Youngbloods can't spell, but they could rock you at PlayStation
This New Math is whippin' motherfuckers' ass
You wanna know how to rhyme? You better learn how to add
It's mathematics
- From Mos Def’s Mathematics. Listen here
21.09.2026
I thus proposed shifting the conceptualization of the intricate choreographies of collective life away from reference to social bonds, ideological commitments, habitus, and communal sentiment to an emphasis on a “mathematics” of continuous recombination of people’s experiences and practices.
- From Abdumaliq Simone’s : “People as Infrastructure (2021). Linguistic composite, everyday low theory of the hustle.
07.09.2026
This time-feel resulted from a machine’s ability to turn grid against grid, and from James Yancey’s inspiration and willingness to use that feature and nurture its fullest expression. That time-feel arose not from a musical scene, nor from the conservatory, nor from the avant-garde, but from one man using a machine in a basement in Detroit.
That time-feel cannot be understood as either straight or swung time. It is not the median or midpoint or gradation between the two. It is the deliberate juxtaposition of multiple expressions of straight and swing time simultaneously, a conscious cultivation of rhythmic friction for maximum musicality and maximum surprise. It is conflicted time. It is Dilla Time.
- From Dan Charnas’ Dilla Time (2022). Walking in Nairobi - reminded of Dilla and the nature of the Afropolis to be both chaotic and organized; to be both Abdumaliq Simone’s ‘hodgepodge’ and his ‘people as infrastructure’. Juxtaposing chaos and order. Incessantly flexible, mobile, and unpredictable intersections of urban living. Maybe Stop by Dilla ?
15.07.2026
The explanation is obvious: The Garden of Forking Paths is an incomplete, but not false, image of the universe as conceived by Ts'ui Pen.
Unlike Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a uniform and absolute time; he believed in an infinite series of times, a growing, dizzying web of divergent, convergent, and parallel times. That fabric of times that approach one another, fork, are snipped off, or are simply unknown for centuries, contains all possibilities. In most of those times, we do not exist; in some, you exist but I do not; in others, I do and you do not; in others still, we both do. In this one, which the favouring hand of chance has dealt me, you have come to my home; in another, when you come through my garden you find me dead; in another, I say these same words, but I am an error, a ghost.
'In all,' I said, not without a tremble, 'I am grateful for, and I venerate, your re-creation of the garden of Ts'ui Pen.'
- From Jorge Borges’ novel The Garden of Forking Paths (1941).
06.07.2026
The Egyptian civilization is a stationary one, but still closely linked to its nomadic origins, conserving a substantial continuity with the Paleolitic cultures in its symbolic and religious expressions. According to Sigfried Giedion, the birth of the first volume in space was represented in Egyptian culture by the myth of the Benben, "the first stone to emerge from the chaos," a monolith said to represent the vertical petrifaction of the first sunbeam, thus connected to the symbolism of the menhirs, the obelisks, and the pyramids.
The birth of interior space, on the other hand, is connected to the concept of the “KA”, the symbol of eternal wandering, a sort of divine spirit that symbolized movement, life, energy and embodies the memory of the perilous migrations of the Paleolithic period.
“KA” is one of man's most ancient symbols, and because it is frequently found in many different civilizations at great distances from one another, we could suppose that it was comprehensible for the multitudes of people who crossed the continents on foot: a symbol understood by all the errant populations of the Paleolithic period. Giedion states that the "organization of the large temples of the New Kingdom expressed the idea of eternal wandering," and that the first works of architecture in stone were the result of the wanderings of the “KA”.
- From Francesco Careri’s Walkscapes: walking as an aesthetic practice (2017).
06.07.2026
[Verse 2]
What I pieced together and made from it
Built me strong enough to reach the most raised summit
Been on the street
Could make the vividest speech if reach the age hundred
If beef restores unleash my dogs, never stray from it
The block christened me with toxicity
From A-Z school raised me to think only slavery was our history
In the town of stars grew around the Gods its not a mystery
Have to say any play to get rich never felt like a risk to me
With metal's how they settled it in my settlement
All the children of my life, make sure to
Tell 'em they're intelligent
You help the devil if all you peddle is revel; it ain't relevant
Not scared to tell my L's 'cause no one said it more eloquent
Acquired bank or higher rank, but wanted privacy
To pace your breath, facing death, you ain't as live as me
How I was born if you did me wrong, getting even was a odyssey
Bought a snub young, kill a loved one, believe in no apology
I got the griefest pedigree you'll ever see
Still insist I'd be filthy rich if not for integrity
With me in the midst what's up was good luck, instead of freight
Got brothers that's not blood, they're brothers cause they bled with me
- From KA’s track “Sad to Say”. Flocks of sheep grazing in Brownsville, New-York.
