Judicious use of pause-button edits strike Geko’s dodgy male MC choices mostly from this historical record; everything I rip from the radio gets the same merciless treatment. (The historical record is meant to be scratched.) Mr Jones might gift us his entire set, but it’s been two weeks so here ya go, consider the fire lit… Live NYC radio at a particularly hot moment.
Starts with acid cumbia. About halfway through its just a stomping beat with someone yelling “boozooka!!”
Taco truck and kitchen radios all over manhattan were thrilled to hear that we’ve invaded the airwaves.
91.5 FM Radio One New York, in conjunction with Seattle Washington’s KEXP have extended a monthly residency to us and we’re happy to oblige. The show is called Mo’Glo (Modern Global) and features several great DJ’s in residency like Emch from Subatomic Soundsystem, Joro Boro, Cheb i Sabbah and a bunch of other crazy dudes.
The air raid doesn’t stop there. La Mega 97.9 FM, hands down NY’s largest latin broadcast station has been banging out Uproot Andy’s street version of ODB remix Brooklyn Cumbia. Shouts out Polito Jr for the spins and shouting us out. He plays late-night on friday and saturday nights from 2-5am for La Mega Afterparty (saturday and sunday morn if you wanna get technical). Rupture had put up a radio rip of his show a while back but the links are dead now. Maybe he’ll be nice do it again soon?
To celebrate the upward mobility, here’s a one hour cumbia/mambo session recorded for Mo’glo by Uproot Andy himself.
This episode of “Gangland” is a crazy documentary about gangs in the Third Ward of New Orleans which get’s even crazier when Katrina hits. It’s definitely pretty sensational but also a compelling and candid portrait of a place and a group of people on the edges of society in a dark moment. It’s 45 minutes, stream it when you’ve got some time.
Big Wobbly monsters aside, the connecting thread between alot of the music that I like is that the artists are down to earth people who grind hard to get where they are in the game. In the past two years, I can not point to anyone in New York City who has been in GRUSTLIN harder than the beast from Queens, renegade poet gone MC Homeboy Sandman.
I spent my first couple years back in New York hanging out in the spoken word and slam circuit and had already established a residency at LouderMondays @ Bar 13 when this taaall mo’fo in a Mets jacket started comin on the scene. Crazy latino word-playologist just starts popping up at all my haunts. Acentos Bronx Poetry, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bowery Poetry cafe. All of a sudden, here was this freakishly tall dude invading every open mic in the city, like a hungry pink elephant in the room waiting to devour your attention. Just as quick as he came tho, Homeboy Sandman vamped from the poetry scene in NYC and went MIA.
I don’t know the exact how or why of the metamorphosis that took place but when he came out of whatever bunker he was in Boy Sand came back to lay the smack down at open mics around the city with what he called the Verbal Soul Clap.
I’ve spent a few studio sessions in the past year exploring future bass vibes and giving him a lil background and what lies beyond the boo- bap. In just a year and a half, I’ve watched this guy who had never written a song in his life find his voice, drop out of an Ivy League school to follow a dream, take NYC by storm and drop 3 full length albums to critical acclaim. He’s been featured in the Source Mag’s Unsigned Hype, XXL, Fader Magazine, Blender and named Best Hip Hop artist 2008 by New York Press.
Get To know Homeboy Sand.
The homie wit the goatee
You might have seen him rocking at any of the 100+ shows he was performed at last year, plus like 5 open mics a week lurching like the ultimate billboard for the Homeboy Sandman name brand. Homie don’t play when it comes to gettin the name out. Custom-made hoodies and t-shirts for days (Boy Betta Know finally has some serious comp!) His guerrilla marketing campaign on the F and the 7 train lines ran for a year straight and the answer was yes RUN-DMC would indeed approve, even if the MTA hates him.
