Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Fela Kuti & Afrika 70 "Zombie"
My job sucks and the only solace Ihave is wasting my time here sharing amazing music with you :)
Fela Kuti & Afrika 70 "Zombie"
Fela Kuti & Afrika 70 "Zombie"
Friday, May 27, 2011
RIP Gil Scott Heron
HUGE loss to society. Heron will be GREATLY missed, and I'm glad that he was able to get this album out in the time he did. This was a blow to me today.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Autotuning our way to understanding the wars
Bin Laden's got me thinking and I think I've got a pretty solid theory. You know how hip hop has always been the voice of the the political state of the world? You know how we've felt like other than Mos Def and Lupe Fiasco all the artists who have anything remotely interesting to say are all marginalized into the "Underground" category? What if I told you that autotune developed out of Arab style singing, and we embraced it as a way to understand our brothers during a time of conflict? Sure it wasn't intentional but it happened nevertheless.
I'm ambiguous when it comes to autotune, and when done right it's cool, when used instead of being able to sing I turn it off, but think about it. The thing that people like about it is the sudden changes and fluctuations in vocal notes that would have taken a long time (and skill) to learn. The only other forms of music I can think of that sound similar are Arab and Indian styles (I'm being specific there, but the tones and fluctuations (alternating pitch) are characteristic of the entire region).
Autotune seems to be able to blend the very old world with the very new very futuristic world. Along with these alternating nasal notes found in the Middle East (I don't have a better way to describe that area yet), it also sounds akin to a robot. What's most interesting about thinking of autotune in this way, is that it came about at a time that America went to war with this region. Would autotune dominate the airwaves if we had invaded Argentina? Tanzania? Mongolia? I argue no. I think autotune came about and became mainstreamed because the Middle East and all of their various cultures became mainstream. It was one of our ways we have digested their culture and incorporated it. There are other ways, like the mainstreaming of Islam, but none seem to come close as something that is culturally accepted.
Tag onto that theory that Arab music (and the exotification of Arabs/Persians/Indians) has also directly been incorporated into rap like in the song "Arab Money" by Bustah Rhymes. It's always interesting to watch how a group socializes something in order to deal with it on a daily basis, and attempt to understand what the "enemy" in this case is. In that sense, like it or not, autotune has helped us to understand our overseas brothers and sisters just a little bit better.
as an addendum, yes there have alway sbeen hip hop artists who appreciate this regions music, many of them are Muslim, or Asiaphiles, or just connoisseurs, ANd yes Songs that demonstrate this precede the war, like Addictive - Rakim, Truth Hurts & Dr. Dre. BUT The mainstreaming of this style did not happen until after the war(s)
Now you won't catch me saying that T-Pain is on par with Fairouz, but conceptually I think there is a lot shared. Anyway I had a 3 am epiphany about this and had to share. I'd love to know what you think.
Maybe I can find some better examples, but for now.
I'm ambiguous when it comes to autotune, and when done right it's cool, when used instead of being able to sing I turn it off, but think about it. The thing that people like about it is the sudden changes and fluctuations in vocal notes that would have taken a long time (and skill) to learn. The only other forms of music I can think of that sound similar are Arab and Indian styles (I'm being specific there, but the tones and fluctuations (alternating pitch) are characteristic of the entire region).
Autotune seems to be able to blend the very old world with the very new very futuristic world. Along with these alternating nasal notes found in the Middle East (I don't have a better way to describe that area yet), it also sounds akin to a robot. What's most interesting about thinking of autotune in this way, is that it came about at a time that America went to war with this region. Would autotune dominate the airwaves if we had invaded Argentina? Tanzania? Mongolia? I argue no. I think autotune came about and became mainstreamed because the Middle East and all of their various cultures became mainstream. It was one of our ways we have digested their culture and incorporated it. There are other ways, like the mainstreaming of Islam, but none seem to come close as something that is culturally accepted.
