Tomorrow, I’m kicking off my Sunday morning radio show on WFMU! All summer long, 9am to noon – I’ll be playing music, noise, and whatnots on WFMU 91.1 and 90.1 MHz FM. For the past couple of years, I provided extra oils to keep Rupture’s Mudd Up! wheels greased proper, all the while filling in, co-operating, and board-opping for everyone from Rob Weisberg to Glen Jones, and now I got a three-hour spot on the longest running freeform, independent community radio station in the United States! The show doesn’t have a name, and for now we’re just calling it Lamin. If you have a good name suggestion, let’s hear it! As for a description, let’s just say we’re staying true to WFMU’s commitment to unstructured-format broadcasting. Go here to stream my last Sunday morning broadcast.
I’ve been traveling to Colombia at regular intervals to present a new sound fusing folkloric Afro-Colombian rhythms with modern day electronic music production techniques that harmonize into a synthetic club sound rooted in tradition. Via the internet, the birthplace of Cumbia has become a source of inspiration to a number producers worldwide. Recently, we invited some of the top names in the scene to a bandcamp in Colombia and a filmmaker to document it. We want to provide an insider view of the impact this music is having on the local scene and how a small network of globally minded producers are defying conventional standards of Latin club music.
We have a couple weeks to get this production costs for completing this project funded. To hear more about how you can help please visit http://www.indiegogo.com/Pico-de-Gallos
Que Bajo?! returns to NYC after touring Miami, Medellin, Barranquilla, Bogota, Cali, and SXSW… come hear exclusive new remixes from myself, Uproot Andy, DJ Orion, Toy Selectah, Isa GT and more and check out our guest DJ’s Venus X of the Ghe20 Gothik Party who just rocked the shit out of the fader fort at SXSW and Panchitron from the Peligrosa All Stars crew down in Texas. Pancho’s mixtape stayed in heavy rotation last month for Que Bajo?! fans
Thursday March 31
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleeker St
11pm -$10
MATT SH∆DETEk
UPROOT ∆NDY
GEKO JONES
CHIEF BOIM∆
L∆MIN FOF∆N∆
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LIVE VISUALS from NES.AVI
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FRIDAY, MARCH 18
10-2AM
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NES.AVI
Flamingo Cantina
515 East 6th Street
Austin, TX 78701
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˚˚˚˚FREE˚˚˚˚w/ wristband.  Tickets available at the door for under $10, SXSW will tell us price tomorrow around 7PM, follow @mattshadetek and @duttyartz on twitter for final ticket price
Because it’s an official showcase there’s no guest list, sorry.
It confounds  me when people use the word ‘leak‘ when they really mean ‘release.’ While I like the ideas of studio engineer subterfuge and secret key-logging and usb stick replicating – mostly your media consumption is fairly engineered. ALL YOUR TASTE BELONG TO US/THEM.
We release the first glistening taste of Atropolis to the cloud world this week. His full length drops 4/26. If you missed it the first time- he’s on some next level movement. It’s been a quiet first quarter at DA- but we’re just mining the data and building the killer app.
Everybody come sweat with us, that’s the way we like it.
New York City is about cultural compression (in a good way) and super expensive everything else (in a bad way). So in efforts to raise our collective quality of life, the Dutty Artz Brooklyn party stays FREE (this is how we say we love you, in NY-speak) and Matt Shadetek, Chief Boima, & I will be joined by always-inspiring guests from nicer cities: Nguzunguzu will be here from L.A. and Maga Bo will be in from Rio. So yeah, party will ram up, get there early, buy or rapidshare our last compilation album which has music by everyone playing, tell a friend to start a revolution, etc.
Merry Christmas, if you celebrate these sort of things. It’s hot in Kingston and the holidays are confusing for me without snow or even a jacket.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr-LdIZcmqI[/youtube]
The hustle doesn’t stop. Not sure what charity to give to this holiday season? If you care about black/queer/bass/culture/visual_house/future_NYC stop by DA extended family Le1f‘s kickstarter for his new noir-noir mixtape and send him some success. Dude deserves it like few other people I know. He’s been 100% DIY for a minute and it’s time to push him to that next level.
So much madness is lining up for DA next year that I’m tripping thinking that if half of it get’s done it will be amazing. Thanks for sharing it with us. We grind for you.
I flew from Rio to Kingston on Friday. Round four. Buenos Aires, Rio, São Paulo, now Kingston. A year of bass music, soundsystems, studios, ’nuff sessions and building the DA family. I’m researching what techniques enable artists, managers, promoters, pirates, and labels to eat off music – usually with dramatically less resources/infrastructure than there is in NYC. Mostly I’ve been bouncing around cities and their public transport systems to one-off meetings and parties. I’m trying something different in Jamaica and settling in to start work with Sharon Burke and her empire, Solid Agency. If you’ve done dance hall business, you know Sharon. But if you’re just a fan you might never of heard of the hardest working woman in Jamaica. She gets to the office first, spends all day working a grip of Black Berrys, leaves last, and even on the way home last night with her feet up, she was sealing deals for big shows while Ice, one of her drivers, swerved through Kingston traffic. Leftside’s impersonation is spot on. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThDFToJc8Hk[/youtube]
Solid handles artist management and booking, as well as being involved in events and just about every other facet of the industry. Kevin ‘Payday’ Green’s Alliance aligned studio is in the back- and even though it’s a humble affair, it’s nothing for Bounty Killer, Elephant Man, or Mavado to roll through in a day, along with ’nuff artists waiting their chance to run up the ranks. When no one’s voicing, the studio door opens and the near-fields get turned up to 11, pumping the latest tunes and unreleased riddims into the yard.
