The Nah Mix Nah Mingle mixtape travels from Belize to Benin, from Brazil to Brooklyn, with a couple of stops at a dancehall along the way…
Mixtape cover artwork by Sylvia Stolan 

1. Kronos Quartet & Luanne Warner – Esquivel: Mini Skirt (Buy)
2. Lady Saw – Nah Mix Nah Mingle (Buy)
3. El Rego Et Ses Commandos – E Nan Mian Nuku (Buy)
4. Guilty Simpson & M.E.D. – Fitta Happier (Buy)
5. Web – The Same Old Me (Buy)
6. Lena Rios – Eu Sou Eu Nicori E O Diablo (Buy)
7. Caetano Veloso & Gal Costa – Baby (Buy)
8. DRC Music – Lourds (ft. Yende Bongongo of Okwess International) (Buy)
9. Antonio Carlos Jobim – Águas De Março (Buy)
10. Web – Rated G (Buy)
11. Rah Digga – What They Call Me (Buy)
12. Gnonnas Pedro Et Ses Dadjes – Dadje Von O Von Non (Buy)
13. Jesus Acosta And The Professionals – Guajida (Buy)
14. Cecile – Give It To Me (Buy)
15. Mulatu Astatqé – Yèkèrmo Sèw (Buy)
16. Lord Rhaburn – More Love Reggae (Buy)
17. Maria Bethania – Nature Boy (Buy)

Je voudrais pas crever
Avant d’avoir connu
Les chiens noirs du Mexique
Qui dorment sans rêver
Les singes à cul nu
Dévoreurs de tropiques
Les araignées d’argent
Au nid truffé de bulles
Je voudrais pas crever
Sans savoir si la lune
Sous son faux air de thune
A un coté pointu
Si le soleil est froid
Si les quatre saisons
Ne sont vraiment que quatre
Sans avoir essayé
De porter une robe
Sur les grands boulevards
Sans avoir regardé
Dans un regard d’égout
Sans avoir mis mon zobe
Dans des coinstots bizarres
Je voudrais pas finir
Sans connaître la lèpre
Ou les sept maladies
Qu’on attrape là-bas
Le bon ni le mauvais
Ne me feraient de peine
Si si si je savais
Que j’en aurai l’étrenne
Et il y a z aussi
Tout ce que je connais
Tout ce que j’apprécie
Que je sais qui me plaît
Le fond vert de la mer
Où valsent les brins d’algues
Sur le sable ondulé
L’herbe grillée de juin
La terre qui craquelle
L’odeur des conifères
Et les baisers de celle
Que ceci que cela
La belle que voilà
Mon Ourson, l’Ursula
Je voudrais pas crever
Avant d’avoir usé
Sa bouche avec ma bouche
Son corps avec mes mains
Le reste avec mes yeux
J’en dis pas plus faut bien
Rester révérencieux
Je voudrais pas mourir
Sans qu’on ait inventé
Les roses éternelles
La journée de deux heures
La mer à la montagne
La montagne à la mer
La fin de la douleur
Les journaux en couleur
Tous les enfants contents
Et tant de trucs encore
Qui dorment dans les crânes
Des géniaux ingénieurs
Des jardiniers joviaux
Des soucieux socialistes
Des urbains urbanistes
Et des pensifs penseurs
Tant de choses à voir
A voir et à z-entendre
Tant de temps à attendre
A chercher dans le noir

Et moi je vois la fin
Qui grouille et qui s’amène
Avec sa gueule moche
Et qui m’ouvre ses bras
De grenouille bancroche

Je voudrais pas crever
Non monsieur non madame
Avant d’avoir tâté
Le gout qui me tourmente
Le gout qu’est le plus fort
Je voudrais pas crever
Avant d’avoir gouté
La saveur de la mort…

 By John Baldessari

As an artist, I use appropriation as a tool. I have often used the words of another in the same way I would use found photography. As an experiment, I have asked a former student to write about what she has learned from me. My idea is that I am not who I think I am but I am who others think I am whether or not I agree.

The writing that follows is meant to provide one glimpse of whom I might be. In this case an obstetrician for young artists.

The Baldessarian Method

By Analia Saban

I recently came out of what my therapist calls “the crisis of reaching adulthood.” I had reached 25 years old and it was finally time to get my shit together. Coincidentally, it happened at the same time I got my Masters of Fine Arts from UCLA and I finished my first solo-exhibition in Los Angeles. So, the crisis extended not only to reaching adulthood but also to realizing that I had fulfilled all the “standard” requirements for becoming an artist. “Aaaarrrtttttiiiiisssssssstttt,” I kept repeating to myself, unable to digest my new title. How did this happen? Worst of all, I received yet another assignment from my most important mentor, John Baldessari, to write this essay with the intent of describing the “the process of becoming an artist” and how his influence, what I have baptized “The Baldessarian Method,” helped me, as well as dozens other students emerge as artists.