Tag onto that theory that Arab music (and the exotification of Arabs/Persians/Indians) has also directly been incorporated into rap like in the song "Arab Money" by Bustah Rhymes. It's always interesting to watch how a group socializes something in order to deal with it on a daily basis, and attempt to understand what the "enemy" in this case is. In that sense, like it or not, autotune has helped us to understand our overseas brothers and sisters just a little bit better.
as an addendum, yes there have alway sbeen hip hop artists who appreciate this regions music, many of them are Muslim, or Asiaphiles, or just connoisseurs, ANd yes Songs that demonstrate this precede the war, like Addictive - Rakim, Truth Hurts & Dr. Dre. BUT The mainstreaming of this style did not happen until after the war(s)
Now you won't catch me saying that T-Pain is on par with Fairouz, but conceptually I think there is a lot shared. Anyway I had a 3 am epiphany about this and had to share. I'd love to know what you think.
Maybe I can find some better examples, but for now.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Death - The Black punk rock group from before there was Punk
This is dope, submitted to me last night by both @itsreally_sb & @harperworx
This is a group that came out in 1975, before Punk was Punk. They were Black and from Detroit, both definitely not known for punk let alone rock music. I like that they decided to do it anyway, politically charged rock music with ruckus beats. Dopeness. And though it may be late, at least they are getting their recognition now.
Politicians in My Eyes
Let the World Turn
You're a Prisoner
This is a group that came out in 1975, before Punk was Punk. They were Black and from Detroit, both definitely not known for punk let alone rock music. I like that they decided to do it anyway, politically charged rock music with ruckus beats. Dopeness. And though it may be late, at least they are getting their recognition now.
Politicians in My Eyes
Let the World Turn
You're a Prisoner
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The first tape I ever bought!
I forgot to post this here. Look how cute he looked! I have always <3 Damian Marley!
I just find this interesting because this is technically where my independent music started. Everything prior to this tape was me listening to something someone played for me.
I just find this interesting because this is technically where my independent music started. Everything prior to this tape was me listening to something someone played for me.
Indie Rock Embraces an African Invasion
via New York Times
THE indie record company Sub Pop first earned a reputation as a tastemaker in the late 1980s, when it signed and recorded the Seattle bands Nirvana and Soundgarden and other exponents of what came to be known as grunge. But one of its best-received recent releases is “I Speak Fula,” by Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, an ensemble that plays small lutelike instruments and sings in various West African languages.
The Chicago label Thrill Jockey is another indie trendsetter, whose best-known act is probably Tortoise, the experimental post-rock band. But last week Thrill Jockey released Sidi Touré & Friends’ “Sahel Folk,” a lilting collection of songs played on acoustic guitars and related African instruments like the kurbu and kuntigui.
Everywhere you turn these days, it seems that the indie rock world is exploring African sounds. Labels like Dead Oceans, Secretly Canadian and True Panther have also begun releasing new recordings by African musicians, those acts have begun playing American gigs, and African music regularly gets attention on the indie-minded Web sites of Pitchfork, Mojo and The Fader.
“As a record buyer, someone who consumes music all the time, I buy music in all shapes and sizes, so this is not a big leap for me,” said Phil Waldorf, a founder of Dead Oceans. “The boundaries have been broken down over time, and I think there are a lot of really curious people out there. This is just another kind of music that they will share and talk to each other about, and we’re putting it out because we think it deserves a place in that discussion.”
Part of the joy of discovery for such music fans is the sheer variety of styles to be found on a continent that has a billion people living in more than 50 countries and is the ancestral home of American genres like jazz and the blues. The South African quartet known as Blk Jks favors a heavy rock sound, at times reminiscent of King Crimson, while the music of the Good Ones, whose “Kigali Y’ Izahabu” has just been released on Dead Oceans, is simplicity itself: voices and unamplified guitars, singing and playing in tuneful harmony.
In terms of geography, the African groups that are beginning to be heard in the United States include a handful from countries like South Africa, Sierra Leone, Kenya and Rwanda. But the focal point of the labels’ interest is clearly Mali, a landlocked nation in sub-Saharan West Africa with a population of only 14.5 million, less than one-10th that of Nigeria.
