Shook 01 Vol1

N 1 VOL ONE WINTER

O

UPFRONT: 4-19FEIYUE SHOES / AHLAAM / HVW8 /

ON THE CORNER SESSIONS / SPOONFACE / JAY ELECTRONICA /

BLACK BRITAIN / PAUL WHITE /

SIMPHIWE DANA / YUKIMI NAGANO /

THE MIGHTY JEDDO / INTERACTIVO /

ARTHUR VEROCAI / COUPE DECALE /

HEATWAVE / APRICOT JAM

REGULARS:

DEVIATION WITH BENJI B 14DATA REDUCTION: WE ARE 20-21SHOOK TEK 56-57THE PEOPLES CHOICE: 58-59REVIEWS 62-71

N 1 VOL ONE WINTER

O

FEATURES:

THE VINYL ATHLETE: DJ MURO 22-25

DETROIT RENAISSANCE: GUILTY SIMPSON /

BLACK MILK / DENAUN PORTER / INVINCIBLE 26-33

IN THE STUDIO: BENGA 34-35

BOOGIE ON: ROBERT STRAUSS MEETS

LEROY BURGESS 36-39

STAY ALERT: INVADER 40-44

THE COVER ART OF BHANGRA 46-49

THE WAY OF THE GARIFUNA:

ANDY PALACIO 50-51

NEW YORK NOISE: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF

PAULA COURT 52-53

THE LAST BASTIONS OF VINYL CULTURE :

GOYA MUSIC 54-55

CONTENTS

3

SOUL JAZZ RECORDS Available online at www.souljazzrecords.co.uk

NEW YORK

GLENN BRANCA ANDY WARHOL LIQUIDLIQUID KEITH HARING DAVID BYRNEPHILIP GLASS LOU REED UT DNASUICIDE JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIATFUTURA 2000 PATTI SMITH ESGWILLIAM BURROUGHS JOHN CAGERHYS CHATHAM MICHAEL STIPEAFRIKA BAMBAATAA ROBERT LONGOLAURIE ANDERSON STEVE BUSCEMIJAMES CHANCE ROCK STEADY CREWCINDY SHERMAN MADONNAJIM JARMUSCH RICHARD HELL

ART AND MUSIC FROM THE NEW YORK UNDERGROUND 1978-88

NOISE

The New York Noise book describes the period in history (1978-88) where New York art and music collided. Beginning in the mid-1970s, New YorkCity’s SoHo and East Village became a hot-bed of musical and artistic ideas. Owing to new property laws, Downtown New York and its manywarehouse and loft spaces became the home of artists, bands, film-makers, studios, art galleries and more. In this small area practically every

musician was also an artist, every artist a film-maker and every film-maker was in a band. This book includes pictures of JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT,DAVID BYRNE, SUICIDE, KEITH HARING, GLENN BRANCA, ESG, MADONNA, LAURIE ANDERSON, PHILIP GLASS, AFRIKA BAMBAATAA and

hundreds more previously unseen photographs.

“New York downtown was like a bohemian living museum, which was pretty thrilling for an aspiring artist and musician. Legends walked the streets.It was all very new and exciting – and it was incredibly funky, the sleaze and poverty were everywhere.” DAVID BYRNE

With accompanying text from DAVID BYRNE, LAURIE ANDERSON, CINDY SHERMAN and more, this is an essential record of a fascinating era in New York’s cultural history.

ART AND MUSIC IN NEW YORK CITY 1978-88!Over 400 stunning photographs plus text from David Byrne, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Anderson and many more telling the story of an amazingly stunning and vibrant time and place! This 200 page

flexi-bound book is available now in all good book and record stores and costs £19.95.

Shook ad Jan 08 11/12/07 16:30 Page 1

FLYING FORWARD

Iraq hadn’t produced a feature film since the 1991 Gulf War (when the state film facility was bombed and a UN embargo slapped on 35mm film stock that could, in theory, be used in chemical weapon production). But with the release of this sensitive exploration of Iraq’s broken hopes and uncertain future, Ahlaam (“Dreams”) has a been a kiss of life for Iraqi cinema, representing in the Oscar’s Best Foreign Language Film category.

Pioneering this cinematic renaissance hasn’t been easy. During the making of the film, director Mohamed Al-Daradji, together with his sound recordist & boom operator, stumbled into the wrong side of town, where they were kidnapped and nearly executed by Baathists. Just hours later, as the crew recuperated in hospital, they found themselves kidnapped again, this time by the other side. Handed over to the Americans, they suffered a gruelling six-day incarceration and interrogation. It brought a whole new meaning to the term guerilla filmmaking, and Al-Daradji sometimes found himself with a camera in one hand and an AK47 (filled with blanks) in the other.

Despite security fears, Ahlaam finally screened in Iraq’s National Theatre in April 2007, for a tearful audience of over a thousand. “It was the most fantastic experience of my life. I long for a peaceful Iraq, with a film industry equipped to tell the story of the terrible suffering of the last forty years.” That’s one dream that may yet become a reality. Dan Susman

Ahlaam will be released in selected cinemas in the UK in Jan 2008

AHLAAMToo many people are touted as ‘coming to change the game’ in hip-hop, only to wind up as a footnote in the musical landscape. Jay Electronica is different. Maybe that’s the best way to describe him, different. A year ago there weren’t many people who would recognize the name Jay Electronica, but in the last 12 months, the mysterious New Orleans native has created a surprising, internet-based buzz, while still remaining mostly an enigma. From the 20+ tracks of his that infiltrated the net there are collaborations with Guilty Simpson and Mr. Porter, beats by the underrated Nottz as well as the legendary J Dilla. Yet even with such an impressive roster of collaborators, Jay shines undauntedly, and it’s good to see people are noticing. Earlier this year he dropped ‘Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)’ through FWMJ’s rappersiknow.com as well as his own hacked MySpace where it has already had 300k downloads. The 15 minute track quickly made its rounds over the internet due to Jay’s left-of-center approach -- looping parts of the score of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and rapping over that. No drums, no hooks, just new shit. Still, it works and Jay’s mastery of writing and rhythm is strong enough to carry the tracks. In the only documented interview with the man so far, he explains, “I’m an emcee at heart, so I’m always going to write in a way that I feel is superior to any emcee. That’s just the nature of a true rapper.” Now Jay is readying himself to release ‘Act II: Patents of Nobility (The Turn)’, with the final act being his debut album which is to be released sometime in 2008 with beats from Jay himself, Madlib Mr. Porter, Hi-Tek and Beat Autopsy. Combining a powerful, aggressive delivery with a commanding voice and highly insightful battle lyrics, the man known as The Black Atom is positioning himself to be a force to be reckoned with on all fronts of modern hip hop. Whether mainstream, underground, purist or new-age, any self-respecting hip hop head needs to pay attention, and look closely. Andres Reyes (sweeneykovar.wordpress.com

JAY ELECTRONICA

As well as his heavy-duty refixes on Bipolar, check Kay Suzuki’s mix n’ blend

styles at www.kaysuzuki.com

Pick up Mr V’s Sole Channel mix while the website’s being reconstructed.

www.solechannel.com.

Mike Boogie’s ‘Dillagence’ mixtape, with Busta giving out respects to Jay

Dee beats is hot right now. www.mickboogie.com.

For all you jazz cats, check these mixes. Sahib Shihab to Tim Maia and

anything in between. quincyessentialmusic.libsyn.com.

Everybody needs a little WE ARE in their lives. Heavy inspiration.

free-rein.typepad.com/we_are.

Blogariddims monthly podcast, from norwegian post-punk to ’93 hardcore to

baile funk. Subscribe today at weareie.com

Kode 9 vs Flying Lotus.

www.rinsefm.blogspot.com

The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust by Saul Williams is

available to download for $5 or for free. Let me think now?

www.niggytardust.com.

If your pimp styles are flagging, head over to Tariq Nasheed and he’ll set you

straight. www.macklessons.com

With guest mixes courtesy of Jneiro Jarel, Eric Lau, Dego, Ta’raach and

Georgia, tune into Andrew Meza’s shows on BTS. www.btsradio.net

Vintage Tim Westwood Capital FM radio shows, featuring Chuck D & the PE

crew in session. Was the big dawg just as foolish back in 1991. Yeah baby.

www.fatlacemagazine.rawkus.com

This company just raised $7m in funding... madness!

www.hitsongscience.com/technology.php

From Frank Wright avant-jazz to Burial to Banglasheshi mouth organ music,

wordthecat is one badass blogger. www.wordthecat.com

Get your fingers dirty over at the Nightriderz home. Rare soul vinyl, cosmic

BYG LPs, traditional island music and French pop. www.frenchattack.com

WEB CUTS

Manufactured by the Chinese since the 1920s, Feiyue shoes have been worn by politicians, farmers and even the Chinese football team. But they’re perhaps best known as the footwear of choice for the Shaolin masters.

In a new collaboration between the Feiyue factory in Shanghai and the LCP United team of designers, an original line of shoes have hit the European market. Using manufacturing techniques dating back 100 years, each pair are assembled and glued by hand to achieve that vintage feel. The Shaolin hi-series are definitely fresh for ‘08.

www.feiyue-shoes.com

STREET CORNER HEAVY TRIBUTEW I T H U P C O M I N G S H O W S I N A T L A N T A , P H I L L Y , C H I C A G O A N D C A L G A R Y , A N D T R I B U T E S T O B A S Q U I A T A N D A L I , H V W 8 P R E S E N T S O M E N E X T L E V E L I S H . W W W . H V W 8 . C O M

People always said that if Miles Davis was still alive today he’d be making some avant-garde dance music.Recorded in 1972, Miles Davis’ On the Corner is avant-garde dance music - its syncopated percussion patterns sound like jungle 20 years before the fact. With a band that included Michael Henderson, Mtume, Sonny Fortune, Carlos Garnett, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Jack DeJohnette, Miles proves he’s the consummate band leader and one bad motherfucka too. The Complete On The Corner Sessions is available now for all you Miles fiends out there.

54

1. FISHER PRICE (NO DRUMS REQUIRED.)

Playing drums is like dancing to music. So, select a favorite song and tap the beat to it with your right hand. These beats are the downbeats. This is where the groove is locked onto. Normally there should be four downbeats to one measure. 1...2...3...4...

Next try to fill the gap between the downbeats of the right hand with a left hand tap. 1.+.2.+.3.+.4.+. while listening to your favourite Stevie Wonder hit. Now double the right hand with your right foot. This should already give you a solid groove and lock really nice into the rhythm you are listning to. Keep on playing this basic rhythm on a table, on your knees or wherever you are listening to music with a beat or groove.

2. HIGH-SCHOOL BAND

Now get behind a drum kit. In front of you should be at least a snare drum, a bass drum with a pedal (right foot) and a hi-hat (left foot) with some hi-hat cymbals attached to it. To keep things simple, close the hi-hat or leave your left foot on it to keep it closed. Play the right-hand downbeats on the closed hi-hat. 1...2...3...4... Next, add the left-hand on the hi-hat as well: 1.+.2.+.3.+.4.+. Add the right-foot on the bass drum and practice this 8th note rhythm for a long, long time.

Now, let’s take every second beat of the right hand (the 2 and the 4 ) and play it on the snare drum. Yes. This is already a groove that should put a smile on your face. Play this until you really feel comfortable with it. Now try to play all the 8th notes 1.+.2.+.3.+.4.+. with you right hand, putting your left to rest for a moment. Same rhythm, different feel. Play this until it’s in your system. Then try to play the beats 2 and 4 with your left hand on the snare drum. Your left arm goes under the right one, almost crossed. This is the simple beat you heard a million times, also called the Dum-Z-Dah-Z-Dum-Z-Dah. The famous drummer Bernard Purdie once said that this beat is all you need to get your kids through college.

3 BOHANNON

Now let’s get funky. Take the basic beat from above and stop playing the 2 and 4 with your left hand. Just play the 8th notes 1+2+3+4+ on the hihat with the right hand and the downbeats 1234 on the bass drum with the right foot. Now take the left hand and fill in the gaps between the right hand on the hihat. So 1+2+3+4+ becomes 1*+*2*+*3*+*4*+*. The (*) stands for all the left hand strokes. Do this slowly so you can really pay attention to whats going on. This is a 16th note groove now - a simple disco beat. Play this for while and get into the feel of this new and funky rhythm. Next, take the 2+4 down on the snare again. With your right hand this time.

To spice this beat up we turn to our left foot. Adjust the hi-hat cymbal to open - not too wide, maybe one centimetre. Now just play both feet at the same time, 1234. This makes the hi-hat cymbal open up just before the down beats, giving our 16th note groove an even more of a disco feel. When you feel comfortable in this groove, you can experiment with the opening of the hi-hat. Just how much you open it, and exactly when you start to open it, makes all the difference. You will see.

4 FUNKY DRUMMER

Now that we’ve mastered the 8th note and a 16th note drumbeat, we can play along to most of the music around us. Next we’ll hot thigs up a little with some fills and variations. Again, let’s play our 16th note groove with the hihat closed. The right and the left play 1*+*2*+*3*+*4*+*. These are all the subdivisions that we need to go crazy. Now play the 16th note groove three times (three bars) and in the fourth bar, take both hands and play all 16 notes (1*+*2*+*3*+*4*+*.) on the snare drum. After that go back into the 16th note groove. This is called a fill in.

When you’re comfortable with this, take the individual hits of the fill in onto other instruments of the drumset. Best done in groups of four. Do it like: four on the snare, four on the first tom, four on the second and so on... But always stay in the groove of 1*+*2*+*3*+*4*+*. As soon as feel safe doing this, you can take every hit of the fill in and play it on different sources. Advanced players can also leave out one hand and replace it with a bass drum hit. You can go on forever with the variations never ending.

Christian Prommer’s Drumlesson is out now on Sonar Kollektiv.

CHRISTIAN PROMMER’S

DRUM LESSONThey say money talks, and wealth whispers, and in my experience, a similar type of theory applies to beatmakers. Whilst some hustle their game daily on myspace and thrust beat tapes with familiar rhodes passages and All The Breaks drums under your noses, it’s often those heads that quietly, humbly and methodically refine their art behind closed doors without sharing it beyond their drinking buddies that tend to really knock your head off with the bedroom bangers.

Paul White is the ultimate example of this softly spoken, silently soldiering-on breed of b-boy. Upon hearing Beat tape #8, I felt as though I’d been hit in the temple with a slice of lemon wrapped around an asteroid, to pimp Douglas Adams. It felt like uncorking that forbidden bottle of port that your next door neighbours gave your folks three decades ago, on a hazy winter’s afternoon after finishing the roast. Forboding, ancient, as strong as the day it was distilled and the kind of thing that knocks you for six for a few hours, and even a few days.

Paul’s studio is like a shrine to all that is sacred amongst the cognescenti. Obscure library records sit quietly next to the Human League, polish jazz and british psych rock masterpieces, whilst the MPC, SP1200, s950 and other classic drum machines survey the scene. But the magic lies in Paul’s ear and ability to pick out the odd, the humourous, the soulful and raw, the retro futuristic moments of the records his crates hold. And his ability to twist them, roughen them and render them totally unfamiliar. Despite the fact that you’ll probably find some of them next to the port, behind the gramaphone… ya dig?

Beatnick

PAUL WHITEThe ethos behind CoOp never needed much explanation. It was the place where wallflowers and dancers, tastemakers and trainspotters, top shottas and beatmakers, all got together to P.A.R.T.Y. under one roof. But it was also the unique collaborative spirit behind the music that has kept the movement moving forward. The records came out through Goya from afrofuturists like IG Culture, Dego, Afronaught, Mark Force, Seiji, Domu, Restless Soul, and labels like Main Squeeze, People, Neroli as well as Far Out, Especial, Freerange, Afro Art kept the record buyers happy.Taking things to the next level, COOPR8.net is the online community – consider it CoOp v. 2.0 – linking up studio heads, motion capturists, deejays and nerds through a stush social networking interface. The world-wide community are all up in the place – from Djinji Brown to Afronaught, Daz-I-Cue to Kay Suzuki, Opolopo to Vanessa Freeman – plus all the ravers, the faces, the promoters and the supporters. The community is building. Add to this the COOPR8 store where you can buy your select cuts from the BITA catalogue, from Main Squeeze, from Wah Wah and the fiesta riddims on ABCD, and it’s here that the Cooperation III album will be drop-ping first. Plus, there’ll be exclusives from IG, Restless Soul, Bugz and that sick ‘Bone In Your Nose’ beat from the one like Danny Native. Time to get involved. Time to COOPR8.www.coopr8.net

I N T H I S F O U R - S T E P E E D I A T ’ S G U I D E T O T H E D R U M S , C H R I S T I A N P R O M M E R ’ S

E X P L A I N S J U S T W H A T Y O U S H O U L D D O W I T H Y O U R R H Y T H M S T I C K S . P A Y

A T T E N T I O N . . H E S H A L L O N L Y R E P E A T T H I S O N C E .

“My dad was really into music but very protective of his records. I asked him to do me a tape but he wouldn’t. One day, he went out and I had an hour and ten minutes to put a tape together. It was a reggae tape – I had Tenor Saw, Jacob Miller, Michael Rose, Black Uhuru, Inner Circle, Michael Prophet, Half Pint, Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown. I was 12 years old at the time and my dad never found out as I put all the records back carefully where I found them. It was my first-ever mix and I used a single deck so had to hold and pause to put the tunes together. I even sped up the record player to get more music on there. I’ve still got the tape and bring it out when I’m ready to meditate. It’s warped big-time but I still listen to it.”

‘Hey Girl’ by Ear Dis out now with a remix. Forever and Always Diverse Appreciation www.myspace.com/faada

SPOONFACEWIT

H

76

DANCES

Bird Flu: Created by DJ Lewis to bring ‘joy’ instead of fear to the prospect of bird flu. Guantanomo: One of the first political statements to appear in the hedonistic scene the dance involved clasping your hands together as if handcuffed. Ca: Hailing from nearby Togo this dance is currently causing controversy with its sexually explicit moves. Fatigue Fatigue: A new dance that sees revelers falling about pretending to be sleepy.

NEW ARTISTS TO WATCH

As The Jet Set have become institutions of the sound, a new era of coupé decalé talents who blend the sound with other dance genres such as techno and house are rocking the clubs of Paris and the maquis of Abidjan. Artists have emerged from Togo, Congo and Senegal, and even the Chinese in Africa have been doing their version. New names to look out for include: DJ Lewis ,DJ Marethal, Konty DJ’s, Decaprio and Bora Ba.

THE FOUNDER: DOUK SAGA & THE JET SET Douk Saga aka The President is regarded as the founder of coupé decalé. He was one of the young Ivorians whom developed the genre in the backstreet nightclubs of Paris and honed the genre’s hyper bling aesthetic and rooted its philosophy in success, status and progress. He was the leader of the genre’s premier seven man crew The Jet Set but on 12th October 2006 he died in hospital of tuberculosis. His demise was well documented on African Internet news sites with pictures showing

him hooked up to dialysis machines. A few months ago a huge party was held in his honour in Abidjan for coupé decalé artists old and new to pay homage to him.

TOP COUPE DECALE TUNES

Pepo by DJ Jacob, Arafat & Caloudi Faut Couper Décaler by Kaysha Magic Ambiance by Magic System On sait pa ou va? by DJ Jacab feat Kaysha Bablee Samez by Bablee Sentiment Moko by DJ Serpent Noir

COUPE DECALE V E R B A L S : SARAH BENTLEY

“And now, The Jet Seeeeeeeeet.” It’s 5.30am and Molaré, Bobo Sangui, Lino Versace and Solo Béton, all members of Africa’s premier coupé decalé crew, frug onto the empty dancefloor. The three hundred strong crowd of mainly Ivorian émigrés packed into this bouji Paris nightclub whoop and cheer. The crew all rock skin tight T’s, blingy shades and are dripping in ‘90s designer labels - Versace, D&G, Armani. As they launch into a synchronised routine of isolated hip twirls and begin to chat on the mic, the well-groomed crowd, all sitting at tables with champagne buckets and balloon arrangements, shower the stage with 50 and 100 Euro notes.

Bizarre as it may seem, the passing of money between audience and artist, artist and audience, is a major part of coupé decalé culture and is inspired by atalaku, an ancient griot practice where, for a fee, the griot would make a dedication to local heavyweights. At the coupé decalé parties, everyone from artists, fans, promoters, revellers and local gangsters engage in acts of munificence (known as ‘travailler’) - buying everyone drinks, giving out bundles of cash or, in the case of coupé decalé founder Douk Saga, wearing two haute couture suits so he could strip one off to toss into the crowd. Discretion is anathema to coupé decalé heads. The point of ‘travailler’ is to make the act as highly visible as possible.

Coupé decalé is a dance/party music that emerged and developed in France and Cote D’Ivoire simultaneously around 2002. According to DJ Edu from BBC 1Xtra, the sound is a mixture of Congolese styles like zouglou but with “hip hop hype man” vocals and a fast, jiggy tempo, “akin to 4/4 house.” Like any new music genres, there are various explanations for the origins of the name. The most

common is it was inspired by the shady practices (credit card fraud, internet scams, identity theft) of the scene’s founders - Ivorian youths living in France with inexplicably healthy bank balances and bling lifestyles. Coupé means to cut or cheat, and decalé to slip away without being caught, so coupé decalé basically means to cut and run. It’s Robin Hood, African style: going to Europe to rinse foreigners before returning home to splash the cash on your community.

Unsurprisingly the music initially had a bad reputation. Traditional Ivorian musicians berated the new genre and what it stood for. The Jet Set and other high profile artists were accused so many times of corruption they had to publicly explain their sources of income. Douk Saga said the source of his initial wealth was “trading in Europe”; Molaré said, he worked in “real estate”; Junior Kuyo was “the son of a millionaire” and John Kouamé’s father was a successful “legal arms dealer.” As the genre has gained popularity and artists have been able to generate legitimate sources of income from the music alone (a high profile coupé decalé performer is paid EUR 3000 for international shows), it has shed its dodgy image and is a national source of pride.

The dancers are a major contributing factor to coupé decalé’s success. Like Jamaican dancehall culture, new routines are devised on a weekly basis and, thanks to video clip sites like YouTube, new moves sweep through the global coupé decalé community in a matter of weeks. The most publicized dance ever created was the Bird Flu by rising coupé decalé star DJ Lewis. He created it shortly after the first case of bird flu was reported in neighbouring Nigeria. He says, “Like our ancestors who used dances to chase illness away, I wanted to create a dance that created joy instead of fear.” The dance, and many since, have been

brought to mainstream attention by Ivorian footballers such as Chelsea’s Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou who often perform them after scoring goals.

What’s perhaps most interesting about coupé decalé is the time which it enjoyed its initial surge in popularity was when the Ivory Coast was stricken with civil war. Etienne of Radioclit, one of the only UK-based DJ’s to do a dedicated coupé decalé mix, observes, “The country’s most ridiculous party music emerged while it was at its most politically unstable.” Etienne is currently working with coupé decalé producer Bablee, who is renowned for his amazing Bablee Sumaz beat, and has been part of the movement since its inception. He remembers when war broke out in 2002, the situation was so explosive that most businesses closed down. Few people worked during the day and a curfew at night meant that no one partied in the maquis (outdoor marquees that serve as Abidjan’s main party spots). Consequently the maquis started opening at 9am in the morning with wild, all-day coupé decalé parties suddenly the norm.

“It sounds crazy but the parties were escapism from the mayhem on the streets,” says Bablee. “That’s why the lyrics were so carefree and flippant, we needed them to be that way so we could forget out troubles and have a good time.” And how are the lyrics today? “It’s funny,” he says. “Because things are slightly more stable, coupé decalé artists are started to add more socially aware messages into their lyrics. The tracks sound just as light hearted and fun as before, but if you listen closely, the message is getting deeper.”

Listen to Radioclit’s coupé decalé podcast mix at: http://cdn.libsyn.com/radioclit/

Doi

ng th

e B

ird F

lu

“My first album Arthur Verocai, came out in 1972. Tropicalia ended in 1969 but I was not influenced by that movement at all. My music was totally different and I simply could never relate to it. At that time, I was already really into jazz, funk, soul, samba, bossa nova. My compositions had lots of harmonies. Tropicalia was more about phsychedelic rock and pop – a political and commercial thing with a lot marketing and media involvment. I respect Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, and even though they were considered part of the movement, their talent goes well beyond Tropicalia. They were always just doing their thing.

‘Over the years I’ve worked with many musicians, writing and producing arrangements for Jorge Ben, Marcos Valle, Gal Costa, Elizeth Cardoso and Ivan Lins among others. I used to do arrangements for Tim Maia (Ed Motta’s uncle) as well. That man was a legend, an icon and a real soul brother.

“Though obviously influenced by Milton Nascimento, Airto Moreira, A C Jobin and Tim Maia, one of the musicians that had a huge impact on my music was Heitor Villa-Lobos. Along with Jobim, he ranks as one of the most important Brasilian composers of all time. He traveled a lot around the country, discovering all types of music including indigenous music from the Amazon. He combined beautifully Brasilian folk with classical music. He was a fantastic person, very close to the Brasilian president at the time. He helped revalue the role of music in education and he liked music so much that one day he organized a gig in the Vasco De Gama football stadium where thousands of children sang togther in a huge choir. That was something never seen before.

“Aside from my better known recordings, I’ve also written jingles for Brahma, Coca Cola and Fanta. Obviously it was something more

commercially orientated, but as a producer you have to be flexible and be able to communicate with a much wider audience which is no easy task. I even wrote the jingle for the Brasilian football team during the World Cup in 1990 and 1994. Most people think doing music is one thing and doing commercials is another, but my approach was always the same. I was pretty much free to do whatever I wanted. They just loved my stuff. I always tried to make the client happy without compromising my music.

“With the power of hindsight, I’d say the golden era for Brasilian music was the ‘70s. It was a time when no one dreamed of becoming milionaires. It was all about the love. I used a four-track mixer to record my first album – two tracks for stereo drums, bass guitar, piano and percussion. The third track was for strings and the fourth for vocals. It was very simple but sounded beautiful. Capitalism has definitely had a negative effect on music.

“In recent years, Little Brother sampled my work for The Minstrel Show album. I like their music and I got paid so I’m happy about that, but I’m very disappointed with MF Doom. He robbed my music on his album Special Herbs and Spices, signing my arrangements in his name. That’s not fair at all.

“With my new album, Encore I’ve evolved a lot since my first album but harmonically the sound is as poignant as it was in the 70s. I enjoy to find new way to make music, its a way of life for me. The musicains we’ve been working with need no introduction..people like Azymuth, Ivan Lins. Thanks to Far Out head honcho Joe Davis I’ve met my producer Dave Brinkworth in 2005 in Rio De Janeiro. I was living in Copacabana at the time and one day Dave rang my bell and that was it! The very same day we decided to make a new album. It’s great, don’t you think?”

