Yes, Dutty Artz is a recording label with actual (and digital) records in stores, tremendously talented musicians, one extremely dedicated operative, and supporters.

Here’s a tune from DUTTY REMIX ZERO which is still fresh in the stores. This remix is great, but you should really hear SHADETEk’s “Can’t Breathe” remix.

Cauto - Bona Vida

Rupture and JahDan are in the middle of their UK trek. If you are in the area, go and see them! Something wonderful happens when these two are together. Check DATV001 for proof.

(pic by Sr Atlantico)

We also got teh mixes -

Geko Jones New York Tropical; live on WFMU is still up + popping.

Taliesin got some dark dark dark for ya… Well, it ain’t so dark, but it is.

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.

Steve Gurley Mix

***

And now some pictures from last Friday.

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.

Maga Bo, author of Archipelagoes —a monster I can’t find the words to describe—, here manning the controls at the bottom of a bluest ocean with weird fishes and creatures swimming over his head and around him, while at the same time modeling tee shirts by designer Ghislain Poirier. Oh, Big Poppa Ghis (© Rupture), thanx 4 D Gros Beats. One beer wasn’t enough.

(I don’t have a single picture of Matthew Shadetek for some reason, and the man wasn’t scarce either. I apologize for that.)

And the people, the people, the party people…

Yes, lady on the left can shake it like a salt shaker.

My, my.. dazzling, beautiful brown eyes…

Go ladies.. all you stereotype ladies

Getting hazy and sweaty right about here.

Goodnight.

This has been floating around for a little while…

Courtesy of Versetti

I recently came across a slew of grime mixtapes/street albums, or should we call them road albums? In less than two weeks, I had about a dozen new mixtapes in my HD, not having enough time or attention to really listen to all the materials—ranging from artists such as Ghetto, Riko, Ears, Killa P, Jammer, Kano, Trim, and the not so grime, but definitely grimey garage crew Road Side Gees.

Jammer - Intro (to Are You Dumb, Vol. 3)

Produced by Rude Kid

Pre-album fire from a grime luminary. I feel funny about calling Jammer grime, now - especially after he states in that intro, “I make music, F grime / I make music, F crime / I’m not a lame, man, F a nine…”?

$$$

Ghetto - Mountain

Produced by Lewi White & Smasher

This one is off Ghetto’s new mixtape Freedom of Speech. Ghetto goes hard. Looking forward to his album.

I’m happy to say that it seems Grime fans are finally starting to dance again, and not just some random jumping around and gun-fingering but some real deal dancehall-style organized named dances with steps. They’ve still got a ways to go but I’m calling it a powerful positive step in the right direction. Unsurprisingly champion skanker Skepta is at the lead of the charge with his tune “Do The Rolex Sweep”. It seems this whole Grimey Electro thing is kinda popping off, I think it’s great. I’m glad the grime kids are not standing still and letting Funky eat their lunch after building up the thing for years now. The tune is clearly a response to Wiley’s “Wearing My Rolex” (featured below) so unsurprisingly Wiley is at the head of a major development in Grime, again. Big up the whole Boy Better Know camp for keeping the game flipping and coming through with another periodic fun injection to the scene. Check out more vids here.

Also, very unrelatedly Lamin sent me a wicked XLR8R interview with Bun B after I mentioned him earlier, thanks! There’s also these excerpts where he talks about some more general stuff, which are also great.

A few days ago I came across the Grime encyclopedia, an excellent resource for anyone interested in the music. You are free to look around and find what you like, but they offer links to the most popular pages, to the leaders in the field. Topnotch Grime DJ Logan Sama, who has a legal grime radio show on Kiss 100, offers free rips of tracks from his show. Hmm.. there’s also a wider array of free downloads here.

Doctor - Rise The Temprature (Produced by Cotti) (Logan Sama Grimepedia rip)

I’ve had this tiny tune here on repeat for days.

Martin Clark wrote about Doctor and his yard roots in his montly Grime/Dubstep column for Pitchfork in 2005;

“Take Doctor. for example. Save Skepta, he’s probably the hottest MC on road right now. Accepted by the East MC camp, he’s a talented South London lyricist with a distinctive enough voice to put him in Trim or Kano’s league. The difference between Doctor and those others, however, is that he makes a feature of his yard roots[Flowing like you’re from “yard” usually means you’re black with Jamaican heritage]. He regularly switches from London chat to Jamaican slang and back, most prominently “Gotta Man?”.”