06.07.2026
For the shepherd the poet is too facile, too easily satiated. The poet would say “there was ... they were ...” But the shepherd says “he lives”, “he is”, “he does” ... The poet is always a thousand years too late - and blind to boot. The shepherd is eternal, an earth-bound spirit, a renunciator.
- From Henry Miller’s “The Colossus of Maroussis” (1941).
16.06.2026
In the darkness | I met him | of the night | with arms full of | lovelight.
Carry one - said he | into the vast night |
Alright I said | just guide me | with | your light
- From Abdullah Ibrahim’s signature on the back sleeve of the African Sketchbook Vinyl (1973). Goodbye to the Brother with Perfect timing.
13.06.2026
“In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their dense clump of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they looked like green islands in the air … there were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead of cheerful radiance [...] The result of all is a scene, pensive, lovely, dream-like, enjoyable and sad, such as is to be found nowhere save in these princely villa-residences in the neighborhood of Rome; a scene that must have required generations and ages, during which growth, decay, and man’s intelligence wrought kindly together, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now.”
- From Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun (1860). Walking in Vila Borghese park, struck by scales : the anemone bushes, the fountains, the ponds, the ruins, but also the cypresses, the washingtonias and the stone pines whose immense height confuses one’s sense of scale. A quality of presence I rarely find.
12.06.2026
In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city's life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or grey or black-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.
From a mountainside, camping with their household goods, Ersilia's refugee look at the labyrinth of taut strings and poles that rise in the plain. That is the city of Ersilia still, and they are nothing. They rebuild Ersilia elsewhere. They weave a similar pattern of strings which they would like to be more complex and at the same time more regular than the other. Then they abandon it and take themselves and their houses still farther away.
Thus, when travelling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of abandoned cities, without the walls which do not last, without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away: spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form.
- From Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972). Walking in Rome, layers of history, ruins over ruins, spiderwebs of pasts. Reflecting on the past as a continuum and the city as a text.
08.06.2026
Vus d’en haut, les villages, dont les terrasses, par séries longues et étroites, s'échelonnent le long de la pente, rappellent exactement, avec leur couleur rugueuse et jaunâtre, les terrasses de culture qui les avoisinent. L'illusion est complète au moment des labours. Le toit de terre battue n'est pas traité autrement qu'un sol. La technique qui le soude au sol pour mieux résister à la pluie, à la neige et au vent, est une technique de remblai, de blocage. Le village s’apparente à la roche. Le terroir lui-même est architecture.
- From Jacques Berque’s Structures Sociales Du Haut Atlas (1955). Harvest time of cereals (barley, wheat) in the small village of Timslah. Pausing for lunch at Hassan and puzzled by the look of the houses across the valley and their roof terraces, whose yellow (from the harvest drying) blend with the yellow of the wheat/barley terraces in the valley.
01.06.2026
It's more than just nice rhyme
I'm a product of hard, so a lot of these bars took a lifetime
Gambled with Death, before I left, said, "Them dice mine."
Every measure flooded with treasures you might find
From amazing days, and nights exciting
Where you get played for playing and learn to fight by fighting
- From KA’s track “Every”. Late-night nightblinded by fatigue walk on Bd. Voltaire after Westside Gunn’s show. Every line so immaculate...
31.06.2026
Ayo (Brr)
Brr (Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot)
- From Westside Gunn performing in The Bataclan (Paris) after 6 opening acts.
22.05.2026
Siza always starts the conversation with a silence.
- Sebastian Adamo from Adamo-Faiden studio, when talking about architect Alvaro Siza in a discussion yesterday on the opening of the CCA’s exhibition ‘The fortune of the city is that it has never been perfect’ an exhibition on Siza’s work.
20.05.2026
[Verse 1]
Picked me up when I was at my lowest
Used to hardly could spell, now I'm held with the poets
That was all your doin'
Was filthy, you built me when I was all ruin
How you soaked me with compliments really helped out
Boasted all confidence in my self-doubt
Was dyin' from my thirst, you was clearly a well
It eventually made me empty, I was merely a shell
None observed, but was on the verge of crackin'
'Til you said I had a gift when you heard me rappin'
With your warm responses, I was taken aback
Former partners had me feelin' like what I was makin' was wack
Didn't offend me, saw somethin' in me I was blind to
Who knew to finish findin' me, I had to find you?