Both Bassekou Kouyate and Sidi Touré come from Mali, as do Tinariwen, the blind Francophone pop duo known as Amadou & Mariam, Toumani Diabaté, Afel Bocoum and older performers who first became known on the world-music circuit, like Ali Farka Touré, Salif Keita and Oumou Sangaré. The country’s reputation as a musical powerhouse has become so strong that Blk Jks is contemplating crossing the continent from Johannesburg to record its next CD there; Jon Kertzer, an ethnomusicologist who oversees Sub Pop’s Next Ambiance label, even wrote a paper titled “Good Golly, Why Mali?”
One answer to that question might be the country’s long history as a crossroads for nomadic peoples, which has resulted in an unusual blend of cultures and musical styles: Bambara, Songhai, Mandinka, Arab and Tuareg, among others. It also helps that the music of Mali is based on a strong tradition of stringed instruments, like the harplike kora and the ngoni, believed to be an ancestor of the banjo, both of which sound reassuringly familiar to Western ears raised on guitar music.
“It’s totally logical that the entrée point should be an instrument you can recognize,” said Bettina Richards, the founder of Thrill Jockey, whose African acts also include Extra Golden, an electric rock-based quartet that consists of two Americans and two Kenyans. “Sometimes things that seem totally disparate, once you dive in and get past the superficial differences, like the difference in language, you see a common approach.”
Ms. Richards also said that she sees parallels between an artist like Sidi Touré, who is about to make a second CD for her label with a full band, and her indie rock groups, including Tortoise. “Sidi is interested in taking traditional Songhai styles and making them contemporary, a hybrid,” she said. “That’s a common thread with all my bands, taking rock and jazz structures and making them uniquely their own.”
Labels like Nonesuch, through its Explorer series, began issuing compilations of African music as early as the 1960s. But executives at indie labels, bloggers and African music fans often date the start of the current boomlet to 1997, when the French label Buda Musique began reissuing what has become known as the Ethiopiques series, which now consists of more than 20 CDs of music from Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Originally recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, those discs feature the keyboard player and arranger Mulatu Astatke, the singer Mahmoud Ahmed and others who emerged from military and police bands during the reign of the emperor Haile Selassie. The music, a bit of which Jim Jarmusch featured in his 2005 film, “Broken Flowers,” shows the influence of jazz, rhythm and blues and Latin music, but also has harmonies, grooves and orchestrations that seem almost otherworldly.
“Ethiopiques was huge, very influential, transformational even,” said Jonathan Poneman, a founder of Sub Pop. “Not only was it great stuff, but it was put out in a way that was high quality, that looked good and was engaging. It was a combination of the exotic and the familiar, the kind of tasteful, definitive assessment of a place and time in global culture that anybody would love to be able to do.”
Then, early in the last decade, Tinariwen emerged, literally, out of the desert, gathering attention when it began performing at festivals like Peter Gabriel’s Womad in Britain. As Tuaregs from the Sahara, the band’s members had moved around Mali, Algeria and Libya, absorbing not only the influence of Arab and Berber music but also Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, forging a powerful, guitar-driven style marketed as “desert blues.”
Curiosity about African music may also be driven by the recent popularity of American bands like Dirty Projectors and especially Vampire Weekend, both of which began as projects of Ivy League students and have embraced African music and incorporated its rhythms and voicings. In Britain a similar process began even earlier: Damon Albarn released the “Mali Music” CD nearly a decade ago, while his band Blur was on hiatus.
“Vampire Weekend is the Paul Simon of the here and now, and I mean that as a compliment,” said Mel Puljic, a South African who heads Mondo Mundo, a booking agency that specializes in African and other third world performers. “They’ve been very healthy in building a bigger interest in the music.”
Some indie music observers even compare the impact of Vampire Weekend to a similar phenomenon in the late 1960s, when the popularity of blues-inspired bands like Cream, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin encouraged crate-digging fans of those groups to delve deeper into the vaults and seek out the music of blues forefathers like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson and Skip James.
