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I spent my Saturday in doors working on nothing but noizes and beatzes, stopping to watch Al Jazeera‘s coverage of a suddenly chaotic #Egypt – Egyptians demanding for their pharaoh to resign. In the evening, I walked down a couple blocks to a Senegalese-owned halal restaurant called “African-American Cuisine.” On my way back, iPod decided I should stop listening to 8Ball & MJG and pay attention to The Dark, The Third Eye Foundation’s 2010 album. For the most part, I’ve payed attention to Matt Elliot’s output under his birth name, at least since 2003′s The Mess We Made, but not his earlier releases as 3EF. While based on track titles alone “If You Treat Us All Like Terrorists We Will Become Terrorists” sounds apt for the times, “Standard Deviation” is immense, absorbing, murky and warm with low, low rumbles and creeping, ascending voices. If you enjoy this track, the album is a nice cohesive mix-up you should definitely check out.
Seems to me like a nice route through tonight is to begin by catching Sharifa Rhodes-Pittsreading from her new book at the New School [UPDATE: THE NEW SCHOOL IS CLOSED TODAY DUE TO SNOW, READING POSTPONED] and then make our collective way over to Made in Africa — whose special guest DJ, Akwaaba’s BBrave, will stop by next Monday‘s radio show.
Harlem Is Nowhere (the book: excerpt) is out now, two weeks after my Domus mixtape appeared. The New York Times reviewer read her work & couldn’t help but hear music (Auto-Tune no less!):
It reads, in fact, as if Ms. Rhodes-Pitts had taken W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Souls of Black Folk” and Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and spliced them together and remixed them, adding bass, Auto-Tuned vocals, acoustic breaks, samples (street sounds, newsreel snippets, her own whispered confessions) and had rapped over the whole flickering collage. It makes a startling and alive sound, one you cock your head at an angle to hear.
Here’s a breakout jam from my Harlem Is Nowhere mixtape. The beat is an exclusive from Timeblind, low-slung, spacious, holding momenum in one hand and stillness in the other. Sharifa and I read excerpts from the 1941 edition of Rajah Rabo’s 5-Star Mutuel Dream book.
This incredible publication listed pages and pages of things you might see, with accompanying 3-digit lottery numbers to bet on if you saw them. The lottery dream book simultaneously quantifies the mundane and wires it into a complex system of hope and mysticism, all with an eye on the money. Money the only thing that moves around a city faster or more completely than its number runners. Illegal uptown gambling created this fantastic by-product, these lean little snapshots of life on the street. This was Rajah Rabo’s landscape of possibilities. And so we receive a strange vision of what one might have seen, seventy years back. In many ways the quotidian is the rarest of all. The thing that gets lost first. So we read it. So we say it.
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Last but not least: if you are reading this and own or have access to a yacht, please let me know. We’ll only need to borrow it for a month or two. Thanks!
KEXP is a dope radio station in Seattle- and even though I left Seattle for NY five years ago- it is still one of my favorite stations for their sick DJ roster. DJ Riz basically made me fall in love with radio. Kid Hops holds things down on the dubwise spectrum and Alex Ruder has recently brought a welcome breath of fresh air into the station. It was a no brainer when DJ Chilly asked if we wanted to include Kingdom’s remix of Rita Indiana’s “Los Poderes” on the latest Music That Matters podcast. The tracklist reads like a Tropical Roll call of DA homies.
1. Sonora – Memoria
2. Rita Indiana – Los Poderes (Kingdom Remix)
3. Frikstailers – Cumbianchamuyo
4. ChocQuibTown – De Donde Vengo Yo
5. Ana Tijoux – 1977
6. Los Rakas – Abrazame (Uproot Andy Remix)
7. Chico Mann – Mentirosos
8. Joan Soriano – María Elena
9. Grupo Fantasma – Montañozo
10. Davila 666 – Callejón
11. Tremor – Espina
12. Toy Selectah – Half Colombian Half Mexican
13. Cuarto Poder – Solo Tu Tienes La Llave
14. Poirier feat. Boogat – Que Viva
15. Banana Clipz – Coupe Cumbia
16. Uproot Andy/Geko Jones – Manuelita Remix\
17. Novalima – Libertà 18. Very Be Careful – La Alergia
19. Madera Limpia – Perro Que Ladra
Stream it:
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It is a good thing, we discovered last night, to begin and end with mister Arthur Russell. Hard to go wrong in a a loose and loving space. Along the way: Ghanian hiplife in preparation for next week’s guest, Chicagoan footwork sold to Americans by the Brits, the Bronx’s own Colombian low-end king Jorge Meza, Caroline Bergvall reading Dante, and and (aka always more).
you can subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast for downloadable versions, issued a week after FM broadcast: , Mudd Up!RSS. Also useful: WFMU’s free iPhone app. We also have a version for Android (search for “WFMU” in the marketplace).
