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Lil Wayne announced the official release date and title of his next album: Rebirth is due April 7 — and his publicist has confirmed that it will be a rock album. Of course, Wayne has been rocking with a guitar for some time now.The first single is called “Prom Queen” and will debut on the Internet right after a live stream of his concert in San Diego on January 27. The show will be available for stream on MySpace.com.

There, for those of us who have been waiting for the next likkle wayne nooz. You can thank The NMC for this pretty little leak – you don’t have to wait one more day for the song to debut, here it is loaded with tags and all, autotune-rock from New Orleans own & the best rapper alive –

[audio:http://studentweb.hunter.cuny.edu/students/lfofana/LilWayne-PromQueen.mp3]

Lil Wayne – Prom Queen

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Tune in Mudd Up! with DJ Rupture tonight 7-8PM EST, WFMU.org or 91.1 FM if you’re in NYC to catch Dutty Artz ambassador and crate digger extraordinaire Geko Jones live on Rupture’s radio.  Listen, dance, drop some comments. WFMU cut and paste below –

Latin/Caribbean music expert & DJ Geko Jones will be joining Rupture. The Colombian-Puerto Rican digger will share with us some of his latest finds from the cutting edge of tropical soundsystem and street music culture, from Mexican tribal guarachero to freshly made ragga-bass mutations and Afro-Colombian soul gems. A deep live mix from Geko Jones — ¡¡No te lo pierdas!!

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Pic flickred here.

The Qemists feat. Wiley – Dem Na Like Me (King Cannibal Remix)
[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/TheQemistsKingCannibalWiley-DemNaLikeMe.mp3]

I heard this on Mary Anne Hobbs sometime in December. The mp3 surfaced early this month, and automagically appeared on my HD.  Shout out to whoever liberated it. Wiley is a pioneer and he is great, but the star here is King Cannibal – check for him! Head over to the Qemists myspace to listen to the original and other mixes.

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Filastine is currently wrapping up an Australian tour w/ Maga Bo and gearing up for a series of European dates.  His new album, Dirty Bomb comes out next month on Soot (US/UK), Uber Lingua (Australia), Post World Industries (digital), Jarring Effects (France), and ROMZ (Japan). Hot, sizzling beats to tear down systems of authority, break regulated, logical frameworks, overthrow the world, create/imagine something else.  Yes, it’s a very inspiring and raw record you need to get your ears around.  Filastine is one of the few producers who can actually build coherence by cutting up and juxtaposing voices and noise, creating spark and astonishment thru sound collage.  In addition to being an incredible artist, he’s a great blogger, here, detailing his routes, travels, and telling the stories behind the songs on his new album.  Check out this excerpt from a recent post about the creation of the track “Hungry Ghosts”:

I developed this track over a few weeks in Kyoto, staying in the house of Shimizu (guitarist of post-rock band Soft). It’s the kind of old kyoto house made mostly of paper and thin wood, where someone of my height must duck at all times.

On my way to Tokyo to record ECD and fly to the United States, I detoured via a series of trains and small buses to arrive in a mountain village. From there I walked up a path through the forest for a few hours to arrive at the hot springs frequented by a pack of wild monkeys.
There i stripped naked to sit in a hot pool, with curious monkeys gazing on. Later I went to stare at them in their preferred pools. After a few hours of this I hiked down to the small bus, then small trains, then a shinkansen bullet train that took me into central tokyo, changing to a few metro lines and arriving in Shinjuku financial district, the odd location of Irregular Rhythm Asylum, Japan’s anarchist/activist infohub.

Filastine – Hungry Chosts (Feat. Wire MC & ECD)

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Filastine-HungryGhosts.mp3]

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Former backup dancer for Brenda Fassie and Kwaito pioneer Arthur Mafokate asked in a two page document “am I the king of Kwaito?” He allegedly proceeded to answer the question and justify his position as king of the South African dance music. That document is nowhere to be found.  Check this interview from ’03. “Oyi Oyi” is one of his big hits from the late 90s.  I found it on South African Rhythm Riot: The Indestructible Beat Of Soweto Volume 6, which also contains some classic Brenda Fassie tracks.

