Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

J Bogart

@jonathanbogart.net

750 followers 200 following 1.7K posts

Library worker, researcher and writer about culture from the first third of the 20th century, depressive. https://jonathanbogart.net

jonathanbogart.net

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 7d

I'll be participating in this challenge for the next 50 days, mute or follow the hashtag according to your preference. For now my writeups will live only on Bluesky, accompanied by a screenshot of the title card from the music video (or just a regular screenshot if there isn't a title card). Enjoy!

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 7d

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 1

50. Yailin La Mas Viral, “Bing Bong”
(Dominican Republic, Nov 6 2024)
prod. Puyalo Pantera & Yailin La Mas Viral

youtu.be/YpoUzo-CflQ

Music video title card. On a background of an out of focus woman with her hands raised in dark rain are the words:

BING BONG
YAILIN
LA MAS
VIRAL

Parental advisory explicit content

50. Yailin La Mas Viral, “Bing Bong”
(Dominican Republic, Nov 6 2024)
prod. Puyalo Pantera & Yailin La Mas Viral

We begin with a mission statement, or in the Tumblr vernacular, with rent-lowering gunshots, telling those who can’t hang to clear out now. This list is going to be full of songs by, about, and for women of color shaking extravagant amounts of ass, with videos even more monomaniacally focused on the same. Welcome to the post-dancehall world: racialized vulgarity is in, bourgeois auteurism is out. Art is a broad category that has always included sexual titillation, and Puritans, whether of the left or right, are welcome to kick rocks about it. Taxonomically this is a dembow song, although it’s almost post-dembow, a series of giddy sounds in echoey space (is that one break actually just the sound of cheeks clapping?) while Yailin delivers the genre’s usual sexual provocation in a teasing tone. She’s a 23-year-old single mother (her daughter’s coo is one of the sounds in the mix) who has been in in the fast-paced Dominican dembow spotlight since she was eighteen, when I first noticed her among a crowd of young women then entering the field (La Perversa, La Ross Maria, Rosaly Rubio, Arlene MC, Tokischa), but the sproingy, addictive “Bing Bong” has been her biggest pan-American hit yet.

YouTube: 264M views | Spotify: 146M streams | TikTok: 851K vids

2 6

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 3h

it took comics fifty years to do continuity-resetting events, movies having to do to it in under twenty is another reason they are the inferior artform

3 11

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 19h

Ira Gershwin bought Sony stock because he liked the Walkman so much.

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 20h

Fred Astaire died three weeks after Miami Sound Machine's "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" was released.

(Late night host's monologue: I guess it did.)

Sexy Andrew Hickey Costume @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 20h

Charlie Chaplin died the same day the Sex Pistols played their last UK gig before they split.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 20h

Gene Autrey may have heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

2 10

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 20h

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 8

43. Mula, “Paradis”
(Côte d’Ivoire, Jun 26 2020)
prod. Patrice Anoh

youtu.be/ve0rs27U3vU

Music video title card. A young black woman in a T-shirt and shorts is walking down a road in Johannesburg; trees, an overpass and a construction crane are visible behind her. A graffitied building is to one side, out of which a young black man looks at her. Over top of this are the words:

MULA
PARADIS

SOUL
SQUAD
MUSIC

43. Mula, “Paradis”
(Côte d’Ivoire, Jun 26 2020)
prod. Patrice Anoh

Even after six years, I still feel like I don’t know enough about Ivorian music to say much more than “I like this” about it; coupé-décalé and its multiplying variants are for whatever reason harder for me to keep track of than equivalent forms like Angolan kuduro. Not that any of that really applies here; in fact, part of what initially attracted me to “Paradis” was probably its distinct lack of a busy, aggressive African rhythm. The rhythms are indeed distinctly western-hemispherical, from the lightly trap- inflected zouk beat that graces the bulk of the song to the brief irruption of bouyon for a couple of bars in the middle eight. And Mula’s singing is just as rhythmically varied, a young Afro-R&B singer showing off considerable skill and a buttery tone. The production house Soul Squad Music (active in France and Senegal as well as Côte d’Ivoire) lived up to its name here — it was her debut single, and it’s still her biggest hit. Although she’s matured as an artist in the years since (including moving into coupé-décalé), “Paradis” is still a supremely confident, winning statement of identity: a hyperbolic (and extremely French) declaration of herself as paradise on earth, a goddess capable of derailing even the most inveterate lothario from his course.

YouTube: 20M views | Spotify: 968K streams | TikTok: 22K vids

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 20h

(Brazil's most cutting-edge pop performer imo, if I was in the business of telling p4k types what to be checking for she'd be top of list)

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 20h

oh shit new Urias album just dropped

youtu.be/UTmEnD3eGOY

Urias, Major RD - Voz do Brasil (Visualizer)

YouTube video by Urias

youtu.be

1 4

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 22h

wodehouse complaining that everyone was writing openly about being gay in the 1960s instead of maintaining a discreet silence on the subject like they did in his day is a lasting memory of reading his collected letters

1 1 5

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

my main! but we won't get to it until 1984

1 1

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

2010-era peak autotune with bad rapping only a decade early!

