Dance is an often overlooked, central part of many of the music scenes we are interested in at Dutty Artz. It has been important for us since the early days — when Matt Shadetek’s Brooklyn Anthem became dubbed Craziest Riddim and spread like fire amongst the Brooklyn-teen Dancehall scene. Today so many local dances and DJ scenes have such an intimate symbiotic relationship, so I’m gonna start a new column here to put some of the developments in musically-informed body movement back at the center of our attention:(more…)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyAhRPh6ETA[/youtube]
Bee and I drive for hours from Jeppestown looking for Nozinja’s house on the edge of Soweto. I’m using the GPS on her Blackberry- but keep fucking up and suddenly we’ve left the city behind and are driving for 20 minutes out into the countryside where sprawling townships blend in from afar with the yellow umber tall grass. The drive was supposed to take 45 minutes- but we arrive at dusk to his spot next to the rail tracks in a clean cut row of brick single story houses. A gleaming Benz sits in the dirt driveway and Nozinja, creator of the Shangaan Electro sound, is inside waiting for a BBC interviewer to call back. I apologize for being hours late- but he says it’s fine and just makes fun of Bee for not knowing her way around Soweto. Shangaan Electro is the new marketing title for the wildly inventive update on Shangaani music that Nozinja has been making and selling throughout S. Africa for years.
Rich from the Tshetsha Boys in one of his masks - Nozinja plans the costumes and a seamstress makes themDIY Kitchen Distro At Nozinja's House
This is a classic untouched genre discovery story – weird computer music, hyperspeed dancing, clown costumes, youtube, serendipitous ringtones, cancelled return trips home from South Africa- but the music is mindblowing– and more so for all seemingly coming from the mind of one man. Nozinja gives me one of the his early releases from Tiyiselani Vomaseve- a group produced by Nozinja consisting of five women who dance and one who sings. The CD is hand screen-printed and comes off a spindle from his distribution/storage cupboards in the kitchen- it is hard to get all the way through, the midi music is relentless and exhausting for the uninitiated- but the rest of the Shangaani music that has been coming out via Honest Jon’s has been addictively listenable. After killer coverage of those releases, including a massive summer tour, Nozinja is set to start releasing his own music digitally to the world via his eponymous label. The first two releases are availble now from Tiyiselani Vomaseve (itunes) and the Tshetsha Boys, whose album is straight forwardly titled “YouTube Top Hits” (itunes).
Stream a couple cuts from the Tiyiselani album below.
I had the beeps from this beat stuck in my head for a few months so I had to look it up on Youtube this morning. I heard it first in DJ Vlad’s Hyphymentary “Ghost Ride The Whip” which is worth checking. Too $hort STAYS on form, crazy.
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