Come check out me and @mr_blakkamoore at this last minute joint tomorrow night in Williamsburg at Zebulon. The flier is extra crazy (gives me myspace nostalgia in the best possible way) and so I’m guessing the party should be good. It’s us and Yacouba Sissoko who is a master kora player from Mali.
Blog (2008-2018)
ANTI-IMMIGRANT SENTIMENT
Normally I delete all the boring press releases I get in my email but this one caught my eye and I thought the readership here might enjoy it. Â Nice to see that the indigenous people in this country still have a sense of humor after centuries of genocide, mis-appropriation of tribal funds and general attempts to erase their nations, culture and selves.
For immediate release: Contact: Kerry Birnbach: 212-825-0028, ext. 212
April 1, 2010 kbirnbach@nyccah.org
Iroquois Leaders Assail Government Benefits for Illegal Immigrants;
Say Aid Should Be Denied to Anyone Entering U.S. in Last 25,000 Years
Tribal Leaders Blast “Broken Borders” that Allowed in Dobbs, Levy, Buchanan
Leaders of the five Native American nations that comprise the Iroquois League – comprised of the Mohawk , Oneida , Onondaga , Cayuga , and Seneca peoples – issued a joint statement today declaring anyone who entered the country without their permission after members of the League arrived (here between 25,000 and 60,000 years ago) to be an illegal alien who should be denied all government benefits as a first steps towards deportation. Under the proposed rules, approximately 98 percent of the current U.S. population could be considered illegal immigrants.
Said the statement, “Since we granted no permission for outsiders to enter the country after 23,000 B.C., anyone who did so is an illegal alien and should no longer be able to receive government welfare payments in the form of corporate agriculture subsidies, tax credits for stadium-building, mortgage interest deductions for vacation homes, or food stamp benefits. In the meantime, if they cannot speak any of the Iroquoian langauges, such as Mohawk, they should leave. People should simply accept that America always was, and always will be, an Indian Nation, and must wake up and realize the existential threat posed to our very existence by the broken borders that allowed in Lou Dobbs, Steve Levy, and Pat Buchanan. The only thing sadder to us than watching trash litter the landscape is watching people were immigrants themselves slamming other immigrants.”
Human beings originated in Olduvai Gorge (in present day Tanzania) about 2.5 million years ago. Kikuya tribal leaders from that area responded to the Iroquois in a statement today that said: “We believe that the Iroquois are illegal emigrants. Since they left our land 2.5 million years ago without our permission, they really have no right to be in North America either.”
In a related development, 10,000 angry Tea Partying Medicare recipients protested against themselves today, demanding that “government health care keep its grubby hands off our government health care.” Said one protestor, “I simply hate myself for benefiting from a program that proves that everything I stand for is flat-out wrong.”
MATT SHADETEK & JAHDAN AT SXSW
Me and Jahdan are heading down to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas this year to do a few showcases and gigs. We’ll be there hanging out for a few days as well so if you want to meet up get in touch! I definitely recommend Tormenta Tropical as practically the whole Dutty Artz fam including Me, JD, Geko Jones, Uproot Andy, Chief Boima and Taliesin will be performing across the two nights along with a lot of other great people. I’ll be at the Dubspot booth all day Thursday helping out there if you want to come check me and I’ll be at the Warper party playing at 7PM on Friday.
COUCH SESSIONS
JAHDAN BLAKKAMOORE & MATT SHADETEK
Wed Mar. 17 we play @ 9PM
Speakeasy 412 Congress Ave, Austin TX
RSVP: www.tinyurl.com/sxswwed
TORMENTA TROPICAL
Part 1: JAHDAN BLAKKAMOORE & MATT SHADETEK
Wednesday Mar. 17th from 12:30AM-1:00AM
Part 2: MATT SHADETEK
Thursday Mar. 18th 10PM – 11PM
Venue: Iron Gate 1111 EAST 6th St. Austin, TX
WARPER
MATT SHADETEK
Friday Mar. 19th 7PM
Venue: Rabbits Lounge 1816 E. 6th Street Austin, TX
MUTATE AND TURN LIKE AKIRA
New heat from 77Klash produced by Drop The Lime. Klash is going in on some deep anti-nuclear annhilation lyrics over a cool dubstep/wobble house beat by Mr. Venezia. Look out for the “Shadow of Death EP” coming soon on Trouble & Bass Records, I’m interested to hear what they come up with.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttMx09sbeUU[/youtube]
PRODUCTION SPEED DATING
Me, Berlin, March 2004.
