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i made this a few nights back. taliesin made GIF.
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Lamin Fofana – #Calypso (or land of broken glass and the high world above manhattan)

Kuedo – Shutter Light Girl // Lucky Dragons – Realistic Rhythm // Killah Priest – Crusades // The Big Pink – Tonight (oOoOO Remix) // Ikonika – Yoshimitshu // Scissors and Sellotape – Chapter 4 // Mount Kimbie – Carbonated // Svpreme Fiend – Heartache VIP // Shed – Ostrich-Mountain-Square // Spoek Mathambo – Control // Alva Noto – Argonaut-Version (for Heiner Müller) // Oneohtrix Point Never – Preyouandi // Mike Ladd – Planet 10 // Mark Pritchard – Heavy As Stone // Digital Mystikz – Unexpected

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I’m in a S. American time warp. Everything in Rio happens slow, filtered through the humidity. No one is in a rush. Everyone wears sandals. Last night I finally made it to a baile funk. I showed up around 3 to Favela do Vidigal- in the South Zone of the city, with my friend Gabi who is researching technology + production and distribution in the Funk scene.

I felt the bass when we got out of our cab- but we still needed a five minute moto taxi up the hill, past anti-police roadblocks, to the party.  The soundsystem stretched across the entirety of a T intersection- blacklights hung everywhere and the subs were mounted at head level- ensuring that chest-rattling bass could be felt even in the way back of the crowd. The blacklights accentuated the whites and neon yellows of the futbol apparel that men were rocking. Even with the hazy compressed sodium street lights- everything was glowing- it felt like a cavernous club interior. Armed men walked casually through the crowd, navigating crews of dancers bouncing to the floor and back to commands that translate to “drop it on my dick and fuck.”

What startled me most  wasn’t seeing all of the tropes of baile sensationalism before me- ASS, GUNS, BASS!- but how much it reminded me of my favorite parties anywhere. Dancers who loved dancing, cute gay boys twerking it like pros, poppers battling near the speakers, footwerkers taking off their sandals and braving the cobblestone to go double time on already frenetic beats, and music that was ethereal and present, infused with all the sweet/sweat synthsations of my favorite RnB coupled with a low end urgency that has kept with funk since the latin freestyle and miami bass days. The DJ was a middle aged man in a dark grey tee and a brown zip up hoodie, he didnt sing or dance along, just looked out on the crowd with a knowing look of stoic contentment, this is his work, and he is absolutely killing it- at one point, from behind the platform that hes standing on alone about 30 yards back from the system-  i glanced up at t his acer netbook and only saw Winamp running. There are no monitors, no headphones. I was already too drunk to need anything from the bars that served endless variations on fresh squeezed juices, liquor and redbull. I danced until it started to pour, the dj put a backpack on top of his laptop, a weathered tarp covered the speakers, the music kept going, but we decided to walk down the hill. Half way down the power cut out, everything went dark.

I’m still trying to get my head around the music- because it sounded different then most of the funk I had heard before. Vaguely: more European club music then 2-Live -Crew. It reminded me of NguzuNguzu- whose production I adore primarily because I have absolutely know idea what to do with it. It’s almost always too Ravey for me to want to play it out- but at the same time there is  something seditious and dark beneath all the glistening synths-  and that darkness and space is what keeps drawing me back. I honestly think they could of wrecked this party last night. The first track of theirs I  heard was Kingdom’s remix of Hate 2 Wait- which to this day is one of my favorites to drop when its time for a radical new direction in my sets. Dutty Artz extended family Khalif Mihaji Leif just killed a voicing of the original instrumental that wraps up to perfection with some Linzy-esque crooning. When homeboy graduates from college I give it two years tops until he’s a household name for 20 somethings worldwide.

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/hate2wait.mp3]

NguzuNguzu  have a new E.P. dropping on Silverback records early October – they did up a promo mix for it- that you can grab over at Scattermusic– (i would  re-up it for u- but my internet run real slow down here)

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Dutty Artz will release Lamin Fofana‘s debut EP What Elijah Said on September 21. Lamin has been steadily working on beats for the past few years, and he’s about to make a public birth.