Encore is out now on Far Out Recordings

ARTHUR VEROCAI

GET TO KNOW

THE COOLEST CUBAN MUSIC COLLECTIVE

INTERACTIVOC O U P E D E C A L E I S P A R T Y M U S I C A F R I C A N S T Y L E . A S I T S P R E A D S T H R O U G H O U T T H E C O N T I N E N T , E U R O P E A N D B E Y O N D , I T ’ S A G E N R E A N Y S E L F - R E S P E C T I N G

D J S N E E D T O P L U G I N T O .

I T ’ S B E E N 3 0 Y E A R S S I N C E H I S L A S T A L B U M , B U T T H E L A T E S T O F F E R I N G F R O M

T H I S B R A S I L I A N M A S T E R S O U N D S J U S T A S L U S H A S H I S E P O N Y M O U S C L A S S I C .

I N T E R V I E W : VINCE VELLA

C A M E R A : MATT CROSSICK

When Interactivo is was born?The band was formed in 2001. The founders were myself, Oliver Valdes and Yusa. At the time I was working with Telmary Diaz and Francis del Rio so we put our different styles together. The result was very cool. Since then, many of the best musician in town have played with us – musicians from Afro Cuban All Stars, Irakere, Maracas, Los Van Van amongst others.

Do you have particular criteria when you choose your musicians?They all have one thing in common – a profound knowledge of jazz and fusion. They have to be able to play any style of music. Interactivo is all about fusing music styles. We mix the roots of different musics together, like jazz funk with Cuban timba which have similar rhythmic patterns, i.e. the clave. Our central purpose is to explore unique perspective for latin jazz funk that can remain tied to our afro-cuban folkloric roots

Who would you like work with?We did some stuff with the Brasilian guitarist Lenine, we respect him a lot. I’d like to some stuff with Meshell Ndegeocello – she’s my sista – and I love Jamiroquai too.

What did you grow up listening to?In my house my parents were playing a bit of everything – Beatles, lots of Jazz…Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Ravi Shankar and obviously lots of Cuban stuff like Beny Moré and Los Van Van.

What are you listening now?I really like the new Yosvanny Terry CD. He’s a Cuban saxophonist that lives in NY and he plays with Eddie Palmieri. I also like Yerbabuena, Orishas, X Alfonso, Anga Diaz, Horacio El Negro, Chucho Valdez, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Omar Sosa. I keep my eyes open on all different styles and I like Mos Def and John Legend too.

Where do you most enjoy playing? I really like it in the USA, in the Bay Area especially. I’ve got so many friends there and I always feel like I’m at home. Brasil is a special place too – you breathe music everywhere and its so spiritual, very similar to Cuba.

R O B E R T O C A R C A S S E S , P I A N I S T A N D L E A D E R O F

I N T E R A C T I V O , S O N O F B O B B Y C A R C A S S E S W H O O R G A N I Z E D

T H E F I R S T J A Z Z F E S T I V A L I N H A V A N A , C H E W S T H E F A T

W I T H V I N C E V E L L A .

98

Paul Gilroy is the Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory at the London School of Economics and has written widely on race, culture, nationalism, music and literature. The appearance of his book Black Britain: A Photographic History is well timed, just as the Stephen Lawrence case is about is re-opened. In this book is included a photo of Stephen Lawrence’s family, who are photographed with a guilty looking Prince Charles. In one of the most important passages of the book, Gilroy puts this racist miscarriage of justice in its historical context by connecting it to Enoch Powell’s 1968 Rivers of Blood speech. “The speech was a seismic shock that reverberated through the country for twenty-five years, arguably until reactions to the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 created a different set of political and moral codes for managing issues of minority citizenship and black belonging.”

This is not your typical coffee-table book. 319 photographs capturing the black (Afro-Caribbean and Asian) experience in Britain from 1897 to 2006, it is a book that is worthy of taking pride of place in the home of any black person who seeks to locate themselves confidently in noughties Britain where “there are more black men in prison that in higher in higher education. not just because they are victims of racism, but because they are poorer, less educated and less healthy as well as more likely to be distracted and seduced by the empty dreams of consumer culture.”

White people will benefit from the inspiring images that show the multi-racial battles fought, from the Pan-African Congress of 1945 through to millennium demonstrations against the Iraq war. The photograph of a 1978 Rock against Racism rally in South London shows black, white and mixed-race children standing behind banners advertising an Anti-Nazi League March. I wondered if I was one of the mixed-race girls in the picture, as my white mum was involved in this campaign. Many mixed-race children were given up for adoption prior to this period, such was the vicious racism that mixed couples encountered. Thanks to the work of the ANL and RAR, the Fascist menace was defeated and Britain transformed into the country of multi-racial diversity and musical vibrancy. Today, the language of most Britons is an anglicized form of Jamaican.

Strangely, for a man who as written so much about music as Paul Gilroy, there is scant mention of Britain’s particular musical contribution. Lovers Rock is explained as a marriage between

black American music and reggae, a style exemplified by Caron Wheeler. The portrait of the beautiful and talented singer/songwriter is one of my favourites in the book. In it, the locksed lioness wears an enigmatic expression and her gaze seems to penetrate beyond the camera, capturing her spirit as a musical visionary. She started in the reggae band Brown Sugar and uniquely fused bass culture together with soul in her conscious collaborations with Soul II Soul and Carl McIntosh of Loose Ends. But there’s no mention either of Carl McIntosh and his group Loose Ends, or of Light of the World, a group who took the influences of US jazzers and created an awesome British Jazz-Funk that dancers still adore. All these artists gave black British people a global presence which should not be overlooked.

This small criticism aside, the book is a fabulous black British odyssey. Take the trip. One Love Paul Gilroy.

Black Britain: A Photographic History by Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall is published by Saqi Books (£19.99).

I H O P E T H E S E P H O T O G R A P H S W I L L C O N T R I B U T E T O T H E G R O W T H O F A N E W C U L T U R A L H I S T O R Y T H A T R E F U S E S T H E

G E N E R I C , U S - C E N T R E D B L A C K N E S S A N D S T A Y S S T U B B O R N L Y T I E D T O T H E B R O K E N E D I F I C E O F O U R L E A K Y N A T I O N A L

S T A T E . T H A T C H O I C E A F F I L I A T E S B L A C K L I F E H E R E W I T H A V I T A L C U L T U R E T H A T C A N N O T B E C O N C E I V E D A S A

D E A D P I E C E O F P R O P E R T Y T O B E M O N O P O L I S E D B Y A N Y P A R T I C U L A R G R O U P O F O W N E R S . I T A P P E A R S I N S T E A D

A S A L I V I N G B U T U N F I N I S H E D H I S T O R I C A L P R O C E S S T H A T R E S I S T S T H A T K I N D O F T R A N S P O S I T I O N A N D M A Y Y E T

T E A C H T H E W O R L D S O M E T H I N G . ” P A U L G I L R O Y , B L A C K B R I T A I N A P H O T O G R A P H I C H I S T O R Y

SOUL TRAINBLACK VERBALS: ADEOLA JOHNSON

Unsung legend: Caron Wheeler

Via Rhino come this great selection of classic Atlantic Records releases, even if in the liner notes, Prince Phillip Mitchell complains that “Atlantic really screwed up my whole career.” Altantic was home to some of the biggest names in R&B, from Aretha Frankin to Donny Hathaway, and on his soundtrack to Come Back Charleston Blue you’ll find his ‘Little Ghetto Boy’ masterpiece. Atlantic continued to release fine soul albums into the ‘80s, but little can compete with material like Voice of East Harlem’s Right On To Be Free.

1110

BRITAIN

S O U T H A F R I C A N S I M P H I W E D A N A H A S F O U G H T H A R D T O M A K E A N A M E F O R H E R S E L F O N T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L S T A G E . H E R V O I C E C A P T U R E S T H I S F I G H T A N D I M B U E S I T W I T H A S W E E T N E S S T H A T ’ S F I L L E D W I T H P R O M I S E A N D P O T E N T I A L .

SIMPHIWE DANA

AFRICANPRINCESS

VERBALS: HELENE DANCER“If you came to Gothenburg, where would I show you? It’s pretty cold, there’s long winters so we spend a lot of the time inside – I’d probably take you to my house and make tea. I have a big selection of different herbal teas so hopefully…” she pauses and with a nervous laugh adds, “so hopefully you like herbal tea. We have pretty much every flavour imaginable. Persoanlly I like to have grated ginger, with hot water, honey, soya milk and cinnamon. How does that sound? Then after we’ve had tea, we’d probably head down to the studio.”

Welcome the torpor and tranquility that’s Yukimi’s world. Unfortunately for us she’s not spending too much time in Gothenburg at the moment, so we might have to delay our tea party. A hectic touring schedule for her new band Little Dragon, and supporting label-mate José González across five continents, means that when she does make it home, she like to indulge in some quality ‘me time’, relaxing and maxing out in the studio with Little Dragon.

“Our studio’s based in the suburb of Stampen and it’s shared between the band – Erik, Frederick, Håkan and myself. We all used to live at the studio, but we’ve since redone it to include rehearsing rooms, studio rooms and a big kitchen. Håkan still lives there actually.”

The members of the group have all been friends since high school, but it’s only recently that Yukimi has devoted herself to the Little Dragon project. She was always better known for her collaborations with Hird, Sleepwalker and Koop (it’s Yukimi’s vocals on the delirious ‘Summer Sun’), lacing those gorgeous vocal lines while still a young teenager. But right now she’s putting some daylight between herself and the Nordic jazz sound.

“I’ve never really felt completely into it, even if I have been performing the songs,” she explains. “You can be a musician and play an instrument and people won’t label you, but if you’re singing, you represent something more. I’ve felt like an instrument of someone else. I’ve really liked it and it was inspiring, but I’ve been quite clear that it wasn’t something I wanted to do with my own project.”

Now Yukimi’s got her own band, penned her own songs, put her own style out there, thrown herself body and soul into Little Dragon, she’s finally found a place where she belongs. It’s difficult to put your finger on the sound, which draws on R&B, folk and electronica but is utterly idiosyncratic. There’s been a tendency amongst European vocalists to copy their American idols like they’re doing karaoke, and although Yukimi grew up listening to R&B, the results are anything but. Think instead Hot Chip’s versions of Marvin and Prince and you’re on the right track. Maybe she figured that Bjork never needed to be anyone but herself. That sincerity is a hugely attractive quality in music. Maybe this was waiting to get out all the time, the little dragon inside of her.

But let’s take nothing away from the band, a trio of drums, keys and bass, who’ve created a deceptively simple and clean sound, with touches of electronic effects, which speaks loudest in its spaces and its silent sounds.

“You can just have drums and vocals and that can be enough. There’s something about it – it’s almost primal. Long before there was electricity, before people had all their different instruments, all there was was just the drums and the voice,” explains Yukimi.

“Eric falls in love with the drums or the beat in a song. He likes to keep it minimal and we tend to agree. Sometimes, before you’ve added too much, if it happens to be just drums and vocals, you can become really fascinated how it can sound real interesting and good – it’s easy to add too much and over do it.”

Even the most cynical listeners will be felled by the Little Dragon debut. Check for the bewitching and hypnotic ‘Twice’, its creeping tempo gradually overcoming you like a small death, or Yukimi’s coquettish delivery on ‘Constant Surprises’. People have been known to fall in love at nothing more than the sound of a voice. Listening to Yukimi on record, you can feel yourself slipping.

Little Dragon is out now on Peacefrog.

Steve Biko, leader of the South African Black Consciousness movement, died for freedom. He was the 41st person to perish in police custody and at 30 years old, had fought hard against the injustices of the apartheid regime.

“Apartheid meant a systematic stripping of our culture,” says singer Simphiwe Dana, who named her second album The One Love Movement on Banto Biko Street in memory of her struggle hero.

“Africans became shadows of who they used to be and my personal protest is to change this – to focus on humanising my people and make my culture look cool,” she says. Listen to her music, and the protest is brought immediately to life. Dana sings mainly in Xhosa – her mother tongue – and the sweet vocals swirl over the Afro-soul and jazz rhythms that hypnotise with their lyrical circularity. Her voice has a maturity to its tone that belies the fact that she’s still only in her late 20s, and alludes to the struggle she herself has faced thus far in making a success for herself in the music industry, grappling with the subjugation of her people and her culture in South Africa. But it’s not sad music – it’s poignant, hopeful and proud.

“I was born in the rural Transkei and I’m very much a product of my environment,” she says. “Money was never important when I was growing up – the act of survival became a glorious thing for me. Getting the wood for the fire, water from the garden… I think that’s probably why there’s a lightness and freedom to my sound.”

From the age of 14, Dana moved around the country independently. She went to the Eastern Cape town of Port Elizabeth and then dived headlong into the big-city environment of Johannesburg. “It was scary to leave my comfort zone but I like my own space. This is necessary to me when making music. I use my aloneness as a sanctuary.”

It was here in Johannesburg that she began to take part in poetry ciphers, craft her songs and start to create a buzz for herself. The South African music industry is a difficult one to crack and Dana has had to grit her teeth firmly to make it professionally. Even now, more than 10 years on from the end of apartheid, the industry is deeply fragmented and struggles to find itself a context on the world stage. Sure, there are the big names like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela that command international respect, but being stuck on the southern tip of the African continent can be a restrictive factor.

“My record company now supports me but I had to fight hard for it and prove myself when I was first signed in 2004. I used to be there screaming and shouting – but it’s better now,” she says. “The local market is also swamped with American products and foreign music is still more popular. People aren’t included to buy South African music and I feel the media isn’t helping promote our local talents.”

A private and reflective character, Dana has had to temper her instinct to stay “away from the madding crowd” and continue her quest for local and international respect. She has already played on the international circuit and plans to come back to London next year. But it’s in South Africa where she derives most of her joy – her favourite gig ever being at the Playhouse Theatre in Durban for its atmosphere and energy.

South Africa is also the place where she wants to have the most impact. “My biggest hope is even if things don’t change now, I’ll make a difference for the future. I know I can’t fix today but my biggest mission is to create an understanding and get to a point where my people can realise their greatness, they great potential and how the world needs them. We have something to contribute and we fail in the great human movement when we don’t play our part.”

The song ‘Vukani’ from her first album Zandisile is an impassioned cry to inculcate pride in her people and the title track is a song of hope. Her cries haven’t fallen on deaf ears as Dana’s albums are critically acclaimed and have won South African Music Awards.

Despite these additions to her mantleplece, Dana makes it clear that she has her work cut out for her. “South Africans still have a serious identity crisis and like Steve Biko, I want to pump life back into the people – help restore that humanness we lost.” Her voice could very well be that panacea. Let’s hope reality and the machinations of the industry don’t dull its promise.

The One Love Movement on Banto Biko Street is out now on Gallo

YUKIMI NAGANOV E R B A L S : F R E E R A D I K A L C O L L A G E : Y U K I M I N A G A N O

SLIPPINGW I T H H E R L I T T L E D R A G O N P R O J E C T , K O O P V O C A L I S T

Y U K I M I N A G A N O H A S G O T U S S P E L L B O U N D .

1312

It’s been a hectic few months. Since Carnival put a full stop on the madness of summer festivals of August around the UK and Europe, and the official clubbing season started to kick in, I decided to take a break from Heathrow trips for September and concentrate on working here (LDN) for a month – Djing, doing the radio and concentrating on setting up my new project, the Deviation monthly sessions. Generally speaking I’ve never been one to take the easy route in life, I usually like a challenge. And so it was pretty true to character that I should decide to avoid the weekend and bring back the midweek party vibe at a pretty much unheard of venue in East London that would require my own sound system and serious promotion.

When I was a teenager and getting into music, clubs and DJ culture, it was possible to go out pretty much every night of the week to something interesting or good, and I pretty much did. That was a huge part of my musical and DJ education. Looking back I dont know how I survived, going out all night every night, then straight to school, and then out all night the next night. There was too much good stuff happening to miss, too many inspiring Djs spinning, too many good tunes being cut, too many

sick soundsystems to hear and too many strong and healthy scenes going on. I am lucky to have come up in such an amazing era of club nights and music. I am also lucky to have grown up in the city that we love to hate and hate to love, Grimey old London, UK.

Going out to hip hop, house, reggae or drum and bass events in the ‘90s, the sound would always be the key. I came up seeing ‘Sound System provided by Eskimo Noise’ or ‘Soundsystem provided by Jah Shaka’ on flyers.

The venue would sound so sick I would want to put my head inside the bass cabinet. I knew that wherever I chose to do my session, I was pretty sure I would want to put my own sound in. Being a perfectionist can be very expensive. But with Gramaphone we had the right space, we just needed the sound to be right, so I called in our friends at DI Audio to design a system bespoke for the space that would immerse people in sound with clarity and depth, but without hurting them. They installed a Noise Control System that on the first session Skream tested to its limit. And maybe hurt a few people. But each session we have tweaked the system, every single time people leave talking about the sound and the atmosphere.

We’ve tried to maintain the ethic that made Metalheadz a legendary night at the Blue Note and Body and Soul a world famous event at Vinyl in New York – attention to sound, to detail, developing an identity, and most importantly: trust. Each event so far has been packed and has good memories attached - it feels like we are already achieving what we set out to do. In only 3 sessions we’ve had Waajeed, Ta’Raach, Skream, Chaingang, Flying Lotus, Dego and Moodyman spinning. The future is all about staying true to that ethic, inviting artists and DJs that represent the Deviation sound, not just representing established dons but bringing through next generation youngbloods too.

Deviation is on the first Wednesday of every month at Gramaphone, Commercial St, E1.Thanks to Layla, Patric, Natasha, Jonathan, Ben, Jude and Bart for all the input to make it happen. www.deviationmusic.net.

Catch Benji B’s Deviation show on 1xtra BBC live every Thursday night between midnight and 2am, or listen on demand at bbc.co.uk/1xtra.

DEVIATION WITH BENJI B

PHO

TO PA

Z PH

OTO

FATSAR

AZZI

PHO

TO FATSA

RA

ZZI

PHO

TO FATSA

RA

ZZI

PHO

TO FATSA

RA

ZZI

PHO

TO K

AY SHIN

14

SO WHERE DID ALL

THE GOOD JAMS GO?

B Y MA

RS

HA

GO

SH

O O

AK

ES.

A P R I C O T J A M - F L A V A O F T H E O L D S C H O O L

“100% N a t u r a l Flava, made from Organically Grown Breakbeats and No Artificial Attitudes” - that was the ethos of the vibe. It was natural, everybody was just mad cool. Hip hop has that little stigma of being ‘rough and tough’ and it was nice to not be like that, really.”

Jonzi D’s reminiscing on the monthly open-mic freestyle event that was Apricot Jam. The curator and host of Breakin’ Convention, the annual international hip hop dance theatre festival, has always been one step ahead of the game. So when in 1996 he spied a gap in the London live hip hop scene, he set up Apricot Jam which quicky became the essential platform for both aspiring and established emcees across the capital.

“I used to go to a lot of open mic freestyle events – I’ve been into hip hop since it first came into the UK in the early ‘80s, and I got a lot more into the emceeing side of things. I’d go to certain battle nights and open mic nights where people just got booed off the stage if they weren’t really, really good. Apricot Jam was an event where you could step up on the mic and not worry about getting booed, where artists were more free to try a ting, ‘cause the whole atmosphere was that of support.

Drawing in an eclectic mix of hip hop heads, the spoken word crowd, and the jazz technicians, Apricot Jam was first held at The Rhythmic in Islington (now the Elbow Rooms), and ran for four years, occasionally shifting location to Dingwalls in Camden, and Ladbroke Grove’s Subterranea. Aside from the supportive atmosphere, what really differentiated Apricot Jam from other open mics was the live band. This was ten years ago, when inviting rappers to perform over a live band at an open mic night was simply not the done thing in London.

“I was exploring a lot with jazz bands at the time,” says Jonzi, “and there was one particular drummer called Wilee Kyat (now known as Cassell The Beatmaker) who played like a hip hop sampler. From that, I was like ‘Oh man, we need to do a jam with him’ so I got him and the rest of his band, and a couple of others who formulated the Apricot Jam band.” The band also included the ridiculous talents of James Yarde, Eric Appapoulay, and Anthony Tidd, with Shortee Blitz as the house DJ. It all came together to create “the idea of organic

hip hop, live hip hop, and an open mic,” a night which Jonzi proudly notes “pre-dates a lot of the stuff that’s happening now” like MTV’s

Base Lounge and the unplugged I Luv Live showcases. UK hip hop veteran Blak Twang fondly refers to the night as “the

original Hip Hop unplugged”, adding “I think Apricot Jam set a precedence for more live hip hop jams, ‘cause up until that point I don’t believe there were any

other nights like that,” while Lyric L confirms, “It was all about truth, reality, essence, hip hop, energy, love and positivity.”

Showcasing both underground and more established artists, with a vocalist or spoken word artist thrown into the mix, a highlight of the Apricot Jams was the ‘Bring Ya Beat’ section. Jonzi explains, “I’d sing this chorus ‘bring your beat, come on, bring your beat, come on, bring your beat, and make it sound so sweet’ and then Wylee Kyat would come in with the same drum beat. Then the bassline would come in. Rappers would complain ‘that beat’s too fast’ or ‘that beat’s too slow’ so it was like, alright, bring your own! So when we opened up the mic, people would have to start their sets by making the band create a beat for them. We had a very highly skilled band. I’ve seen other people try to do it and it’s not come off so well.”

Other UK wordsmiths to rock the Apricot Jam crowd memorably include Rodney P, MC Mell’o’, the London Posse, Skinnyman, Fallacy, Ty, Taskforce, MC D, Mikey Supa, Malika B, Mpho Skeef, Eska Mtungwazi and Julie Dexter. Mpho recalls the event as, “the Jam to get stuck in, real sticky and real sweet and even fruitier than apricots! The place I cut my teeth as a performer, a really supportive, loving but challenging environment,” whilst Eska says, “With my rose-coloured shades on, reminiscing on Apricot Jam makes it very hard not to be biased about how great and significant the whole thing was. So many of us were starting out back then and this vibrant platform enabled us to showcase and shine.” Beyond the warmth of the vibe, Fusion describes Apricot Jam as pivotal in supporting those “black, British artists who were looking for an identity… it made me think I wanted to be part of British hip hop.”

”When I close my eyes I see Jonzi, the dreadlocked one, jumping up and down, microphone in hand, such an enigma. Happy spectators and participants, a whole lot of love in the room. Good days. Defining moments in our lives,” Eska recalls, adding, “Where did all the good jams go?”

Well, they might be out of the fridge before you know it. There’s a glint in Jonzi D’s eyes as our interview draws to a close and he announces, “I really wanna do it again. Just talking to you about it has made me think about the excellent memories that we had - and yes there’s a lot of people doing stuff like that now, but you know what? Nothing’s like the Apricot Jam.”

For Jonzi D’s regular Surgery events and news of 2008 Tag dates and brand new work, www.jonzi-d.co.uk Jonzi also hosts and curates Breakin’ Convention and The Pioneers. www.breakinconvention.comGive love to Wylee Kyat, James Yarde & members of the original Apricot Jam band over at www.myspace.com/thewisechildren

16

FOUR FALSE STARTS

The term jazz musician has been bandied about way too much, and inevitably conjures up clichés and stereotypes of polite dinner music in a wine bar.

When I first asked Daniel Crosby the energetic bandleader about the direction the band will go in he said he didn’t want to think about any of that yet, he said he just wanted to enjoy the music.

The term black jazz would mean different things to different people. To the record collector, it may mean buying vinyl that was not subject to commercial constraints in its genesis but was subject to the spiritual and musical survival of a black American underclass.

I’ve known Daniel for more than a decade. We did poetry and music tours in the early nineties. On the train back he’d always pull out his rubber practice drum pad and drum and tell jokes all the way home.

SEEING MY FIRST MIGHTY JEDDO SHOW

Notting Hill Arts Club, there is a palpable excitement to the air. It feels like a circus has come to town. The warm up bands have done their thing. The Migthy Jeddo takes the stage without smiles and Daniel calls the start, “1,2,3!” And it begins like an atomic mush-room cloud, with earthquake bass lines, machine gun drums, screaming sax and church organs. It does not stop for an hour and ten minutes straight. I can’t discern a middle, the end is abrupt and comes too soon. I do not blink. I think to myself “energy, energy, energy!” The people don’t want them to leave. The people don’t want to leave. This is what I’ve been looking for. For the rest of that week my every conversation is The Migthy Jeddo.

A SHORT, IMAGINARY BIO.If you really listen to music, all types of music: The Migthy Jeddo is the band for you. Imagine the energy of punk, combined with the technical precision of Jazz, mixed with the spirituality of blues and gospels, served up with soulful bass lines, drum patterns from rock to dance and beyond and saxophones complex as a Hendrix guitar lick. They are juggling culture of twenty first century globalisation while paying their respect to tradition. Walking into the future, looking backward and dragging history into a revamp. Crunching musical cultures to create an outsider reality music.

THE LAST WORD

I am a music lover and I have been looking for this all my life.

myspace.com/themightyjeddo

QUEEN IFRICA’S been getting a lot of hype recently with a trio of songs touching on often-taboo subjects. The Jamaican singer’s been recording and releasing great music for a number of years now, notably 2002’s beautiful ‘Peace and Love’ on the Belly Skin riddim. But it’s her recent singles, ‘Put On Yuh Thong (Below The Waist)’, ‘Stop The Genocide’ and ‘Daddy’, dealing deftly with a violent domestic argument, the genocide in Darfur and sexual abuse respectively, that have catapulted her to the centre of reggae’s attention. Queen Ifrica will be performing at Sting in Jamaica on Boxing Day and is currently working on an album with producers such as SLY AND ROBBIE, SHANE BROWN and DON CORLEON. www.myspace.com/queenifrica

Following in the footsteps of hip hop entrepreneurs like Jay-Z and Lil’ Jon, bashment superstar VYBZ KARTEL is launching his very own drink, Vybz Rum. The rum’s distributors go so far as to call Kartel “the Jay-Z of the dancehall music world” with his line in a triple distilled white rum and a five year red rum. Vybz Kartel aka Adidja Palmer recognizes that dancehall/reggae’s cultural influence has often failed to translate into hard cash, but he says this deal demonstrates that “the [dancehall] industry can be taken seriously as a viable economic force because of the influence and power that dancehall wields.”