“I did that myself,” Mr. Kertzer said. “After I heard John Mayall, I went back and listened to Freddie King. It’s actually much easier to do that now, because the Internet has made almost everything so widely available.”
And just as Bob Marley became a symbol of third world authenticity when he first appeared on the pop scene in the 1970s, many in the current wave of African artists seem to be drawing credibility and legitimacy from their hardscrabble experiences. Both Tinariwen and the reggae-inflected Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars emerged from exile and refugee camps, while the Good Ones are survivors of the Rwandan genocide and Blk Jks come from Johannesburg’s gritty Soweto area.
This is not the first time, of course, that American music makers and consumers have gravitated to African music. In the mid-1980s, two best-selling albums, Paul Simon’s “Graceland” and Peter Gabriel’s “So,” stimulated interest in and jump-started the careers of the South African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour and the South African instrumentalists Ray Phiri and Bakithi Kumalo; a quarter of a century before that, the folk boom focused attention on the South African singer Miriam Makeba and trumpeter Hugh Masekela and the Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji and his “drums of passion.”
But those trends came, had their moment of commercial success and influence, and then faded into the background. So what’s to say the same thing won’t happen again with this latest wave of interest?
“These things always have some sort of apex, and I don’t know if we’re there yet,” Mr. Waldorf said. “I don’t think we are. But when you hit that peak, and people start to move on to something else, the best of it never leaves. There’s an ebb and a flow to it, so it may not always be growing.”
In the past, African artists have complained about their music being packaged as “exotic” and having their creative rights usurped by European and American record companies, studios and management companies, concerns that indie labels seem aware of and determined to avoid this time around. In addition, the current generation of artists is more savvy and plugged in than their predecessors.
“Once you start making deals with artists, as opposed to licensing reissues, which to me has always been a very gray area in terms of rights, that’s when they start to be seen as artists with careers and not as a postcard, oddity or curio,” said Chris Swanson, a founder of Secretly Canadian. “It feels less exotic and challenging now. For a label like us to sign a band from Africa is not so different than signing one from Sweden.”
The heads of the indie labels that have placed their modest bets on African music also point to the conditions that make this boomlet different from those in the past. It’s a cliché, but globalization and the Internet really have transformed what was once distant into something as close as a click, and that is true in both directions.
All a new fan of the music has to do, in fact, is visit the site of Awesome Tapes from Africa, which offers free MP3 downloads, or of labels like Analog Africa, Sublime Frequencies, Soundway and Honest Jon’s, which offer reissue collections with titles like “Angola Soundtrack: The Unique Sound of Luanda (1968-1976)” or “The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria.” And performers like Bassekou Kouyate now tour the United States, performing at festivals like Bonnaroo and CMJ, or in the case of Janka Nabay from Sierra Leone, even coming here to live.
“There are all kinds of listeners in the world, and many of them have access to all kinds of music,” Mr. Poneman said. “Let’s face it, the way the world worked when ‘Graceland’ came out is a lot different now. I believe in the ‘Field of Dreams’ axiom: If you build it, they will come.”
THE indie record company Sub Pop first earned a reputation as a tastemaker in the late 1980s, when it signed and recorded the Seattle bands Nirvana and Soundgarden and other exponents of what came to be known as grunge. But one of its best-received recent releases is “I Speak Fula,” by Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, an ensemble that plays small lutelike instruments and sings in various West African languages.
The Chicago label Thrill Jockey is another indie trendsetter, whose best-known act is probably Tortoise, the experimental post-rock band. But last week Thrill Jockey released Sidi Touré & Friends’ “Sahel Folk,” a lilting collection of songs played on acoustic guitars and related African instruments like the kurbu and kuntigui.
Everywhere you turn these days, it seems that the indie rock world is exploring African sounds. Labels like Dead Oceans, Secretly Canadian and True Panther have also begun releasing new recordings by African musicians, those acts have begun playing American gigs, and African music regularly gets attention on the indie-minded Web sites of Pitchfork, Mojo and The Fader.