Show me a emerging artist that gets to share a stage with veterens like Rakim and Black Thought or underground icons like Talib Kweli their first or second year out the gate. I remember debating with both Shadetek and Rupture about the off-kilter flows Sandman employees which both said were off time but what my ears where listening to was something different. I heard an MC who was creating his own space in time juxtaposing narratives with didactic rhyme structures. After spending significant time with him via phone and at the studio I have gotten to know him as an MC that stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries in not just crowd rockin but in principle.
Sand takes the title for THE LEAST SALTY DUDE I’ve ever sessioned with.
Geko: I just don’t get it fam. They’re blogging about stuff like Andy Milonakis !!???
Sand: Who’s that
Geko: This whack ass dude looks like Pat from Saturday Night Live that spits wanksta lyrics online and all of a sudden he’s syndicated, chillin at red carpet shows and taking pictures with Paris wannabees. Why would anyone give that scrub shine?
Sand: Nah Gex, I hope the brother’s having a good time out there.
Zero Sodium.
Its been really impressive to hear how he always finds nice things to say about artists that anyone else would just clown. He’s genuine about it. He looks for the good in people and holds himself to high standard. A rare trait for someone in the bizness of bragadocio but it works well for him. Sandman doesn’t have time to talk shit, he’s got places to be and rhymes to write
His flow has always been super unleaded but at one of our sessions I showed him some youtube vids of Kano spittin, Wiley vs Ghetto and other UK MC’s… shortly thereafter I got this one back.
Jump up grime bidness… a ting called Gggrrraa!! pon the Funeral Service Riddim and off the album Actual Factual Pterodactyl
The album comes in hard with Food Glorious Food and also features some great story telling on Mambo Tail Tale and the just unexpected weird shit like Opium for the experimental heads. I’ve included the acapella for your remixing pleasure. (Those nice green mixes you guys sent in via soundcloud were crazy by the way!! Sweaty Ken, SS and Jibberish getting the Large Up on that round)
The Funeral Service Riddim that Gggrraa!! was recorded on was a sound clash burial dub built by my partner 3rd Rayl for my Funkworthy FM project and was used to voice several artists for sound clash dubs just in case one ah yuh jump on waan test. Boy sand got wind of it at a show and got really excited by it. The dub ended up getting included on the LP and now its yours. Some of the nuttiest bars from any emerging MC stateside or anywhere else.
He’s recently sessioned with the Beatnutz, J Period and Stereotyp. There’s a lot more in store. Make sure you cop Sand’s free mixtape THERE IS NO SPOON and swing by his website Homeboysandman.com or visit him at myspace.com/Homeboysandman and say wadup.
New York it’s time to get tropical again. This time Uproot Andy and Matt Shadetek will be joined by The Fader’s own Eddie Stats, Lamin Fofana of Recession Rap fame will be making his DJ debut early and DA extended family 77Klash will be live on-stage bringing that BK heat. Those who know me definitely know Klash from our songs together “Brooklyn Anthem” with Jahdan Blakkamoore, “Mad Again (Whoa!)” featuring Johnny Osbourne and the newest “Pressure” which you can download below.
Dutty Artz west coast family member Chief Boima just upped a sweet toetapping guest mix for Eddie Stats’ Ghetto Palms Faderlandia archipelago: GO GET IT!
There are Forces At Work ensuring that Boima comes to our overpriced, deliriously compressed city with its decaying public transit to share his Akon mbalax/decale remixes and generally hype afro-hypen-positivity with us.
Dutty Artz Rupture-Shadetek Boima remix coming soon, Matt & I will find time to lab up ASAP.
This mix gets denser then pigs at a Smithfield subsidiary in Veracruz. Sonido Del Principe out of the Netherlands sent his New Summer Cumbia Mix over almost three weeks ago (is it five now?)- but better late then never. Some might not go in for the mashups and refix’s- but waking up on a Sunny day in hungary Hackney with the subs turned up this mix is a surefire winner.
