gq:

The Survivors: Lee “Scratch” Perry (In Which He Tells GQ That Lying About Inventing Reggae Killed Bob Marley)
GQ correspondent Chris Heath’s interview with the legendary reggae pioneer is one of the stranger, funnier, wilder things we’ve read in a long long time. Click here to read all of it, including the parts where Perry talks about his home planet of Sirius, the fact that he’s half fish (from the waist down) and why he cooks with marijuana but no longer smokes it. All of that is delightfully daffy. But there’s darkness, too: below, a portion of the conversation in which Perry insists that Bob Marley got cancer and died because he tried to steal credit for reggae’s creation from its rightful originator. (That being Perry.)

GQ: So, right now, can you hear voices? Lee “Scratch” Perry: The spirit is speaking to you now. The spirit is telling me right now what to say. And I’ll just say it out there to the people out there—Bob Marley, if he tell the world that reggae did come from my house, 5 Cardiff Crescent, Washington Gardens [location of Perry’s legendary Black Ark studio in Kingston, Jamaica, which later burnt down, supposedly at his own hand], and reggae did not come from Trench Town…if he did say that he would be still alive.
GQ: So by not telling people… Lee “Scratch” Perry: The truth.
GQ: That killed him? Perry: The spirit kill him.
GQ: You really believe that? Perry: I don’t believe it. I know it.
GQ: So misleading people about you gave him cancer? Perry: Yeah. Tell the people the truth—that reggae did not come from Trench Town. When he start to sing he was singing ska with Coxsone [Jamaican producer “Sir Coxsone” Dodd] and didn’t know anything about reggae.
…
GQ: And you genuinely believe that there is a connection between that and the disease that killed him? Perry: Well, the only thing that kill people is a lie.
GQ: Can’t people just be unlucky? Perry: Lying. [Perry sticks out his tongue and touches its pointed tip with a forefinger.] The truth is this. This is a sword. It heals, and it kills. If you don’t speak the truth, the truth will kill you. And no doctor can cure you.

gq:

The Survivors: Lee “Scratch” Perry
(In Which He Tells GQ That Lying About Inventing Reggae Killed Bob Marley)

GQ correspondent Chris Heath’s interview with the legendary reggae pioneer is one of the stranger, funnier, wilder things we’ve read in a long long time. Click here to read all of it, including the parts where Perry talks about his home planet of Sirius, the fact that he’s half fish (from the waist down) and why he cooks with marijuana but no longer smokes it. All of that is delightfully daffy. But there’s darkness, too: below, a portion of the conversation in which Perry insists that Bob Marley got cancer and died because he tried to steal credit for reggae’s creation from its rightful originator. (That being Perry.)

GQ: So, right now, can you hear voices?
Lee “Scratch” Perry: The spirit is speaking to you now. The spirit is telling me right now what to say. And I’ll just say it out there to the people out there—Bob Marley, if he tell the world that reggae did come from my house, 5 Cardiff Crescent, Washington Gardens [location of Perry’s legendary Black Ark studio in Kingston, Jamaica, which later burnt down, supposedly at his own hand], and reggae did not come from Trench Town…if he did say that he would be still alive.

GQ: So by not telling people…
Lee “Scratch” Perry: The truth.

GQ: That killed him?
Perry: The spirit kill him.

GQ: You really believe that?
Perry: I don’t believe it. I know it.

GQ: So misleading people about you gave him cancer?
Perry: Yeah. Tell the people the truth—that reggae did not come from Trench Town. When he start to sing he was singing ska with Coxsone [Jamaican producer “Sir Coxsone” Dodd] and didn’t know anything about reggae.

…

GQ: And you genuinely believe that there is a connection between that and the disease that killed him?
Perry: Well, the only thing that kill people is a lie.

GQ: Can’t people just be unlucky?
Perry: Lying. [Perry sticks out his tongue and touches its pointed tip with a forefinger.] The truth is this. This is a sword. It heals, and it kills. If you don’t speak the truth, the truth will kill you. And no doctor can cure you.

GQ

It was easier to get Ali to pose than Frazier. Joe still resented all the torment Ali had caused him over the years. Ali had made all the money, too. Joe finally agreed to pose when we offered to go to his gym in Philadelphia.I knew it would be a difficult shoot because Ali had Parkinson’s and, I learned that day, Frazier had diabetes. Ali walked in, and I set a stool in the ring for him to sit on. Joe said, “What about me? Man, I can barely walk. My legs are killing me.” But they were happy, joking around and hamming it up in every shot.Near the end I switched from color to sepia film. I said, “Look, guys, just stare at the camera. No smiles, no gags.” I did one frame, then a second, and there it was, the picture I was looking for: two battered warriors who’d left their lives in the ring.

Photographed by Walter Iooss Jr./SI

allegedlyofcourse

Illinois Senate Republican Leader Radogno quotes Wu-Tang Clan on Senate Floor.

Wait, that happened?

jenniferruiz:

I took a series of photos involving monsters in everyday situations. Happy Halloween!

Models: Raquel Pennington, David Geis, and Nico Colaleo.

Makeup: Nikki Marrone

Zombie Wardrobe: Valerie Keiser

Lighting and everything else: Jason Whetzell

Real monsters do real things

flickr.com

37thStateDOTcom: Les Rois d'Afrique by Daniel Lainé (Kings of Africa)

37thstate:

Daniel Lainé’s search for the last surviving monarchs of Africa’s grandest kingdoms took him all across Africa. He went from Nigeria to Ghana, Zambia to Cameroon — and from the Ivory Coast to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

His resulting photographic tribute to Africa’s kings, “Rois d’Afrique,” took over three years of investigation, diplomacy — and just plain haranguing to complete.

Although there are hundreds of kings in Africa, Daniel Lainé’s book features the kings whose dynasties have had the most impact on African history.

Dressed in their finest clothes in honor of the occasion, these last survivors of Africa’s great kingdoms are a living paradox. Few of them live modestly — and most enjoy a life of finery and fame.

But their power is an illusion. Conscious of the fact that they no longer enjoy supreme power, these monarchs nevertheless enjoy a traditional and spiritual power that is difficult for Westerners to understand.

Daniel Lainé portrays the splendor and vitality of these African kings — whose legacy lives on — despite changing times.

Really interested in getting my hands on this book

37thstate

37thStateDOTcom: WAfrica-Ankara Japanese kimonos by Cameroonian designer Serge Mouangue

37thstate:

The name WAfrica is a combination of the word for Japanese spirit, “wa,” and Africa.
“In 2007, I experimented with Japanese kimono by producing them with African fabrics,” says Serge Mouangue. “After showing them to Japanese audiences, many people felt the resulting garment existed beyond boundaries it was neither Japanese nor African, it was part of a heretofore unknown world, a ‘third aesthetic’.”
A Cameroonian, Mouangue has produced his kimono in collaboration with Odasho, a 150-year-old Kyoto-based kimono maker. “I want people to experience the birth of totally new cultural dimensions,” Mouangue says. “West Africa and Japan have never truly met when it comes to their historical traditions, thus with the WAfrica kimono, I realized that there is the possibility of creating something complete original a third aesthetic that is more than a simple blending of two existing cultures.”
The New York magazine Paper says: “By highlighting the histories and beauty of the two (cultures), Serge Mouangue creates something glorious and sublime.”