“As a record buyer, someone who consumes music all the time, I buy music in all shapes and sizes, so this is not a big leap for me,” said Phil Waldorf, a founder of Dead Oceans. “The boundaries have been broken down over time, and I think there are a lot of really curious people out there. This is just another kind of music that they will share and talk to each other about, and we’re putting it out because we think it deserves a place in that discussion.”
Part of the joy of discovery for such music fans is the sheer variety of styles to be found on a continent that has a billion people living in more than 50 countries and is the ancestral home of American genres like jazz and the blues. The South African quartet known as Blk Jks favors a heavy rock sound, at times reminiscent of King Crimson, while the music of the Good Ones, whose “Kigali Y’ Izahabu” has just been released on Dead Oceans, is simplicity itself: voices and unamplified guitars, singing and playing in tuneful harmony.
In terms of geography, the African groups that are beginning to be heard in the United States include a handful from countries like South Africa, Sierra Leone, Kenya and Rwanda. But the focal point of the labels’ interest is clearly Mali, a landlocked nation in sub-Saharan West Africa with a population of only 14.5 million, less than one-10th that of Nigeria.
Both Bassekou Kouyate and Sidi Touré come from Mali, as do Tinariwen, the blind Francophone pop duo known as Amadou & Mariam, Toumani Diabaté, Afel Bocoum and older performers who first became known on the world-music circuit, like Ali Farka Touré, Salif Keita and Oumou Sangaré. The country’s reputation as a musical powerhouse has become so strong that Blk Jks is contemplating crossing the continent from Johannesburg to record its next CD there; Jon Kertzer, an ethnomusicologist who oversees Sub Pop’s Next Ambiance label, even wrote a paper titled “Good Golly, Why Mali?”
One answer to that question might be the country’s long history as a crossroads for nomadic peoples, which has resulted in an unusual blend of cultures and musical styles: Bambara, Songhai, Mandinka, Arab and Tuareg, among others. It also helps that the music of Mali is based on a strong tradition of stringed instruments, like the harplike kora and the ngoni, believed to be an ancestor of the banjo, both of which sound reassuringly familiar to Western ears raised on guitar music.
“It’s totally logical that the entrée point should be an instrument you can recognize,” said Bettina Richards, the founder of Thrill Jockey, whose African acts also include Extra Golden, an electric rock-based quartet that consists of two Americans and two Kenyans. “Sometimes things that seem totally disparate, once you dive in and get past the superficial differences, like the difference in language, you see a common approach.”
Ms. Richards also said that she sees parallels between an artist like Sidi Touré, who is about to make a second CD for her label with a full band, and her indie rock groups, including Tortoise. “Sidi is interested in taking traditional Songhai styles and making them contemporary, a hybrid,” she said. “That’s a common thread with all my bands, taking rock and jazz structures and making them uniquely their own.”
Labels like Nonesuch, through its Explorer series, began issuing compilations of African music as early as the 1960s. But executives at indie labels, bloggers and African music fans often date the start of the current boomlet to 1997, when the French label Buda Musique began reissuing what has become known as the Ethiopiques series, which now consists of more than 20 CDs of music from Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Originally recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, those discs feature the keyboard player and arranger Mulatu Astatke, the singer Mahmoud Ahmed and others who emerged from military and police bands during the reign of the emperor Haile Selassie. The music, a bit of which Jim Jarmusch featured in his 2005 film, “Broken Flowers,” shows the influence of jazz, rhythm and blues and Latin music, but also has harmonies, grooves and orchestrations that seem almost otherworldly.
“Ethiopiques was huge, very influential, transformational even,” said Jonathan Poneman, a founder of Sub Pop. “Not only was it great stuff, but it was put out in a way that was high quality, that looked good and was engaging. It was a combination of the exotic and the familiar, the kind of tasteful, definitive assessment of a place and time in global culture that anybody would love to be able to do.”
Then, early in the last decade, Tinariwen emerged, literally, out of the desert, gathering attention when it began performing at festivals like Peter Gabriel’s Womad in Britain. As Tuaregs from the Sahara, the band’s members had moved around Mali, Algeria and Libya, absorbing not only the influence of Arab and Berber music but also Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, forging a powerful, guitar-driven style marketed as “desert blues.”