In my therapy sessions, we looked at my “early body of work,” that is, the series of drawings and collages I did when I was between four and five years old. Indeed, there was a lot of expression. I was sensitive to my surroundings, to my dysfunctional family and to my parents’ divorce. I remember the comfort that my drawings provided. Every afternoon

I would sit at the dinning-room table and draw for three to four hours. I drew hundreds of houses, probably trying to replace my own. And every time I represented the family,

I would scratch it with a thick, jail-like grid of black marker or crayon. Then, on a happier note, I depicted the fantasy of a saner father, a colorful, all-powerful giant next to the houses, which shows, as my therapist pointed out, my “joyful Oedipal phase.”

We also talked about the work I did during high school and undergraduate-level courses. Even though the works were less “ fresh” than the childhood ones, they still showed a lot of dedication and a good visual sense.

Nevertheless, the question kept bugging me: at what point, in the middle of the Masters, did the work that is now the core of my studio production and the origin of my upcoming exhibitions start to emerge?

les Amours,

les Blessures,

les Couleurs,

les Désirs,

les Errances,

les Folies,

les Gâteries,

les Hantises,

les Illusions,

les Jouissances,

les K,

les Larmes,

les Malices,

les Négations,

les Origines,

les Plaisirs,

les Questions,

les Regrets,

les Savoirs,

Smog, Sadhus, Sikhs and Swastikas.
Car horns honking, bike bell ringing, bad singing
Ventilators and air conditioning.
Puking, pissing, drains and cow shit smelling.
Pilgrims and beggars.
Men gob, staring.
Women veiled.
Karma.
A million Gods.
Emaciated dogs.
Rats, monkeys and bats.
Everywhere cows.
Water-buffalo with sympathetic faces.
Marble and brick.
Red painted palms.
Fabric covered tree trunks.
Crouching men together on a wall.
Kids throw pebbles and orange peel.
Clicking looms from sweatshops.
Drums, mantras, the intermittent Imam.
Bells around ankles, toes and wrists.

Oh dear.
Jesus, fuck.
Fuck.
This is fucking shhhhhhhhhhit.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit.
Shit.
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit.
Shhhhhhit.
Shit.
Whew, is it hot.
So hot.
It’s so hot.
Hot, hot.
Oh my god it’s hot in here.
Oh god, oh my, my, my, my, my, its hot in here.
God. Here. Hot.
It’s hot in here, hot in, hot hot hot, yeah, it’s hot.
It’s hot in here, it’s hot, it’s hot, it’s…
It’s hot in here, it’s hot, woo it’s hot.
It’s hot in here and it’s hot in there.
Okay, think.
Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.
So hot, soooooooooooooooooooooo it’s hot whoa!
Wooow, it’s hot in here, it’s hot!
It’s hot, this is hot, this is really hot.
Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.
Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.
So hot!
It’s hot in here.
It’s hot in here.
It’s gonna fall, it’s gonna fall, it’s gonna fall, it’s gonna fall, it’s falling, it’s falling…
Oh that’s hot, that’s so, so, so, so, so, so, so, hot.
That is hot hot hot you can see that it’s comin’ up.
The steam, it’s so hot in there.
It is boiling, it is so hot, it is so hot.
That’s hot, whew!
That is so, so hot.
That is hot, that is hot.
It’s hot in there.

In the beginning, when the earth was void,
we hadn’t a shadow to hold to, each flooded

with breeze and flux. We hadn’t a hand to grasp
with—we were they, and they were the cusp

of something moving, a swarm that engulfed
beginnings and ends. In the beginning, every-

thing was middle, and lovely to behold
(if you like that sort of thing) back before the old

something-from-nothing routine, before the rootless
abraxas when we blinked and didn’t notice

who stood or cried or threw its drink in whose face,
before we fumed inside our lonely orifice

or walked across the bridge as it assembled
under our feet, our feet fangling the first simple

dance steps up from the swamp, the ladders
of DNA and wrack, our bony love letters

eeked in rock for future generations—
then up from the snowy pages, the engine

unzipping the trees from the horizon,
we sobered into our bright isolation.

Featuring Cover Artwork from Jeneleen Floyd

*NAH MIX NAH MINGLE MIXTAPE

                                     1

Under the long green hair of pepper trees,
The writers and composers work the street.
Bach’s new score is crumpled in his pocket,
Dante sways his ass-cheeks to the beat.

                                     2

The city is named for the angels,
And its angels are easy to find.
They give off a lubricant odor,
Their eyes are mascara-lined;
At night you can see them inserting
Gold-plated diaphragms;
For breakfast they gather at poolside
Where screenwriters feed and swim.

                                     3

Every day, I go to earn my bread
In the exchange where lies are marketed,
Hoping my own lies will attract a bid.

4

It’s Hell, it’s Heaven: the amount you earn
Determines if you play the harp or burn.

                                     5

Gold in their mountains,
Oil on their coast;
Dreaming in celluloid
Profits them most.

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!
The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace peyote pipes & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middleclass! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

Berkeley 1955