Kolleidosonic

moved to word press

2008-08-19T23:39:00.002-03:00

This blog has now been moved to word press. I'm not sure how you got here, but the original address of the blog is the same - http://www.comandodigital.com/kolleidosonic.

Interview with Diplo

2008-07-26T17:49:00.003-03:00

My latest mini-documentary endeavour. This time with Diplo. Filmed on a still digital camera at Leandro HBL's house in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro. Leandro and Wes were screening the almost finished cut of "Favela on Blast" (yes, it DOES exist....I saw a big chunk of it and it's very cool) for Sany Pitbull and Adriana Pittigliani.

Kubo, Heatwave and El Hijo de la Cumbia Mixtapes

2008-07-24T16:02:00.004-03:00

KUBO MIXTAPE SUMMER 08
Download/listen here

01. Parolar De Veso Remix feat. SD Boys
02. Rebola feat. Joyce Muniz
03. Turnament Version feat. Yasmine Seydi
04. Turnament feat. Fefe MC
05. Uepa feat. Joyce Muniz
06. Um Korpo feat. Joyce Muniz
07. Kubo Precut (no name yet )
08. Lem Lem feat. Joyce Muniz
09. Tindao

Immediate Sounds Vol. 1 from Heatwave

Beenie Man & So Solid Crew - Yagga Yo
Ms Dynamite & Menta - Ramp
El-B - Shorty (Steppas Remix)
Glamour Murphy - What The Woman Want (Acapella)
QQ - Screechie
Stacy - Let Meh Know
Kyla & Paleface - Do You Mind (Crazy Cousins Remix)
Geeneus & Zinc - I Try (Instrumental)
Vybz Kartel - Stop Gwaan Stush (Acapella)
Top Cat & Double 99 - Ripgroove
Durrty Goodz - Pum Pum Stealer
Tubby - Turbo Shandy
Destra & Dizzee Rascal - Flex (Tim Turbo Refix)
Plastic Gangsters - Rock To The Rhythm
Shabba Ranks - Love Punaany Bad (Baby G Remix)
Elephant Man - Nobody Nobody
Notch - Nuttin' Nuh Go So (RCola Remix)
Soundclash feat Red Fox & Screechie Dan - Pum Pum Shorts

And from El Hijo de la Cumbia:

EL HIJO DE LA CUMBIA La Ventana Esta Abierta

01_Intro_Real_ElHijodelaCumbia
02_Siempre Suave_ElHijodelaCumbia
03_Cambie la Historia_ElHijodelaCumbia
04_Como te Voy a olvidar_Angeles Azules_vs_ElHijodelaCumbia
05_Viento_Aron y su Grupo ilusion_vs_ElHijodelaCumbia
06_Homeja Al Dj Taz_ElHijodelaCumbia _Mix
07_Pobre mara_ElHijodelaCumbia
08_Cumbiatoons_ElHijodelaCumbia
09_Un escalon_ElHIjodelaCumbia

Maga Bo at Turntables on the Hudson - NYC

2008-07-16T17:04:00.004-03:00

Turntables on the Hudson
Friday, July 18 at Water Taxi Beach

Maga Bo (Rio de Janeiro/Soot Records)

accompanied by Blanquito Man pon di microphone (Venezuela/King Changó/Rayo Blanco). Cumbia Sobre el Rio feat. Blanquito Man, Control Machete - Celso Piña Y Su Ronda Bogota.

with resident DJs Nickodemus & Mariano + Nappy G & Christiano on percussion.

Starts at 8 and goes to 2ish. Maga Bo set will be from 10 to 12.

#2 Borden Avenue in Long Island City QUEENS - Right on the EAST River. Check Water Taxi Beach for full directions by Water Taxi, car, subway.

Nueva Cumbia Mix by SoundGoods

2008-07-14T16:37:00.005-03:00

Nueva Cumbia Mix

01 DJ Negro - Cumbia Rabiosa Feat. Capleton
02 Celso Pina - Cumbia Sobre El Rio
03 El Hijo De La Cumbia - La Mara Tomaza
04 Villa Diamante - Fauna vs. Black Eyed Peas
05 Zurita - Back To The Punk
06 Obama Cumbia
07 El Remolon - Andres Lanredo vs. Madonna
08 Calle 13 - La Cumbia de Los Aburridos
09 DJ Blaqstarr - Shake It To The Ground (Chico Sonido Psych Cumbia Beat)
10 Grupo Kien? - Cumbia Nueva
11 Chancha Via Circuito - Cumbia Malembe
12 The Peronists - Cumbia Check In Ura
13 El Trip Selector - Cumbiancherita
14 Fantasma - Danza Fantasma
15 Sonido Martines - Stone Guacharaca

Here is the link.

Reggie Watts, Zeitgeist, Muto, Science Machine

2008-07-06T04:11:00.006-03:00

Mr. Reggie Watts....he probably doesn't even remember me, but I remember him. Nor do I know where he is now....wherever he is, he's doing some cool shit. Part of the "old" school soul funk hip hop crew in Seattle back in the day (Jamabalaya, Sharkskins and alla dem), I met him at a house party where he did his first ever solo performance in the basement for about 10 people. It was killer. Fortunately, he's still doing his thing. The above clip shows him creating a new track on the fly by sampling himself singing and looping all the instruments, singing on top and tweaking FX in realtime.

Below is Zeitghost a sort of (re)mixtape fusing video, music, digital production. Reggie is our host for the ride.

In my digital ambulations on vimeo, I found a couple other jaw-dropping-ly cool animated video clips - see above and below.

Maga Bo - Saye Mbott feat. ALIF

2008-07-04T19:50:00.003-03:00

The second (of three) video clips to accompany the upcoming release, "Archipelagoes" on Soot Records. This was filmed in Dakar, Senegal.

Then and now, now and then

2008-06-27T00:21:00.003-03:00

What happens when you take advantage of the MTA strike (this was a while ago - notice WINTER colors).
This lovingly manipulated shot is by the one called Steven Miller.

Adriana Pittigliani descansa em paz

2008-06-17T02:01:00.003-03:00

Oceans away, I just found out via Wes' blog that Adriana Pittigliani (Pitti), passed away on Sunday. Aside from being a great photographer (she donated her time and energy to help me with some of my first press photos), she was sort of the grand lady of funk behind the scenes. She knew everybody and was always looking to connect people, communicate and help everyone involved in funk grow. She was crazy and fun (she did the bottle dance alongside all the 15 year olds) and had a really positive and excited energy. She invested a lot of time and energy in helping people professionalize their art and get connected with the rest of the Carioca music scene from people just starting out to the old school crew - Mr. Catra, MC Gringo, Diplo, Sany Pitbull, DJ Marlboro and tons of other people (myself included). The photo above was taken at my house during a Sonar Calibrado recording session with Mr. Catra, doing what she did so well - communicating, connecting and facilitating. She will be greatly missed. Adriana descansa em paz.

An Interview with MC Gringo

2008-05-05T14:30:00.002-03:00

Another Maga Bo mini-documentary. An interview with MC Gringo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2008.

Jana Winderen

2008-05-03T22:27:00.003-03:00

I found Jana Winderen via the description of a field trip to Holystone Forest, Northumberland, England she made with Chris Watson to record woodland ambiences (as well as the ants in the earlier post). A fellow sound recordist, sound artist, performer, radio producer, curator and director, she has some amazing and detailed accounts of other sound gathering missions around the world with text and photos (as well as info on all of her other projects). Field Trips/Sounds.
She writes, "You can listen to hydrophone recording from briksdalsbreen calving uder water here (please note that the MP3 compression destorts the file)." ....a glacier at Briksdalsbreen....There are a number of links to other recordings with hydrophones as well.

To answer your comment, Dave........Well, on the ant recording, they used DolphinEAR Hydrophones (although it wasn't underwater). Here's the site for that mic.

The manufacturer says "DolphinEar/PRO may be buried in earth, or sand, for use as a geophone-type microphone. It is also suitable for direct immersion into many hazardous chemical solutions." Hardcore microphones....yep. In other recordings (available on his site), Chris Watson uses a variety of other mics - parabolic mic, a single point stereo Shure mic, a Sennheiser MKH60 and others.

There is another recording of his, "adult cheetah resting in a baobab tree," is a mystery to me (sorry it's only 128! Big up to Grrrt who gave this to me originally!). I imagine that he found out that the leopard was accustomed to lounge in this certain tree. Ahead of time, he wired up a small mic (such as Countryman B6, which is the size of a matchstick head) with a wireless transmitter attached to the tree and then waited. When the leopard showed up, got comfortable and got into its groove purring, Chris was recording already.....

The Guardian article says, "We listen to a recording from Kenya, of vultures consuming a zebra killed by lions. By tying tiny microphones to the ribs and disguising the cables, Watson takes us right inside the animal. It's a mildly horrifying mix of screaming, pecking, flesh ripping and flies buzzing. "I told some schoolkids that this was the last thing they would hear were they to be eaten alive by vultures. As a joke." He laughs - then reveals how three of them burst into tears."

Chris Watson

2008-05-01T01:43:00.006-03:00

"Watson is one of the world's leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena, and here he edits his field recordings into a filmic narrative. The unearthly groaning of ice in an Icelandic glacier is a classic example of, in Watson's words, putting a microphone where you can't put your ears."

Holystone Forest, Northumberland, England
Chris Watson & Jana Winderen with Mike Harding. Sounds of an ant nest recorded by Jana. Very nice photos and tech details of recording.
Chris Watson in Iceland, 2007.

A recording from Ouarzazate, Morocco, "The fall had ruptured his spleen. It took the Land Rover nearly seven hours to reach the George lV hotel, they were desperate, but to late... The feast took place and later the musicians played on the very roof where Nickifi had last spoken to the traitor Dris before he was murdered by the daughters of The Magrha. Friday 13th Sept. 1996. Ouarzazate, Morocco."

An Interview with Daniel Haaksman

2008-04-28T02:44:00.003-03:00

Another Maga Bo mini-documentary. An interview with Daniel Haaksman from Man Recordings made in Rio de Janeiro, 2008. This is the first (of three) interviews with the "white boy gringos of funk." Guess who the others are.......

Curumin - Japan Pop Show

2008-04-22T23:12:00.002-03:00

Veeery nice! Participações do BNegão, Lucas Santtana, Tommy "King of Corn" Guerrero, Marku Ribas, Blackalicious e Lateef the Truth Speaker. Download it here.

Pibes Chorros - "Andrea" - pista vazia.....?!

2008-04-21T21:14:00.003-03:00

I had my first experience with digital cumbia on a (very sorry visa changing) trip to Buenos Aires in 2001. I spent most of my time traipsing all over town - to go by foot is cheap, ya know? Plenty of memories of sitting in plazas watching kids play futbol and trying to stay warm (it was august) while wondering how the hell I was gonna get back to Rio....anyway, that's another story all together. I always got curious when a car would pass cranking this super cheesy synthesized cumbia at really high volume - big bass and the characteristic chi-chi-chick sound.
On one of my excursions, I found myself lost in the view from a bridge. Eventually, I looked down and found "Sex, drugs and cumbia" scratched into the railing of the bridge. I decided I had to find out at least a little more about this. I found plenty of house music and electronic music stores, but the cumbia selection was even more cheesy than what I found coming out of the cars. At one of the shops, the guy pulled out the Pibes Chorros CD, Arriba las Manos, shaking his head, saying, "these peopel are very bad." I bought it on the spot. I became completely enamoured with the first track, "Andrea." When I finally got back to Rio, I managed to completely clear the dance floor every time I played this track......anyway, it still sounds great! ;-)

Cumbia Clandestina

2008-04-19T01:40:00.004-03:00

Super big up to Soul Cocina for the Cumbia Clandestina mix that I just had the pleasure of listening to. Beautiful.

check it here:

part 1
part 2
part 3

And read the post here. I'm looking forward to checking the tracklist. ;-)

NYC and DC Flyers

2008-04-03T03:24:00.004-03:00

Thursday in NYC!
friday in MTL (flyer below) and then,
Saturday the 5th in Washington DC at Eighteenth Street Lounge:

New Maga Bo Mixtape - Os Cacos for Blogariddims

2008-03-26T18:58:00.004-03:00

My new mixtape, Os Cacos (as in recolha os cacos, pick up the pieces...) is now up on Blogariddims. Listen to it here.

50 minutes of transnational bass - dubstep grime cumbia hip hop ragga kuduro baile funk dub chaabi soca crunk.