Early at the Payday Yard
I’m hoping my updates can be more regular now that I’m down here. First order of business is to start making some radio rips. You know when you’re driving through BK, or picking up Boston’s Hot 97 and you don’t want to finish you trip for fear of losing the pirate signal? It’s like that all the time, every day down here. Except you never drop the signal – of course Daggering and Gun Man lyrics are all officially banned- you have to get to a session for that- but it’s still fresh to death.
And don’t sleep on Natalie Storm’s new mix. She said she made it after a rough break up and a period of abstinence and it’s dripping with sex. Between her calculated dive into house, electro and dancehall, and Dylan Powe’s burner Wiley voiced Showa Eski Riddim. Good things soon come for Prodigal and Federation.
If you have people down here, or spots you love, and want to get in touch. I’m always down to build. TallyBower AT GGGGmmmmmAALLLE. Already looking forward to Dre Skull, DJ Ripley, The Mad Decent Boyz, Toddla T and a few others being around. I’ll be here until March. Respect to Erin Hansen and Erin MacLeod for getting me sorted so far.
Chief Boima held down the dopest African night in San Francisco at Little Boabab. Now that he has relocated to NYC there’s talk of a new African music night in collaboration with Lamin Fofana…… until then, you’ll have to settle for rare guest appearances at parties like Old Money Massive’s Van Setima at Panda this Thursday in NYC.
You know that feeling, when you don’t hear much from your favorite artists for a while, but you know its not caus they fell off, but caus they’re cooking some next-level shit. That’s how it is for Boima right now- but just hold tight, CAUS THE INTERNET CAN WAIT for B. That’s how ahead our mans game is. Some people are “right on the zeitgeist,” but Boima is zeitgeist producing. Africa is the future, and you’d be stupid not to try and grab a glimpse on Thursday.
If I had more time I would of recorded street traffic and added it as a bonus cut “BK 4’33” on the new iphone friendly .m4r ring tone version of New York Tropical. Which now happens to be coming out on Nov. 9 – so push back your calendar a week and call it a date.
“creativity was the ability to bring to life an image or idea regardless of resources”
– Chief Boima, Interviewed by Eddie Stats
Eddie Stats has a great interview with Dutty Artz familia Chief Boima and Vamanos from Ghetto Bassquake over at his blog Ghetto Palms for the Fader (linked below). Â In it came the above quote which Boima mentions in the context of film theory.
I love this idea and it brings me back to a concept that I try to bash my friends and students over the head with all the time.
Creativity is what happens IN SPITE of things like equipment, time and resources. Â A lot of people I know cling to the idea that as soon as they get this next plug-in, keyboard, piece of software, money, time or whatever it is that they don’t currently have that they’ll be able to accomplish their creative goals.
I am sorry to report that this is absolutely not the case.
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.
I’m leaving America next Sunday. There’s nothing left for me here, and I’m not coming back. At least, not for a year. I’m not quite ready to leave, but I’m contractually obliged to- so this Sunday I’ll fly from JFK on a convoluted itinerary to Buenos Aires. I found out in the spring that I had received a Watson Fellowship. Wayne and Jace deserve credit as much as I do- they helped me craft my proposal. And there was some tactical chaos magic that nudged my chances just enough to matter.
So I’ll be gone for twelve months starting this august- attempting a sort of grand tour. Five months in S. America. A month in Jamaica. Six Months in Africa. Or something like that. So far only the first three months are planned. I’ll be in Argentina for a month, then Brazil for two. There’s a project behind all of this- a nebulous (now) attempt of getting a grasp of what it is that we (Dutty Artz) are engaged in from a broader prospective then I’ve previously had access to.
I’m looking for sustainable/scalable business models, new productions techniques, pirate economies, massive sound-systems, broken_links, and a bevy of things that I’m only faintly grasping at right now.
I’m taking a fancy camera and some HD recording devices and there are notions of collecting my documentation outside of the internet- creating a kind of visual/taxtual accompaniment to the Global Ghettotek fascination that I’ve been continually inoculated against but cant seem to quit. The whole project will be as open source as possible. I have no fucking idea what I’m doing, and need a lot of help. But there is powerful positive energy in the universe and I have my stars aligned and my crystals vibrating at 60 HZ just like the man at the botanica told me to do.
My email is TallyBower AAAATTTTTT GGGGMMMAAAAIILLL so if u have any suggestions, any friends anywhere along the way, beef to pick with the colonial underpinnings your reading in my mission, a favor to ask, food to try, places to surf, or anything that I need to know, or that you want to do for me, or that I can do for you. please just let me know.
It’s nearly impossible to leave New York- there’s too many people that I love, and projects that I care about- but nows as good a time as ever to get away.
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:
