By Drew Grant 9/17/12 3:30pm

Occupy Wall Street

Video

Protesters clash with police today during the one year anniversary of OWS.

Update: Occupy Wall Street’s One Year Anniversary Liveblog: The Arrests, the Music, the LiveStream and the Plan (Video)

God how time flies. Just 365 days ago, we hadn’t even heard of Occupy Wall Street, horizontal democracy, or a Statement of Autonomy. It was a heady time, when we remained blissfully ignorant of what the 99% referred to, and never thought to question who owned Zucotti Park.

This weekend, preparations began in earnest for OWS’s one year anniversary. It’s almost like the party didn’t take a six month sabbatical where it dropped off the face of front page news. Luckily, it doesn’t take much to make the media wax nostalgic for the days before the tents went up, and even though today’s planned activities sound a lot like a peaceful version of that scene in The Dark Knight Rises, there is definitely excitement in the air. Below, we follow the OWS news of the day, as it happens. If you have any tips, photos or footage that you want seen, send them our way. Read More

By Jonah Wolf 8/29/12 5:08pm

On His Jacques

A page of Our Show.

The Punk GQ: Elliot Aronow Shows Off His Zine at the Soho Grand

“I guess that’s kind of my shtick in general is like punk rock gentleman. You can sound-bite that.” The Observer was chatting with talk show host, entrepreneur, and editor Elliot Aronow, who had just released the second issue of his zine, Our Show with Elliot Aronow, and was celebrating with a party in the Yard at the Soho Grand. DJs Cosmo Baker and Prince Language were spinning classic funk and hip hop. The Observer spotted MTV’s Sway, Princeton “punkademic” Samuel Goldman and about half of Das Racist’s Greedhead labelmates.

Our Show takes its name from the variety show Mr. Aronow used to host at Santos Party House with guests like James Murphy and Andrew W.K., what he calls “my weird pothead version of Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party meets Charlie Rose.” For the zine, “My idea for it was to make it a punk GQ, take all the stuff that was supposed to be kind of bourgeois and bring it down from the mountain and say, ‘Ayo, you can do this.’” Both issues contain fashion advice from Brooklyn Tailors, whose Danny Lewis was at the party and told The Observer, “It’s like Elliot’s whole world. He spreads the word. You’ll probably see some of our stuff floating around.” Indeed, Mr. Aronow was sporting bespoke pants from the Williamsburg haberdasher, plus a green-on-white paisley Thom Browne for Brooks Brothers jacket and a white t-shirt from Uniqlo, “’cause I don’t care,” he said. Read More

By Hunter Walker 1/11/12 11:49am

Bigger Than Hip-Hop

Cuomo.

Redistrict Remix: Gerrymandering Issue Taken Up By Queens Rapper and Punjabi Proteges

When one thinks of Queens rappers, one does not think of political redistricting, but all of that is about to change.

Himanshu “Heems” Suri, a member of the idiosyncratic rap group Das Racist, is releasing his hotly anticipated solo mixtape Nehru Jackets in conjunction with SEVA NY, a community organization that’s currently focused on raising awareness about the consequences the citywide redistricting scheduled for later this year will have in the Queens neighborhoods where he grew up. Mr. Suri’s mixtape will be accompanied on several songs by young SEVA members who rap and sing in Punjabi.

The Observer made our way out to Queens to watch Mr. Suri record at SEVA co-founder and executive director Gurpal Singh’s bedroom studio. Mr. Suri was accompanied by a pair of young SEVA rappers—Lovedeep Singh, 21, and Jaspreet Singh, 17 (none of the Singhs are related, it turns out). Lovedeep’s parents don’t know about his rap hobby—he simply told them he was at a SEVA event without mentioning the recording studio. Mr. Suri and Mr. Singh told him they would break the news to his parents before the mixtape’s release party.

“He’s got strict parents, but we’re going to have to tell them,” Mr. Singh said. “He’s going to be on stage in front of the whole community.” Read More

By Nate Freeman 9/08/11 1:51pm

I'M AT A FASHION PARTY I'M WEARING FASHION CLOTHES

heems tweet 1

Das Racist Trashes Their Own Bash: 'SHITTY BLACKBOOK FASHION PARTY'

Last night at PH-D, the rooftop hotspot atop the Dream Downtown, BlackBook magazine hosted a party to celebrate its 15th year of publication. Cover boy/True Blood vampire Alexander Skarsgård was there, as were flocks of girls stretching their iPhones toward his booth to get a picture of him.

Yet, the other guests of honor—critical darling rap group Das Racist—were not as impressed with the fashion party. Before, during, and after their short performance (part straight-faced performance art, part tag-team rap mayhem; one onlooker noted that they appeared to be texting while on stage), they took to Twitter to air some grievances. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 6/16/11 4:30pm

Partytime

11 Photos

Like that scene from Requiem for a Dream?

Big Freedia and Das Racist Show the Internet How to Bounce

It was hard to miss the twins. Even with the ring of twenty-somethings in face paint manning the door at Mother New York’s 36,000 sq. ft. headquarters and the stuffed grizzly bear standing guard at the entrance, Eboni and Erica Davis were impossible to ignore. Identical silky pigtails, identical spangled tank tops, identical booty shorts, Read More