1. Archetype - Innasekt
2. Baile de Almut - Radio Tarifa
3. Freestyle live on radio in houston - Dizee Rascal
4. Punisher (Loefah's SE25 Remix) - DJ Pinch
5. Cheeky Violin Remix - Low Deep
6. Alleyways feat. Neon - Don Fletcher vs. Maga Bo
7. Say More Fire - Aaron Spectre
8. Chab Rassi - Cheikha Remitti
9. 50,000 Watts (Loefah Remix) - Matty G
10. Why Do You Do This? - Klass A
11. Nqayi feat. Teba - Maga Bo
12. Xoyma - Positive Black Soul
13. Xoyma feat. Red Rat - Positive Black Soul
14. Doi Festival (Ghislain Poirier) - Bunji Garlin and JMC Triveni
15. Keeping a Session - Daddy Freddy meets the Rootsman
16. Now Thing - Sly and Lenky
17. Amen break
18. Cumbia Murguera - Chancha VIa Circuito
19. Popotla Sound Machine - Kampion
20. Daleduro feat. Luisao - Carolina Santantonin
21. Don't Guimenin - Ruffman
22. Bloody Potato - DJ Elected
23. We All Go Die Tonite feat. MC Shade - Candie Hank
24. J Adore Whiskey - Candie Hank
25. Applejuice - Krazy Baldhead
26. Princesa 3 - Chancha VIa Circuito
27. Soy el Control - El Hijo de la Cumbia
28. ? - Up, Bustle and Out
29. Kick it Complex - Bassnectar
30. D-Boy Stance - Big Boi/Konkrete
31. Cumvia Slew (Bosquiman vs. Oro11 Remix) - Bosquiman vs. Vampiros
32. Sudaka Invasor - Frikstailers
33. E Dai feat. Speed Freaks - Sonar Calibrado
34. Break - Chancha VIa Circuito
35. Here We Go - Kalil (DJ Eddy)
36. Kriola - Orquestra e Coro
37. Bad Man Pull Up - Crazy Froggy (Hard Slam Riddim)
38. Reggaetron - Pepepe
39. Belselama (Said Qutbs Lawnmower Filastine Remix) - Malorix
40. NYE Riddim - Dub Gabriel
41. Cagnie - Waraba
42. Ben Allou - El Halka and El Twachi
43. Defense (The Soca-Anthem Remix) - Pitbull feat. Machel Montano HD and Lil Jon
44. Tamborzao/Volt Mix
45. Aquecimento Macumba - Electro Jack Juninho Carioca
46. Bonde do Role Remix Riddim - Ghislain Poirier
47. Track 20 - Funk Proibidao Vila Kenedy
48. System Boot - Plug
49. Ya Se Acabo - Pitbull
50. Tchiriri - Costuleta and DJ Znobia
51. Os Marteleiros (Instrumental) - Helder o Rei do Kuduro
52. Leh Jani - Omar Souleyman
53. Alo - Os Vagabundos

Maga Bo North America Tour Dates

2008-03-24T14:26:00.002-03:00

March 29, Six Degrees Records Showcase, Opium Garden, Winter Music Conference, Miami, FL
March 31, Beat Research, Enormous Room, Boston, MA
April 1, NuBlu, New York City, NY
April 2, WMFU 91.1 NYC with DJ /rupture 7-8 pm
April 3, Sutra Lounge, New York City, NY
April 4, Baile MTL, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
April 5, Eighteenth Street Lounge, Washington DC
April 8, KEXP 90.3, WoPop with Darek Mazzone
April 8, Nectar, Seattle, WA
April 11, Tormenta Tropical, Tehama 58, San Francisco, CA
April 12, The Walnut Room, Denver, CO

And, here are some flyers......

Maga Bo - Fire feat. Xuman

2008-03-12T20:35:00.005-03:00

Here is the first video clip to accompany my upcoming album, Archipelagoes, and 12" vinyl on Soot Records. "Fire feat. Xuman" was filmed and edited in Guediawaye, Dakar, Senegal by Ceptik on an almost non-existent budget with the help and enthusiasm of a bunch of friends (Big up Still crew, Xuman, Omar and Fatou Kande, Edouard Manga, Etienne Senghor and Warustudio!), a super trashed Mercedes and a video camera on loan. Xuman is one third of the heavyweight group Pee Froiss. Stay tuned for 2 more clips coming soon - "Saye Mbott feat. ALIF," filmed in Dakar and "Nqayi feat. Teba," filmed in Cape Town.

Shook Magazine - Addis Ababa

2008-02-01T13:29:00.000-02:00

Shook is a new magazine stepping on where Straight No Chaser stepped off headed up by Mr. Jez Smadja. They just released No. 1 Vol. 1. Here's an article of my mine originally written for them grabbed off of their blog.

On his travels to Ethiopia, the cradle of civilisation, Maga Bo delivers the verdict on the latest styles emering from this ancient kingdom and sheds some light on the music industry as the country enters a new millennium. For the full article, check the latest issue of SHOOK. Here's a little extra we couldn't squueze in.

ELECTRONICS MERKATO

Lined by a zinc fence on one side and busy thoroughfare on the other, the electronic recycling and repair market in the Merkato area of Addis Ababa commands the entire sidewalk for 2 blocks. Freelance, self-taught electronics repairmen salvage all manner of appliances from telephones and flashlights to cassette and DVD players. Squatting down in front of a sea of chopped up circuit boards, wires, random electronic components, and gads of dissected radios and televisions, a man presses a radio to one ear in a feeble attempt to block out the noise all around and makes an adjustment with a screwdriver. Next to him, a shelf unit comprised of a stack of skeletons of television sets bursts with excess electronic pieces. He even sells jewelry - several necklaces with cassette capstan cogs as beads are on display. His neighbor deals exclusively in speakers - mix and match to taste. Another strictly deals with video equipment. Chat leaves are scattered all over the pavement and amongst the electronics. I am offered tea. A man says hello and shakes my hand. "This side very cheap, not like over there." He motions to the row of electronic appliance stores which line the opposite side of the road extending in both directions. "Very good workers here." And resourceful, too. Rummaging through the electronic component scrap heap, he finds what he's looking for, quickly unscrews the back of the radio, jacks into the pirate electrical lead that the whole row of workers share with his soldering iron and proceeds to bring the radio back to life.

Prakash Poudel

2008-01-22T19:14:00.000-02:00

Just got a commentary from Lapax, who wrote in to clarify the mysterious Nepalese cry style tune (based on a Papa San track called "Maddy Maddy Cry" (thanks to Vamanos for that clarification)) that I posted some months ago:

"It's actually a comedy/parody song by a nepali singer - prakash poudel.

It's about a teenager telling his mom that he can't live without this girl that he likes and she's the only one he can live with..

Not sure if the beats and the music is based on some other song, but there you go.."

Cape of Good Dope; An Interview with Fletcher aka DJ Dope

2008-01-11T12:34:00.000-02:00

I was recently in Cape Town, on my way home from Ethiopia, and stopped in to hook up with my good friends from African Dope Records, play a couple gigs and shoot a video with Teba for my upcoming full length album, Archipelagoes, on Soot Records.

Once again, I had the pleasure to stay at my man Fletcher's house in Bo Kaap. It was a short stay that left me wishing I had more time there (as usual), full of tons and tons of music and tech talk, good food, and outings in the city and mountains. Here is another mini-documentary/interview in my slowly (but surely) growing series. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for Fletcher's video/music production work in the coming future.....

What the kids are doing in Ethiopia

2008-01-10T10:40:00.000-02:00

Getting back to Ethiopia for a minute. Here are a few videos gleaned from youtube. "What the kids are doing," as Diplo would say, these days in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia Telecommunications has a monopoly on the cellular, fixed phone and internet market. The relatively common cybercafes a stocked with groups of computers all connected to a dial up connection. Excruciatingly slow! The one solution I found was to log in at the Sheraton Hotel for $20/hr. They have a 128 kbps connection. However, it is impossible to login to myspace from Ethiopia, which seems to account for the lack of Ethiopian (or for that matter Eritrean) presence on myspace. Thanks to the Ethiopian diaspora, we have some of this stuff available online.

The first one is my favorite. Tewodros (aka Tedy) and Abraham - gurageton. I heard about this track and searched and searched asking all the street vendors I saw if they had anything from Tedy. Everybody knew him, but nobody had any CDs. The only thing I found was a VCD compilation put out by AS Records. I'm loving the combination of styles in the dancing in this one. Sort of Rize goes to Addis and learns iskista. Or vice versa.

The next up is another one off track (at least at this point) by Mary Abebe called Ahun Naw. Again on a mutated reggaeton tip. I like the otherworldy keys. Super catchy hook too. I found this track on the same VCD that I found the Gurageton track on. Unfortunately, both of them come as video files. Although I managed to extract the video and create an MP3, the quality is pretty bad. :-( So, I'm not posting the audio for these.....

Lastly, a video of Jonny Ragga's track, "Abshewi." Although there is a burgeoning reggae scene in Ethiopia (almost exclusively in Addis), there is very little released music available. Jonny Ragga is practically a house hold name there. His record, "Give me the key," on Mango Records, can be found from most street vendors and record shops. Here's an MP3 of "Give me the key," the video clip of which can also be found on youtube. This is a 192kbps rip. Sorry for the digital hiccough at the beginning. The original CD has the same thing.....

A busca periférica de sons periféricos

2008-01-08T11:07:00.000-02:00

Following the lead of DJ /rupture and Wayne&Wax, here is the complete text of Camilo Rocha's interview with me (while I was in Ethiopia recently) for an article in the Folha de São Paulo. As Camilo noted in his comments on Wayne&Wax's page, the resulting aticle was a somewhat superficial look at "Globalista Ghettotech International Urban whatever whatever music culture," mainly do to lack of space. But, hurrah! This is one of the first attempts at covering these topics within the Brazilian media, which on the whole, isn't very open to covering underground, peripheral issues locally and especially not on an international level. I also feel that it's an extremely pertinent discussion for that Brazilian music scene, which, while often on the exploited end of things, is also on the exploiting end of things (even within the same scene, i.e. baile funk and hip hop, or for that matter, the burgeoning ragga/dub scene and the techno brega movement in Belem do Pará).

Sorry, anglophones, but it's in portuguese.....guess you'll have to run it through the babelfish thang.....and, just in case you're wondering, that's Marcelinho FROM the Moon, not Marcelinho THE Moon. ;-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CR - O que vc está fazendo na Etiópia?

MB - Acabei de fazer som direto para um documentário sobre o lobo etíope nas montanhas Bale no sul de Etiópia. Uma grande parte das minhas viagens são financiadas pelos trabalhos que eu faço como técnico de som. Depois do trabalho remunerado, eu fico um tempo sozinho para pesquisar a música, conheçer músicos, gravar, produzir e fazer colaborações. Hoje é o meu primeiro dia sozinho (como produtor músical) em Addis Ababa e estou começando correr atrás uns músicos já indicados pelos amigos. Eu pretendo gravar com uns músicos tradicionais e talvez uns MCs de ragga, mas o meu foco principal é para pesquisar a música etiópe.

CR - Quais foram suas últimas viagens musicais?

MB - Escutar Jon Hassell e Brian Eno em quando eu estava sobrevoando o oceano atlântico para África. ;-) Senegal, Marrocos, Zanzibar, África do Sul - os resultados vão sair no meu disco chamado "Archipelagoes," que vai ser lançado na Soot Records (do DJ /rupture) em janeiro.

CR - Como vc começou a se interessar por sons e ritmos de diversos lugares do mundo?

MB - Acredito que foi atraves dos festivais no meio dos anos 80 em Seattle, quando eu vi as performances de King Sunny Ade, Sonny Okosuns, Thomas Mapfumo, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, e outros. Ao mesmo tempo, estava tocando batera numa banda de punk hardcore e mergulhando no mundo de reggae. Quase toda semana tinha uma banda jamaicana tocando por aí. Virei mestre de furar as boates e bares (ainda não tinha 21 anos) ou escalar muros e grades para entrar sem pagar. Nessa epoca, eu começei ouvir hip hop tambem. Mixtapes com Mantronix e Run DMC. Começei ver que todo tipo de música é interconectada. Aos 18 anos fiz minha primeira viagem sozinho para Jamaica. Queria conheçer Reggae Sunsplash, fumar um, ir a praia e sei lá...... O que aconteceu foi que o meu mundo mudou completamente. Descobrí que mesmo que a música é uma idioma universal, tambem é uma idioma com sutilezas locais que só podem ser melhor entendidas dentro dos contextos originais.

CR - Como é sua relação com os músicos/produtores com quem trabalha pelo mundo? Como faz o contato? Que acordo tem para pagamentos e direitos autorais?

MB - A maioria das pessoas com quem eu trabalho são indicadas pelos amigos ou cuja música já conheço e admiro. Eu simplesmente vou me apresentando para as pessoas que eu acho interessante. É tudo muito casual. A amizade e afinidade vem muito antes dos negocios. Se não rolar um vibe legal, a música não rola. Todos meus trabalhos são parceirias onde os direitos autorais e qualquer pagamento no futuro são divididos igualmente. Com músicos que não são envolvidos no processo de composição e apenas estão interpretando, eu pago um cachê e/ou faço uma gravação ou produção em troco. Tem muito pouco dinheiro envolvido e é necessário ser muito criativo em utilizar os recursos disponíveis. Por exemplo, a maioria das minhas produções são gravadas em hoteis baratos ou nas casas dos músicos e frequentamente com equipamento emprestado.

CR - Que projetos vc está fazendo no Rio atualmente?

MB - O Rio é onde eu produzo, componho e cuido dos meus trabalhos. No momento estou preparando pro lançamento do meu disco que vai sair em janeiro na Soot, criando batidas para o meu próximo disco que vai ser 100% em parceiria com músicos cariocas e administrando a transição de um programa online de música brasileira que eu tenho produzido há uns anos. Alem de tudo isso, fiz uma proposta para dar aulas sobre produção digital na sede de Afroreggae em Parada de Lucas que devem começar ano que vem.

CR - Pq resolveu morar no Rio? Qdo veio morar aqui? O que gosta na cidade?

