DJ Rupture, Maluca, Total Freedom, Shawn Reynaldo, Oro 11, & Mas Exitos bringing the tropical whomp in San Francisco and Los Angeles this weekend. FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS CABRONES! Epic.

Friday December 9th @ El Globo in LA:

Saturday December 10th @ Elbo Room in SF:

AND PART TWO HAS ARRIVED Russian goes in on some Afrojack sounding pressure. I listen to this every day.
Kartel Freaky Gal pt2

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HYPER NORMATIVE MEETS ITSELF IN THE MIRROR
SHE ONLY DANCE – blk.adonis + rizzla by rizzla_dj

From the insanely good free collabo EP from Blk.Adonis and Rizzla DOWNLOAD IT
“This is for the boys who bruk out when the dj drops Chi Chi Man. WE SEE U”

I’ve been on the road lately trying to get my worldwide airmiles up like the Jetlag King- DJ /Rupture. Miles to go before I sleep or even come close on that one, but the result thus far has been getting to play with a lot of ladies and gents I respect and admire and making friends of them along the way. Coming up in a couple weeks here in NYC, Que Bajo?! and Conrazon are collaborating with SOB’s to debut a friend and inspiration of mine by the name of Humberto Pernett. I wanted to take the time explain to you all who this guy is on a personal level as I’ve recently spent a great deal of time with him in Cali for the Petronio Festival and got to know his story.

Pernett’s dad was one of the founders of el Carnaval de Barranquilla. He grew up around amazing musicians his whole life. His aunt Carmencita Pernett was one of the first artists to take cumbia to mexico. Artists born in this type of conditioning? Femi Kuti comes to mind..

I think just by looking at the record cover you can tell dude’s family were some serious party people.

It was inevitable from his upbringing that Pernett would go on to explore los ritmos de la costa. Tambora, cumbia, bullerengue, puya, mapale sound more like the names of root vegetable or ingredients to a sancocho stew than names of rhythms but then all these styles are so distinctly satisfying on the dancefloor that their cohesion only make sense when you think about them that way.

Taking a blessing from his musical godmother, Toto la Momposina, Pernett would go further south to Bogota where he would meet Richard Blair, a UK-born producer and they would go on to form the band Sidestepper whose 3am: In beats we trust album would reverberate worldwide.

As someone who listened to the 6 degrees music label early on, and a researcher of world music fusion for quite some time I can say with confidence that the music from that album would go on to inspire a great many producers for years to come. Our global/tropical bass scene has a lot to thank them for. Electronic music, indeed, but at its essence their sound was a less mechanical and rooted deeply in Colombia’s rich musical heritage. It was a clearly defined turning point for Latin music.

Moving on to work on his own projects Pernett has continued folding time and space to create his own blend of psychodelic caribbean sounds. Carving a sound very much his own.

I invite you to listen to his soundcloud where he has over 100 original tracks and remixes uploaded

Change isn’t an overnight thing. The last car in the roller coaster sees the turn before it happens. But from where I’m standing, Pernett is a largely unsung hero who has and is helping shape the future of latin music.  He’s someone that we should pay a lot more attention to. He’s so far ahead of the pack that it will probably be another couple years before the world catches up to his sound let alone his performance capabilities.  His ableton live set up lets him trigger and effect tracks, while playing gaita or any number of traditional instruments which he can also effect, while singing and dropping some surreal visuals using his filters on his laptop cam. He’s one of those artists that keeps pushing himself to do more. To be more. And you should too. Be there to see him Oct 9th and feel more.

Que Bajo?! & Conrazon Present

Pernett (Colombia)

Oct 9th @ SOB’s $10 /10pm

“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.

Last Sweat Lodge was our best yet!  Big shout to DJ Beto for coming through and throwing down with me, Geko Jones and Atropolis.  I had a blast.  The next one is approaching quickly and I am super excited to announce that we’ve got Brooklyn’s own Dre Skull as our guest.  Dre Skull runs the Mixpak label and just produced an amazing record with Vybz Kartel.  Kartel is to me one of the best and most interesting artists in dancehall music right now and I cannot overstate how impressed I am with Dre for his role in creating Kingston Story, their album.  Read all about it at Taliesin’s post here. On the night your’s truly Matt Shadetek, Geko Jones and Atropolis will be raising the temperature with your favorite tropical sounds so come dressed to sweat.

