Guess how many tigers there are in the US
Builders, grocers and Vietnam.
Hello,
Stylo G, most well known for his 2012 hit “Call Mi A Yardie” is a prime example of Jamaica and London coming together to create beautiful musical fusion.
Jason McDermott was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica to reggae artist Poison Chang. He moved to London in 2000 and released “My Yout” with Ice Kid and Sickman in 2007 whilst other grime artists were busy trying to make pop music. After The Heatwave’s refix of “Call Mi A Yardie” came out, DJs across the UK were quick to pretend it was in fact them mixing it with Still Dre.
I’ve not followed him as closely since leaving my bashment phase but he has been cracking out the tunes for the past decade working with the man himself Sean Paul and inevitably collaborating with Nicki Minaj. You honestly can’t fault the guy, he’s managed the tricky balancing act of remaining infectious without going full mainstream, But I mean, that’s dancehall for you. Anyway, enough of that and onto The Stuff.
Benz and Beemer and Harley,
Hugo
Chief Selecta
The Business of Stuff
Announcement
This edition of The Stuff is dedicated to my dear friends Elliot and Sophie who have just got engaged, which is really exciting guys.
The stuff
Duolingo makes pretending to learn a language really addictive 🙊 - I spent months keeping up my daily streak learning Arabic and I can safely say my Arabic has not improved. Turns out there are some people who have changed their entire life’s prospects through it. Either way the gamified approach has done wonders for them, with 34 million people a day learning how to say ‘sofa’ in Swahili (It’s ‘kochi’.
Pink Floyd selling all their stuff for 400 big ones 🐖 - money, it’s gas. If you sail a pig over Battersea Power Station you are ultimately going to want a payout. They’ve sold their name, likeness and songs to Sony Music $400m. It’s interesting selling music because the value of songs is so personal. There are songs for all of us that are literally priceless but because of good old capitalism you can literally put a price on them. I’m not sure how much I’d have to be paid to never listen to Dark Side of the Moon again but it’s a lot of money. Get away.
Vietnam is doing bits 🇻🇳 - made in China? I think not. Apple and a number of other companies have moved their operations to Vietnam because national communism has its challenges, it turns out. They are facing a new set of problems however as it is becoming increasingly hard to recruit people as competition for workers grows. Fortunately for the workers there is an ever-increasing amount of dong on offer for the roles.
There’s loads of jobs going in the US 👆 - in the western world we are basically dependent on stuff going well in America so it’s good news that the jobs market has picked up. It’s been lagging a bit since everyone went a bid mad in 2021 but hopefully a ‘soft landing’ is on the cards after all the inflation and things.
Japan is shrinking 👇 - not literally but 74% of the cities there are depopulating as everyone gets older. Their rapidly declining population has led researchers to conclude that they need to sort out stuff like childcare policy to make sure there’s some people left in a few years.
Spoons object to beers being smaller 🍺 - look, if we’re all honest with ourselves a pint is too much. It’s too much. Why is drinking six pints of Guinness less weird than drinking six pints of water? Some academics have suggested pints are a bit silly and naturally Wetherspoons has come out and said that pints are actually the best thing ever.
Tesco is doing well from keeping it local-ish 🛒 - Britain’s largest supermarket has gone on a few tangents in the past fifteen years or so. They launched a bank they are now selling to Barclays and attempted to break America, which we all know from Oasis’ drug-addled performance in California, is a really bad idea unless you know what you’re doing. They are back to focussing on domestic groceries now and doing better than ever.
Builders are getting their shit together 👷 - construction is growing at its fastest pace in two years as the industry cracks on with Keir’s plan. I just hope they aren’t all rubbish. I’m not sure how we’ve managed to go backwards in terms of the aesthetics of property but there are some truly atrocious new build houses out there.
Video games are how Russians connect with the west 🎮 - take Counterstrike for example, they’ve binned all their servers in the country but Russians make up 10% of players globally. According to the US Department of Justice this has led to it being a source of propaganda which has worked reasonably well as the chat on video games is pretty poor.
There are loads of tigers in America 🐅 - it’s a fairly well-known fact that there are more tigers in captivity in the US than there are in the wild but did you know that the number is 7000? There’s only 5000 in the wild which unless you’re an Indian farmer is not great news.
Quote of the week
“That boy they can’t touch, my yout” - Stylo G