The family over at Dutty Artz stay busy building and stockpiling heatseeking missiles like Jahdan Blakkamoore’s Go Round Payola. We’re about 17 hours from finishing up the artwork for his debut album (everything else is DONE), more news real soon.
In the meantime, Frankfurt’s Mr Leub, flipped Matt Shadetek’s Payola riddim, swapping out JD and splicing in Busy Signal’s ‘Da Style Deh’.
[audio:https://duttyartz.com/mp3/Mr. Leub – Da Style Deh Payola Refix.mp3]
Eddie Stats new Ghetto Palms blend which ends with a POWER TRIO of Busy Signal slackness in the form of cellphone-centric acoustic drumloop minimalism tunes, Da Style Deh included.
and Mr Leub’s Rudebwoy Electroncia mix, which kinda reminds me of the first Toddla-T mix I heard, which is to say: stomping reggaeoid 4-4y thumpers. Very good music for weekend apartment cleaning, I can attest to this.
New York Tropical is exactly a week from today! Check the flyer – we are designers, you already know. To get ready, I have put a podcast together containing mostly women voices over beats and sounds composed by men. I wasn’t specifically looking for female voices on male constructed instrumentals, it just happened most of the tracks I gather are refixes and songs with women voices recorded by gentlemen producers (I was tempted to call this Women… In The Vicinity Of Men. Thankfully, I settled on Mousso. We need some more gyals in here… too many man, too many, many man!
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I was going to post the tracklist a little later but we all know how Björk feels about writers not giving credits, so here it is –
Gucci Mane is one of the most interesting figures in rap music at the moment, and he’s suffering not only from the general psychosis of being dope but also severe auditory hallucinations. I downloaded “Gorgeous” from cocaine blunts several weeks back, and I just got around to hearing it. According to Noz ““Gorgeous†finds him walking the line between language and commerce obsession by way of voices in his head. We’ve heard the balling as a compulsion defense but never the full on insanity claims.” The beat is great as well, providing a perfect background for the experience that is Gucci Mane.
To bring us back to reality, away from Gucci Mane and the Hearing Voices movement, here’s Augustus Pablo’s “Africa Dub”, plus the original tune “Africa Must Be Free By 1983” by Hugh Mundell, a teenage prodigy, who died far too early (1962-1983~ shot to death in Kingston while driving a car with Junior Reid.)Â Hugh Mundell wrote and recorded several albums, some of which were produced by Augustus Pablo. I have yet to hear them.
Speaking of unheard/undiscovered Jamaican reggae – Props to Professor Wayneandwax for the heads up & review. I ordered Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae from Amazon weeks ago, and still haven’t received it.
Pulshar‘s Brotherhood has been in heavy rotation lately. It has some spectacular tunes I return to time and again, but frankly I listen the album in its entirety perhaps more than I should. We like to keep things dutty and heavy here, but a little clean, beautiful, soulful tech-dub from Bercelona is appreciated. We played “Mr Money Man” on Tax Day (4/15) on Mudd Up! with DJ Rupture, a show you can also stream here. Update: I’ve changed the tune from “Mr Money Man” to “Ashmatic” for a good reason. “Ashmatic” is also part of the excellent Babylon Fall Collection.
We’re pleased to announce the 12″ release of “The General” the first single from Jahdan’s Buzzrock Warrior album, coming this fall. The release is a collaboration with the Liondub International label which is only fitting since Liondub and I built the riddim for “The General” together. Liondub has also enlisted two of his friends Marcus Visionary and Noah D. on remix duties and they turned out two dutty dubstep mixes. Both of them have been coming with a lot of fire lately all over the place. This is a UK pressing so it will be easier to find over there but some copies will be arriving stateside soon. Downloads will be available before too long but currently the release is vinyl only.
Another installation in his excellent and informative mini-doc series, musician and documentarian Maga Bo interviews Ghislain Poirier – he talks about his background, making collaborations and building bridges, exoticism and problems with authenticity, and a lot more.
Bo sez –
With this series of mini-docs, I want to demystify the music production process a bit and bring out the humanity of it. Â After all, music is a manifestation of history. Â of choices and relationships. Â This is common to any art, discipline, individual, group or society. Â Through communication, real and imaginary differences and similarities become clearer. Â Separatist ghetto exoticism cannot exist in this space. Â Tamu juntos e misturados.
