I did my Low Income Tomorrowland mix 7 years ago for the mighty Lemon-Red blog. This was 2005, the same year YouTube debuted. Time flies when you’re updating your social networks…
The mix remains future (DL link above) and just last week, the Pseudojamaica crew gave an excerpt from L.I.T. a hi-rez video mashup treatment, check it:
And over here, DJ Su-Real took an Adil El Miloudi Moroccan banger from Mudd Up! and flipped it with a 4×4 friendly dancefloor remix.
[audio:http://negrophonic.com/mp3/CHEB ADIL CLUB MIX.mp3] Adil El Miloudi – remixed by Su-Real [16 MB]
I <3 when the internet takes a ball I've lobbed and runs with it. Hive mind tennis: are we playing it or is it playin’ us?
Got some great feedback from this show, like this email: “your interview with Chris Kirkley was inspiring …great job ..its amazing because each time he played something i wanted to ask him a question and you asked the same question right afetrwards…i like his method of finding weddings by taxi ..what an optimist !! I love the idea that music ends up being spread by whatever technology is widely available in this case via the shitty speaker of a cell phone …soundwise not so different from transistor radios 40 years ago …some great music he found …hes a brave man”
you can listen up here :
As always, you can subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast for downloadable versions, issued about a week after FM broadcast: , Mudd Up!RSS. Also useful: WFMU’s free iPhone app. We also have a version for Android (search for “WFMU” in the marketplace).
[The poster uses 3 alphabet character sets: Arabic, Tifinagh, Latin]
This Friday we’re presenting Beyond Digital Morocco at the Cinematheque de Tanger, then moving outdoors for a free concert featuring Nettle (here in Morocco Nettle is a trio: myself, Lindsay Cuff, and Brent Arnold) and Hassan Wargui (Imanaren). All happening in Tangiers’ incredible medina.
Nettle is from NYC, and Hassan’s from Souss Berber country in Morocco’s south — we’re using these days to develop and record new songs together. It’s not that music ‘transcends’ language, it’s that music is language, and our motley crew is enjoying its communicative glow. Lindsay’s learning the words (in the Berber language of Tashelhit) to an Archach song we’ll cover; Hassan’s Amazigh banjo lines help us extend ‘Mole in the Ground’ even further; Abdellah’s joining in on rebab and bendir… and things are just getting started.
Here’s a quick video of our first practice together:
RSVP on the Facebook event page if you’d like to let the C.I.A. know you support us. Offline, we’re making event posters at a truly special letterpress studio that’s been open for over half a century.
bonus: late-night afterparty at Morocco Palace (located on a street called ‘the Devil’s Alley’, one block over from Tangiers’ synagogue, which had a congregation of around 200,000 during its heyday) with Adil El Miloudi!!
I’m very excited to present this video. It’s a short Behind The Scenes look at our Beyond Digital: Morocco art project. You can also check out my series of Fader posts, and the BD website itself, but this video is by far the best summary and explanation of what we were up to in June, and in so doing it provides glimpses of what’s to come: an incredible photo series by John Francis Peters; poignant video essays by Maggie Schmitt and Juan Alcon Duran; my free Max4Live audio tools suite, Sufi Plug-Ins; Maghrebi percussion sample pack & music by Maga Bo; and more… We’ll also be doing an event in Tangier on September 9th, more info next week.
Auto-tune lovers take note: the video previews a snippet from the best auto-tune interview ever, when we spoke with Moroccan pop star Adil El Miloudi in his home.
Adil El Miloudi: “Autotune gives you a ‘me’ that is better.”
Over on Alt1040, Geraldine Juárez asks me smart questions about the ideas behind Beyond Digital: Morocco. I do my best to answer. En espanol para que los güeros aprendan!
ALT1040 – ¿Es el espacio post-digital el extremo fÃsico del internet? ¿Como defines post-digital?
DJ Rupture: Es importante pensar en tiempo post-digital o post-internet. Y para mi este tiempo es lento lento… todo lo opuesto a un meme (#sheen, #egypt etc… ) El tiempo y/o la velocidad del internet, creo que es una velocidad/tiempo muy rápida, muy capitalista; no solamente es hoy sino ahora mismo, fast-food al máximo. Y yo estoy bien metido en el matrix, ya sabes…
Quizás lo post-digital tiene que ver con mirar al internet y el mundo digital desde una perspectiva de escasez y precariedad, donde no tienes el lujo de no pensar en su infraestructura.
I’m going into the wormhole. At least 120 of you are coming with me.
On Monday night at around 3AM, I received an email from our Barcelona point-man Carlos: I finally found out exactly who the guy is that sings that awesome Amazigh song that you played on Mudd Up! last night and is also on the Beyond Digital trailer thingy. It’s Cheb Adil El Miloudi (he says his name/big ups himself at the beginning of the song). I like his Dad-sweater!
