This Wednesday, with the all-volunteer help of Spectacle Theater’s Akiva, Cassie D, and Zoe S, and WFMU’s Mike A, Bill B, and Dave E, we were able to continue our strange and occasionally bumpy journey down the path of live radio built from video clips & staged before an audience.
It’s an uncanny performance mode, talking to a roomful of bodies seated before Spectacle’s screen but knowing that many many more are listening at home, and attempting to create a path that works for both. Feels ‘experimental’ in the word’s basic sense: something for which the process and its possible outcomes aren’t yet established.
For the first of these radio-Spectacle nights, I screened Khaled & Cheb Mami rai comedy 100% Arabica, then in December it was Nass El Ghiwane documentary Transes.
And this Wednesday, on the first day of Black Mystery Month, I teamed up with Lamin Fofana, Chief Boima, and Old Money to host AFRO-SPECTACLE, two hours of live radio constructed entirely from DVDs & VCDs purchased in African-run stores in New York City, followed by a screening of Nollywood-NYC film God’s Own Country.
Are here are two selections from the evening: a jam Lamin & I have been into forever, a perfect song basically, based on an international collaboration between Sékouba Bambino & Kandia Kouyaté.(Lamin’s Brooklyn-purchased video version had much higher quality that this youtubery, alas.)
And my contribution to AFRO-SPECTACLE, a Don Cornelius homage in the form of David Bowie performing ‘Fame’ on Soul Train.
We are kicking off (B)Lack History Month in style:
On Wednesday February 1st, at 7pm, DJ Rupture and Lamin Fofana will host a special 2-hour live radio show from south Williambsburg’s Spectacle Theater, with Chief Boima (new jams on the way!), Old Money, and a our favorite African video shopowner.
Following the live WFMU broadcast — built primarily from African music videos purchased in the cornerstores of NYC — we will screen God’s Own Country by director Femi Agbayewa. GOC presents the story of a young Nigeria lawyer who immigrates to NYC to discover that life in America is not like he hoped… As Boima explains, “It’s firmly in the Nollywood tradition. The story line is a New York story, and I think it’s the perfect context for the non-Nollywood initiated to get introduced to the industry. . . it is also referencing the tradition of the American hood gangster flick like Belly. Almost an amalgamation of the two.”
Palm wine and kola nuts are included with the $5 admission. Space is limited, so come early!
Boima is set to drop his dope refix and remix collection “African In New York” on February 21st- and the highlight for me is his amazing version of Kondi’s “Without Money, No Family.” Getting Kondi to SXSW is THE FIRST PART of what hopes to be an ongoing series of collaborations with Kondi. I just got payed on Wednesday and hit them with $50 and if your in a spot do the same, do it! If you’re hard up right now- just do us a favor and share the campaign out on your twitter or facebook or whatever other platform you prefer
The Embassy is the name of my weekly WFMU radio show. We broadcast at 91.1 FM in New York and 90.1 in the Hudson Valley, and of course we on the internets. You can stream last night’s show and check here for the playlist.
I was quiet for most of 2011 when it comes to releasing original music. To be honest, I was a bit hard on myself. I’m finally getting out of that muck, and feeling ready now. I’m planning to put out several releases this year, on Dutty Artz as well as branching out to other labels.
Please find details for my first release of 2012 below. Titled Dubious Prey, it comes out on limited vinyl January 30th, then a digital release with additional remixes shortly follows. London label Sticks N Stones is releasing it… SNS a small new label owned and operated by my friend Aramac, and distributed by ST Holdings. Artwork, tracklisting, YouTube and SoundCloud previews – all below.
