“creativity was the ability to bring to life an image or idea regardless of resources”
- Chief Boima, Interviewed by Eddie Stats
Eddie Stats has a great interview with Dutty Artz familia Chief Boima and Vamanos from Ghetto Bassquake over at his blog Ghetto Palms for the Fader (linked below). In it came the above quote which Boima mentions in the context of film theory.
I love this idea and it brings me back to a concept that I try to bash my friends and students over the head with all the time.
Creativity is what happens IN SPITE of things like equipment, time and resources. A lot of people I know cling to the idea that as soon as they get this next plug-in, keyboard, piece of software, money, time or whatever it is that they don’t currently have that they’ll be able to accomplish their creative goals.
I am sorry to report that this is absolutely not the case.
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I have to say this is one of my favorite jams at the moment. Hard Mix is 19 year-old Noah Smith, a producer from Greenville, South Carolina. Look out for his album Weirdly Different, coming out later this year.
I had a grueling fight with Windows Movie Maker last night. Wasn’t pretty. In the end, we reached a compromise, a Pyrrhic victory: I can use Microsoft’s near-useless tools to hack together video, but I cannot spice things up with animated GIFs. So this clip isn’t quite as bugged out as it’s meant to be…
That said, enjoy rare, behind-the-scenes footage from the very 1st week of Dutty Artz “radio“! Later in the episode Kayne West came in (mistaking us for an antique furniture dealership) but by then my flipcam had run out of space.
This post is cross-posted from the brand spanking new blog at mattshadetek.com. In addition to my usual stuff here at Dutty Artz I wanted a place to call my own and talk about some of my less dutty, more clean artz that I am up to. Expect a lot more wordz.
photo by the author in Flatbush, Brooklyn
I assume if you’re reading this blog that you’re someone familiar with my musical output. If not, please get familiar here at my soundcloud page.
Generally speaking I am pretty cagey about my new projects until they’re nearly done. I want to try an experiment this time in going through the process of making an album completely in public. Transparency! Throwing stones in a glass house!
My new solo instrumental album Flowers is out! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
It took me a while to get this out, longer than I’d like considering it’s on my own label but now it’s out and it feels GOOD! I love completing projects. But it’s not done! Now I have to actually sell some copies! If you or your grandma or your friends on the internet would like to support the Dutty Artz movement and contribute to the cause of me buying diapers, catfood and continuing my lavish lifestyle for me and my young family that would be great! There are many places to buy it. Here is a list:
BUY MATT SHADETEK – FLOWERS:
Boomkat:
This is probably a good option if you want FLAC or any of those non-mp3 formats.
If you buy here please write me a lavish review and give me five stars! I deserve it! If you’re browsing the store from your phone or whatever I am featured in front of the Electronic category in the USA store.
“iHop” excels as a futuristic dubstep number with its focus on strong shuffling rhythms, thick bass melodies, and soulful, pitch-shifted vocal sampling on par with UK funky’s finest” – Patric Fallon, XLR8R
“excellent throughout… It’s always possible that he just went so deep into Detroit that he arrived in Africa by mistake.” – Eddie Stats, The Fader
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Matt Shadetek – iHop
Earlier this afternoon, the good folks over at XLR8R liberated a track “iHop” from Flowers,Matt Shadetek’s first solo instrumental album which drops June 8th – just a couple of weeks from now. This will be the first time we announce the album on this blog! We’re all excited about Flowers, which is Matt’s most beautiful and light-hearted work to date. Read Patric Fallon’s review and download the tune at XLR8R.
So I know ya’ll got up on Whatagatapitusberry via the interwebs but did you do the extra credit assignment and start diggin for more tunes from Del Patio? Don’t worry about it if you didn’t, there’s always more bandwidth over at the fail blog.
Sensato and Saweso are two Bronx-based Dominican MC’s with a great ear for club music. Wayne Marshall has already contributed alot of thought on their first smash and Toy Selectah’s remix has been on a lot of DJ’s playlist in the past 6 months so I don’t need to get into the fact they have more than 4 million youtube views. They’ve been cranking out hilarious videos for their songs at at a breakneck pace and its paying off. Pitbull and Lil Jon jumped on the ‘berry remix and Voltio is on this next joint which is banging in the latin clubs in NYC and the Dominican Republic. I watched a video of some of their live performance in Puerto Rico longside the top dogs in reggeaton and their stage game is the real deal. He’re’s a new 140 bpm jawn that’s bubbling in NYC right now feat Sensato and Voltio.