So this Thursday, January 27th, Chief Boima and yours truly, along some good friends from Garbon, Ivory Coast, and Madgascar will kick off a new party in the southeastern part of Manhattan Island (a neighborhood commonly referred to as the Lower East Side of Manhattan borough) at Gallery Bar (art gallery by day, and lounge/party space when its dark.) We’ll be joined by very special guest, founder of Akwaaba Music and DJ, BBrave. Facebook RSVP.
Going Africa and Beyond. Though I won’t be popping champagne like my Ghanaian brothers Ruff-N-Smooth (they have all the money and the honeys!) I will be playing their music.
the Dutty Artz familia keeps growing. Welcome Adam Atropolis, lifelong New Yorker and next-level beatmaker and songcrafter. Right now he’s in Colombia with his Cumba Mela crew, cooking up all sorts of very cool, very considered collaborations with local musicians (“we’re working with the king of kings of vallenato today,” begins a typical email), from the nu-skool electronic heads to, well, squeezebox lord Hugo Carlos Grando, king of the kings of vallenato.
but better to have Atropolis explain. He’s been there for two or three months now, and is coming back soon, so expect to hear a lot more from (and about) Atropolis real soon. – Jace Rupture
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It’s been too long since we posted anything. Just to update the world, to those who are actually reading, part of the Cumba Mela collective has been doing a mini-tour through Colombia for the past two-months. There is a lot of great footage and music to come. For those who don’t know, we are producing a compilation with artists that we are collaborating with throughout Colombia. We are also performing and producing a documentary that illustrates our journey.
So far we have worked with a handful of artists. Once we return to the states February 1st. we will have more solid posts, previewing the work we have done here so far.
For now, I would like to share with you our experience in Palenque ; an historic village in Colombia with a massive heritage of preserved African traditions. Benkos Bioho, an escaped slave who aided many other slaves to live freely in this community, founded Palenque in the 17th century. Today, the traditional language of Palenquero can still be heard among the streets. The language was formed due to the diverse African tribes that lived together. Therefore, the native language of this area is a mix of several forms of African dialects with Spanish.
We were in Palenque during a champeta festival, which was really crazy. Since we have been in Colombia, we performed in Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Cartagena, and Barranquilla. And of all the places, we found the craziest and loudest sound system I have ever heard (no joke), in this small remote village, with wild pigs, goats, and chickens running around.
Anyway, during our 3-day visit we had the honor to be in the home of Raffael Cassini, one of the members of Sexteto Tabala. His group is regarded to be one of Colombia’s most highly regarded and important Afro-Colombia artists. It was amazing to see how such a highly regarded musician is living such a humble life-style in the quaint village of Palenque.
On the following day we had a beautiful experience with Las Alegres Ambulancias. We set up our mobile studio in their home and recorded a track with them. A remix of this track should be out hopefully in the next year. The completion of this entire project will hopefully be finished in a year.
Be sure to check out the short documentary bellow on Las Alegres Ambulances.
On our last day we worked with this young hip-hop crew. It was the first recording this 16-year olds have ever done in their life. We will be posting this track with some remixes soon, as well as some footage of the production behind this track.
Once we returned to Cartagena we met up with two more artists from Palenque. Viviano Torres, one of the fathers of Champeta, and Son Palenque. We got the honor to record with both of these artists. So stay posted to hear our collaborations with them.
As of now, we are in Taganga. Since we have been in this chilled out beach town we met up with Juan Carlos and Walter Hernandez, from Systema Solar, in their beautiful home studio. So keep posted to check out whats to come!
Nettle is a band I started in Barcelona which knows nothing if not change. This spring we will release an album — a soundtrack to a remake of The Shining, set in Dubai — on a label I’ve admired for awhile. (details soon…)
This Thursday we’re playing a free show at Zebulon in Williamsburg. It’s an intimate space where you can come get close to our strange music. There will be a little bit of singing and 100% no guitars. We use old instruments made from trees (Lindsay’s violin, Brent’s cello, Bill’s bendir frames), and homebrew digital tools (Sufi plug-ins, #mudd) and if you like to listen then this is your night. Icing on the cake: Lamin Fofana will DJ throughout the evening.
A laptop hemorrhage left me flustered and spectacularly unprepared for last night’s radio show, but these things have a way of working themselves out. We are all listeners.
you can subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast for downloadable versions, issued a week after FM broadcast: , Mudd Up!RSS. Also useful: WFMU’s free iPhone app. We also have a version for Android (search for “WFMU” in the marketplace).
cross-posted to Mudd Up!
I just finished a new hour-long mixtape, made with writer Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts and inspired by the sounds of Harlem. The project is the second edition of the Cities Mixtape series by Milan-based DOMUS, a magazine focusing on design, architecture and urbanism. This mix is titled “Harlem Is Nowhere”, after Sharifa’s new book which, in turn, borrows the phrase from a 1948 essay by Ralph Ellison. You can stream or download the mix here, and read our write-up, which begins:
Once, a group of tourists were asked what came to mind when they heard the word “Harlem”: some said “music” and the others said “riots.” The connection between the two is a story for another time. This Harlem mixtape is born of our own free associations: For Rupture, Francophone songs sold by scowling Africans along 116th, or old soul and R&B memories being hawked alongside the now-thing bootlegs across 125th; for Sharifa, church sounds tumbling onto the streets and distorted strains of jazz heard from a boombox carted around by a wandering neighbor.
