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.
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.
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.
Yep, that sounds like a good enough description. DJ Chief Boima and Sogui So Good’s latest mixtape/release, Baobab Connection Vol. 2 was dropped in my inbox a while ago by Sir Boima himself (and I criminally slept hard on this one!) This is an African Union party mix set in Abidjan by my Sierra Leonean brother who’s based out in the left coast. I’m down by law to give props, yes… I’m a little biased, but really this is a very strong and elegant mix. I know this might sound like a love letter, but seriously, (I almost caught myself dancing on the subway platform the other day) the music is that good!
Chief Boima’s mix starts with our entertaining host, DJ Elembe kicking good vibes over a mellow, unspecified Congolese groove which quickly builds up and gave way to the Magic System hit “Premier Gaou”. By the time we get to Boima’s Coup Decale remixes of Kid Cudi “Day ‘N’ Nite” or D4L “Like Me Baby”, it’s a wrap! Boima continue with his versions and refixes, and Sogui So Good picks up right where Boima left and proceeding to drop straight dance floor pleasing jams that will make the staunchest African two-stepper actually shake his bones, rather than just sway from side to side. Alright, enough talk, check out some cuts from Boima’s set below & peep this Ghetto Bassquake conversation.
Matt Shadetek sez: Everyone welcome Mode Raw to the DA blog, he’s gonna be popping his head up and dropping some jewels on us, like this one below. Background: Besides doing almost all the graphic design for all the previous Shadetek records, mixtapes, etc, teaching me how to DJ, use photoshop and always, always telling me to my face he didn’t like a tune I’d made when he felt it was necessary D and I have been homies for literally about 20 years. We went to nursery school together! (this is not hyperbole, exaggeration or lying, but instead the literal gospel truth.) He continues to open my ears to the new lava with this crazy hot mixtape, don’t let his understated description fool you: this shit is nuts. For those with fragile psyche’s, be forewarned, this is un-remitting satanic gun-man darkness with Kartel, Aidonia and crew engaged in the never ending struggle to find new and more EVIL ways to sing about fucking and killing (”Rise di rifle like my penis”). Worth downloading in it’s entirety if only for the vicious Munga disses from Aidonia and Deva Bratt. Donia linked individually in the flash player below Deva’s “Pon The Nazzle” in the zip file disses Munga’s heavy use of vocal pitch correction software auto-tune saying “Dem rising to the top but fall so soon/… Cuz stage show no carry no auto-tune”. Mad.
I found this comp while listening to tunes on Kartel’s myspace. I had never heard of Junior Snypa but he is doing it with this tape, which is more reminiscent of a canal st mixtape or street album than a straight-forward juggling session. Rather than lining up large blocks of big riddims, voiced by everyone in the scene, the selection is built around a handful of vocalists over mostly B-side productions. Kartel, Aidonia, Black Rhino and Deva Brat do the business over a gang of lo-fi, grimey riddims on the slower end of the spectrum, turning out the kind of auto-tune gun ballads that have been raining down on the world from stephen big ship’s lab for the last year or so. Recommended.
Summer in Nueva York is gettin all kindsa caliente. Dutty Artz next dance is at Glasslands in Billyburg….. JUNE 6. If you still cant get your head around what this New York Tropical thing sounds like here’s a link to my set on WFMU’sNickel and Dime Radio show with Mr Poquito Cambio himself….$mall Change
Radio set tracklist below for the watchers. - gex
Geko Jones live on the air session WFMU 4/29/08
Brooklyn Cumbia - Uproot Andy (unreleased)(BK)
Mateina - Frikstailers vs Lean Like a Cholo - Kilo(gexondex)(Cordoba,Cali,Rajistan)
Brooklyn Anthem-Ghis Poirier rmx -Team Shadetek (BLN, BK, T.O.) (Unreleased)
So Pa dodo- Dj 2Pekes (Angola)
El Ejen- Maki Afri-k (FRANCE??)