I love this tune. Wiley & Bless Beats doing electro-house. Not much to say, just listen, drink, dance, bubble.

I’ll definitely play this at the Dutty Artz Tropical Dance next Friday (3/21) in Williamsburg at Glasslands, so get ready. I’ve been pondering what I am gonna play and I think among a few select things like this made by other people I am gonna go hard on my own material, which I haven’t done in a while. Want to hear what’s coming out the lab this year? Come listen. We’re doing two sets each, warm up and prime time, so there’s room for a range of stuff to get played. I’m happy about this because really, who wants to listen to the promoters cousin and 900 opening djs you’ve never heard of? Definitely not me. I can play for two hours easy, why would I even want anyone else playing at my party? I’ll probably play reggae early and shadetek bangers, grime, dancehall, dutty beats late.  And yes, I know there are 10 million other parties that night in NYC, and good ones too, but ours is dirty and cheap so after you pay your 6 bucks you can actually afford to buy a few drinks and make some fun mistakes on a friday night, like you’re supposed to.

AMBUSH CREW CRAZIEST RIDDIM:

You thought I was joking when I said Brooklyn Anthem will not die. Well, after getting rinsed on the underground throughout the world and going mainstream through placement on Madden ‘08 it’s now crossed over to the Brooklyn teen bashment dance scene, which is popping off on Youtube. To be totally honest, I had no idea this was happening. Klash just sent me a mail with about 40 youtube links of kids dancing to my tune. Big up to Island Superia sound for playing it and promoting their edit of the riddim. If you want to hear a clip of it with Cypha Soundz talking over it about their big teen dance on Mar 1st go to their myspace and play “March 1st Sea Breeze Manor” or check DJ Mountain Doo’s myspace.

My original name for it was the “718 Riddim” but everybody always just called it the “Brooklyn Instro”. Now these kids are calling it the “Craziest” and I like that. I figure it’s a good name for a riddim that just will not stop.

Now, the dancers:

{check the Dutty Artz Youtube Channel for many more of these, this is just four of them}
SELL OFF FAMILY:

FORENZICK DANCERS:

GET MADD TV:

This is a video, by Bashy, from a couple years ago of him just talking to Wiley on road in London. They’re basically just chatting about this and that, grime, the war they had, etc. The content is not actually what’s interesting. More it’s a view into Wiley as a person, which is what makes him so compelling as an artist. I met him once and he was polite and friendly, but I definitely wouldn’t say that I know him like that. That said, from listening to his avalanche of mixtapes I feel like I know him, his struggles, happinesses, scars. He seems like a genuinely likeable person and this makes me want to spend time with him through his music. Few people can do this. This video is a little window into that. Here his new “spirit in the beat” over at Rupture’s blog.

DATV is very proud to present DATV#003: Dexplicit at Trouble & Bass. T&B brought Dexplicit to play at Love in NYC and we were there to film the mayhem. It was a great party. Dex ripped it up with a banging set of bassline/niche tunes, the T&B crew dropped their own blend of 4×4, dubstep, club hotness whatever (not quite sure what to call what they’re playing nowadays) and the ravers LOVED IT UP. A couple days later me and Rupture met up with Dex and Star Eyes for some shopping and an interview. Check it:

Dex is a great guy and was very cool to talk to, he had a lot of interesting stuff to say. We had to cut it way down to keep the piece moving but for the hardcore heads who want to hear EVERYTHING he had to say you will be able to catch the full version on the DATV DVD later this year. The video starts with a killer Dexplicit remix of DTL alter ego Curses! “What I Need” that will be out soon on Trouble & Bass. Check their website for more info on releases, parties etc.

Big shouts to the whole Trouble and Bass crew, Drop The Lime, Star Eyes, Math Head, The Captain and my boy Zack Shadetek, Dexplicit, the photographer who goes by Madaes on flickr (wicked pictures bro) and all the ravers who were there raving. More DATV episodes coming soon, we’ve been having fun making ‘em, keep watching.

AND if you’ve been listening to Rupture’s radio show you may heard the excellent “Language Removal Services” piece played by his guest, poet Caroline Bergvall, in which they take people reading or speaking and remove everything but the silences between words, umm, uhh, ehhs, etc. Inspired, DJ Empirical went and made one out of the show where Rupture broadcast a longer version of our Dexplicit interview as audio. Want to listen to Jace and Dex umm and ehh and wow for a bit? Here, now you can. It’s pretty funny, and wierd. The show is now podcasting here, and you can also check out the WICKED mix that Dex did for the show, broadcast the week before he appeared.

