This month Sweat Lodge is falling a week later than usual on Friday 12/16. Â Our good friends over at Turrbotax asked us for a date swap and we were happy to oblige! Â This month our guest is Jubilee, a long time friend of Dutty Artz. Â I’ve been wanting to get her to play Sweat Lodge but what with her hectic touring schedule and all was never able to make it happen… Till now! Â She’ll be supported by your handsome residents Matt Shadetek (me), Chief Boima, Lamin Fofana and Taliesin. Â It should be a lively affair.
˙∆ INFOS ∆˙
DUTTY ARTZ SWEAT LODGE
DJs:
Jubilee
Matt Shadetek
Chief Boima
Lamin Fofana
Taliesin
Friday Dec. 16th 10PM-4AM
$$ FREE $$ ADMISSION
at The Cove, 108 N. 6th St, Brooklyn NY. Â Take the L train to Bedford or G to Lorimer and walk.
Join us today, December 5th, at Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater (124 South 3rd. btwn Bedford + Berry) for a live WFMU radio broadcast followed by a screening of Ahmed El Maanouni’s gripping and poetic Nass El Ghiwane documentary film, TRANSES (1981). Nass El Ghiwane, a group of working class musicians from Casablanca, revolutionized Maghrebi music in the 1970s and remain Morocco’s most important band. TRANSES captures them at the height of their power. The radio show will be built from a YouTube selection of some of my favorite Moroccan tracks and Nass el Ghiwane cover versions.
Here is an oft-compiled Nass El Ghiwane track, Mahmouma. This version comes from Stern’s epic 18-CD “Africa 50 years” box set (“The most comprehensive compilation of African music ever achieved. . . 183 classic recordings by 183 important artists from 38 countries in North, South, East and West Africa.”)
Sterns cut Mahmouma down to half its length, but the mastering is good:
[John Francis Peters – Meryem by the sea in Casablanca]
And last but not least, head to Time Magazine’s Lightbox to see “Insha’Allah”, a photoessay by John Francis Peters, taken in Morocco as part of our Beyond Digital project.
STRAIGHT UP FUCK THE 2012 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT. This is the sort of shit that matters deeply even if you don’t read Prison Planet or listen to Coast 2 Coast. This is the shit that should unite tea partiers, I live in a silo with ten years of water people, the dude that serves you zips AND YOU. The bill passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a â€battleground†upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.
If you were surprised by how militarized our police were during the last few months of #OWS don’t worry. If this bill goes into law we will just have the military straight up dealing with protests and other “terrorist” acts. Lets hope Obama vetoes this shit.
If you’re not a fan of this woman by now, you better explain yourself.
When I talked to Ripley a couple weeks ago in Amsterdam she’d just played a show the night before, where I’d shaken my ass so hard that by the time we actually met up I was too exhausted to piece together a proper sentence. That didn’t stop her from being wonderfully articulate, of course. Read a bit of our conversation on the Fader blog: http://www.thefader.com/2011/11/23/interview-dj-ripley/
Boima has been absolutely killing it writing for Africa is A Country this year. When I ask him to blog on DA, he tells me that he’s too busy to re-post everything from Ghetto Bassquake, Africa is A Country and his own personal blog. Wayne talks about the free labor we all put into this collective project of music making, sharing, talking about it, whatever- you can’t really blame someone for not having time for one more piece of themselves.
Boima has been giving a lot recently, burning through school, putting together compilations in West Africa, producing most of one of the dopest releases of the year, steady attending and updating the world on #OWS, drinking bloody marys in Fort Green, getting his full length debut together for DA and working on a remix album with street impresario Sorie Kondi. DUDE IS BUSY. So when he takes the time to go in on one of the biggest, but least talked about undercurrents in the self-reflective bass/tropical/hood synthetics world- what the fuck is a/(wrong with) Wesley Pentz and why we all want(ed) to be him, but also don’t, or maybe never did, but maybe that major label beat money would be nice…..etc. U SHOULD PAY ATTENTION. Another pretty white face stands in for so many sexy/violent/not available black/brown/redbone faces.. but B draws out the nuance of the thing in a way that’s missing from pretty much every other summary/criticism I have ever read about Diplo. Read an excerpt below or click over to Africa is a Country for the whole thing.
“Around the start of Occupy Wall Street, an international DJ called Samim tweeted, “Did you know that the richest 1% of DJ´s control over 80% of the industry´s wealth and over 70% the media coverage?#occupyDJsâ€. Perhaps it was meant as an off-hand joke, but the fact that the DJ industry is an unbalanced place in terms of representation is clearly a reality. Nothing materialized this notion more than DJ Mag’s annual Top 100 DJs list, which read like a Forbes’ top 100, but for wealthiest DJs. Many people noticed the racial, gender, and wealth imbalances of the list, which in today’s music world almost seems preposterous (or maybe not.) Also, considering that House and Techno music’s roots are in the Black and/or Gay communities of the Rust Belt urban centers in the American Midwest, it becomes a curious example of cultural appropriation.