Within a week in December, two high profile reggae/dancehall events in Jamaica were locked off by the police: first MAVADO’s birthday bash and then Reggae Fever in Montego Bay. At the time of going to press, there were concerns that the Boxing Day extravaganza Sting, known for its occasionally controversial onstage lyrical clashes, might also come under scrutiny from the authorities. According to Skerrit Bwoy aka SPONGE BOB, who was at the Mavado event: “A policeman took the mic and made his ‘nobody move, we have soldier ina bush, soldier ina air, soldier ina river’ speech. Someone shouted out, “what about the soldier ina panty?” and everyone who could hear was dead with laughter. I think that vexed the police - they locked the gate and searched everyone after that.” A third event, Riding West in Llandilo, was also raided in the same weekend but the show was over and the venue empty by the time the police arrived.

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, Puerto Rican duo CALLE 13 deservedly won Best Urban Album at the Latin GRAMMY Awards for their effort ‘Residente O Visitante’. The childhood friends have turned the reggaeton rhythm of their homeland into a solid base for experimentation with pan-Latin sounds like salsa, cumbia and tango. They bring rhythmic variety and humour to a genre which sometimes seems to stagnate sonically even as it becomes more popular outside Puerto Rico. Check out the hilarious video for the Colombian-inspired Cumbia de los Aburrridos to get a taste of their refreshing take on the urban Latin style. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjrrVgapmhA

THE HEATWAVE TOP FIVE

Ghislain Poirier feat Face T - Blazin (Ninja Tune 12")Tami Chynn - Rude Boy (Madness Riddim - Birchill 7")Dizzee Rascal - Flex (DJ Q's Bassline Remix)Akon, Busta Rhymes & Shabba Ranks - Clear The Air (Gold Rush 7")Queen Ifrica - Daddy (No Doubt 7")

www.theheatwave.co.uk/blog

SPECIAL DELIVERY FROM THE CARIBBEAN AND BEYOND

THE MIGHTY

JEDDOBY ROGER ROBINSON

I first heard of John Sinclair when I was loaned a copy of Fire Music, a self produced book of poems inspired by playwright and saxophonist Archie Shepp. Around that same time, John Lennon released Sometime In New York City, a radical LP of songs dedicated to various political causes, one of which was John Sinclair’s. A Chicago-based cultural activist, Sinclair was the Chairman Of The White Panther Party and an early victim of the War on Drugs. He faced 20 years to life in prison for giving two joints to an undercover police-woman. This documentary DVD traces Sinclair’s rise to global notoriety and gives us an insight in US government repression in the late Sixties. Originally from a small-town Michigan background he settled in Chicago. During the Sixties he he made a smooth transition from jazz loving boho to jazz loving hippie. Cultural activism was top of his agenda. He became the manager of the seminal rock outfit MC5 – who at times shared a stage with Sun Ra – and on the political front aligned himself with the Black Panther Party. It was a turbulent time. Anti Vietnam protest meshed with the acid revolution and when the preshah came down Sinclair ended up in jail. He served 29 months of a 9-1/2-to-10-year sentence before his legal victory on appeal changed the law for good. The long campaign waged by Sinclair culminated in a massive John Sinclair Freedom Rally headlined by John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Phil Ochs, Allen Ginsberg and Bobby Seale that resulted in Sinclair’s release from prison on December 13, 1971—just three days after the event. Livingston Marquis

TWENTY TO LIFEA COMPELLING DOCUMENTARY WITH APPEARANCES BY JOHN LENNON &

YOKO ONO, ALLEN GINSBERG, MC-5 AND MANY MORE.

1918

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��2120

STORY: MICHAEL KRASSER / PHOTOS: NICKY DRACOULIS INTERPRETER: KAY SUZUKI

T A K A Y O S I

M U R O T A A . K . A

M U R O A . K . A

D J X X X L I S A

G O D F A T H E R

F I G U R E I N

J A P A N E S E

H I P H O P ,

R E S P O N S I B L E

F O R L A U N C H I N G

T H E C A R E E R S

O F T H E B I G G E S T

N A M E S I N T H E

B U S I N E S S . I N

A R A R E V I S I T

T O L O N D O N , W E

C A T C H U P W I T H

T H E O R I G I N A L

K I N G O F D I G G I N .

2322

It’s 1983. Films like Wildstyle and later Style Wars would storm their way through the minds of a global youth generation. From the ghettoes of Paris to the streets of London, dookie rope chains, high tops, fat laces and four finger rings became the necessary fashion accessories to prove our would-be down-ness with the American brethren. In Japan the hip hop invasion was no less significant. B-boying enthralled Japanese audiences so much so that a small but vibrant scene grew up around Yoyogi Park in Shibuya, turning it into an impromptu Sunday Mecca for Tokyo breakers. Early innovators of the scene included dancer Crazy A, now chapter master for the Japanese branch of the Rocksteady Crew, and the legendary DJ Krush. “We would just go to the park and congregate around Krush” states Muro reflecting on his first acquaintances with the breaking scene: “He was a mysterious guy, you know, esoteric”.

Muro had an interest in records from childhood, his family owned a petrol station which was far too dangerous for him to hang around after school, so early on they gave him the choice between going to the cinema or being bought a portable record player. He opted for the latter, and asserts half-jokingly “If I didn’t, I might have been a famous director by now!”

In those days there were lots of bands, performers and dancers who would gather every Sunday on Hokoten, a huge street at the side of Yoyogi Park, overlooking Tokyo’s biggest flea market. For Muro, seeing a fellow countryman like Krush mixing and manipulating the wax literally blew his mind. From that day on he too wanted to become a DJ. “Kids would gather around him, fuelled by his music and begin to break. I started hanging around so much that we eventually started talking and struck up a bond”. Enthusiastic early dialogues with Krush would bring Muro into the fold that would later become the Krush Posse. At that time Krush was backing up a local rapper as trio B-Fresh, and Muro’s tough guy image would land him his first job, doing security – Tokyo’s answer to Professor Griff.

At the same time, popularity for hip hop culture was growing in the JP. All-night clubs and record shops, stuffed with import wax, appeared around Shibuya, places like the aptly titled hip hop club and the Manhattan Records emporium amongst others. The late 80’s saw

US artists like the Jungle Brothers, 45 King, De La Soul and Public Enemy with their SW1 (Security of the First World) entourage tour the country. It was after seeing De La Soul live and direct, along with home-grown act Major Force who would later sign to James Lavelle’s Mo’ Wax, that Muro and his peers began believing that they could really get involved. Although the desire to become a DJ still burned inside him, the Krush Posse already had two turntablists, so the young Muro’s first love would have to be temporarily sidelined. Instead, he would become the group’s MC.

Back then Krush was making beats everyday, recording his cutting and mixing onto a lo-fi, second-hand, multitrack tape recorder (there were no affordable samplers at the time) over which Muro began writing his lyrics. “Initially I had to struggle to keep up, he was making too many beats! There was no one to tell you what to do or how to make beats so we started by imitating what we saw and then our own style developed from there”. Muro shows me a copy of Jazzy B’s London Beats magazine, the primary source of their hip hop knowledge, which at the time could only be found in select clothing shops for the princely sum of 40p.

With Krush garnering international success, the Posse went their separate ways, and Muro decided to form Microphone Pager, which still remains one of the most influential Japanese outfits to date. Together with Twigy, Masao, P.H. and oldtime friend DJ Go, they put out early classics such as ‘Rapperz Are Danger’ and the Don’t Turn Off Your Light album.

But the endless performing had Muro suffering from serious hearing problems and he was forced to lay off the mic. This saw him returning to his initial passion of DJing and his quest for the perfect beat, with the Ultimate Breaks and Beats series serving as the catalyst. These were still the dark ages in digging. DJ’s were still scrubbing off record labels, going to fairs and paying obscene prices. There was no internet to fall back on, knowledge had to be earned the hard way, through experience and experimentation, getting blackened finger tips in dusty crates.

At that time there was no one really making break mixtapes, especially in Japan. Muro would make them for himself and his close friends. It was in ’96 that by chance he caught a snippet of the Stretch Armstrong show whilst

digging in New York. Inspired, he made ten cassettes of a break mix for Manhattan Records. They sold out all the tapes within the hour. Almost immediately, the return call came back: “We need more copies!” From there he really got into the buzz of making mixtapes, compiling the massive Diggin’ Heat and the Diggin’ Ice series which utilised hot soul tracks for cold winter nights.

That same year, Muro formed K.O.D.P. (King Of Diggin Productions) for a roster of emerging Japanese emcees and went on to form his own label, Incredible Records, at the break of 1998 to showcase Japan’s most wanted. There followed the W.K.O.D ‘Golden Age of hip hop’ mixes and the now-classic King of Diggin collection. But on the other side of the globe, two burgeoning beatdiggers, Kon and Amir. would take objection to Muro calling himself King of Diggin and were prepared to battle Muro for the crown. Years later, with the dust settled, the two parties would later collaborate on a blistering compilation for BBE, this time called the Kings of Diggin.

In 2007 Muro has now officially put the King to rest. Retiring from collecting LP’s, he’s changed up his style to the highly collectable and almost inexhaustible world of 7”. With most club DJ’s opting for the ease of Serato Scratch and playing mp3’s off of their laptops, Muro believes it important to educate the kids: “Some of them have never seen real bars of soap before, you know, they’re all so used to these liquid pump-action dispensers. Likewise, they’ve never seen doughnuts, 45’s. I want to show them that with 45’s I can be just as compact as they are!”

He carries with him, in two compact cases, a priceless collection of 7’s, flaunting the choicest cuts in rare Disco, Deep Funk, Latin Boogaloo and Afrobeat. I recognise amongst the stack Dennis Coffey’s funky blaxploitation holy grail ‘Theme from Black Belt Jones’ and a horn-heavy, instro B-side of Fela’s ‘Water Get No Enemy’.

“Nowadays I’m really digging the old music from my country” says Muro, finding himself more and more drawn to the Japanese cinematic sounds of the past: from director Sadao Nakajima’s Jitsuroku films (violent yakuza gangster flicks) to Yuji Ohno’s jazzy anime soundtracks. “Back then we didn’t fully appreciate what we had because we weren’t really listening to it in that way. For example, the break of the beat in Enka (a style of Japanese folk music), I hadn’t really ever listened to it carefully. I’m listening to everything from old Japanese commercial music to pop to Jap Jazz

and Anime soundtracks”. The very same music he missed out on whilst trying to catch up with heads in the Bronx.

Overall, the philosophy of Japanese collectors is one that seems peculiar to westerners. For Muro the art of digging is nothing less than a spiritual quest: “It’s a bit of a strange thing to bring up but my Grandfather is a Shinto priest. So I’m a real believer in natural instinct and spirituality. When I’m out looking for records, I pay attention to the label but I also pay attention to my instinct, and when I then listen to the record, it’s like ‘I’ve found one!’ That happens quite often.”

In stark opposition to the spiritualism of Shinto and Buddhism lies another side to Japanese culture – the rampant consumerism, a product of the country’s post-war economic miracle in which the United States conspired. Following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent demilitarization of Japan spearheaded by General Douglas MacArthur, the United States showed early signs of their commitment to democracy-building, and in 1947 they ghost-wrote a new Japanese constitution which begins with the pronouncement, “We shall secure for ourselves and our posterity the fruits of peaceful cooperation with all nations and the blessings of liberty throughout this land.”

In its wake came a steady stream of American culture which would seep into the Japanese consciousness, inspiring a whole new range of thriving subcultures, from Rockabilly to Gothic to Punk rock, and of late hip hop. Hip hop style is imitated by young Japanese males down to the gangster swagger, baggy pants, throwback jerseys, cornrows or locks in their hair. Their female counterparts, the kokujo or ‘blackfacers’ are sun-bed fanatic, Lil’ Kim look-a-likes, enamoured with Black music and Black men.

Cultural appropriation has not been a one-sided affair, though. African-American culture and hip hop have long had a attraction with the East, from poet-writer Langston Hughes who viewed Japan as an impressive source of non-white culture, to Coltrane’s experimentation with oriental scales, to Wu Tang’s Kung-Fu sampled dialogue, to the code of bushido followed by Forrest Whittaker’s character in Ghost Dog. But while contemporary Black America has embraced and immersed itself in many of the elements of eastern culture, it has remained closed to the possibility of non-American hip hop.

However Muro’s been knocking down doors,

lounging with Lord Finesse and collaborating A.G. on The Vinyl Athletes in 1999, then with Pharoahe Monche and Pete Rock in 2000. Not surprisingly, he jumped at the opportunity to produce the score of anime soundtrack Tokyo Tribe 2, and ended up working with Just Blaze, the Alchemist, De La Soul and Ghostface Killah in the process. Around that time, Ghostface was touring Japan and Muro saw his opportunity to fulfil a life long ambition. Unsurprisingly, Ghostface’s initial reaction was, “Yo, I gotta hear them beats son before I get anywhere near a booth.” But in the end he was so impressed that he called Muro back to his studio stateside and they recorded the track ‘The Roosevelt’. There was an instant connection: communication through music. “In fact it’s probably better I’m not able to speak English because I would have showered them in complements,” states the ever humble Muro.

He recently finished a project with Lee Quinones (a.k.a. Zoro of Wild Style fame) called East River Park, a homage to the early days of hip hop. “I’m also trying to license a Marvel comic/hip hop animation called Big Showclash starring KRS One as the main voice,” he adds.

Talking to Muro you get the sense that his journey has come full circle, from Tokyo to the Bronx and back again. After all these years, he feels validated by the recognition from hip hop’s luminaries, proving the age-old adage: It’s not where you’re at, but where your mind’s at.

24

In many ways Detroit represents everything that’s wrong with American society, but also everything that American society should be. It’s this social dichotomy that has come to define the city in recent years – a Tale of Two Cities-type existence that has polarized its citizens both culturally and economically.

Home to the Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler), Detroit’s economy has long been dependent upon the automotive industry. Where most cities build their economy by attracting a variety of business interests, Detroit is the exception, operating, instead in a manner more befitting a smaller town. There’s no shortage of vacant lots and abandoned homes and the recent troubles for the automotive and manufacturing industries have left more than a third of Detroit’s residents living below the poverty line. Combine that with a growing crime rate and a failing educational system, and the result is a city in crisis.

But there’s another Detroit, and while the same struggles exist here, they don’t define it. This Detroit embodies the hard creative spirit of its people and

their desire for a life beyond the automotive plants. It’s the Detroit of Motown. It’s the same Detroit that coupled the constant grind of machinery with musical composition and created techno. Home to internationally recognized artists like Amp Fiddler, Carl Craig, Kenny Dixon Jr., and Theo Parrish, it’s the same Detroit that inspired James Yancey to become one of the most innovative producers to grace the hip hop genre. And it’s the same Detroit that’s leading the way as the city sits on the verge of yet another creative renaissance.

Unlike previous creative awakenings, Detroit’s current assault on the music industry is taking shape outside of the mainstream. Driven largely by an established crop of emcees and producers such as Slum Village, Waajeed and Dabrye, along with an emerging pool of talent including artists like Monica Blaire, Finale, and Necco Redd, the city possesses an underground music scene that’s blowing up.

Mark the Spark, a local DJ and host of the only all hip hop show on a major radio station (102.7 in Detroit) has been around the Detroit underground music scene

since its genesis. “My first encounters with the Detroit hip hop scene started out with the Rhythm Kitchen,” he recalls. “It was inside a Chinese restaurant called Stanley’s. Maurice Malone aka DJ Soulfinger, was the DJ, and that’s where I met Proof (from D12). Cats were freestyling, up-and-coming producers were playing beats – that’s where I originally met a lot of the guys that are doing stuff now. Dilla, Proof, Phat Kat, all of them.”

As he reminisces, he takes time to point out the often-overlooked influence of Maurice Malone. “Maurice was a clothing designer, and he would travel back and forth to New York. When he would come back to Detroit he would bring all this music back with him. Eventually it got to the point where he started bringing artists back. Maurice Malone brought Wu-Tang to Detroit when they first popped off. I’ll never forget it. He brought them to a place called 1515 Broadway. The place held 150 to 200 people tops. That place was packed – shoulder to shoulder. It was one of those shows when you got that in-your-face energy and you just knew they were going to blow.”

“The next phase was probably the Hip Hop Shop, which was Maurice’s clothing shop. On the weekends he had open mics and freestyle battles. Proof hosted and DJ Head, who was Eminem’s first DJ, would spin. After the Hip Hop Shop was the Shelter or St. Andrews. That was the spot on Friday nights. DJ House Shoes and Dez would be there, and this was a pinnacle moment for Detroit hip hop because it was a big thing to be up at St. Andrews on Friday nights.

“Another highlight for hip hop was the open mic at Lush Lounge, hosted by Ike Love, Contact and Ali.” He continues. “Everybody would be there on Wednesday nights and this was when you saw a lot of the emcees that came up through the Hip Hop Shop and St. Andrews forming groups. You would see some of the fiercest freestyle battles there. Proof was one of the best freestylers I‘d ever seen. I never saw him lose a battle – he almost became the person who kept the scene going when a lot of these spots died down.”

These days, The Next Best Thing, held on Tuesday nights at a small and smoky bar on Baltimore called Northern Lights, is the last, long-running hip

hop night in the city. Hosted by DJ Paulie, along with Benny Ben and DJ Dez (Slum Village and Andres), the night features the best in underground hip hop as well as an eclectic mix of classic rock and rare groove. The anything-goes approach is simply a music lover’s dream – possibly the best selections you’ll hear outside of New York and LA. Dez dazzles the audience, performing blends so perfect you’d swear they were remixes. A quick scan of the bar and you’ll find T3, one half of Slum Village, joking with a bartender. Northern Lights has become a sort of meeting place for many of Detroit’s underground artists but tonight, surprisingly, the bar is far from packed. “It’s been hit or miss lately,” says one of the Tuesday night faithful, pointing out the issue hitting the underground at the moment – Detroit’s curious reticence to support its own.

“I used to spin there on Tuesday nights,” explains DJ House Shoes, discussing the changing dynamics of Detroit’s underground scene following his move to the West Coast. “When I left it was like 350 people there. Now it’s maybe 100 to 150 people there. They think that just because Shoes ain’t there, it ain’t poppin’. What

they don’t understand is that it’s their shit. It frustrates me, still.”

Perhaps this is because in Detroit, the presence of viable hip hop outlets has proven to be as cyclical as the city’s economy. When it’s up, the energy is undeniable. Detroit knows music, and if you’re the type of person who loves to say you saw it first, there’s no better place than in the D. When the cycle is down, the energy remains, but instead of the clubs, it surfaces in the studio... which is where it’s popping right now in Detroit.

In addition to a slew of mixtapes and memorable guest appearances, 2007 saw releases from Ta’raach (The Fevers), Waajeed, (The War LP), a much underrated album from Phat Kat (Carte Blanche) and arguably the year’s best underground release in Black Milk’s Popular Demand. This cycle might very well change again with debut LPs from Guilty Simpson, Invincible, and Finale sure to take the industry by storm along with the continued production efforts of Black Milk, Waajeed, and Mr.Porter. With this in mind, 2008’s set to be a busy year.

DETROITVERBALS : AL BURTON P I XELS : PAT DALY

THEBAD

THEGOOD

F R O M T H E R H Y T H M K I T C H E N T O T H E H I P H O P S H O P O N S E V E N M I L E W H E R E S L U M V I L L A G E F I R S T P E R F O R M E D , D E T R O I T H A S D E L I V E R E D T H E M O S T C O N S I S T E N T L Y M I N D - B L O W I N G & S O U L - S E A R C H I N G H I P H O P M U S I C . D I L L A M A Y B E G O N E , B U T W I T H W A A J E E D , P H A T K A T , G U I L T Y S I M P S O N , B L A C K M I L K , I N V I N C I B L E , D E N A U N P O R T E R A N D H O U S E S H O E S , T H E D E T R O I T R E N N A I S S A N C E H A S O N L Y J U S T B E G U N .

2726

THED IRTY

Black Milk sounds like a man with few worries. His 2007 release Popular Demand was arguably the best underground hip hop album of the year. Consider his contributions on the upcoming Guilty Simpson and Slum Village releases along with a collaboration album with Fat Ray, and another with Simpson and Boot Camp member Sean Price, and early reports indicate that 2008 holds a similar fate. As he continues to, not so quietly, amass an impressive catalogue of production credits, the comparisons to Dilla are inescapable. Many have already named him the heir apparent—a role that he believes is impossible to truly fill.

“Dilla’s death left a big void,” explains Black Milk, reflecting on the loss of the legendary Detroit producer. “Dilla was the creator of that soul sound. Not just for Detroit, but for hip hop in general. I don’t want to sound selfish, but it seems like there wasn’t enough of Dilla’s music left behind. Even though I know it really was, it just doesn’t seem like enough. He did so much for hip hop, the Detroit sound, and just music period. He left a legacy with the D and I don’t think anyone can come along and fill his shoes. He had a sound like no other. His beat technique was like none other. It was just some other shit. It was from another world. That sound is just going to be missed, because what he did can’t be duplicated.”

In fact, like most heir apparents, Black Milk has no desire to fill anyone’s shoes. He’d much rather walk in his own. With its bevy of untapped talent, Detroit provides him the perfect opportunity to do just that. “There’s a new sound in Detroit right now,” he suggests attempting to break down the present state of hip hop in Detroit. “There was a time when it was Slum Village, and D12, but now

it’s like the Detroit hip hop scene is reinventing itself. There’s a new generation and vibe of artist coming out of Detroit. Like myself, Guilty Simpson, Fat Ray and a few other artists. It’s about to evolve into something new but still having that same Detroit vibe in the music. People outside of Detroit are looking at the city and expecting a lot to come out of the city in the next few years. I feel like Detroit’s about to get a whole new shine.”

Despite being known both as an emcee and a producer, Black Milk admits to a certain affinity for beat-making. Along with Dilla, his list of musical influences includes Pete Rock and DJ Premier, all of which are known for their distinct sounds. And while he incorporates elements of each, he prefers to take a more clandestine approach to making beats.

“I don’t really think I have a specific sound where people can hear a track and think ‘that’s a Black Milk track.’ I don’t sample one genre of music. I’m sampling soul, I mess with electronic music, I experiment with jazz. But it’s still going to have that soul element to it. The only thing that stands out with the majority of my beats is probably the drum programming. I make sure my drums are hitting hard. But I always try to change it up.”

Another constant in Black Milk’s music is the city in which he dwells. “There’s just a certain Detroit swing on the beat that comes automatically,” he insists. “Detroit is a unique city. It’s hood, it’s ghetto, it’s grimy, but at the same time so much good music comes from the city that it balances out. I don’t know if the good music comes because of those elements—the poverty, the people struggling—or not. But the music balances the whole thing out. Because of the music people don’t look at this city as

just another ghetto. People look at it and realize that we’ve been putting out good music since Motown and Hitsville.”

As he reflects on all that’s good with the Detroit music, he can’t help but acknowledge the fact that it seems to have fallen short of its legacy. In the midst of it all he remains optimistic. “I think it’s possible for Detroit to make that same impact on music that it did back in the day,” he says giving extra thought to his response. “But to do it, Detroit will need a producer to do some major things in music, with major recognition. Dilla was that dude, but I don’t think he wanted the shine like that. He wanted to be more in the background, away from the mainstream eye. But that’s what we’ll need in Detroit. A producer like a Kanye or a Pharrell . Not really an artist or an emcee, because we’ve had emcees blow in a major way but it didn’t help the city, or the Detroit music scene. It just helped that artist. It’s going to take a producer or a couple of producers just like Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson back in the day.

“I’d like to take on that task. I don’t want to be considered an underground an artist my entire career. I want my music to reach as many people as it can. But at the same time I’m not trying to dumb down my music, or change what I’m doing musically, just so I can get mainstream recognition or radio play. Right now I’m trying to figure out a way to do what I do but still incorporate the mainstream elements so I can get that recognition from the masses.”

WIth so many good things to come, 2008 might just be the year for Black Milk. Watch this space.

When the great American gangster tale was first penned it’s unlikely the author envisioned his antagonist menacing his victims with a microphone. Enter Guilty Simpson. In an American culture desperately seeking its next pop villain, adopting a moniker like Guilty Simpson (his natural last name) can be quite the burden. Unless, of course, you happen to be a rapper, in which case the misconceptions are often as welcome as the truth.

“People think that because of the way I rhyme, I’m unapproachable,” expresses the Detroit born MC, renowned for his belligerence on the mic. “I might rap about crazy shit that happens in Detroit or I might talk about gunplay and stuff like that but in general I’m a cool dude. I like to blow trees and have fun, but for the people who think I don’t play, that’s pretty accurate too, because I don’t play.”

Battling public perception is clearly familiar ground for Guilty Simpson. His aggressive mic tactics have garnered him a reputation as a lyrical bully. Whether it be his years spent as a member of the Detroit-based hip hop crew The

Almighty Dreadnaughtz, or the host of guest appearances ranging from the Dilla-produced ‘As Serious As Your Life’ remix to his appearance on Black Milk’s ‘Sound the Alarm’, Simpson has established quite a legacy in the battle rap arena. “A lot of people that have heard my music in the past tend to see me in one light, kind of the braggadocio style, just hearing me talk about how fresh I am and how fresh other people aren’t,” he explains. “I’m deeper than that as a lyricist.”

With his debut album, Ode to the Ghetto, due out on Stones Throw in February 2008, he promises to capitalize on another side of his personality. “For the people that always want to hear me doing the metaphorical battle rap type of thing Ode to the Ghetto does have that but that’s not really the bulk of what I’m doing on this project. I deal with a variety of topics. I deal with stress, relationships (both good and bad), police brutality, things of substance. I notice that a lot of people say they enjoy metaphors that I say in my rhymes but when it comes down to talking to me about them, they can’t even quote them right. So that lets me know that metaphors don’t really stick to your bones as much as songs where you’re actually rapping about your

life and giving a person a piece of you. I think that goes a lot further.”

Although Simpson’s career seems to be accumulating more steam globally than it has within Detroit, he can’t help but acknowledge the city’s presence in his music. “It’s a blue collar town,” he says bluntly. “People here wear their work on their sleeve and that reflects in my music. There’s also an element of unpredictability to life in Detroit. You never really know what’s going to happen. Nothing is guaranteed. Even people that have worked at the plants for years, with the recent situations those jobs aren’t guaranteed anymore. If you came up in Detroit and you said you worked at the plant, some people might have looked at you like you were hood rich and in a lot of ways you were. And that’s embedded in me because I know that whatever I’m doing musically isn’t guaranteed to be popping for me next week. Life in Detroit prepared me for that. Here it’s like one day you might see somebody on top of the world and the next day you might see them rock bottom. That’s just the way home is. It gives you a sense of urgency and that’s the way I approach my music.”

