If you needed a reason to watch the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, we have one for you. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games has just announced that Underworld will be Music Directors for the event.

Underworld duo Rick Smith and Karl Hyde will work alongside Oscar winning British filmmaker and producer Danny Boyle, Artistic Director of the Opening Ceremony, and will be responsible for all the music in the three-hour ceremony taking place on 27 July next summer.

Karl Hyde said, “We want to leave people with a musical memory of the show rather than a purely visual one. It’s a great honour to be asked to do this and one we’re taking very seriously – it’s certainly not something we’ll get the chance to do again.”

Dres from Blacksheep and Jarobi from A Tribe Called Quest have teamed up to form EVITAN, which you probably already figured out is Native backwards, as in Native Tongues. Anyway the duo have just released a track in support of the Occupy movement, and it’s called “P.T.I. (Occupy Wall Street).”

Public Enemy wrote the song “By the Time I Get to Arizona” in 1992 as a protest against the state’s unwillingness to observe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The song seems relevant all over again now that Arizona legislators have passed a law legalizing racial profiling. The law requires immigrants to carry immigration papers with them, and compels police to detain anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. If an Arizona police officer thinks you look like an illegal immigrant, that officer can require you to present documentation of your status, and detain you if you cannot produce the papers.

More information:
Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration
Civil Rights Groups Ask: Is Arizona’s SB1070 Even Legal?
Racist roots of Arizona law
Arizona Law Is Not “Merely Cruel,” It Is “Immoral”

SoulStice says of the song, “‘Strange Kinda Love’ is a song about universal love and tolerance. Since it was originally released, it’s won 4 songwriting contests, including the Billboard World Song Contest. In it, I reflect on my experience as part of an interracial couple and recall that it wasn’t long ago that my wife and I couldn’t have gotten married in the US. Today’s ‘free love’ struggle centers around the LGBT community and same-sex marriage. I’m happy to report that since I wrote this song, 5 states and the District of Columbia now issue same-sex marriage licenses and 5 more provide equivalent spousal rights. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

The origin of the Ghetto Brothers is pretty fascinating. From Truth & Soul Records:

The Ghetto Brothers were a gang founded in New York City’s South Bronx in the late 1960s. They eventually spread to much of the Northeastern United States. Like the Young Lords, they were involved in Puerto Rican nationalism, including, in the case of the Ghetto Brothers, an association with the then-new Puerto Rican Socialist Party. Ghetto Brothers founder Benjamin Melendez, who left the organization in 1976, was also known as a guitarist. He led a band, also known as the Ghetto Brothers, which included his late brother Victor Melendez on drums. They released one album in 1972, which had only informal, local distribution. In the past ten years, “Power Fuerza”, which has become shrouded with mystery, has fetched quadruple digits on ebay and become one of the most sought after New York records of all time.

Truth & Soul is re-mastering and releasing music by the Ghetto Brothers. Check out the track “Ghetto Brothers Power” below. Or get it on vinyl right here.

Learn more about the Ghetto Brothers here.

Ghetto Brothers – “Ghetto Brothers Power”

It pains me that we have come to a point in this country where we use the ballot box to address the civil rights of our people. If President Johnson had to take a vote, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not have passed. If Congress took a vote in 1920, women may still not have the right to vote today. And if President Lincoln went to the polls, blacks would definitely have endured many more years of slavery.

More at Global Grind…

The most interesting part:

When the music was loud and unavoidable, we had to listen to each other. Maybe we miss boomboxes because when we’re wearing headphones, we can’t talk to anyone else. Which makes it hard to help each other out, and makes it hard to party.

Can you remember a time before iPods when we had to listen to each other’s music?

Here are some more ways the iPod is hurting music.

In fact, the WFP will be forced to cut rations in half in March so that the existing food supplies can be stretched to reach the additional numbers of hungry people.

Zimbabwe faces a 94 percent unemployment rate, and many people have sold everything they own just to get by. A small donation can go a long way though. You could feed a child for a whole day with just 25 cents. Make a donation here.

Related:
Tithing for Hunger