My latest mixtape (with some DJ mix undertones)--this is quite obviously based on my previous mixtape, My Simple Metallic Heart, but, as the saying goes, nuevo y mejorado.
I've added quite a number of songs, mixed up and down and together, and added in a few sound effects along the way. There's one I may go back to add, but not right now. I've listened, tweaked, toyed, and battled enough already with this mix.
Sometimes I can hear two songs together and everything works out fine. Other times, I hear them together, but they are a complete mismatch in terms of tone, rhythm, and especially beats per minute. You just can't slap together a song that clocks in at 108 BPM with another that winds it up to 160. But you can cut, copy, paste, add sound effects, or leave out transitions altogether to tonally shift gears along the way.
Ultimately, though, I had fun making this mixtape, and I hope you enjoy it, too. It's not perfect, lacking in some ways--a couple of the songs go on way longer than they probably should, for example.
Lyrically, musically, and thematically not everything lines up in order. I didn't even try to, in fact. I want this mixtape to sound fun, to be upbeat. And yet, I want there to be a slight edge, a subtext: Dance away, all, but remember that there are people in the world who cannot because they are busy languishing in refugee camps or avoiding getting bombed or shot in their sleep.
Admittedly, the subtext is hardly "sub." What gave me away? The air raid siren? The gunfire from an AK-47? But at times like this, subtlety can only get you so far.
For once, I won't play it safe--my heart goes out to the people of Gaza. No, I don't think Hamas is "misunderstood" or a force to be reasoned with; they want Israel off the map in the worst way possible. But the Israeli Defence Force's outsized attack on Gaza civilians and Hamas' continued disregard for ceasefires that put its people in the line of deadly fire . . . how can you stand by and not be upset and worried? For the people of Palestine, for the people of Israel, for the world itself.
And I hate that I have to defend my concern for the people of Gaza by declaiming Hamas. It's important to be clear--We should not (and I do not) support or condone terrorism. But we shouldn't support it whether it's being conducted by our allies or our enemies, bands of revolutionaries or government military forces.
Simply stated, if you have the technology, as TV reports show, to pinpoint the bombing of tunnels and specific houses and buildings, then you can avoid the scattershot approach of targeting schools, homes, and hospitals and killing random human beings. Doing the latter, in an official capacity accompanied by uniforms, training, funding, legislation, and spokespersons, is state-sponsored terrorism, pure and simple.
I should be thinking about pools, vacations, time with the significant other, barbecues, gardening, and ways to get out of work early whenever possible. Instead, I come home every night and see our inhumanity writ large in the sky with missiles above Gaza City.
But what can we do? More than a mixtape I would like to think, but it feels like this is the only power I have at the moment. A way to make a statement, one made with feelings instead of words.
A mixtape, like peace, is imperfect and difficult to create and achieve. We do our best and hopefully we get it right more often that we get it wrong.
Peace be upon us all during this cruel, cruel summer.
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