A big shout out to Diplo for showing my riddim “Mad Again” a lot of love on his Mad Decent blog. The tune is with 77Klash spitting and dancehall legend Johnny Osbourne on the chorus. For those of you who’ve heard it on myspace now’s your chance to grab it on an exclusive preview download.

Move quickly because I’m not sure how long it’ll be up there for DL. Wierdly he’s got a different tune called Mad Again coming out on his label with among others a remix from my boy Drop The Lime, great minds think alike I guess.

Watch out for the tune coming soon on the Iron Shirt mixtape as well as on 77Klash’s Code Fi Di Streets EP.

I remember the first time I heard slowed down, or screwed music. I
was in an old lincoln towncar, driving through Orlando, FL with a dude
named Cleon. It was hot as hell, and me and some guys from NY were
down there shooting a no budget gangster flick. We shot in the hotel
we were sleeping two to a bed in and used real guns for ‘props’.
Driving around during the day in the heat Cleon would play these
slowed down CDs that this dude Pookie Duke (who was also acting in the
film) would make using a cassette machine and a CD burner. Anything
was fair game, erika badu (sounding like a man talking about tyrone
slowed down, yikes), michael jackson, and lots and lots of southern
rap that I had never heard of. Usually just bare drum machine beats
and people saying violence. Slowed down, high out of my mind as I was
most of that week, in that heat, it sounded absolutely satanic. I
asked Cleon about it and he explained: “Well, during the day, when
you’re driving, you listen to the slowed down one. Then at night at
the club you listen to the fast one. But boy, if that DJ in the club
played the slowed down, he would have a riot. People would just get
TOO crunk.” I went to that club (still cant remember the name) and I
could see what he meant. Certain songs couldn’t get played halfway
through, even at regular speed. People would get too hype and start
fighting. Sort of like grime raves in the UK, and why they banned
“Pow”. But after hearing that stuff, and how demonic it was, I
couldn’t get the slowed down idea out of my head. Afterwards I
learned about DJ Screw and the whole codeinated Houston slowed down
scene, and got pretty into that. My two favorite from that style if
you’re looking for something to check are the S.L.A.B. - The Anthem
album slowed down, and David Banner’s first album slowed down by Michael 5000 Watts (jpeg on link is wrong but tracklist is right).

The slowed down hook has now become a staple of American commercial
rap, and lately some American Dubstep producers have started using
slowed down voices in their tracks too. I was out at Dub War and
heard some of these played and decided to make one of my own. I
picked one of my most favorite songs of all time, Mobb Deep’s “Shook
Ones”. I originally just wanted to use the acapella phrase that my track starts with.

“I’m only 19 but my mind is old and when things get for real my warm
heart turns cold”

I was gonna take that, make that a hook and give it to one of my 19
year old grime mc friends in London. But then I got bored with that
idea and felt that the drop wasn’t quite hard or deep enough and just
decided to sample the whole chorus, slowed down, with the beat in
there, and give the track a bit more of a opiated houston vibe. The results
are here, in 320 mp3 format.

Download it, play it, voice on it, do whatever you want with it.

It’s a big bait illegal sample so you’ll have a hard time making money with it, plus I just don’t care that much.

Lately I’ve been pretty down on the whole music industry, and
especially making money inside it. It’s kind of pathetic. Some
people I know fight and struggle so hard to make a living from music,
and I did that for a few years too. Now that I’m back in NYC though I
make non-music money, and it’s so easy compared to music it’s like a
bad joke. And because I’m not putting economic pressure on my music,
I’ve been enjoying making music again. It’s kind of a fucked up. The
most fucked up part about it is, considering the amount of money most
people I know make selling copies of their music (cd, vinyl, mp3,
whatever), it’s basically not even worth it. The only money worth
making is performance money, and the occasional license to TV or a
video game, and for those reasons it may actually turn out that giving
away all your music for free on the internet will actually make you
MORE money. Hopefully the whole industry will collapse in one final
fit of coked up executive self-defeatery very soon and we, the
artists, will be able to figure out some new way that actually works
for us economically. My best idea so far is something like the TV
tax in the UK. Everything is free on the internet (like it already
is) and iff you own a computer or mp3 player you pay a yearly tax to
the government and they pay publishing money to the artists. Either
that or build that tax into mp3 players and internet service charges.
iPods for example, have been making Apple a SHITLOAD of money based on
the non-advertised idea that the player is expensive, but the music is
free. I want some of that money Steve Jobbs.