I remember listening to a panel at MUTEK, a global touring electronic music & arts festival, and the speaker asked us all what we thought was the greatest existential threat to humanity. She said most of us were probably thinking of climate change, I was not. While they might be right about climate change, the first thing that popped into my head was the dissemination of information. It greatly affects all other issues. It influences our world view and on a global scale shifts elections, shapes our political and social response to climate change, and everything in-between.
Singularity University recently held their annual Global Summit in San Francisco and I’ll I want to talk about is the XPRIZE panel. XPRIZE holds competitions to see who can come up with ways to solve the world & humanity’s biggest problems and award millions to the winners. The first XPRIZE was put together by Peter Diamandis, who founded XPRIZE in the late 90’s.
Adults always ask kids, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I always felt like an astronaut was a pretty stereotypical but bold claim for a kid to make. Peter followed that childhood dream and when NASA didn’t seem to be a viable option, he built a $10 million competition for the first team to build a working commercial spaceship, which was awarded to Burt Rutan in 2004. Peter hasn’t made his dream into space yet, but it seems right on the horizon.
XPRIZE’s panel at the Global Summit felt like a bunch of superheroes on stage. They’re creating new competitions in areas including adult literacy, removing carbon from the air, using ai on a number of issues, and over a dozen other prizes that have already been paid out. One thing they haven’t tackled, however, is still my greatest concern.
I already touched on Durand Jones and The Indications when I heard them live at Outside Lands, 2018, but let’s try it again. My literal jaw dropped when I first heard Durand Jones and The Indications, but not from Durand’s voice. The group’s drummer and falsetto backup, Aaron Frazer, had me from his first note.
Like Khruangbin, their build-up has taken a few years, but Durand Jones, Aaron Frazer, and The Indications have got a full lineup of classic hits and I don’t say that often enough. How Aaron and Durand’s voices play off each other, from the highs to the lows, is unmatched. At least for this generation.
Not to get too “number-y,” as Aaron likes to say, for how talented this group is, I do not see it reflecting on their social, music services (Spotify seems decent), or from many bloggers (according to the Hype Machine.) So I’ve taken it upon myself to reach out to these bloggers, specifically ones that love soul music, and see what’s up! I’ll keep you up-to-date. You just make sure I do what I say.