Noticeably absent from the list was popular American DJ, Diplo, who is also a successful producer, record label owner, and style icon. Perhaps the reason why he didn’t show up in the list is because he explicitly prefers to align himself with a global contemporary “undergroundâ€. Most recently he has done so in a series of travel journals for Vanity Fair magazine. The first one about this past year’s Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago and the latest where he “Discovers the Last True Underground Club Scene in New York.†In these travel journals Diplo makes clear his critical stance to the mainstream. But, with all the structural inequalities inherent in the industry, and qualifying statements like, “I don’t know a lot about being black and gay and cool…†Diplo’s critique mostly ends up sounding a lot like someone looking for redemption in a pure, untouched, uncontaminated, Other.
Why should you care about this? Because, no matter where you are in the world, if there’s an underground dance scene or marginalized community, Diplo has probably “discovered,†re-framed, and sold it audiences in another part of the world. If he hasn’t yet, he’s on his way, and your local scene might just end up being the next European House or Techno.
On Sunday December 11, the Mudd Up Book Clubb returns to Manhattan, to discuss Lauren Beukes’ 2010 novel Zoo City. If you wanted to throw genre signifiers at it, you could say that it’s new African urban fantasy sci-fi noir with a strong musical component. There is even an accompanying soundtrack , released on African Dope records:
As I wrote in my August post on Zoo City, “It’s weird noir, set in contemporary Johannesburg, featuring an ex-junkie protagonist named Zinzi December and her magic sloth. The unconventional pair is caught in a web of intrigue involving murder, 419 email scams, and a missing kwaito/afropop teen star. In short, it sounds like a book specifically engineered for my peer group.” Check out the full post for more thoughts on Zoo City, or join us on December 11th in New York City for realtime talk.
Tomorrow night I will be performing in Boston at Beat Research, alongside of the hosts Wayne and Wax, and DJ Flack (Anthony Flackett). It is an honor to be a guest at this event. Canyon Cody, founder of Gnawledge records, first introduced me to Wayne’s blog, Wayne and Wax, a couple years ago. From that moment onward I became a loyal reader to Wayne’s in depth ethnomusicological explorations into the contemporary global forms of music. Truly solid material, a more academic perspective to what is going on today.
Beat Research is an exploration of sound, an emphasis on experimenting/fusing various styles. It was started in March 2004 at the Enormous Room, which was just recently closed! It has relocated to Good Life, 28 Kingston Street- Downtown Boston. For more information visit: Beat Research.
For those who are unfamiliar with Wayne and Wax, be sure to check out his blog.
(NOTE: I wrote this a couple weeks ago for the huffington post, but they haven’t published it so whatever here it is )
Nobody understands Occupy Wall Street. At least not in the media. It is clear now, more than ever, how important framing is to politics in this country. We aren’t even being given the opportunities to ask the right questions about the Occupy movement, much less answer them. Media coverage reduces Occupy Wall Street to a protest about market regulation, and the bloodstained greedy hands of the 1 %. Even Liberal media doesn’t begin to suspect the power nascent at Liberty Plaza. Occupy Wall Street is about total revolution, just not the one you were expecting. Occupy Wall Street is a revolution in the lived lives of its participants. We should all be inspired by this.
Occupy Wall Street should be understood as a conference, not a protest. It is about sharing an emotional and social experience that creates a space for the unforeseen. It is a testament to the tenacity and creativity of a rag-tag group of people who are acutely aware of the fundamental space behind the curtain we have been presented as common sense reality. Capitalist sorcery is real and circumscribes our entire conversation about the potential for more fulfilling and just lives. We can barely begin to speak about, much less, address the dread and self-loathing that true consciousness engenders under present circumstances.
Of course, I cannot write “magic” and “true consciousness” without the need for a warning that I don’t mean New Age-y babble. Do you understand the power at play here? That I can barely speak of magic, even though it is quite literally the binding agent that defines the world around us? That a type of sorcery has been committed against us all, bearing branded sigils of protection against an outside world we see through the lens of a financially driven social system that has not, does not and never will serve us.
Occupy Wall Street is merely a charged space to draw energy from. It is not the solution. It is not the sign of the impending collapse. It is a place to share and dwell in power and resources, to visualize the possibilities for lives that overflow with fulfillment. Its real value is not in the demands it makes, or its duration, but merely in its existence. Occupy Wall Street tells white people what brown people have known for so long in America. This place is not for you. We will kill you if you get out of line. Stories of bootstrap success are no longer enough to keep us complacent. We are not bitter that we are not rich. We are bitter that a system exists where in the myth of a free and fair market confines us all. Living an entirely new life is only the beginning of necessary change. The fact that the job market is shit and that over seven million Americans are in jail, on parole or probation is one of many signs of the hubris of Capital — how lazy the system became in the face of its own largess. Job creation does not solve the problems that created the global Occupy movement. People want fulfillment, not just something to fill the time.
