jahdan front

required listening Dutty fam:

Jahdan podcast exclusive on XLR8R, accompanying an ‘Artist to Watch’ piece on JD in their March issue!

direct mp3 | m4a itunes enhanced

Jahdan Blakkamoore’s Full Hundred is a blazing 22 minute showcase of the Brooklyn singjay’s work bringing reggae/hiphop vibes to the dubstep, grime & garage arena, mixed by Matt Shadetek. Jahdan’s band Noble Society received the iTunes ‘Reggae album of the year’, and now we’re presenting his more electronic side as a solo vocalist with the Dutty Artz family handling production. Things kick off with a worldwide debut of the first single from his forthcoming Buzzrock Warrior album, “The General.”

Full Hundred unleashes a batch of exclusive remixes from producers including Matt Shadetek, Ghislain Poirier, Zomby, and Marcus Visionary. Look for “The General” single on vinyl this April in collaboration with Liondub International. Jahdan Blakkamoore’s We Are Raiders EP is out now on CD/12″/digital.

The Buzzrock Warrior album — coming this summer! — features JD at the heights of his powers, with vocals by Durrty Goodz, 77Klash, and production from Modeselektor, Matt Shadetek, DJ Rupture, Maga Bo, and more.

Jahdan Blakkamoore – Full Hundred (mixed by Matt Shadetek)

01 Jahdan – “Full Hundred Intro”
02 Jahdan Blakkamoore – “The General” (prod by Matt Shadetek & Liondub)
03 Jahdan Blakkamoore – “Long Road” (prod by Liondub, rmx by Matt Shadetek & Liondub)
04 Noble Society – “How We Gonna Get There” (prod by Ovaground)
05 Iron Shirt – “Gave You All My Love (Zomby Bassline Remix)”
06 Iron Shirt – “Gave You All My Love (Cauto Dubstep Remix)”
07 Iron Shirt – “Gave You All My Love (Matt Shadetek Gave You All My Dub Remix)”
08 Jahdan Blakkamoore – “Fever” (prod by Peter Gunn)
09 Jahdan Blakkamoore – “Nice Green (Ghost Library Riddim Mashup by Matt Shadetek)”
10 Noble Society – “Mama So Divine (Marcus Visionary Sub Soca Mix)”
11 Team Shadetek – “Brooklyn Anthem Feat. 77Klash & Jahdan (Ghislain Poirier Remix)”
12 Team Shadetek – “Brooklyn Anthem Feat. 77Klash & Jahdan (Scatta Riddim Mashup by Matt Shadetek)”
13 Team Shadetek – “Brooklyn Anthem Feat. 77Klash & Jahdan (Marcus Visionary Remix)”
14 Noble Society – She Told Me Feat. 77Klash (Cassava Riddim by Nokea, Mashup by Matt Shadetek)”

XLR8R podcast in the form of a brand new Jahdan Blakkamoore & Matt Shadetek mixtape, just got it from Matt and it’s hot & heavy with exclusives… Matt, Zomby, Marcus Visionary, Peter Gunn & more.

Hold tight for some Jahdan acappellas here soon.

jd fullhundred6

We’ve got a lot to give thanks for this week. The addition of Archer ‘Babytek’ Schell to the DA Fam. The forth coming family reunion this friday in Bed Stuy. and this….

Jahdan’s band Noble Society, winners of the I-tunes Reggae Album of the year are taking time off the grind to celebrate the release of their second full length, Take Charge.

OKAYPLAYER.COM had this to say…

“Noble Society is not your weed head uncle’s reggae band. Fronted by former Boot Camp Click affiliate, Jahdan, this Brooklyn outfit eschews the open, organic grooves of traditional roots music. Their ambitious debut, Take Charge is winter time reggae, world music for the new world order; a juxtaposition of the social and spiritual ruminations of vintage island music, the cold, claustrophobia of modern electronica, and the aggressive percussion of hip hop. When everything clicks, the urgency of the production adds heft to the fiery content that is characteristic of the genre, but often muted by the mellow bounce of the soundscapes. “

A big thanks to everyone who bought and voted for Jahdan’s group Noble Society’s album Take Charge on iTunes this year earning it the iTunes 2008 Best Reggae Album honors. The record is sick and Jah D, Diego Fuego and Delie have been working hard on it for a good long while, very nice to see some recognition coming back to the family. A big shout to Moon and everyone over at the Lustre Kings label, they’ve got a lot more exciting reggae music out and more coming.

