UnMastering Your Expat Life: How to Quit While You're Ahead

Aldous Huxley once said, "To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries". But what does he know? He was just another overrated dead white guy paranoid about "the future" and it's trillion and one imagined ways of alienating us from ourselves. Why waste time and money actually going places and feeling things out, when a quick google search can tell you anything you need to know about anything? So you want to move abroad. Or at least, travel more. Forget all that bullshit about jumping. Forget about learning by doing. Forget about educating yourself on great travel deals, saving up and planning a series of small trips to places you might be interested in so that you can see, hear and feel for yourself. You can cross so many places off your list, keep yourself from countless amazing adventures, keep the world from surprising and amazing you, by following these 5 basic rules for failing at expat life.

1. Believe everything you hear. The traveler's tale, in which a story of being stung by a jellyfish in Rockaway turns into a mad swimming dash to elude the jaws of a real life Jaws, is a myth. Not only should you buy everything you hear wholesale, you should apply it directly to your experience (or lack thereof). I was reading the comments section of a popular interracial dating site the other day, when one woman decided to play "expert on Europe". "The Spanish and the Portuguese have the same mentality. Their languages are similar so they understand each other and you know, neither place is good for black women," she said, spoken like someone who speaks neither language nor has any real connection to either culture. Now that's a reliable source.

2. Believe everything you read. Look, people don't lie or exaggerate or extrapolate but especially not in print. Whatever you read, in a book, in a magazine, on a blog, MUST be true. It's not like Jayson Blair ever happened.

3. Race first. Those horror stories, and every other horror story you've ever heard about racism abroad? They are all 100% true! You'd be a fool not to heed the warnings. Better safe than sorry. Racism is serious business. A well place 'nigger' or anything that even sounds close will break you. Why risk it?

Get down With OPP. Other people's perceptions.

4. Think in absolutes. Thinking about the people you'll meet on any terms other than the most obvious and superficial is a waste of your precious time. The city you choose to live in, (or town or village or commune), the community into which you integrate, or the crew you rock with is certainly not going to influence the type of Swede, South African, Japanese, Brazilian, you encounter. Fuck--Swedes are Swedes! Absolutes are like anchors keeping you earthbound, keeping you from flying. I mean, really, who flies? 

5. Live vicariously. I just need to reiterate how pointless it is to actually go places and do stuff, when you can just listen to people jabber about it. As you see about the world filtered through someone else's lense, whether they're wearing rose colored glasses or...whatever the opposite of those would be, you've got to decide whether you'll let it guide or replace your own vision for yourself and your life. "I've ex-ed France off the list because I heard French men don't date women who are over a size 0" is the latter. Enough of this kind of thinking eventually exes you out of the game, which is always the desired goal, right? 

The good news is, you are right. Whatever you think, you're right. Your race, your gender, your social class (whatever the fuck that means these days), the size of your ass, the mole on your left cheek--they are all liabilities. They are all, big or small, there to X you out of the game. You in fact can't make it in the wider world. Best to know your limitations. Socrates ain't say "Know thy place". He said "Know thyself".

World Music Wednesday: Why Mala Trumps Minaj

Hip hop is not a democracy. I'll be damned if misogyny hasn't morphed some of the world's greatest lyrical thoroughbreds into whiny little kittens scratching and meowing at the genre's back door. Apparently the CNN of the streets only hires anchors with penises. The bad news is it's not just a gender thing with hip hop. As an international artist you haven't a chance in hell of hitting the big time if you ain't rapping in English. You're confined to your linguistic market, which, be it Spanish or Mandarin, keeps you at a distance from the real taste makers of the game, if not the real money and the almost tangible global cache. Outside of the odd Sean Paul, Pitbull, or Tego Calderon collabo with one of hip hop's finest, there's very little cross cultural pollination between American hip hop and the music generated in local hip hop markets. France's MC Solaar was one of the few non-English speaking rappers to achieve even a modicum of mainstream recognition. For the most part, if it ain't male, English-speaking and American, it does not exist.

