Alright, it’s been a good minute, but I’m still digging through, cleaning and learning how to rip these vinyls proper. I switched from Audacity to Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit) and the sound of the rips are notably better–sound quality still needs improvement though. Next step up is ProTools or Ableton Live, I guess.
Here’s a sweet little pleasurable song from a rather obscure American funk/R&B group. Members of this band used to be songwriters and musicians for Motown, as part of the in-house production team in the 1960s. This song appears on the B-side to their most popular hit “I Can Understand It” from 1972. It’s funny, but this tune is strange and familiar at the same time. It reminds me of a Maxi Priest song, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
We are still in 1972, but let’s get away from Detroit and visit the Makossa Man, Manu Dibango in Yaounde. His album “O Boso” is recommended for warm, beautiful Summer nights, with smoke, steam and sweat –several counties in the tri-state area are under severe thunderstorm watch. Anyway, among all my parents 7 and 12″’s I was able to get my grubby hands on (and actually listened to), this is one of the most surprising, varied, and unique 12 inches.
“…we are playing a music whose unity has it’s roots deep in African earth, but whose harmony and construction reflect the influence of all the branches which have grown in the common three century old tree of music.” - M. Dibango, 1972
Adding a little zest and balance to that sublime track/post over at mudd up! There’s never enough Balla to go round. I’m not sure what this song is really about. It is a praise song for someone named Moussa Konate (who was a driver? an apprentice? I’ll have to consult my aunt or one of my cousins) but this doesn’t sound like a traditional praise song. This music was designed to blaze dance floors. What was Conakry nightlife like in 1968 or ‘71? What about Lagos? or Freetown? I have a bunch of 7 and 12 inches serving as windows, looking into the past and discovering a part of your parents that they’ve abandon a long time ago. Maybe abandon is a strong word. Either way, expect more of these in the future.
The Chief Commander of Juju Music Ebenezer Obey is also a praise-singer, combining the rich cultural and spiritual musical traditions of Yoruba people from the Ogun State in South-Western Nigeria with the excitement of Lagos highlife and Christian themes to create melodious, dance floor music and praise songs for the wealthy, famous and the powerful. Listen for the talking drums, which you can also hear these days in NYC underground/subway drummers.
First, here’s an all Steve Gurley mix I’ve been listening to quite a lot lately. I am flagrantly ripping this from the dubstepforum, where it was ripped from Uptown Music Forum, where it was posted about a year ago. The mix was done by someone named AverageJoe, an ordinary DJ with a funny Homer Simpson gif as his MySpace default.
The first is of Mr Eliel Lucero skankin’ (to some really good Roots music Matt was playing earlier in the night) in his brand new Dutty Artz tee! Get yours!
And here I am, standing around (yeah, i’m mad bcuz i’m only) in my plain old regular tee— waiting for that lite tropical pink.
And here’s Yellowman, AKA Geko Jones. This man spins and dances behind the decks like a mutha, (but then again, he falls into a state of deep concentration at times.) I’m not sure who’s the better dancer behind the decks, Matt or Gex? I don’t think Rupture dances behind his decks. Maga Bo doesn’t either. Well, I’ve never seen them dance behind their turntables anyway. Have you? If you have, I need photo-or videographic evidence of these two men getting down.
I heard Alice Russell’s “Hurry On Now” at a party at Howard University earlier this year. The Boub instrumental sounds modest, generic even, but it’s also captivating and flawless under Ms. Russell’s voice which is really engrossing and powerful. This song was stuck in my head for several months. A friend who was at the same Howard party identified it for me.
Mama’s Gun is one of the sexiest albums I have in my CD collection. I know, it’s a little strange. The album deals with horrific, unsexy nightmares and things like police brutality (Amadou Diallo), mental imprisonment (plus, the high rate of incarceration for black males). A large chunk of the album tackles self-esteem issues and breakups. Anyway, Miss Badu’s music is not always joyless and serious/militant/political. In fact, she’s more playful and introspective than most hiphop singers.
This one is haunting and amazing. Produced by Madlib, it is from her new album New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) - Only Badu can present something like national delusion in such a phunky manner (”Amerykahn Promise”).
dead prez said it’s bigger than hiphop. Killah Priest said all religion ever did was divide… Erykah sez hiphop ain’t dead yet, regardless of what Nas said. hiphop is alive, uniting cultures, races, all around the world. While I don’t think hiphop could ever be bigger than religion, she might be onto something with the government part, and her gospel in general that together the ants can conquer the elephant.
& coming soon, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)
And the pendulum swings again. The kids are dancing to a new (old) beat. Since the police in London have decided to criminalise Grime and ban it’s fans and artists from holding any sort of public performances in their home city, the kids have started to fulfill their itch to drink, dance, bubble at clubs playing what is called “Funky”. Originally short for Funky House the rise in popularity in the scene has triggered a wave of new producers, many of them former grime heads to start making this new stuff. Some say that the rise in popularity of Funky is due to it’s explicit dancfloor focus and the fact that girls do not seem to want to go to grime raves at all any more. This leads to a mass movement of guys following the girls leaving (including most of the big grime artists) and ending up in “Funky Dances” wearing button down shirts, shoes and drinking champagne. While the scene is still in it’s early “what do you call it?” type phase and things are being hammered out, a few tunes have arisen that people are pointing to and saying, “that there, that’s it”. One of the guys making many of these tunes is the man with the most google-handicapped name ever: Apple. Not helping things by calling his tune Mr. Bean (who appeared in an ad for apple computers, search engine camouflage), he’s making these stripped, rugged, post-grime/sort of soca-ish house tunes, which I am digging.
Also check out his myspace to hear more, last I checked I was digging “SAMPLE of wots to come”. Grimy, swinging and dark, I hope it is indeed a sign of what’s to come.