Excited, I went over to the video, as nearly 1.5 million people had done before me:
Beyond Digital yielded its first fruits — my friend IDed an unknown singer on a semi-legit CD I purchased in Paris (containing no tracklist), and our favorite jam turned out to be that of a massively popular Amazigh vocalist – عادل الميلودي – with millions of Youtube pageviews and zero English-language biographical info online. CONTEXT! NAMING NAMES!
Even better: as I listened to his song, I learned that our Kickstarter project had just reached its funding goal! Which is a wonderful affirmation of not only Beyond Digital but the collaborative aspect of it that “crowdsourcing” (but we’re not a crowd, it’s more of an open community; the distinction is key) brings to the forefront. More generally, I feel like we’re all exploring this stuff together…via discussions on blogs and face-to-face recording sessions, via giving musicians props and excavating useful info, by being careful listeners and enthusiastic newcomers (like me) and in countless others ways — supporting this particular project among them.
As of this evening, more than a hundred people have contributed, ranging from $1 donations to some wise kids near Philly who pitched in $1500, a sum that secures them a DJ Rupture party there next month…
And it’s not too late to help out.
We’ve got 6 days left on the Kickstarter, so act fast if you would like to get mailed 3 extra-awesome CDs from Marrakesh ($25) or want Maga Bo and I to make a mixtape whose theme/topic/angle you pick ($750), or desire any of the other rewards — from an original photographic print by John Francis Peters to the have-Rupture-play-yr-party #swag #afrosheen option.
As we mention, the Kickstarter goal covers just a portion of our budget. We’re being super-efficient & frugal with our expenses, gearing up to do the maximum on a shoestring budget. Grant applications and other fundraising options are in process, as is the move to become a proper non-profit organization so we can continue Beyond Digital well beyond our June time in Marrakesh.
What I’m saying is: we can still use your support, we’ll put it to good use, and we would like to offer a huge thanks to everyone who has donated or helped spread the word thus far.
To close, here’s another Abil El Miloudi video. This one is more like the song from our Kickstarter video: Abil El Miloudi’s auto-tune vocals shimmer above bird songs (Amazigh pop loves rural signifiers and so do I) and the lovely, root-like (in appearance) acoustic guitar-type instrument called an ‘utar’ (my extremely limited Arabic/Tamazigh vocabulary gets transliterated into Spanish phonetic spelling, that’s how I learned from Abdel and Khalid in Barcelona, sorry!).
We’re back at Gallery Bar for the second edition of Made In Africa this Thursday – the night of birthday celebrations! It’s Boima’s birthday, so do come out and show him love. Birthday boy Chief Boima and yours truly will be deck, supplying you homegrown and international heat and oil as we say farewell to Winter in America, Harmattan in West Africa, etc. and greet (slightly) warmer/dizzy/better seasons!
Made In Africa // Facebook RSVP
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
Gallery Bar
120 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002
21+ // $5 Cover // $5 Well Drinks until midnight!
& now – Gaddafi’s epic meltdown, THE TRANCE REMIX:
Over two years ago Jace and I started talking about doing an artist residency project in Morocco. Five years ago Jace started talking to Maga Bo about how boring clubs and festivals are and what sort of more in-depth work they could do, as musicians, as DJs, as curators, as artists, and as friends. Beyond Digital is finally here. The future vision is an international non-profit that curates artist residencies focused on interesting localizations of international tech. Cell phone banking, Berber Auto-Tune, Mesh Networks in Cairo, Pirate Distros…..
In June Jace, Bo, John Francis Peters, Carolyn Lazard and I will go to Marrakesh. More people will come to help with documentation and to complete their own projects- this is the group that’s locked in so far. Everyone has different priorities- but we’ll be working together on everything. Bo is going to record an album in a DIY studio we build. John, who is the photo editor at The Fader, is going to complete photo-essays and teach digital photography. Jace is going to follow Berber Auto-Tune to its originary-point and beyond. Carolyn is going to film documentary shorts. I’m going to try and keep everything organized while doing my own research on small studios and DIY digital culture.
We will also be putting on skill-shares and media production workshops. Everything we do will be documented and spread out from Morocco through museum shows, lectures, dvds, streaming and just about every other format you can imagine translating a month into. On the ground we’ll interface with Dar Al-Ma’mûn cultural center and Arab Media Lab.