Case in point: Sunday before last at the Method Man-Redman show here in Barcelona. Fresh off a win for Best Urban Song at the Latin Grammy's for "No Pidas Perdón" Cadiz-born, Barcelona-based rapper, La Mala Rodriguez was posted backstage left, rocking "Chinese bangs" (in the words of Nicki Minaj) and the shortest blue and yellow striped dress I've ever seen in my life. She was dancing with an attachment, inhibition, and zest you only really see in nonblack hip hop fans. So when one of the promoters pointed her out to me, I said something like, "Ah. Cool.", and turned my attention back to Red and Meth. Ice cold and fresh to death, I didn't even bother getting a photo, much less an interview.

Turns out, La Mala is, for all intents and purposes, Nicki Minaj's Spanish equivalent: she holds the weight of women in [Spanish] hip hop on her shoulders. On a whim this weekend, I downloaded her most recent album, Dirty Bailarina and immediately regretted not approaching her last week. Dirty Bailarina is stellar!! So stellar that Nicki Minaj is hereby relinquished of her sole savior duties forthwith. Minaj's debut album, Pink Friday, drops this week, but you should all consider buying Dirty Bailarina, too. Why? First, there's the fact that in La Mala, we have the chance to promote a dope woman MC while simultaneously undermining the strangehold the English language has on the genre. Two birds, one stone. But also, there's the fact that I believe La Mala is genuinely a better artist than Nicki Minaj. (Yeah. I said it.) Here's how they match up:

On Aesthetics:

Minaj's ass is legendary. No question. La Mala's is not. But ass does not an MC make. Furthermore, while Minaj's sense of style revolves around Harajuku and Barbie (she stays with 2 sticks in her bun), la Mala tends to be a bit more of a fashion peripatetic. She indulges in a little Chinese straw hat action in the video for Bajo Otra Luz with Nelly Furtado, but she also plays Swedish milk maid in 2007's anti-domestic violence anthem, Nanai (the chorus? Mírame los ojos si me quieres matar/ Look me in the eye if you want to kill me... WOW), then time travels to futuristic frau in Toca Toca, only to land in an in unidentified beyond as a Tim Burton-inspired doyenne in 2010's Un Corazón off Dirty Bailarina.

On Vocals: 

Though Mala's voice doesn't have the emotional heft of an L-Boogie (claro), she riffs some jazzy, unconventional paths up and down the scale, especially on joints like Por Eso Mato and Un Corazón. Most importantly, she does not use autotune. Don't need to say any more.

La Mala, too, rocks famous collabos:

Minaj has got three fewer albums than Mala, but she's already been anointed by the likes of Lil Wayne and Will.I.Am (who seems to be on a quest to pump the most pointlessly catchy music into the atmosphere as BillBoard will allow). Mala, however, is no wallflower. She's been featured on a remix of Akon's Locked Up, multiple tracks with Calle 13, Puerto Rican godfather of rap and reggaeton, Tego Calderon, and most recently Massive Attack, for una combinación mágica. Bajo Otra Luz with Nelly Furtado is also light, poppy, and so different to most of her other work in terms of content that it's not only a cute song, but a testament to the Mala's range.

Social Responsibility:

In Minaj's world (like much of American hip hop), dope girls are cool. On her remake of Lil Kim's Jump Off: "Where my girls that'll transport bricks? You could get it". In just one line she cosigns drug dealing and co-opts bisexuality in order to male-identify.

La Mala's La Niña is the tragic story of a woman who grows up to deal, just like her daddy. She makes buckets of money and wears clothes she once only dreamed of, but her life's a nightmare. The video was banned in Spain for it's depiction of a little girl selling drugs. Drug dealing? Mal.

The biggest difference is that Nicki rides solely for the Game, while La Mala Rides for us all. To her credit, Nicki is conscious of the fact that she is the projected savior of women in hip hop. On Still I Rise, Minaj addresses her female haters, "If Nicki wins, all y'all bitches getting meetings". That is, the future of women in hip hop rides on her success. But thus far, she hasn't gotten much deeper than that. (Yes, I heard her autobiographical song about her mom's murder. Yes, it was kinda good). Nicki's commitment to the game is admirable and unshakeable, and the best of it comes to us via her early mixtapes, in clever remakes of BIG's 'Warning' and the aforementioned 'Jump Off'. Nicki understands her place in the game. But in the world beyond it????


Mala's bird's eye view is as evident in the song and video for which she won a Latin Grammy just weeks ago, as ever. Check out'No Pidas Perdón'.





