So the music of Abidjan’s CIAfrica crew does sound a bit like a grimey, glitchy elephant staring you down as angular new-money architecture burns or smolders or looms in the background and the sky’s color stumbles from white to black with a few lasers for good measure, because we’re not living in the future, they are.
Sometime last year the visionary ringleader, Amadou aka Green Dog (RZA to their Wu) gave me access to their deep hard drives — packed with singing, rapping & fwd-thinking beats. Thrilling material. I pulled out my favorite 17 songs for a CD which will be released later this month, DJ Rupture presents CIAFRICA. This coincides with CIAfrica, Nettle, and myself performing at Gotenburg’s Sweden Way Out West festival next Friday, August 13th. I’ll be DJing separately from them, in a party with Sleigh Bells and Fool’s Gold (the band). It’s a 3-day affair, with folks like Wu-Tang, M.I.A., Jay Electronica, The xx, etc performing, so if yr in Scandinavia, might be worth the trip… & I’ve found that drunk Swedes tend to still be really nice, at least in Gotenburg.
It will be the first time the CIAfrica MCs and vocalists perform outside their Côte d’Ivoire/Ivory Coast home base! They have this awesome Pam Grier video for one of their female MCs, Nasty, but it keeps getting censored by YouTube. So here’s a vid from one of the guys coming over, Manusa:
Ghostleg, our VJ friend in Australia re-ups the visual remix of some United Fruit Company propaganda he started on for New York Tropical, this time with Uproot Andy‘s Vale La Pena remix.
- Chief Boima’s Techno Rumba EP is out today! Download/listen/enjoy the special #RUMBA mix Boima made to celebrate the release. Hit up iTunes, Amazon or Boomkat & do your part. Tracklist after the jump -
TONITE NEW YORK. Fresh from shaking up Austin with the rest of the Dutty Artz crew, esta noche Que Bajo nos presenta:
Uproot Andy (Zizek, Bersa Discos)
Geko Jones (Dutty Artz)
Santos Party House (Basement)
96 Lafayette St.
NYC
$10; $5 w/ RSVP
RSVP at quebajoparty@gmail.com
“There are so many Africas, and so many arts of Africa. Picasso and Matisse thought they had hit on the essence of Africa during the first decade of the 20th century. The African masks and sculpture that influenced such works as Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (1909) seemed to be the very embodiment of a youngish Spaniard’s priapic idea of the primitive: wonderfully, savagely stylised; bursting with a toe-curlingly alien erotic charge. How patronising of Picasso to think that that’s what African art amounted to. Well, perhaps that’s a little unfair. The point was that Picasso, ever grasping, ever restless, was seeking out new ways of representing the female body.
Yes, anthropologists quickly began to prove that Picasso was either wrong or telling just one tiny part of an immensely complicated story. In 1910, the first major excavations took place at Ife, a site in what is now south-western Nigeria, not too far from Lagos. (The walled city-state of Ife, legendary homeland of the Yoruba, flourished for 300 years, from about 1100-1400 AD). Thirty years later, in 1940, another great cull of objects from the same site hit the headlines again: “Worthy to rank with finest works of Greece and Italy”, shrilled the Illustrated London News.
Many of the works that those anthropologists found are now on display in this major show of north-west African sculpture, and the works here lend credence to that headline writer’s claim. At the same historical moment that Andrea del Verrocchio was doing his wonderfully painstaking, high-Renaissance drawing of a female head which can be seen elsewhere in this building, anonymous artisans in Ife were working with brass, bronze – yes, these Africans knew all about bronze casting long before the Europeans arrived to show them how – copper and terracotta to produce a series of exquisite heads that are not only the equal of Donatello in technical brilliance, but also just as naturalistic in their refinement. So much for African primitivism.” – Michael Glover (The Independent) reviews Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa, British Museum, London – read the full article here.
We’ve decided to throw a last minute benefit show to help make a financial contribution to the ongoing relief efforts in Haiti. If you’ve followed this at all it is an absolutely harrowing, horrible catastrophe that has befallen a place that was already a very difficult place to live for many people. The show is in only two days so PLEASE email this to your friends in New York, put it on your Facebook, Twitter, etc. and help us get the word out. We as DJs will not be taking any payment from this and the proceeds will be donated to charity. We are currently seeking expert advice on who to donate it to, suggestions are welcome.