Almighty Father- Warrior Queen (UK)
Party in the Park (Marcus Visionary, TORONTO) (unreleased)
Boi de Cara Breta - Stereotyp ft Fefe (VIENNA, BRAZIL)
GRRR-Homeboy Sandman (dubplate) (QBoro-BK)
Grizzly- Bass Nacho (dubplate) (JA,MIA,BK)
Stamp Ya feet - Filewile Baby Chann (SWZ/UK)
Up There- Al Haca Stereotyp Daddy Freddy (Vienna)
Me mobile- Sinden and Jesse (UK)
Kunuaka- Makossa & Megablast (Vienna)
Pon Time- Stereotyp & Jahdan Blakkamoore (Vienna/Brooklyn)
Warlord’s Daughter (Max Ulis)- Lexie Lee (Vancouver/JA)
How I Ride- Baby Cham (JA)
1er Gaou -Magic System (Ivory Coast)
Merengue Mix- DJ Prako (Suriname/Netherlands)
No te Me despues mas- Tatico (Domincan Republic)
Eres Para Mi (Sonido Nacional rmx)- Julieta Venegas (MX/COLOMBIA)
Cumbia de Obama - Fosforo (Cali)
El Trompo- Electro 7 (Cuba)
He got the sound (zuzuku rmx) - Candice Cannabis
Doctors Orders (Fuego Mix)- Gregory Issacs/Funkworthy FM (dublate)
She Told Me -Noble Society- (Brooklyn)
Antillas- El Guincho (Canary Islands)
“When voicing a riddim, artists are usually paid a flat fee by producers, not royalties, regardless of how well their song sells. Instead they make their fortunes from live performances and the recording of dubplates - custom versions of big hits calling out the name of a specific selector or sound system that are then played at dances or competitive sound clashes. The more in demand the artist or song, the more these dubplates cost, and with professional DJ teams around the world hungry for exclusive tracks, it’s a lucrative trade for top-tier performers. It is, in fact, the producers who are finding themselves cut out of reggae’s economic loop.”
I use all-caps because that’s how he talks, and this is what Funkmaster Flex said on the radio tonite, during one of his arrogant flawless radio DJ mix moments:
“NOBODY HAS MORE RECORDS NEW YORK. YOU HEAR THAT? I GOT A MILLION AND A HALF. IM TAKING THE SERATO THING TO THE NEXT LEVEL.”
“LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN TO ME NEW YORK, OK? IM IN THE NINETIES STRONG. IM NOT IN THE 90S IN SOME MTV VIDEOS OR SOME VH1 NONSENSE. We ain’t commercialed out, its not what it is today. I did not come up here to play Hammer and Young MC. Its not what it is. That’s not what represents the 90s to me, ok? There’s nothing happy about the 90s, alright? NO EXTRA SMILING. OK? This is real hardcore, PEOPLE WERE MAKING RECORDS BECAUSE THEY WAS HYPED.”
EDIT:
MATT SHADETEk chimes in:
Yo, I just have to say, wow.I have not had this much fun listening to radio in a while.Big ups to rupture for posting this and funk flex for doing it.This is only iller considering what he has been playing lately.
Straight techno-pop, (like timbalands “Way I Are”, wicked), with shouting, impeccable beat juggling and MAD ENERGY SON!To have him go back into the crates of my own NYC adolescence is just…Spine tingling.This is one of the reasons I had such a hard time (and failed) staying in Europe.When I’m in NYC and Funk Flex is yelling down the radio and looping the beginning of a record he likes again and again I just feel, for lack of a better word, home.They sound old, dusty and anachronistic now but only a limited number of people on earth know what some of these nineties hip-hop records mean to me, to us.How HYPE we used to get about this stuff, stuff like Boot Camp Click, Smif N Wessun, Brand Nubian, Black Sheep and Nice and Smooth.Funkmaster Flex knows.Put your hands up for New York.I love my city.
PS: also, he drew for high pitched “Go flex!” intro. Who knows!?!
At night, when the big advertisers go away, NYC-area radio gets really good.
The stations that are satured with depressing, attention-grabbing ads for the army, “debt relief” usury, and McDonalds during the daytime… well, at night those ads dont go away, they widen to include Viagra-type ads. But they happen less frequently.
And between them unfolds incredible, alive radio. Some moments are great because of the music they play and others are great because of how live they make it all. The best combine both of these with technically virtuoso hiphop DJing. I’m convinced they edit it in advance because i’ve never once heard a mistake or an off-beat blend, it’s that good. We didn’t get any of that perfectionist Manhattan turntablism tonite, but it was bumpin nonetheless. Here’s what i heard:
This is EXACTLY what New York City sounds like right now. Midnite to 3AMish? I’m skipping around stations, but La Kalle and Hot 97 are well-represented, and the weird stuff at the end is WFMU. Recorded onto a flagging harddrive from one of those cd-cassette units that resemble the head of a praying mantis or ant.
clean music rubs right off - the dutty stuff stains
