If you have never seen the Colbert Report, consider yourself to be missing out on something as great as say, making sweet love to the most beautiful man or woman you’ve ever seen, in a jacuzzi of champagne, having just won £50m on the EuroMillons draw. Yes, it really is that good.

Let us explain: the Colbert Report is fronted by Daily Show graduate Stephen Colbert, who essentially plays the host role as a parody of the kind of big-mouthed, not so big-brained presenter you might find on an always unbiased network like Fox News. Colbert has become such an effective political satirist that George Bush Jnr. seemingly failed to realise it is all an act and booked him to speak at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2006. In front of the then president of the United States and a room full of journalists, Colbert proceeded to subtly but savagely eviscerate the monkey-man commander-in-chief (verbally, not literally).

But Colbert is more than just an incredibly clever funny guy – he is actively shining a light on the corruption of democracy in the US and, by extension, the Western world at large. Last year the US Supreme Court ruled that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited (thanks Wikipedia) i.e. corporations can spend as much on they want to fund a campaign of television adverts promoting or trashing a political candidate – including a presidential candidate – and not reveal that they have done so. So much for free and fair elections, ya get me?

To highlight the absurdity of this ruling in a country that promotes itself as a bastion of true democracy, 60 days ago Stephen Colbert actually filed an application with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) to form his own Super PAC – a body that can legally raise as much money as possible to fund political advertising without revealing their political affiliation or donors. Yesterday, the FEC actually gave Colbert permission to do so, by a majority of five to one, and his subsequent ‘victory’ speech was unsurprisingly hilarious.

But it featured two lines that we suspect were not intended as a joke (which is ironic, since they both mention the word ‘joke’):  ”I for one don’t think that participating in a democracy is a joke. I don’t think that wanting to know what the rules are is a joke.” And that is why Colbert is elevated above the echelon of mere mortal comedian – rather than simply making us laugh, in the way that a funny cat video on YouTube might make us laugh, to enjoy the sensation but nothing more, his comedy makes us both happy and angry – angry that true democracy is slowly but surely being wrested away from us, the people.

So if you are reading this and happen to be a US citizen, please donate to Colbert Super PAC and help make a better tomorrow, tomorrow:

Most of you will know Jeffrey Townes simply as Jazz, Will Smith’s best friend and constant admirer of Hillary Banks (despite her hideous materialism), much to the chagrin of Judge Philip Banks, who would consistantly grab Jazz by the scruff of the neck and hoik him out the front door.

Or maybe you’ll recognise Townes as one half of Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, authors of seminal hip-hop classics Parents Just Don’t Understand,  Boom! Shake The Room and Summertime. Yesss…

Perhaps fewer of you will know that since The Fresh Prince of Bel Air finished, Jazzy Jeff has taken the considerable skills perfected during the Fresh Prince era (hip-pop fact: Jeff is credited as one of the originators of the transform scratch) and become one of the world’s best party DJs, as well as a pretty decent music producer to boot, working with soulstress Jill Scott.

A couple of weeks ago Jazzy Jeff appeared as one of the mystery guests at The Do-Over, LA’s premier Sunday session, and tore it up. Not that we were there – we weren’t. But we still heard Jeff drop a set of stone hip-hop cold classics by the likes of Dead Prez, KRS One, LL Cool J, all the Jays (Jay Electronica, Jay-Z, Jaylib) Common, Biggie Smalls, Mos Def, Slum Village, A Tribe Called Quest, Nate Dogg and Warren G, Snoop Dogg, Mobb Deep, Pharoah Monch, Dr. Dre, Gang Starr, Brand Nubian and Q-Tip, before heading off into a funk and soul excursion, a Michael Jackson mega-mix, an early-house finale and a bit of Stevie on the outro.