MB - Me mudei pro Rio em 1999 e me amarro. Agradeço todo dia por ter o previlegio de poder morar no Rio. Estava fugindo da chuva e frio de Seattle e a falta de uma cena músical interessante (não sou roqueiro). Estava buscando uma cidade grande, perto do mar, com floresta, clima tropical, música boa onde eu me sentí em casa. Achei tudo isso.

CR - Vc toca bastante no Rio? Como é a aceitação dos brasileiros para a mistura musical que vc faz?

MB - Fora de tocar na festa de Digitaldubs de vez em quando, eu toco muito raramente no Brasil. Muito infelizmente. Não tenho achado uma grande receptividade pro meu trabalho no Rio ou no Brasil em geral. Parece que eu tô sempre fora das padrões do mercado. Não toco o mesmo estilo a noite toda. É dificil descrever o que eu faço e nada disso facilita bookings. Conheço a maioria das pessoas envolvidas nas cenas de hip hop, DnB, reggae e dub (faço um pouco de todos esses estilos) e me identifico com elas, mas não me sinto que eu faço parte das cenas delas. Se eu não tenho sentido uma aceitação do publico, na mesma medida, eu tenho achado uma boa recepção na parte dos músicos que sempre são mais antenados e abertas em geral. Umas das pessoas com quem eu tenho colaborado são o BNegão, Mr. Catra, Speed Freaks, Marcelo Yuka, Pivete, Marcelinho da Lua, Digitaldubs e Marechal.

CR - Como vê essa popularização do "global ghettotech" (como o chamou Wayne&Wax)? Pq há tanto interesse e projeção desses estilos nos últimos anos?

MB - Acho bom e ruim ao mesmo tempo. É um sinal de que há um interesse em conheçer "o outro" que é bom, mas ao mesmo tempo, muitas vezes rola uma objetificação e exotização que dificulta conhecimento de verdade. Mas, acho que essa parte ruim faz parte do processo de culturas se encontrar e começar interagir. Batidas eletrônicas são os pontos de encontro. É o campo onde todo mundo pode se entender. O computador, que já foi chamado do primeiro "universal folk instrument," é acessível ao todo mundo. Então, o volume de música produzida que pode ser encaixada nesse "global ghettotech" está aumentando no mundo todo e a morte das gravadoras tradicionais e o crescimento da distribuição de música no internet estão ajudando essa popularização.

CR - Muita gente vê com desconfiança a idéia de músicos estrangeiros pegando a música brasileira e a exportando. O que vc acha disso?

MB - A exportação de música sem dar credito e/ou pagamento pro artista é, obviamente, sempre errada, mas, desconfiança de que exatamente? Da qualidade do resultado? De ser uma forma de roubo cultural? Acho ridiculo. Vamos falar, então, do inverso - do hip hop brasileiro, reggae brasileiro ou agora, tem pessoas até fazendo dubstep brasileiro. Todas esses estilos estão sendo exportados pro Brasil e estão ficando brasileirados. E, a maioria foram, são, e vão ser, pobre imitações. Mas, que beleza!! Vamos lá!! É assim que a música desenvolve, evolue e cresce. E, é a mesma coisa com o samba gringo. Na maioria das vezes, é simplificado até o ponto de ser uma bobagem, uma piada, mas quase sem exeção, é atraves de imitação que novos estilos e inovações surgem. O espírito da música não tem dono.

CR - Que sons, DJs, produtores e artistas tem empolgado você ultimamente?

MB - Acho a cumbia muito interessante. É muito maleável e aberta. Capaz de absorvir quase qualquer estilo e manter a identidade dela. Sou fã de Z'Africa Brasil pelos flows legais e batidas diferentes e muito brasileiras. Boxcutter, Benga e Jahcoozi pelas produções inovadoras. O disco do The Refugee All Stars é bonito pra caramba, muito astral.

Good Copy Bad Copy

2007-12-28T18:10:00.000-02:00

Just found out (thanks to Camilo Rocha for the tip! - check the Techno Brega) about "Good Copy Bad Copy," a documentary by Danish directors Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke, dealing with issues of copyright, piracy and sampling culture. Filmed in the USA, Nigeria, Brazil, Sweden and Russia, it has interviews with Lawrence Lessig, GirlTalk, DJ Dangermouse, and others. It's light but serious, fun and important. It's a free download and well worth watching.

Modern Traditional Amharic Music

2007-12-20T14:42:00.000-02:00

Some "modern traditional" Amharic music I got in Addis Ababa. On my first record buying excursion in Addis, I was really disappointed by what I heard at the record shops. Fortunately, most of the shops are very helpful, friendly and willing to play samples of CDs. I was disappointed with the production - the preset sounds, the looped beats with very little variation, the fake saxophones and electric pianos and cheesy sound effects. After spending some weeks riding in local minibuses, taxis and buses, I gained a new perspective on this "modern traditional" music - it sounds TOTALLY different coming out of a crackling and distorted speaker while cruising around Addis (or while chewing chat on bus headed for Harar for that matter). A cheap and easy subsitute for travelling all the way to Ethiopia to hear it in context maybe to plug your CD player into a distortion pedal, close your eyes and will yourself to Piassa........

I don't know the artist, title or album of either of these tracks - I can't read Amharic........so, I'm just including the covers and tracklists. Track 9 from the above CD and it's released on the Picolo Music label. Track 3 from the CD below (auto-tune set to pentatonic!) is released on the Master Sounds label.

If there is somebody out there who reads Amharic and would be willing to enlighten me as to the names of the tracks and artists, I'd be very grateful! Thanks!

Masinqo; Interview with Eritbu Agegnehu Askenaw

2007-12-19T13:28:00.000-02:00

I've just completed another mini-documentary/interview..........this time on Eritbu Agegnehu Askenaw aka Solomon, who is an azmari based in Addis Ababa and has a residency at the club Duka in the Kazanthis neighborhood. You can hear the audio only version of his performance in yesterday's post.

Ethiopia

2007-12-11T19:52:00.000-02:00

Beyaynet - I wished that everyday was wednesday or friday.
I've spent the last 5 weeks or so in Ethiopia doing location sound for a documentary on the Ethiopian Wolf, producing, recording and researching music and making another of my own mini-documentaries (will post soon!).
Eritbu Agegnehu Askenaw

This is a track that I recorded with Eritbu Agegnehu Askenaw aka Solomon in Addis Ababa. This is from the recording for the mini-doc. Solomon is an azmari, or minstrel, who plays in a club called Duka in the Kazanthis neighborhood of Addis. I'd been invited by a friend to go to Duka and we had arranged to meet there. I showed up on time and waited and waited and waited. My friend never showed up and in the meantime, Solomon focused most of his attention on me, making jabs and jokes in English and a LOT of stuff in Amharic that went completely over my head and had everybody else there laughing their heads off. And, looking at me.....

Anyway, we had a chat afterwards and he turned out to be incredibly sweet and open to recording and doing a small interview. That, I'll post soon.....for now, have a listen to his track......

Não se acostume como esse cotidiano violento, não!

2007-09-29T15:07:00.000-03:00

"Não se acostume com esse cotidiano violento,
esta não é a minha vida,
esta não é a sua vida."
"Don't get used to this everyday violence,
this is not my life,
this is not your life."
- Raçionais MCs in "A Formula Mágica da Paz" from Sobrevivendo no Inferno.

I saw this written on the back of someone's shirt in the metrô the other day and realized just how pervasive it is to get accustomed to violence. Surrounded by it everyday - wherever you are - in the media, in the newspaper, in music, in cinema, in our language, in our governments, our police, our neighbors, our families, and within ourselves.

I went up to the baile in Cantagalo the other night to say hello my man, Sany Pitbull ( He's gotta be one of the sweetest guys on the planet.). Then, I took my usual walk around to check things out. On the upper balcony, a couple guys moved away and I took their place at the railing to get a better view of the baile. Before I knew it, I was being forcefully pushed out of the way by a guy with a big handgun sticking out of the waist of his pants. He moved in and sat on the railing to role a multi-paper joint. At the time, I didn't really think much of it. He was just a traficante exercising his privilege and position.

I am choosing to illustrate this incident for three reasons. First, it is an example of how power, authority or position can enable us to behave in a subtly violent way, which perpetuates and supports violence on a larger scale. Second, it shows an incident within the stereotypically demonized context of a baile funk, which actually happens all the time, all over the place, all over the world and in all stratum of society. The gun is only an inconsequential prop. As they say, "o pobre rouba e o resto desvia (the poor rob, while the rest merely divert funds)." Third, because it illustrates (albeit in a very literal sense) how violence is self-medicating. It occurs in a manner which is just sufficiently self-aware to seek to cover up (or hide from) its effects. To get used to it. We are all guilty of this perpetuating violence in this way.

A few weeks ago, 10 armed, masked men entered a building on Rua Piragibe Frota Aguiar (one block from my house), which is just at the beginning of the road leading up to Cantagalo, and assaulted the residents of 2 different apartments. 2 of the doormen and the wife of one of them were tied up and locked in the garbage collection area of the building while the third porteiro was forced to greet arriving residents where they were then assaulted by the bandits.

When it was discovered that one of the residents was a doctor for the PM (Polícia Militar), the robbers tortured her, using pliers to pull out her teeth and fingernails.
The next day, 50 Military Police invaded Cantagalo with the objective of catching those responsible. The police never said how they knew that the robbers were at Cantagalo. After several hours of intense shooting, they came down the hill after having killed 2 suspects, arrested 6, seized multiple guns (one of which was a PM issue with the serial number scraped off....), a large quantity of marijuana and cocaine in small sacks, money, jewelry.
Then, to top it off, the police said (O Globo Online) that their actions reflected the desires of society.

Anyway, just some thoughts I had while on the metrô......

Maga Bo North America Tour!

2007-09-27T12:51:00.000-03:00

New York CityOctober 4 Mehanata aka The Bulgarian Bar, New York City, NY with Joroboro.

October 5 Fiesta Soot at The Bowery Poetry Club, New York City, NY with DJ /rupture, Filastine, Matt Shadetek, Geko Jones and Reaganomics.
October 6 Pop Montreal at Coda Club, Montreal, Quebec with DJ /rupture, Filastine and Masala.
October 9 Bouncement at Sonotheque, Chicago, IL with DJ C, Murderbot, Zebo and Zulu on the mic.
October 11 Baltic Room, Seattle, WA with DJ Collage.
October 12 Madrone Lounge, San Francisco, CA with Janaka Selekta and The Worker.
October 13 Atlas at Holocene, Portland, OR with Anjali, The Incredible Kid and E3.
October 15 Beat Research at the Enormous Room, Boston, MA with Wayne&Wax and DJ Flack.

Pop Montreal

Bouncement in Chicago

Interview with Xuman and Keyti

2007-09-10T18:52:00.000-03:00

My mini-documentary based on interviews with Xuman, from Pee Froiss, and Keyti from Dakar All Stars and R.A.P.A.D.I.O. It covers hip hop and language in Senegal, sampling, cultural exchange and beyond.... Filmed in Dakar in August, 2007.

Xuman has a new record out called "Gunman." You can also check his website.

Keyti is currently at work on his solo record. Photo by Sandy Haessner

Omar Souleyman - Leh Jani

2007-08-27T15:31:00.000-03:00

My new favorite song. And a video to go with it.....

Originally released on cassette in Syria, this was re-released on CD on Sublime Frequencies. There is a pretty comprehensive bio on the youtube page. Apparently, he just relocated to Columbus, Ohio. His myspace page is classic - obviously, it's the music that matters. ;-) Thanks to Ramesh for the tip!

Record Shopping in Casablanca

2007-08-20T19:39:00.000-03:00

On the way back from Dakar, I had 9 hours in Casablanca before catching a flight to Lisbon. I spent the day walking around the Ancient Medina in search of small CD/cassette/DVD shops. I found lots of pirate materials as well as original discs. most of the pirated stuff was local Moroccan stuff. I even found a copied version of Bigg's (he's one of the guys on my newest record) newest record with a photo that I took during our recording session in 2005 on the cover. Nice. Pirate discs were going for 15 dirhams/1.5 euros or originals for 20 dh. Here is an interesting gnawa hip hop track from the pirate comp, "Raiss Tijanni; Morrocan [sic] Hip-Hop & Rap 2007" ......track 18 (there is no artist name or song title on the cover). I think it's Fnaire. name checks cheb i sabbah.....oh and according to a shouting voice in the background says that it's a remix....and this, a samba-esque cheesy drum machine/live druming thing that does some cool stuff, from a CD entitled, "Derbouka" (again, there is no artist or song information). You can find more photos on my flickr site.

Dakar Recording Sessions

2007-08-19T13:25:00.000-03:00

For the following days, I commuted between Ouakam, where I was staying, and the studio in Mermoz, meeting with MCs and musicians and arranging to record tracks with them. Initially, I had about 8 or 9 bases (yeah, yeah, beats) to work on including a couple from friend producers. We arranged a total of 8 recording sessions and most of them came through, but 3 of the MCs didn't make it. It's a complicated venture working with rappers........ There are 2 tracks with Xuman: and a track with Keyti, hip hop style, haha ;-) and well as a number of tracks with Edu on Kora and Moudou Mbaye on tama and sabar.Massive BIG UP! to Fatou and Etienne and Omar for all of your help!