Listen to clips from Take Charge here, and buy it here.

More than flour, more than rice, more even than Gasoline. DuttyArtz.com readers, don’t say I never gave you anything. Not only is this mixtape hot but it is actually THE MOST EXPENSIVE MIXCD EVER. Normally it costs $999.99 but since I like you I’m gonna hook you all up. Wow. Bronx dancing, selecting, trend setting dancehall icon Skerrit Bwoy linked us in early on this mix by him, Jazzy Joyce from Hot97 and Walshy Fire from Black Chiney. Joyce plays hiphop, Skerrit holds down Dancehall and Walshy drops Soca. Check for the two exclusive dubplates on two of my riddims for Skerrit’s Ghetto Life Entertainment sound system of Jahdan’s Go Round Payola and 77Klash’s Mad Again in his section of the mix. If you don’t know about Skerrit Bwoy he’s one of the craziest all around entertainers in NYC hailing out of Bronx. Check for his guest appearance in the Mad Again video coming soon, it is absolutely MAD SICK HEAD NUH GOOD.

**DOWNLOAD**

[cross-posted to Mudd Up!]

THESWARMCUMBIAKLASHCOVER4b
Big thanks to everyone who came out to Fiesta Soot, especially La Yegros & Fela crew. We were so busy with that and recording and whatnot that a bunch of us got sick. Germs, bacteria, cough cough, viral.

VIRAL

JahDan Blakkamoore’s Noble Society & 77Klash get a great cumbiambero refix treatment via La Familia Dub:

[audio:the_swarm_zuzuku_cumbia_klash_RMX.mp3]

The Swarm Zuzuku Cumbia Klash remix

(i posted up the original version awhile back)

Here are some excerpts, clips from Jahdan Blakkamoore’s We Are Raiders EP, upped on YouTube by Matt Shadetek. Listen, feast your eyes on Matt’s visual delights, get the real thing here.

BUSS IT PON DEM (prod. Chancha Via Circuito) [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9MRqdX-_Ys[/youtube]

PON TIME (prod. Stereotyp) [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc3S5dTn6eQ[/youtube]

NICE GREEN (prod. Matt Shadetek)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isZTtUnAibk[/youtube]

GO ROUND PAYOLA (prod. Matt Shadetek) [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn0fpnW9l1E[/youtube]

So what do you get when you cross 5 genre-bending border-crossing bassbin-blowing globalista sound selectors with a squadren of african dance divas?

FIESTA SOOT.

SATURDAY SEPT 13TH
Bowery Poetry Club NYC
308 Bowery between Houston and Bleeker

Soot Records is celebrating the release of Archipelagoes, the new album from Maga Bo. A special live/DJ set incorporating material from the album and his collection. Come find out why his live sets are so in-demand (Turntable of the Hudson, London’s Fabric, and Berlin’s Transmediale all came knocking on his door this month). Fresh from their successful Europe tour, DJ Rupture & Jahdan Blakkamoore will present their dubbed-out soundsystem set for the first time in the US. Be sure to check Rupture’s new video for his upcoming mix album, Uproot

http://sootrecords.com/img/fiesta_soot_sept_13.jpg

Pirate-turned percussionista Filastine is gonna unveil material from his forthcoming album on Soot, and DJs Geko Jones & Eliel Lucero will round things out with the latest in guaracha y bass, cumbia, and dubstep.

NO TE LO PIERDAS!!!!
We’ve invited the whole cast from the off-broadway musical Fela I asked you to go watch last month to come out and dance with us. Save the date

FIESTA SOOT – Fri Sept. 13th @ Bowery Poetry Club. 308 Bowery, NYC
$5 b4 11pm, $8 after. 10pm-late.