La Mala comes to an increasingly international stage, inasmuch as shipping yards represent borders. She's some corsetted, Tarantino/Robert Roqriguez badass glamazon, wielding big guns (but not actually shooting them) and dousing fools with gasoline (but not actually lighting them on fire). The lyrics have much more bite. Check the chorus-


Mi madre va a llorar, tu madre va a llorar
No pidas perdón si no lo vas a lamentar
Es, asi la ciudad todo cambia
Cógelo con calma
El amor no desaparece, oye


My mother's going to cry, your mother gonna cry
Don't ask forgiveness unless you regret what you've done
It be's like that. The city changes everything
Take it in stride. Love doesn't disappear. Listen.


Is it me, or is that 'oye'(listen) drawn out suspiciously to sound like 'Oh yeah'? Making it a catchy point of entry for non Spanish speakers? It's like, 'listen anyway.' Listen despite what you see, even when what you see is a shameless flaunting of capitalist markers: the unprotected shipping yard; containers marked 'Gold', 'Capital' and Hyundai. Though things have changed (definitely in terms of her current image) and we may be such a disappointment that our mothers would cry to see us, it's the natural order of things to be worse before they're better. It's what modern life ('the city') has done. It changes people, changes priorities. But love is indestructible. For my money, in a year when La Mala crosses the Atlantic to accept a major award, Mala's 'city' is the globe. And her words are for every one in it. Indeed, "humanidad"--


Estoy tejiendo una tela
Humanidad en vela la cosa encandela
Y ahora te pones en pie


I'm weaving a tapestry
Humankind watching, moved*
Stand up


'Humanidad en vela' could mean so many things. 'Vela' as in candle? Humanity lit like a candle? 'En vela' as in vigilant, watching? Everyone's watching? If her Grammy's any indication, that lyric is not just impressively dense, but prescient. The world, or at least a wider audience than has been available to her thus far, is watching. We should all be watching. And listening, regardless of native tongue. As Mala says in Ama, Liberate del 4 por 4, or come out the box, free yourself of linear thinking... or does 4-by-4 refer to your gas guzzler? The woman is mean, I tell you.

*encandelar is 'to irritate' but I'm gonna interpret it to mean 'to move' or 'to itch'; to inspire to action, like standing up.

The Most Unofficial Guide to the Upcoming Catalonia Elections Humanly Possible

It's election time, Cataluña!!! You got the Partits dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC) on the left. The Partido Popular (PP) on the right. And the nationalist parties, Convergencia i Unio (CIU) and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) somewhere in the clusterfuck. Catalan politics sits (and spins) on dual axis--liberal/conservative and separatists/one-Spanish-nation-under-a-flamenco-guitar's-groove-ists. When you first move to Cataluña you think of the separatist thing as a tad indulgent. Like, 'Gimme a break. This is Spain.' But then you live here a while and Catalonia's distinctiveness chips away at your skepticism. You start saying 'Adéu' instead of 'Adiós'. The customs of other parts of Spain seem weird to you (In Sevilla I found myself saying, Why they playin' dominoes in the middle of the day? and Oh yeah! Flamenco!!)... and you start to... get it. Even if you don't support it, you get it. The separatist element complicates the political scene. Perhaps it's for this reason that the Generalitat's posted cute lil kindergarten easels all over the city as designated spaces for campaign propaganda. 

Thaaaat's it. Keep it simple, stupid.

So, it works here like it does in the UK, the people vote for members of Parliament, the Parliament then chooses the President from their ranks. For an American, this is whaaaa? Like, we can barely abide the electoral college. Imagine a President from a party other than the party that won the majority of the popular vote? (Hi Bush!) Happens all the time. Current President José Montilla (who everyone makes sure to tell you is not really Catalan, but Córdoban) is a member of PSC. I always wondered why they'd vote in a non-Catalan Catalan Prez. I understand now. They didn't. Though CIU (ERC?) won the majority of the popular vote, it was not enough to mount their own President without the help of PSC and ERC (CIU?). Will of the people be damned. Deals were made. PSC took the presidency. Some people are so fed up, they're just not gonna vote. I have to say I'd prefer this to Catalans being fed up and voting for the opposition. Let's take a look at the opposition, shall we? Behold Alicia Sanchez Camacho.

Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?

 Young. Sexy. Puts the 'P' in PP. Doesn't mind kissing strange Senegalese men for the cameras. No, for real. In a shrewd 'this is not coming from a racist place' move, she kissed his cheeks after answering his question about unemployment by telling him he should have never fucking left where he fucking came from. It's her image and likeness that appears in a campaign commissioned video game as Lara Croft, bombing migrants "whilst riding a seagull named Pepe". Angelina Jolie is pouting right now. More than usual. People seem to not be feeling Montilla too heavy, which... okay... I see the appeal of ERC or CIU. As does former PSC Prez Pascual Maragall, who took a moment out from battling Alzheimer's to throw some lucid support CIU's way. (Or was it lucid? A debate rages as to whether he's being taken advantage of by scoop gluttons and power whores.) Not that anyone gives a goddamn about my ignorant immigrant opinion, but for me to really get on board, the separatists are going to have to beat the PSC youth branch's campaign T&A...I mean, PSA that links the pleasure of having voted with pleasure. Si señor. It's getting hot in here.

A[nother] Night With Red & Meth

Meth & Red 3 from ieishah clelland on Vimeo.


Wu-Tang Clan member, Streetlife, nailed it. "We've been here before, haven't we?". Um, well, yes, as a matter of fact, just months ago, he and Method Man performed in Barcelona. And he then, as last night, he was trying to... get to know me. I was flattered that he remembered. Impressed that he could joke about it. But unlike last year, Redman came with and the duo packed (and summarily ROCKED) Barcelona's Sala Razzmatazz.

Also unlike last year, I actually got to talk to Method Man. Quite by accident, actually, our first conversation began as Meth looked at DJ Allah Mathematics and said, "Nigga you got pink eye!". Math of course tried to deny this, in the hopes of not becoming the tour bus outbreak guy. Meth overruled him: "Nope. I seen it too many times with my daughter. You got pink eye. Did you put your head on the pillow? See? Never put your head on a pillow at a hotel. Niggas be farting on the pillow and it be fecal matter and shit on it..." I normally keep my mouth shut in dressing rooms with rappers who have nuff groupies, lest they mistake me for one. Unless I have my journalist hat on. I didn't. I looked up from my Blackberry anyway.

Me: Dude, what the fuck? Thank you. Thank you for fucking ruining hotels for me forever.
Meth: [Chuckles. Rolls blunt.] I never sleep on no hotel pillow. You know what I do, I wear my hoodie up over my face to sleep...
Me: Okay, but...fecal matter? Really?
Meth: Yuuuup. Niggas be fartin' on the pillows. [He looks up at me from rolling his blunt.] You heard about that bed bug shit in NY??
Me: I was in NY all summer ain't see one fucking movie, fucking with them bed bugs...
Meth: Word! That shit is nasty...

I never could clearly chalk that line out between writer-about-the-arts and friend-to-artists. Later, after about 10 groupies had found their way backstage, and one particularly lusty young lady in a bad weave and next to no clothing drew a side eye from Meth, he decided to further piss all over that line by taking bets as to which women in the room were wearing underwear. According to Meth, out of about 15 women, I was the only one. I took it as a compliment of the highest order. "You DEFINITELY got on drawers," he told me. The lusty lady, he surmised, "DEFINITELY don't".



On the other hand, it's really some shit when Redman calls you crazy. Like, literally dude looked at me and said, "Yo, you crazy!". Really? Of the two of us, I'm crazy? And after I spent most of the after party acting as translator between him and a particularly determined groupie who'd driven all the way from Valencia (4 hours) to meet him. Said groupie is purportedly "known" to the crew, but as the man known alternately as "Doc" and "Reg" wasn't in Spain with them last time, she had some unfinished business.

Redman to me: "Tell her I don't have a phone and to write her number down."
Me to groupie: "Es que el no vive aqui y no tiene teléfono. Ponte el tuyo. El te llamara."
Groupie to me: "Bueno, pero, no hablo ingles...como vamos a hablar?"
Me: Errrr....
Me to Redman: "So here's her number but she speaks no English, homie. Like, none. You're gonna need a translator."
Redman: [Eyebrows lift]
Me to Redman: "Okay, I wasn't offering..."

I mean, can I put "Global Rapper-Groupie Relations Coordinator/Translator" on my resumé? How you a rap fan and don't know any English?

As per usual, I was onstage, so all video is taken from the back. More video on tumblr.

BCNoche [A Spanglish Photo Post]

Inauguración del taller Sislay. Arte obsession totál.

