Sitting in Wagas, soaked in warm rain. The RMB I dropped for this smoothie and sandwich could feed an entire rural school in Yunnan. Girl next to me yelling on hands-free about sun damage to her cabinet. Bitch why’d you put ur cabinet in the sun? I’m viciously hungover on migrant-worker Baijiu and can’t find the remote to my air conditioner. This is hell and I’m part of it. Hi.

Hell is constantly searching for an air conditioner remote that never turns up. Hell is submitting an endless stack of party flyers to event websites. Hell is wrapped In bacon and infused with some French shit you can’t pronounce. Welcome to hell, friends.

In hell, there is only one song each week. It’s often sung off-key by Thai children and played at high volumes. The next week is an awful, 96kbs drum and bass remix of this song.

You can find all your favorite foods in hell, but they all taste like Chinese medicine. And every ten minutes, a small Japanese man runs over your foot with his bicycle and says “sorry, so sorry…sorry” then rides away.

What’s going on in hell this special, dragon-tastic weekend? R u ready 4 some Chinese culture? Don’t be a cunt and jump in the river! No joke I’ve heard of people getting severe lung infections or even dying from swimming in Chinar.

Friday –

1) Hip Hop Hijack at Geisha – Urban music. Let’s clarify this term urban music. It’s confusing to non-native speakers, because “urban” sounds like skyscrapers and Chongqing, but actually urban in this context means “black people.” Chinese people call rap/funk/soul, i.e. music invented/perfected by black people and later stolen/bastardized by whites, “black music.” Much more straightforward. My Shanghai friend used to have a radio show called “black music.” In America someone would probably call you racist for that but people who can’t talk about race openly and comfortably are likely closet racists.

These cats play 2 Chainz, Tyga, Gucci Mane, Chief Keef, so if you prefer that to say…coke house, get down to Geisha tonight. I’ll be there.

2) Mural Bar – This is a straight up RMB100 open-bar fall on the ground holler at young gyal thang. It’s also one of the only “middle ground” bars in Shanghai, meaning mixed crowd and open music policy. Not too commercial and not too underground. James Brown, yes. Bieber, no. Major Lazer, yes. Jam City, no.

3) Le Discotecats at Lune – Gotta support these gyals doin they thang with that euro disco and house, even if one of them is French. You go girls!

Saturday – Come to our vinyl night at Logo or you’ll end up in hell, where all rappers are non-native speakers.

Sunday – I’m going to some Indian sitar-master concert at a hotel, with a full-on North Indian buffet. That’s some VIP shit playa. But after that, get down to Dada for a six-hour set by yrs truly.

Monday –

1) Lose Your Face at Logo – a newish crew playing New York/New Jersey style house like Kerry Chandler. Soulful stuff, not coke house. Nice people, go check it out if you like house.

2) Knock The Boots at Lune – Luce and myself playing jams all night. Good tings.

Tuesday – You go back to work, and I drop that new Love Bang in Beijing video.

Here’s some new music:

Joker is back. After an LP I really wasn’t feeling, he KILLS it on this new EP for his Kapsize label. Can anyone spot the vocal sample on this?

Joker – Handz Up

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I’m not generally of UK Dubstep producers crossing over in to house, but Dark Sky do it really proper, with luscious synths abound. Out on the Mister Saturday Nite label (vinyl rip).

Dark Sky – 5AM

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And…The Dream, one of my favorite R&B producers ever, who just dropped his new album IV Play. While it’s not an absolute classic like LOVE HATE, there’s gold in here for sure. If you don’t like The Dream you probably don’t like sex either.

The Dream – IV Play

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