GUILTY SIMPSON

BLACK

MILK

DILLA MAY BE GONE BUT THERE ’S A SLEW OF TALENT TAKING THE DETRO IT SCENE FORWARD IN H IS WAKE . AL BURTON P ICKS SOME OF THE C ITY ’S CURRENT F INEST , UPHOLD ING THE IR LATE GREAT MENTOR ’S MEMORY AND PUSH ING IT TO NEW LEVELS .

2928

DETROIT FINIEST ELEMENTS BY QUES / LCP

3130

TOTALYINVINCIBLE

It doesn’t take long to recognize what it is that motivates the 24 year old Detroit emcee known as Invincible. The green military style cap—resting just above her brow line inspires images of a young Fidel Castro. The early warnings of a Detroit winter force her to bury her hands deep inside the front pockets of her oversized hoodie, reducing her ability to incorporate the visual commentary most rappers require. Still, her words resonate with unbelievable clarity. “Over there is where we planted the garden,” directing her attention to an unlikely patch of land amid what appears to be a vacant lot. “Detroit is like that,” she later explains. “You might see what looks like an abandoned lot but it’s really a city farm or a city garden. There’s lots of abandonment but there’s a lot of growth.”

By most accounts, Invincible personifies the commonly accepted aesthetic of hip-hop, at least as much as any Palestine-born Israeli woman can. Her confidence is apparent both in song and spirit and her voice possesses a tone every emcee craves. But surface things don’t matter much to Invincible. In truth, she is less concerned with the outward appearance of her genre and more concerned with its soul. Invincible is one part emcee and three parts revolutionary, but the recipe is all hip hop. “I’m at the point where everything is overlapped for me. My music is my self-expression, my life support. I learned to speak English by memorizing the words to hip hop songs, and I’ve always used hip hop to address important issues. Through my

music I could slip the medicine in without beating people over the head with a message but making it something that’s intertwined with what you’re talking about. The more I did that with the music, the more I decided I wanted to do it in real life. So I connected with other artists and I started doing the work on the ground as well. Hip hop is more than just the music.”

It’s been nearly three years since her appearance on the Platinum Pied Pipers debut album PPP where she left many fans clamoring for a full-length. As she now prepares for the independent release of her long-awaited debut album Shapeshifters, Invincible is making certain that the final product delivers on its promise. “Right now I’ve got about 15 tracks but I’m still working on a couple of joints just to make sure I’ve got the whole palette, every color on the spectrum, represented. I want to take people through the full range of emotions and styles and all that.”

“That’s who I am as an individual,” she reveals, when asked about her album title. “I was never a cliquish person. I was cool with all the cliques. I’ve always been real adaptable and able to shape shift like that. I used to consider it a weakness, like why don’t I have my own niche or something like that, but then at a certain point I realized that was who I am. I’m a little bit of everything and whatever I make that to be.”

“My sound is very versatile. I’m really into storytelling. At the same time I came up when battling was really big. So in that sense I’m an emcee’s emcee, with patterns and wordplay. This album is showing that versatility. It’s a wide

array of sounds, a wide array of flows and topics. Also a lot of the topics have to do with change and how change happens.”

One song that addresses a change particularly relevant to Detroit is the Waajeed produced ‘In the Morning’. In the song’s opening verse Invincible critically reflects on the city’s reluctance to embrace the works of two of its greatest ambassadors (Dilla and Proof) and the less than honorable manner they’ve posthumously treated their legacies. “The songs talks about mourning and how we can’t really say we’re mourning someone if we allow the same things to happen again. I felt it was important to write ‘In the Morning’ because a lot of people have been trying to capitalize off of their (Dilla and Proof) legacy, or in the case of Dilla, directly rob it. For me, rather than being paralyzed by those things, I’d rather focus on furthering the legacy their legacy of nurturing a creative renaissance in Detroit.

For Invincible, her adopted city is both a blessing and a curse. She observes, “There are definitely people here in a desperate situation and they do things they wouldn’t normally do if they weren’t in that predicament, but it’s also a city of people evolving in the face of all that.”

The words across the front of her jacket read ‘Everyday Struggle’. In a city recently named the most dangerous in the nation, those words are particularly poignant. Through it all, Invincible is perhaps one of its most willing crusaders and hip hop is her weapon of choice.

With D12 and Dr Dre on his musical CV, Detroit’s

Denaun Porter’s garnering some serious respect as a

producer. Also known as Mr. Porter (the producer), or

Kon Artist (his D12 moniker), Porter has developed a

reputation for being a versatile player who travels

seamlessly between the board and the booth,

balancing the mainstream and the underground. In

addition to his work with Guilty Simpson who – as well

as Stones Throw – is also signed to Porter’s Runyon

Ave. label, Porter’s doing some amazing work with

several other artists including Little Brother, Pharoahe

Monch and Black Milk.

How did you hook up with Dr. Dre?

I did a couple of songs on the original Eminem EP. And

then Eminem introduced me to Dre as a friend and when

he found out that I’d produced the songs on the EP, he was

like, ‘We need to hook up.’ And I’ve been working with Dre

ever since.

You were first known as a member of the group D12, but

since then your work as producer seems to have eclipsed

that. What happened?

I didn’t really get into producing until I heard a Dilla beat

tape, back in the day when he was known as John Doe.

Proof would play me two or three things but he never let

me get a copy of the tape, I think because most people he

would play the beats for would end up sounding just like

John Doe. He was so influential with his style that

everybody would try to find out how he sounded the way he

sounded, so Proof would feed it to me bit by bit and I

developed my own sound. I took the tricks but not the

sound – I took the fundamentals and applied them to my

understanding of things to create my own sound.

What impact do you think the absence of Dilla and Proof had on the Detroit music scene?I met Dilla through Proof. A lot of people didn’t know how close they were. Proof got Dilla’s music out there a lot more. He would be on the radio with his records and people would hear them and they would be like “damn, who the fuck is this?” So for both of them to be gone – it was the worst year of my life. If it weren’t for Proof, Eminem wouldn’t exist. And as far as Detroit hip hop goes, you can’t have Dilla without Proof, or Proof without Dilla. As a result of their deaths a lot of people have come together who probably wouldn’t before.

What projects are you currently involved in?Right now I’m working on Detox, which is Dre’s final album, and I’ve been on it since he started this record. I’m working on The Game’s new album, and potentially Musiq Soulchild’s new album, which will be like a blessing for me because I think that dude is dope. I just bumped into him at the grocery store and now I might be working with him... I just did a song with Ice Cube. I’m working on Snoop’s new record. I just got into the down south music, and I did a song on Playaz Circle’s album and on Bun B’s upcoming solo record. I’m working with Stat Quo. And I started on Marsha’s [of Floetry] album the other day.

You’re a busy man. What’s the story with mrporterbeats.com?When I first started back working on Detox, I felt that we had gotten rid of so much good music and thought we should do something with the beats we had because they may not ever see the light of day. These are beats that I wouldn’t expect anyone in the mainstream to use because they’re a little more edgy. So I had the idea to put them on a site and kids can just go on the internet, get a beat and

use it for their demo or whatever. Everything on there is not for everybody, but it’s a lot of dope shit on there. Is it working out?There are a couple of people that I’ve met through mrporterbeats.com and I’ve been listening to their music and really thinking about signing them to a production company.

What is the Who is John Doe project?It’s something that’s so close to my heart that I find myself overthinking it at times, and I know that’s hell for the people around me. It started off with the idea of doing two different versions where one would be my version of hip hop now, and the other at the point of time around 91, 92 and 93, and what my beats sounded like back then. I was planning to make the music that way and have the people that I felt were a part of that whole legacy on this record. I want it to be some of my best work and I feel like if I’m going to put a project out then I should start from the beginning. And the title John Doe resembles where I am in my life. I’ve always been in a group and in light of the turns my group has taken, I’m trying to find self now, through music. John Doe was Jay Dee’s name when he first came out, so it symbolizes a lot, especially with my career and how I was influenced, and how Jay Dee influenced it.

It must be a challenge having this project running alongside the more commercial Dr.Dre album. Even though I have a very mainstream aura about my career, I have a hip hop heart. Sometimes they conflict and the only way I can even that out is to do both. For this project, I don’t give a shit what Interscope or Geffen or Def Jam or anybody thinks. It’s not for show. It’s not about saying that I’m the best this or the best that. I’m just trying to express myself through my own project.

DENAUN PORTER

“A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO CAPITAL IZE OFF OF D ILLA AND PROOF ’S LEGACY. RATHER THAN BE ING PARALYZED BY THOSE TH INGS , I ’D RATHER FOCUS ON FURTHERING THE IR LEGACY AND NURTURING A CREATIVE RENAISSANCE I N DETRO IT .” I NV INC IBLE

3332

One of dubstep’s early pioneers, Croydon-based producer Benga Uthman released tracks like ‘Skank’ and ‘The Judgement’ (with Skream) on the now-defunct but legendary Big Apple records aged just fifteen. Mentored by Big Apple founder John Kennedy and Arthur Smith aka Artwork, his early releases were pivotal in shaping the south London genre before its name was even coined. Taking a brief respite from releasing music around 2004, he re-emerged in 2006 with tracks like ‘10 Tons Heavy’ and Newstep, a collection of a dozen-odd tracks. that while his first full-length release, wasn’t his album-debut-proper. That honour is set to go to Diary of An Afro Warrior, due early 2008, and if the hype is to be believed, is the best attempt at a bonafide dubstep album yet.

As with most producers, almost all Benga’s work is done at home in his bedroom, on a modest-looking set of hardware, neatly arranged in the corner of his bedroom next to a strangely paltry shelf of white-label 12”s filed haphazardly next to each other. Like frequent collaborator and similarly prolific Skream, his initial forays into production came through oft-maligned software Fruity Loops, and while he’s since moved on to Logic, you imagine that whatever he uses, he would still churn out just as much. While polite and affable, after half an hour into our interview, he’s already restless, distracted equally by the paused football game on TV, several missed calls, and no doubt, the thought of valuable dub-making time lost talking to a journalist.

It’s very dark in here?. I don’t really use lights, so these (points to lights) don’t even have bulbs in ‘em at the moment. I don’t even use them when they do though so how am I meant to know?! (laughs) I usually don’t even open the curtains. I just like the dark. When girls come back here, they’re always like ‘why don’t you ever open the curtains or put the light on?’ I’m like, ‘cos I’m Batman!’

So you prefer working at night. I’m a night creature. I sleep during the day but I’m all over the place ‘cos I’m deejaying as well. I go abroad and then

I come back and my time is just messed up. It takes me such a long time to get back to normal. So I start making tunes in the day, then I switch it back around. Then when I do eventually fall asleep, that will be the time I end up getting up and start making tunes. If that makes sense.

Was ‘Night’ made at night? Hahaha. Of course it was. But I can’t remember the reason why we called it ‘Night’. It was some funny reason. Me and Skream and Coki, when we make tunes, we sit there constantly and laugh. The whole time, we’re just making up stupid names. Like I could look at the Jack Daniels next to my speaker and say I’m gonna call a track ‘Jack Daniels’ or ‘Ketchup’ or something. I’m constantly making so many tunes I can’t think of names for all of them. So it’s strange that we came up with ‘Night’ ‘cos I think that’s quite a good name for it. Like what else can you call that song?

You made ‘Night’ with Coki, physically side by side. Do you usually work so closely with other producers? I do sit down with people. I’ve done something with N-Type in the past, I’ve done a release with Hatcha in the past and with Walsh as well. But I think the two biggest people that I can actually sit down with is Coki and Skream, ‘cos he’s another producer who really adds to what I’m doing and we think of certain things in a similar way.

Is that unusual? A lot of producers seem to prefer working alone or sending each other tracks rather than doing it face to face… I like to sit there and work with someone. It takes a while before you get an understanding so you’re not nervous and you both have the respect for each other but I think part of the fact why people can’t sit down together is ‘cos they’re scared of production techniques being leaked and they don’t want anyone to use them. But because Skream and Coki have got their own sound and it’s really well built, I’m not afraid to sit down with them. We give each other tips.

You’ve worked quite a few times with Skream. When did you first start working with him?Seven, eight years ago now. The first time we actually sat down to make a tune was when I was fourteen. We made ‘The Judgement’. We was using old Fruity Loops then I

think. The track didn’t come out until I was about fifteen ‘cos back then it was an even longer cycle ‘til something came out. But we’d been making songs and playing them back and forth for about two years. We still do it now, ring each other up and play each other songs. If he rings me up and plays me something, it makes me get on the computer and vice versa. It’s inspiring innit.

Does Fruity Loops get a bad rep?Not sure about a bad rep, but I’ve always said it’s about what you do with the program. Skream still uses Fruity and it sounds bad. It’s what you’re comfortable with and what you get out of it. When I open up Logic, it’s right for me ‘cos I’m touching things and it gives me the sound I wanna achieve. I feel like it has to come from Logic, like it just wouldn’t come out right with another program. The software defines how you think about what you’re going to make…Not the actual beats, it just makes me think about my whole production according to that program. When I use another program, it’s slightly strange. Even in the new Logic 8, I don’t feel like I’m getting the same sound. The way I do it is I’ll go through my synths so much that if something comes in my head, I’ll already know the sound for it. Just from going through presets, that noise gets stuck in my head and I’ll start creating loops mentally. It gets stuck in there and the next day I’ll go and actually make a tune with that sound.

What sort of sounds do you generally go for?More electronic sort of sounds. It’s two types of sounds, the electronic really synthy, ‘80s-sounding strong leads and sine waves and then there’s the real-instrument imitations of things like cellos. I’m more on the electronic side. My sound is more the techno-y thing. But I don’t like to tell people everything I use ‘cos there’s little things that I may tell someone and they might start doing the same thing. I don’t wanna give people the idea of how dubstep is made. Like ‘Benga uses this plugin so I’m going to get that cos that’s how dubstep is made’. I’d rather give them a few things then have them figure out what they wanna use.

Diary of An Afro Warrior due early 2008

V E R B A L S : SUNIL CHAUHAN P H O T O : TAMAR NUSSBACHERBENGA

NIGHT FLIGHTS U N I L C H A U H A N G E T S U P C L O S E A N D P E R S O N A L W I T H D U B S T E P H E A V Y W E I G H T B E N G A A T H I S H O M E S T U D I O I N D E E P E S T , D A R K E S T S O U T H L O N D O N .

3534

BOOGIE

ON

R O B E R T S T R A U S S ,

T H E T O R O N T O F U N K

M O N S T E R , A S K S

F E L L O W M U S I C I A N

L E R O Y B U R G E S S A B O U T

G R O W I N G U P I N H A R L E M ,

P L A Y I N G A T T H E

P A R A D I S E G A R A G E

A N D H O W H E C A M E T O

P E N S O M A N Y C L A S S I C

R E C O R D S .

PHOTOGRAPHY: JAMES GOLDCROWN

3736

Logg – Logg (Salsoul) After the release and success of ‘Let’s Do It’ by Convertion on SAM records, Greg Carmichael and myself decided we wanted to do more songs on that project. Sam Weiss from SAM owned the copyright of the Convertion name, so when negotiations for continuing the project broke down, Greg and I decided to take the group to another label… Salsoul Records, but we needed a new name. As we were busy with other projects, we asked Greg to make up something and get back to us. He decided on Logg (why I doubt I’ll ever understand). When the single burst onto the radio stations, Ken Cayre, President of Salsoul was so impressed, he immediately commissioned an album. ‘You’ve Got That Something’ is my favourite track. I called in everybody in the group (whether or not they could play percussion) and gave them an instrument and a specific part. Beer bottles, shakers, cabasa, a box of oatmeal, a box of salt…you name it. We lined up in tow rows, set up seven mics and started playing. The resultant breakdown section is perhaps the most percussive work I’ve ever done on a song.

Universal Robot Band – Barely Breaking Even (Moonglow, 1984)The Universal Robot Band was originally formed by the infamous Patrick Adams and Greg Carmichael in 1976. The original members of the band had left to form their own group, Kleer, but Greg grabbed this track that I’d done with James and Sonny and wanted to release it. The idea behind the track was something everyone could identify with – ‘I’m a successful musician! I mean reasonably successful. I’ve got gigs coming along, I’m working, and everything is pretty cool. But I’m still having trouble making ends meet.’ So, I decided to write a song about it. And it’s basically about the struggle of surviving everyday.

Black Ivory – Black Ivory (Buddah, 1977)I left Black Ivory to pursue a new vibe in music. We parted friends and kept in touch with each other. I composed ‘Mainline’ and ‘Hustling’ for a new group I was developing which never came to fruition. In 1978, I was contacted by Black Ivory’s manager Leonard Adams, asking if I had any new songs to submit to their forthcoming album on Buddah Records. I submitted these. Russell did the lead to ‘Mainline’, Stuart sang the lead to ‘Hustling’. I was called in for rhythm and vocal arrangement, as well as background vocals, bringing the original group back together. James

PETE ADARKWAH (BBE) I just loved ‘Barely Breakin’ Even’. It was something that we played all the time. It was one of those records I didn’t buy it the first time around, but found the Streetsounds reissue in the late ‘80s. That and Convertion and Black Ivory’s ‘Mainline’ – they’re all essential

material. If you were like me, you’d go out to dances and you were interested in buying music, Leroy’s records had that something and just really worked on the dancefloor.

NORMAN JAY (GOOD TIMES) This brilliantly enigmatic New York producer / singer /

songwriter has been at the very epicentre of black music dance culture since back in

the day. Listening to his music, you’ll begin to understand just why me and thousands of others just like me were hugely influenced by this man’s music from the disco of the late ’70s to the emerging hip-hop culture at the beginning of the’80s. Respect most certainly due!

DEZ PARKES (RARE / SOLAR RADIO) Leroy Burgess: the man, the voice. An integral part of the musical world past present and future,what a prodigious legacy. Leroy the king,the indisputable pioneer voice of boogie.

BRIAN NORMAN (FRESH & FUNKY) In 1990, a young fashion enthusiast called Lady

Vamp approached me while I was working at the Soul II Soul shop at the time. She wanted to amalgamate her model-based clientele with my djing knowledge and start a club night. Pure Boogie was born in the late summer, early autumn of that year until Dingwalls closed its doors in

April of 1991. Residents in attendance were myself, Da Buzzboy Fitzroy and The Boogie Boys with regular guest Ratchet, playing an eclectic mix of pure progressive jazz, funk, boogie, hip hop & street soul & a touch of roots & rockers. One of the most remembered anthems was Mica Paris’s Should Have Known

Better alongside Donald Byrd’s Think Twice , Touchdown’s Ease Your Mind & the awesome

24 Karat Blacks (theme) as well as plenty of Leroy Burgess influenced boogie.

BOOGIE

ONLeRoy Burgess’ life is all about the love of music. His mother was an opera singer, his uncle was the great Philly International producer Thom Bell, and his first cousins were Robert, Kevin and Ronald Bell, better known as Kool & The Gang. As lead singer for the R&B outfit Black Ivory Burgess honed his vocals and songwriting skills, but it was with the disco sound that he really came into his own.

Whether on keyboards and vocals for Logg, Convertion and the Fantastic Aleems, behind the boards alongside Patrick Adams in studio outfits Phreek and the Universal Robot Band, or as a songwriter for Dazzle, Inner City, Fonda Rae, Change, Eddie Kendricks and Ben E. King, Burgess has been something of a shared secret among music connoisseurs – a purveyor of seminal disco and boogie tracks like ‘Moment of My Life’, ‘Barely Breaking Even’ and ‘Get Loose’.

Robert Strauss: How did you start your musical career?LeRoy Burgess: I started singing at the age of four and playing piano at five. I entered the music business in 1958 as part of Mellow Souls and that group would ultimately evolve into Black Ivory, which released their first record Don’t Turn Around in 1972.

RS: What was it like growing up in Harlem?LB: Harlem in the 60s was a community of people that really cared about each other. I loved growing up in Harlem – it was a great place to be. As Motown Stax began, there was always music in the streets. People would bring down their record players and musicians just play or rehearse. And then there were a lot of different block parties in spring and summer. If you were a painter, you could bring all your stuff out and start painting. If you were a musician, you could go up to St. Nicholas Park and just sit on a rock and start blowing and before you knew it you could draw a crowd because that’s how Harlem was.

I always took a lot of comfort that I was always surrounded by many of my people because being born an African-American in the 1950s was also very dark in terms of the racial atmosphere. Civil rights was in its infancy and there was much to try to achieve. Those were really deep times. Young children were being taught where their place on the planet was, what they could achieve, what was possible for them and how they could grow based on the things around them. I remember in 1968 I was in school when they announced over the intercom that Martin Luther King had been shot. My teacher Mrs Jones

just broke down, and the whole class broke down with her. Shortly after that, all of this music was coming out of Harlem, honouring his life, his death, addressing racism, all these positive things came out of it. A lot of it is music that never even came out commercially. Some of it was people singing in the streets and talking about stuff. And I would try as much as possible to just stand there and listen and absorb that moment.

RS: So how did you became drawn to disco music, a genre that’s all about having a good time, and a real throwback to all the right-on values of civil rights-era music?LB: Here’s the thing – in any human body, you get a lot of negative things that happen around you and you have to absorb them. Disco began as a way to release some of that tension. It was a mind thing – a collective mindset for everybody who had been under the tyranny and oppression of the racist atmosphere in America. We needed to sometimes let that go and have a good time doing so. Just enjoy the moment of your life. And that was a real necessary thing because it was beginning to create so much tension that would sometimes erupt into violence. After you’ve done every protest song, passed out all the leaflets, talked to everybody, there’s a part of you that needs to let it go and disco began to address that. Besides, our thing was always boogie which was at a more laid-back pace. It seemed to demonstrate more of the pulse of the people, as disco became more mainstream and was taken over by corporate America with labels like Casablanca records.

RS: I’m sure the one thing you get asked about constantly is the Paradise Garage.LB: When we released songs like ‘I Know You Will’ by Logg, ‘Let’s Do It’ and ‘Barely Breaking Even’, they were mostly taken in by Larry Levan. He was the house DJ guru of Paradise Garage and actually did the mix of ‘I Know You Will’. He used to play it all the time. As a result, we were invited to perform at the Garage the first couple of times as Convertion. This was when we were first exposed to the true energy of Paradise Garage and what people might refer to as its allure. It was really something to see the freedom and love being expressed by all walks of life – straight and gay, black and white. It was a very cool place because everyone was so supportive – particularly of performers – that the crowd was cheering and clapping from the beginning to the end of the show. I remember our first performance we did three songs – ‘Hooked on Your Love’, ‘Let’s Do It’ and ‘I Know You Will’. Everybody was on every single beat, dancing and cheering. That really

made me feel great. They called us back many times, both Convertion, myself Leroy Burgess as a performer, the Aleems and Black Ivory.RS: Where else did you play?LB: Some places that were very similar to Paradise Garage at the time like the Fun House, Bond International Disco, Bentley’s and Silver Shadow. When we were on a jazz vibe in the late 70s, we went to an uptown club called the Mark 4. This was one of these clubs where a live band would play, people would come in, you would cut your teeth, then other artists would come in and jam with you. One of the most noteworthy people that played was George Benson came from another performance to the Mark 4 to celebrate with some of his lady friends and he ended up jamming with us on stage for a couple of numbers. This was before I began to drop dance music and boogie music on record, and was performing anonymously. I was just a keyboard player for the band that we had developed there, we didn’t really have a name and we used to perform every week, do live shows, two shows a night on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

RS: You instantly recognize a LeRoy Burgess record from those incredible chords and key changes. What’s the secret to your craft?LB: My mum used to play a lot of Johnny Mathis and my dad used to play a lot of jazz records, so that’s what I was hearing at home. These types of musical changes became those that I liked, and while they’re not used in popular music a whole lot, that was exactly the reason why I wanted to try them. I was aware of half-note steps, but manipulation of circle of fifths and circle of fourth was more my style. Figuring out how A flat is relative to E minor, when it’s normally not in that scale. But, like I said, jazz is exactly the medium for why A flat does work with E minor. That’s been the mainstay of my music. I try to think really outside the box – what wouldn’t someone do – and then figure a way to do that.

RS: What do you feel is your musical message?LB: To enjoy through music what life has to offer, the many positive things in life, love and existence. Music has always been a big part of my life and has always moved me – classical, spiritual, popular music, all genres. I sought to do that with my music, A long time ago someone said to me “Music is God’s truest way of communicating with the world.” I always took that seriously because I have often felt spiritually moved when I am listening to music and attempt to impart some of that joy.

Robert Strauss’ Mr Feelings is out now on BBE.

3938

I N VADER LAUNCHED H I S F I RST ASSAULT I N 1 998 , AND H I S I NVAS I O NS HAVE S I NCE SPREAD ACROSS THE WORLD , LEAV I NG CONFUS I O N AND 8 -B IT I N SP IRAT I O N I N THE IR WAKE . GOVERNMENT OFF I C IALS HAVE WARNED THE IR C IT I ZENS TO REMA I N CALM BUT ALERT .

Counter-insurgents have persistently tried to reclaim the city, fusing the map with abstract geometries, reprogram-ming the curvatures of the landscape in algorithmic computer code or comps-ing insurrectional instruction manuals on brick walls. Passing under the eye of CCTV cameras, shadows in the or-ange-glow of street lights, evading po-lice and marauding gangs, these rebel forces make sacrifices to the city’s

godheads, messages rich in mysteri-ous symbolism. From household goods dumped on street corners, abandoned shopping trolleys, graffiti, and empty ruck-sacks left by lone thieves in the night, these are communications from another reality, attempts to open up a space for the spirit world. But before the sun rises and the city returns to work, all traces of these offer-ings are washed away by council services with their power-hoses and bin-lorries.

It’s against this backdrop that the work of Invader has spread, from Paris and then across the rest of France, to Amsterdam, Dhaka, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Mombasa, New York and Tokyo. His delicate mosaics are placed at specially-chosen spots – it varies from buildings to monuments to bridges to park fences – and together they form a net which has the city covered. The Space Invaders are cracks in the code, jamming signals, white blood cells amidst

the swarms of Starbucks Coffee divid-ing and multiplying in our cities, and the infection of ‘Time Out Recommends’ stickers in the glass fronts of restaurants.

The Space Invaders are not signs telling you walk on the pavement, to look right, look left; they’re not state-le-gitimated billboard advertising, they’re not injunctions to drink here, eat there, and drop your Mastercard, Amex or Visa. They appear overnight in your neighbourhood, keeping a watch-ful eye over the city that never sleeps.

