Sonar Calibrado in Tangier, Morocco

Here's our super lo-tech video of the Sonar Calibrado (Maga Bo and Filastine) production situation in Tangier, Morocco. yes......

The track is "Se Liga" featuring Mario Z from Criolo Sound Sytem.

Premier Gaou

We all have some secret pop tune that is totally out of character for us (don't we?) and we don't really let anybody in on.....This is like that for me. I discovered it a few years ago in my friends' (who'd just come back from Senegal) CD collection (yeah, I SAID I'd go and walk around Manhattan watching people and listening to my Ipod, but I couldn't seem to get out of the house.....). I thought it had a nice melody, but was pretty damn poppy. The other tracks were merde.....but, this one, well, damn! Then, I heard Cheb I Sabbah play it at the Essaouira festival in morocco (everybody knew it and started jumping around and shouting by just the first bits of the track) and I thought oh yeah, sure, of course.....it was top of the pops in Casablanca......I kind of wrote it off as a sell out......but, then, I listened again. and again. and again. Sometimes, I even listen more than once. Like today. ;-)

Here's the long dancefloor mix.....Premier Gaou (Bob Sinclar Le Bisou Dub) by Magic System, From Premier Gaou: The Remixes. The original is slower and the production a little more casiotone. I like this one.

Jeez, and then I met Desta Haile (fabulous singer BTW!) yesterday who, totally independently brought up this song (I told her that I'd listened to the track, but I'd forgotten that I'd written the above little bit). From her, I learned that Magic System is actually from Abidjian, Ivory Coast. The lyrics talk about somebody whose stupidity is of the first order. There's that phrase....something like, everybody makes a mistake once, but twice and you're really a fool. Well, this person is even stupider. Or something like that. Desta, please come and leave a proper translation!

Best of Bongo Fleva?

The view from Dhow Countries Music Academy.

I've just been wading through about 1000 mp3s from Zanzibar of Bongo and Zenj Flava........like I said before, I'm having a hard time finding much that is really all that interesting. Bearing that in mind, I'm gonna post a few things over the next few days just to get it out there. So, to start things off, here is my favorite hip hop track from that bunch.

This is a track by Fid Q (if you've been reading the whole thing you know he's the guy I'd been trying and trying and trying to hook up with and it never worked out. All the way down to trading text messages on my way to the airport. BTW, just got an email from him asking for a track.....so, it may happen still......). The track is called FidQ.com.

Here is another track I found interesting by Mr. II featuring Stara Thomas. I like the string samples and the female vox at the chorus. It's a little rough, a bit understated and unpretentious somehow. I like it. This is Kiburi.

Here's another track by Ray C, who is something of a star in the Bongo Fleva scene. From what I've heard, this track is a pretty severe departure from what she usually does. What makes this track "special" is that it is bossa nova hip hop. Yes, swahili bossa nova hip hop.....this is Ahadi.

All of these tracks were taken from different compilations bought on the street in Stone Town called "The Best of Bongo Fleva." I wonder, which is the REAL "Best of Bongo Fleva?" ;-)

Color and Kidumbak

I finally sat down and figured out how to make an online slide show. File placement and code generation...I figured after losing all of the photos that were up here before the Server Crash this place needed some remedying. a bit of color....Here it is:

Now back in Rio sorting through bongo flava tracks. I'm rather sorry to say that I'm not finding too much....I bought about 10 comp CDs and copied 5 gb or so of mp3s and I just ain't feeling them too much.....

What I AM feeling is the taarab and kidumbak from Zanzibar. Here is a track from Kidumbak Kalcha called "Sasa Sinaya" from the record Ng'ambo- The Other Side Of Zanzibar. Kidumbak is somehow considered to be the crude backcountry cousin to taraab, but actually a lot of songs are played in both genres. Drums and the sanduku (a one stringed bass composed of a heavy wood stick set into the top of a wooden chest) and other percussion occupy a large space in kidumbak instrumentation. This music is usually played at weddings. the lyrics are often imporvised on the spot and have masked references to people and events. Maybe this was what Livingstone or whatever white european Explorer said when they said that, "things are not always what they seem in Zanzibar" or something to that effect.

Server Down Traveller from another time Up

Hey everybody, sorry for the interruption.....my ISP's server went down and all of their backups gothttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif corrupted, so I lost everything on their drives. That left the backup on blogger - text only......anyway, I may put the photos back up or I may not......who knows? there're probably other more interesting things and photos coming up just around the corner that are much more interesting......meanwhile, I'm working on getting my email back up and running, my sites back up, etc....

for now, check out John Titor, a time traveler from 2036 who was visiting 1999 - 2001 or so and posting and chatting on the internet. He said that music will be much less mass production oriented and more personal after the world war in 2015 or so..........

This is his time machine in the vehicle in which he arrived.




when you're done, you can buy gravity distortion gear.....