DUTTY ARTZ: SWEAT LODGE JULY

DJs:

Dre Skull

Matt Shadetek

Geko Jones

Atropolis

Friday July 8th 10PM-4AM

FREE PARTY

The Cove, 108 N. 6th St

Brooklyn NY

L train to Bedford Ave

Maga Bo – “Gondar feat. Eritbu ‘Solomon’ Agegnehu and Entenesh Wassié”

Here’s a video from Dutty Artz family and habitual transnational/borderless bass collaborationist Maga Bo. Filmed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the beautifully shot video for the track “Gondar” which from Maga Bo’s most recent release Ransom EP out now on Senseless Records. Not only providing a glimpse into Bo’s recording process and collaboration with the two Ethiopian musicians – masinqo player Eritbu “Solomon” Agegnehu and singer Entenesh Wassié, we are treated with some wonderful Addis ambiance, plus some beautiful girls dancing to the traditional Azmari song, which Bo laced up/reinforced with some dancehall-like riddim! Stream to the entire Ransom EP on Bandcamp – with remixes from Filastine, Timeblind, Teleseen, Pacheko, and Fletcher.

It also goes without saying that Bo is repping Dutty Artz extra hard in this one! We’ve some some incredible gear coming your way soon too.

When DA’s digital guru, Taliesin, asked me to do a regular post on sound system culture, it wasn’t long after we attended the pre-funeral celebration for Cyril Braithwaite. So it makes perfect sense to start a series about sound systems with a focus on “Count C”, a foundation soundman who was shelling it down before dancehall, before reggae, before ska…

Cyril Braithwaite ca. 1960

In a recent Jamaica Gleaner article (for the Japanese translation click here), writer Howard Campbell refers to me referring to the recently passed sound system operator Cyril “Count C” Braithwaite as an “unsung hero” in Jamaican popular culture. Looking back, I have to clarify that his praises have been sung from Ken Boothe to King Sporty—both of whom claim Count C as their mentor. It’s just hard, I believe, to adequately sing the significance of a soundman who never left his community in over 60 years. The ephemeral nature of a few quotes and newspaper articles do not do justice to the lasting influence of a man like Cyril Braithwaite. Indeed, sound men like Count C don’t just shake the earth with sound, they shake the status quo with their social and cultural power.

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.

Almost more than the music, it was Count C’s commitment and connection to his West Kingston community that stands out. Cyril Braithwaite was born in the 1920s into a family residing in Back-O-Wall, the West Kingston area which became the center of Jamaica’s nascent political power struggle during the transition to independence. Back-O-Wall was subsequently razed in 1963 to make way for the Tivoli Gardens housing scheme. Cyril Braithwaite died January 26, 2011, a resident of 6 Wellington Street,  just a stone’s throw from Tivoli. (Indeed, when the Wednesday night/Thursday morning street dance, Passa Passa, used to be held just outside Tivoli on Spanishtown Road, Count C lived so close he could claim to have attended every single one.) Decades after Back-O-Wall was transformed into Tivoli Gardens, the infamous focus of the manhunt for Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke for much of 2010, current residents still find themselves in a struggle with authorities despite the passage of time and the fact that Dudus was caught last June.

Read the rest of this entry »

“My girl yuh no… boring / gwan wine bend over touch your toe ring” – Busy Signal

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Busy Signal – Wine Up (Nuh Pop Dung)

File this one under things that make me happy. Busy Signal is in top form and Washroom deliver a gorgeous reggae flavored dancehall riddim entitled Bad Suh. I’ve been starting my sets with this one recently and also playing a few other cuts on the riddim including the Tifa and Voicemail. People in my Prospect Heights neighborhood may have been confused to see a tall red bearded man gesticulating and shuffling his way through the black grimy snow on his way to the subway to the sound of hot dancehall in his headphones.  Anti-winter music.

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.

NOTE: Lamin Fofana will be joining L.A.’s notoriously good live act Very Be Careful and I at Coco66 in Brooklyn this Saturday. So come get yr Afro- Latino- post-identitarian noir noir crunk dosage, we goin’ in deep. Like Garvey, except instead of black nationalism it’s accordions. Or 808 kicks. Probably both.

Matt Shadetek returns to “minimalist grime principles” this week with the killer Dutty House EP! Check out the addictive “Wonton Garden” riddim (which refused to die and here in its official/proper release) + the recent refix of Blak Ryno’s “Nuh Tek Talk” on Eddie Stats’ essential weekly roundup of heaters Ghetto Palms.

Blak Ryno – Nuh Tek Talk (Matt Shadetek Dutty House Rmx) by mattshadetek

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Here is a mono radio rip from a live DJ mix on WFMU a couple of weeks back. It’s jam packed with unreleased, exclusive killer Shadetek tracks! The tracklist is a little rough, but the unreleased joints – opening track “NIC U” and “Pterodactyl” are gleaming freshness not to be slept on!  Look out for his Dutty House EP coming out Tuesday!