When we asked him to describe the music, Lamin sent us this sentence: “Yet, he would refer to the Mother Plane, a mysterious space ship with superior beings, giant black gods or something like that, that patrolled the universe, keeping an eye on the devil and ready to rescue Black Muslims from Armageddon.” Sounds like sci-fi, but turns out it’s from the New York Times 1975 obituary (!) for Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad.

Everything is not what it seems, and this music’s mark of greatness is the way it so effortlessly calls for repeat listens.

What Elijah Said EP:

01 Happy 2010 // Dark Days Are Coming
02 “I will admonish you and give you absolution”
03 What Elijah Said // Eye on the Devil
04 Dance In Yr Blood

Artwork: Boy holding fluorescent bulb,  photo by Brendan Bannon, Dandora Dumpsite, Nairobi. 8/29/2006.   Hundreds of trash pickers scavenge the dump for food, plastic, glass, and metal. Areas of the dump smolder from a slow burn of plastics and detritus just under the surface. Local activist have attempted to close the site due to pollution concerns.

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Lamin Fofana  was born in the West African country of Guinea. When the political situation got bumpy, he moved to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where his routine involved listening to Goodie Mob and Organized Konfusion as well as attending Quranic schools/mosques. In 1997 Lamin’s family had to flee worsening conditions in Sierra Leone – losing friends, belongings, documents, a home. They spent several days crossing roads and bridges destroyed by rebels to prevent people from escaping. At the end of the year, Fofana found a new home in Harlem, New York, where he lives today.

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originally posted on Rupture’s blog, Land o’ Mudd

 

Yesterday’s guest mix & interview by The Sick Girl(s) was excellent thumping late-summer fun, and I’m pleased to announce that on Monday September 13th, I’ll have South African boy wonder Spoek Mathambo live in-studio on WFMU 91.1 FM! Us black internationals gonna throw an on-air Tea Party.

I first encountered Spoek as part of Sweat X, his duo project that I wrote about for Fader’s Africa issue [PDF] two years back. That piece involved a lively interview and allowed me to get the following sentence into print: “Spoek Mathambo is a slippery post-Apartheid glam-rap prince from Soweto who is descended from distant African royalty, or Jewish, or both.”

Since then Spoek has been making steady moves for world domination, rapping, singing, sending me emails about mythical dinosaurs that can stop the flow of a river (and concept band/videos based on same), generally manifesting polyglot amazingness in all sorts of places (Johannesburg, Stockholm, Mrs Internet, Paris, Twitter), and, finally, AMERIKKKA, the country with the best hamburgers & weapons. Although I do love the gun-fetish object on Mshini Wam’s cover:

spoek-mshini wam cover

So. We welcome him to our strange land with open arms. Fader is streaming his album for the rest of today, and we can watch these 2 videos to get some angles into Mr Mathambo’s complex musical visions… (HINT: the damaged Joy Division cover I’ve been playing out since Pitchfork festival last summer is 100% Spoek…. he’s lost control…)

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CIAfrica is a heavy crew. They have their own thing going on in Babi, Cote d’ivoire and run the sort of international basss weight productions that we live for- along with spitfire lyrics that jump between local concerns and international awareness. Basically they are dope as fuck. It is a huge honor and pleasure to finally see their DA debut up at all the usual spots and getting love from some serious heavyweight DJs, producers and friends.

Various tracks are being loaded to blogs of varying readership- but if you want a little somethin’ somethin’ straight from the elephants mouth….

Head over to bandcamp to DL a copy of the perfectly titled “Epikstar Riddim” from Babylon Residence. This is our first shot with bandcamp- and once we have your email address we’ll hit you with more free music and the occasional update.

DA007 DJ /rupture presents CIAfrica by Dutty Artz

COP THE ALBUM HERE, physical CDs in stores soon

AmAZON

Turntable Lab

Boomkat

There was a meta-data error at itunes- but it should be up ASAP

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Next Friday, August 27th, come catch myself and Tanlines in a pay-what-you-want party at The Whitney Museum.

