Gutterfly: The Original Soundtrack

Lifesavas. <i>Quannum Projects</i>. Allegedly inspired by an unfinished ’80s blaxploitation film, Gutterfly purports to chronicle the adventures of fearless “ghetto superheroes” in Razorblade City (a.k.a. Lifesavas’ hometown of Portland, Oregon).

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Allegedly inspired by an unfinished ’80s blaxploitation film, Gutterfly purports to chronicle the adventures of fearless “ghetto superheroes” in Razorblade City (a.k.a. Lifesavas’ hometown of Portland, Oregon). Although the narrative coherence may be more in their minds than in the actual songs, passionate MCs Jumbo the Garbageman and Vurastyl have crafted a seriously funky mosaic. The mood shifts with dizzying abruptness, as the mellow flow of “No Surprise” gives way to the jittery pep talk “Shine Language,” followed by the churchy textures of “Take Me Away” and the slinky antiviolence rap “A Serpent’s Love.” Mainstream hip hop could use some of their righteous chaos.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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