Yes, Dutty Artz is a recording label with actual (and digital) records in stores, tremendously talented musicians, one extremely dedicated operative, and supporters.

Here’s a tune from DUTTY REMIX ZERO which is still fresh in the stores. This remix is great, but you should really hear SHADETEk’s “Can’t Breathe” remix.
[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Cauto-BonaVida.mp3]
Cauto – Bona Vida

Rupture and JahDan are in the middle of their UK trek. If you are in the area, go and see them! Something wonderful happens when these two are together. Check DATV001 for proof.


(pic by Sr Atlantico)

We also got teh mixes –

[audio:https://duttyartz.com/mp3/GekoJones_live_on_WFMU.mp3]
Geko Jones New York Tropical; live on WFMU is still up + popping.

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Taliesin-BassBinShit.mp3]
Taliesin got some dark dark dark for ya… Well, it ain’t so dark, but it is.

Jahdan Blakkamoore: We Are Raiders 12

Jahdan Blakkamoore: We Are Raiders, presented by Matt Shadetek and DJ /Rupture will be in your shops on July 7th. We’ve been labbed up and working hard to get this first taste into the world as quickly as possible while finishing the full length that these songs are taken from, and now: it’s here! Well, in a few days anyway. But trust me, unlike some of our past infinitely receding release dates, this one actually exists (camphone evidence by Geko Jones):

jd camphone art

It will be available in CD, digital and 12″, with instrumentals and a bonus tune on the CD and digital, vinyl is the four vocals only (CD cover pictured).

The CD EP tracklist is as follows:

1. Buss It Pon Dem (Produced by Chancha Via Circuito, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

2. Nice Green (Produced by me, Matt Shadetek, New York City, USA)

3. Go Round Payola (Matt Shadetek)

4. Pon Time (Produced by Stereotyp, Vienna, Austria)

5. Pure Riddim (Bonus Instrumental, Matt Shadetek)

6. Payola Riddim (Matt Shadetek)

7. Nice Green Riddim (Matt Shadetek)

8. Varela (Chancha Via Circuito)

Pre-order yours now (and hear samples) from Boomkat or Cargo, distribution by Cargo (UK & Europe) and Traffic (USA).

Jahdan and Rupture will be in the UK this month on tour promoting the release. Get dates and more info from Qujunktions.

Also get a sneak preview of Nice Green off the EP over at my myspace, along with Go Round Payola.

Since the last post was about a mambo tune that I won’t be playing out anytime soon I thought I’d start out with a fun spanglish mambo party jam that I DO like and got a big forward at the last New York Tropical Dance. Bachata meets Mambo meets ATCQ.

Sakawaka by the official Dominican Pimp Makaraka y la Grande Liga

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Tiroteo [tee-roh-te-o] or alternatively Tiradera [Tee-ra-deh-rah]

1) A shoot-out

2) gunman lyrics in latin music

3) Battle tunes dissin other MC’s in latin music

I could draw on a million gun choons you’ve heard so I’m rollin with definition 3 here and offering a nugget from an unknown young Dominican duo called The Mr. feat Yankee Next. A ting called Ratata

Another bachata meets mambo tune, this one takes aim at the big boys of Mambo: El Sujeto, Jucafri, Tulile and Omega. The Mister who refuse to be pigeon-holed as Mamberos or Reggaeton artists fuse all sorts of urban and caribbean music and are comprised of Wagner Jesus Ortiz aka Mr. WJ and Franklin Emilio Gomez aka Mr. Frank. In recent hip-hop history this underdog tactic was deployed to career-launching success by one Mr Curtis Jackson on the now legendary How to Rob.

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I went back and found the video of El Sujeto I mentioned in comments of the last post. Here he and up and coming latin hip-hop artist El Lapiz are in a parking lot cheezin for the camara, flashing loaded clips, matching hardware and rattling off lyrics…. they then take turns exchanging poetic two-line couplets of street verse (as u watch, think bomba improvisada)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvT85iBFDJo[/youtube]

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Now, I’ve got guys and girls in my family that freestyle and act just like this on and off camara so here’s some thoughts on the gangsta/bling ethos infiltrating the jibaro homelands.

