It took a minute, but the most bad-ass & influential young cumbia producer is out & loose in Europe for the next 2 months.
El Hijo de la Cumbia got his start producing for big Mexican sonidero groups; I still find CDs out here in Brooklyn with his beats on them.
He’s since gone solo and when we played together in Mexico City is was pretty amazing, insane remixes and edits of his own bombs, plus all sort of deep-reach cumbia jams that had us kumbia nerds in jawdrop mode.
dates below. his debut album, Freestyle de Ritmos, is buyable @ spots like Turntable Lab, Boomkat, eMusic, and various iTunes…
EL HIJO DE LA CUMBIA – European tour (more dates TBA)
28 may – Integraliza Ourense, SPAIN
13 jun РG̦teborg SWEDEN Clandestino 16 jun РRebel Up! @ OT301 РAmsterdam NL
19 jun – Worm – Rotterdam NL
20 jun – Worm – Rotterdam NL
25 jun – München GERMANY ROTE SONNE
27 jun – Fusion Festival – Lärz – Germany
4 jul – Roskilde Copenhagen DENMARK
16 jul – Festival Tourcoing Plage – Tourcoing FRANCE
17 jul – La Nuit de Phonque meets Mash It Up! – Artheater – Cologne – Germany
I was over at Andy‘s house for much of the weekend (he’s about seven minutes away from where I live, and he makes the illest fried plantains! overly ripe plantains fried with little oil, smashed, then re-fried again with very little oil, then lightly salted… it is of course a traditional recipe in many parts of the world, but Andy is untouchable right now.) Anyway, this is one of the tracks he pointed me to, and after it was found, we put it on repeat for a while. Ill Blu offers more heat for the Summer, in the form of R&B remixes.
I am surrounded by incredible deejays who are crazy music fanatics as well, constantly discovering, and always on the move. I am developing my own thing, but I get wonderful music thrown at me from several directions. Geko Jones (aka Mr Miyagi, Wobble Monster, California get ready) blessed me w/ some extremely dope and super exclusives last week, Rupture also gave me an insane dubstep banger last week… please listen to Mudd Up! If it sounds like we’re not focus, it is because we have so much to share.
Ms. Dynamite dropped this banger back in December, (props to The Heatwave) and there was a lot of excitement and hype around the explosive cut. Dynamite is repping her yard roots hard on this one. We still can’t seem to find a proper version, not even a CDQ version? All the versions floating around contain some kind of BBC Radio1 tag from DJ Semtex, Trevor Nelson, etc. I think I first heard about the track from Gex, then Andy… Anyway, if anyone out there is holding a quality version, pls share!
The family over at Dutty Artz stay busy building and stockpiling heatseeking missiles like Jahdan Blakkamoore’s Go Round Payola. We’re about 17 hours from finishing up the artwork for his debut album (everything else is DONE), more news real soon.
In the meantime, Frankfurt’s Mr Leub, flipped Matt Shadetek’s Payola riddim, swapping out JD and splicing in Busy Signal’s ‘Da Style Deh’.
[audio:https://duttyartz.com/mp3/Mr. Leub – Da Style Deh Payola Refix.mp3]
Eddie Stats new Ghetto Palms blend which ends with a POWER TRIO of Busy Signal slackness in the form of cellphone-centric acoustic drumloop minimalism tunes, Da Style Deh included.
and Mr Leub’s Rudebwoy Electroncia mix, which kinda reminds me of the first Toddla-T mix I heard, which is to say: stomping reggaeoid 4-4y thumpers. Very good music for weekend apartment cleaning, I can attest to this.
New York Tropical is exactly a week from today! Check the flyer – we are designers, you already know. To get ready, I have put a podcast together containing mostly women voices over beats and sounds composed by men. I wasn’t specifically looking for female voices on male constructed instrumentals, it just happened most of the tracks I gather are refixes and songs with women voices recorded by gentlemen producers (I was tempted to call this Women… In The Vicinity Of Men. Thankfully, I settled on Mousso. We need some more gyals in here… too many man, too many, many man!
[display_podcast]
I was going to post the tracklist a little later but we all know how Björk feels about writers not giving credits, so here it is –
For those wondering why we’ve got the ‘esoteric luv’ category over there in the tag cloud, listen to this. Timeblind goes in again with this new deep-as-the-marineris-trench-dubstep-what-you-call-it mix. Timeblind is definitely never ever normal, here he sits us down again and patiently shows us what is going on in his mind, in the form of an mp3 file. Who knew?
I’ve been waiting for this tune to come out for about 2 years. Back when we were doing the soundclash series I came across this video and wrote Ryder Shafique for a dubplate version of the tune.
The guys from Alien Entertainment wanted to wait till the release and now we have this stooooopid in the face Stereotypremix to thank them for. The tune is available at Juno Download and other fine retailers.
Large up to Mr Melody, El Coca and Soumez plus special thanks to Shafique for hosting Jahdan when he touched down in the UK. I hear there are some collabos in the pipe I haven’t heard yet and we’re looking forward to what those will sound like.
“We’re always looking for the next article from Edwin ‘Stats’Houghton, the globe-trottingest Fader correspondent, who drops into musical subcultures like a paratrooper and sends back dossiers on what’s moving butts. His vivid dispatch from the kwaito dance-party scene in Johannesburg, South Africa, was so good we published an excerpt as “Post-Apartheid Pop.”
We say:
YESSIR, HE’S A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH. PARTIED WITH. Come check Eddie rock Brooklyn with Matt Shadetek, 77Klash, and Uproot Andy on Friday May 29th @ Glasslands in Williamsburg (as I hold it down in Berlin with The Bug and Geko Jones mashes up San Fran alongside brother Boima.)
The homies Sub Swara have just released a new EP of remixes from their Coup d’Yah album. The new EP features remixes from Dub War’s Dave Q, Secret Agent Gel, Ill.Gates and more. Dhruva, Sharmaji, Juakali and crew and the crew have been holding it down for NYC bassheads for about 3 years now and have featured friends like Ghislain Poirier, Stereotyp and The Bug. Check them out June 19th at the Highline Ballroom.
Quik & Kurupt’s Blaqkout is shaping up to be a dope collaboration. A few weeks ago, they dropped “Whatcha Wan Do” and now this. The beat and the image presented are somewhat reminiscent of Clipse “Grindin'”, but there’s something about the sample here- chopped, disembodied female/R&B voice (something we don’t seem to get enough of) gets trampled by heavy booms & bap, not to mentioned Kurupt’s bugged out raps. Storms, hurricanes, typhoons, radiated mushrooms, delusions, bananas, baboons, etc. all squeezed in, in less than a few seconds. It all reminded me of a DOOM line, “don’t know what he saying, but the words be funny.”
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.
