Recently I decided to try mixing in bits of political commentary. I've been practicing, trying to make it listenable and fun, maybe a new way to consume both of these things. I figured it could be a way for an huge, dedicated, paying audience to get a groove (or a one-hour timer) on with a reliable DJ/curator while catching up on stories or opinions they might have missed.
I’m placing the names of the cast at the end of the post to minimize bias.
Non-Overplayed Bangers (NOBs) from my pet genres (non-Miami breakbeat and electro, UK garage, grime, and (dubby post-dubstep) 140) are here, plus detours into techno, electro, hip‑hop and disco. The music is sturdy enough to stand alone, I think, and the voices can be textures as well as news.
Encouragement will result in more episodes with different types of music, and I am an eclectic-ass curator.
After honing Product Management, Corporate Office Stuff, PowerPoint and both Ethical Spin and B**********g competencies, I need to do something politics-adjacent because of the Current Situation. Until I can find someone awesome to work for, I’m making music and ranting on the internet.
I’ll manage the hell out of your products or projects and write the socks off your copy or execute the mess out of whatever it is I can do to help.
But it has to be decidedly Left or Rule of Law-supporting somehow.
Ex-Slate, U Michigan, SUNY, McKesson.
Most of the musical focus today is around 140, grime, and garage. I've been surprised at how few people have really been exposed to these styles in the US—video games and advertising bring some sounds across but I almost never hear someone's car bumping garage, 140, or D&B beats here.
As a lot of you know, UK Garage is a marriage of house and R&B, with sometimes-difficult-to-mix hard swing and shuffle. Grime and dubstep took these sounds and sharpened them with darker tones and MCs [Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash]. The 140 BPM continuum started with Benga, Skream, and what I guess is “early dubstep and grime” around 2006 by paring garage down to bass, snares, and echo [Kode9 interview, FACT], and halved the time.
I need you
Zed Bias (Dave Jones) is a favorite whose work reveals some of these relationships. His work in garage, 2-step, and broken beat pushed the scene past radio-friendly sheen into darker, stranger territory, showing how syncopation and sub-bass could be used to frame social tension and dancefloor release (Wikipedia).
(I started spinning Skream, Benga, Horsepower, Ghost, DMZ back in 2006 or 2007 and watched in horror as dubstep became shitty. I think some of what I play is technically dubstep, but I refer to all austere-halftime-dubby-bass music as 140 today because of what They did to dubstep as it became squelch city around 2013. But there's a lot of really good, heavy, trippy 140.)
Do I have my taxonomy wrong anywhere? If you disagree about any of this I want to hear about it.
Along with the tunes, though, there's news, see. So it’s different and better.
The first voice you hear complains about Legacy Democrats refusing to support Zohran Mamdani. We agree that Schumer won't but there's still hope for others.
The Vice President intrudes and warns of violent eXtReMiSm on the left, and soon he's invoking “killing the cops and throwing the molotov cocktails” as though these were reasonable or meaningful accusations.
Sometimes listening to this crap against music reveals the absurdity of a claim by refusing to dignify it. The voice points out the recent erasure of the Department of Justice study on right-wing violence that directly contradicts Vance's words.
I wanted to see what “Financial Chart” did so here’s the chart for BURP.
Back to Basics by Headie One and Skepta arrives around the ten-minute mark, garage-inflected and sharp. Drill and grime traditions have encoded struggles with policing and austerity, without explicit slogans but with lived politics, racial and working-class struggles as texture.
Claude VonStroke’s Metropolitan segues into Green Velvet’s hilarious Answering Machine. Green Velvet’s goofy voicemail messages “Thanks for the engagement ring; the baby's not yours, I love you, you’re evicted, your chart looks BAD” never get old.
Souls of Mischief’s instrumental frames AOC’s floor speech on the resolution “Honoring the Life and Legacy of Charlie Kirk:” “He should not be celebrated.” Ninety-five Democrats nevertheless vote in favor. Why? Her words come across in a new way over beats recorded in 1993, recontextualized verse from a song cycle that's definitely dragging on past my patience.