Curiosity about African music may also be driven by the recent popularity of American bands like Dirty Projectors and especially Vampire Weekend, both of which began as projects of Ivy League students and have embraced African music and incorporated its rhythms and voicings. In Britain a similar process began even earlier: Damon Albarn released the “Mali Music” CD nearly a decade ago, while his band Blur was on hiatus.
“Vampire Weekend is the Paul Simon of the here and now, and I mean that as a compliment,” said Mel Puljic, a South African who heads Mondo Mundo, a booking agency that specializes in African and other third world performers. “They’ve been very healthy in building a bigger interest in the music.”
Some indie music observers even compare the impact of Vampire Weekend to a similar phenomenon in the late 1960s, when the popularity of blues-inspired bands like Cream, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin encouraged crate-digging fans of those groups to delve deeper into the vaults and seek out the music of blues forefathers like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson and Skip James.
“I did that myself,” Mr. Kertzer said. “After I heard John Mayall, I went back and listened to Freddie King. It’s actually much easier to do that now, because the Internet has made almost everything so widely available.”
And just as Bob Marley became a symbol of third world authenticity when he first appeared on the pop scene in the 1970s, many in the current wave of African artists seem to be drawing credibility and legitimacy from their hardscrabble experiences. Both Tinariwen and the reggae-inflected Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars emerged from exile and refugee camps, while the Good Ones are survivors of the Rwandan genocide and Blk Jks come from Johannesburg’s gritty Soweto area.
This is not the first time, of course, that American music makers and consumers have gravitated to African music. In the mid-1980s, two best-selling albums, Paul Simon’s “Graceland” and Peter Gabriel’s “So,” stimulated interest in and jump-started the careers of the South African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour and the South African instrumentalists Ray Phiri and Bakithi Kumalo; a quarter of a century before that, the folk boom focused attention on the South African singer Miriam Makeba and trumpeter Hugh Masekela and the Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji and his “drums of passion.”
But those trends came, had their moment of commercial success and influence, and then faded into the background. So what’s to say the same thing won’t happen again with this latest wave of interest?
“These things always have some sort of apex, and I don’t know if we’re there yet,” Mr. Waldorf said. “I don’t think we are. But when you hit that peak, and people start to move on to something else, the best of it never leaves. There’s an ebb and a flow to it, so it may not always be growing.”
In the past, African artists have complained about their music being packaged as “exotic” and having their creative rights usurped by European and American record companies, studios and management companies, concerns that indie labels seem aware of and determined to avoid this time around. In addition, the current generation of artists is more savvy and plugged in than their predecessors.
“Once you start making deals with artists, as opposed to licensing reissues, which to me has always been a very gray area in terms of rights, that’s when they start to be seen as artists with careers and not as a postcard, oddity or curio,” said Chris Swanson, a founder of Secretly Canadian. “It feels less exotic and challenging now. For a label like us to sign a band from Africa is not so different than signing one from Sweden.”
The heads of the indie labels that have placed their modest bets on African music also point to the conditions that make this boomlet different from those in the past. It’s a cliché, but globalization and the Internet really have transformed what was once distant into something as close as a click, and that is true in both directions.
All a new fan of the music has to do, in fact, is visit the site of Awesome Tapes from Africa, which offers free MP3 downloads, or of labels like Analog Africa, Sublime Frequencies, Soundway and Honest Jon’s, which offer reissue collections with titles like “Angola Soundtrack: The Unique Sound of Luanda (1968-1976)” or “The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria.” And performers like Bassekou Kouyate now tour the United States, performing at festivals like Bonnaroo and CMJ, or in the case of Janka Nabay from Sierra Leone, even coming here to live.
“There are all kinds of listeners in the world, and many of them have access to all kinds of music,” Mr. Poneman said. “Let’s face it, the way the world worked when ‘Graceland’ came out is a lot different now. I believe in the ‘Field of Dreams’ axiom: If you build it, they will come.”