The mystery surrounding these Space Invaders has led to rapid speculation. Are they signs from outer space, warning of the imminent destruction of the planet? Are they adverts from sophisticated criminal cartels pushing memory-erasing drugs? Subliminal messages poisoning the minds of children? Or do they monitor latencies and potentialities imperceptible to the human eye, like occult speed-cameras?

Despite what they say, Invader reas-sures us that there’s nothing untoward in his mission. “I’ve heard many rumours about my work,” he says, “but actu-ally the one I hear the most is that it’s a group of us putting up Space Invaders around the world, which is not true. It’s just me, and this has been my main activ-ity for the past 10 years – always on the move, travelling across five continents and 40 cities where I’ve created thou-

sands of Space Invaders. People have said that I must be either autistic or an obsessive-compulsive, but I believe it’s been necessary for this project to work.”

Using mosaics (a visual form that dates as far back as the ancient Sumer-ians) to recreate characters from the hal-cyon age of arcade games, Invader’s work opens up a short-circuit in time. The pixel, base element of the computer revolution which gained momentum in the 1980s with games like Space Invaders and the first generation of home computers, be-gan millennia ago with the mosaic. The pxiel is a black hole, a loop in time open-ing up between civilisations and realities.

With the epidemic of Space Invaders unleashed on the city’s strets, this artist’s project is something of an urban hacking realitygame. Invader awards himself points for each mission and he’s passed the 100 mark in Paris and Los Angeles (15120

points and 2450 points respectively), while in London and New York he’s just shy of this score. He’s chasing Eric Furrer’s total (Furrer is the world record holder for the Space Invaders arcade game, playing the same game for 38 hours continuously).

The street artist shares something with the video-gamer, insomniac com-munities staying up until the break of dawn, waging wars-with-no-name. Says Invader, “I’m always having weird or unexpected encounters while I’m out invading. It’s an inescapable part of working mainly through the night in cit-ies across the world. The people up at night are marginals, it’s a totally different universe. I love the saying that Shepard Fairey (Obey Giant) came up with – ‘While you were sleeping, we were bombing’”.

Before hitting the city, Invader’s first sorties included sabotaging video cas-settes. “I used to hire videos from my local video store and would overdub subliminal

images of Space Invaders onto the tapes,” he explains, with a wry smile. “I’ve invaded hundreds of videos over the years. The idea was to find subversive and unexpected ways of staging invasions. With the arrival of DVD’s, it’s not so easy to do anymore.”

From video cassettes to the street, his invasions have been spreading like a virus – mind bombs lying in wait for un-suspecting pedestrians in the city who momentarily let their eyes wander. His feats have become more and more dar-ing, targeting the Louvre in Paris in the 1990s long before Banksy pulled off his stunt at the Tate. Then on 31 December 1999, as part of his Los Angeles invasion, he bypassed the high-security chain-link fence and a slew of CCTV cameras and placed an Invader Millennium Bug on the D of the giant Hollywood Sign.

He’s also collaborated with fellow Frenchman Zevs (whose exploits famously

include replacing police car number plates with designs of his own) and together they’ve created posters, videos and games under the @nonymous moniker. Their at-tack on the southern city of Montpellier left a trail of targets which, when viewed on a map, formed the shape of a Space Invader. Logging and photographing his incursions is an integral part of Invader’s project, and he has subsequently re-leased a series of maps for each city he’s targeted, like an alien guide to the city.

While he’s attracted fans across the globe, there’s also the inflitrators who have been following the maps and sys-tematically removing the mosaics. In Los Angeles especially, double-agent crack teams went around with a hammer and chisel wiping out all traces of the invasion. Returning to the sites where his pieces have been defaced, Invader’s been known to stencil ‘10 Points’ next to the ruins.

But if Invader seems like just an-

other graffiti artist, the truth is that it’s only latterly that he’s begun to make links with the squads of French taggers and US street artists like Shepard Fairey.

There’s a whole other history to street art, the unwritten version, one that doesn’t begin in the Bronx with Wild Style, but instead one that’s borne out of the events on the Left Bank of Paris in May 1968. Inspired by Guy Debord whose situationist drifts across Paris would in-clude writing messages in chalk across the streets of the capital, a generation of French students covered the walls of Paris in revolutionary slogans, ranging from naïve messages like ‘fuck the system’ to inspired and insurrectional street poetry.

“I feel very close to Debord and the Situationists who perfected the art of exploring cities. It’s exactly what I do when I invade a new city. I pass through streets I’ve never travelled before, keep my eyes peeled, and I’m always discover-ing new things. There’s no precise rules when it comes to placing my mosaics – it’s something completely subjective. Sometimes I feel like a spot calls me, I feel like I should place a piece there, and from there I do everything in my power to reach this goal. Each invasion is an intense experience, a protracted stealth attack spun out over several weeks.”

In the latest phase of Invader’s work, he’s been recreating iconic images

– from the Mona Lisa to A Clockwork Or-ange – using nothing but Rubik’s Cubes. An extension of his fascination with the pixel, his Rubikcubism has to be seen to be appreciated. Each image he rec-reates is assembled from hundreds of these Rubik’s Cubes. And there’s no peeling off labels. Each Rubik’s Cube is twisted and turned until its 9 pixels match the image he’s trying to represent. It’s a labour of love and an extension of In-vader’s obsessive approach to his art.

As he increasingly tours gallery spaces and launches more books – his Invasion London is published this year, and is a follow up to L’Invasion de Paris (2003) and Invasion Los Angeles (2004) – this artist seems to be moving from the street to the gallery space. Yet his Space Invaders remain out there, skylarking on street-corners, lying in wait in dark al-leyways or perched on bridges. They’re spirits of the data-city, talismanic symbols

completing the loop between ancient and future metropolises, between the soul and the circuit-board. Hijacking the urban map from the clutch of the motor car, twisting the two-dimensional reality of Google Maps and GPS systems into examples of symbolist poetry, the Inva-sion goes on… Ignore it at your peril. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Invader’s London show took place at the Lazarides Gallery, Greek S+treet, W1.For more info, visit www.lazinc.com

INVADE VER BA L S : JEZ SMADJA

4140

4342

44

T H E W O R D B H A N G R A E V O K E S M A N Y T H O U G H T S , M E M O R I E S , F E E L I N G S A N D E M O T I O N S – F R O M T H E V A I S A K H I ( T H E

D A Y T I M E W A R E H O U S E P A R T I E S O F T H E L A T E ’ 8 0 S ) T O T H E C H A R T - T O P P I N G S O U N D O F P A N J A B I M C W I T H ‘ M U N D I A N

T O B A C H K E ’ T O T H E R E C E N T F O R A Y S B Y M A D L I B .

A S A M U S I C F O R S O U T H A S I A N S I N B R I T A I N , B H A N G R A D A T E S F R O M T H E L A T E 1 9 6 0 S A N D F O L L O W S T H E

P O S T - W A R A R R I V A L O F M I G R A N T W O R K E R S F R O M T H E I N D I A N S U B C O N T I N E N T . B H A N G R A D J S A N D S O U N D S Y S T E M

N E T W O R K S O P E R A T E D A M O N G S T A C O M M U N I T Y T H R O W N U P I N A W H I R L W I N D D U R I N G M A R G A R E T T H A T C H E R ’ S

G O V E R N M E N T I N T H E 1 9 8 0 S . T H E E A R L Y F O L K B H A N G R A M U S I C P I O N E E R E D B Y A R T I S T S L I K E C H A M K I L A , J A M L A

J A T , K U L D I P , M A N A K , G U R D A S M A A N , N A R I N D E R B I B A , P A R K A S H K A U R A N D O T H E R S , W A S G I V E N A N E C L E T I C

F U S I O N , A R T I C U L A T E D W I T H A D I S T I N C T I V E U K S O U N D T H R O U G H B A N D S L I K E A L A A P , , D C S , H E E R A , H O L L E H O L L E ,

P R E M I A N D T H E S A H O T A S . I N Y E A R S T O C O M E T H E B H A N G R A L E G A C Y W I L L O N C E A G A I N M E T A M O R P H O S I Z E I N T O

O T H E R N E W G E N R E S , B U T W H I L E N E W F O R M S O F M U S I C C O M E A N D G O , B H A N G R A H A S P R O V E D I T I S H E R E T O S T A Y .

‘ C H A K D E P H A T T E Y ’ ( M A S H U P T H E D A N C E F L O O R ! )

A M M O T A L W A R

TEXT BY RAJINDER DUDRAH

BHANGRA

NATION

DCS ‘RULE BRITANNIA’ (1989)With ‘Bhangra fever’ gripping many South Asian youth across the country by the late 1980s, some bands attempted to crossover into the mainstream charts, including Birmingham’s DCS with their 1989 track ‘Rule Britannia’. The song was a call for national racial unity: ‘We all live under the same sky, the same moon, so let’s dance to the same old tune’. Such endeavours were unsuccessful, primarily because of the cultural racism encountered by British Bhangra artists. Their albums sold in the thousands, mainly through South Asian music retail outlets. Yet the sale returns from these smaller stores were not included, or even acknowledged, in the make up of the British pop charts of the time. This is still the case.The seventies and eighties was rife with debates in the media and at social policy levels about British Asian youth as ‘caught between two cultures’. An implied tendency within this discussion was that these youth were unable to decide whether they were British or Asian. However, British bhangra suggested other fluid possibilities for South Asian youth in Britain. In this context, the album sleeve for DCS’s ‘Rule Britannia’ captures a sense of the music, its producers and audiences as collaborating in the call for a belonging to notions of Britishness with aspects of their South Asian cultural heritages intact. The

image is a reworking of the three colours from the Indian national flag – the orange, white and green in horizontal layers. Imposed upon these colours is an adaptation of a poster that appeared in 1914 – ‘Your Country Needs You’ (originally designed by Alfred Leete) – which called upon British servicemen and women to partake in the war effort. Yet, the image of the central figure has been revised, identifying him as a British subject with South Asian roots – he wears a turban emblazoned with the Union Jack. Taken together, the sleeve draws upon a series of connected histories and identities and offers them in the context of late ’80s British South Asian youth culture. This culture is not only a product of the related histories of British colonialism in South Asia and the migration and settling of South Asians to Britain in the post-war period, but it is also a culture that will thrive and flourish if both British and Asian aspects work together and live side by side.

APACHI INDIAN ‘DON RAJA’ (1992)Apachi Indian (also known as Steven Kapur) was the first British South Asian singer to break into the British music charts, reggae dance charts, and the South Asian music charts simultaneously in 1993 with his single ‘Arranged Marriage’. This track enabled him to launch a successful career as an international recording artist. Apachi Indian

cannot simply be classified as a British bhangra artist as his musical also draws heavily on ragga. But in several radio and television interviews during the mid-nineties he stated that musically and commercially he did not want to be identified as a Bhangramuffin (the term given to the combination of bhangra and ragga music). His music illustrates the complex and hybrid interplay of music styles, lyrics and cultural identities that constitute the experience of young South Asians in urban locations. Apachi’s music has its roots in the multicultural inner city area of Handsworth in Birmingham where he was raised; and like the multi-ethnic make up of this place, his music is also a combination of languages, rhythms and beats from across the Caribbean, North America, India and Europe. Apachi’s lyrics are delivered in Jamaican patois, Punjabi boliyaan (couplets), as well as in a culturally diverse urban street English.

Born of Hindu Punjabi parents and visibly identifiable as a young Asian man through his brown skin colour, Apachi ‘mixes’ his South Asian identity and cultural heritage through his attire which draws on his musical upbringing and roots in Handsworth via Africa and the Caribbean. In this album sleeve for Don Raja, Apachi wears a traditional African flat round cap, ‘bling’ gold and black lace chains adorned with different African and Indian

unity symbols, a slack, loose-fitting urban sweatshirt and baggy trousers. His legs form an A-shape that signifies his stage name – Apachi.

ALAAP ‘DANCE WITH ALAAP’ (1982)Here, members of the London-based Alaap group stand proudly together fronted by their main singer Channi Singh. Alaap are considered by many as one of the early pioneers of the British-based bhangra sound: incorporating traditional Indian percussion instruments and lyrics with Western synthesized sounds and modern rhythms. Their track ‘Bhabiye ni Bhabhiye’ (Sister-in-law oh sister-in-law), an ode by a younger brother-in-law who playfully pleads with his brother’s wife to find him a marriage partner, has become an oft-requested classic at wedding parties. By the early- to mid-eighties British bhangra albums were being sold in their thousands through specialist Asian music and video shops located in multicultural high streets of urban British cities. Album sleeves of the 1980s were about marking presence and announcing one’s arrival on the British bhangra music scene. The images of these early ’80s album covers can be characterised as following in a line of post-war Black British portrait photography that showed Black and South Asian settlers securing paid jobs and accumulating material goods. (The photographs by the

Handsworth-based artist Vanley Burke are a good example of this kind of photography, a collection of which is housed in the Birmingham Central Library.) In this sleeve, then, the five men are smartly dressed in suits or waistcoats and trousers. The lead singer, Channi, strategically shows off his gold medallion and silver watch. The sleeve also offers an insight into the workings of the British bhangra music industry. Often band members would move between different bands to assist with different musical productions, or form new bands of their own. In the top left of the image we see Manjit Singh Kondal who after his time with Alaap when on to lead the group Holle, Holle.

SURINDER KAUR ‘TERI YAAD AAYE AE’ (1978)Women artists have been present since the inception and development of British bhangra from its folk derivations in the Punjab to its present status as urban style music. For example, the female singers and sisters Surinder Kaur (pictured above) and Prakash Kaur from India were immensely popular folk singers during the sixties and seventies, and even toured Britain on a number of occasions for stage shows. With their powerful voice tones and folk sonnets they often questioned the predicament of women in relationships in which men were the source of a woman’s heartache. Other female folk artists of the post-

war period included Jagmohan Kaur and Narinder Biba. Their songs often criticised family structures and politics in which women had to negotiate a number of positions from housewife, lover, daughter-in-law, to matchmaker, and at the same time to create a space for themselves of their own. Their songs remain inspiration even for today’s artists and bands and provide material for numerous cover versions. For the cover of this album, Kaur is dressed in a traditional white Punjabi dress, the salwar kameez, which is embroidered with red and black floral designs. As is suggested by the title of the album (‘Memories of You’) Kaur’s album cover offers bhangra listeners outside of the Punjab an imagined connection with the motherland and, at the same time, new beginnings in the place of settlement abroad. In the seventies it was commonplace for British Asian men to be out working and women would work from home and/or attend to daily household chores. In this context, the female artist is celebrated and also photographed as an emblem of cultural mediation between the homeland and her adjusting to a new environment in the diaspora.

Dr Rajinder’s Bhangra: Birmingham and Beyond is published by Punch (£15). www.sohoroadtothepunjab.org

D R R A J I N D E R D U D R A H P R O V I D E S S O M E E N L I G H T E N I N G B A C K G R O U N D T O F O U R S E M I N A L B H A N G R A R E C O R D S B Y T A K I N G A C L O S E R L O O K A T T H E C O V E R A R T .

4746

4948

“Garifuna music is very deep and very powerful,” explains a pensive Andy Palacio, elder statesman and cultural ambassador for the Garifuna people of Central America. “There are a whole volume of songs in which we express our spirituality and our relationship with our ancestors across space and time. For example, the ceremony known as the dügü involves possession and is used to bring healing between the two worlds – the living make offerings of music, food and dance to the spirits of our ancestors. This goes on for four or five days with this deep, throbbing music.”

On the cusp of the release of Watina from Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective, the album that looks set to open the ears of the world to this deepest but little known music, the softly spoken singer is rolling with stories of his upbringing in this little corner of Belize. “Growing up in Barranco there was a homogenous and self-sufficient Garifuna community,” he explains. “There was a level of contentment all around and our culture was the essence of survival. We spoke Garifuna in our homes and in the street and the village would have its own festivities.”

The Garifuna villages that populate the Caribbean coast of Central America appear to any visitor like a small slice of Africa. There’s the smell of coconuts, the fishing boats which bring in their daily catch, and the little bars set back from the beach where people congregate as the sun goes down. But it’s a culture being threatened with extinction. As more and more young people leave their communities for the big cities, traditions are forgotten between one generation and the next. “The whole matter of the transmission and transition of our music and culture is what is most important. We owe everything to those who have remained in the communities as guardians of our culture and sources of continued inspiration, and I want to stay true to the mission of letting the world know all about us.”

Although spread across Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala, the Garifuna people only arrived in Central America in the 1800s, having been forcibly resettled here by British colonialists. The roots of the Garifuna actually begin on the Carribbean island of St. Vincent some two hundred years earlier, amidst an unimaginable set of circumstances.

In 1635, Spanish a number of slave ships were shipwrecked in the Caribbean, and a group of Nigerian slaves on board managed to swim to shore. Arrived on St. Vincent, and fearful of being sent back to their Spanish captors, the passengers befriended the indigenous Black Caribs and, with no return ticket back to Africa, remained on the island. The Garifuna are mix of these African and Amerindian tribes, developing their own language and their own music and dance rituals that still today bind its people together.

Conscious of the uniqueness of his heritage, Andy

Palacio has been on a mission to preserve the Garifuna’s traditions. It was an encounter with one of the elders in the Nicaraguan village of Orinoco (who was shocked that a young man like Andy could speak Garifuna) that really opened his eyes to the fragility of this rich culture. “That was very personal and it signified the future of my own community. That someday I might be the one happy to hear a 19 year old speaking my own language.”

Returning to Belize, Andy became determined to protect his language and culture, becoming one of the key players of the Punta Rock scene of the eighties, releasing the unsurpassed Keimoun album. Andy recalls with a warm smile, “Those parties were roadblocks and I was totally inspired by them. Prior to that I had been writing songs in English trying to be the next Michael Jackson, so I put all that aside and said ‘here is an opportunity to accomplish my musical dreams as well as speaking to my generation.’” Punta Rock quickly swept across the country and has since become the national music of Belize. “Even if I am not making songs with a social or spiritual focus just the fact that I was singing in our

language was an expression of pride.” His new album, Watina, recorded at a

wooden beachside studio in the Garifuna village of Hopkins, delves deeper to expose the diversity and creativity of this community. A powerful and evocative album, it fuses traditional Garifuna music (from the dügü drum rhythms of ‘Weyu Larigi Weyu’ to the sacred call and response chants of ‘Baba’) with subtle, contemporary instrumentation, and sets Andy Palacio’s soulful Garifuna tongue with that of elders like Paul Nabor (who sings the raw and spin tingling ‘Ayo Da’) and younger lions from across the region such as Aurelio Martinez from Honduras.

“There are of course similarities between our music and that of Cuba, especially with the reverence to the spirits of our ancestors but also for the infusion of Christian references and African rhythms, so the drum remains for both of us an instrument of communication. For example, in both Punta Rock and the more traditional Paranda style, we use the primera and segunda drums to highlight the interaction between the man and woman in the courtship dance.”

Listening to Watina, you can hear the echoes of Palacio’s ancestors as they were uprooted from their spiritual lands. “I would tend to characterize our drumming as being distinctly African in origin,” he states intensely. “But the acapella songs have similarities with Amerindian communities in South America, so I think the influences of the two lines of ancestry can be identified through our music. The lyrics of quite a few of our songs express nostalgia for the place from where we were forcibly removed. Our songs sing about resistance against the British who were trying to eradicate our people to take their lands and make plantations. Even though it’s a very painful theme, the life that is given by the drumbeat and our

V E R B A L S : ANDY THOMAS P H O T O S : BUGS STEFFEN, SARAH WEEDEN, KATIA PARADIS

T H I S F R A G I L E C E N T R A L A M E R I C A N C O M M U N I T Y , A R A R E M I X T U R E O F A F R I C A N

A N D A M E R I N D I A N C U L T U R E S , I S U N D E R T H R E A T F R O M T H E G L O B A L I Z I N G S W E E P

O F C U L T U R E , B U T A N D Y P A L A C I O I S K E E P I N G T H E A N C E S T R A L F I R E S B U R N I N G .

THE WAYOF THE GARIFUNA

5150

BRING THE NOISE

“The whole NYC scene was ‘American International’, that is to say New York at its best. A lot of the aesthetic was from the German art / film world and the Cyber-style Japanese that would pop out in films like Alien and books like Neuromancer. Semiotexte and Sontag were swallowed with James Brown and cool jazz. Middle European flavor came from the Squatt Theater. Some of the best nights had the Contortions, Defunkt and the Lounge Lizards playing on the same gig. Lydia Lurch’s bands, her cool distain of the audiences was funny. English S & M was theatrical spanking, hard but not so gritty. When the Bush Tetra crew and Jim Jarmush arrived from the Chicago & Akron area, the crowd filled out. This blend flowed through, not the Chelsea Hotel like punk, but to the Arlington Hotel where Miles and Horace Silver had lived before us. The electricity was free; I could get home and look up to see the lights used for filming Super 8. Most everyone in No Wave wrote, filmed, made art, performed, recorded and designed clothes for ‘the look’. I remember arriving in a NY blizzard with everything I owned in January 1978. That first night I saw Mars play at CBGBs. The Mudd Club was just being CONSTRUCTED… The only tags downtown were by Samo with a copyright symbol and Dave’s crap hotdog and swill coffee shop with obscene lighting was on the corner of Canal and Broadway.” Julie Nylon

“Punk rock was in the nascent stages, and was literally just around the corner, at CBGB’s and other clubs. The punk aesthetic (not unrelated to minimalism) extended to the visual artists and writers, as well as composers. I took Rhys Chatham to see The Ramones in 1976, and he never looked back. Brian Eno showed up in 1978, and handpicked a few bands for his No New York anthology, garnering attention for certain noise bands. Talking Heads first appeared as a trio at St. Mark’s Church Parish Hall, and David Byrne appeared on recordings by Arthur Russell and myself. Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca began writing ringing guitar pieces, with their influence extending to Sonic Youth. There was a whole group of musicians who made their own instruments, others found connections with the loft-jazz scene. Disco and dance music was in its heyday – Arthur Russell wrote underground dance hits with the legendary DJ Larry Levan. Downtown music was noisy but also disciplined. Ned Sublette, Peter Zummo and Julius Eastman, among others, helped maintain a quality control across a number of musical sub-scenes.” Peter Gordon

NEW YORK NOISE

ART AND MUSIC FROM THE NEW YORK UNDERGROUND 1978-88Distributed by Thames & Hudson Published by Soul Jazz Records PublishingPrice £ 19.95

ART AND MUSIC FROM THE

NEW YORK UNDERGROUND:

PHOTOGRAPHY OF PAULA COURT

Bill T. Jones, 1981.

Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, at The Whitney Biennial, 1985.

N E W Y O R K ’ S D O W N T O W N S C E N E F R O M T H E L A T E

‘ 7 0 S L A U N C H E D T H E C A R E E R S O F E V E R Y O N E

F R O M J I M J A R M U S C H T O M A D O N N A , E S G T O

S O N I C Y O U T H , A R T O L I N D S A Y T O J E A N - M I C H E L

B A S Q U I A T . A R T I S T S H A D T A K E N O V E R T H E

L O W - R E N T W A R E H O U S E S O N L O W E R E A S T S I D E

A N D S O H O , A N D A L T H O U G H N E W Y O R K W A S O N

T H E B R I N K O F B A N K R U P T C Y , A M O N G S T T H E

P O V E R T Y A N D T H E D E S P A I R , A N E X P L O S I V E

G E N E R A T I O N O F M A V E R I C K F I L M M A K E R S ,

S T R E E T A R T I S T S , W R I T E R S A N D M U S I C I A N S

T O O K C E N T R E S T A G E .

Afrika Bambaataa at the Ritz, 1984.

David Byrne, ‘Report From LA’ in “Two Moon July” directed by Tom Bowes, at The Kitchen, 1986

ESG at Tier 3, 1980.

Patti Smith, during ‘The Nova Convention’, at Entermedia Theatre, 1978.

DNA at Squat Theatre, 1982.

5352

THELASTBASTIONSOF VINYLCULTUREIn November 2007, Goya Music, the dopest purveyors of sound on the West side of

London town, closed their doors. It�s a sad day for vinyl culture and we�re grateful

for the memories, but mostly for the wax.

One of the last records of Goya pressed was SK Radikal's ‘TroubledTimes’... Maybe it is troubled times when the last bastions of independ-ent vinyl distribution, responsible for an unbeatable catalogue of futurejazz, house and broken beat, would a decade later end up ultimatelybroke & beat. Defeated by the very thing we had all desperately reliedon to have our music heard & exposed to the masses, vinyl!

The thought of losing the family home & the Mecca we had all onceshared since the birth of our music 10 years ago was too much to takein. The day Spence pulled me aside & quietly told me the bad news Iwas, for a change, speechless. Now it has all sunk in, I know I’ll trulymiss the days of heading down to the Goya basement headquarters. I'llmiss stepping into IG's to drop lyric & long out debates, occasionallycatching him practice his Wing Chun - or as we called it 'violent yoga &

angry ballet'. I'll miss listening in on Alex Attias' sessions, Jinx's newtracks or Noel Watson telling me how he'd built Goya himself ... & ofcourse how we'll be millionaires next year! The banter with Spence,Dego or catching joke with Bagga Demus & the rest of the CoOp crew inour early days will also be missed, though I won't miss helping set-up orde-rig the the carnival stage, banners & sound system, or the time spentwaiting in the office for Mike to come back from another skiing trip sowe can get the next release pressed.

It’s sad to think that gone are the days of opening fresh boxes ofvinyl & seeing our brand new, gleaming label artwork & record sleeves.Admittedly, not always the fanciest looking sleeves & packing but themost important thing was the progressive music & art it contained. Yousee Goya was a company that was brave & passionate enough to share &

Taken from the forthcoming‘Co-operation 3’album & book. Check: i.coopr8.netfor more info.

help nurture a dream of developing a new form of progressive blackmusic, based in a building with a vast history – from Trojan records inthe ‘70s through to CT & Boys Own records & Global.

The Goya picture on myspace is of Terry McCann & Arthur Daley from'Minder'. But for me, Mike and Spence were more like Del Boy & Rodney,with their dodgy fluorescent labels or the knocked off gear they'd some-times pull up with in their yellow G.I.T van. As for that even dodgierremake of the Nightwriters, well... Let's just hope they left a couple gemsin the lockup to be discovered in a few years time hey...? R.I.P GoyaIndependant Traders. 1997 – 2007.