Still, we must ask, what is next? We must ask ourselves what resources we do control. To bring fulfillment into your life is the most radical act possible given the current degradation of life. We are being killed by the food we eat, the air we breathe and the media that enchants us to believe our dissatisfaction has no root cause. Consumption is offered as the cure. Infinite choice proves we are unique human beings. Sure, it will be worse if Michele Bachmann becomes the next president, but my dissatisfaction runs so much deeper then caring which face is given to the Capitalist hydra we let guard us. Occupy Wall Street is one expression of a universal need for meaning, regardless of political posturing.
We must begin by examining our lives. This is not a question of what consumptive choices you make, but what productive forces you unleash onto the world. We all have the potential to create spaces for fulfillment in our lives. What is the passion that drives you? Is it aligned with every moment of your life? What are the fantasies you have let wither inside you in fear of their impossibilities? Now is the time to bring them to the fore and think creatively about actualizing them. We are all deeply resourceful in our creativity and need only to be reminded of our true potential. Begin with small negotiable tasks like eating well, and creating time to do the activities that bring you the most joy. With each small step, the path becomes easier. #OCCUPYEVERYTHING
Join us for an intimate night of sound & celebration on Saturday, December 3rd @ Vaudeville Park in Brooklyn (L to Graham). Mint tea, dates, and homemade deliciousness will be served.
We are celebrating the release of Nettle’s new album on Sub Rosa, El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai. (get it at: iTunesAmazonBoomkateMusic actual record stores, etc)
“Dubai may be a cipher masquerading as a city, but it’s not a complete blank slate unencumbered by theoretical and contextual baggage, and El Resplandor depicts it as you might expect: ancient and dignified ‘Middle Eastern’ airs buffeted by howls of the ghosts in modernity’s machine. This is not to say that the album is merely conventional, however, for El Resplandor contains some of /Rupture’s most vivid and striking music… provocative and as chilling as anything in the real Shining” – Peter Shapiro, The Wire Nov 2011
Sat. December 3rd: Nettle (live), Lamin Fofana (dj). Vaudeville Park, 26 Bushwick Ave. Bklyn. doors at 8:30pm $8. Come early warm bodies shining ghosts.
in which the ladies of Super Tight get incarcerated for copyright infringement (showing my 90210 clip); face potentially catastrophic replacement by the men of Bronx Juice; receive a curious video message from the M.E.D.E.A Housewives Terrorist Group; learn Jonny Oso’s background in law; and hear a prison guard wax — interruptedly — on generic narrative conventions, among many other developments, plus puppets and some extra meta. “What is a puppet?”
An album release party and free night of celebration in the heart of the heart of the country!
Click on the huge GIF to see the huge GIF in all its huge GIFNESS.
djs mothershiester and bent invite you to:
The 2nd Happy Hour installment of Africa is Not a Country features a special performance by Nettle. Led by DJ /rupture, this inter-continental project blends electronic beats, North African folksongs and percussion with avant garde noise. We’ll be celebrating the release of group’s new record — El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai / iTunes / Amazon / Boomkat. “For this album, Nettle imagined a remake of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining set in a luxury hotel in Dubai, U.A.E. El Resplandor: The Shining In Dubai is their soundtrack for that nonexistent film.”
Live DJ sets by bent and mothershiester through the night will feature Rock, Ska, and Punk anthems from Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. Jazz arrangements from Madagascar and Ghana. Soukous jams and Chaabi gems. Plus a glut of “pirated” Kenyan Pop mp3s that dj bent found while idly cruising the information superhighway.
Friday, December 2
Marrakech Lounge
1817 Columbia Rd. NW
7 to 11 pm
Nettle plays at 9pm!
free!!
enjoy drink specials of $3 beers, $5 wine and rail drinks, and delicious $5 appetizers at this brand new north african spot – Marrakech Lounge.
plus hooka/sheesha for enjoyment on the veranda
Africa is Not a Country is an anti-colonial musical journey, using the dancefloor/barstool to deconstruct the idea of “African music†as we rock out from Jo-burg to Cairo, from Dakar to Nairobi, with a quick lap around the islands.
Whoeover wants to hear David Lynch singing through a vocoder for seven minutes, please raise you hand.
– and then complied with the raised hands I couldn’t see.
This happened after I had played many other songs, all of which you can stream:
Listen out for a debut of Venezuelan indie act Algodón Egipcio’s incredible remix of Cardencheros de Sapioriz / Cantos Cardenches, which I got to witness him create over the course of several amazing days in Monterrey, Mexico, with the Norte Sonoro project. When the Cardenches heard Algodón’s live version, they were visibly moved, saying “nuestra música va a vivir para siempre”! So great when “remixed” and “remixer” can listen together and rock the same stage.
Wizraeli, a blogger from Generation Bass sent me the link to Balkan Beat Box’s new video, Political Fuck, and after watching it I had to post it. As a long time fan of Balkan Beat Box, I am always impressed with their fresh productions and political voice. I will never forget the first time I saw them at Central Park with Antibalas-Afrobeat about 5 years ago. They absolutely killed it. Considering all the world wide noise thats going on today, this song is a strong representation of the global movement that needs to occur- putting the power back into the peoples hands.
