and wild berry picking
• not going to schoolLABS on the weekends
• getting out of school by 6:00pm
• buying smaller portions of things at the supermarket (the kind of one person portion that stays fresh without a million preservatives)
• hand washing the dishes, hang drying my clothes and NOT having a microwave, a toaster or an air conditioner...
• having to blow dry my hair because they wont let you leave the house or go to sleep with a wet head.
• having a HUGE room
• not paying more that 5 euro for an AMAZING bottle of wine
• and others that i'm too sad to tell about

Although its been a rough transitory period... I'm all moved in now and just need to make my loft bedded (minuscule) room look decently cute and start the routine. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and things are happening! I'll be starting my LAST year at FIT next week and I am very enthused... senior collection coming up!

Im hoping to freelance so please keep me in consideration...

for now... just a quick salute!

ciao

Repositories and CRIS article

An article has been published in the latest issue of Ariadne about the Repositories and CRIS event we ran in Leeds in May this year. ‘Learning how to play nicely: Repositories and CRIS’ is available from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/wrn-repos-2010-05-rpt/.

The full contents of the journal issue, which may also be of interest, including articles on e-books, Library 2.0 and data management is available from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/#main-articles.

Theodore DeReese "Teddy" Pendergrass (March 26, 1950[1] – January 13, 2010[2]) was an American R&B/soul singer and songwriter. Pendergrass first rose to fame as lead singer of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in the 1970s before a successful solo career at the end of the decade. In 1982, he was severely injured in an auto accident in Philadelphia, resulting in his being paralyzed from the waist down. After his injury, the affable entertainer founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance, a foundation that helps those with spinal cord injuries. Pendergrass commemorated 25 years of living after his spinal cord injury with star filled event, Teddy 25 - A Celebration of Life at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center. His last performance was on a PBS special at Atlantic City's Borgata Casino in November 2008.

Source: Wikipedia

this guy was the ultimate lover man. i believe he was such a lover man: he did it even if he was on a wheelchair...

Turn it on!!!!!

Annual growth figures now available

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I have now collated our latest batch of statistical data which means we now have growth figures covering a full 12 month period. Overall, we have seen a very healthy 43.73% growth in the number of items within our repositories over the past year - well done all!

UKCGE Report on PhD Theses Confidentiality

Interseting report from Tina Barnes, UK Council for Graduate Education looking at the issue of confidentiality and embargo requests on PhD theses: http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/Resources/UKCGE/Documents/PDF/Confidentiality%20of%20PhD%20Theses%20in%20the%20UK%20(2010).pdf. Report based on a survey conducted in March 2010 with refelctions to previous 2005 survey on the same topic.

Barnes reports that the most commonly cited reason for an embargo is the protection of 'commercial interests.' However, the number of requests has not increased since the first survey in 2005 despite the progression of open access and e-deposit. This, it is claimed, is due to e-submission and repository deposit not yet becoming standard practice within UK HEIs.

The report also comments on alternative approaches to the e-presentation of embargoed theses such as 'embargoed appendices.'

New IPR discussion papers

Two new IPR discussion papers have passed under my nose in the last couple of days that others may find of interest:

Korn, N and Oppenheim, C. July 2010. JISC IPR and Licensing White Paper: A Discussion Piece. Version 1.0. http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/3553

British Library. Driving UK research: is copyright a help or a hindrance?- a perspective from the research community. http://www.bl.uk/ip/pdf/drivingukresearch.pdf

Both of these pieces question current IPR and copyright practices and the detrimental effect they may be having in the digital age and to current research and research practices.