john mayer and futura at oslo coffee?
sis sends word that oslo coffee is featured in the new john mayer waiting on the world to change video: "the graffiti artist in the video is a friend/customer and he came by OSLO when they were filming- so we got about 2 seconds of fame. If you look closely, you'll see JD for about 1 second." along with mr. mayer, futura, tats cru, and daze, my bro-in-law j.d. pops up at about 1:26.
their williamsburg, brooklyn neighborhood is visually engaging, as is the shop -- the interior was featured in another short film a few years ago. young esperanza washed dishes at the oslo counter this summer, so maybe this counts as a brush with fame (i'll have to ask whether john mayer remains cool among middle-schoolers).
mr. mayer's cd drops september 12, but the single has received much airplay already. as for the song, i love the groove but the lyrics seem ... ambiguous. is he preaching passivity here? or critiquing his generation for being too passive?
it's not that we don't care
we just know that the fight ain't fair
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change
a second question concerns whether the song is an homage to curtis mayfield's oft-covered people get ready (see, e.g., alicia keys, stewart/beck, ziggy marley, the wailers, bono/boss, and eva cassidy) or an appropriation of said anthem. i'm giving mr. mayer the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he's urging his generation to change the world (rather than to wait for it to change) with an homage to mr. mayfield's unifying civil rights anthem.
either way, i hope the pub is good for the coffee business. sis and jd just opened oslo II a few blocks from their roebling street shop, so now they've got some real competition in the neighborhood. i'm baffled by the economics of coffee shops -- and airline ticket pricing, department stores, and higher education -- but 87,377 have at least seen oslo on youtube.
posted by christopher uggen @ 1:27 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I especially like the disclaimer at the end of the video about how all the art was done on private property by professionals. Great message for all the taggers out there watching John Mayer videos. Kind of a "no animals were harmed/don't try this at home" thing...
y'know i love the taggers. but i wouldn't try it at home, either.
The disclaimer at the end of the video was the worst part. It goes agianst everything graffiti is about and I guess Nas is right when he said hip hops dead. Graffiti was a means of self expression against the domination of corporate marketing on our lives. A can of paint and a marker to take back ya hood, not a big marketing budget. Chew on that for a minute when now you have MTV teeny boppers seeing for the first time one of the founding fathers of Graff Futura when after decades of doing his own work is associated with the likes of teen pop musician john mayer.
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