Dakar, Senegal "making of" video shoot photos

2007-08-18T14:15:00.000-03:00

Back in Dakar after a week in the Casamance, with the help of Fatou Kande and Etienne Senghor and Omar Kande (massive Big UP!!), I connected with Ceptik, who is an MC/producer/cameraman/editor/graphic designer/IT programmer and is also part of the crew Still, to help me put together 2 videos for the songs, "Fire feat. Xuman" and "Saye Mbott feat. ALIF," both of which are on my new record, "Archipelagos," to be released on Soot Records. This was full-on DIY. Borrowed camera, lights rented on the super cheap as a favor, mini DV tapes bought in europe to save money, a fucked-up old mercedes on loan to play a clandestine taxi, the very kindly donated space at WaruStudio in Mermoz to film in, a back alleyway tangana in Guediawaye, all of the artists' time and effort as well as extended friends, families and crews. Much thanks to everybody who helped make this happen!! Videos coming soon..........You can check the full flickr set of photos here.

Bukut, Baila, Senegal 2007

2007-08-16T10:01:00.000-03:00

Another unexpected event of my time in the casamance was the bukut, or circumcision ceremony which takes places once every 30 years in Baila, a village about 30 km from Ziguinchor. As it is a only a once or twice in a lifetime event for locals, it is a BIG deal! Jola people come from all over the world to participate. You can find infants to old men among the initiates. For any number of reasons, a person may miss the opportunity to participate and have to put it off for another 30 years. Those who do not go through the experience will always find them selves at the bottom of the social strata, having to speak last in gatherings or not regarded as "true" men amongst their peers.

The proceedings were remarkably open - everyone was welcome to participate AND take photos, film and record. The initiates filled their days by traversing around the village fulfilling certain tasks - visiting relatives, getting the hair on the back of their head cut into a particular design (we never did figure out what the significance of each different design was), then later having their head shaved except for a small patch which was then shaved on their way to the woods......Each day before going to the woods, the groups gathered in a large field around and enormous tree. The general flow of the participants was counter clockwise. Every one sort of trucking along with the music. A kind of slow/fast groove at 70/140 bpm. The men stomping and singing, the women banging bits of metal together and singing. You can hear a bit of that here. There was one small group which had men playing drums.

The crowd was composed of interested peoples from all over the place, a few toubab thrown in as well. The photos here show some of the dancers. These are men who are already circumsized or are initiates. This was a bit confusing for us, me being a toubab and the others being mostly from Dakar and not familiar with local customs. Anyway, these guys danced and danced and sang and showed their manhood and courage and protected state (they used gris-gris) by cutting their tongues, arms, necks, heads, stomaches with knives, swords, machetes. For the most part, they didn't get hurt. I did see one guy who cut the back of his head, but just continued on as though he didn't even notice that he was bleeding all over. One of the "caretakers" came over and applied a salve to the wound. The mood was very festive and carnavalesque, with people dressing up in funny hats, wigs and strange clothing. There were a lot of people flming, photographing and recording audio. At the presence of a camera, people jumped up and posed.There is an enormous tree where the special dance step was passed on to them earlier in the year at the center of the village. On the day of moving into the woods where the circumcision ceremony was to take place at night time, all of the different groups converged on the main roads forming bigger groups and then converged on the big tree forming an even bigger group. From here, women and foreigners (including non-Jola Senegalese) were forbidden to pass. Beyond there and into the woods was sacred territory. Upon reaching there, there was a general call to everyone to stop filming, but they still didn't ask people to stop accompanying the initiates toward the woods. The singing and dancing continued and the women followed as well, and so did I. This continued for another hour or so, slowly making their way toward the actual forest, with men cutting their tongues and one guy every once in a while going a little crazy and running over to a coconut tree to try and climb up, but then being dissuaded by one of the caretakers that followed and looked out for them.Eventually, we reached a point where I was asked (very politely) not to continue. The Jola men were allowed to accompany them a bit farther, but at the forest (where the sacred space began), only initiates and mentors were allowed.One of my favorite parts about the whole thing were these different bomb squad crews. Each was from a different part of the village. They moved around in groups of 8 or so, with somebody to carry around a 5 gallon paint can filled with gun powder to re-fill their bombs. They would run ahead of the procession and set themselves up along the route and surprise everybody with their huge explosions. They were like super comandos or something....dressed up in matching outfits, with canibalized headphones as ear protectors, wigs as well as gris-gris for protection. They moved about with incredible purpose, as though in a trance.

Sticky Skin in the Casamance

2007-08-11T14:21:00.000-03:00

I've just returned to Dakar from about 10 days in the Casamance, Senegal participating as an artist in residence at Lando la Casamance Qui Vous Colle a la Peau (The Identity of Casamance that Sticks to your Skin) in Ziguinchor. (Look for the link to Lando on the opening page) I was the sole sound/music oriented artist there, the others being photographers, directors and editors. Lots of unexpected stuff happened.....

One of the unexpected events was the visit of a traditional pulaar music group from Tambacounda called Allah Waly (another way of saying Inshallah or God Willing) that came to Ziguinchor to be filmed and recorded by resident artists. One afternoon was spent working with them recording the full ensemble (stereo recordings) as well as making recordings of the musicians individually with the idea that this material would be used in the future to construct bases (this is a brazilian portuguese word meaning instrumentals which are bases or foundations to be developed - before they become proper songs....I wish there was a suitable word in English for this) to record with rappers. Our makeshift studio was a semi-open garage on the grounds of a large compound which housed a sculpture studio, a woodworking shop, and a large house where all 15 or 20 of us were accomodated for several days on the outskirts of Bignona (about 20 km outside of Ziguinchor) during the bukut (more on this later) in Baila. Equipment-wise, I had to make due with a seriously basic setup - my laptop with audio interface (stereo input only), an sm58 and my m-track flash card recorder and stock microphone. In order to record 3 tracks, I recorded with the laptop and microtrack running wildly and hit some metal things in the garage to create a sync point. Separation was by distance (across the garage so sight lines were maintained) and mic positioning (basically amounted to the sm58 pointing away from the flutes). then I dumped the microtrack tracks into live and synced them up. pretty lo-fi, but it worked.

There are very few examples of hip hop (or other modern electronic based urban musics) in senegal being combined with traditional music or vice versa. It's as though neither party knows how to collaborate. It seemed sort of preposterous to me that this might be the case before beginning the recordings. I figured it would be a relatively simple operation to get each musician separately, give them a click track at various tempos and have them play on top of it. Without exception, they began just playing as though the click weren't even there (even though I had it at full volume their headphones). When I stopped and explained (for the second or third time) and it was translated to them (English to Wolof to Pulaar or Portuguese to Pulaar or English to French to Pulaar depending on who happened to be around at the particular moment), they understood the concept and played in time, but the soul of the music was just plain gone. Evaporated into a mechanical click.
So, it was only when I just gave up on the click and asked them to play freely with the idea that I could then warp it in Ableton Live. Guess you should always let the artist be free to do what they want.....;-)
Eventually, I just recorded the whole ensemble together - more for them to use as a demo or whatever than for me to sample or remix, but who knows? Listen to one of the tracks. They were pretty into the whole idea of working as a collective. No money changed hands. Our group was video taping and photographing the whole scene for future use. The whole idea being to generate art for collective use - everyone contributing something. In the process of working, ideas came up and were implemented, problems appeared and were resolved. Hopefully, this entire experience will contribute to more artistic expression and collaboration not only between urban, electronic musics, but between artists working in different mediums as well.

One of the other unexpected events was hooking up with Yaya Ba Konte, a griot from Zigunichor and a friend of a friend, along with his student Vieux. The idea in this encounter was to record kora on top of some beats that I'd been working on with the intention of returning to Dakar to record with rappers. A brilliant player while playing outside of the restricitons of the (facist) click, he had difficulty locking into my grooves (or my grooves latching onto his groove based on centuries of tradition is maybe more like it). My basslines didn't seem to make any sense to him and he played with tonal disregard to them. As for the percussive side of things, after a bit of time and hand clapping on my part, he latched on to the basic idea, but it was clear that there wasn't any kind of intimate connection between my 75 - 80 bpm tracks and his traditional sound. Anyway, he gave it a good go. Afterwards, I asked him to just play freely without my beats and he played beautifully. ha ha surprise, surprise! ;-) He is a griot, after all.....and who am I but some young guy with a computer? ;-)

Outlet in Sheffield

2007-07-02T22:28:00.001-03:00

Outlet
Originally uploaded by maga bo

Just reposted a whole slew of photos from Senegal from my now long ago trip to Senegal in Flickr format as well as a handful of photos from the road on tour in Europe. Check it out here: http://flickr.com/photos/magabo/

Zaragoza y Barcelona

2007-06-05T12:07:00.000-03:00

post-event post.....

I'll be in Zaragoza on Sat., June 9 playing at the Urbarritmo party and........

in Barcelona with the PARTICIPAÇAO ESPECIAL DO BNEGAO at the USB party put on by the fine folks at ReBoot ON WED. JUNE 13.

The Netherlands

2007-06-03T18:09:00.000-03:00

When flying from Rio de Janeiro to Lisboa, you fly really close to Africa and even directly pass over Cabo Verde. Seemed like I could even see some lights out on the coast of what I figured would have been the Western Sahara. Anyway, it was nice to imagine that I could.
My first gig was at WORM in Rotterdam with CX Kidtronik scene below with Soop (sp?) (arms crossed) and their fellow, recently arrived in the Netherlands (as of a couple hours), MC whose name I don't know, looking on. I especially liked their track the was composed solely using words banned on american network television. Sounded like NYC transplanted to Rotterdam for a hot minute.
That was the Krack Attack, while last night was the Kraak & Smaak night in Tilburg. Tomorrow off to Berlin and for now, I'm in Amsterdam, here:
I'm playing with Filastine and Mad professor at the Clandestino Festival in Goteborg, Sweden on June 7:

Maga Bo Europe Tour Summer 2007

2007-05-25T20:58:00.000-03:00

Gigs booked, tickets bought, bags (almost) packed....I'll be on tour in Europe this summer. Here's the flyer for the first gig in Rotterdam....

June 1 WORM, Rotterdam, Netherlands with CX Kidtronix, Eats Tapes
June 2 Loos, Tilburg, Netherlands with Kraak & Smaak
June 7 Clandestino Festival, Goteburg, Sweden with Filastine and Mad Professor
June 9 Zaragoza, Spain
June 13 ReBoot, Barcelona, Spain with the special participation of BNegão!
June 19 Festival Theater Formen, Hannover, Germany with Afroreggae Theater
June 21 Pollen, Leeds, UK with Headcleaner
June 22 c_90, Sheffield, UK with Heatwave DJs and Dub Boy
June 23 Heatwave, London, UK (tbc)
June 27 Bab Kubwa, Manchester, UK
June 29 Rebel Up!, OCCII, Amsterdam, Netherlands
June 30 Belgian Overkill, Ghent, Belgium
July 6 Nurotic Soundsystem, Zentralcafé K4, Nuremberg, Germany
July 7 Fat Kat Disko, Dresden, Germany with Barrio Katz
July 9 Dub Club, Flex Cafe, Vienna
July 13 Black Belt Boogie, Leipzig, Germany
July 14 Mantua Festival, Roscommon, Ireland with Digital Mystikz, DJ C and more
July 17 Brazelona Sessions, Sidecar, Barcelona, Spain
July 20 Plano B, Porto, Portugal
July 21 Music Box, Lisboa, Portugal with Mike Stellar

Born with Monkey Asses

2007-05-22T00:44:00.000-03:00

I had a bit of a nostalgic craving. I wanted to hear MC 900 Ft. Jesus, and so I got it and listened to it. The internet is a wonderful thing. I'd forgotten about "Born with Monkey Asses." One of the first tunes (along with the manipulated sample of an exorcism that Brain Eno and David Byrne used in Jezebel Spirit on My Life with in the Bush of Ghosts) to use a "found" dialog on top of an electronically produced beat in lieu of "traditional" vocal singing or rap, it drops a recording of a schizophrenic woman laying it down for who apears to be a case worker. I'm sure there were and are, and are gonna be, tons of other tracks with crazy vocal cut ups, but the raw material of this one is priceless.

MPC's the Baile-Dancehall Mixtape

2007-04-29T01:30:00.000-03:00

My man MPC from Digitaldubs Sound System just dropped MPC's the Baile - Dancehall Mixtape. With 17 different MCs riding 18 different riddims, it runs from digital permutations of the tamborzão mashed with the coolie dance riddim to dubbed out collisions of capleton and sizzla with original funk carioca-dub bases such as the tambozão rock and curimba riddims, all tweaked and mixed with MPC at the controls. É Foda!

Maga Bo Interview and Mix on Spannered

2007-04-27T15:44:00.000-03:00

This is a painting (gifted by Mirissa, thanks!) that I found at the "Hippy Fair" here in Rio. Sort of hidden amongst tons of other romanticised images of favelas being sold, the subversion and irreverence of this one really caught my eye. "Sponsored by the Ministério do Trabalho." Painting by Paulo Paes Melo.

There's an interview with me by my man Al Fresco from Spannered who swooped in from São Paulo to chat with me a bit and also connect with my peoples over at AfroReggaeDigital in Parada de Lucas. You can also check my mix that I originally made for Radio Luz Poland bumped there.