artist: Lamin Fofana
title: Dubious Prey
label: Sticks N Stones Recordings (Distributed by S.T. Holdings, UK)
date: 30th January for vinyl / 27th February for digital
Vinyl
A – Brokedown City
A2 – Dubious Prey
B – Brokedown City (Aramac Remix)
Digital
1. Dubious Prey
2. Brokedown City
3. Brokedown City (Aramac Remix)
4. Brokedown City (Svpreme Fiend Mix)
5. Brokedown City (Mayster & Contakt Rebuild)
6. Brokedown City (La Ola Criminal Remix)
Yesterday, XLR8R premiered the first cut from Dubious Prey, “Brokedown City”
NYC-via-Sierra Leone DJ/producer and Dutty Artz affiliate Lamin Fofana is set to release a new EP, Dubious Prey, the follow-up to his 2010 debut EP, What Elijah Said. The new EP features two originals, including this one, “Brokedown City,” a dark but still active piece of techno with a steady four-on-the-floor. The song’s notably tropical percussion is buffeted by potent synth lines, which bleed in and out of the song, and a barely audible vocal sample that occasionally slips into the mix…
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On Sunday December 11, the Mudd Up Book Clubb returns to Manhattan, to discuss Lauren Beukes’ 2010 novel Zoo City. If you wanted to throw genre signifiers at it, you could say that it’s new African urban fantasy sci-fi noir with a strong musical component. There is even an accompanying soundtrack , released on African Dope records:
As I wrote in my August post on Zoo City, “It’s weird noir, set in contemporary Johannesburg, featuring an ex-junkie protagonist named Zinzi December and her magic sloth. The unconventional pair is caught in a web of intrigue involving murder, 419 email scams, and a missing kwaito/afropop teen star. In short, it sounds like a book specifically engineered for my peer group.” Check out the full post for more thoughts on Zoo City, or join us on December 11th in New York City for realtime talk.
An album release party and free night of celebration in the heart of the heart of the country!
Click on the huge GIF to see the huge GIF in all its huge GIFNESS.
djs mothershiester and bent invite you to:
The 2nd Happy Hour installment of Africa is Not a Country features a special performance by Nettle. Led by DJ /rupture, this inter-continental project blends electronic beats, North African folksongs and percussion with avant garde noise. We’ll be celebrating the release of group’s new record — El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai / iTunes / Amazon / Boomkat. “For this album, Nettle imagined a remake of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining set in a luxury hotel in Dubai, U.A.E. El Resplandor: The Shining In Dubai is their soundtrack for that nonexistent film.”
Live DJ sets by bent and mothershiester through the night will feature Rock, Ska, and Punk anthems from Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. Jazz arrangements from Madagascar and Ghana. Soukous jams and Chaabi gems. Plus a glut of “pirated” Kenyan Pop mp3s that dj bent found while idly cruising the information superhighway.
Friday, December 2
Marrakech Lounge
1817 Columbia Rd. NW
7 to 11 pm
Nettle plays at 9pm!
free!!
enjoy drink specials of $3 beers, $5 wine and rail drinks, and delicious $5 appetizers at this brand new north african spot – Marrakech Lounge.
plus hooka/sheesha for enjoyment on the veranda
Africa is Not a Country is an anti-colonial musical journey, using the dancefloor/barstool to deconstruct the idea of “African music” as we rock out from Jo-burg to Cairo, from Dakar to Nairobi, with a quick lap around the islands.
One of my favorite musical investigators will be joining me live on Mudd Up! a week from today: Chris Kirley. You may know him from the Music from Saharan Cellphones compilation, or the Ishilan n-Tenere LP on Mississippi Records, or his TOP LEVEL blog, Sahel Sounds. As I was working on Beyond Digital this summer, Chris was (relatively) nearby in Mauritania doing all sort of amazing & related work, and I can’t wait for him to take us through it.
Chris will be coming to the WFMU studios on Monday September 26th, stopping by Mudd Up! from 8-9pm. In a recent email, Chris details what we can expect:
I’ve been looking over the music I have and putting together a rough collection of stuff to bring. The music is representative of some of the local popular styles and genres, often the synth / drum machine / DIY PC aesthetic.
I’d also like to talk about the work of sound archivist/producer and the different ways of collecting, be it old school field recording style or searching for mp3s. One of the fascinating things to me with the whole cellphone project has been how music exists in the sahel — its creation, propagation and experience, via cellphones or cyber cafes — and how this creates these p2p networks that exist similar to but independent of the internet.
In terms of specifics, I’ve got Mauritanian synth wedding recordings, Hausa music, “Balani Show” Bamako parties, and hip hop — pretty diverse stuff, but cohesive in character.
The day after his radio appearance, the rogue scholar will present a selection of music videos from Mauritania at Brooklyn’s rogue cinema, Spectacle. And if you want to help Music from Saharan Cellphones make yet another medium-jump, there’s a Kickstarter project to turn the free MP3 compilation in 12″ vinyl.
“Count C cemented his status in his West Kingston community, and in Jamaican music and cultural history, when he launched the Count C Sound System in 1947. Radio was nonexistent and, even when it did arrive in Jamaica in the late 1950s, few in West Kingston could afford either the box or the pay-as-you-go service. In times like these a sound man like Count C really was royalty. His was a small sound (a few horns and an over-sized, 5ft+ speaker, familiarly called a ‘house of joy’), but he was tough. Count C would never back down from a challenge, even when Duke Reid and the “big dogs” arrived on the scene.” – Soul Of The Lion
If you missed Josh’s perfect post on Count C earlier in the year- check it here.
It was an honor and privilege to be at 6 Wellington for Count C’s Nine Night. Skanking until dawn for one of the men who started it all.
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LV & Joshua Idehen – “Melt”
from LV & Joshua Idehen‘s album Routes, an album which came out on Keysound Recordings a few months ago. I’ve listened to the album countless times, played some tracks on the radio, and at parties prior to the unrest in London. I highly recommend it. It’s an impressive, imaginative, muscular, and fun album. On “Melt” Idehen, a Londoner of Nigerian heritage talks about growing up in London on top of a ridiculously good kwaito-informed funky jam provided by LV (very impressive vocal cut ‘n past & repeat action.) So much is said in such little time (youth, class, perseverance,…) & so much understood even when the words aren’t clear!
Last week I dove in, writing about noir & auto-tune in new sloth-positive South African fiction (author approved), then taking a look at the UK riots via Frederick Douglass and some dubwise reggae, an article which reverberated and sparked a nice Motherboard writeup. Next came many airports. After folding into economy seats (always a screaming baby nearby), the discomfort heightened not mitigated by a string of $15 fruit cups in the Frankfurt or Zurich or Zaghreb airport, I found myself on the breathtakingly beautiful Croatian coast. You land at a town called Split. Then drive 30 minutes further out, to the party on the grounds of a former Yugoslavia military installation! Really cool vibes there. Repurposing. Life is strange. Snails on the walls.
Angola meets meets Atlanta in this mix by DJ Eridson. One for the Fruityloops Hall of Fame indeed. This track is 3 years old but Eridson has new music up on soundcloud, including this Coupé-Décalé track he upped yesterday:
Bee and I drive for hours from Jeppestown looking for Nozinja’s house on the edge of Soweto. I’m using the GPS on her Blackberry- but keep fucking up and suddenly we’ve left the city behind and are driving for 20 minutes out into the countryside where sprawling townships blend in from afar with the yellow umber tall grass. The drive was supposed to take 45 minutes- but we arrive at dusk to his spot next to the rail tracks in a clean cut row of brick single story houses. A gleaming Benz sits in the dirt driveway and Nozinja, creator of the Shangaan Electro sound, is inside waiting for a BBC interviewer to call back. I apologize for being hours late- but he says it’s fine and just makes fun of Bee for not knowing her way around Soweto. Shangaan Electro is the new marketing title for the wildly inventive update on Shangaani music that Nozinja has been making and selling throughout S. Africa for years.
Rich from the Tshetsha Boys in one of his masks - Nozinja plans the costumes and a seamstress makes them
DIY Kitchen Distro At Nozinja's House
This is a classic untouched genre discovery story – weird computer music, hyperspeed dancing, clown costumes, youtube, serendipitous ringtones, cancelled return trips home from South Africa- but the music is mindblowing- and more so for all seemingly coming from the mind of one man. Nozinja gives me one of the his early releases from Tiyiselani Vomaseve- a group produced by Nozinja consisting of five women who dance and one who sings. The CD is hand screen-printed and comes off a spindle from his distribution/storage cupboards in the kitchen- it is hard to get all the way through, the midi music is relentless and exhausting for the uninitiated- but the rest of the Shangaani music that has been coming out via Honest Jon’s has been addictively listenable. After killer coverage of those releases, including a massive summer tour, Nozinja is set to start releasing his own music digitally to the world via his eponymous label. The first two releases are availble now from Tiyiselani Vomaseve (itunes) and the Tshetsha Boys, whose album is straight forwardly titled “YouTube Top Hits” (itunes).
Stream a couple cuts from the Tiyiselani album below.
Tiyiselani Vomaseve – Bombani
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Tiyiselani Vomaseve – Voseveni
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If you want to keep up on Nozinja and his label- you can follow them on Facebook until their website gets finished.
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