To close the thought, your support was life-savin'
Now death is minor, 'cause you got me livin' life major
I stayed forever, you make me better
[Chorus]
I love
I love
- From KA’s track “I Love (Mimi, Moms, Kev)“ from the album Descendants of Cain (2020).
18.05.2026
La maison du cheikh est prise dans l’ensemble des maisons agglutinées du village. Elle est plus haute et plus neuve, ou mieux entretenue, que les autres. Que ces villages sont donc bien faits ! Rien n’est plus spontané et plus heureux chez ces populations que leur sens de l’architecture. Avec des pierres, de la terre et de l’eau, ils élèvent ces murs de dix, douze mètres de hauteur, ils jettent des galeries, des balcons, des avancées de terrasses au-dessus des rochers à pic, avec une hardiesse, une imprudence et un chic surprenants. Ils bâtissent toujours aux bons endroits. Ils aiment les belvédères. Ils ne se sentent bien que perchés, se donnant de la vue et de l’air. Leurs terrasses, leurs galeries, leurs fenêtres s’ouvrent sur des paysages étourdissants. Et, bien qu’habitués à les contempler, ils les contemplent encore et toujours : ils s’assoient à même le faîte d’un mur et rêvent, en chantonnant, les yeux fixés au loin.
- From Jean Orieux’s travel memoir/reportage Kasbahs en plein ciel : Dans le Haut-Atlas marocain (1951).
09.05.2026
FR | “Prenant une pierre pour oreiller,
je voyage avec les nuages.”
ENG | “Using a stone for a pillow,
I travel with the clouds.”
- From a haïku of Santoka Taneda, poet and monk. Between 1926 and 1940, Taneda walked 28 000 miles on foot.
08.05.2026
They tend to have a concave upper pillow platform, rising supportive columns and a base, commonly showing some uniformity of shape or decoration according to the region, tribe or sex of the owner. Both men and women, usually 'betrothed' or initiated into adulthood, used these wooden icons. The owner or a relative, usually made the headrest or it was acquired from a local craftsman. They were used to prevent dirt or insects from getting into the owner's hair whilst sleeping and also to preserve elaborate hairstyles and marriage hats.
Headrests have been described as 'dream machines' as they were believed to help form sub conscious experiences and communication between the living and deceased spirits or relatives. Objects among the Zulu were personal. Some were made expressly for their owners and would become, in time, closely linked with that person's identity by association and a lifetime's use. A headrest, for example, may have been brought by a bride from parent's homestead as a betrothal gift to her husband's homestead. The headrest would be regarded as a link to her father's spirit and the ‘amadlozi’, her forebears' spirits.
- From Karel Nel’s book The Art of Southeast Africa (2006). Worth a mention, she adds that Zulu headrests (isigqiki) were also later used as seats for men to sit on (Anisihlahu). Very curious how a dream machine turns into a rest machine - perhaps because dream is the cousin of rest ?
06.05.2026
Lorsqu'on restitue un événement, le film enregistré se déroule du début jusqu’à la fin en totalité. C'est pourquoi il est très difficile à un Africain de ma génération de " résumer ". On raconte en totalité ou on ne raconte pas. On ne se lasse jamais d'entendre et de réentendre la même histoire ! La répétition pour nous, n'est pas un défaut.
Chronologie
"La chronologie n'étant pas le premier souci des narrateurs africains, qu'ils soient traditionnels ou familiaux, je n'ai pas toujours pu dater exactement, à un ou deux ans près, les événements racontés, sauf lorsque des événements extérieurs connus me permettaient de les situer. Dans les récits africains où le passé est revécu comme une expérience présente, hors du temps en quelque sorte, il y a parfois un certain chaos qui gêne les esprits occidentaux, mais où nous nous retrouvons parfaitement. Nous y évoluons à l'aise, comme des poissons dans une mer où les molécules d'eau se mêlent pour former un tout vivant."
- From Amadou Hampâté Bâ in his book Amkoullel, l’enfant peul (1991).
04.05.2026
Dad a
- From Nayla, 7 ans et 10 mois. 6 plombages.
01.05.2026
The land belongs to a large family of which many are dead, few are alive and innumerable are those still to be born
- From a Nigerian tribal chief as reported in the book Tropical Africa (1960) by George Kimble.
30.04.2026
Growin’ up I was into the Karate flix, then I saw the Japanese flix and it wasn’t all the peasantry of the Karate flix. It was just like one sword hit and the fight is over, and as a kid, I was like that ain’t excitin’. But growin’ up, this became dope to me. So I just started divin’ in what the Samurai was - their codes, their honour - [...] and I think them taking their lives for honour was something that felt like I was doin’ for my art.