AFRONAUT. DEC 2007

When I first met the West London crew, dubplates by the likesof Likwid Biskit and Neon Phusion were redefining everythingwe thought about contemporary black music and bridging thegap between the dancefloor and art. Right from the get-go,Goya became synonymous with this movement and music pro-viding an umbrella, infrastructure and guiding hand to get thenew counter-culture out to hungry ears all around the world.This community inspired me to no end, taught me so many les-sons as an artist and producer and brought together like-mind-ed kindred spirits to bring new music into the world together.I’m ever thankful for being part of the puzzle and continue tobe excited about what is still to come…

MARK DE CLIVE-LOWE (THE POLITIK/FREESOUL SESSIONS/ANTIPODEAN RECORDS)

Jez_goya 17/12/07 7:08 PM Page 1

5554

FIVE THINGS TO BRINGTO A LAPTOP GIG

Torch – even with the screen glaring in front of you it may be necessary to find inputs and outputs hidden behind the mixer on the fly.

Adaptors – you never know what kind of input the house system will accept so make sure that you can at least connect to minijack, jack, phono and xlr. Also include a headphone splitter in case you need extra outputs, and plug adaptors if you’re playing abroad. A full kit is available at www.fractalspin.com.

Wii Controller – for 30 quid this is the best value controller on the market, and easy to get hold of. Software like Osculator will allow you to recreate those Jean-Michel Jarre moments live on stage.

Mono Synth/ Theremin – if you’re going to be ‘checking your emails’ at the computer all night, it makes sense to add an instrument which has a physical interface. Theremins and small monosynths can be used to add acid lines, filter sweeps and other bleeps to enhance your set.

A backup – worst case scenario, your computer won’t start. It happens to plenty of musicians, and Murphy’s law states it is most likely to happen on your most important gig. Make sure that you have some vinyl, some cds, or even one of the new breed of mini mp3 decks (pacemaker.net) to play with if it happens to you.

TENORI-ON

The Tenori-On is Yamaha’s contribution to new interfaces for musical expression. It was demoed early in 2007 at tradeshows worldwide, and recently launched in the UK through record shops and boutiques (rather than the usual network of pro-audio retailers).

The Tenori-On is based on a 16x16 matrix of buttons and an internal synthesizer ported from one of Yamaha’s popular keyboard workstations. The buttons in the matrix have a variety of functions, depending on what mode is selected. They can be treated as part of a 16-step analogue style sequencer, where the vertical axis represents pitch and the horizontal axis represents time. In other modes animations can be enabled which will step between, for example, two selected notes in the matrix. The buttons light up when they are triggered on both sides of the device, which adds some visual interest when performing live. As a midi controller for an external synth or laptop the device has great potential, but the midi functionality is not yet flexible enough.

Used By: TOSHIO IWAI (Japanese multimedia artist and Tenori-On inventor)

LEMUR/DEXTER

The Jazzmutant Lemur/Dexter platform is a touch-sensitive hardware unit which is designed to control computer-based external instruments and sequencers. It communicates with a computer via a wired Ethernet connection. The interface is multitouch sensitive, meaning that you can control multiple parameters at once, and visual feedback is provided by virtual onscreen faders, knobs and other controls. The Lemur/Dexter can be configured by the user to provide an almost unlimited variety of visual interfaces, and it is particularly useful for multi-dimensional tasks such as surround panning. Both units use the same hardware, but the Dexter comes with inbuilt control templates for popular DAWs such as Logic and Cubase.

On the downside the units communicate via OSC (Open Sound Control), and therefore include the extra software for Mac or Pc necessary to interface with the MIDI protocol. However no difficulties involving the software have been reported.

Used By: STEPHAN BODZIN (Pokerflat)

TEK NEWSTRAKTOR SCRATCH 3NI have released the latest update to their Traktor DJ platform. This incorporates compatibility with timecode vinyl, making it a Serato and FinalScratch killer. The new update enables four simultaneous decks to be controlled.Price €99www.native-instruments.com

ARTURIA ANALOGUE

FACTORY EXPERIENCE

Arturia have announced Analogue Factory 2.0. In addition they have partnered with keyboard manufacturer CME to build a tailored hardware controller for the software. The Analogue Factory 2.0 software gives users access to patches from all 6 of Arturia’s modelled vintage synthesizers, with the ability to tweak selected parameters such as filter cutoff and resonance. Price €299 www.arturia.com

ABLETON LIVE 7Ableton’s latest instalment of Live brings a whole range of fixes, and some tasty expansions of the platform’s scope. Ableton have rewritten the mix engine entirely, and it now operates at 64-bits. This effectively means that more headroom is available on the overall mix before clipping occurs. In addition, they have added new instruments – Analog (a subtreactive synthesizer), Tension (a physical modelling synthesizer) and Electric (a vintage keys synthesizer). The instruments have been developed by leading dsp experts AAS.

Prices from €469

NEW PERFORMANCE INTERFACES FOR COMPUTER MUSIC

2007 has been the year of the controller in music. The most exciting developments in music technology worldwide have been in new devices for controlling the ever-growing power of the music computer. From hacking up old qwerty keyboards in Brooklyn to developing modern works of sound art in Tokyo, the whole world has been at it. Now that so many DJs and musicians are using the new controllers live it seems appropriate to look back at the leaders in this futuristic field.

AXIS

The Axis controller has been developed by C-Thru Music here in good old blighty. It is the leader of a new range of controllers which aim to replace the existing piano-keyboard format with more ergonomic solutions. The Axis keyboard consists of 192 hexagonal keys arranged in a matrix, rather like a Blockbusters board. Each key has six sides, and the key adjacent on each side will have the same harmonic interval wherever you are on the keyboard. This is potential very useful, as a major triad, a minor triad, a dominant seventh and so on will always be the same shape, allowing the formation of rich and complex harmonies live.

The Axis is the first instrument to use this key layout, and it also includes a couple of assignable pots and the standard pitch and mod wheels. Sadly the keys don’t send velocity information, a significant limitation for expressive leads and melodies. However, for pads and harmonic lines the Axis represents a good investment of time and money.

Used By: PHOTEK

NINTENDO WII CONTROLLER

The Nintendo Wii Controller is the latest gaming device to be appropriated for music, following the use of joysticks and optical guns (yes really). It communicates via Bluetooth with the Wii console, and so various software developers have built environments for Bluetooth-enabled Mac and PC which can gather the movement data and turn it into MIDI.

If you make music and are interested in live performance then you really should go out and buy a Wii controller now. They transmit data when tilted back and forth, moved from side to side, and when rolled horizontally, allowing 3 axes for expression. In addition the buttons and directional controls can be used to transmit midi. The only difficulty in using the Wii controller is that it presents so many options – like any instrument it must be learnt properly. It is a modern theremin, and for less than 30 quid.

Used By: LOSOUL (Playhouse)

“I use the M-Audio Trigger Finger with my laptop. The pads a real sturdy and it makes an excellent controller for use with FXpansion’s Guru. The timing in Guru is really tight, and it is a pleasure to play with the Trigger Finger. I also use it as a controller for MsPinky when I DJ.” CLAUSE FOUR (DC Recordings)

“Beside all the interfaces I know the Tenori-On is clearly the most tangible and intuitive. I guess digital music has never been so sexy.” NORMAN FAIRBANKS

“For the majority of my career I’ve been using a crappy PC with cheap software and I’m still pretty much doing that” declares the L.A native. “In fact, I’ve just recently switched over to apple. It’s not gonna change your outlook on the universe but it does make life simple, you can turn a motherfucker on and it works!”

For live shows Flying Lotus swears by his new Mac running Ableton Live and an M-audio Trigger Finger: “I don’t like producing on Live but its great for playing out, it’s really fun and straight forward. It’s a great program to sit and conceptualise your set. You can chop up the drums from one of your tracks and play them live on top of the instrumental, when your done with that you can go back to DJ’ing, you can get out there play some instrumentals and start rapping, wait before that you could record yourself beatboxing loop that up and go back to rapping and then DJ”.

In the studio he rocks a plethora of hardware and soft synths, including analogue modelling Keyboards like the Alesis Micron, Korg MS 2000, the Roland SP 303 sampler and a newly purchased Roland Space Echo. “I love that King Tubby shit! Dilla to me is like a reincarnation of Tubby” he says while discussing his RE 201 space echo, a delay effects unit much loved by Dub heads. Moog’s Lil’ Phatty has also changed Ellison’s outlook on the rawness of real analogue synthesis. “It’s so heavy! I’d been using soft synths for so long and when I heard that thing I was like ‘oh yeah!’”. Lotus’ employs another secret weapon to capture those fuzzy 8-bit melodies, the Wayfar Midines, a midi fitted NES cartridge that’s turns the unassuming Nintendo into a synth on Super Mario shrooms.

As for the medium he samples from he’s not picky: vinyl, CDs, synthesisers, it’s all fair game to

Ellison: “I record sounds and make tracks out of it”. He also has no qualms about a reissue either: “I’m not one of those crazy digger guys. I know a lot of them so for me to even try to say something like that is foolish. I’m lucky enough to have people put me up on certain things but I don’t know shit about records despite what people may think”.

Whether it was hearing Jungle at the age of 13, early Dre or more recently Batucada percussion, Flying Lotus is after that tribal rhythmic element, that and some straight up bass music: “I’m always looking for something organic. Like that train you hear running on ‘Spicy Sammich’ off the new EP. Rhythm you hear in nature and the Batucada influence is definitely in my percussion. I think another thing when I’m playing my sets is everyone’s just waiting to hear the bass. That low end theory really connects people”.

Michael Krasser

FLY-TEK MICHAEL KRASSER DROPPED BY

WARP’S STUDIO TO CHEW THE FAT

WITH STEVEN ELLISON, AKA FLYING

LOTUS WHO DROPS THE SCIENCE

ON BEATS, STUDIO GEAR AND THE

LOW END THEORY.

photos courtesy of fatsarazzi

TEK

SHOOK

E D I T O R : BENJI LEHMANN

5756

Voices ‘Morning Dew’

Skatebard – Marimba (Supersoul Records) Much-needed electronic deepness that comes straight from the (warm) Norwegian woods. The very definition of an early morning groove. Gatto Fritto – Invisible College (Dissident) Blissful balearic nu disco that will put a smile on every discerning dance-floor, courtesy of a member of the Voices family. Yo, Tú, El y Ella – De Tu Amorme Enamore (Egrem/Sonar Kollektiv) A rarer slice of early morning cosmic sleaze and a standout from Sonar Kollektiv’s compilation of moments on the legendary Cuban label. Anthemic! www.myspace.com/voicescollective www.myspace.com/cedricwoo

Marsha’s In A Sentimental Mood

Happy Birthday The melody is amazing, it represents the celebration of someone’s life... Genius.

John Williams – Close Encounters of The Third Kind score To incorporate ‘When U Wish Upon A Star’ with the catchiest 5 note melody ever, where the communication between mankind and extra terrestrials is based on a melody... Flippin excellent.

Floetry – Say YesI wrote the song in 3 minutes and it made me the ‘go to girl’ for the song that everybody got their groove on to. Lol.

Compiled by Marsha Ambrosius of Floetry / Aftermath.

Henrik Schwarz’ Jazz For

People Who Love To Dance

Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Behind The Yashmak (Live in Hamburg) (ACT) They did it again! E.S.T. is always inspiring to listen to but you need to hear the live recordings or see them on stage. Jazz can be the most fantastic dance music.

Archie Shepp - Mama Rose (Steeple Chase) Thats an album from that I heard just a few weeks ago for the first time. This is an ultra complex minimal monster that is blowing my mind. Just a piano, a clarinet and a voice - connecting to every single nerve I have.

Christian Prommer - Drumlessons Vol 1. (Sonar Kollektiv) Already in my favourites collection since a little while. This is a must have for my opinion.

Jose James Is Always Dreaming

John Coltrane – Acknowledgement (Impulse)this is the first track from A Love Supreme + it always transports me! It helps remind me that music is a spiritual experience + that we’re here to uplift people + to give our best.

Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get it On (Motown)I don’t think that needs an explanation!

Talib Kweli + Hi Tek Africa Dream (Rawkus)With Kweli the word is ‘attack’. I just love this track - his energy + his focus + his broad palette of storytelling. He jumps through history with ease. It’s like Kweli is a griot + an ill rhymesayer in one! Crucial.

Jose James’ album is out now on Brownswood

Paul White’s ‘Songs With Bizarre

Introductions‘

Gal Costa - Objeto Sim, Objeto Nao (Philips)Beautiful Brazilian track with crazy tape manipulation and effects used on intro.

Gong - Flying Teapot (Virgin Records)Jazz/Funk track with heavy moody atmospheres created using synths and effects... and mushrooms.

Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart - Muffin Man (Warner Brothers)Bunch of guys having serious fun with brilliant funny speech intro by Beefheart.

Look out for more form Paul White on One-Handed Music next year. www.myspace.com/paulmw

Domu’s ‘Tunes I Can Leave Playing

During A Set While I Nip To The Toilet’

Tony Allen - Afro Disco Beat (Strut)Whilst any Afro beat record that is around 10 minutes would do, this is my all time favourite. As interesting to listen to as it is long.

Herb Martin - Soul Drums (Ibadan)On paper it sounds boring, an 11 minute jazz house loop that changes very little. But somehow it captivates people long enough for me to not worry about them whilst otherwise engaged.

Atmosphere - Most Titles (Elite)Nearly any disco record by Mr Sojka is in the 8 or 9 minute range, so a ‘best of’ is always handy in the vinyl or CD format.

Compiled by Dom-Unique. www.trebleo.co.uk

Nik Weston’s ‘Mukatsuku

Means I Love You ‘

Pipeman -Tic Tac (Pipe Studio)Interesting Japanese hipity hopish 7’’ from the land of the rising sun.

Akoya Afrobeat Orchestra - Fela Dey reedit (Mukatsuku) If we can get a new distributor for the mukatsuku label then this will hopefully come out in spring and maybe even with a karizma mix on flip! BF 45 Dreamer (Jazzy Sport)Dreamy Jazzy Sport 7 from Tokyo. We Like!

www.myspace.com/mukatsuku

Supa D’s Funky Club Bangers

DJ Naughty – QuicktimeDue to be released in the New Year.

Karizma – Twyst ThisBeen playing this 4 a while but it still does da trick

Apple – Mr Bean Remix This exclusive mix gets the crowd mad on da dancefloor

Compiled by Supa D, Rinse FM.

Jazzy Sport ‘3 Peat Chart‘ Wednesday – Budamunky feat. Blu & Ta’Raach (Jazzy Sport 7inc’) Super Smoky Soul EP – Super Smoky Soul (Jazzy Sport) Physical Education EP – Physical Sound Sport (Jazzy Sport) Compiled by Masaya ‘Fantasista’ Kobayashi. www.jazzysport.com

Compiled by Kerri Chandler. Watch out for the new album, soon come.

Kerri Chandler’s ’Tracks I Just

Can’t Stop Listening To’

Mellow Madness - Now You’re Calling (Yoruba)It makes me tear up each time I hear it, The way it was put together is what i love about house.

Kem - Tonight - Jihad Muhammad RemixIt get me going everytime I hear it, its kind of my motivation at the moment.

Ben Watt - Stronger Man (Buzzin’ Fly)Tthis was formerly Terence Trent D’Arby, aka Sananda Maitreya, on the track, and it is one of the the most heartfelt songs I have ever heard.

Simbad Drifts Away From Da Noisy

Babylon

S.O.L.A.R – Rainbow (Blues Interaction) Proper cosmic modal jazz with powerful voices & with that spiritual vibe. Swings & grooves like it was in da 70’s. I believe it’s either ‘74 or ’76. Herbie Hancock – Nobu (CBS) i reckon Nobu is one of da first ever ‘Techno’ tune hahaha. Amazin’ piece of music. Heard Carl Craig drop this once on a big sound system, brillant moment! Moe Koffman – Days Gone By (Egyptology) (Janus) Well this is just beautiful, the way the melodie keeps comin’ back in a cycle. Been sampled & used by Jill Scott 4 one of her tracks. The piano solo is also ridiculous. Worth gettin’ the album...

Compiled by Simbad

Jackson’s Five Tunes While

Your Left Hanging on the

Telephone

Lonesome Train by Johnny Burnett Chameleon by Herbie Hancock Walkman by SebastiAn Extra Man by The Fucking Champs Fyuz by Add N To (X) Jackson & His Computer Band’s remix of Justice’s D.A.N.C.E is out now on Ed Banger. Look out for brand new music from him very soon. myspace.com/jacksonand

THE PEOPLES CHOICE THE PEOPLES CHOICE

5958

ABYSSINIA ROCKDESTINATION: ETHIOPIA

O N H I S T R A V E L S T O E T H I O P I A , T H E C R A D L E O F C I V I L I S A T I O N , M A G A B O D E L I V E R S T H E V E R D I C T O N T H E L A T E S T M U S I C S T Y L E S E M E R G I N G F R O M T H I S A N C I E N T K I N G D O M , A N D S H E D S S O M E L I G H T O N T H E M U S I C I N D U S T R Y A S T H E C O U N T R Y E N T E R S A N E W M I L L E N N I U M .

In Addis Ababa, record shops come in all shapes and sizes. From street vendors armed with a handful of CDs to one-room street fronts serving not just as a store, but also as a studio and a distribution centre. The larger the outlet, the larger the selection and the more involved it is likely to be in different aspects of the music business. With piracy running rampant, diversity is key.

Companies such as Electra, Ambassel and Master Sounds commission recordings, license exclusive material, duplicate, distribute and sell their own products. Each production house will, of course, have stocks reflecting their own productions and networks, so different music shops can have different types of selections – some will stock traditional bolel music, others the more contemporary sounds of reggae and gurageaton. While the bigger shops may have a larger selection, they aren’t always up on the new stuff. The surest way to find the hottest tracks on road (which can be heard pumping out of minibuses, taxis and bars), is to find a young guy with the boombox and the clutch of CDs. He’ll be the man with that track you heard last night.

Cassettes are still the biggest selling medium in Ethiopia. Many older records can be found on cassette, but still haven’t been re-mastered on CD. CDs are only duplicated in short runs and released in seal-wrapped packages with colour inserts and on-disc printing. More popular are the pirate CDs – one-off copies, labelled by hand (if you’re lucky) with a photocopied insert. In the markets like Merkato, you’ll also find a huge selection of all kinds of films, from Ethiopian thrillers (from a thriving national film industry) to the latest Hollywood and Bollywood fare on VCD. Musical releases are usually live concerts or music videos, which can be played with or without the image. Prices range from Birr 6 ($0.7) for an original cassette to Birr 25 ($3) for an original CD release. Ethiopiques CDs are on sale for Birr 140 ($17).

While there’s a huge Ethiopian diaspora in Egypt, Israel, Sweden and the US, and while there is much exchange between the Habesha (Ethiopians) abroad and back home, the country’s music distribution is still very localized. Because of the monopoly of Ethiopia Telecommunications, average internet connections are

just 28 kbps, Skype is banned by Ethiopian law and it’s impossible to log on to Myspace. While some Ethiopian music can found on the internet (the Ethiopiques series as well as other titles from AIT, a label based in the USA), mp3s of the latest hits in Addis Ababa are difficult or impossible to find.

At the turn of Ethiopia’s new millennium, in the face of changes in the system of distribution as well as heavy local piracy, the country’s music is at a crossroads. Ethiopia only celebrated the millennium in September 2007, and the country has been enjoying a year of festivities which so far have included concerts from Beyonce and the Black Eyed Peas. But the people have remained sceptical to the sound of black America despite the fact that Eminem and Fiddy have started to permeate youth consciousness. Encouraged instead by Habesha musicians throughout the diaspora, and also influenced by the sounds of Jamaica with whom Ethiopia has a proud relationship, a small local scene has slowly begun to emerge.

THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN

ENJOYING A YEAR OF

FESTIVITIES WHICH HAVE

INCLUDED CONCERTS

FROM BEYONCE AND

THE BLACK EYED PEAS

BUT PEOPLE HAVE

REMAINED SCEPTICAL

TO THE SOUND OF BLACK

AMERICA

Jorga Mesfin, soundtrack producer for Teza, the new film to be released early next year by the acclaimed Ethiopian director Haile Girma explains, “Part of the difficulty faced by artists in this country is that the public is more concerned about lyrics than production. There are very few references for innovative production within the Ethiopian music community and people have simply gotten used to production values lacking in imagination.”

With the downfall of Haile Selassie and the rise of the Derg government in the mid-’70s, the music scene in Addis Ababa nearly disappeared into oblivion. Facing heavy censorship and with increasingly fewer venues for live music and curfews, the once booming scene was effectively strangled. Musicians emigrated out of the country, bands broke up and technology changed.

With the widespread popularization of the synthesizer and drum machine in the 1980s, promoters and musicians alike found the band-in-a-box keyboard approach to be more economically viable than the orchestras of old. The drum machine and synthesizer have made it easier for singer/songwriters to get their music heard, but usually at

the expense of quality. One man currently trying to turn the tide is Tedy, who

does what he calls gurageton – lyrics sung in gurage, laced over a twisted reggaeton groove (reggaeton is big here). So far, he has had only one song released, but he does run his own club night in Addis where he holds it down with, you guessed it, a keyboard player. Another rising star is Mary Abebe who has a track out called ‘Awhuno’ (Now). On a minimal ragga/reggaeton track with lyrics sung in Amharic and sampled arabic percussion, it sounds fresh and club friendly. Both of the accompanying videos are chock-full of Rize-inspired iskista shoulder-shake dancing.

Another interesting figure is Jonny Ragga, who has just released his first record, ‘Give me the Key’, which has turned him into an overnight sensation and the country’s first ragga/R&B star. Singing in Amharic and English on pedestrian topics such as girls and love, he does extend himself by talking about the somewhat controversial topic of the Jamaican rastafarian community in Shashemane. A couple of his videos can be found easily on YouTube.

Tewodros Kassahun, aka Teddy Afro, whose new release Teddy Afro Live! is dominating the airwaves of Ethiopia, is based in Atlanta and plays all over the world. His competent mix of reggae and modern traditional Amharic music is reminiscent of the Wailers band at times. He even performed alongside the Marley Brothers, Youssou N’Dour and Luciano for the 60th anniversary of the birth of Bob Marley, held in Addis.

Indeed the current innovation in Ethiopian music is coming from musicians in the diaspora, many of whom are moving back to Ethiopia having spent the period of the revolution in the disapora. And, with them, they’re bringing new ideas and perspectives.

Based in New York, Gigi is perhaps the most famous Ethiopian performer. Married to Bill Laswell and having worked alongside Pharoah Sanders, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, she creates an accessible international lounge sound with vocals in Amharic. Also from the States, Bole 2 Harlem is a New York based project combining Ethiopian elements with down-tempo influences. At any given time, these artists can be heard blasting from the Merkato sound systems proving that there is a degree of flow from the homeland to the diaspora and back.

Blessed with a proud, strong and enduring local music tradition, hopefully it is only a matter of time before the market and technology change to facilitate the flow of new Ethiopian music both locally and internationally. Perhaps the next ‘Golden Age of Swinging Addis’ is upon us in this new millennium.www.magabo.com www.commandodigital.com/kolleidosonic

Manager of Electra music shop, the biggest producer and distributor in Ethiopia.

6160

Picking up where Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and the Black Jazz stable left off, collaborative effort Build An Ark make intuitive, soul-searching music with heart-felt intent. A mighty successor to their debut ‘Peace With Every Step’, Dawn rises with moments of exceptional beauty. In his own words, producer Carlos Nino explains the magic at work.

“Most of the musicians who appear on Dawn have worked on numerous projects with me in the past – people like Dwight Trible, Nate Morgan, Adam Rudolph, Phil Ranelin, Derf Reklaw who all seasoned veterans of the ‘70s free jazz movement whether through their involvement in the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, Detroit’s Tribe Records or the Pharaohs.

“In the early stages of putting the album together, I had a good idea of the compositions I wanted to record – that played a factor in who I brought in. I chose each person based on their spirit, instrument and special qualities that I thought would add to the collective sound.

“We recorded the album in good old Burbank, California, a suburb of Los Angeles that’s full of incredible recording studios. It was a great experience. I had a stretch of time in the studio so I cut and mixed

nearly five records in three months. We were across the street from one of the world’s greatest record stores too - Atomic. The atmosphere in the studio was busy and happy. Every one was excited to be together. We had great food and a wonderful, creative environment. Lots of people and laughter.

“We rehearsed for two days before we recorded, and a lot of the arrangement kinks were worked out in that process. Most of the musicians hadn’t seen or heard the music until the rehearsals. It’s kinda crazy when I think about it. All the pieces we recorded are from first takes. ‘Love, Sweet Like Sugar Cane’ is the only song on the record that has a fade out and that was because it was a rehearsal take. We did one official take right after that, but we all knew that we wanted to use the rehearsal.

“We did some very minor editing to the beginnings and ends of pieces, and more involved overdubbing of vocals and strings, but our sound is much more about the vibe than anything else so, for us, we usually get that right out the gate. Sometimes I wish we could vibe out for a long time and really develop the music together, but for the most part it comes together by way of a common intent and exceptional improvisation.

“We had all these ideas of creating a rich sound with mics, pre-amps, rooms, instruments… and of course musicians’ hearts, and ears. But in all honesty, we didn’t even have enough mics and inputs for everything. The band configuration for ‘River Run’, for instance, changed three times and ended up being way bigger than originally planned. Musicians would be added to the ensemble for different songs, or just jump on and we had to improvise. My hat’s off to our master engineer Bryan Carlstrom.

“Magical moments? The whole recording process was full of magical moments, but one memory stands out in particular. For ‘When Ancestors Speak’, it wasn’t certain what was going to happen. Avotcja hung out in the studio all day waiting for her turn to record. All the while she was conjuring up the track, meeting musicians and conversing with ones she already knew. It was like she was writing and casting on the spot. Suddenly the piece transformed into something new. That was very interesting to me. It became one of the most mystical and free of all the tracks on the album.

“I always think, wow, what would it be like if we actually rehearsed and had real time together to develop like most bands? The potential is infinite.”

With bands like Breakestra, Quantic Soul Orchestra and The New Mastersounds responsible for a renaissance in heavy funk and even pop acts like Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse muscling in on some soulful vibes, Godfather Brown can rest assured ‘real’ funk and soul is still live and well.

Speaking of Miss Winehouse, Sharon Jones & The Dap-kings (the same band that session on the platinum selling Back To Black) release their third studio album 100 Days 100 Nights on Daptone Records. Much more than a simple ode to soul, this sounds like vintage Motown or Stax, right down to the backing vocals which sound like they could have been lifted from some forgotten Otis Redding session. Recorded wholly on analog tape – something of a rarity these days – the Dap-Kings sound is warm and inviting. ‘Let Them Knock’ stands out with its jangling rhythm guitar and Sharon Jones singing about ignoring the rest of the world while making sweet love to her baby. ‘Keep on Lookin’ is another highlight, bringing out that heavy JB funk with its insistent guitar line and horn blasts. Props going out to Sharon Jones for some sublime

vocal work, to all the musicians involved who set the tone, and to producer Gabriel Roth for his uncompromising vision on what a real soul record should sound like. Also if you get the chance check out the live show and get down to dances like ‘the funky chicken’, Ms Jones hands out free lessons for all you jive turkeys!