The Folk Songs Project

2007-04-25T16:11:00.000-03:00

My initial interactions with music and sound were via my soundesign cassette recorder that I got for christmas (little did my parents realize where it would lead me) when I was about 6 years old. I especially liked the sounds it would make if I pressed all of the buttons down at the same time - rewind, fast forward, stop, play and record.......
Such was my entrance to the world of ambient location recordings. Since then, I've gone on to make recordings for documentaries, television shows, web sites, exhibitions and what not. I've often thought of an interactive map oriented interface to listen and geographically plot and link sonic events, but have never seen anything like this until now.....
I recently was introduced to a trio sites (thanks Ali!) that treat location recordings in an interesting and interactive way. Folksongs for the Five Points allows you to access various street recordings from Manhattan. Recordings range from a leaky fire hydrant to the 2nd ave train to a chinese restaurant to a street busker and beyond. Very cool.
Another related site is Manchester Peripheral, which is similar, but focused on Manchester, UK. Here, sources range from a printing machine to the buzzing of a bee to an acapella by Owl. Very cool.The third and final related site is Soundmap - Cinco Cidades, which is also similar, but focuses on 5 different cities in Portugal. This seems to be slightly more oriented toward music and spoekn word, but still has ambient recordings as well Very cool.
On all of these sites, you can listen to multiple sources at the same time and adjust their respective volumes to create your own unique mix. You can then save your mix to share with others as well as to browse and listen to other listeners' mixes. I found it particularly interesting to have all three sites open at the same time to create a multi city version. Very cool.

Chutney Dancehall

2007-04-14T12:21:00.000-03:00

It's been too long here without music......I've been diggint through the stack of CDs I bought in Guyana from sound carts like the one above in Georgetown and I've come up with a few interesting tracks. From very acoustic Indian to Caribbean Indian electronic acoustic to full on electronic......a selection from Chutney Dancehall Hits 2005 Volume 3.

Dheeray Dheeray by Lil Man.

Mortor Mortor (Remix) by Rikki Jai with Machal Montan.

And, lastly, I'm sure his woman just melted when she heard this, fell into his arms and then wined all night for his pleasure.......Square Key by Kerry Ramgobin.

Lyre Bird aka sampler bird

2007-04-05T15:03:00.000-03:00

This was sent to me by Spartacoustics. thanks!

a sampler bird. A bird that samples. Hi-tech real time shit right here. I don't know yet of any midi controller for this though.....you'll have to check the manufacturer's website.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

Rio Body Count

2007-03-30T13:08:00.000-03:00

Just found this - Rio Body Count (Não Acreditamos em Paz Vigiada, Queremos Inclusão Social - We don't believe in guarded peace, we want social inclusion) - a blog which gives up to date reports on violence in Rio de Janeiro and the number of dead (543) and injured (298) people since February 1, 2007. Sorry, but it's all in Portuguese.......so, because I find this so fucking an important, I am running today's violence reports through an online translator (sorry, no time to translate this stuff. anway, you'll get the idea of what's going on here even with just a quick glance). These reports are from TODAY and it is only 1 pm!

30/03/2007 Two boys were beaten up in this early morning by securities in the parking of home of Show Olimpo, in the Avenue Vicente of Oak, 1450, in the Crag. After they helped, were led for the Hospital Getúlio Vargas. One of them is interned in grave state and will be operated. (The GLOBE ONLINE)

30/03/2007 Two men in motorcycle murdered, last night, the merchant Landmark Fernando of the Hisses pine Tree, 46 years, that was vice president and director of patrimony of the Association of Inhabitants and Friends of the Park Two Brothers (Amap), in Curicica, Jacarepaguá. The crime occurred about the 19h30, in the Street José Eusébio, height of the number 151, to around 500 meters of the headquarters of the association. Little landmarks, as be known, to have finished leaving of the Amap when was approached by the men, that shot at least three times in the head and right away fled at high speed. (The DAY ONLINE)

30/03/2007 The bodies of two black men, pretending 20 years, were found in the night of this Thursday in the trunk of the Toyota KUM-8762, abandoned in the interior of the Alliance Town shanty town, in Bangu, in the Zone West. According to the police, the victims still done not identify, were murdered with several shots. The Toyota, second the police, was stolen in the day 3, in the area of action of the 34ª DP (Bangu), where the case was recorded. (The DAY ONLINE)

30/03/2007 A black man still done not identify dead with several shots in the early morning of this Friday in the Avenue Nazareth, corner with Street Berberibe, in Ricardo of Albuquerque, in the North Zone. Polices of the 14º BPM (Bangu) were defendants and did not find witnesses for the crime. The police investigates the motive. The record was deed in the 39ª DP (Pavuna). (The DAY ONLINE)

30/03/2007 Men armed did shots aimlessly against the Plaza Manuel Flag and shot a lady that passed. The woman still done not identify was led for the Hospital Paulino Werneck, in the same neighborhood. A patrol of the 17º BPM (Island of the Governor) was set in motion. The case will be recorded in the 37ª DP (Island of the Governor). (The DAY ONLINE)

30/03/2007 Sebastião Lopes of olive Tree, 56 years, died in the night of this Thursday in the Road of the Seven Streams, in very Saint, in the Zone West. Second information of the police, the victim was pushd by another man and died to the beating with the head in a stone. The victim was an inhabitant of the Street Senator Camará, also in the Zone West. The record was deed in the 34ª DP (Bangu). (The DAY ONLINE)

30/03/2007 Antonio Bertoldo of Souza, of 27 years, dead to shots in the end of the night of Wednesday in the orange grove Town neighborhood, in Japeri. His body was found hours afterwards in the Street 7, but alone was collected to the IML in the late of yesterday by the IML. According to accounts, Antonio be passing for the localities when was approached by the murderer and whitened in the nape. (HOUR H ONLINE)

While this is shocking, this is not meant to shock. This is meant to shed light on an otherwise little known situation that is totally commonplace here. This is meant to hopefully give a voice to those who have no voice (or who are too hoarse from crying out after being ignored for so long that nobody can hear them). AND, these are not all inclusive by any means. Many murders and injuries go unreported.

While Greg Scruggs may be right that we can't exactly go up there to Cantagalo or Vigario Geral or wherever it is and stop this from happening, we can talk about it and be aware of it - everywhere.

Reggaeton Blubber from Nepal

2007-03-27T01:10:00.000-03:00

Got this from a friend who went to Nepal and bought a bunch of pirated mp3 CDs on the street in Katmandu.

I'm totally not sure what to make of this. One of the strangest tracks I've heard in a long time. If anybody can understand what's going on here, please let me know!

Is he drunk? Did his child die? Did he lose a game of backgammon? Is he just hysterically excited and can't quite deal? I sure don't know.......I don't know who it is, the track title or the artist. Sorry!

BTW, I haven't forgotten about this Vice mag thing........

And if this was in your house? But, wait! It is in your house!

2007-03-17T16:18:00.000-03:00

Polícia prende suspeito de chefiar tráfico em Vigário Geral

In an operation on Thursday, 20 suspected drug traffickers were arrested in Vigário Geral, North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. During the operation, children on their way to school were systematically stopped and searched as police suspected that they were forced to carry weapons and/or drugs by the local drug traffickers.

The headline of Extra was, "Isto é em Vigário Geral. E se fosse na Zona Sul?" or "This is in Vigário Geral. and if it was in the South Zone?" This was the foto which ran under this headline on the front page (sorry, but I can't find the full front page on the internet...)
Zona Sul in Rio de Janeiro encompases Copacabana, Ipanema, Jardim Botanico and a host of other mostly affluent neighborhoods. Within the South Zone, there are numerous pockets of autonomous zones run by traffickers and populated by poor (read: invisible people with little or no representation) people, but mostly it's a pretty well off area. Vigário Geral in the North Zone is a very poor area.

Children being subject to this sort of experience is yet another symptom of the invisiblity of those without economic power. Practically the exact same thing is happening in Mitchell's Plain in Cape Town in the post below. This is happening so much that it's perceived as being normal.

We don't want to break out of our little bubbles to see what's really going on around us. Case in point - note Timeblind's observations on the difference in lifestyle in Berlin and New York City.

There are those who want to smash the state. Those who want to insulate and isolate themselves in order to avoid more pain (maybe that's why those people who passed me after the accidents in South Africa were in such a hurry). Or those who seek to create their own autonomous zones where they can create the lives they desire free from the control and manipulation of the state and the consumer culture at large. Some can be constructive (self-sufficient communities, for example) while others are destructive (drug addiction for example).

According to the Vice Guide to Travel (which I will be discussing soon in another post), there are 50,000 murders per year in Rio de Janeiro alone. That's a civil war. That's more than in the Israel/Palestine conflict per year.

But then, here I am, exclaiming that this is all so alarming......I'll post this and then go on to writing emails and doing my work and washing the dishes and listening to invisible people firing shots at each other just up the street (that is NOT an isolated incident, just in case you were wondering)..............................I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know the answer. I'm stumped. I'm confused.

And what if this was in your house?

South Africa Road Trip - Cape Town to Durban

2007-03-17T15:24:00.000-03:00

Some images from my road trip from Cape Town to Durban recently.......before I come back to reality on the home town front. What happened yesterday here in the blog tomorrow......Lion's Head and downtown Cape Town from Table Mountain

View from Table Mountain
The Bo Kaap neighborhood where I spent the last week.

On the way out of Cape Town. On one side of this road is False Bay and the beach and on the other a vast flat plain covered with a sea of shanty huts. I'm curious about the connection of Baden Powell and this road. and cape town. The juxtaposition of sever poverty and affluent wealth never ceased to blow my mind. Just want to make this connection for the news from Rio that'll I'll post tomorrow. Side note: watch The Wooden Camera.
I saw 2 ridiculously ugly road accidents with dead people sprawled out on the side of the road. Both involving mini-vans. Traffic slowed and people gawked (including myself) passing by the accident scenes. Both times I had trouble getting back up to cruising speed after seeing such a horrifying scene. Someone was waiting for those people to come home. Not the cars behind me who honked at my slowness and then speeded past me going up a hill and around a corner while dodging a cow and a woman carrying firewood on her head. I felt so sad.
Climbing out of Cape Town.....
there are baboons......
they are very aggressive.....best thing to do is not have any food in your hands (or your bag or even within site INSIDE your car as they will break things to get at it) and pick up a rock. or at least stoop down to pick up a rock. That's pretty universal language. Baboons in Cape Town understand it. Dogs in India understand it. I understand it (just remembering the time when little kids in Ethiopia threw rocks at me).
Tsitsikama National Park
The most zen content moment of my trip. I sat here for about 3 hours just watching the waves and the grass blown by the wind. Until the cows left the beach to head home (they like it there to avoid ticks according to a shepherd who passed by and sat with me for a bit). This is somewhere near Port St. John's in the former Transkei.
also near Port St. John's, Transkei

Bush está no Brasil.....fora!

2007-03-12T17:10:00.000-03:00

Bush came to Brazil. I found this in downtown Rio de Janeiro........
And this posted by Bijari.

Cape Town Studio and Live Sessions

2007-03-09T19:24:00.000-03:00

I'm gonna try and do a bit of a wrap up of this last month on South Africa....

Much of my time was spent chasing down local MCs to record and collaborate with. I report that it has been a success! Not without tons of cancelled appointments, missed connections, miscommunications, hours spent sitting waiting for a phone call or meeting, last minute plan changes to take advantage of a stray hour or whatever. Such is the life of a producer (with a budget....small detail there. haha).

Anyway, I am happy to report that there are tracks underwya with Teba, D-Form aka Neon Don (formerly of MoodPhase 5), Max Normal, SiBot (of The Realo Estate Agents) and DJ Dope (African Dope Records, Krushed & Sorted) and a couple still to be announced.......
Max Normal considering his options pon de microphone.

Teba working his rhymes out before stepping to the mic.

DJ Dope working the beats on the computer while D-Form, The Neon Don, checks the words.

Yours truly and SiBot (who has just released his new record, "In with the Old") cutting and splicing in virtual digital land, Say Thank You studio, Cape Town.

On the live DJ tip, I played at the Cape Town Festival on Long Street (formerly known as the Nightvision Festival) with The Real Estate Agents, Humanizer, Sweat X, and the man called Diplo (with whom I had the pleasure of hiking up Table Mountain along with Marshall from Roosevelt and Fletcher from African Dope - the Club DJ Mountaineering Club hehe). All in all it was a nice scene, but very subdued as it rained the whole damn time. Very wet to say the least. Diplo ended up having to have a plastic garbage bag over his computer to protect it from getting wet.

I was super lucky and had 2 killer MCs sit in with me to liven things up. Teba Shumba rocked it and brought along his friend Ginga Cobra (totally spur of the moment). As I found out later, Ginga Cobra was in Ghettomuffin who released a track on African Dope called Paralyser that is truly the shiznit.
Maga Bo, Teba and Ginga Cobra live at the Cape Town Festival on Long Street.

Cape Town DJ chronicles

2007-02-13T09:32:00.000-02:00

Greetings from Cape Town!

View of the 12 Apostles from Lion's Head, Cape Town, South Africa.

I almost wasn't even gonna post anything from here......I had arrived and everything happened so damn fast.....gigs here and there and lots of people and shiny cars and nice roads and stocked supermarkets and everything seems brand new and safe and easy and how is this place any different than any other run of the mill industrialized shopping mall in the rest of the world? Kind of didn't really even seem news worthy some how. I then I was gonna leave......