You can check the rest of the mini-docs (DJ/rupture, Daniel Haaksman, MC Gringo, Diplo, Fletcher from African Dope, Eritbu Agegnehu Askenaw, Xuman and Keyti) here on Vimeo (better quality) and here on Youtube.
Steele just sent this over to me, and I’m pleased to share it with you all. When he heard Jahdan’s new single “The General”, from JD’s forthcoming Buzzrock Warrior album, it seemed tailor made for him, Tony “General” Steele as he’s called and so he asked to jump on a remix. JD and Steele go way back to the days of Smif N Wessun’s “Sound Bwoy Bureill” and JD has been involved with the Boot Camp Clique for years. To have Steele spitting on my beat is a special honor for me having been such a fan of Smif N Wessun back in the day, listening to classics like “Wreckonize” and “Sound Bwoy Bureill” on The Box, back when NYC had a real, user controlled video channel and all anyone would request was hardcore hiphop.
Watch for The General Remix feat. General Steele coming soon.
This Serani song is really great, love the combination of reggae/dancehall vibes.  Daseca strikes again on the riddim. Serani is actually a producer in the Daseca crew who has recently broken out as an artist. The vocal tone on the hook is beautiful. This song has already broken into the hiphop/r+b mix on Hot97 in NYC (where I heard Funk Flex playing it while I was washing the dishes) which suggest that you’ll all be hearing a lot more of it.
There is a lot going on here – a world shrinking and expanding, traditional Yoruba ceremonial drums and chants being laced with spacious/spacey (digital?) synth-pads, you can feel the continents drifting closer and apart as the sounds unfold, combine, and mingle, the relationship between Africa and Europe in the 21st century.
I started listening to Rhythm & Sound and Basic Channel around 2004. They, Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, struck me as complex, disciplined, sophisticated musicians. In the video below from sometime late last year, Moritz answers questions, explains his/their history, economic philosophy, work ethic, etc., at length as the audience and the interviewer sip Red Bull and doze off, and vibe to the music. It’s great to hear/see him talk, but you have to brave the aggressive marketing overkill for Red Bull. I would like to read or watch an extensive interview with him conducted in a different environment, but this one is alright for now, I guess –it’s relaxed, and he appears to be comfortable.
As I listened to Moritz’s German accent, I thought about one of Rupture’s point in an interview with Plan B magazine – “the internet contributes to the spread of English-language hegemony.” I also thought about my African/Sierra Leonean accent, which is not very strong but it’s there –a constant reminder that I am speaking other peoples’ language rather than my own. What if the interview was done in German and translated or transcribed for English and other speakers? That would be too much trouble, an unnecessary struggle, right? Red Bull Music Academy is an annual international affair hosted in cities around the world, features guest lecturers and participants, and almost everyone who spoke, had some form of accent (including British.)
Movado took a loss, evidently, and looked quite “wounded” in the post-clash interviews but that’s not going to slow him down. Arguably, the biggest dancehall star in the world at the moment, thanks to Hot 97 and his mega-popular hit song “So Special” – video below. He lives in a futuristic city, drives a lamborghini, sleeps and wakes up with beautiful women, not to forget the alcohol and good smoke– you know, all of the things suitable for a dancehall reggae superstar’s life.
On another note – I was talking to a vendor who has been sold out of the Sting 2008 DVDs for weeks. She’s at the intersection of Fulton and Nostrand in Bed-Stuy, so one can only imagine how fast those DVDs move.
This is a cool piece from VICE’s VBS TV, about a group of dancehall artists in the ghetto of Kampala, Uganda called Fire Base Crew who have started their own Ghetto Republic of Uganja. Dancehall is a worldwide movement. Via Prancehall.
I heard this on Mary Anne Hobbs sometime in December. The mp3 surfaced early this month, and automagically appeared on my HD. Shout out to whoever liberated it. Wiley is a pioneer and he is great, but the star here is King Cannibal – check for him! Head over to the Qemists myspace to listen to the original and other mixes.
Head over to Pitchfork TV, a subsidiary of the great tastemaker Pitchfork media, to see the rest of what looks like a brilliant five-part documentary on Jamaican Soundsystem, dub culture, and the roots of the “offbeat African energy.”
