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CHRIS FARAONE
A new addition to the Phoenix staff, I grew up in Queens. I attended Hobart College in upstate New York, until I eventually graduated and moved to South Florida where I worked as a dorm-to-dorm vacation cruise salesmen and moonlighted as a stand-up comic. To sharpen my writing and further delay life, I enrolled at New School University’s Graduate Faculty, where I was the biggest dope in the program. No regrets though; it was there that I daydreamed up the counter-intellectual philosophy – which I dubbed roastmodernism© . Following some foreplay on New York’s then-burgeoning on-line literary scene, I enrolled at Boston University’s College of Communication in 2004 and I’ve been here in Boston ever since. I’ve had been published by the Boston Herald, Boston’s Weekly Dig, and Boston Magazine, Elemental, Spin, and Columbia Journalism Review, and still regularly write for The Source, Antenna, and Yellow Rat Bastard (YRB).
Latest Articles
Tea Sea (2010)
There were mash-ups before The Grey Album . (They were called "hip-hop songs.") And there will be mash-ups in the future.
Courage under fire
"By ordinary standards of presidents, Obama is a decent man. But those standards aren't good enough."
A decade after the 'Boston Miracle,' violent crime has again overtaken parts of the city. Can the miracle makers create a new peace?
In the early infancy of this five-week-old year, Boston has been rocked by four homicides and 10 non-fatal shootings. By the time this goes to print, there may well be more.
Operation Ceasefire brought peace to the streets, and then let it all slip away
In its five years from conception to unraveling, the Boston Gun Project's Operation Ceasefire became one of the most respected urban defensives in American history.
Trapjaw (2009)
This is not your typical bi-racial indie-rap duo with a whiteboy who rips and a tandem token black guy who holds the honky's jockstrap.
Top Shelf (2009)
It's a bright sign for hip-hop when at least three promising subterranean sluggers ride flows comparable to that of the almighty Nas.
Lost
Jenny Ulysee was inside her stepmother's hair salon in Mariani, Haiti, when the January 12 earthquake caused a nearby building to buckle and collapse onto the roof of her family's business.
31 signs that Scott Brown’s victory is changing the face of the commonwealth for the worse
Scott Brown’s Senatorial victory is merely the latest sign that red tides are creeping upon our once-progressive Commonwealth. Don’t believe us? Consider that Kenny Chesney sells out Gillette Stadium every summer, and, of course, that wealthy Republican presidential hopeful with the fantastic hair was recently our Governor.
More than 1500 miles from the epicenter of the Haitian quake, its effects rippled through Boston's teeming Haitian community
From the second that the Richter scale registered at 7.0 in Haiti, a desperate grief rippled through Hyde Park, Dorchester, and other corners of this region, which is home to the third-largest Haitian population in America.
Statik Selektah is so busy, it bugs him out
It's easy to manufacture illusions of rap stardom. Any MySpace whiteboy with a few grand can fill a mixtape with big cameos, and for a little more, guests will even shout his name out. But though such pay-for-spray practices have kept established artists eating they've also compromised the organic dynamics that once pushed the genre forward.
Househusband (2009)
Note how the title of Paul Barman's third and latest sounds corny at first glance but deserves a "ha" — or at least an "I smell this dude" — on further contemplation.
Many's Rivers to Cross Dept.
If every last allegation that Church of Scientology (CoS) defector Nancy Many charges in My Billion Year Contract is true, then her book should inspire several FBI raids and a Lifetime mini-series to rival any Charles Manson documentary.
Public School Records (2010)
Coolzey is not the next big thing. Or even the next medium thing.
Cracking Harvard's 'psychedelic club'
"This is like the founding myth of the '60s counterculture, even though there was a lot of truth to it."
Somebody pinch People Under the Stairs
Nine out of 10 rap legends prefer People Under the Stairs. (The holdout is a crackhead.) That's no joke — in my hundreds of interviews with dudes who brought the noise and funk before the big ship sunk ( circa 1997), California underground heroes Thes One and Double K have been as popular a subject as the exploitation of old-school luminaries.
Boston's most rebellious continuing-ed courses
With some exceptions, college is a nightclub with a $30,000 annual cover charge. Tests and term papers occasionally crash the party, but for the most part undergraduate matriculation is an excuse to engage in outlandish hedonism.
At-large City Councilor John Connolly sets his sights on creating multi-million-dollar environmental academy.
Little girls and boys frolic on swing sets whittled from recycled beech wood.
Urban Home Companion (2010)
No regional hip-hop scene has a more distinct sound than the Twin Cities.
Can hip-hop deliver in 2010?
With a semi-sober face I'll claim that hip-hop in 2010 might deliver more than just posthumous Dilla discs, Dipset mixtapes, and a new ignoramus coke rapper whom critics pretend rhymes in triple-entendres.
Borrow his book
"The opposite of consumption is not thrift but generosity; if you look at happiness studies, we are happiest when we give things away rather than when we accumulate or when we don't spend."
