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I’ve been getting more and more into the whole youtube thing lately and I’ve noticed a lot of people are using it as a jukebox or a place to quickly find songs. We like that, so we decided to stick the tracks from our new EP Dutty Remix Zero by me and Cauto up on there. Here they are complete with my own public-access-esque graphic accompaniment. Wondering why there’s this amazing low-fi yet consistent graphic design aesthetic through all the DA visual branding? It’s because instead of trying to press-gang any of our friends who are actual graphic designers into doing art for no money and put up with our vague and annoying feedback and everything thereby taking forever we just decided to do it all in-house, specifically, my house. Witness my simple yet devastatingly powerful deployment of the black box, stock type-face and gradient tool. Dun know the photoshop skillz. For your listening, embedding, re-blogging pleasure.

MATT SHADETEK SIDE:

GIRLFRIEND REMIX:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIxBoFg8zmI[/youtube]

CAN’T BREATHE REMIX:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asDfiV7IQbY[/youtube]

CAUTO SIDE:

OLD SCHOOL:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en5hO554GCk[/youtube]

BONA VIDA:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du5NAT3YpAE[/youtube]

Check the Dutty Artz Youtube Channel for more stuff you might have missed.

Buyable only on vinyl from fine independent retailers everywhere or wholesale through Cargo distribution.

UK: Juno, Boomkat, Norman.

US: Turntable Lab.

Japan: Cisco.

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Seeing as there’s been such a good run of either important biz promotional or thoughtful, conversation provoking posts on here I thought I’d just throw this in the mix and bring the level of discourse down a little. It’s a cat biting a theremin, making funny sounds.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ONJfp95yoE[/youtube]

Shameless reblog from prancehall.com

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Do you ever see that stuff that be
when it get cold that is that shit you can’t see?
See that shit happens sometimes.
Yep, black ice…

some classic videos, choice quotes (italicize, without speech marks), + tunes from one of the greatest Southern rap groups (sheet, they were the first to use the words Dirty South to describe the music they create– in mid-90s ATL, Georgia.) There’s a rumor these guys were getting back together. Well, a little far-fetched, but imagine how many late-nineties rap-nerds/fan-boys/girls this reunion will make happy.

From 1995, Soul Food.

“Cell Therapy”

My mind won’t allow me to not be curious
My folk don’t understand so they don’t take it serious
But every now and then, I wonder if the gate was put up to keep crime out or to keep our asses in.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuWB9Nhoypw[/youtube]

—

From 1998, Still Standing.

“Black Ice” feat. OutKast

Who’s that looking over the shoulders of those writing dreams?
fiendin’ for the taste of menthol, missed class, stayed in the hall
Looking for a squeeze play, better yet a holiday…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ4x_eMxYxo[/youtube]

—

also,

From 1998, Still Standing.

“The Don’t Dance No Mo’”

I couldn’t find the video for the last one, but if you ever see it look for Sugar Lo, commonly known as Cee-Lo. He’s wonderful.

—

I first came across Goodie Mob in 1997/98 while I was in Guinea watching music videos from France via satellite TV, around the same time Sekouba Bambino released Kassa. I was 15 & in musical heaven.

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I’m happy to say that it seems Grime fans are finally starting to dance again, and not just some random jumping around and gun-fingering but some real deal dancehall-style organized named dances with steps. They’ve still got a ways to go but I’m calling it a powerful positive step in the right direction. Unsurprisingly champion skanker Skepta is at the lead of the charge with his tune “Do The Rolex Sweep”. It seems this whole Grimey Electro thing is kinda popping off, I think it’s great. I’m glad the grime kids are not standing still and letting Funky eat their lunch after building up the thing for years now. The tune is clearly a response to Wiley’s “Wearing My Rolex” (featured below) so unsurprisingly Wiley is at the head of a major development in Grime, again. Big up the whole Boy Better Know camp for keeping the game flipping and coming through with another periodic fun injection to the scene. Check out more vids here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xV6OZdxGGw[/youtube]

Also, very unrelatedly Lamin sent me a wicked XLR8R interview with Bun B after I mentioned him earlier, thanks! There’s also these excerpts where he talks about some more general stuff, which are also great.