DUTTY ARTZ TROPICAL RELIEF FOR HAITI
DJs:
DJ Rupture
Matt Shadetek
Lamin Fofana
Feliz Cumbe
Bingy
There was also an African apparition: Janka Nabay from Sierra Leone, wearing a straw skirt and singing and dancing to recorded tracks of what he said was a 500-year-old tradition called bubu music. The tracks were modern, and the beat, fast and skeletal and driven by bell taps, was unstoppable, demanding wider dissemination.
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listen to more audio from an interview Janka did with Straw vs Gold several months back.
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Boima played this song for us on Mudd Up! when he was in New York several months ago. In addition to the tremendous, infectious voice and guitar groove, what grabbed me were the drums/the rhythm –the sabar has never sounded more tactile. I said to Boima I needed to hear more mbalax, and he gave me about a gigabyte of music I magically misplaced the same night, and never recovered. Anyway, Titi is one of, if not the most popular artist in Senegal today. She has a massive presence in Dakar, getting “about as much radio play these days as Youssou N’Dour’s latest Live at Bercy” as noted by Matt Yanchyshyn of the now “on pause” and sorely missed blog Benn loxo du taccu.
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L’ Okanga La Ndju Pene Luambo Lwanzo Makiadi –better known simply as Franco– died 20 years ago, October 12, 1989. Franco and his legendary TP OK Jazz band created some of the most wonderful and far-reaching African music for the latter half of the 20th century. He was (and is still) not just popular around the globe but he is adored all across Africa. Nevertheless, it seems to me the few American folks who are into Franco’s music are for the most part into his early recordings (look at the expansive Francophonic Vol. 1: 1953 – 1980 released by Sterns last year, celebrating the 70th anniversary of his birth.)
His 1980s hits are staples at African dances and celebrations, especially tunes like “Mario” and “Takoma ba camarade pamba” which are still extremely popular particularly among certain nostalgic African expatriates who migrated to Europe and the United States in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. In fact, it was in the mid ’80s that Franco and his band were at their most innovative, the era in which they packed nightclubs and stadiums all across Africa. In the ’80s Franco and TPOK Jazz were also surrounded by newer artists like Kanda Bongo Man and Pepe Kalle with exciting new musical and dance styles like Kwasa-Kwasa and Soukous which were faster with louder drums and and perhaps even sharper guitar melodies, not to mention the solos. Francophonic Vol. 2: 1980 – 1988 was released last week by Sterns. The songs on Francophonic Vol. 2, when listened to chronologically (the way it was intended/compiled for listening) one notices a shift in tempo and rhythmic programming as we move from song to song; the drums and percussive instruments are nudged forward, a bit to the foreground, and they become more restless and clearer/in the center, at times just behind guitar and underneath those sweet vocals, definitely not hiding anymore but creating space for and contributing to the undeniable grooves.
The track featured here is an epic hit and has a story that is all to real; “Mario” is a “song about a gigolo who despite being highly educated has chosen not to apply for jobs but would rather sit at home and live off his rich lover who happens to be a woman twice his age.”
Bayer in Brooklyn/on3 visits Jahdan in a studio in Crown Heights to talk about his roots and influences, and the sounds behind Buzzrock Warrior, which is outnow.
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Here’s a list of key US retailers; where you can pick up a physical copy of the album:
AKA Music – Philadelphia
Amoeba SF / Berkeley / Hollywood
Angelos – Colorado
Bull Moose – Maine (9 locations)
Cheapo – Minnesota (4 locations)
Criminal Records – Atlanta
Dimple – Sacramento
Disc Exchange – Knoxville, TN
Disc N Dat – Tacoma, WA
Everyday Music – Oregon (Multiple Locations)
Ear Xtacy – Louisville, KY
Easy Street – Seattle, WA
Electric Fetus – Minneapolis / St Paul, MN (2 locations)
Fingerprints – Long Beach, CA
Graywhale – Salt Lake City, UT (7 locations)
Grimeys – Nashville, TN
Park Avenue – Orlando, FL (2 locations)
Twist And Shout – Denver, CO
Independent Records – Colorado (6 locations)
J&R – NYC
Melody Records – Washington, DC
Music Millenium – Portland, OR
Newbury Comics – New England (Mass/RI/CT)
Other Music – NYC
Rasputins – SF/Bay Area (7 locations)
Salzers – Ventura, CA
Shake It – Cincinnati, OH
Silver Platters – Seattle / Tacoma, WA (3 locations)
Sonic Boom – Washington (2 locations)
Soundgarden – Baltimore, MD
Streetlight – San Jose/Santa Cruz, CA (2 locations)
Vons – Lafayette, IN
Waterloo – Austin, TX
Zia – Arizona + las Vegas (10 locations)
A grimy mix of hip-hop, dancehall, electronic, dubstep,and pretty much anything else with chest-caving bass, Brooklyn’s Jahdan Blakkamoore is a vocalist who’s taking that pan-global headknock from neon-coated Philadelphia warehouses back to NYC, where cohort DJ/Rupture kicked this shit off almost a decade ago. It helps that he’s dragging it kicking and screaming through the streets. Blakkamoore’s Buzzrock Warrior has a hip-hop-centric noir feel that matches the darker, moodier topics it covers:…
Head over to the Village Voice blog SOUND OF THE CITY to read the feature on Jahdan and download an MP3 of “The General (Remix)” featuring Smif-N-Wessun’s General Steele.