Well, some time has passed and I'm still more or less within this bubble here in Cape Town, but slowly connecting with rappers and DJs and producers. It's all very slow going....as per usual in any given city in the world. I finally kind of realized that I'm doing just what I do anywhere else in the world (or in life) and this isn't just a quick in and out DJ set, but a mission with all of its normal associated ups and downs and ins and outs and trials and tribulations. So, I did what any sane music producer in my position would do. I extended my ticket.

So, I have a bit more time to hook shit up. It takes a long time, ya know......show up in a strange city and go out and introduce yourself to random people and eventually make connections with people and collaborate to make something greater than the sum of its parts.

I will get to some of the production oriented "bits and pieces," as they say here, in the next days. But, for now, a quick recap of the DJ gigs.......The 2 big gigs were the Origin Festival in Worcester and Fiction Bar in Cape Town, then a smattering of smaller gigs at the waiting room, another at Mystic Boer (that's a conundrum right there!) and another in Johannesburg at the Tokyo Bar.

Tokyo Bar, Melville, Johannesburg, South Africa

Tokyo Bar was probably the most interesting. We got booked at the wrong night/wrong venue/wrong time! It was packed at least until....well, I'll tell that in a minute.

Fletcher on the 1's and 2's at Tokyo Bar, Johannesburg.

Mostly punk rockers with freshy fresh mohawks and goth indie rockers and new wave peoples. Pretty much all white (except for the staff). At least they didn't make requests and shit like that.......anyway, they did drink sickening quantities of alcohol and fight. Apparently, they fought big time. Don't actually know what happened (I was DJing at the time), but all of a sudden people starting leaving the dance floor. Eventually, I noticed that people were covering their noses and mouths and a white colored gas was invading the dance floor. Then I started sneezing and couhging and couldn't keep my eyes open. The fight outside had involved tear gas and it was being blown into the bar from outside. I struggled to put on a CD and still breath and then took off outside, feeling a little worried about my gear - there was NOBODY inside. Anyway, eventually, the tear gas cleared and I went back and resumed my duties. never quite got rolling again......funny that.

The best gig so far was at the Mystic Boer in Stellenbosch. Again, a SUPER drunken crowd, but appreciative non the less. The reason it was so good was the presence of Teba who just showed up. My ride came to pick me up to take me to the venue and he was in the car, saying that he didn't want to bother me and figured that he'd just show up and check things out. When we got to the venue, we discovered that they didn't have a microphone, so I begged and pleaded for them to find when, get one, borrow one, steal one whatever, but it had to be done. and it happened. so, Teba was my MC for the evening and it was off the chain. Really really good stuff. Look out for some Maga Bo/Teba collabs in the near future.......

Teba and Maga Bo at the Mystic Boer, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Brooklyn Anthem

2007-02-01T08:09:00.000-02:00

Hello again after a long absence.....I've been off touring in the US of A. This post today is inspired by an email from my man Shadetek from Brooklyn......

Check out their new video for the "Brooklyn Anthem feat. Jahdan and 77Clash."

I met Jahdan and 77Clash totally by coincidence while playing with Sujinho and Cassiano at the I Love Baile Funk party at APT in Manhattan. Just doin' my thing, I dropped "Brooklyn Anthem" ('cause I just love that track!!) and some guy starts yelling at me, "Yo! Yo!" I'm like, "Oh, you like this track? Cool." and keep doing my thing. He keeps yelling at me, but from inside the DJ booth, I couldn't really hear what he was trying to say. Eventually, he comes all the way around and grabs my arm wanting to know how I know that track. He said, "That's my track! How do you know that?" So, that's how I met 77Clash and Jahdan. Jahdan was all happy 'cause I had a shirt that said Guyana on it - that's where he's from.

That's me, Jahdan, 77Clash and Cassiano in the background after my set at I Love Baile Funk at APT in NYC.

Interview with Duplexx

2006-12-19T16:46:00.000-02:00

Duplexx at Plano B, Lapa, Rio de Janeiro.

Duplexx will perform at Humaitá pra Peixe in Rio de Janeiro on January 26, 2007.

The biggest, loudest and most subtle noise in Rio de Janeiro......an interview with Duplexx, (aka Bartolo and Leo Monteiro).

Como que vc descreve o seu som?

O som do duplexx é textural e polifônico ao mesmo tempo.
No primeiro disco, fazemos isso dentro de formatos mais definidos. Cada música, como uma canção, tem suas idéias próprias, e algumas vezes até pode ser reconhecida como alguma variação de estilo eletrônico (por exemplo: funk carioca, big beat, ambient etc…), mas nunca nos preocupamos em fazer isso de maneira sistemática. O duplexx é um projeto de estilo livre. Nos shows, isso fica mais claro, e as texturas e elementos vão se sobrepondo e variando de uma forma mais improvisada. Costumamos dizer brincando que fazemos jazz, o que não quer dizer que seja realmente isso, mas carregamos o elemento de improvisar sobre um tema. Uma idéia bem definida que vai ser variada dentro de estruturas pré definidas, mas alteradas de maneira bem intuitiva e livre.

Tem alguma caracteristica da sua música que é especificamente brasileira? O que é?

Isso é uma questão curiosa. Acho que trazemos elementos brasileiros dentro da nossa música pelo simples fato de sermos brasileiros. Isso está além de nós. Mesmo que não quiséssemos, estaríamos nos opondo a essa idéia, o que delataria a nossa brasilidade. Mas, objetivamente, o nosso som é formado por elementos estruturais mais que gênero ou estilo. Algumas levadas podem lembrar um samba, ou um funk, mas de maneira geral, não temos uma veia folclórica neste trabalho. Acho que os sons da floresta e das águas têm muita influência sobre nós, e diria que isso é bem brasileiro. Quando a floresta e as águas acabarem, o que não está muito distante, isso continuará sendo algo do Brasil, mas nesse caso, da memória do Brasil. Acho que representamos a música brasileira de uma maneira bem particular.

Qual é o papel de silêncio na música?

Desde o 4’33’’ do John Cage, o silêncio ganhou status de elemento de linguagem de destaque na música universal. Cada cultura usa este elemento de uma forma e ele é usado desde sempre. Isso não é diferente conosco. É como cozinhar: você escolhe os temperos e os ingredientes e os equilibra para alcançar um sabor desejado. Na música, o silêncio, da mesma forma que o som, são ingredientes que convivem para a existência da composição. Mas da mesma forma que podemos servir algo puro para comer, Cage nos serviu apenas silêncio em sua música. Isso nos fez olhar para o silêncio de uma forma mais respeitosa, acredito eu.

Como está o mercado fonografica no brasil?

O Brasil, por ser um vasto país, muito rico em música aonde quer que seja, vai se adaptando aos problemas (que sabemos serem globais) desta indústria de maneiras particulares. Acho que todos os países que têm uma cultura musical arraigada devem estar passando por algo parecido neste momento. Tudo está se arrumando de uma nova forma, e a música, por ser uma forma de arte que não depende diretamente da indústria para existir, acabou virando bode expiatório de uma nova ordem, justamente por ter uma industria em torno de si, mas não depender exclusivamente dela. É um paradigma. Fazer discos de qualidade é absolutamente possível sem ter que gastar muito. Isso torna o disco algo mais descartável. A maioria dos artistas ganham mais fazendo shows que vendendo discos. Os shows são experiências coletivas únicas, e a crise da industria tornou o show algo mais valioso. Eu e léo fazemos parte de outras bandas, com estilos bem diferentes de música, e percebemos que acontece o mesmo. Não é uma questão de tipo de música. E´algo mais abrangente. A questão é que não devemos esperar pra ver o que vai acontecer, e sim colocar o dedo e fazer a mudança ser algo que traga coisas boas pra quem faz e vive de música.

Quais são os seus planos para Duplexx no futuro? Shows? CDs? MP3s no internet?

Os planos são de fazer cada vez mais shows, tentar levar a nossa música mais pra fora do Brasil, pois acreditamos que ela é algo universal e claramente o som que fazemos tem mais apreciadores na Europa que no nosso país, infelizmente. No Brasil vivemos um problema educacional grave, e no que diz respeito aos estrangeiros, ainda somos vistos, em parte por nossa culpa, como um país de grandes prazeres sexuais, bom futebol, boa comida, e não ligam muito para o que pensamos. É um pouco difícil, apesar da mísica brasileira ser muito respeitada em todo o mundo.
O site (duplexx.com.br) é um canal aberto para colocarmos idéias frescas e amostras não só do duplexx, mas também de outros projetos nossos, mesmo que tenham pouco a ver com o duplexx, para que as pessoas conheçam. A nossa última apresentação rendeu uma gravação muito boa. Estamos trabalhando nela para lançar um disco ao vivo em breve. E paralelamente estamos fazendo muitos filmes junto com novas músicas, o que está fazendo existir um elemento visual indivisível da música em muitas de nossas apresentações. Isso tambem deve virar um album. Neste caso, um dvd seria mais apropriado. Essas são as bolas da vez.

Amen Break Documentary by Nate Harrison

2006-12-19T00:53:00.000-02:00

Amen Break documentary by Nate Harrison

thanks to El Canyonazo for the tip!

Amen Break Vid - by Nate Harrison

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Mobile Sound Systems, Georgetown, Guyana

2006-12-06T01:18:00.000-02:00

Guyana

2006-12-03T03:51:00.000-02:00

I'm going to Guyana tomorrow. Boa Vista, Roraima, Brasil and then on to Georgetown to be exact. I've got another job as sound recordist for a documentary. I've had about 2 weeks to get things together for this trip, so my musically oriented research has been pretty sparse. Here's about what I know....

I heard about Chutney from DJ Feelfree of Visionary Underground a year or two ago, but he didn't have anything to show me. Eventually, I found some stuff on soul seek, but wasn't able to learn too much about the artists and the style or even the exact geographic distribution of it. As it turns out, Guyana and Trinidad are the main centers of Chutney. Check this article out - very detailed history of Chutney in the Caribbean. From the article....

"Chutney music came with the arrival of East Indian indentured laborers to the Caribbean. They were brought by the British as a replacement for the enslaved laborers on the sugar plantations, who were freed after emancipation. The majority of the indentured laborers came from........Many of these East Indians settled in the then British colonies of British Guiana, now Guyana, Trinidad and Jamaica......"

Wikipedia has something to say about Chutney. the tracks I've found of Chutney vary from Hi-NRG Bollywood dance to Reggaeton and more straight acoustic Chutney (not much of this). So, I'm on the look out....

uh, did I not say, Hi-NRG dance music?

You can check out some samples and a very cool collection of album covers here.

Here's a whole list of Desi Chutney Internet Radio Stations.

And now some video....

GuyanaNJ FM Desi Radio presents Wedding Dance in Essequibo Coast, Guyana.

and some lovely Indian Dance with Pot Cover:

I'll check back in later.....

Boa Noite para quem é de Boa Noite......maculele

2006-11-18T20:47:00.000-02:00

So! Finally, a maculele track for y'all. This provided by my good friend and champion backgammon partner, Wulfie (Valeu!!).

This is from Mestre Suassuna, the founder of Associação de Capoeira Cordão de Ouro, who is known for being an advocate of all types of capoeira, whether regional, angola or street capoeira. He has several recorded CDs which reflect this open mindedness on a musical level. The CD that I have has toques (rhythms) de berimbau from angola and regional. It also has roda de samba as it is sometimes played in the context of capoeira (usually after the roda when everyone is drinking beer in my experience).

This track, maculele, starts off with the sound of sticks being struck together (see the maculele tamborzão post earlier). When the atabaque comes in, it's really easy to hear the connection between maculele and tamborzão.

Tá Tudo Dominado - 2001 film by roberto Maxwell

this is a documentary on baile funk made a couple few years ago. it has english subtitles. 25 minutes or so. Well worth checking out. Tati Quebra Barraco is in FINE form here.......

Mestre Marujo Descansa em Paz

2006-11-12T19:48:00.000-02:00

On Friday, November 10, Mestre Marujo died suddenly during a roda de capoeira in Rio de Janeiro. He was a student of Mestre Arerê in Ilha do Governador along with my mestre, Camaleão. After Camaleão was graduated by Arerê as a mestre, he left to form his own group, Filhos de Angola, and was accompanied by Marujo. Later, Camaleão graduated Marujo as a mestre, who then went on to form his own group based in Santo Cristo. He was an important figure in capoeira angola in Rio de Janeiro and will be greatly missed.

Maculele Tamborzão Volt Mix

2006-11-10T00:58:00.000-02:00

This is Digitaldubs Curimba Riddim. Rockers Carioca style....

That must be some special bicycle Mr. Cristiano Dubmaster has there.....like how the hell did he get to all those different places in the same day? Anyway, at least we get a look into the one and only vinyl pressing plant in South America, which happens to be in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro. Our record distributor on a bicycle makes the rounds from Lapa (Plano B) and Cinelândia (Camelôs on Pedro Lessa) to Catete to Copacabana and Ipanema and then swings back around to Botafogo for the Digitaldubs party at Casa da Matriz (next one is wednesday the 20th).

I LOVE this riddim. The drum pattern is essentially maculele/tamborzão. Or at least, that's the main groove going on. But, it meshes with baile funk, ragga, dub and samba. The vocals on this "megamix" reflect that as well. The funk flow of Catra, samba of BNegão, ragga dancehall of Jimmy Luv and ending with Biguli's more funk oriented vocal.....