From Tel Aviv with Funk comes multi-instrumentalist and funky drummer Kutiman and his self titled debut banger (MPM Music). Kutiman handles most of the bass, guitar, drums and keyboard work on the album but collaborates with a select few vocalists and musicians from the tiny Tel Aviv scene. However, it’s when the instruments take the spotlight that the Kutiman project really shines. The first track ‘Bango Fields’ masterfully blends a Shaft/Starsky and Hutch blaxploitation sound without coming off corny. ‘Take A Minute’ serves as a great interval to all the funky activity on the album, bringing out an ancient drum machine and strummed guitar for some mellow bossa/samba vibes. But by far the best track is ‘Outro’, a psychedelic jazz funk masterpiece: spacey Fender Rhodes, synths and wah wah’s blend into a buttery aural

concoction that will take you to Saturn before blowing your mind with some blisteringly raw and emotional guitar work. Wow, we need to hear more stuff like this.

Also making his debut is homegrown newcomer Adam Gibbons aka Lack of Afro. Press On (Freestyle Records) is an interesting affair with Gibbons combining sampling and live instrumentation that gently reminds me of Bonobo’s last record. Check the bad boy combination of bass fuzz, tough drums and clavinet on ‘Pure Filth’ and the heavy breakbeatastic version of the Artic Monkeys’ ‘When The Sun Goes Down’, which – dare I say it – is better then the original. In a two-fingered gesture to producers who use synths to replace real instruments, Gibbons samples godfather of the Moog synthesizer, Bob Moog. While undoubtedly a talented chappy, there’s a danger Press On will wear thin after a few listens, becoming forgettable. Saying that, fans of Shadow, Bonobo and the New Mastersounds (who Gibbons samples a couple of times) will find him right up their alley.

Michael Krasser

BUILD AN ARK ‘Dawn’ (Kindred Spirits)

REVIEWS

SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS, ‘100 Days 100 Nights’ (Daptone Records) / KUTIMAN ‘Kutiman’ (MPM Music) /

LACK OF AFRO ‘Press On’ (Freestyle Records)

REVIEWS6362

Art Blakey, Randy Weston and John Coltrane (who even named an album after the Senegalese capital Dakar, released on Prestige in 1957) all sought musical inspiration in the birthplace of rhythm, Africa. Following their lead, a young Steve Reid made his own pilgrimage to the rugged and unbridled continent in 1966. Handing over $75, he took a freight liner from America and ventured into the unknown. Traveling through the Congo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and Morocco, he worked as a sideman for people like Fela Kuti and Guy Warren. Three years later he returned with a knowledge and passion for African rhythms that would shape his signature style for years to come.

Steve Reid’s life has changed dramatically in the last forty years. As a session musician he’s shared the stage with James Brown, Chaka Khan, Miles Davis and Sun Ra and has released a handful of sought-after albums (Spirit Walk and Rhythmatism were reissued on Soul Jazz in 2005). In 1969 he was sentenced to four years in prison for refusing to fight in Vietnam and during the ‘70’s he became involved with the Civil Rights movement. A chance meeting with Keiran Hebden in 2005, threw the Bronx-raised drummer back into the limelight with a series of wildly experimental, free improv albums (The Exchange Volumes 1 and 2) released a year later.

Returning to Africa was always in the back of Steve’s mind. In January 2007, accompanied by Keiran Hebden and keys player Boris Netsvetaev, he traveled to Dakar and linked up with five local musicians to record Daxaar. “When I went the first time it was to learn and join in with their scene,” recalls Steve. “My first night in Africa I slept in Dakar, outside in a Mosque. This time I wanted to mix their scene with my Bronx scene – the funk with the African thing. We just wanted to make some happy and

groovy music.”More accessible than his previous Four Tet

collaborations on Domino, Daxaar moves from the traditional kora led opener of ‘Welcome’ to the loose jazz funk grooves of ‘Jiggy Jiggy’ and the pulsing trance-like loops of ‘Daxaar’ and ‘Dabronxxar’. There’s even a nod to Santana in ‘Big G’s Family’ and ‘Don’t Look Back.’ While the African influences are evident, this is much more than a token afrobeat album or a hghlife tribute. It’s a sound Steve describes as truly authentic “world music”, where different styles and generations collide. While Youssou N’Dour’s hometown may have provided the context and for this project it by no means dictated the musical direction. “I keep the flavours from all the places I’ve visited,” explains Steve. “So I always have my Bronx thing, the Dakar thing, Sweden and London… the music is a global thing.”

While Steve’s rambunctious drumming runs like an undercurrent throughout the entire recording, he typically refuses to take centre stage, instead allowing accompanying musicians to dazzle; Roger Ongolo’s breezy trumpet solo on ‘Jiggy Jiggy’ is a case in point. “I always lay back when I’m doing new stuff and I try to bring their thing out first,” says Steve of his recording process, “which is why I never take drum solos on records. I like to let the musicians speak and I try to provide them with the proper setting.”

The session musicians who appear on Daxaar were all recommended by contacts in New York, and include Youssou N’Dour’s guitarist Jimi Mbaye. “I was just looking for some open minded guys.” Although Steve had an idea of the music he wanted to make, typically his remit was loose and open. Subsequently, the recordings arose from improvised jams. For a group of musicians who usually work to commissions

this proved to be a puzzling concept. “They’re not used to being turned loose. In Africa one person owns all the instruments to a band, so they even control rehearsals. Improvisation comes out of the African system, but due to the success of the so-called music industry they lean heavily on something that can make them money and can get them into Europe. That puts everything into an afrobeat, commercial type of thing. I explained I just wanted them to play. I didn’t come to bring tunes. After five minutes they felt it and understood.”

As an education on harnessing the power of spontaneity, Steve arranged a series of improvised gigs for the band with elements of these performances making the final cut. Playing live also provided an opportunity to test run the danceability of tracks, something very important to Steve. “For a while I felt jazz music went away from the people because it became non-danceable,” he laments. “I grew up playing rhythm and blues and it was important to see people moving and having a good time. That’s how you really get the message across. When people can move their ass something magical happens.”

Although not an album of elaborate drum patterns, Daxaar is still a largely groove based affair and appropriately charts the surprising twists an turns of Steve Reid’s career. “To me the rhythm holds the key to all the music,” he grins. “The harmonies and melodies come out of the rhythms.” Recorded off the cuff, this is not a perfect set of future standards. But amidst the inquisitive and exploratory playing there are flutterings of magical brilliance.

Sarah Marshall

STEVE REID ENSEMBLE ‘Daxaar’ (Domino)

REVIEWS

REVIEWS

The Black Rock Manifesto (1985), penned by Greg Tate, opposed “those racist and reactionary forces within the American music industry which undermine and purloin our musical legacy and deny Black artists the expressive freedom and economic rewards that our Caucasian counterparts enjoy as a matter of course.” Through the music of Living Colour, Eye & I, Defunkt and 24/7 Spyz and the tenacious (village) voice of Greg Tate, the Coalition was group of musicians and artists trying to escape the idea that black musicians should only be making ‘soul’ music, and the assumption that music for your soul rules out heavy guitar riffs or citing the Red Hot Chilli Peppers as an influence. It’s 20 years since the Black Rock Manifesto was written, but it could have been written yesterday.

Since Prince, few major-label African-American artists have broken out of the one-size-fits-all genres of hip-hop and R&B. The Roots are the last black band to be signed to a major label. And despite the successful efforts of N.E.R.D. or voices like Cody ChesnuTT, audiences have remained suspicious of anyone breaking the mould. When Common took a trip down to Electric Ladyland on Electric Circus, he mystified his fans until he made a comeback with Kanye West. Keziah Jones stll can’t convince people outside mainland Europe that a black man can proudly shock out on lead guitar. And the seer Saul Williams seems only to find a NIN-loving, Ksubi jeans-wearing fanbase with Amethyst Rock Star, his eponymous follow-up and the recent The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust albums. Let’s not even talk about Mos Def’s recent albums. It seems that the pantheon of White Music for Black People (the title of the new Apollo Heights CD) is limited to Coldplay, Led Zep and the Beatles. Heaven forbid it should admit any black bands.

But if anyone can have their cake and eat it, it’s Meshell Ndegeocello. As a young bassist, after playing with go-go bands in DC, Meshell moved to New York where she teamed up with members of Vernon Reid’s Living Colour. And although her early albums like Plantation Lullabies and Peace Beyond Passion were R&B outings, with collaborators ranging from Geri Allen to Wah Wah Watson to Screaming Headless Torsoes’ David Fiuczynski, there were always more flavours to Meshell’s musical palette than the proverbial Baskin Robbins 31. With the release of The World Has Made Me The Man of My Dreams Meshell has created a musical blueprint that draws as much on punk and thrash metal as on those ‘acceptable’ black genres.

Her music has always been about the groove and she’s invariably on-the-one like her man James Brown and her hero Prince, but it’s the range of styles on show that makes this such a supreme offering. Apocalyptic but also deeply spiritual and full of pathos, the album kicks off with ‘Haditha’ (a reference to the killing spree of US Marines in the Iraqi city of the same name) and segues into ‘Sloganeer/Paradise’, a beguiling and high-voltage track with the obscene and addictive chorus, “Suicide / Straight to paradise / If you’re the chosen one / Why don’t you just kill yourself now.” Garage rock meets drum n’ bass, your average R&B fare it’s not. With featurings from African divas Oumou Sangare and Thandiswa Mazwai, and from Sy Smith, the honeychild, on the interplanetary flight that is ‘Elliptical’, or Robert Glasper on keys on ‘Relief (A Stripper Classic)’, rising above a wall of sound to close the album with assurance, no one else does it quite like Meshell.

Now if her salacious brand of musical cock-tease can, on occasion, make L’il Kim sound like she’s working in a nursing home, then Saul Williams’ lyrical swaggering

on The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, when it works, is more macked out than Pimp Boulevard on a Saturday night. As ‘Niggy Tardust’, he’s the parody and the epitome of niggadom, its supreme attainment and it’s abolishment.

“It was all a dream”, he says, borrowing a line from Notorious B.I.G’s ‘Juicy’. But instead of Word Up magazine, “I used to fantasize I was Malcolm, or Martin in the pulpit... I swear I used to pray to change back the year when NGH’s spoke of motherships with space helmets for hair.”

On this album which has been produced in its entirety by Nine Inch Nails’s frontman Trent Reznor, lyrically Williams is at his sharpest. On tracks like ‘Raised to Be Lowered’, Saul sing-jays the hook like a true rocker, while the cover of U2’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ also suits his vibe. But it’s the hip hop beats, filtered and fucked with – on tracks like ‘Black History Month’ or the skunk-funk of ‘Scared Money’ and ‘Break’ – that Reznor’s sound really blends with William’s rap poetry to create powerful music.

It’s Meshell’s album that’s the real treat, however, achieving the emotional complexity that most songwriters only dream of. In recent years, artists like Kelis and N.E.R.D, the Jazzyfatnastees and J*Davey have drawn on the emotive or lyrical force of rock to great effect. For a while now in the UK, acts like Bloc Party and the Noisettes have seen black vocalists taking the lead, while grime and indie seem to enjoy a strange symbiotic relationship. Meshell has added her contribution to this world of musical miscegenation. It’s not Black Rock by any means, but it does scream about freedom – something Black Rock aspired to, and something that’s always at the root of good music whatever your tastes.

Jez Smadja

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO ‘The World Has Made Me The Man of My Dreams’ (Decca)

SAUL WILLIAMS ‘The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust’ (Wichita)

6564

V/A The Portable Supersound(Smalltown Supersound)The follow up to 2005’s Where You’re Out, this second compilation from the reputable Oslo based label Smalltown Supersound shows why everyone from Idjut Boys to Daniele Baldelli are checking for the Nordic sound. Covering all worthwhile corners, this is a comprehensive overview of a rich and varied label who borrow from Italo disco, Teutonic minimalism and even Krautrock. Tracks veer from the cosmic disco of Diskjokke’s ‘The Dinner That Never Happened’ and the dubby boogie of Bjorn Torske’s ‘Hatter Passer’ to the storming ESG energy of Tussle’s ‘Warning’ and ‘Contemporary Fix’, a typically spacey production from Lindstrom. And that’s without even mentioning Four Tet’s finest remix to date, where he turns Lars

Horntveth’s appropriately entitled ‘Tics’ into a gorgeously distressed glitch symphony.(Andy Thomas)

The Heliocentrics Out There(Now Again / Stones Throw)With musical visionaries such as DJ Shadow and Madlib already massive fans, it comes as no surprise that the debut album from UK-based band The Heliocentrics is a cosmic journey into the sonic unknown. Playing like the undiscovered soundtrack to a cult film classic yet to be made, Out There invites the listener to open their mind and expect only the unexpected. From the hallucinogenic dub vibes of ‘Once Upon A Time’ to the menacing, schizophrenic jazz of ‘The American Empire’, the eight-man collective bounce back and forth between musical extremes, from the soothing to the jarring, the retro to the futuristic, and the simple to the abstract. Inspired by everything from boom-bap hip hop beats to dusty old-school funk, The Heliocentrics’ sound is consistently

unique and experimental without being overly self-indulgent. ‘Sirius B’ hints at how a James Bond theme may have sounded had 007 been a sci-fi blaxploitation hero, while the slightly ominous ‘The Zero Hour’ is coloured by shades of 60s psychedelia. Truly genre-defying, ‘Out There’ is an album to get lost in, with each track a piece of an intriguing, and ultimately satisfying, musical puzzle.(Ryan Proctor)

Simbad Supersonic Revelation(Raw Fusion)When it comes to musical style – not to mention his facial hair – Simbad is a one-off. His first single ‘Soul Fever’ (in all its forms) rocked many a dancefloor in 2006, and now the debut long-player looks to do the same in 2008. Indeed, its title goes a

long way to describing the general feel of this classy offering. As you might expect, Simbad’s own unique brand of soul music comes not only with that ass-shaking twist, but also with a plethora of golden-tonsilled vocalists. Stockholm’s soul sensation Melo adds his lush tones to the mid-tempo killer version of ‘After The Dance’, while Robert Owens provides mic duties on the hand clapper ‘Someone 4 Me’. Another top notch cut comes in the shape of ‘Venus’, benefiting mainly from the vocal prowess of everyone’s big tip for 2008, Tawiah. With the exception of the ragga flavoured ‘Knock On My Door’, this album does verge on the brink of being repetitive. That said, Simbad should be praised and encouraged for pushing his own, unmistakable sound. This album is a celebration of that sound and for the most part it’s a big success.(Dom Servini)

Jose James The Dreamer (Brownswood)Struggling to gain exposure in his native USA and desperate to make a name for himself, 28-year-old jazz singer/songwriter,

José James had to venture to the UK to get a record deal, which occurred after a chance encounter with Brownswood record boss Gilles Peterson in a London club last year. James handed the DJ-turned-entrepreneur a self-produced EP that revealed a resonant baritone voice whose rich, satiny texture recalled underground jazz greats like Andy Bey, Leon Thomas and Terry Callier. Impressed by what he heard and acknowledging James’ huge potential, Peterson had no hesitation in adding the singer to the small but growing roster at Brownswood. Twelve months on and James’ debut is refreshingly different from most contemporary jazz vocal albums due to the conspicuous absence of well-worn standards. Rather, the young singer and his band prefer to render fresh, self-penned material, exemplified by the

propulsive opener ‘Love’ which finds James’ sonorous tones underpinned by an urgent drum n’ bass-style groove. Mostly, though, the material is contemplative in nature, like the deliciously understated ‘Desire’ and the album’s melancholic title track. James also revamps the old Rahsaan Roland Kirk number, ‘Spirit’s Up Above’ – it’s just one of many highlights on what is undoubtedly an enthralling debut from a significant new talent.(Charles Waring)

Arthur Verocai Encore (Far Out) Revered by many as Brazil’s answer to David Axelrod and Charles Stepney – thanks to the texture and complexity of his work – Arthur Verocai is a multitalented arranger, composer, singer and guitar virtuoso. The follow-up to his eponymous1972 debut, Encore is his long awaited and highly anticipated new studio project. Thanks to the assistance of Dave Brinkworth (who co-produced the album with Arthur), these compositions sound just as poignant as his early work. Arthur has

pulled together a stellar cast of musicians, including Ivan Lins and Azymuth players Ivan Conti and Jose Roberto Bertrami. ‘Bis’ is a beautifully orchestrated bouncy and high-spirited samba soul tune. ‘Dona Das Meninas’, featuring the silky vocals of Marcio Lott and Clarisse Grova, has a distinctive, but original, US soul funk influenced groove. Things get more adventurous on ‘Sucuri’ where Arthur goes back to his experimental roots, in the spirit of his first album. ‘Amor Na Contra Mao’ is a cheerful and buoyant bossa track, where a warm string section accompanies mellow and catchy vocals. This album is a masterpiece from start to finish. Just like Arthur’s first recording, it’s destined to become another timeless classic. (Vince Vella)

Burial Untrue (Hyperdub)Burial’s eponymous debut album worked wonders for the then nascent dubstep genre, enticing new listeners into the fold. This follow-up confirms his position as a Pied Piper of the scene, leading the purists away from the stagnant flow of the mainstream. Like its predecessor, Untrue works with wooden-block rhythms that sound as if they’ve been recorded from the room above. But the sparse, bleak and baron 2-step beats, with teasing ruffles of rousing hi-hats, hint at a greater orderliness this time around. Combing Photek-style choppy, broken beats with emotional, melodic harmonies akin to Larry Heard’s Mr Fingers, Burial’s rave pastiche depicts a dark and lonely underworld where a new breed is being sculpted and formed. (Richard ‘The Hobbit’ Bamford)

Ghostface Killah The Big Doe Rehab(Def Jam)As with the likes of Nas and Jay-Z, Wu-Tang’s Ghostface remains tied to his

past brilliance, with any new material immediately compared to 2000’s classic Supreme Clientele. This latest effort from Toney Starks might not scale the lofty heights of perfection reached on that particular career-defining opus, but it does deliver enough of what fans want from rap’s very own superhero MC – colourful lyricism, cartoon violence, politically-incorrect humour, and banging beats. Dismissing current music trends, Ghostface remains unapologetically old-school in his production choices here, rhyming over large chunks of soul, funk and classic break-beats. The Beanie Sigel-assisted ‘Barrel Brothers’ is full of OG swagger and fuzzy electric guitar, while the bluesy ‘Walk Around’ displays the Wally Champ’s talent for penning gritty, intricate

crime stories. ‘I’ll Die For You’ finds Ghost emotionally pledging allegiance to family and friends over LV & Sean C’s mellow backdrop. Although not such a cohesive body of work as last year’s Fishscale, The Big Doe Rehab is a worthy addition to the Killah catalogue and stands as one of 2007’s better major label releases.(Ryan Proctor)

Zed Bias Experiments with Biasonics (Sick Trumpet)Dave Jones, aka Zed Bias, has been on the scene for some time now. He’s dabbled in UK garage, jazz and broken beat, and caught our attention as both Maddslinky and Phuturistix (for Hospital Records). Nowadays, though, Dave seems truly at home in his Zed Bias guise – a melding of fractured beats, neo-soul, ragga, house and hip hop. After a faux sci-fi intro, things kick off as they mean to go on with the rolling, splintered space-funk of ‘Time’, and continue on a slightly darker vein with the ominous ‘Rogue Frequency’. Two highlight tracks featuring raucous Mancunian MCs

Broke’n’English; of particular note is the flamboyant ‘Recognizable Forms’ with its bold brass and neck snapping beats. Other cuts, like ‘Secondary Power’, are a little watered down, and it’s a shame that the monster ‘Boomerang’ isn’t included on this album as it would have been one of the top tracks. There’s also the feeling that this is more of a collection of dance floor cuts than a cohesive LP – something Dave has attempted to rectify by hinging tracks together with Star Trek style skits. Unfortunately, they don’t quite do the job. But on the whole, the album’s a worthy collection of club bangers from a producer who always has something interesting to say.(Dom Servini)

Sola Akingbola Routes to Roots – Yoruba Drums From Nigeria (Arc Music)“I was always seduced by the sound of the Yoruba language and the way it was expressed,” explains London raised Nigerian Sola Akingbola. Inspired by Fela and King Sunny Ade and mentored by percussionist Gasper Lawal of the Oro Band, the long time player with Jamiroquai’s band comes with a heavyweight album of Yoruba drumming and Ifa poetry. Packed full of information about his roots and culture this is as educational as it is deep.(Andy Thomas)

V/A Box Of Dub 2: Dubstep & Future Dub(Soul Jazz Records)A speedy follow-up to the killer compilation released by Soul Jazz earlier this year. The Box of Dub series has been responsible, in no small way, for bringing Dubstep to a much wider audience and is fast becoming the benchmark compilation of the scene. Once again, the box is brimming with all-

exclusive material from the cutting-edge of soundsystem culture. Digital Mystikz, Kode 9, Pinch, Skream, Ramadanman, Sub Version and the shadowy Cult Of the 13th Hour all feature, along with a blistering collaboration between The Bug & Spaceape. Again, the influence of Jamaican dub is never far away, but with the movement in constant flux, the sounds of the drum and sub-bass are being pulled in ever more exciting and innovative directions by the young sonic alchemists, whilst managing to maintain a uniquely UK sound. Available as a single CD or triple heavyweight DJ-friendly vinyl for maximum bass response. Absolutely essential.(Keith Baker)

The Heavy Great Vengeance and Furious Fire (Counter)Nestling somewhere between The Kinks and Prince are The Heavy. With menacing ‘Roadhouse Blues’ style licks and juddering, garage recorded drums, this kick-ass four piece (hailing from the temperate climes of Bath) carve out a distorted, funk-blues riot that’s a nod to both L.A. Woman-era The Doors and beat-wise the Gorillaz. Not a bad combo in anyone’s book. Their debut Great Vengeance and Furious Fire is the latest to drop from Ninja Tune’s mischievous little sister label Counter and via a blistering racket of scuzzy guitars and ball-squeezing falsetto, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Yet fear not the ferocity. Bubble gum, Gomez-esque melodies (‘That Kind of Man’ and ‘Coleen’), coupled with the tender ache of ‘Brukpocket’s Lament’, give Great Vengeance cheeky popular appeal. While criticising The Heavy is a bit like telling Napoleon his hat wasn’t on straight, their debut isn’t without blemishes. They stand too much on the shoulders of their

heroes, and their lyrics won’t be inspiring any dissertations just yet. And sing in an English accent, mister Swaby. Bath is not Los Angeles. The omelette is worth the broken eggs, though, and these quibbles will no doubt be silenced on album No. 2, which will probably be out two weeks after this one, spunky young things.(Adam Green)

BT Express Anthology (Harmless)Complied by Dave Jarvis from Faith and Heavy Disco, this digitally remastered double CD of Brooklyn’s finest street funk band is a selection of tasty treats. The band should need no introduction, as they rank along side Brass Construction as the real-deal in personifying seventies funk. With 24 tracks to skim through, the obvious

cuts are worth flagging: ‘Shout! It Out’, ‘Express’ and ‘Do It (‘Til You’re Satisfied)’ sound as huge now as they did back then. Similarly, the jaw-dropping beat on ‘You’ve Got It, I Want It’ will leave you wondering just how this music could sound so fresh thirty years on. But the real nugget is ‘Herbs’, which aptly fuses a reggae beat with the most trance-like saxophone funk line recorded in years. For the sample-spotters out there, you’ve got your money’s worth with added interest. (Will Page)

What’s Up? Music Is Real(Commodo Depot Inc.)Like a breath of fresh air this second album from What’s Up? is bursting with bold ideas and exquisite sound scapes. This is clever, straight jazz music in a Kenny Dorham hard-bop style, Jazz Messenger-ish in certain lights with a touch of Valdambrini. Funky young things will be drawn to killer modal Latin track ‘Telemundo’. This bright and vibrant five piece hail from Tokyo, although they’re yet to achieve the

REVIEWS

REVIEWS6766

recognition of contemporaries Sleepwalker and Indigo Jam Unit. Hopefully all that will soon change. The finger-snappin’ happy jazz of ‘Which One IsTrue’ – an instant winner and DJ box staple. Longer tracks give the group an opportunity to flex their creative muscles, promising a very bright future. (Raggy)Speeka Bonfire (Wah Wah 45’s)Billed as “Zero 7 for grown ups”, production duo Speeka (aka Matt Smooth and Rob Mac) make music for lounge lovers. Originally signed to Ultimate Dilemma, Bonfire is the follow up to their 2001 debut Bespoke. It’s a dreamy pop affair, with folk-laden guitars, drizzles of electronic keys and those ubiquitous ‘quirky vocals’ favoured by so many electronic pop bands. Unfortunately, the inoffensive melodic rhythms and anglicized soul vocals sound

dull, dated and stuck in a downtempo rut. Rewind five years and this was exactly the kind of music Morcheeba would have put out. The gently soothing ’Mon Am’ and the summery ’Out To Play’ provide two redeeming moments in a largely unremarkable set. But as a whole, ‘Bonfire’ is a largely forgettable long player.(Johnny Pitts) Mudville Iris Nova (mudvillemusic.com)Mudville’s second album release ‘Iris Nova’ features REM’s Mike Mills, pedal-steel guitar great Buddy Cage (Bob Dylan) and Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Bebel Gilberto, Forro in the Dark) to name but a few. The roll call of guest musicians is testament to the immense respect that bassist Benny ‘Cha Cha’ Rubin and singer Marilyn Carino carry on New York’s underground musician-circuit. Often described as Curtis Mayfield meets P.J. Harvey, the duo weave fearless vocals with churning rhythms and smoking arrangements. ‘Duke’ shows their lighter dreamier side, quoting Ellington’s “Gray skies are just clouds passing over”.