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[some guitar band at the Whitney]

James Franco was trying to get on the bill with a new indie garage cumbia electro project he’s working on, but the Whitney people had to tell him no. Which is just as good, because with Tanlines, myself, and you, together we are well-equipped to build a DANCE PARTY, possibly the Last Fun Party of the Summer, and let me repeat: it’s FREE. 6-9pm = pay-what-you-wish for museum admission. Grapes will not be served, despite internet rumors stating otherwise.

grapes

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CIAfrica coverf

[DJ Rupture presents CIAFRICA cover art, Dutty Artz/Soot 2010]

So the music of Abidjan’s CIAfrica crew does sound a bit like a grimey, glitchy elephant staring you down as angular new-money architecture burns or smolders or looms in the background and the sky’s color stumbles from white to black with a few lasers for good measure, because we’re not living in the future, they are.

Sometime last year the visionary ringleader, Amadou aka Green Dog (RZA to their Wu) gave me access to their deep hard drives — packed with singing, rapping & fwd-thinking beats. Thrilling material. I pulled out my favorite 17 songs for a CD which will be released later this month, DJ Rupture presents CIAFRICA. This coincides with CIAfrica, Nettle, and myself performing at Gotenburg’s Sweden Way Out West festival next Friday, August 13th. I’ll be DJing separately from them, in a party with Sleigh Bells and Fool’s Gold (the band). It’s a 3-day affair, with folks like Wu-Tang, M.I.A., Jay Electronica, The xx, etc performing, so if yr in Scandinavia, might be worth the trip… & I’ve found that drunk Swedes tend to still be really nice, at least in Gotenburg.

It will be the first time the CIAfrica MCs and vocalists perform outside their Côte d’Ivoire/Ivory Coast home base! They have this awesome Pam Grier video for one of their female MCs, Nasty, but it keeps getting censored by YouTube. So here’s a vid from one of the guys coming over, Manusa:

and a placeholder vid for the Nasty tune:

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Sometimes we refer to Dutty Artz as “the family” or “a family. I realize this might cause some confusion. America is a complicated nation. Lamin’s not from here, I spent most of the decade living in a magical place called Europe where the doctors don’t mug you, and Matt has red hair. Point is, when we say “Dutty Artz is the family!”, this is what we mean:

dutty artz is the family!

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Last Monday we had a great show here in the basement of Dubspot on Dutty Artz radio.  We streamed live on UStream as usual and had a bunch of people logged in while Taliesin, Mosholu Park and myself played some short sets followed by an epic 80 minute throwdown from NguzuNguzu.  Listen through to the end to hear Daniel playing congas over juke beats live.  I was a little drunk by that point but I remember it sounding super duper dope.  You can check our ustream channel to see video of the session.  I’m told that not all files in these posts are being pushed to the podcast stream so I’ll put their set first and you can click to stream or download the rest of ours.

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The second episode of Dutty Artz Radio is up! Me (Matt Shadetek), DJ Rupture, Mosholu Park aka Lamin and Taliesin all got together in the basement of Dubspot to all DJ some short 20 minute sets and do the first episode of our new book club!

The book we talked about is Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.

I chopped the audio into separate parts for your mp3 player pleasure.  We streamed it on UStream although somehow the video got lost. The full chat transcript is after the jump though so you can read back if you want.  We’ll be doing this weekly on Thursday nights at 7PM NYC time (EST) at http://www.ustream.tv/duttyartznyc

This coming Monday we’ll have a special edition after Dubspot Radio which is at 8 (and I also run) with special guests NGUZU NGUZU! YAAAAA!  We’re very excited

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgeyVE3NHJM[/youtube]

Check 1:40 for the real moment(s) of clarity here.

Dutty Artz is a book club. You might have thought we were a record label- given that we’re releasing tracks every month and constantly feeding the internet with audio files- but it goes a lot deeper then that. If you want to be part of the club, you should read Octavia Butler’s Parable of The Sower. If you’re not in the Northern Hemisphere- you might want to wait until Summer, caus this one is dark, and if read before bed, almost guaranteed to induce the vivid nightmares that lodge in your psyche for days before revealing themselves as dreams and not memories.

We’re scrambling just like everyone else right now- trying to figure out what it means to be a record label in an era where recorded digital media has no value- and the only people making money are slicing off pounds of flesh to get branded. You’ll see us move in that direction too. It’s inevitable. Hopefully we can do it without losing too much respect. Until then you can find me steady dreaming of new distribution paradigms as we pass each other printed relics.