It’s the return of the intergalactic gauchitos better known as Uproot Andy and Geko Jones. After a brief winter recess moon-walking across the globe and cooking up hotter than habanero remixes the Que Bajo?! party is back like a zombie Danny Trejo
On January 27th we welcome the Dutch-Dominican wonderkid DJ Munchi all the way from Rotterdam, Netherlands. Moombahton stylee from one of the scenes top notch DJ’s.
We have a couple of special surprises to announce as we get closer to the date but I wanna go ahead and introduce VJ Miixxy who will be controlling visuals for the evening.
I’m in Washington D.C., here to give a keynote talk at World’s Fair Use Day. Participants include Das Racist, Larisa Mann, the Can I Haz Cheezburger dude, and the woman who runs the U.S. government’s Copyright Office. Assuming this isn’t a RIAA sting, it should be a solid event!
Right before D.C. I finished a new mixtape, made with Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, as part of Domus magazine’s City Mix series. This mix is titled “Harlem Is Nowhere”, after Sharifa’s new book which, in turn, borrows the phrase from a 1948 essay by Ralph Ellison.
She’s presenting the book (and mix!) at the Studio Museum in Harlem tonight. Event info. Sharifa’s a great reader. Domus will make the mix available soon & I’ll write more about it and the book then. HINT: Both Sharifa’s Harlem Is Nowhere and Daniel Hernandez‘ Down and Delirious in Mexico City are REQUIRED READING in 2011. Both books will be out soon and they’re both awesome.
Now you can enjoy Uproot Andy’s Huld Yuh Version inna dancehall style thanks to this DJ Serg Mashup of Brick n Lace’s Love is Wicked. Serg is homies with Los Rakas and as for Brick n Lace I’ve been a fan of these girls since I heard them on the Bionic Ras riddim from South Rakkas (speaking of which where the F is Dow Jones, we’re ready for the reload out here)
Now gwaan n get hype… Que Bajo is Back at Santos Party House on Jan 27th and you can come out and listen to this and other new remixes and QB exclusives all night.
Hey the internet, I know it’s been a while since we talked but I just wanted to let you know I still have feelings for you. I’ve been ducked down with my head stuck into creating this new online Logic Pro course for Dubspot which is kind of an epic project so I’ve been slacking on my blog game. I’ll be back soon, promise. In the meantime instead of reading my internet words you can come and see me in real life at a variety of spots in NYC. First is this Friday January 14th at Twisup at Deity in Brooklyn. Twisup is Dave Q. of Dub War’s new party. Apparently we’re playing New Bass now, not Dubstep. I’m pretty comfortable with that designation. It’s in downtown BK and in keeping with Dub War tradition I think it’s safe to expect some serious womp for your ear holes.
Next Tuesday the 18th I’ll be talking along with Ricardo Moncado from Halcyon at Netmix a new meetup started by Corey H Maass aka Secret Agent Gel. I’ve known Corey for a LONG time here in NYC and recently reconnected with him in talking about some of the topics that I’ve been writing about lately. He asked me to come and talk about it and I’m happy to do so. It’s billed as ‘creative process in today’s music industry’ I think my talk will be more creative and less industry but who knows? All the info is here.
Immediately afterward I will be hightailing it over to DJ at DJ Still Life’s one year anniversary for his Worldwide Smash radio show on East Village Radio (which I have appeared on). The lineup is myself, Still Life, Jubilee, Shigeto, and JoJo Mayer. I just looked in my email and somehow don’t have the venue info but you will be the FIRST to know (after me).
EDIT: Here’s the info it’s at Tammany Hall, (Formerly The Annex) which is at 152 Orchard St New York, NY 10013.
The following weekend on January 22nd I’ll be at Kingdom and Dre Skull’s Club Infinity party. These two are some of my favorite producers in NYC covering a lot of the styles I’m into ranging from dancehall to housey stuff and so I’m very excited to play this. I know that Tim Dolla is also playing and that Kingdom and Dre will play too,but little else. I’ll add the flier here as soon as I get it.
Lastly, the following week I’ll be playing with Dub Gabriel, Noble Society w/ Jahdan Blakkamoore and Subatomic Sound System at Littlefield on Saturday Jan. 29th. I think I’ll be playing a bit more dancehall and dubwise for that. But who knows!? Anything could happen!
And of course, perhaps most excitingly the REVENGE OF THE SLOTH! We’re restarting New York Tropical at The Cove on Friday, February 11th. I’m very excited about this one, it’ll be the first time the family will play together in NYC in a good while. For all of you who have asked me about when we’re going to do another New York Tropical, here is your answer. More crazily the party is FREEEEEEE.
Mudd Up! 