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Distant Relatives Jamaican Journey
Via HipHopDX
Part I
Part I
"Hope Road is the first film and is the story of that first night. I remember before I even had a chance to set the camera up right Nas was like “Yo, yo film this… “ and launched into the whole speech he gives here about “Smokin' Cubans on the steps of Bob Marley…” from there on I knew I had to keep the camera up and ready to go. Please wait for the little surprise after the credits… Dawn on Hope Road."
Part II
"Dubplates at Tuff Gong, is Part Two. On the third night Damian and Stephen Marley went to work over a new Stephen song called 'Jah Army.' The song is pure heat. Dubplates are the stock and trade of the Jamaican musician. Tuff Gong itself is a place filled with so much history as Stephen explains to Nas at the beginning - even Bunny Wailer made an surprise appearance."
Part III
"Trenchtown Rock is the day of the video shoot. Kassa and his crew were in full effect by the time I got there. To shoot with Nas in Trenchtown is a special thing. We got a tour of the house where Bob learned to play guitar, the kitchen where Ziggy was conceived – barely as big as a closet. And then there was the faces and people, such a strong spirit. It is really no shock in the end that so many incredible musicians came from Trenchtown."Who is Maxi Jazz?
Do you think it's easy being an articulate rapper interested in techno?
this morbid classic is called Killers Lullaby
All these so called "hip hop scholars" leave Maxi Jazz to maybe possibly footnotes. How? Does a techno beat make somthing not hip hop? I can think of a few artists today that defy that... Ludacris. Drake. Nikki Minaj. And in comparison, their Black techno is garbage.
Deep in the shadows of your deepest secrets
I sleep next to the precepts you hold most dear
Your heart is in my province hour upon hour
I shiver when you feel the cold,
Everything you say I hear
Like a bomb and its fuse,
We bring bright light
But I could be a devil to you
I could bite like a tarantula
Right through the skin
And leave my poison dripping
Deliciously unsuspecting
Protecting you from all harm
Except perhaps from these arms
That hold you
Like if he called you in the middle of the night you'd probably agree to hide him perfect.
My introduction to Maxi Jazz was the song God is a DJ
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends
This is my church (x3)
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
It's in the world I become
Contained in the hum
Between voice and drum
It's in the change
The poetic justice of cause and effect
Respect, love, compassion
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
For tonight
God is a DJ
God is a DJ
This is my church (x3)
This is where I heal my hurts
It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends
This is my church (x3)
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
It's in the world I become
Contained in the hum
Between voice and drum
It's in the change
The poetic justice of cause and effect
Respect, love, compassion
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
For tonight
God is a DJ
God is a DJ
This is my church (x3)
When I came upon the album Sunday 8pm by Faithless, I had never heard anything like it before then. It was 1998 and I used to cut school on Tuesdays when new music came out at Virgin Megastore in San Francisco. I could stay on the headphones all day because they got all the imports and random music. I was stuck in a world between something like electronic hip hop (drum & bass dubstep type) and just branching out in to roots rock. I remember listening to this for the first time really truly captivated by it. Maxi Jazz opens this album in the second song, Bring My Family Back.