Grandmaster Flash’s The Message sounded fresh to me in both of its new tempos and backing tracks (:nail_care:). “Don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge / I’m trying not to lose my head,” “Social Sadiddy,” and “broke my sacroiliac” work as well in 2025 as in 1982. Bars throughout. Aside from the F-slurs which I deftly removed in flight.
There's a cool tempo change here too (:nail_care:). The beat drops away, the vocal hangs exposed and slides back into a new tempo. The crisis-chronicling folds pretty well into a French cut.
The segue from house to electro’s fun: a tempo shift pulled along by another vocal that carries across both speeds. (wow this DJ is rad)
Later, pivot into disco fragments (“You Make Me Feel Like Dancin’”) and 80's bangers (Midnight Star’s “Midas Touch,” ultimate banger) as we join Ben Meiselas of the Meidas Touch Network (how droll!).
At 40 minutes, Ben Meiselas reads from U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday’s order dismissing Trump’s $15B defamation complaint against The New York Times. Merciless:
“Every lawyer knows and is presumed to know that a Complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective… not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally, not the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner.” Reuters, 2025
Merryday also rips the “many, often repetitive, and laudatory but superfluous allegations” and dismisses Trump’s invocation of The Apprentice as demonstrating “the magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance” as irrelevant Financial Times, 2025.
“The Complaint extends far beyond the outer bound of permissible latitude. The Complaint is struck.”
Don’t miss the moment where Meiselas accidentally but cleanly bumped into lyrics, creating “I need to remind you ... my body’s burning up.”
The final section descends into deep 140 territory. Snuffy and Zaterday’s Stand carries weight in its bassline alone but the bars are killer. Argo and 11th Hour extend the heaviness.
The voice reappears, presenting some of Trump’s recent statements as evidence of serious decline.
Public Enemy’s Bring the Noise is dragged to dub tempo (its title is apt here), then Strategy and Visages close with Lewis Capaldi, titled cheekily after the Scottish pop singer but musically having nothing to do with him.
Tracklist
Claude VonStroke, Justin Jay – Oh (Pearson Sound Shuffle Mix)
Brothers Of Funk, Analog Hustlers, Heather Collins, JUZ10-TYM – Quake (Original Mix)
MSFT – Bonker.s (Original Mix)
Joel O-P – Identify (Original Mix)
Jeff Mills – The Bells (Original Mix)
Hamdi – Counting (Sammy Virji Remix)
Jammin – Hold On
Groove Chronicles – Millenium Funk
Headie One, Skepta – Back to Basics (Floating Points Remix)
Pharoahe Monch – The Light (Zed Bias Vocal Mix)
Mizzo – How I Do Dat (Original Mix)
Danny Kolk – Summer Day (Original Mix)
Claude VonStroke – Metropolitan (Original Mix)
Green Velvet – Answering Machine
Cloonee – Be Good To Me (Extended Mix)
Souls Of Mischief – Make Your Mind Up (Instrumental)
Akhenaton – Je suis en vie (instrumental)
Grandmaster Flash – The Message (ER acapella)
Enrico BSJ Ferrari – La pizzotta d' sor'ta (Original Mix)
Midnight Star – Midas Touch
Colombo – Hipo (Original Mix)
Aux 88 – Alias (Original Mix)
Kaya – Tiki Heads (Original Mix)
Niallo – Body Burning (Original Mix)
Snuffy, Zaterday – Stand feat. Zaterday (Original Mix)
11Th Hour – Confront (Original Mix)
Argo – Shakedown (Original Mix)
Public Enemy – Bring The Noise
Strategy, Visages – Lewis Capaldi (Original Mix)
The Voices
Vaush, AOC, Vance, Ben Meiselas, Jennifer Welch, Trump. Thanks to the commentators for providing sane and pithy commentary every day. Shout out Bulwark and Popok and Kyle too, I'll get to you.