‘Brooklyn’ rocks out more than most, demonstrating the aggressive edge to their impressive songwriting ability. Finally, ‘Wonder Boy’ allows Marilyn Carino to deliver the vocal performance of a lifetime, powerful to the point of bringing you to tears. It’s a song that ranks alongside works from major-league acts such as Radiohead or even REM. In fact, should this stylistically and instrumentally diverse record attract enough attention on the net, it might go on to achieve similar status. (Will Page)

Portico Quartet Knee Deep In The North Sea (Babel)Alongside tour mates Basquiat Strings, Portico Quartet are helping create one of the most interesting periods in British jazz since the late sixties. Honing their

craft by busking on London’s South Bank and various street corners across Europe, these fresh-faced graduates are eschewing post-bop clichés for their own distinct sound. Counting Steve Reich and EST amongst their influences, their compositions also resound with the pastoral Englishness of players like Michael Garrick. Creating most of the atmospherics is an instrument called the hang – a curious flying saucer shaped object sounding like a steel pan crossed with vibes. It’s the starting point for a series of accomplished musical explorations. Whether touching our souls with sublime numbers like ‘Too Many Cooks’ or getting inside our heads with ‘Zavodovski’s Island’, Portico have made one of the most distinctive jazz albums of the last few years. Murmurings of Mercury Award nominations are already being made. (Andy Thomas)

The Notalgia 77 Octet Weapons of Jazz Destruction(Tru Thoughts)Benedic Lamdin and his octet of subversive

musicians are conjuring up long-players thick and fast. Continuing to raise the bar on modern jazz, Nostalgia 77 combine atmospheric, dense compositions with more timeless, soulful vocals. While erstwhile vocalist Lizzie Parks is sorely missed, newcomer Sophie Smith handles the Dee Dee Bridgewater styled ‘Stars’ beautifully, and provides a perfect foil to the swirling brass section and dark, pugnacious drums of ‘One Step Out’. This is not a completely sombre offering though – ‘Journey Home’ is an edifying piano and sax led piece, and the lead cut ‘Chola’ offers more light to combat any shadowy leanings. Weapons harks back to the Songs For My Funeral album (a collection of early instrumental funk and hip hop releases), while simultaneously demonstrating the Nostalgia 77 sound has moved on. One of the most important

spiritual jazz combos this country has to offer.(Dom Servini)

Soil & Pimp Sessions Pimpoint(Brownswood)Faithful fans of these Japanese jazz / punk / rock rebels may feel a little short changed by this latest release. A few albums in, the S&P Sessions are starting to sound a little too repetitive, a little too screechy, and – dare we say it – a bit annoying. Admittedly they still sound like nothing you’ve ever heard and moments of glory such as ‘Dawn’ and the fiery ‘Sahara’ remind just how great this band are live. The sublime ‘Hype of Gold’ in all its wonderful modal glory is by far the best track on the album and this is definitely the direction S&P should be taking. Overall, this is still a band who perform better on the stage than on record. (Raggy)

Phurturistix Breathe Some Light(Phuture Lounge Recordings)Breathe Some Light is much like slipping

into a hot bath - you know the experience will be good from the minute you stick your toe into the water, but you’re still pleasantly surprised as the warmth washes over you. Zed Bias and DJ Injecta’s second Phuturistix outing is worth the wait – their debut album Feel it Out dropped back in 2003. The Manchester-based duo - and Phuture Lounge label bosses – describe their sound as ‘twisted soul music’, a mixture of consistently deep basslines and classic broken beat syncopations. A flick through the office Rolodex and they’ve also snapped up some top quality collaborations. Michelle Amador’s mature timbre juxtaposes nicely with choppy production on ‘Eager Of The Years’, while Mr J’s dulcet tones ride waves of rich, chocolatey instrumentals on ‘Breathe Some Light’. Both tracks are great, but

perhaps a little more crunch wouldn’t go amiss. A much-needed darker antidote comes in the form of ‘Release’, with vocals from Jenna G. Giving a nod in the two-step direction, it hints at the other well-trodden production avenues continuing to inform the Phuturistix sound. (Helene Dancer)

Dhafer Yousseff & Wolfgang MuthspielGlow (Material Records)After last year’s Divine Shadows – a scintillating polyglot synthesis of moody Arabic soundscapes, European classical music and ambient nu-jazz – the 30-year-old Tunisian-born singer and oud player, Dhafer Youssef, has ventured to Austria to re-acquaint himself with guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel who played on 2001’s groundbreaking opus Electric Sufi. The result of this new collaboration is truly stunning – an ear-ravishing sonic feast where haunting minor-scale Eastern melodies collide with Western folksong, electric jazz and even funk. Drenched in atmospheric reverb, Youseff’s multi-octave voice is a glorious thing to behold

as it ascends from resonant low notes to sustained, ear-piercing high ones. His sense of control, timing and expression is nothing short of astonishing. On the uptempo ‘Babylon’ and ‘Sand Dance,’ Muthspiel and his band provide edgy funk-tinged backdrops for Youssef’s voice, while the slower, meditative ‘Mein Versrechen’ has a cinematic grandeur that is the ideal accompaniment to the singer’s sonorous cadences. Youssef demonstrates his instrumental prowess playing the Middle Eastern oud – a lute-like stringed instrument – on ‘Etude,’ a riveting musical dialogue with Muthspiel that ratchets up tension and intensity with incremental key changes. There are telling cameos from US trumpeter Tom Harrell and singer, Rebecca Bakken, though it’s the two

main protagonists who truly shine on this incredible, genre-defying recording.(Charles Waring)

V/A Well Deep: Ten Years Of Big Dada Recordings (Big Dada)Perversely covering only the last eight years in the decade-long existence of Big Dada (the first two previously compiled on 1999’s excellent BlackWholeStyles), the two discs of Well Deep contain 31 cracking tracks providing an overview of Will Ashon’s forward-thinking and fiercely independent Ninja Tune sister label. Over the years Big Dada has been showered with critical praise, Brit and Mercury Prize nominations and some of the most exciting UK and worldwide hiphop artists. Disc one collects the classics, Rodney’s ‘Witness (1 Hope)’, Ty’s ‘Wait A Minute’ TTC’s ‘Dans Le Club’ and the soaring Boards Of Canada Mix of cLOUDDEAD’s ‘Dead Dogs Two’. Disc two touches on the rarities and missed classics, including Wiley’s ‘50/50’, a Peel session version of cLOUDDEAD’s ‘Physics Of A Bicycle’ and Busdriver’s

largely overlooked ‘Unemployed Black Astronaut’. Here’s to the next decade – or eight years.(Will Page)

Robert Strauss Mr. Feelings (BBE)Canadian dancing queen Robert Strauss flips the script from his last album for Freerange Recordings by delivering this refreshing piece of party fodder for BBE. But far from being a cosmetic disco album, Strauss has come through with the real deal – an LP that, while harking back to the genre’s golden age, still manages to deliver fresh, cutting edge songwriting and top class production with guests from both sides of the era. And they don’t come much more impressive than the legendary Leroy Burgess. The man who virtually single-

handedly defined boogie’s heyday, and set the stall out for house music, appears on one of the big cuts on the album, the uplifting ‘Hot Like An Oven’. It’s not all about straight up disco though, as the other monster track from the album, ‘Party In My Body’ illustrates. It’s a fractured afro-flavoured workout with a hook that’ll get right under your skin. The Mr. Feelings experience really is that of a house party, from the warm up and amusing skits, to the disco bangers and darker house moments and finally a classical come down that’ll take your breath away. It’s a party you’ll want to come back to again and again.(Dom Servini)

Kwani Experience Live After Birth(Sheer Sound)At Classics And All That Jazz, a music shop tucked away in a Johannesburg shopping centre, Rocks Jubile runs his hand over the stock he’s received. He explains it takes real dedication to make specialist music available and to support local musicians so often overlooked by the world stage. It’s here that Rocks

suggests listening to Joburg’s own Kwani Experience; a seven-piece band that, with a tweak and a tighten, could be Africa’s answer to that inimitable Philly hip-hop crew. From the get-go, the band’s polyrhythmic arrangements defy gravity and seem so damn effortless. Their second album, Live After Birth, brings jazz, African flavours, hip hop and soul to a platform groaning under the weight of its potential. Try ‘It’s My life’ for size; a house-inflected number that reminds of Fertile Ground, or get into the groove of ‘I Need Some Money’. But here’s the thing: while the instrumentals are perfect, the vocals need work. For this band to really crack it, the magic created by the instrumentalists’ top-notch dynamic sensibilities needs to fly with brilliance. Perhaps the answer is seek

out collaborations. With artists like Black Thought or Tawiah on board, this band could be unbeatable.(Helene Dancer)

V/A Afro Cuba Drums (Soul Jazz)“When you first hear this music back in London, you think it’s something that just belongs to hundreds of years ago,” says Soul Jazz owner Stuart Baker. “But when you go to Cuba it’s still practiced every day and is highly relevant.” Led by an ex member of Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba, El Goyo, this heavyweight collection of rumberos (whose gatherings every Saturday and Sunday in Old Havana prove how vital this music remains to all generations of Afro-Cubans) drop seventeen spiritual drum tracks that cover a range of sacred rhythms to call upon the saints.(Andy Thomas)

$olal Presents: The Moonshine Sessions (¡Ya Basta!)A heapin’ helpin’ of country goodness brought to you by the Gotan Project’s

Philippe Cohen Solal, distilling the very essence of Nashville into one neat hour-long package. Extended field-recording segments featuring lonesome late-night train whistles and snatches of half-heard conversation evoke the spirit of the KLF’s masterful Chill Out, whilst the gorgeous, soulful acoustics bring to mind the genius of Zero 7’s ‘Up With People’ Lambchop remix, the classic Heartworn Highways soundtrack and Bill Callahan’s Smog. This was a real labour of love for Solal, recorded over a two-week period in Tennessee with a roll-call of top-class session musicians, as a tribute to Neil Young’s peerless Harvest album. There’s a double treat on ‘Side 2’ with excellent cover versions of Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and The Pistols’ ‘Pretty Vacant’ that, while veering painfully

close to the Gourds/Nouvelle Vague one-track-joke territory, thankfully remain true to the spirit of the album and provide a couple of genuine highlights. Y’all come back soon, y’hear!(Keith Baker)

Aaron Jerome Time to Rearrange (BBE)It seems we’ve been waiting a lifetime for this young man’s debut to drop. With releases and remixes on Wah Wah 45s and production credits for Zap Mama, Bugz In the Attic, Nicole Willis and Nitin Sawhney, Aaron Jerome has already demonstrated his wide-ranging appeal. As you’d expect, Time To Rearrange is a fairly broad work. From the cinematic beauty of ‘Kwu Kungasa’ to the amusing and club friendly ‘Late Night Mission’, the diversity of Aaron’s musical influences are startlingly apparent. Several collaborations feature on the album, including tracks with Zero 7’s Mozez (on a cover of Terry Callier’s ‘Dancing Girl’), Belleruche’s Kathrin de Boer, Bajka, Voice, Yungun, Mike Orwell and South Africa’s ‘next big thing’ Simphiwe Dana. Above all, though, it’s Aaron’s silky

REVIEWS

REVIEWS6968

production skills that shine through. The string-filled instrumental cut ‘Marrakesh’ is an atmospheric yet urgent piece that leaves you hoping Aaron won’t hide behind quite as many guests on his second album.(Dom Servini)

Keb Darge Digs For…P&P Records(Suss’d) This third instalment in the P&P compilation series is something of a hip hop producers dream. Keb’s years of experience, knowledge and crate digging exploits are conveniently and abundantly burnt onto two jam-packed compact discs of raw ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s funk gems from the P&P archive. Indeed, many of the tracks have only ever been released on limited runs and would cost yo’ ass somewhere in the region of three grand should you choose to acquire them the hard way. This double disc set has two very distinct feels; disc one is raw – and at times psychedelic – as heavy drums clash with the ‘‘huh’s” and

“ha’s” of crooning soul brothers and sisters like Henry Brooks, Ella Hamilton and Otis Turner. Disc two has a disco focus, blasting with electronic basslines and futuristic synths from ‘80s artists like L.J. Waters, Kim Taylor and The Foster Jackson Group. This is one for both funk loving partygoers and sharp-eared collectors.(Johnny Pitts)

Chaz Jankel My Occupation (Tirk)Founder member of the Blockheads and the man who put the funk into Stiff Records, Chaz Jankel is something of a cult figure, whose early ‘80s recordings have gained classic status for all the right reasons. After adding his hard edged funk to Ian Dury’s more dancefloor friendly cuts like ‘InBetweenies’ and ‘Spasticus Autisticus,’ (a big Garage anthem of course), the keyboardist / composer gave us ‘Ai No Corrida’, a glorious slice of early ‘80’s dance music that wouldn’t

have been out of place on an Imagination album. However, it was ‘Glad To Know You’ that drew the ears of the New York DJs, with its off centre vocal and spacey keys making it perfect for the post-disco crowd. This wonky Larry Levan favourite opens this excellent collection, which also takes in the spacey electro of ‘3,000,000 Synths’, the killer boogie of ‘Feel Alone’, and the visionary proto house of ‘Reve De Chevre’. Chaz Jankel – an innovator and originator.(Andy Thomas)

V/A Migrating Bird – The Songs of Lal Waterson (Honest Jons)Lal Waterson is one of England’s most celebrated songwriters. Born in Yorkshire in 1943 she began her career revisiting classic British folk songs in family group The Watersons. Lal passed away in 1998 and this tribute album features reinterpretations of her work by a selection of ardent fans, curated by club owner and

musician Charlotte Grieg. Migrating Bird is not only a wonderful tribute to Lal but also a primer on some of today’s most interesting British and American singer-songwriters. Charlotte’s careful selection of artists who push the parameters of folk music has afforded this collection a depth rarely found in compilations - her minimal version of ‘Her White Glove’ is one of the album’s highlights. Many of the album’s most arresting tributes are similarly experimental offerings that capture the broodiness of Lal’s work in a contemporary way: King Creosote’s rotating-synth take on ‘Fine Horseman’, Lavinia Blackwall and Alex Neilson’s avant-Medieval ‘So Strange is Man’ and Lindsey Woolsey’s heartbeat-led ‘Song for Thirza’. Michael Hurley, Jeb Loy Nichols and the Willard Grant Conspiracy all successfully convert Lal’s English folk-tales into stateside country-blues laments whilst UK folksters the Memory Band, Nancy Elizabeth and

James Yorkston all contribute straight-up yet no-less poignant takes. Each artists has respected the open, down-to earth honesty inherent in Lal’s songs, weaving their own magic into that which Lal had already laid down.(Lewis Robinson)

Prefuse 73 Preparations/ Interregnums(Warp)Mix some vintage Prince Paul, Bomb Squad production, Primo-esque chops, Mantronix synth textures and a few psychedelic melody’s together in a blender and you pretty much have Guillermo Scott Herren’s chopped and skewed pseudonym, Prefuse 73, or so we thought. For the new album Herren displays an alternative take on the usual “going apeshit with the chops” methodology listeners have become used on ‘bonus’ disc Interregnums. Bright piano’s twinkle, synths shimmer, strings are plucked and operatic voices ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ to create a light and airy soundscape with

lashings of menace bubbling underneath. Interregnums also provides the original sample material for Preparations, the actual album. Here, Herren brings the MPC to the forefront, meticulously chopping and layering sounds in his signature style. ‘Aborted Hugs’ resounds with futuristic Moondog percussion while ‘Smoking Red’ belts out some thunderous drumming courtesy of Battles drummer John Stainer, plus hard edits and swirling guitar feedback. ‘The Class of 73 Bells’, a track everyone has been banging on about, comes as something of a disappointment with its thin whispery folk vox. Arguably not as melodically or rhythmically engaging as previous albums, Preparations is still a good record. No doubt it will prove a more rewarding listen in months to come.(Michael Krasser)

Atjazz Full Circle (Mantis Recordings)Martin Iveson, aka AtJazz, has reigned in

a number of collaborations for this studio album, including Robert Owens (whose contributions to ‘Love Someone’ make it one of the strongest tracks on the album), Mr J of Phuturistix fame on ‘Together’ and Sonar Kollektiv’s Clara Hill on ‘Before’. The album production is solid, with hints of Detroit techno, hip hop, house and more. Minimal beats, deep basslines and a heavy use of analogue synths, ensure these tracks will work on the dancefloor. Creatively, however, he fails to really push any boundaries. It’s in the realm of remixes that AtJazz really excels: Remember his superb remix of Kabuki’s ‘Tempest’ on the Italian label Head2Toe? A big tune that made nuff damage at the legendary Coop club night. We suggest you look out for his forthcoming 12’’ for Reincarnation and future collaborations with Mark De Clive Lowe. (Vince Vella)

Little Brother Get Back (ABB)It’s true that the Little Brother threesome is down to a pair now that 9th Wonder has gone off to pursue his production career, but listening to their third full-length album, it’s clear the fuss was entirely unwarranted. Not to take anything away from 9th, but for all his Pete Rock impersonations, that soul sample steez comes a dime a dozen nowadays. His sole contribution on Get Back is ‘Breakin My Heart’, and it’s pretty good but it will be the unlikely third verse on it from Lil Wayne - this year’s most featured rapper - which will probably attract the most interest. Further, it seems other producers Khrysis, Ill Mind, Mr. Porter and Hi-Tek had a clear enough brief to work with to maintain the LB sonic ethos. ‘When Everything Is New’, for example, could have easily been lifted from the Connected Foreign Exchange project.For their part, if Phonte and Big Pooh are bitter it doesn’t show. Only on ‘This

Ain’t Love’ does Phontigaloo allude to the split (“Shit got major / we stacked a little paper / now a couple years later / can’t get a phone call”). Other than that, the two continue in their tradition of hilarious social satire (‘Good Clothes’), self-deprecation (‘After The Party’) and the totally relatable everyman struggle to keep the lights on and the dreams alive. Get Back is LB’s most concise album and a resounding credit to the North Carolina MCs’ consistency against the odds.

Christian Prommer Drumlesson Vol 1(Sonar Kollektiv)Many will remember Christian Prommer as one half of Fauna Flash and a member of the Rainer Truby Trio, both signed to Compost. This solo outing features a series of dance classics arranged for a jazz quartet, fusing Prommer’s passion for electronic music with a reverence for jazz. Tracks have been reinterpreted according to the jazz rulebook, using

vintage equipment and recording methods to create an analogue sound. Ame’s ‘Rej’ is given a polyrythmic melody, while Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans Europe Express’ undergoes a Latin treatment. But a real highlight is Derrick May’s ‘Strings of Life’ – a worthy tribute to the original. Giving dance tunes a jazz work-out is not an original concept, but where others have failed (namely the cheesy Re:jazz series) Prommer has excelled. But while these tracks might stir a sophisticated club crowd, as stand-alone compositions they lack the depth and complexity to really call themselves “jazz”.(Vince Vella)

Ersatzmusica Voice Letter(Asphalt Tango Records) The ominous political chill between the UK and Putin’s Russia shouldn’t allow listeners to overlook this peach of an album. Berlin-based but Russian in soul,

Ersatzmusika’s Voice Letter is distinctive, offbeat, inventive and charming in a manner recalling Francoise Hardy’s finest ‘60s recordings. Imagine the French singer had grown up on the Black Sea choosing to sing poems composed by Gulag prisoners alongside hymns to picking mushrooms. Ersatzmusika are focused around the compositional talents of singer / keyboardist / conceptual artist Irina Dubrovskaja, whose warm yet weary tone conveys a sense of loss felt after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Accompanying band members are from Russia, the Ukraine and Estonia. Doleful accordions backed by circus organ and melancholic xylophone create a Slavic sound imbued with an off-kilter spirit. Unlike the fusion of Balkan Gypsy flavours with indie-rock championed by bands such as Beirut or A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Ersatzmusica’s blend of psych-folk is a much more organic affair. The Marc Ribot style guitar licks work perfectly. Voice Letter

is unlikely to make Roman Abramovic’s playlist, but it’s definitely worth bringing in from the cold.(Garth Cartwright)

RZA The Instrumental Experience (Think Differently)Wu Tang Clan aint nuthin to uff with. With their new album getting heavy exposure recently, it’s time to dig out some of their older material and this serious beat-tape is as good a starting point as any. The idea was engineered by Dreddy Kruger but the beats are pure unadulterated RZA, with the originals and the chops blended into a funk-heavy instrumental throwback mix. (Brainz)

REVIEWS

REVIEWS

V/A Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Bues 1970-6 (Soundway)This excellent compilation unearths a selection of rare ‘45s and forgotten LP tracks from Africa’s most populous nation, cut during the musically daring and adventur-ous period of 1970-6. “The world over, this was the most fertile, progressive, quickly evolving times in musical history,” says Soundway’s Miles Cleret, whose love of African music dates back 15 years.

“The dark days of recession, and of Nigeria’s name becoming synonymous with corruption, overcrowding and embezzlement, were yet to come,” says Miles in his informative sleeve notes. Ambitious young musicians were breaking away from the traditional house bands owned by clubs and hotels, swapping freshly pressed suits for T-shirts and flares.

Traditional ‘50s and 60s highlife sounds (as heard on The Harbours Band ‘Koma Mosi’) were fused with elements of rock, Afrobeat, jazz and soul. The Sahara Allstars’ ‘Feso Jaiye’ exemplifies this mix of styles, while Mono Mono’s ‘Emo Kowa Iasa Ile Wa’ indicates the exciting new directions bands were eager to take. Victor Uwaifo (a former wrestler) mixes up highlife with traditional Erkassa music of the Benin court and psychedelic Hendrix guitar licks. (Look out for a forthcoming retrospective album of his work on Soundway.) But as Miles explains, this experimental flourish was brief. “By ’76, Western records were flooding the market and it was harder for smaller bands to do something different and make a way. Many reverted back to highlife.”

By no means a comprehensive history of the period, Nigeria Special presents a series of snapshots, taking the listener down less traveled roads. “There’s no Ju Ju or Afrobeat track,” says Miles. “Instead we’ve focused on rarities that might only exist in obscure collections or people’s memories. Many of the artists featured only cut one 45. A band might be given a deal based on an A&R man’s experience of them in a club. If it sold well, they were given a second shot. If not, they moved on.”

Part of Miles’ intention was also to preserve vital music on the verge of disappear-ing forever. “A lot the companies who own the master rights to this music have thrown the tapes away. Many of the actual artists don’t even own a copy. I tracked down a member of Mono Mono who now lives in Oakland, California. He hadn’t heard some of his early records in 25 years.”

Miles sourced many of the tracks from pirate tape shacks known as “recording studios”, where vinyl could be recorded to cassette for a fee. Changes in technology have been sounding their death knell for the last ten years. Although there are still record collectors in Nigeria, vinyl is generally considered yesterday’s news. On several occasions Miles would arrive at a house, having been given a tip off, only to discover the collection had been thown in a skip five years previously. He winces with pain at the memory.

Bucking the Lagos-centric trend of most Nigerian music compilations, Miles has cast his net further afield, including tracks from the Ibo-speaking southeast and the Edo-speaking midwest. But the influences apparent in the music extend much further; check out the hypnotic bassline on The Funkees’ afro-rock workout ‘Akula Owu Onyeara’. “Nigerians have a reputation for traveling a lot,” explains Miles. “There are musical influences from London and New York, while some tracks take homegrown Nigerian styles to another level.”

Unlike past DJ-orientated compilations released through Soundway, Nigeria Spe-cial is a deeper affair, more suited to the home listener. Once again every track hits the mark, further cementing the label’s reputation as a trusted authority. Knowledgeable sleeve notes (with extensive information on individual tracks) and stylish presentation make this a worthy historical artifact. Much love to Soundway for sharing their secrets. (Sarah Marshall)

7170

Originally from Lyon ( France ) Ques ( Charles Munka ) cre-ates the LCP United crew along with 2 art school friends. Then quickly moves to Tokyo and then Shanghai where he takes part into the creation of the Feiyue Shoes project.His music related works such as hip hop artists portrait series brings him to connect with Andrew Meza and the BTS radio project. He now lives in Shanghai andworks for several clients such as Feiyue shoes,Look records , Jazzy sport, Faces records... It’s all about the undeground!

www.lcp-unIted.comwww.myspace.com/illlord

EDITOR: Jez Smadja

ART DIRECTOR:

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Sarah Marshall

FEATURES EDITOR: Helene Dancer

CONTRIBUTORS: Vince Vella, Helene Dancer, Marsha Gosho Oakes, Sarah Bentley, Gabriel Mid-

dleton, Gervase de Wilde, Benji B, Dee Science, Adeola Johnson, Phiona Okumu, Lady B, Orin

Walters, Paul Camo, Roger Robinson, Kyoko Ishima, Nicky Dracoulis, Andy Thomas, Michael

Krasser, Tamar Nussbacher, Matt Crossick, Al Burton, Pat Daly, Robert Strauss, James Goldcrown,

Rajinder Dudrah, Benji Lehmann, Maga Bo, Mitchy Bwoy, Lewis Robinson, Johnny Pitts, Keith

Baker, Charles Waring, Will Page, Dan Susman, Adam Green, Richard ‘The Hobbit’ Bamford, Ryan

Proctor, Raggy, Garth Cartwright, Sarah Marshall, Beatnick, Amar Patel, Max Cole, Andres Reyes,

Kay Suzuki and Sunil Chauhan.

SPECIAL THANKS TO The Godfather Paul Bradshaw & big respect to Ben Immanuel.

SHOOK130 Trent Gardens, London N14 4QG

www.shook.fm

[email protected]

BIG SHOUT OUT TO QUES FOR THE DETROIT ILLUSTIONS

JAZZ CAFÉ. 5 PARKWAY. CAMDEN TOWN. NW1

Restaurant reservations: 020 7534 6955Standing reservations: 0870 060 3777Book online at: jazzcafe.co.uk

Jazzie B I Andy Smith I Gilles PetersonJehst I Funky DL I Guida de Palma & JazzinhoDJ Format I Floetry’s Marsha AmbrosiusCorduroy I The Sound Stylistics I Reel PeopleRamp I Messin’ Around - Jazz CoTech DancersJamie Lidell I Richie HavensAntonio Forcione I Freak PowerMad Professor I The New MastersoundsLittle Brother I Dirty Dozen Brass BandEddie Palmieri y su Orquesta I GalacticOmar I Kokolo I Gwyneth HerbertTerry Caliier I John Scofield Trio + HornsDennis Rollins I Ike Turner I Natacha AtlasThe Fabulous Thunderbirds I Salsa CelticaThe Fatback Band I Jazz JamaicaThe Blackbyrds I Fertile GroundTinariwen I Seckou Keita I Tania MariaBen Westbeech I Average White BandMartha Reeves & the Vandellas

Musiq SoulchildMusiq Soulchild

MUSIQ SOULCHILDROY AYERS UBIQUITYINCOGNITO I LEE SCRATCH PERRYCOURTNEY PINE I JON BLONDON COMMUNITY GOSPEL CHOIRJEAN CARNE + GLENN JONES+ SHIRLEY JONES I MANU DIBANGOGEORGIE FAME & THE BLUE FLAMESPHARAOH SANDERSGURU’S JAZZMATAZZ

Documents

Shook 01 Vol1