Beg you listen me, don't be kissin me til I'm done
unsung champion, a reason like seasoning ah
pepper your thoughts with spice,
and entice you to a space where I dwell with bass players and layers are loops
think what I think with my prayers its nice
my world is everything I've become
contained in the hum between voice and drum
I'm coming from the same place I'm a still running from
but even sitting in the garden one can still get stung
unsung champion, a reason like seasoning ah
pepper your thoughts with spice,
and entice you to a space where I dwell with bass players and layers are loops
think what I think with my prayers its nice
my world is everything I've become
contained in the hum between voice and drum
I'm coming from the same place I'm a still running from
but even sitting in the garden one can still get stung
(*the garden is the title of the first song on the album)
I also have a soft spot or car references, and Maxi Jazz is into import racing. This particular song is so out of pocket: She's My Baby
I'm a slave to your outrage
Rocket rocks stiff shocks and a roll cage
Color-coded alloys, much noise, spoilers are poised
Exhaust note to make me wait for old age
Yes yes. Who got the keys to my RS
We goin' on a road test, hit the M4 and head west
Forever impressed with the sound of my two-liter
We cover ground, engine singin' like Anita Baker
And if I take a corner too quick you get sick, when I do my handbrake
trick
Watch me ride, me broadside's wide like a battleship
Side slip, push, only hip, stick it in gear and give the gas a flip
It never failed to bring a grin to the limb
Baby's equipped
me and she gone clear
I got quick rack reduction on my understeer
I been fairly and squarely described as hairy
People say my baby is scary
Look, you pays your money and you takes your choice
I just love to hear my baby's voice
She's my baby
Rocket rocks stiff shocks and a roll cage
Color-coded alloys, much noise, spoilers are poised
Exhaust note to make me wait for old age
Yes yes. Who got the keys to my RS
We goin' on a road test, hit the M4 and head west
Forever impressed with the sound of my two-liter
We cover ground, engine singin' like Anita Baker
And if I take a corner too quick you get sick, when I do my handbrake
trick
Watch me ride, me broadside's wide like a battleship
Side slip, push, only hip, stick it in gear and give the gas a flip
It never failed to bring a grin to the limb
Baby's equipped
me and she gone clear
I got quick rack reduction on my understeer
I been fairly and squarely described as hairy
People say my baby is scary
Look, you pays your money and you takes your choice
I just love to hear my baby's voice
She's my baby
Now granted some of the instrumentals are out of my comfortable sound range, but in a way I rather enjoy that part. I have to remember I'm listening to English music, and that takes me out of my element. I'd be interested if he'd work in other forms of music outside of Faithless. Would love to hear him on this side of the pond even if it was with Kanye West (which actually if he produced it would be SO dope). So I'm making my case why Maxi Jazz should be on your list of preferred MC's. At least poets.
As for who he is as a person, there's not a lot of that information out there. I will try to get that. In the mean time I'm pretty sure he wants you to know he's Buddhist and a huge Eagles fan (Crystal Palace Football Club).
And yeah I only referenced one album, but the point was you are supposed to go do your homework (not just take my word for it ;)
As for who he is as a person, there's not a lot of that information out there. I will try to get that. In the mean time I'm pretty sure he wants you to know he's Buddhist and a huge Eagles fan (Crystal Palace Football Club).
And yeah I only referenced one album, but the point was you are supposed to go do your homework (not just take my word for it ;)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Fela Kuti - Teacher Don't teach Me No Nonsense
If I had to pick an origin of hip hop I would probably say it started in Nigeria with Fela Kuti. I learned about him when I was about 25 at a party, this guy randomly gave me a burned dvd of Music Is The Weapon and I SWEAR it changed my life.
Hip Hop's roots in Fela are stronger than anywhere else I can see in history. Fela had swag, stage presence, he was political while still being able to party, he had the governemnt attempting to kill him, he had an insatiable appetite for women, he always had like 100 people on stage and he could jam ALL night. He was one of histories most prolific musicians. So sad I didn't get to see the show in NY. I seriously don't know what I was doing that was more important. But alas it's going on the road and I will see it somewhere close by.
Hip Hop's roots in Fela are stronger than anywhere else I can see in history. Fela had swag, stage presence, he was political while still being able to party, he had the governemnt attempting to kill him, he had an insatiable appetite for women, he always had like 100 people on stage and he could jam ALL night. He was one of histories most prolific musicians. So sad I didn't get to see the show in NY. I seriously don't know what I was doing that was more important. But alas it's going on the road and I will see it somewhere close by.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe is my inspiration tonight
Rosetta Tharpe was born in 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. She was inspired by female guitarists of the time like (my favorite) Memphis Minnie and performed a mixture of gospel and rock n roll in both nightclubs and churches. She was known for her idiosyncratic showmanship with her guitar. Artists like Elvis, Johnny Cash and Little Richard cite her as a source a great influence.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
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