Arthur – Oyi Oyi
[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Arthur-OyiOyi.mp3]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PwH1U5s6bU[/youtube]

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G-Side – Run Thingz

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/GSide-RunThingz.mp3]

G-Side‘s Starshipz and Rocketz, a fourth quarter release from an independent label in Huntsville, Alabama ~ Slowmotion Soundz ~ is without question one of the greatest misses of 2008.  Produced by Block Beataz (think Organized Noize, UGK, Three 6), don’t let the Afrofuturist/”Afronaut” title mislead you,  the album is down to earth, cohesive, remarkable, unpredictable and exciting.  Read Andrew Noz’s review here.

Why is the duo’s name missing from the album cover? It only has the record label and the album title, as in “Slowmotion Soundz presents Starshipz and Rocketz” prompting Amazon to call the group Starshipz and Rocketz. CD Baby got it right.  Can someone please help identify that sample? I’ve noticed samples on the album ranging from Enya to Isaac Hayes.

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The days between Xmas and New Year’s are good days, always.  Here in Alexandria, VA, I went to a naming ceremony (Sierra Leonean/Islamic style, culture and religion) for one of my uncle’s children, a beautiful baby girl named Fatima, which is the name of her great grandmother.

Sierra Leoneans are party people (okay, maybe not as much as Jamaicans, but nevertheless Salone people party hard too) so after all the formalities with the imam, the old men and women, the soundsystem was turned on, & the disc in the system Best Of Africa, Vol. 1 – a fantastic party compilation, containing a series of mini-mixes plus a few original songs by one Sierra Leonean artist, whose name is shouted, reverberated, and unclear.  The CD booklet and case are nowhere to be found, but from what I can make out (and I might be completely wrong here), the DJ is Ousmane Sayyid and the singer is Succulent The Bug.  Here’s the opening mix, with the first/title track performed by Succulent.

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/TumbaMix.mp3]
Tumba Mix

“And in fact, my love for you is like a water with many fishes…”

The comp is buyable here.

Look below for  Sierra Leone autotune tumba worship music (via youtube)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3K8BM8BkXE[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCmgPHoJcjU[/youtube]

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I don’t know what part of the map you are, and I have no idea what Mohammed Issa Matona (and his backup singers) are singing about on the closing track of Maga Bo‘s Archipelagoes, but I can listen to it for days. It is truly something sublime, something to heat our spirits in this cold, cold wintery blast. Six minutes is really not enough, but it’s all we get & we appreciate it.

Maga Bo – Beni (featuring Mohammed Issa Matona)

Look for Maga Bo dates in Australia and Europe this December and January, one extra special date with his Sonar Calibrado partner Filastine @ Peats  Ridge Festival in New South Wales, Aus.

PS – For those of us lacking knowledge in East African music, Sir Ruptcha recommends this – & a quick historical look at Tanzanian music from Afropop.

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Pirates hijacking large shipping vessels on the Somali coast and in the Gulf of Aden is a top news item this year, especially after the takeover of Saudi-owned Sirius Star which was carrying two million barrels of oil bound for the U.S.   Most recently, the news has been about combating and taking steps to “crack down” and “curb” this problem of piracy, which has been going on since the early ’90s, at the start of the country’s civil war.

There is always two or more sides to a story.  From what I understand, the region the Chinese are planning to control is so incredibly vast that military action will, without a doubt, prove ineffective.  Depressing economic situation and a lack of a central government are only two of the forces pushing young men in “cash-strapped, hungry Somalia” to piracy. What happens when life on land becomes unlivable, chaotic, poverty-stricken, when there is no work, no income?  Desperate people look towards the sea…

Check the new video from Mogadishu born, Ontario based emcee, K’naan, who recorded his entire album in Kingston, JA, thanks to his friends Stephen and Damian Marley who granted him access to their late father’s recording studio>>>

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lCPXEARpE8[/youtube]