At home in PR, after a blunt, my cousins are easy enough to get along with. We spend our time together laughing at some of their admittedly moronic antics; a 26-man brawl with a police squad, pranks played on crack-heads, stealing cars (na dawg- sorry to break it to ya…. playing Grand Theft Auto does not a gangsta make), motorcycle crashes, bar fights, turf wars etc. Every visit is replete with new stories and matching battle scars. They boast of a revolving door at the local precinct that was recently installed, just to keep up with our brood. As they’re telling me all this, I watch two of them bitch up to raised hand from Titi Lulu, standing a towering 5’4 en chancletas y rollos.

This in-and-out of jail pattern that has developed for my cousins on the island (and in the Bronx), it causes grief to both their families and the community. Some of crimes are necessitated by survival, but most of it is carried out just to get a rep. (There is also a percentage of our cumulative arrests that is attributed to cops being pigs, racial profiling and babylon system)

I ask myself where they get it from because we were raised together outside of the fact that I left the island our biggest differences aren’t a formal education. I stand with them as a student of life educated by my environment who chose to go my own road while good friends opted to finish school and then college to get their degree. True enough, the experience of coming to the states lends me some advantages like mastering English as a first language but that gets balanced-out by other factors. They own their houses, while I pay rent. One even has a garage below his house which has rented as a tire and mechanic shop his whole life, so he’s learned a trade by osmosis. Neighbors come to him for the odd jobs they cant afford to pay a trained mechanic for. Nobody offers me gigs for my superior tele-marketing skills and DJ’ing has yet to re-coup the amount of money I’ve spent on music, my drug of choice.

Then there are my cousins in the Bronx. Like me, they are transplants that have been here in the states for more than ten years. They speak English as a first language and spent most of their lives here but they share equally riotous stories. Difference between me and most of these kids? Surprisingly, neither camp watches much TV so the best I can pin down is that Hot 97, La Kalle and NYC’s mixtape circuit dominate the South Bronx, PR is bumpin reggaeton and I’m the odd man out that listens to as many genres as they do artists. Obviously, I’m tuned into the internet streams on BBC radio, Samurai.FM and the elsewhere in blog-landia. Therein lies the discrepancy. Puerto Rico’s internet is still largely dial-up last I checked and neither they nor the Bronx camp are web-crawlers so they are subject to whatever information is given to them.

I wanted to hold off on the following for a next conversation but I welcome your thoughts this: Gangsta rap’s ideology, the image of guns and bling being cool wasn’t made popular by the general American public or the hip hop community at large. Industry force-fed it to us with little alternative until we got used to it and its now grown past our borders and is affecting other communities. This isn’t my opinion as much as a springboard for dialog I’d like to engage in with you in the comments section. If you wanna go deep in the hood chronicles dig up Bushwick Bill’s album Lil Big Man and try that on for size before writing your response. What I’m getting at with this is until recently, when $mall Change invited me to play on WFMU, no one ever asked me what I wanted to hear on the radio, much like no one I know has ever participated in the political poles that CNN and other media outlets wave as hard statistical data.

Now, back to my hick relatives. Talking to most of my primos (i’m the fourth oldest of 32 blood-related cousins) I find they all share a highly-animated sense of reality, one in which being gangsta is how u gotta be ‘cuz that’s what its like in the streets yo! But when I look down the hill we all grew up on in Puerto Rico, there is still a huge field that horses graze. Behind that, the race track belonging to El Recinto de la ‘Yupee’ Bayamon (University of PR). Standing there, I often myself pondering if I had stayed would have stayed in Puerto Rico, living that close to a great university…

The oldest of the my cousins back on the island has enough crack-heads and ganja smokers in the area to pay the bills, but overall its really not that gully in Barrio Juan Sanchez where we’re from. The neighborhood remains mostly friendly jibaros, who now lock their doors because scattered corrillos of kids with shaved legs and plucked eye-brows are tryna act hard?!? These kids perceive their world through a lens calibrated by the gangsta-ideology that permeated reggaeton and now merengue and what we are seeing are consequences of allowing music and other forms of media to go off into the wilds uncontested.