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I love Bun B. His last album “Trill” was sick, and I’m sure “II Trill” the new joint will be great. Here he is courtesy of the Fader talking about sociological dimensions of the hood, Barack, and 4 minutes worth of other stuff. This dude basically holds Houston down singlehandedly (if you never read his excellent polemic against the critics of southern rap, it’s sick) and is in my opinion almost everything you want from an MC, smart, articulate, ill with the flow and advises people to “defend your blocks/ and turn your projects into fort knox”.

edit: embed code is breaking my formatting, sorry, follow the link.

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[[voices keep multiplying in here. welcome LAMIN to the DA blog.  — Rupture]]

howdy!

well, Rupture left the gate open (sort of) & so, here I am.

I found it particularly interesting that The Roots decided to call their upcoming album Rising Down. The title alone sounds dark, cynical, and intriguing too, especially in this atmosphere, this election year (liberal identity politics nightmare aside, for a second) as Obama keeps on shutting ’em down, the cynics. Then I heard “75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction)“, a relentless, anti-bullshit rap-a-thon accompanied by only drums + tuba, plus very limited efx. Now this drawing:

The Roots - Rising Down Cover

?uestlove explains;

“this drawing is entitled NEGRO RULE. and it pretty much sums up the
feeling of the Confederate Union towards the newly freed slaves and
the idea that if given power they would reek havoc and chaos on the
country.”

Now, look at this; “If Obama was a white man…”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNPeG-WtXt4&feature=related[/youtube]

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There’s just too many of these videos to leave it at one post.

The kids have gone madddddd. Dun know the youtube channel.

Crazy Legs:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsh38uFMS1c[/youtube]

Frosty:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsBChnA4lg[/youtube]

Versatile Crew:

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

Squadi & Caspa:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2H5JmHJqEE[/youtube]

Dzzyboo:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tOE63A4adM[/youtube]

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[we keep rollin! here’s the debut post by Geko Jones, Dutty Artz vibe springer & flyspace ambassador. We’re cooking up some of his refixes for public consumption this weekend , but until then, check the words of Papa Gex — Rupture]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=gslu9WVQBCA[/youtube]

[Te Chingo King – Do The Wetback]

I don’t remember when exactly it stopped bothering me, but being Latino in the U.S. means that at some point, some moron is gonna look you up & down and say “You’re a Mexican, right?” I by no means fit the commonly-held profile of my Mexicano bredren but in the back of my mind I brush it off on the premise that we’re gonna be the voting majority in this country in like two weeks. What I do have a problem with, however, is the standpoint that our country, which was entirely built by immigrants, has taken on its borders.

Here in the states, where we strive so hard to keep public face and remain politically correct, our administration has an apathy, if not disdain toward economic conditions south of the border and are considering funding to build a wall from Texas to Cali. Did we learn nothing from Berlin? Or better still look toward Gaza.

The Egyptian foreign minister sent a blunt message to Palestinians during a television interview being picked up by media outlets stating that “anyone daring to cross the recently re-sealed border between Egypt and Gaza will have their legs broken.” [BBC article] Imagine yourself living in a place where basic human needs and supplies are cut off by embargo except for a small trickle of goods being smuggled in by a network of underground caves. This is a complete 180 from the announcement made on Jan 24th by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak when he told Palestinians to “come in, eat, buy food then go back- so long as you do not carry weapons”.

Living in an increasingly globalized world it’s amazing to me that despite all the law regarding crimes against humanity that no international court can find grounds to hold someone accountable for keeping 1.4 million people penned in a roughly 25×7 mile cage and denying them food, medicine and goods.

Big up all my smugglers, hustlers and I.N.S. troublers.

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[[U know who will be vibrating our pixels & stimulating neurotransmitters here at DA blog from time to time, ladies and gentlemen pls welcome MC SMEAR. this post is strictly visual but truss, there’s a biiiig story behind it, where Common & Andre3000 are just the iceberg’s suddenly feminine tip…–Rupture]]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HNJt5ADHzIY


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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fZHou18Cdk[/youtube]

Apparently I’m not the only musician who likes Barack Obama. Will.I.Am from Hip-Pop supergroup Blackeyed Peas does too, so he took Obama’s victory speech from New Hampshire (see below) and recorded this song with a bunch of his famous friends. People are calling it “The Obama Song” but I think it’s actually called Yes I Can. Good for you Will I Am, fucked up as this world is people are more likely to listen to a pop musician for musical advice than many others (politicians, parents, the media). Don’t know what that reflects on worse but hey… I’m officially throwing my hat in with an endorsement of Obama for president as well (Hilary, don’t get mad).