La chica con el bigote.

Krystal y las cerámicas.

Pissing vino. ¿Cómo lo hace?

Todo neoyorquino.

Todo.

Tranqui, tio. No te robaremos.

Stroke. Blow.

He threatened to punch me. If you can consider a threat, "Do you want to get punched?" And he was just some guy at a dinner party. Some guy, and not a boyfriend or friend. The absence of familiarity made it all the more galling. Perverse, but it's how I felt.

What to do if a man threatens to punch you at a dinner party? A dinner party with great wine and grilled steaks, on a rooftop on par with one your favorite skylines in the world. With his wife there. Amidst a table full of civilized people. None of them challenging him. None of them saying, "You should go." No one saying this with dignity, righteousness, and a sweep of the arm. In fact, no one even hears it. No one hears it except you and the wife. Even though she's sitting across the table in a (presumably) nonviolent conversation, she's heard. She knows what he's up to. It's what he's always up to.

I laughed. I laughed and said, "I wish you would try". Which wasn't at all true, but what do you say to someone who says, "Do you want to get punched?" because you challenged their recognition of a Zadie Smith novel? Since fucking when does a simple "Are you sure that was in On Beauty?", a featherweight challenge that no one else has even heard, result in a male ego bruised enough to incur physical punishment? Just how fucking often does he threaten random women?

Libby's flat, visited so many times since, never reminds me of him. Definitely not Sunday night, where an hour's worth of classical guitar began with the music of Domenico Scarlatti, born the same day as both Handel and Bach. We tracked the evolution of classical music in Spain through Joaquin Rodrigo and the inclusion, reflection, and imitation of the "sounds of flamenco", "the sounds of the street" at the beginning of the 20th century. I heard a "pure" Fandango for the very first time; a piece I'd previously only known as a dancer. Then there was Mallorca, a plaintive, hauntingly romantic serenade, which the famous Catalan pianist, Enrique Granados (after whom one of Barcelona's most perfect-for-people-watching streets is named), played at the deathbed of composer, Isaac Albéniz. It was more conversation over music than concert. A conversation I'd have enjoyed more, had I not been watching his fingers pluck the chords and imagining them curled into a fist. Contrast and cliché.

I didn't know until after the introductions and applause; until after he sat down on a stool and propped the guitar on his knee, that this man was that man. The man who, just last year, threatened to punch me.

Lost in Translation 24

The immigrant and integration conversation is all the rage in Europe. Ragin enough that there's some loon sniping off Muslims in Sweden. He's at 16 thus far. Ragin enough that somehow Sarkozy's getting away with offering Roma families about 300 euros and a plane ticket to go back to "their country". Ragin enough that Germany's offering integration classes, and a man called Seehofer screaming about the failure of multiculturalism on every TV station, Bill O'Reilly style. Ragin' enough that I talk about it in almost every single class these days. It doesn't always go so well.

Me: Where are you from in France? Are you Parisian?

CuteBlondeFrenchStudent: No, I'm from Marseille.

Me: No way! I've never been and anything I know about Marseille I learned from French rap songs. 

BlondeCatalanGuyStudent: There are a lot of immigrants there?

CuteBlondeFrenchStudent: Marseille is the port, the first stop in France from Africa, so there are a lot of people from Maghreb--Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco--in Paris there are more people from Africa Africa...

Me: Right, you mean from sub-Saharan Africa.

CuteBlondeFrenchStudent: Yes. Perhaps there are more people from Algeria than the rest of Maghreb in Marseille. Not like in Spain where most immigrants from just Morocco.

BlondeCatalanGuyStudent: (Laughs) What's the difference?

CuteBlondeFrenchStudent: No... Among the people from Maghreb there is a lot of difference and they don't really like eacho--

BlondeCatalanGuyStudent: Maybe but they are all the same.

CuteBlondeFrenchStudent: No...

[He cannot tell that both she and I are losing patience. He presses on.]

BlondeCatalanGuyStudent: You can tell the difference between them?

CuteBlondeFrenchStudent: Yes.

BlondeCatalanGuyStudent: How?? Maybe they can tell the difference between each other. Like, an Algerian knows another Algerian and can distinguish from a Moroccan. But for us? They are all the same. How can you tell the difference?

CuteBlondeFrenchStudent: My father is from Morocco.