Oh by the way, this is available on vinyl......and the entire record (lots of other riddims) is available for free download at the Digitaldubs site. copyleft.......

Tamborzão, is essentially a baile funk riddim which is derived from maculele (sorry, but i don't have any recorded examples of pure maculele to put here......anybody?). It's not EXACTLY the same, but anything that undergoes some form of appropriation is bound to change somehow, right? Maculele is a rhythm and dance which is said to come from Bahia, although, like capoeira, nobody really knows where it came from. It is a Brazilian cultural phenomenon. As a dance, it is normally performed in a roda, or circle of people. Each dancer has 2 sticks, usually recycled berimbau sticks cut to equal size. The dancers strike each other's sticks once every 4 beats while dancing on the beats in between. It's easy to see how this could be a disguised fight, like capoeira. Be careful of your fingers! Maculele is normally played on one or more atabaques.

This gung-ka-ka-gung-gung-ka-gu-gung-ka-ka-gung-gung-ka is the maculele. In baile funk, it's known as the Tamborzão. The Tamborzão began as a programmed beat using 808 sounds to emulate maculele being played on an atabaque. When I first came to Brazil in 1999, this rhythm was being referred to as cerol......from the track, "Cerol na mão," by Bonde do Tigrão (which was probably the first boy band that came out of the favela and maybe the only band to record a full album on a major label)....."assim, assim".....Cerol is a mixture of glue and broken glass which is applied to a kite string in order to cut down your adversary's kite. Basically, the lyrics talk about who's gonna show who who is boss.......it was also known as simply atabaque or tamborzinho. I'm not too sure when it made the jump from being the "little" sound to being the "big" sound (tambor is drum. -zinho is diminutive, -ão is bigger).

In the last year or two, the Tamborzão has gained in popularity. It's a big dry sound that works really well on a massive sound system in a mostly open air space. It's a mix that has lots of room for vocals and other elements. I would say it's as big and ubiquitous as sleng teng was in its heyday (anybody out there that's been present in both these places/eras?). Every MC out there has rhymes for Tamborzão.

In this video (sorry, only in portuguese) by Tatiana Ivanovici and Diogo Cunha, Sany and Mavi compare the Tamborzão with the volt mix, which was extremely popular and one of the first 100% Brazilian "riddims" that emerged in the whole baile funk movement (going back to the days when the music played was 100% north american) and discuss how these 2 rhythms were fundamental in creating a 100% Brazilian musical style. Unfortunately, in this mini-documentary on Tamborzão, they never actually play the Volt mix. Listen to the volt mix here. Of course, in classic Riddim style, there are no credits on the CD I got this from - only to the record label (Pipo's). In the video, though, Sany shows the vinyl (DJ Battery Brain). For him, this was the beginning of Funk Carioca. Around the same time, a guy in the west zone of Rio made a version of the tamborzão on an 808. At the time, people didn't like it so much in comparison to the Volt Mix, which is really full sonically speaking. The tamborzão started out as being really simple and dry with lots of space. Nowadays it's gained some texture and substance. If you don't speak portuguese and have never been to a baile funk, but are interested in live electronic music, this is still very much worth watching. Sany and Mavi demonstrate playing live funk on mpcs and cdjs. Almost as cool as in real life. ;-)

To hear new Tamborzão tracks, probably the best place (aside from a Baile Funk in Rio) to hear it is on Sany's myspace site. Go dere.

Sonar Calibrado in Tangier, Morocco

2006-10-23T16:26:00.000-03:00

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

2006-10-20T00:30:00.000-03:00

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?

2006-10-13T15:09:00.000-03:00

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

2006-10-09T02:39:00.000-03:00

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

2006-10-02T21:08:00.000-03:00

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.....

Cape Town - The Real Estate Agents

2006-09-24T15:11:00.000-03:00

On my last day in Cape Town, I had the pleasure of meeting up with The Real Estate Agents. Funnily enough, I realized that I had already met Markus when I played at the Flux festival a couple years ago on New Year's Eve. I caught the Max Normal set and really liked the DJ. They announced that they would be playing right after in another tent as The Real Estate Agents. As it turned out, their set was absolutely my favorite of the entire festival. It was a one of the first times I heard somebody using Ableton Live in a live situation. They had some drum machines, turntables and effects and a back up CD in case things went wrong. There was almost no one there. I just sat in the corner and listened. Even though the beats were big and phat, they used a lot of sound effects and dialog and samples. Very much a sonic journey. Afterwards, I went and said hello. But, they were busy packing up and trying to make room for the next DJs, so we agreed to meet at the bar in the tent nearby. I waited and waited and waited and finally gave up. When we met, I told them the story and we had a laugh about the whole thing. We all met for breakfast on Long Street (too much Brenda Fassie there!) and then headed up to the studio "complex" they share nearby.

Sibot in his studio.

Anyway, they've gotten some really warped, phat and sometimes silly and sometimes evil beats going on.......check this out....

The Real Estate Agents - "Super Evil (Real Estate Mix)" with one Watkin Tudor Jones on the words.

Markus Wormstorm in his studio.

Somewhat Random

2006-09-22T18:04:00.000-03:00

A somewhat random, anecdotal post.......
You too can be a virtual Jackson Pollock. Some good clean fun.

I gotta announce that I'm really really REALLY feeling Dub Gabriel's new track "Spirit Made Flesh feat. Karen Gibson Ror aka KGR." You can check the track on both of their sites. It is as steady as a tree sprung from god's chest........

Dr. Robert M. Bowman Says 9/11 Was An Inside Job. Watch it.
I posted once about Loose Change. Somebody wrote that I wasn't looking closely enough and that the Loose Change gang is just making a huge spectacle of 9/11. It seems that people are afraid to even entertain the thought that the American government is capable of being manipulative and deceitful. As though it is even more ridiculous to consider the possibility that there is a conspiracy (or many) going on. I say open the fucker up and take it all apart and figure out how it works. Don't worry if you can put it back together again.

Maybe I'll finish up my observations on my African sojourn tomorrow.......

Cape Town

2006-09-19T23:54:00.000-03:00

As I think I've said a few times in earlier posts, I'm a huge fan of African Dope records. I heard about them on my last trip to South Africa and Mozambique in 2004. My glass blowing friend in Durban, Cornell, turned me on to the compilation "Cape of Good Dope." Later, in Berlin at Multikulti FM, I found their "The Sound of Dub" and "Silverlab Harambe Sessions." One of the tracks that really jumped out at me was "FCK" by Teba. I promptly ripped it and stuck it in my Ableton Live session and (due to the limited text/naming) it just became FCK, I played it out all the time and forgot that it was Teba. Fast forward......

The possibility came up to set up a stopover in South Africa (I have a hard time stopping in random strange places on the way to my real destination without getting out and at least having a look around) and i decided to write to them and see if they could help set up a gig in Cape Town (or anywhere in SA). I got lucky and they decided to hook me up. Always on the look out for musicians, i asked about the possibility of hooking up with some people there and they were down for facilitating connections. When they mentioned Teba, it rang a bell and I digitally backtracked and realized that it was the FCK guy. Cool, me thinks.

Listen to "FCK" - Teba, The Original Social Worker, aka the Shepherd.

The gears were in motion. I was to be picked up by Fletcher, aka DJ Dope aka founder of African Dope Records. We had a lot to talk about and a lot to do. Duncan who was responsible for promoting the night had gotten us hooked up with tickets to go to Robben Island where Mandela had been in prison for many years. Of course, as most Cape Townians, Fletcher had never been there and jumped at the chance. That gave us plenty of time to talk about Cape Town, South Africa, Apartheid, the Mandelas, all the former prisoners who are now cabinet members, education, food, music, rappers, you name it. Then it was back to town to get ready for our gig at the Fiction Bar on Long Street. The night was a great success. Everybody was happy, satisfied and tired. We trudged off with our gear for home. Along the way, Fletcher got a call from the security company that his house alarm had gone off. I suggested that maybe his cats had set it off, but, very calmly, he said he was sure that he'd been broken into. Back at the crib, there was a security guy standing in front of the house. The bottom half of the door had been kicked in. The thieves had run in, grabbed the turntables from the front room, knocked over the amp, magazines and records and taken off. Probably in about 30 seconds or so we figured. It was a long night. We had to wait for the police to properly report it so that he could claim it on insurance. It was light out by the time we got to bed.

The next day we went out to Gugulethu to check out the sunday afternoon sound system. Normally, they set up in the basketball court, but it had been taken over by an ANC rally and so the sound system was moved to a nearby basketball court. This was a totally DIY mission to make the music happen. The equipment was an amalgamation of stuff brought by whoever had it. It sounded pretty nasty, but the good vibes more than made up for that. We arrived just as the sun was setting and managed to catch quite a few MCs in the short time we were there. The amount of talented hip hop and ragga MCs in Cape Town is astounding (especially after being in Zenj and Bongo!). When it got dark, it got cold. The MCs gave way to just the DJs and people danced all over the basketball court trying to stay warm. Fletcher introduced me to people left and right - Teba was there, Crosby, a producer/MC that I'd meet the first night, Vuyo, a super nice guy who is a producer of roots reggae, Spencer, who was the man responsible for putting the whole thing on.......then it was time to go to the studio and listen and talk and show and tell. Perhaps some things from the studio tomorrow.......
Fletcher, aka DJ Dope with Teba

Sound system Gugulethu style

African Dope Studio headquarters

Catch Up - Zenj, Bongo and Bagamoyo

2006-09-18T20:32:00.000-03:00

Aaaighttchyall. Sorry for my absence, but i had some travellin' to do....specifically, Zanzibar - Dar es Salaam - Bagamoyo - Dar es Salaam - Johannesburg - Cape Town - Johannesburg - Frankfurt - Rio de Janeiro. yes, it was a long trip! Frankfurt was lovely. I was so tired I slept in a park and then left. Thanks Varig......

I'm gonna try and make up for this lost time and fill in the empty spaces little by little......wrapped everything up in Zanzibar.

Matona and me on the last day - he gifted me halewa and I gifted him rough mixes of all the tracks we worked on together. My hard drive is heavy with new tracks to be edited and mixed........

In the last few days, it was a marathon of recording - both to finish my tracks and to finish Matona's.

Finally....something to listen to from all of this recording. Matona's Ud Solo.

Matona is fully bent on coming to Rio. I hope he comes. He says he doesn't mind sleeping in a hammock.......

Matona walking Leila through the track at the Dhow Countries Music Academy (by the way they have a job vacancy for director -check it on the site).

Leila doing vocals on our beni/ragga track.

Fadl on tabla.

Muda Criss laying down the vocals for our track at Akhenaton studio. He wrote about his father who is in prison unjustly in India for murder. He hasn't seen him for 10 years.

As I think I spoke of earlier, I had been invited by one Mr. Jhiko Manyika to spend some days at his house in Bagamoyo making music. We managed to do a track of his, another track with his cousin, Squeeza (his friends used to say that he squeezes the words and rhymes) who came out for a day from Dar to do a track and another track with Andrew, Jhiko's guitar player. Jhiko has to be one of the sweetest, most genuine people on the planet. I count myself very lucky and blessed indeed to have made his acquaintance. Thanks Jhiko!

Jhiko Manyika

Squeeza squeezing the rhymes

Andrew

To the very last minute, Fid Q called and sent text messages saying he was trying to come and make the hook up to record a track, but alas, it was not to be.....maybe next time.

I want to say thanks to some folks for their guidance, enthusiasm, interest, hospitality during my trip to Zanzibar - Matona!!! Ally "Star" - thanks for the talks sitting on the baraza late night and don't worry the monkey won't bite! Kheri, Hilda, Yasser (see you in Cairo), David, Juma 20, Muda Criss, Sweet Ray, Abeid, Yusuf (sorry for the screwed up link! It is http://www.busaramusic.com - go dere!), Adel, Mohammed for the biscuits and soda every other day, Khamis, Hamad, Fadl, Leila, Jhiko, Andrew, Shida, Kasim and last, but definitely not least, Ali for the mishkaki and chips.

Cancelled Recordings and Flights

2006-08-31T08:22:00.001-03:00

Feeling a little frayed at the edges.......I just spent the morning dealing with getting myself back to Rio. Varig cancelled my return from Johannesburg to São Paulo and offered me a flight from Frankfurt, Germany instead. Oh yeah, just jump on the subway - JoBurg - Frankfurt line.....I got a flight - for $700. Varig says they "can't guarantee any compensation." Hmmmm. thanks.

Well, where was I? I posted a whole load of posts that had been gathering on my desktop and shooed them away like in one fell swoop. Then, life goes on and there are other things to take our attention.

The view from the "studio" at Dhow Countries Music Academy

This is Mohammed Othman on violin.
Had to go back to the music academy again to overdub some stuff. The violin guy wanted to add a second violin and we also wanted to get Mahsinn on tabla, Ibrahim on oud cause he kept somehow sidestepping the whole recording thing, even though it was his initial idea, Adel wanted to redo his bass track and I wanted to get another vocal take. Mahsinn didn't show up. I passed ibrahim on his way out saying that sometimes things just don't work out cryptically and taking off. Adel said he could only do it another day when he had his bass. The singer was no where to be found (is there a theme going on here?).

So, matona, the trooper, did Ibrahim's ud track, his own cello track again and then cello on 3 tracks of mine.