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

to some extent brits are gonna brit, the people i really blame are the americans who worship e.g. the rolling stones as brilliant auteurs while all their american predecessors are journeymen working in a prescribed formula

2 1

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

Ranking Ann was one of my noms, but "Olhos Coloridos" might steal my vote out from under me, even though it's not my favorite Sandra de Sá song in the tourney

1 4

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

seven black man (one of whom is jimi hendrix), zero black women. would say it reads as if the blues were a purely instrumental form, but neither albert king nor freddie king are on there so

2 15

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

jesus christ

1 5

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

picking up a bunch of blockable accounts today, i guess typing out a particular dog breed seems to attract them

1 4

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

cannot wait until the "hanging out next to a cybertruck to show how rich and technologically advanced i am" pop video phase is over

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

starting to entertain a hypothesis that because the Angolan pop scene was slightly ahead of Mozambique's when i first started paying attention to both that i have failed to notice that the positions have been reversed for some time now

1 4

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

Jéssica Pitbull x DJ Kalisboy, "Waú"

Her most recent single, the video for which features trans kuduro icon Titica. I've seen some negative fan reaction to Jéssica's recently enhanced posterior, and the song seems to be a gleeful response to that.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLm6...

Jéssica Pitbull X Dj Kalisboy - Waú ( Vídeo Oficial ) #jessicapitbull

YouTube video by Jéssica Pitbull

www.youtube.com

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

Jéssica Pitbull, "Irrita"

A lesser sequel to "Vibraté" which foregrounds the funk batida, but was really exciting when I hadn't heard "Vibraté" yet.

youtu.be/bvA3j_FjfYI

Jéssica Pitbull - Irrita ( Vídeo Oficial )

YouTube video by Jéssica Pitbull

youtu.be

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

CEO x Jéssica Pitbull, "Entra na Vibe"

Her most gossiped-about collab, though, was this afrobeats song, on which she full-on sings instead of kuduro rapping. She married Ceo Viciante back in February, although fan speculation is he's piggybacking off her fame.

youtu.be/NBIJOqkl4uE

ENTRA NA VIBE - CEO x Jessica Pitbull ( Video Oficial )

YouTube video by CEO Oficial

youtu.be

1 1

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

Jotabe Banga ft. Jéssica Pitbull, "Salalé Três Três"

Rapper Jotabe Banga promotes himself as pioneering an innovative fusion of kuduro and reggae, which generally involves slowing the tempo down and using a modified reggaeton beat. Can't argue with results, though.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7lm...

Jotabe Banga Feat Jéssica Pitbull

YouTube video by Jotabe Banga

www.youtube.com

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

Jéssica Pitbull's 2025 output that made me go back and reconsider her, threaded here:

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 7

44. Jéssica Pitbull, “Vibraté”
(Angola, Aug 23 2024)
prod. DJ Nelson

youtu.be/uZqVMZPPmeo

Music video title card. Drone shot from above of a paved street between improvised shanty houses, mostly with corrugated sheet-metal roofing. Dirt alleys branch off. There are people on the road, small enough to look like dots. Overlaid are the words:

SÓ NO
VIBRATÉ

44. Jéssica Pitbull, “Vibraté”
(Angola, Aug 23 2024)
prod. DJ Nelson

One of the things I’ve been doing this year has been catching back up on developments in kuduro, which I had kind of dropped in the latter half of the 2010s (save for my annual check-ins with an artist who will appear much later in this countdown) in favor of less aggro, more melodic forms. I’ve vaguely known of Jéssica Pitbull, whose kuduro career dates to 2016, for years, but it was her 2025, which has been marked by a series of eclectic collaborations, that got me to check back in earnest on her highlights, and I fell in love with this banger, piecing together a bunch of trends from 2020s kuduro — that car-alarm blurt, an interpolation of the baile funk batida, and squeaky bedsprings reminiscent of Karol G’s “Mi Cama” — into one excellent, solidly-produced package, with a glossy video that celebrates both the Luanda musseques (improvised neighborhoods equivalent to Brazilian favelas) where kuduro was born and Jéssica’s own sculpted form. The refrain “só no tricoté, só no vibraté” (just knitting, just vibrating) is slang for specific dance moves, but I think my favorite bit is her shouted opening salvo: “Eu como o carne, depois papo o osso” (I eat the meat, then I gnaw the bone), both living up to her canine name and making a dick joke.

YouTube: 1.7M views | Spotify: 468K streams | TikTok: 5K vids

1 1

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 1d

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 7

44. Jéssica Pitbull, “Vibraté”
(Angola, Aug 23 2024)
prod. DJ Nelson

youtu.be/uZqVMZPPmeo

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 2d

the nahawa doumbia track cuts off about 18 seconds before the actual end on the youtube playlist: here's a hissier but complete copy youtu.be/BLOg7S4vbyc

🇲🇱 𝐍𝐀𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐀 𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐈𝐀 - 𝐊𝐎𝐑𝐎 𝐃𝐈𝐀 (#mali 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟐, 𝐀𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐃) (#blues #soul #westafrica #bamako #doumbia) 🇲🇱

YouTube video by African Grooves

youtu.be

1 5

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 2d

i always get a general sense of the lyrics before i share anything just so i'm not co-signing something awful but tbh even when i know the language i'm never focused on them

J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · 2d

On Saturday I saw a social realist classic of the Depression in Hyde Park. Wrote about it here:

buttondown.com/jonathanboga...

Going Out, October 2025

Two Sundays ago, while scrolling through TikTok (an activity I try to limit to weekends, both for standard mental-nutritional reasons and because my...

buttondown.com