I’m speaking today about a topic that I’ve been living for years, and only recently (and with the help of awesome Dj/Activist/thinkers like DJ Ushka) been able to articulate in a public way, and combine with my other scholarship: “Rocking the Body Politics; Musical Spaces for Resistance & Survival.” This is an extension of the workshop Thanu/Ushka and I organized at the Allied Media Conference last year on “Radical Organizing from the Dancefloor,” combined with ideas from my research and dj experience that I also presented at the Clandestino Institut in Göteborg, Sweden last year (Exile, Resistance, Occupation, Music).
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On Sunday April 21, come join us for the NYC debut of Jace Clayton’s The Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner! Featuring pianists David Friend and Emily Manzo, vocalist Arooj Aftab, special guest, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Jace /Rupture pulling the whole thing together/apart.
4pm at MoMA PS1. Performance is free with museum admission.
The album version is called Julius Eastman Memory Depot – Bandcamp | iTunes | Amazon. Pitchfork review.
Aspiring jazz musicians are brought up to believe that DJs are the enemies of ‘real’ musicians. The logic being that people who play real instruments are loosing all their gigs to these interlopers that just play their favorite tunes all night.
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My new album — the first under my own name — was released last week! The Julius Eastman Memory Depot. There’s been a wave of great, thoughtful press: an action-packed feature on my work in The Guardian, a 7.8 Pitchfork review, a spot on NPR, and lots more. If you’d like to buy the album, Bandcamp offers downloads & physical CDs for the best price/money-to-artist ratio, or you can use iTunes | Amazon etc. This WQXR album-of-the-week profile is an excellent introduction to the project.
I’m doing 5 performances of The Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner this April, accompanied by a dream team of talent: pianists David Friend and Emily Manzo, vocalist Arooj Aftab, and special guest Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. Arooj wrote the closing song with me, and it gives you a taste of the additional scenes included in the live performance version. These shows are not to be missed! Two grand pianos and electronics makes for lovely sonics, the musicians are top-notch… plus my actorly debut?! April dates below:
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On TUESDAY, April 2 from 7-9pm at the FAT Lab (hosted at Eye Beam) DA will be repping hard on a panel called “Rights, Rogues and Refugees†– as part of this week’s celebration, by the Free Art & Technology Lab, of over 5 years of “thug life, pop culture, and R&D.â€
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It was a great full weekend of Dutty Artz performances and events. We started out partying hard at Glasslands for Matt Shadetek’s album release party, and ended up Sunday night all winding down over cheap drinks and stretching out our musical legs at Bushwick’s Bossa Nova Civic Club.
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In support of Matt Shadetek’s The Empire Never Ended album, Dutty Artz is hitting the road! The tour kicks off in Brooklyn tonight with Matt’s album release party at Glasslands in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Details on individual shows below:
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Tomorrow at the Winter Music Conference, Mr. Jahdan Blakkamoore will be rockin the Winter Music Massive Stage alongside Reggae legend Johnny Osbourne and Jovi Rockwell. There’s a host of DJs from the Rice and Peas, and Electric Punanny crews in New York. If you are in Miami this is a must see show!
RSVP Here:Â http://wintermusicmassive.eventbrite.com/
One of things that connects fellow Dutty Artzer Thanu and I is that we both see dancefloors as political spaces. This doesn’t mean that people spend much time talking or signing petitions or getting out the vote in the club, it only means that the ways people relate to each other in the club (or warehouse, or open field, or basement) can shape what kind of power we have access to, individually and collectively. Some time after playing and dancing together and experiencing each others’ skills at building those moments through smashing dance parties, and finding more and more like-minded people (like Anthology of Booty, in DC, for example) we decided to organize a session for the Allied Media Conference called “Radical Organizing from the Dancefloor” where we got together with a crew of folks and strategized about how those liberating, connecting, transcendent, and unsettling moments on the dancefloor come about.
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Friday March 15th we’re welcoming EL FREAKY from Bogota Colombia to NYC. Having just wrapped shows at Moombahton Massive in DC, and Tormenta Tropical and Afrofunke on the West Coast, we’re looking forward to hearing some of the new material they’ve been working on featuring Colombian Dancehall artists and Reggae veterans Tanto Metro and Devonte.
Brooklyn’s iBomba party is hosted by DJ Beto and our very own Ushka, whom a lot of you got to meet digitally last month via her Foreign Brown mix for our Mixtape Mondays series in February. She and Beto’s residency at Bembe has been turning it out on Mondays and bringin out some really great acts over the last year, so I’m looking forward to hearing what’s in their crates.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCiEPsjRCi4&[/youtube]
I just wrote a long piece on the Somali-American Rap group Malitia Malimob over at Africa is a Country. I won’t write too much more here so you can head on over to check out the post, but you DA readers should know that Malitia Malimob will be playing alongside Matt and myself in Seattle at the Dutty Artz Showcase at The Crocodile on April 3rd. The show will be the first out of town stop for Matt on his tour to promote The Empire Never Ended.
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This Saturday March 16th, DJ Rupture & Talacha will join L.A.’s contagiously fun latin roots dance band Very Be Careful for a welcome-the-spring-with-a-sweat-sacrifice party at Brooklyn’s Littlefield! VBC specialize in fast accordion jams throwing in vallenato, cumbia, and more. For this special set, Rupture will be play mostly NYC cumbia poblana, joined by Oaxacan malandrÃn Talacha on the mic, sonidero style. For a taste of what Rupture & Talacha will bring, you can pick up their mix CD with Sonido Martines available only Tacos Zaragoza in the East Village (ask for it!), or check the excerpt below.
Saturday March 16: DJ Rupture & Very Be Careful @ Littlefield, Brooklyn.
This Saturday I’ll be djing between acts at The Apollo Theater’s Africa Now! Concert. Today, I had an interesting conversation with the Apollo’s director about the different African crowds in New York (last year they had Tiken Jah Fakoly to an enthusiastic crowd of Francophone African Harlemites), got a tour of the building, rubbed the tree of hope, and stood on the stage where every American black performer of significance in the last 100 years has stood. Besides the fact of my inclusion in the symbolic welcoming of a new generation of Africans into the folds of Black American history, touching the log (while the Apollo stagehand watched me unamused) is really all I needed.
Click through for all the info:
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This evening our very own Jace Clayton will be moderating a panel for the Mic Check: Hip Hop in North Africa and The Middle East event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Many of the Dutty Artz crew will be in attendance out of interest (we’ve been exchanging quite a few emails around the subject of youth culture and North Africa), and in support of our guy.
If you would like to dive in a little further before the panel tonight, or if you can’t make it, check out the post I did over at Africa is a Country, and share your thoughts!
On Friday March 22nd at Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn, Dutty Artz presents Change The Mood: The Empire Never Ended.
Matt Shadetek will perform material from his album The Empire Never Ended live! with a guest performance by Brooklyn rapper Troy Ave, and DJ sets by DJ /rupture, Geko Jones, and Chief Boima.
Buy Tickets Here:Â http://ticketf.ly/10fRLma. RSVP on Facebook.
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