Available now at Boomkat, eMusic, Juno, and other digital download stores, in MP3, WAV, and FLAC formats, a new release from Dutty Artz by a powerful vocalist/musician Mariana Yegros. The original track “Trocitos De Madera” produced by King Coya is followed by some extra-special remixes from DJ /rupture and Matt Shadetek, El Remolon, and Marcelo Fabian, throwing the pieces in other exciting directions, with fantastic results.
Artwork designed, and enhanced with handcrafted details, by a wonderful artist Claudia Rivas. As you can, it is absolutely beautiful. Claudia is also behind the cover of Solar Life Raft.
Just in case some dutty artz podcast subscribers haven’t gotten the new mixtape from Jahdan, here it is rendered as a single mp3-file. You should know by now, Buzzrock Warriordrops September 15th, but until then, enjoy the collection of songs and freestyles on the Bazooka Shot mixtape. Think of the tape as the album before the album, because it’s just that good. Props to all involved, the artists/producers – Shadetek, Rupture, Geko, Klash, Spoek, Nate Mars, Joker, Subatomic Sound System, and let’s not forget Moonraker International Super-Phonic Hi-Fi Field Marshall No Partial Sound System Collective! ha.
1. Jahdan Blakkamoore- More Life (All The Above instrumental)
2. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Walkie Talkie Freestyle (Digidesign riddim)
3. Jahdan Blakkamoore- The Best I Ever Had ft. 77 Klash
4. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Dem Nuh Like It ft. 77 Klash and Spoek Mathambo (produced by Matt Shadetek)
5. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Turn The Other Way (Flo Rida ‘Shone instrumental’)
6. Noble Society- Forgiveness
7. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Never Gonna Stop (produced by DJ /rupture & Matt Shadetek)
8. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Like This (Reggae Got Soul Riddim)
9. Major Lazer feat. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Cash Flow (Dutty Artz Move It Refix)
10. Jahdan Blakkamoore – How We Gonna Get There (produced by Ova Ground)
11. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Dubplate For Moonraker (skit)
12. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Bad News (Rockin’ That Shit riddim)
13. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Cali Field feat. 77 Klash
14. Lee Scratch Perry & Dubblestandart- Blackboard Jungle (Subatomic Sound System Remix feat. Jahdan Blakkamoore)
15. Nate Mars feat. Jahdan Blakkamoore- Above & Beyond Dem
Tune in Mudd Up! with DJ Rupture on WFMU tonight at 7PM, as Roberto Ernesto Gyemant aka DJ Beto, the man responsible for putting together those wonderful volumes of 1960s and ’70s “cumbia tropical & calypso funk” from Panama, joins Rupture to talk and share some incredible music (most likely some exclusives that are not included on the comps.) The compilations are released on Soundway Records. I am especially looking forward to the talk and the music Beto is going to play for us. I have been fascinated with the music of Panama ever since our visit from Wayne Marshall and Raquel Z Revera. They highlighted the unique position of the Central American country and its lasting contribution and shaping of Reggaeton and our current urban soundscape. (Missed it? It’s streaming here. Subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast if you want downloadable versions of my weekly show: , Mudd Up!RSS. Listen, get involved, throw in comments, questions. Again, tonight @ 7PM.
Of course, for those outside our FM broadcast range, WFMU offers live streaming and even has its own free iPhone app!
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