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Two things I find interesting from both these guys and Los Rakas are that they let go tons and tons of music online and they both let the accapellas go out alofoke to see what happens in remixlandia. This sort of ‘Just let go’ approach is something alot of artists are scared to do and I think it shows the confidence of both duos. It takes alot of swag to say ‘my verse is dope, sit that on whatever beat you want, I’m still gonna sound fly.’
Hit up watagatapitusberry.com and alofokemusic.org and stay up on their new stuff and more artists from la republica. I’ll be here trying to get both them and Los Rakas on a track together and getting them to play at Que Bajo?! this summer.
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I really want to go out / I really want to go outside and stop to see your day You really want to hole up / You really want to stay inside and sleep the light away But I know what’s good / Exactly ’cause I have been there before…
Enjoy the sun… today!
Cults 7″ will be released 23 December 2012, but you can download it now here.
Props Pitchfork
Here are some photos from Tormenta Tropical at SXSW. I don’t have time to write a long post but suffice to say I was honored to play with all these great people and have such a great party. You are all legendary and I love you. Photos by El Subcomandante Quito, full album here.
ORION REPPING, JONES SMILING
MALUCA AND HER COOKIES GOING IN
POSE
OK WE’RE MOVING
MS MALU MCING WITH ME
NGUZUNGUZU INCITE MAD SKANKING
RAVERS
ME MAKING A MAD FACE TO NGUZUNGUZU, JUBILEE STANDING BY
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Alright, Spring is here & Miss Badu has blessed us with yet another extremely good album. I’ve returned to it already a few times this week — New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh). At first, I was unsatisfied (I had that same feeling when I heard Worldwide Underground, as if the project was unfinished/not completely realized) but for New Amerykah Part Two, with each listen, something magnificent is revealed –subtle, satiric undertones buried in samples, live instrumentation, and that voice – raw emotional honesty (+ sometimes turbulence.) I’ve said it before, if you think Erykah Badu’s music is only serious/militant/political/etc. — which it obviously is — you’re missing the point. She’s more playful, more humorous than she’s often credited for, and this album has some of the most amusing moments in R&B you’ll hear this year.
off to Knoxville’s Big Ears festival! It sports an action-packed lineup (The Ex, The xx, jj, GGD, Nico M, Joanna N, et al). I’ll be performing three times, in fairly different contexts:
a late-night dance set on Friday (with Ben Frost opening).
a Saturday afternoon set in a theater. w/ Dirty Projectors and William Basinski! Remember: a seated audience is a captive audience.
and finally, Saturday night The Ex’s guitarist, Andy Moor & I will do our improv duo performance. Here’s a nice preview writeup of my hyperactive weekend.
Sometimes Andy & I go way out. Sometimes, like here, I’ll let a beat play for awhile and we gather corners together until it feels like a song.
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“Nothing lasts forever” writes Cesar Aira, “something else always happens.” Needless to say, it sounds – is – much better in Spanish.
A side-effect of Andy playing with me is that he gets confused even more frequently with the popular British trance DJ of the same name. Eventually we’re gonna accidentally get booked to play with Tiesto, I know it.
This snippet is from a show in Orleans, France. Photos by Andy.
and this audio is from a gig we did in Holland last summer, here overlaid with an anonymous Iranian video on the eve of election protests (remember those green twitter jpgs? ah, slacktivism! ah 2009!):
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I have been somewhat of a perennial fan of Shackleton’s music (I think the first tune I heard from him was “Majestic Visions“) but for some reason, over the years I never got around to posting anything from him or his now defunct Skull Disco imprint (with co-conspirator Appleblim.) Shackleton released Three EPs on Perlon late last year. While the album (?) was somewhat of a departure, it was a brilliant one, with well constructed complex tunes free of unnecessary ornamentations. The music is not as depressive as some writers make it out to be. In fact, I actually find some of it very uplifting – Shackleton actually sampled the Christian prayer tune/song “He’s got the whole world in his hands” on one of the tracks!
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Check out this recent Q&A with Dave Segal of Seattle newspaper The Stranger – The Music of Imminent Apocalypse? – “A Feisty Q&A… with one of the world’s foremost purveyors of hauntological, deep-trauma, ethnodelic bass musick.”
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These are not not normal times. We are in the midst of another major winter storm in Brooklyn, NY (and our neighboring east coast cities and towns are witnessing/feeling the wrath of Old Man Winter.) Mala’s Deep Medi Musik released this superb 12″ from Mark Pritchard a few days ago. Side A is probably more apt for the weather (wet and heavy snow + smouldering xtra-subs = murky funk for dead bodies) but I’ve decided go with the flip because it melds many beautiful things together easily and well! It’s also warm – Tell the people of earth to be strong / You’re as heavy as stone / You are never alone…
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