We are working behind the scenes and non-disclosure agreements to lock down some serious institutional, grant, and corporate support. BUT- right now we need YOUR HELP. We need to send Jace and Bo to Morocco in the spring to do preliminary organization and networking to make sure everything goes smoothly in June. The main cost here will be travel expenses (transatlantic flights, local car rental, frugal accommodations & food, translator). Part of the money raised will be used to create a website. Anything over the amount we’re asking for will be re-invested in the June portion of the project. Project donors can receive curated CD’s from Moroccan markets, signed prints from John Francis- Peters, instruments, custom mix tapes, and if you feel like balling the fuck out, you can even pledge your way to Jace and Bo djing your dinner party, wedding, or day at the beach. Help us get there.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about cellphones lately. Portland’s Gulls just did an edit version of one of the tracks from ‘Music From Saharan Cellphones’ which I’ll be playing on the radio show tonight. Along with a Rita Indiana exclusive, new Stuff From Europe, tribal guarachero, superdeep cumbia rebajada, and, as always, more.
More is my favorite type of music, actually. Then comes 128kbps, one of my favorite musical genres. We are releasing a compilation called New York Tropical in a few weeks. Lots of new material by myself + Matt Shadetek, Lido Pimienta, DJ Orion, Kingdom remixing Rita Indiana, and more! You can download the entire album as ringtones (iPhone, etc) right now.
moral of the story: tune in to Mudd Up!Wfmu.org 91.1fm nyc, 7-8pm TONITE.
In ‘Music From Saharan Cellphones’ the original tune is labeled ‘Niger – Autotune’. Chris from Sahelsounds has found out a bit more: the band is called Emsitka. They are indeed from Niger but live in Nigeria.
I haven’t heard that many tracks from Aidonia; he’s one of those mid to late ’00s dancehall artists you hear about all the time, see his name on countless mixtapes, and probably already heard a bunch of his tunes at parties, but you never actually went out of your way and check for his tunes. That’s until I heard the title cut from Stephen “Di Genius” Mcgregor’s incredible Bad People riddim which completely shifted my view on a couple of vocalists — but more on that shortly. “Heart Is Hers” features Aisha Davis and is produced by Equiknoxx producer/artist collective (who are also responsible producing another impressive Aidonia track titled “Negative.”) This is what dancehall sounds like in post-808s & Heartbreak/weird-emotional-electro-pop-hop era? Dancehall is going in so many different, exciting directions at the moment, and as for this particular type of sound which has been bubbling for the last few years I think it’s safe to point to T-Wayne & Yeezy as references. As Aidonia sings – “Song is too dead/it needs more life – Needs a faster melody/more melody/groove your body…”
I imagine I like Afrikan Boy, he seems like a fairly relaxed and pleasant person. This new video, shot in the imaginary offices of ‘Afrikan Airlines’ is quite enjoyable.  Ever since he did a grime influenced tune a few years back about getting caught shoplifting in Lidl (a very very cheap European supermarket chain where I used to buy groceries in Berlin) I’ve been rooting for him. Also I think it’s cool that he raps in a Nigerian accent, which up til now has been (and still is?) considered uncool, giving rise to a bunch of Africans in grime who try to sound yardie and end up completely unintelligible. via Ghetto Bassquake.
So. By now we should all know that MLK is beautiful and Auto-Tune is culturally complicated. A lot can be said about this video, from the elemental power of oratory to the ways in which technology can amplify or disperse political potential to the notion that rewiring history is an act aimed at future change.
But what keeps running through my head is a paraphrase from Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. here: I’m trying to tell America about a dream that I had.
For the last few months, Jahdan has been constantly, sonically bombing the internet with quality heat. If you think the tracks on Bazooka Shot were crazy, just wait until you hear the album. Better yet, head over to iTunes, where you can preview and buy the first single from the album Buzzrock Warrior. The single is called “She Said”and it features 77klash. Jahdan’s voice is beautiful and pure on this one, but the beat and the bass are shifty, and Klash spits some cryptic, classic lines on this. The album comes out September 15th (9/14 for those in the UK!), which is just around the corner. Get hustlin, get ready!
Audio and video are not completely in sync, but who cares, really? Especially, when the sound, visual, and message are so soulful and sexy (and she’s trying not to spell it out, but she can’t help herself…) “Milk and Honey” is deliberately sweet, seductive, and celebratory. I find the experimentation and lightheartedness here much more interesting. Props to Bedrock for the beat. I haven’t heard or seen much from Goapele since her 2000/1 song “Closer” – positive, dreamy, a bit wistful now.
On a general note -Â neo soul and alt contemporary R&B has been anemic, stale since 2001 (after D’Angelo’s Voodoo and Erykah Badu’s Mama Gun, what else is there?)Â I’ve stayed away for the most part, but very now and then, there are impressive, surprisingly great albums and songs like Erykah Badu’s “The Healer” from her 2008 offering New Amerykah Part One (4th World War). For 2009, Sa-Ra’s album Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love is amazing and has been very enjoyable.
from BAZOOKA SHOT mixtape, which is coming next week. Jahdan sounds incredible, and very smooth. Matt & Jace are on some old skool grime ting w/ this riddim. Some of the elements in it reminded me of Eskiboy around 2003-05. The tune also has a great slow down dancehall grind, lighters in the air vibes too.
Mudd Up! 