Lately over at Dubspot I’ve taken on an expanded role beyond my normal teaching in the form of producing some materials for them in the form of articles and soon some tutorial videos. The first article is up on their blog and is about a concept I learned from Timeblind which he calls Speed Dating. It’s a method for improving your production workflow and I thought producers who read this blog might find it helpful.
OCEANS OF BLOOD
Tomorrow I’ll be DJing at a benefit show along with DJ Small Change for an art project which two of my long time friends, including former collaborator Zack Shadetek have been working on. The show is a benefit to raise money for Swimming Cities trip down the Ganges river in India.
From the press release:
Taking a new waterway each year our projects create a vivid community of artists floating into towns to present an interactive environment which encompasses art, sculpture, music and performance. The uncommon talents of our members interact in an organic design process in a unique form of living art. Our previous projects include THE SWIMMING CITIES OF SWITCHBACK SEA on the Hudson River for Deitch Projects and THE SWIMMING CITIES OF SERENISSIMA across the Adriatic Sea for the Venice Biennale.
Basically they build these crazy ass art-boats and float them down various rivers while living on them and doing performances and freaking people out. There are a bunch of good artists, many who are also friends who will be having a silent auction of donated works to raise funding for the project. And there’s an open bar.
FRIDAY MARCH 05
56 Walker St, Tribeca
7pm-1am, $10 Door, Open Bar
DJs Small Change and Shadetek
NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXIwQR1v-ds[/youtube]Big tune from Wiley’s forthcoming album. The beat is by Shy FX which apparently was a remix that became the main mix. Very nice house/old school hiphop something or other vibes. Wiley in top form as always, picked up from Marcus Visionary’s blog where there’s lots of other good stuff.
BUZZROCK WARRIOR LIVE IN COLOGNE
Big shout out to the people from Tunes on Bunch.TV, they put together this very nice concert film of Jahdan and myself, Matt Shadetek, performing at the Stadtgarten in Cologne. It was the first night it had really snowed on the tour and I remember we ended up having to walk back to the hotel with our stuff after trying to get a cab for about 45 minutes through the streets full of wasted people who had all just gotten out of various clubs and bars into the new snow. Big shoutout to Uh-Young Kim who put the show on and all the people who braved the elements to come rock with us, we had a great time.
ALSO me and Jahdan are planning to come back out to Europe in June, if you’d like to have us play in your town get in touch via bookings AT duttyartz DOTT com.
ROOT AND BRANCH
This just landed in my inbox, a big dubstep mix of a new dub tune by foundation artist U-Roy produced by Dub Gabriel. Ming of Ming & FS and Subatomic Sound System teamed up on the remix and it sounds tuff, downloadable below. There’s also a cool little video with Ming and Emch of Subatomic talking about the process of making the remix and breaking down the remixing process, talking some arranging science for dancefloors and more, always cool to see people pulling back the curtain and helping to share the knowledge.
Dub Gabriel feat. U Roy-Luv n’ Liv ( Ming vs. Subatomic Sound System Remix)-FREE DOWNLOAD!!! by DESTROY ALL CONCEPTS
Friend of Dutty Artz Timeblind also turned in a mix which is a little deeper (as you will expect by now if you know the man) and very nice but not downloadable, you’ll have to buy that one.
Dub Gabriel feat. U Roy-Luv n’ Liv ( Timeblind Remix) by DESTROY ALL CONCEPTS
IT’S AN ENJOYMENT
[vimeo width=”524″ height=”393″]http://vimeo.com/9238362[/vimeo]
The people from local NY PBS TV show ‘New York On The Clock‘ came and filmed a show that Jahdan and I did a few months back at Public Assembly along with a short but informative interview with Jahdan.
THINGS I DO
Photo by Clair Lim, at my Logic class at Dubspot.
For those that follow this site you’re probably familiar with some of the things I do, like produce, dj, make records etc. Lately I’ve been doing some new things though, and I figure they’re worth mentioning here because some of you might be into them. The first I’ve mentioned before which is teaching at Dubspot. I love Dubspot, it’s a great place with a great group of people involved. I’ve been there for a bit over a year now and I really enjoy it. I’ve met a lot of great people there, students and instructors and it’s helped me to realize that I really like teaching music. I teach the production in Logic class there where I basically teach people how to operate Logic, the main program I use to make all my stuff, but I also teach the broad strokes of my own low-tek Hi-Fi production ideology. Basically the idea is that it’s not about expensive equipment or perfect anything but more about wading in, getting your hands dirty and having fun making something, which I preach and practice. I teach Logic in small groups of 4-8 people, usually once or twice a week at Dubspot. As a result of the class I’ve developed relationships with some of my students and continued teaching them in private lessons which are basically us working on their tracks together, solving problems, and talking things through.