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I’ve been loving this tune since I heard Sinden play it a while ago on his show. It’s weird when I hear about more hot American music from English people than I do from my homies, but whatever.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtC7HbtD9U[/youtube]

Jackie Chain is an Asian dude with long hair who raps about taking ecstasy, smoking weed, and chilling with girls and sounds sorta like Paul Wall. The track has a nice hype but mellow vibe, a good combination.

I wonder what Simon Reynolds and the blogerati will have to say about this. Does it fit into their whole MDMA-as-transformative-cultural-force industry that they’ve created? I don’t really think so, but then, I didn’t write books and a million articles about it. I’m not really a drug romanticist, I don’t actually think that drugs have that kind of big picture transformative impact that a lot of people seem to want to believe in. I think people take drugs to get fucked up, in a variety of different ways and while some insight can be gained I think the main thing people are thinking on any of these drugs is “Holy shit, I’m really fucked up man.” Also, just on a public service announcement vibe, I’d like to point out that if you ACTUALLY were rolling for weeks and didn’t sleep, you’d die.

The video is wicked though. Some really bad camerawork of them performing in some place with no stage in the middle of a crowd of people with a lot of superimposed random footage and occasional crazy video effects. This is what budget rap videos are all about. My only criticism is that it could have had more girls in it. I love the phone number of the radio station at the end telling you to call in and request the song. Grass roots marketing pressure.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyQe-hdFUD4[/youtube]

With a more quiet, acoustic, sensitive bang, DATV#002 lands.

Dutty Artz family member Jahdan Blakkamoore and Fuego Campo are 2/3 of Noble Society along with Delie. Catch them here doing a special live acoustic set at Salon Lucero at the Bowery Poetry Club. Salon Lucero is a poetry and music event put on by Funkworthy crew member and DA family friend Elliel Lucero.

Jahdan and Fuego performed some new and old Noble Society material including tracks from their mixtape with DJ Child of Project Groundation Massive “Live From The Front Line” and tracks from “Take Charge” the debut Noble Society album which is in its final stages and soon to be unleashed on the world. I opened the video with a clip of one of my favorite tracks of theirs “She Told Me” a heartfelt and emotional song about Jahdan’s divorce from his wife of seven years over Fuego’s excellent not quite grime or dubstep riddim. They performed the song acoustic, which is in the video, along with their beautiful “Mama So Divine” a track which actually is acoustic on the record, inspired by Jahdan’s trip to Africa last year.

We’re speeding up, so watch out for our coverage of Trouble and Bass at love with Dexplicit and an exclusive interview we did the day after with Rupture asking the questions.

And yes, I know we promised cooking and street fashion, trust me, they’re coming.

Somehow despite our “organic” (chaotic) promotional style, people are buzzing about Dutty Artz and the pre-orders for the Dutty Remix Zero 12″ are coming in hot and heavy. It’s getting fattened up and groomed for cutting at Transition in London right now, so I swear it will actually come out, very very soon.

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Real badman ting. The dancehall arena is a harsh place, and the stakes are high. Some artists can make great records. And some can stand up in the arena and kill. Some can do both. There’s been a big resurgence in interest in Ninjaman lately, with a lot of LDN artists bigging him up and shouting him out. As Skepta, who’s Nigerian, said: “I think a lot of my caribbean friends didn’t want me to know about Ninjaman.”

Not gonna do a lot of long talking, for those who don’t understand patois just watch who gets a forward and during who’s song the bottles start flying. Peep Ninja throwing Supercats style back in his face at 1:20. Big clash.

NINJAMAN VS. SUPERCAT AT STING 1991:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0t-ANfbVyg[/youtube]

And Ninja was still a threat twelve years later in 2003, to such an extent that one of dancehall’s contemporary warlords felt the need to go beyond lyrics to lock off what he clearly saw as a serious lyrical threat to his then-new status.

NINJAMAN VS VYBZ KARTEL AT STING 2003: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP-6uTtm00g&feature=related[/youtube]

To my mind as soon as someone has to pick up a bottle in a lyrical war, they’ve lost the clash.

Finally, Ninja discusses the contemporary dancehall scene, and says some very pointed things. He’s cut his dreads, and looks like he’s been through a lot, and has a lot to say.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PmIPcxnWmI&feature=related[/youtube]