entirely unrelated hoax image circa sars
With limited bandwidth- so grab from Mega Upload until I have a chance to up it to our servers…
Tracklist:
01. Chico Cervantes – Cumbia de la Paz
02. Tremor – Viajante (Cumbia Cosmonauts Remix)
03. El Hijo de la Cumbia – La Mara Dub (SDP edit)
04. El Remolon – Bolivia
05. Dj Panik – Like this like that
06. Fauna vs Grandmaster Flash vs SDP
07. El Norte vs SDP – Wu-umbia!
08. Sonido Del Principe – El Principe
09. El Hijo de la Cumbia – Bombon Asesino version
10. Vampiros Deejaay vs SDP – Sexy Rod Dub
11. Prince vs SDP – If I was your Girlfriend
12. Grupo Adixion – Porque te Vas
13. Dj Panik – Te Vez Buena
14. Sonido Del Principe – Cartagena
15. Dead Menems – Taliban del Amor (El Remolon rmx)
16. Jozefa Matia vs SDP – Cumbia Solede
17. Sonido Del Principe – Shake it
18. Zomby vs. SDP – Shake that strange Fruit
If you missed the insanity that was Demolition- Rob from Pollinate was dropping a sick Tribal Guarachero set to a very receptive crowd-Â you’ve got another chance to act like you know!
ok. so the free tickets have long been ‘sold out’ — early bird gets the worm– but this is a quick reminder: Tomorrow I’m DJing at the SONAR festival’s first ever NYC, party! Myself, Prefuse 73, and bunch of producers / DJs / VJs from Barcelona (where both Prefuse & I lived). In fact, I’ve spent most of the 21st century based in Barcelona….
I go on around 11pm and spin for 2 hours, a nice stretch-out set. Will sneek in tunes from my fav BCN-based producers — Cauto (3rd generation Catalan musician!), Cardopusher (Venezuelan expat skullcrusher), Pulshar (Spanish but sing in accented English: bonus points!), Filastine (gringo total!), as well as making sure the Euro-latinos get a taste of New York Tropical — cumbia from new jersey, mambo / 160bpm merengue de la kalle edits, etc., stuff that you don’t hear over in España.
Here’s one of the Cauto jams we released on vinyl:
Gucci Mane is one of the most interesting figures in rap music at the moment, and he’s suffering not only from the general psychosis of being dope but also severe auditory hallucinations. I downloaded “Gorgeous” from cocaine blunts several weeks back, and I just got around to hearing it. According to Noz ““Gorgeous†finds him walking the line between language and commerce obsession by way of voices in his head. We’ve heard the balling as a compulsion defense but never the full on insanity claims.” The beat is great as well, providing a perfect background for the experience that is Gucci Mane.
To bring us back to reality, away from Gucci Mane and the Hearing Voices movement, here’s Augustus Pablo’s “Africa Dub”, plus the original tune “Africa Must Be Free By 1983” by Hugh Mundell, a teenage prodigy, who died far too early (1962-1983~ shot to death in Kingston while driving a car with Junior Reid.)Â Hugh Mundell wrote and recorded several albums, some of which were produced by Augustus Pablo. I have yet to hear them.
Speaking of unheard/undiscovered Jamaican reggae – Props to Professor Wayneandwax for the heads up & review. I ordered Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae from Amazon weeks ago, and still haven’t received it.
Pulshar‘s Brotherhood has been in heavy rotation lately. It has some spectacular tunes I return to time and again, but frankly I listen the album in its entirety perhaps more than I should. We like to keep things dutty and heavy here, but a little clean, beautiful, soulful tech-dub from Bercelona is appreciated. We played “Mr Money Man” on Tax Day (4/15) on Mudd Up! with DJ Rupture, a show you can also stream here. Update: I’ve changed the tune from “Mr Money Man” to “Ashmatic” for a good reason. “Ashmatic” is also part of the excellent Babylon Fall Collection.
Wayne killed it last night at Que Bajo?! – Reggaeton book release afterparty, and introduced me to a bunch of people – one filmmaker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi just made a film (look up 4 di preview) about the Ghanian hiplife group V.I.P. (Vision in Progress) titled Home Grown: HipLife In Ghana and it has already been screened from New York to Los Angeles.