One of the reasons I really like teaching and helping people produce is that I’ve spent about ten years now developing a pretty specific niche of skills, basically how to produce weird bassy dance-ish music, and it’s great to be able to share that knowledge, guide people away from the pitfalls and cliffs of the learning curve and point them in the right direction. Mainly because people just get so happy when they finally get how to do something that they really wanted to do.
More recently I’ve had a few people approach me to do this but without the teaching component, which has turned into people hiring me to go to their studios and help to finish their tracks, which I’m really enjoying as well, and have decided I’d like to do more of. So, if you’re someone in New York, who’s working on tracks and are looking for production help, be it mixing, arranging, polishing, achieving certain sounds or just help finishing stuff, get in touch. I do have limited time and limited mental stamina for working on stuff I don’t like so please point me at some kind of a musical sample or describe what you’re trying to do in your message and I’ll let you know if it’s something I think I can help with.
My next logic class is starting on Friday, January 29th and will be Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:15-1PM.
Contact me about production through Myspace, Facebook or Twitter.
I DON’T NEED A VISA
I imagine I like Afrikan Boy, he seems like a fairly relaxed and pleasant person. This new video, shot in the imaginary offices of ‘Afrikan Airlines’ is quite enjoyable.  Ever since he did a grime influenced tune a few years back about getting caught shoplifting in Lidl (a very very cheap European supermarket chain where I used to buy groceries in Berlin) I’ve been rooting for him. Also I think it’s cool that he raps in a Nigerian accent, which up til now has been (and still is?) considered uncool, giving rise to a bunch of Africans in grime who try to sound yardie and end up completely unintelligible. via Ghetto Bassquake.
BANGOUT SESSIONS
One of our favorite mad scientists transmitting out of this here NYShitty High Priest of Anti-Pop Consortium, aka HPrizm aka Digital P has started a blog! It’s about music technology and it’s called Bangout Sessions. Priest is a great rapper, and has been for a long time but he’s perhaps less well known (if you haven’t seen him live) for his on-stage mad MPC bashing keyboard mutiliating beat performances. I’ve had the privilege of seeing him do this a few times and always enjoy it. Fearless and crazy. I look forward very much to hear how all this translates into blogging, and there’s a few posts up there already to get you started.
BEATERATE DEM
This is crazy. DJ Kiva is a friend who I met through teaching at Dubspot but who’s been active in NYC for a good while. He’s a wicked producer, musician and DJ. Among other things you may know him from his feature on ‘Underwater High Rise‘ from Solar Life Raft where he played guitar and percussion. He and I worked on this Beaterator project together for Dubspot and Rockstar Games where we went around to a bunch of schools in NYC and across the country and taught kids how to make music using Beaterator, which is a piece of music software that runs on the Sony PSP portable game system. It’s actually really cool and you can make surprisingly official beats on it, on the train, in the laundromat etc. On top of that it has a built in mic so you can sing on your track, play instruments into it, surreptitiously sample people on the train etc. Kiva, being the intensely creative dude that he is, has gone and made an albums worth of music on this thing in the couple of months he’s had it. And it sounds heavy. A particular favorite of mine is his cover of The Abyssinians ‘Satta Masa Gana’ with him singing and playing horns into the built in mic. MAD. Check it below, download it, show it to your friends.
BTR8ION…NYC artist/producer DJ Kiva presents the world’s first album written & produced entirely on the Sony PSP Beaterator. Created while traveling streets, subways, and skies from Brooklyn to LA and laid out mixtape style…Beateration for the Nation!
tracklisting:
01 Hollywood Starz
02 Situation feat. Channel Earth
03 Keep the Fire Burning
04 C’mon Y’all
05 Satta Massagana*
06 Bring Da Beat Back
07 Center of the Universe
08 Another Kind of Language
09 Mysyde
10 Era Unknown
11 Altitude
12 Back to My Galaxy
all music written, recorded, & produced by DJ Kiva © Adios Babylon 2010 on Sony PSP Beaterator.
* Satta Massagana written & originally recorded by the Abyssinians
BUZZROCK LIVE
I’m getting together clips of me and Jahdan live preparing my materials to send out for our next European tour in June (promoters, holler at booking AT duttyartz DOT com!) and thought I would share these.
THE GENERAL: live at the Museum of Natural History
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFXLJTGJw9I[/youtube]
WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS: Live in Cologne, Germany
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7u3YDvFZxI[/youtube]
Shoutout to Uh Young Kim and the guys from Bunch TV in Cologne, Germany they also taped an in depth interview with us that should be forthcoming.