TRACKLIST

Matt Shadetek – NIC U
Matt Shadetek – This Is Love
Matt Shadetek – Pterodactyl
Contakt – Not Forgotten
??? Dubbel Dutch Remix
Matt Shadetek & Lamin Fofana – Sunshine City
Black Ryno – Nuh Take Talk (Matt Shadetek Remix)
Matt Shadetek – Delta
Kingdom – Bust Broke
Mayster & Contakt – Korak
??? Secret Agent Gel Rimix
Maxwell D – Going Away
SBTRKT & Sampha – Evening Glow
Matt Shadetek & DJ /rupture – Sunset B35
Chief Boima – Techno Rumba (DJ /rupture & Matt Shadetek Remix)

I flew from Rio to Kingston on Friday. Round four. Buenos Aires, Rio, São Paulo, now Kingston. A year of bass music, soundsystems, studios, ’nuff sessions and building the DA family. I’m researching what techniques enable artists, managers, promoters, pirates, and labels to eat off music – usually with dramatically less resources/infrastructure than there is in NYC. Mostly I’ve been bouncing around cities and their public transport systems to one-off meetings and parties. I’m trying something different in Jamaica and settling in to start work with Sharon Burke and her empire, Solid Agency. If you’ve done dance hall business, you know Sharon. But if you’re just a fan you might never of heard of the hardest working woman in Jamaica. She gets to the office first, spends all day working a grip of Black Berrys, leaves last, and even on the way home last night with her feet up, she was sealing deals for big shows while Ice, one of her drivers, swerved through Kingston traffic. Leftside’s impersonation is spot on.

Solid handles artist management and booking, as well as being involved in events and just about every other facet of the industry. Kevin ‘Payday’ Green’s Alliance aligned studio is in the back- and even though it’s a humble affair, it’s nothing for Bounty Killer, Elephant Man, or Mavado to roll through in a day, along with ’nuff artists waiting their chance to run up the ranks. When no one’s voicing, the studio door opens and the near-fields get turned up to 11, pumping the latest tunes and unreleased riddims into the yard.

Early at the Payday Yard

I’m hoping my updates can be more regular now that I’m down here. First order of business is to start making some radio rips. You know when you’re driving through BK, or picking up Boston’s Hot 97 and you don’t want to finish you trip for fear of losing the pirate signal? It’s like that all the time, every day down here. Except you never drop the signal – of course Daggering and Gun Man lyrics are all officially banned- you have to get to a session for that- but it’s still fresh to death.

And don’t sleep on Natalie Storm’s new mix. She said she made it after a rough break up and a period of abstinence and it’s dripping with sex. Between her calculated dive into house, electro and dancehall, and Dylan Powe’s burner Wiley voiced Showa Eski Riddim. Good things soon come for Prodigal and Federation.

If you have people down here, or spots you love, and want to get in touch. I’m always down to build. TallyBower AT GGGGmmmmmAALLLE. Already looking forward to Dre Skull, DJ Ripley,  The Mad Decent Boyz, Toddla T and a few others being around. I’ll be here until March. Respect to Erin Hansen and Erin MacLeod for getting me sorted so far.

Repost from mattshadetek.com

Blak Ryno – Nuh Tek Talk (Matt Shadetek Dutty House Rmx) by mattshadetek

My new EP entitled ‘DUTTY HOUSE’ will be out as an early exclusive Dec. 7th on Juno and everywhere Dec. 14th on Dutty Artz. In advance of it I’m giving away this remix I did of Blak Ryno’s ‘Nuh Tek Talk’. The original is on Chimney Records’ Death Row Riddim. Blak Ryno is an exciting new Dancehall artist who came up under of Vybz Kartel’s Portmore Empire / Gaza movement. He uses a lot of interesting eastern sounding melodies in his singing which sets him apart from the new crop of Dancehall artists coming out to my ears. The original was 120bpm which is a little slower than I’ve been playing lately so I decided to speed it up to 128bpm and add some grimey house beats. I didn’t have an acapella so I actually just took the whole tune and EQd out the bass, adding my own drum and bass parts making it more like a mashup than a true remix. I’ve been playing it for a bit and thought it’d be appropriate to share it in advance of my new EP dropping on Dutty Artz. It’s my first time in a while busting out my distorted kicks and badman lyrics vibe in a while, so fans of Brooklyn Anthem may be pleased.

Dutty House Cover Art, designed by me

Blak Ryno Artist page:
http://www.myspace.com/rynodgreat

Chimney Records Label Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chimney-Records/

to get to this gig: SONIDO MARTINES @ Notting Hill Artz Club iiiiiTONITE!!!!