- From KA speaking in an interview with Jeff Mao on patience and independence at the 2016 Red Bull Music Academy.
29.04.2026
Les mots berbères qui désignent les différentes parties de la maison sont souvent liés au corps humain : la porte, “imi, bouche”, renvoie en berbère à l'entrée principale de la demeure (”imi n'taddart, imi tiguemmi, imi tiydrin”). Les portes intérieures, elles, ne sont jamais appelées bouches, mais “tiflout” (la branche de l'arbre par métonymie puisqu'elle est faite en bois). “Imi n'ighrem” dans les villages étalés du Sud-Est ne désigne pas nécessairement la porte principale. Cette expression peut en effet renvoyer au lieu plus vaste d'accueil qui jouxte l'entrée principale et qui est en l'occurrence un réceptacle de la société lors d'une fête ou de tout rassemblement.
La lumière pénètre dans la maison par ce qui s'appelle en français une ouverture du toit ou un lanterneau. Centrale, cette ouverture “tit, l’œil”, permet à la demeure de recevoir de la lumière comme notre œil qui, dès qu'il s'ouvre, nous fait quitter les ténèbres, l'œil de la maison ouvre vers le ciel.
Toute maison possède un “visage : udem”, ou “devant” de la maison (”udem, dat taddart”). Il renvoie à la façade principale, propre et belle, soignée, qui fait face à l'autre et qui comme un visage s'ouvre sur l'autre. L'arrière, “tart taddart”, est péjoratif; pudiquement il renvoie aux latrines ou au bétail.
La terrasse - et son parapet “start” - est également le lieu de la perte des repères, du vide, l'expression “ 'endek tar'ir!” (« Attention au vide! »; tar est un privatif (sans) et “ir” qui signifie “frontières, limites”) renvoie à une frontière entre le monde réel (palpable) et le monde irréel.
- From Salima Naji’s “Art et architectures berbères du Maroc: atlas et vallées présahariennes” (2001)
28.04.2026
Comme lune étirée sur l’eau
ne suis plus qu’une herbe
flottante à la racine coupée
de la nuit où le courant
me pousse je connais la lenteur*
- From Jacques Brault’s “Poèmes choisis : 1965 - 1990”.
*À noter la curieuse présence d’un double-espace sur le dernier vers, séparant “me pousse” de “je connais la lenteur”.
26.04.2026
J’ai écrit ce livre en collaboration avec les tribus du Haut-Atlas occidental, et surtout les Seksawa. Rien de plus farouche, de mieux préservé que ces fils du schiste noir. La pente vertigineuse qui monte à l’un de leurs hauts lieux, le Tichka, porte un arbre isolé qu’ils appellent ‘tasghart wawal’, quelque chose comme “l’arbre de la parole”. Ils administrent ses feuilles en infusion aux enfants lents à parler. J’ai mis bien du temps moi-même à délier la langue des Seksawa.
- From Jacque Berque’s book “ Structures sociales du Haut-Atlas ” (1955).
24.04.2026
“If you make a motor turn in reverse, you do not break it: you build a refrigerator.”
- From Michel Serres’ book ‘The Parasites’ (1980)
23.04.2026
I'm calm with the heat in the kitchen
I was a young boy, mum told me what my name really means
And the power just kicked in
I found my way home
Then I saw my granddad's name on a gravestone
The same as mine, already dead
Nothin' to fear, I been here from time
Chief SK sippin' on palm wine
- From Joseph Jr. Adenuga’s (Skepta) song “Bullet from a Gun”. In April 2018, he was given the title ‘Chief Amuludun of Odo-Aje’ (‘Chief entertainer’) in his parents' hometown in Ogun State, Nigeria.
22.04.2026
As J.-P. Bourdier notes with regard to the Kassena people, for example: “The image of the home as a womb is reflected in the fetal shapes of the dia-diyu (bedroom-kitchen) pairing expressing the woman’s unity.” Parturient figures and embryonic shapes (often in a figure eight) are secretly introduced into the traditional ground plan. The position of the mother here, as in all traditional societies, is transcendent. The bedroom-kitchen unit, where birth rites and labor take place, is canonical in Western Africa.
- From Senamé Koffi’s contribution “ Conceptual Tangles in Ancestral Architecture, “ in Conscience u.terre.ine (2022).
- From Senamé Koffi’s contribution “ Conceptual Tangles in Ancestral Architecture, “ in Conscience u.terre.ine (2022).