Sir Mix-A-Lot

Stephen Witt

Ashley MacIsaac

He tells it as he sees it. From big butts to racism, the one and only Sir Mix-A-Lot does not mince his words. One of popular culture’s preeminent observers and a popular guest on Life Elsewhere, Sir Mix-A-Lot  is back to air his thoughts on the latest headlines, including the Confederate flag, the Charleston church massacre, President Obama on WTF with Marc Maron and Taylor Swift vs. Apple. Sir Mix-A-Lot pays careful attention to what’s happening culturally but his views are not always what you might expect from the man who penned the definitive ode to large bottoms.

Also in the program, Stephen Witt talks about his new book, How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy. This is the enthralling story of the birth of mp3’s, streaming music, the music piracy revolution and the mysterious man who almost singlehandedly took down the music industry. Coincidently, Taylor Swift‘s complaint against Apple happened as Stephen Witt‘s book is published. His book explains in delicious detail how if it were not for German audio engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg’s 1995 invention for compressing audio files, (later to be know as mp3s), streaming audio as we know it may never have appeared.

This week’s Hit That Never Was features Ashley MacIsaac, a Canadian fiddler, singer and songwriter from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. MacIsaac has had a controversial journey, not least of all by announcing he was gay back in the early 90’s when that just wasn’t done for aspiring musical acts…think about how times have changed. From his 2003 self-titled album, we’ll hear Lay Me Down.

Life Elsewhere airs Sunday, June 28 at 12 noon ET on The Source WMNF HD3 and Monday, June 29 at 5.00pm PT at NWCZ Radio