Picked up the newspaper in the train the other day to find out that Joaquin Phoenix has decided to call it quits on his acting career to concentrate on music. Just when I was dreading another singer songwriter with a toothache (must have been his Johnny Cash portrayal that gave me this idea), Stones Throw revealed Phoenix debuting his rapping career with Stones Throw nu-funk DJ Dam-Funk in Los Angeles’ Funkmosphere. More pictures to be found here.
Old records are intriguing. Old records from Africa collected by avid vinyl junkie/travelling DJ responsible for Voodoo Funk are just über-cool. Check out his mix dubbed ‘Everybody get down’ here.
The good guys from Pitchfork always make life easier when trying to dig out cool videos. This gem is the 2001 live gig of Los Angeles' finest hip-hop disc jockeys Madlib & Cut Chemist (Jurassic 5's record spinner) at LA's Root Down available for your videwing pleasure until Friday 28 Nov 2008. Get all the episodes here
Say what you will about The Jimi Hendrix Experience, whether they could have been steadier, could have improved musically, could have lasted for longer than 3 years and all that, yet a massive difference in pop-culture and pop-music they did make. From 1966-1969 the pop charts were invaded by 3 young dudes with afros who played their instruments like lead instruments. Jimi had the mad playing skillz and perfected the guitar burning act whilst Noel Redding was the silent bass guitarist who left the group in ’69. Yet Essex born Mitch Mitchell laid the bare beats for the trio and played a huge role in creating the ‘Jimi Hendrix Experience’ sound (that The Band of Gypsies sound nothing like The Experience is partly down to his absence).
Mitchell’s jazz background as a session musician brought him to play with The Coronets, Johnny Harris and the Shades, The Pretty Things, Georgie Fame and The Riot Squad to name but a few before joining the Experience after meeting his guitar smashing partner in ‘66. The 3 years that followed saw Mitch lauded with the tiresome ‘one of the best drummers in the world’ tag but that claim wasn't without merit as The Experience were regular inhabitants of the top 40 charts as well as being on the receiving end of glowing reviews from the critics as Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland sold like hot nasi goreng.
Mitchell’s departure after his stint with Jimi’s Woodstock 69 live band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows saw him part of the underrated 70s rock group Ramatam as well as a sought after session drummer up till his untimely death in Portland on Wednesday 12 November 2008 just 5 days after completing the 2008 Experience Hendrix tour across the US.
After Noel Redding’s death in 2003 and Jimi Hendrix’s in 1970, the departure of Mitchell leaves us with no surviving members of the seminal Jimi Hendrix Experience. A sad day indeed.
I’ve been getting more and more intrigued with African popular music for quite sometime now. While getting attracted to music from the grandmother continent of popular music is relatively easy to do, it started off quite tricky as African music tended to be labeled under the ever-patronizing name World Music. While the term gives an initial impression of an orgy-of-sounds and genre mixing from different corners of this earth, my initial naive illusion soon gave way to the perception that it is just an easy way of labeling all non Anglo-Saxon music under an easy no-brainer name. This isn’t helped by the fact that most pop albums that had the terms ‘World Music’ suspiciously attached to it, from pop-folk albums like Paul Simon’s Graceland, latter albums of the Talking Heads, the immense jazz of Weather Report, to modern indie-pop outfit Vampire Weekend, sounds and rhythms from the African continent were evident by the bucket loads.
My recent escapade into proper African Music (you know, music by actual African musicians) started with an introduction to the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti & Africa 70 a couple of years ago. Nigeria’s answer to James Brown is arguably the perfect embodiment of the fusion between African beats and the American R&B sounds of the 60s and 70s. His politically infused, Pidgin English speaking, over-10-minute-long tracks take James Brown’s rock steady funk drives and combining them with African chants, congas, bongos and drums (led by Tony Allen, recently recruited as drummer for Damon Albarn’s The Good, The Bad & The Queen) were a fresh wake up call on how insanely cool African music can be. The release of 1960s and 70s African highlife, juju and Afrobeat tunes through Nigeria 70-Lagos Jump complied by UK Based Strut Records and the ever increasing popularity of New York based African music blogs Awesome Tapes from Africa and Voodoo Funk only served to strengthen this fascination with (specifically) West-African music.
Fela Live
The whole shenanigans surrounding Live 8 2005 and Bob Geldof’s non-usage of African artists due to his notion that they’re not quite good enough to attract world wide attention made me even more curious about modern acts from the sub-Saharan Africa. This led me to be lucky enough to uncover the gem that is Amadou et Mariam’s Dimanche à Bamako. Amadou and Mariam are a blind Malian couple (together since both attended school for the blind over 30 years ago) who have been producing steady rock infused West-African music since the late 90s through a plethora of Bamako and Paris based record labels. Yet their breakthrough came in 2005 when Dimanche à Bamako was released on NoneSuch Records to raving reviews from the world wide music press. The fact that the album was produced by the French- Basque Latin God, Manu Chao (who also naturally falls under the umbrella of ‘World Music’) helped add to the crisp production and popularity of the album immensely. In true Manu Chao style he made the fusion of African rhythm with heavy blues undertones and Latin-European style production seem effortless.
Having completed a lengthy 3 year tour around the US and Europe which had them play Chicago’s Lollapalooza and the African Express festival in London to name just two, this Malian duo are to release their 8th studio album to date, Welcome to Mali on November 17th. The fact that this album will be produced by Blur/Gorillaz/The Good, The Bad & The Queen front man Damon Albarn will add to the commercial & critical appeal of this sought after record. Also, anticipating just how Albarn plans to further enhance the sound of these two artists is almost half the excitement.
Amadou et Mariam on the BBC Jools Holland Show
Amadou et Mariam are indeed leading the way to popularising African pop music to the world yet anticipate more change and improvements in public perception in a time where African influenced changes are en vogue (I’m looking at you Obama).
1995 was a whole 13 years ago whilst your narrator was only 12 years of age when GZA the Genius of the seminal New York hip-hop group Wu Tang Clan released his now legendary Liquid Swords on major label MCA. Many critics have claimed this chess, martial arts, Staten Island New York projects and Nation of Islam themed album as one of the best solo Wu-Tang albums alongside that of Raekwon The Chef’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… and Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale.
Luckily for Footurama, GZA will be performing this mid-90s rap classic in full at a concert at The Hague’s Paard van Troje on Thursday 20 November 2008. Stay tuned to read a full coverage from this excited writer!
Having completed a lengthy 3 year tour around the US and Europe which had them play Chicago’s Lollapalooza and the African Express festival in London to name just two, this Malian duo are to release their 8th studio album to date, Welcome to Mali on November 17th. The fact that this album will be produced by Blur/Gorillaz/The Good, The Bad & The Queen front man Damon Albarn will add to the commercial & critical appeal of this sought after record. Also, anticipating just how Albarn plans to further enhance the sound of these two artists is almost half the excitement.
1995 was a whole 13 years ago whilst your narrator was only 12 years of age when GZA the Genius of the seminal New York hip-hop group Wu Tang Clan released his now legendary Liquid Swords on major label MCA. Many critics have claimed this chess, martial arts, Staten Island New York projects and Nation of Islam themed album as one of the best solo Wu-Tang albums alongside that of Raekwon The Chef’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… and Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale.