Nile Rodgers (b. 1952) started out as a session guitarist for the Sesame Street band, Harlem’s Apollo Theater house band and as a backing musician for Aretha Franklin and Parliament Funkadelic, among others. He became famous with the disco band Chic, best known for their hit ‘Le Freak’. A sample of Chic’s ‘Good Times’ was featured in the Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’, which is often cited as the first hip-hop record. After Chic’s demise in 1983, Rodgers founded Sister Sledge (hit: ‘We Are Family’) and focused on producing (for Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Duran Duran, Laurie Anderson, INXS, and many others). More recently, Rodgers has taken up producing soundtracks for video games, such as the Halo series. He also wrote music for movie soundtracks, among which the song ‘Love Me Sexy’ for the Will Ferrell vehicle ‘Semi-Pro’.
For this Nile Rodgers solo album, the native New Yorker chose to have lower Manhattan represent the ‘Land of the Good Groove’. The map is made to look like an antique map of the 17th century or thereabouts, down to the ornamental ships and ‘monsters’ in the water. The use of (pig) Latin amplifies the old feel of the map, and is used to some humorous effect — Brooklyn is labelled Terra Incognita and New Jersey is Nova Joisea.
Lower Manhattan’s streets and avenues also get the fake Latin treatment, and are rendered as Twenty-Thirdium, Houstanus, Canalus and Via Broadicus. Other locales include Tribeccium, Terra Financicus and Villagius Easticus. Over on the West Side is the intriguing Mysterium. Is anybody familiar enough with Mr Rodgers’ oeuvre to know why?
The Mysterious area is a relatively undeveloped area of NYC where most NYers don’t go — it isn’t even really part of a neighborhood. It’s now home to the Javits center and the Holland tunnel’s offramp, but it’s way less developed than NYC as a whole even now. Also, the way the map is drawn makes it look much bigger than it really is.
Comment by Jeroen — December 11, 2008 @ 8:30 am
Actually, Jeroen, the west side between Houston and Canal was a waste zone then (it’s shockingly high-priced condos now), but it’s not where the Javits is.
It was largely derelict waterfront that served as the underbelly of the West Village. Great place to find heroin and transvestite hookers.
BTW, “Westbethicus” refers to the Westbeth, a large complex at West St. and Bethune that was a lab for, I believe, ATT but became an art commune.
Comment by Ben — December 11, 2008 @ 2:43 pm
Another great map. What a super blog this is.
Comment by Breen — December 13, 2008 @ 6:46 pm
Great map, I agree. Clever. But I do notice the Twin Towers (sad face).
Everyone should go see “Man on Wire,” about another, more benevolent “coup” on the Twin Towers in 1975.
Comment by Cmajor7 — December 15, 2008 @ 8:33 pm
Of course, it is not accurate to refer to the language on the map as “Pig Latin.” Pig Latin involves moving the initial consonant to the end of a word and adding the sound of “ay,” so that “Pig Latin” becomes “igpay atinlay.” A better term for the mangled Latin/English on the map might be “macaronic Latin.”
Comment by Karl Weber — December 18, 2008 @ 2:50 am
Just one note: Rogers didn’t found Sister Sledge after the demise of Chic in 1983, if he did at all, since “We Are Family” was the unofficial anthem of the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. Sister Sledge’s best days had come and gone by 1983.
Comment by Pete — December 24, 2008 @ 8:13 pm
I have thousands of antique maps to sell in http://www.sitecompras.com/mapas/
Comment by SC — December 31, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
I don’t know so much about New York City, but I am familiar with a major unfinished classic musical project called Mysterium by Alexander Scriabin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterium_(Scriabin)
The partial work he did was later completed by Alexander Nemtin and compiled on the album “Scriabin: Preparation for the Final Mystery,” which is available with samples on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Scriabin-Preparation-Final-Mystery/dp/B00002R2SQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1231542844&sr=1-5
Comment by 'Kash — January 9, 2009 @ 11:16 pm
[...] Map of the Good Groove [...]
Pingback by Tracksuit Daily Diigo Post 01/10/2009 « TrackSuit CEO (version 2.0) — January 10, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
are u have maps for m.e.
Comment by top — January 23, 2009 @ 9:08 pm
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 5:31 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 7:58 am