First up is Saul Williams take on U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday. Great cover, interesting video, which features a little part played by Leo Fitzpatrick, still best known for playing Telly in the completely f’d up but powerful film, Kids. If you haven’t seen that movie, you should. Just give yourself time to recover after.

Next up is Buraka Som Sistema’s Sound of Kuduro, featuring M.I.A. among others. My sister got me exposed to M.I.A.’s frantic sound, and Buraka’s track fits her style. The song title and video got me googling a bit, and I now understand the title. Kuduro is a style of music from Angola that then found its way into Portugal. Angola used to be a Portuguese colony, which explains the migration and the fact that a Portuguese artist is behind this track.

Speaking of the Angolan Colonial period, one of the very best books I’ve ever read was about the Angolan Civil War as the last throes of colonialism came crashing down in the 60’s and 70’s. The book is Another Day of Life by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. It is an amazing book, translated from the original Polish. Absolutely amazing, and a quick read, too. Pulling together the links for this post, I found out that he died last year. He has written some amazing books, and his death is a loss. I need to get some of his other books. I feel like I have Imperium on a shelf downstairs, so maybe that will be the next plane ride/take a break read.

Anyway, back to work with me. Consider this your random music/books/history post of the week.