And now you can too:

Scroll down just a few centimetres and you’ll be reminded that OnlyForKoolkids liked Hyetal’s Broadcast so much we deemed it necessary to take a whole two posts to tell you so. We’ve been wandering the earth incognito for the past couple of weeks, but in that time we’ve returned to the album several times and, at the risk of sounding like DJ Alan Partridge on North Norfolk Digital, it really does get better with every listen.

Clearly the ladies and gentleman at Vice magazine share the same excellent taste in music, as they have booked Hyetal to play live at their new issue launch parties in Leeds (Nation of Shopkeepers), London (The Old Blue Last) and Brighton (Green Door Store) this coming Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively. What’s more, all three gigs are gratis, so if you live anywhere near any of those great cities you’ve really no excuse for not getting out and hearing what we’ve been making such a fuss about.

And if you need any further motivation:

Back in January we brought you news of a documentary about A Tribe Called Quest, still up there in OnlyForKoolKids’ Greatest Of All Time list, that was premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. And because we are pretty grrreat ourselves, we even offered you the unofficial trailer too.

Well now the official trailer is here in all its greatness, and OnlyForKoolKids is officially hyped (that’s street slang for ‘very excited’, or at least that’s was it said on UrbanDictionary.com…). The cast reads like a veritable Who’s Who of hip-hop and soul artists that actually matter – including the likes of The Beastie Boys, Common, Mos Def, Ghostface Killah, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, Pete Rock, Pharrell Williams and Questlove from The Roots – and the footage of the reformed Tribe performing at the Rock The Bells festivals looks raw and vibrant.

For those of you only familiar with A Tribe Called Quest’s Walk through the Wild Side-sampling Can I Kick It? and wondering why you should give two hoots about the film, let us share the passion. Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Tribe went against the grain of convential hip-hop braggadocio, sampling jazz and rhyming about everyday societal issues, to create a universal (and universally excellent) sound. They really were innovators, creating a conscious branch of hip-hop that all too often gets drowned out by the cold commerciality of today’s acts. There’s that, and there’s fact that they rock.

Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest gets a limited release in the US on July 8. Unfortunately, there is no word on if and when it will hit UK screens.

Just a quick addendum to the previous post: on a recent YouTube binge we came across this fan-made video for Hyetal track Beach Scene, taken from his debut album, Broadcast. With an interest in the relationship between sound and image, Hyetal producer Dave Corney has said he considered most of the album to be music to an imaginary film, holding particular scenes in his head whilst writing it.

If that is the case, João de Almeida, creator of the video below, must have a portal directly into Corney’s mind – a la Being John Malkovich – as frankly we cannot imagine a better set of images to accompany the track. Edited together from footage found in a promotional video for a now-abandoned Portuguese waterpark, the VHS quality shots of a sun-tinged day’s fun, at times ultra-cheddar cheesy, at times highly erotic, capture perfectly Beach Scene’s retro-fuelled reminiscence of a more innocent and naive era that quite possibly never existed in the first place. Mr. de Almeida, we salute you!

In the second and sadly final installment of OnlyForKoolKids’ ‘music released in May but reviewed in June’ feature, we look at the debut album from Hyetal (aka Bristol-based producer Dave Corney), Broadcast. Previously known in dance music circles for his dubstep tracks (yes, the dreaded D-word again, Corney has rebuffed any attempts to pigeonhole him with a pretty outstanding longplayer.

If OnlyForKoolKids were in the ultra-lazy music journo brigade and had come up with a poster-friendly soundbite, we’d describe Hyetal as Burial meets LCD Soundsytem minus the vocals, but that would be to undersell just how good this album really is. Corney admits he has always been a big fan of film soundtracks and had particular scenes in his head when writing Broadcast, and that comes across very clearly in the sonic depths of tracks like Ritual, The Chase and the wonderful Transmission.

Elsewhere, he digs out the drum machines and sparkly synths  for some 80’s inspired dance sounds on Beach Scene and Phoenix. This is one of those albums we had absolutely no preconceptions about, yet ended up being absolutely captivated by its magnificence. Buy buy BUY!