One of our daily newspapers in Puerto Rico is named El Vocero. On more than one occasion and from both younger and older generation sources I heard it described like this…. when you pick up El Vocero, (holding it out pinched between thumb and index finger) ….it drips blood. During a two-week stay there, I read 3 separate articles about mercenary style killings; bag over head. hands tied to their feet behind their back- shot in the back of the head; all of them within a few miles of where I was staying and suspected to be carried out by guys my age and younger. These were separate articles over the span of a few days but there was no visible thread between them one was a car robbery, one over a girl, one over drugs. It seemed to me at the time, that several one-up ‘a ver quien es mas gangsta’ disputes had climaxed in tandem, resulting in copy-cat atrocities.

I’m not blaming artists or their music for the violent acts committed by individuals. But denying that the demeanor and attitudes which have become prevalent in the current generation is not in some way affected by the music these kids are digesting seems beyond naive. We can take a lot of what singers say with a grain of salt but the question I’m posing is why is the line so far off center? Does calling a spade a spade have to = censorship? I’m not saying these guys shouldn’t have the right to make their music or that it shouldn’t air. But is there a forced emphasis on new jingles or the dance of the week and an oppression of air-play for thought-provoking music, or is it me? What I see is a bunch of kids setting the coordinates to stat quo and forcing themselves into the cookie-cutter gangsta image in hopes of making it so they can get outta the hood.

I speaky di inglesh and my native tongue and I understand quite clearly the words that are coming out of their mouths.… so when do we get to the scene where bubble-gum gangstas get knocked the fuck out by artists with more talent and a different set of standards? At the very least lets call them out on their shit and ask them to elaborate. There are circumstances where letting art speak for itself is useful but when you have so many clones I think we would all be better off to challenge an artist on what they are trying to accomplish with this a piece of art beyond just making money. Those who put thought into their art will usually rise to the occasion. You can get into the ‘why does art have to mean something’ question if you wish, but I won’t be taking part in that with you. I’m busy looking for art with substance or both new and old genres to explore and learn from. Too busy working with MC’s that CAN break the mold. To watch artists hide behind the stage persona and do and say ridiculous things while in character seems a cop out even when factoring in that being an entertainer is, in rare cases, a well-paying job opportunity to someone who comes from bleak circumstances.

Here’s an all-star line up of MC’s with real street-cred that aren’t afraid to face the wind and are ready to blow the current whackness out like the flickering flame that it is. Jahdan Blakkamoore the man Guyanese from Crown Heights Brooklyn, Princesa hailing from Argentina, recent unsigned hype inductee Homeboy Sandman outta the Qboro serving nourishment to the masses, Durrty Goodz in the UK whose Axiom EP raised the bar for grime MC’s, and MV Bill who lives in the City of God, Brazil (his documentary Falcao is story more people should be aware of- large up to Maga Bo on this one). All of them have wicked flows and make it a point to challenge norms plus know how to rock a party. Show them some love ya’ll

Now, I’ll admit to getting older, ornery and detached, having not owned a TV in 8 years. I still manage to enjoy the art of story telling in rhyme, slang and street context. Can you admit a large percentage of new artists out there offer very little lyrical song-writing ability and rely on good publicists to determine for the audience what’s hot? I have to believe at some point society should hold people accountable for their words and actions and at the same time strive and get to the root of our problems. As a Latino, I take it upon myself not sit idle and watch apathetically as my family and culture are brainwashed. I’m happy that Immortal Technique is doing his thing but he’s got a way too much M.O.P. in ’em for the average listener, myself included. Nobody likes Debbie Downer so I search far and wide for party-rockin music I can stand up for because, often times, that can’t afford a publicist. Challenge yourselves to create play-lists that work well on the dance-floor and balance lyrical content. You’ll find its a lot harder than keeping your eye on what everyone else is playing but infinitely more rewarding. That’s how we go ’round payola. Thank you for pushing good music forward via your blogs and the encouragement to air these ideas. –

run go tell dem come…we ready fi dem- Gex