Later, Hilde called to come and have a drink with her and Matona and a guest who had come from Cairo. It was nice to hang out with them a bit. Matona launched off on a hundred stories from his time as a beer drinking university student in France, musicians in Zanzibar and how they can't be trusted for anything and I don't know what else.

Today, I went to Akhenaton to record, but Muda Criss didn't show up and I had forgotten my m box. I could have waited and worked a little, it just didn't seem to be right, so I came bck to town and dealt with email and cleaning up my hard drive a bit.
At 5, I had an appointment with matona to record his quartet at Monsoon where they usually play on the weekends. everything worked out well. We tracked 4 songs. Basic stereo recording. stereo mic straight to my maudio flash card recorder. Adel was supposed to come over and do the bass track afterwards, but he said tomorrow......

Got the recording back home to the computer, mastered it and made a CD. Tonight I'll give it to matona and see if I can post something from it. here are a couple fotos.

Looks like I'm going to Cape Town to do a gig with Fletcher from African Dope Records. I'm pretty excited about that. I'll have to leave here a bit earlier than planned, but it's for good reason. I'm a huge fan of the African Dope sound. Dub ragga hip hop kwaito and other little bits of this and that get in there. somehow, it really sounds like it's from SA. Not sure how to explain that. Obviously, it IS from there, but it has a kind of organic real human attachment to SA. If you don't know them, you should check it out.

Another Dead Laptop?

2006-08-23T15:14:00.000-03:00

As it turns out, Excel had dropped the computer shortly before we started the recording (maybe that's why he seemed a little disconnected from things and was glued to the computer). As of yesterday, it wouldn't boot up and 2 of the 3 tracks from the recording are on its drive. He went to Dar es Salaam today to see if they could fix it. I didn't get a chance to mess around with it to see what the problem was. I went to the academy today to see if I could round up the remaining musicians to do overdubs for the recording. It's a bit like herding cats. Anyway, there is a schedule and plan to get stuff done......let's see how it turns out in practice. Fid Q texted and said he's coming on friday as he is leaving for the UK on sunday morning. Sweet Ray is nowhere to be found. Mjus totally disappeared since the day we recorded the guide vocal. I'm just taking it in stride. I think it means that they weren't meant to record.

qanun and mp3s

2006-08-23T15:13:00.000-03:00

Traded a shit load of mp3s with Khamis today. Had a nice chat with Kheri from the music academy today about production classes producing music and such. Still need to hook up with him. the cassettes from alakeifak are really cool, but the quality is shit. They are cassette recordings made on a shitty machine with bad levels striaght off the house mixer. However, some of the material is absolutely spectacular. Got 3 cassettes finished....still 4 to go. I guess it's a good thing that I can't drive or get my wounded hand wet - there is a lot to do! Recorded some qanun with matona. sounds good..

Safar Recording Session

2006-08-23T15:04:00.000-03:00

Finally made the Safar recording. Of course, nothing was exactly what was expected. Excel was there to help and to run logic (which I don't know at all). we combined my equipment with the schools gear and managed to rig up an 8 channel multitrack system. the room was a bare concrete rectangular room (with nice views out over the harbor if you opened the windows) surrounded by wooden slat doors that gave out onto the harbor and the huge machinery apparatus that was moving earth right on the road in front of the academy. Pretty damn not-ideal setup, but it's what we had to work with.

Eventually, there were 7 musicians: cello (Matona), violin, congas, tabla/darabouka, qanun, electric fretless bass (adel) and vocal. We moved onto the 2nd track which went down really well. At the end, Logic frooze and we had to force shutdown to get out of it. On restart, we tried to listen to it to determine whether to do a second take of either of the tunes. Logic kept crashing. it would only partially show the wave form but it would play the audio or there would be static. Seemed like corrupt file ville. they decided to redo the first tune. logic worked normally throughout until the end when it was stopped, it froze again. Again it would freeze when the track was played. I tried copying the audio files to my ipod. it would start to copy and then freeze up.

at home, the first song which I was able to copy sounded great when i messed with it in pro tools. should be cool. I hope we can get those other files from the laptop.......

woke up late

2006-08-23T15:03:00.000-03:00

Woke up late. Had coffee and beans and chapati, got my gear and headed to the music academy to record Safar. Matona and Adel and the qanun player were there. Well, 3 out of 7, that's a start......no, Mahsinn is in Dar, ibrahim doesn't have his ud, the singer is at home and the violinist had something else going on. So, we moved it to monday.

email, forodhani for food a DVD and sleep.

Vespa crash

2006-08-23T15:02:00.000-03:00

Today, I had a pretty fucking interesting day. I got up, did my yoga, showered, had a coffee at Jaws Corner and beans and chapati at my other spot, packed some peanuts and crackers and water and started to take off on the vespa. Just outside my door, I met Sharifa, who I knew through the filming of the documentary. I had invited here before to go on a moped trip across the island and she always refused. So, of course, I offered again and she accepted. We stopped by her house for her to get ready and then we took off to Paje where we hunted down a friend of hers that she had some biashara with, I took a swim and then we continued on to Makunduchi to check out the apartment that she and her brother have. By then, it was getting late and we started back to Town.

Just before the turnoff to Uzi Island there is a sort of highland, wetter area where there are more tall trees and it's lusher and greener. There was smoke across the road from a cooking fire. A bit farther down, there a daladala stopped and there was a cluster of people on both sides of the road. I slowed down and noted a man beginning to cross the road just in front of me. I slowed more. He started running, all the while looking in the away from me. I slowed more. he kept running toward the center of the road. I slammed on teh brakes. We skidded straight the fuck smack into him. the vespa kneeled down and I heard something crack snap. the engine died and I heard the back end hit the road. I was ahead and sliding on my knees elbows, hand and waist. Slowly, I came to a stop. I ws on my stomach as though i were doing pushups. My face felt okay and healthy. weird. I sensed a lot of people around on all sides totally stopped and watching (like me - like, what the fuck! oh my goddamn! :-) ). That was pretty intense. Sharifa landed right on top of me and rolled to the side. I turned and looked at her. Asked her if she was okay. She asked me if I was okay. I looked ot the old man who was turned away and beginning to get up. We stood up. Somebody came and picked up the vespa and wheeled it to teh side of the road. Another grabbed the speedometer and the dashboard cover that had cracked and flew off. I began to hurt. I noticed blood dripping on my pant leg and on my foot, but I didn't know where it was coming from. Was it dripping form a tree above me? My pants had blood on them, but I lifted my pant leg and my left knee was only slightly brazed. Then I realized there was a big gash in my left hand. I still couldn't feel much and put pressure on it with my right hand which was also bleeding, but not as much. Sharifa suggested we move off to sit down. It was starting to get dark. Somehow, it was much darker then the moment that the crash took place. There was a large crowd of people around us. Different than other times I've been surrounded by crowds like that before. Very still and somehow respectful. the mzee sat near us. I asked him if he was okay. yes. okay. Sharifa was okay. I was okay. Okay. Sharifa went to talk to the mzee. He had hurt his leg and was worried about his bicycle and his leg and getting treatment and being able to work and his family. He wanted compensation. sheriyah asked how much money I had. There were a few older male dudes who were somehow taking care of shit. Crowd control somehow. m aking sure the vespa was cool. Sharifa asked one of the boys to bring my bag closer to us. Somebody gave me a bandana to wrap around my hand. the mzee moved away to a nearby baraza and was being checked on by some older dudes. A crowd started to gather around him and away from him. I don't know what was happenging there. Some of the older guys shooed everyone away and then came and called me over to talk. She seemed to think that the best thing to do was to make a settlement before the police came. the police came almost exactly at that moment. they didn't come and ask us if we were okay. they just showed up on their vespa, turned the engine off and the guy started writing something and he called on his cell phone. then, we were iinformed that all of us were going to the police station. One of the cops drove my vespa with me on back, Sharifa on the back of the cop vespa and the old mand mzee on somebody's bicylcle (don't know if it was his own, never saw his bike) to the station. At the station i was able to take stock of my injuries a bit more. I stopped shaking as much as I had been. I had felt really cold straight after the accident. We all sat in a sort of conference room where one cop with a Zantel Tshirt on took our names, ages and addresses (but didn't ask to see ID) and then just told me that I should pay Tsh50,000 in compensation. I lamented the fact that the mzee was apparently injured (first he said he couldn't walk and then walked right into the police station) and that his bicycle was damaged, but it was his fault,. were they taking that into consideration? I understand that it was very unfortunate, but damn, really?! yes, he wanted compensation or they (not he) would take it to court. I would be legally bound to appear in court a month or so from now (of course beyond the time I had told him I would be staying here). then, I could request and investigation and see what happened. or i could pay now. "hush money," he whispered to me. So, I stood up and said thank and that I'd be going. Sharifa had already handed over the money. I asked for soap and water and tried to clean my wounds. meanwhile, Sharifa called her brother to come and fetch us. he arrived promptly with a truck and when i had gotten out of the bathroom, the vespa was loaded in the back, the engine was running and we just took off. Her brother informed us that the police stayed with Tsh10,000 and the old man mzee made off with Tsh40,000 (about US$35.00). We drove back to Stone Town and discussed what to do with the vespa. Sharifa's brother would take it to his fundi and get it fixed tomorrow and we would go straight to the hospital in Town. At the hospital, the doctor was just on his way out, but let me in. He asked what I was doing there, took a look at my hand and despite me saying that I was in an moped accident, he said that looks like s nail went in there. I said, no, I was in an accident. He said, that could have been a rusty nail. I said, no, I was in a road accident. The nurse in black bui bui said, a road accident. He scrawled a bunch of stuff on the prescription pad and handed it to the mama. She looked at me and said, stiches. i wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement or what. In another room, I got hydrogenperoxide, iodine, tetanus shot, pain killer shot right in the middle of the big gash in my hand. then stiches. Got both legs and arms cleaned up and counted myself lucky. Tomorrow, I'll find out how much the vespa is gonna cost.

Zanzibar Studios

2006-08-23T14:46:00.000-03:00

Went to Makonela Records in Mombasa today to visit Makonela who I had originally met at Akhenaton studios where I gave them a Reason lesson. His studio was cool as hell.

Housed in a shipping container, it has two rooms constructed independently of the surrounding metal container. He has a pretty basic setup of a PC with an m-audio card, a small PA mixer, 4 different speakers as monitors (controlled with the busses on the mixer. including a Mackie 824 with a crushed tweeter), a bass, an amp a couple mics.

He mostly records tracks for people. Basically, the artist comes in with a song idea. The producer then creates a base (what they call a beat here) and together, they produce the track. It is exceedingly rare to use live acoustic instruments. He makes the beat, records the vocal, mixes and masters a 4 track CD - 1. Full Mix 2. Beat and Chorus 3. Beat 4. Acapella. total cost starts at Tsh85,000 (about US$68). All this takes 3 to 4 hours.

The mix comes from Reason running in demo type mode rewired to cubase. Not super clear on PCs, let alone Cubase/reason setup....nothing is compressed, eqed or mixed beyond ajusting the volume. the vocal gets a little reverb if anything. All the sounds come from reason or the cubase vst instruments. There is no mastering beyond burning the mix to CD.

Makonela wants to learn how to improve the quality of his production. I taught him a little about compression, setting up aux sends/returns for FX, recording the audio of a midi track in order to process it.

From there, I headed across town too Mbweni to Heartbeat Records, the big studio in town. It took me a while to find it, but eventually I found a dude on a bmx bike who took me back around away from the road. then, it was hard to miss - big paintings of Hearbeat Recording on the outside in red, green and gold. It was a big house with a driveway and entryway and entry hall and lounge. the studio was off to the side. Air conditioned, it was quiet and well sound proofed in there. I hadn't heard that kind of silence for such a long time, it was impressive. Chu Chu is the headman there. There were stickers for American Music all over and I asked if he had gone to American Music in Seattle. He bought all the studio equipment there, but then he was already off on another subject. He played the first track of a compilation of ragga they had done. We listened to the track from beginning to end. He chuckled a bit at the end. Professional. Slick. Sounded well balanced on the monitors (also the first I'd seen in a while). More like RnB with a ragga pulse. Okay. We talked about heartbeat records. Initally, they started out producing tracks for anyone and everyone. A Congolese dude named Alan worked there for quite a while before there was some sort of misunderstanding between him and Chuchu. Now Chuchu has 2 producers that he brings over from Dar es Salaam when necessary. Eventually, he tired of so many different artists and decided to create the label in order to work with select artists and market them. He was talking about selling 30,000 cassettes and 3000 CDs per release. All the duplication is done in Dar. they do blitz releases in the bigger cities - Mbeya, Dodoma, Arusha, Tanga. but not zanzibar. There is too much piracy in Zanzibar. You give it to one person today and tomorrow everyone has it, but in Dar=, they respect copyrights. And, do labels in Dar pay radio stations to play their music? No, that doesn't happen, but there are partnerships between stations and studios and the associated artists......
He quickly showed me the recording room, chatted on the phone and said he had to go.

I crossed over to Akhenaton studios which is in nearby Chukwani. Juma 20 was just walking out, but Muda Criss was ready to work. We set up my laptop to the system and I got to making a beat. Muda Criss rhymed and tried it out. An hour or so later, it was sounding pretty good. the lyrics are about his father who is unjustly in prison for murder in India, so he wants to work with that India/Zanzibar connection.

another day

2006-08-23T14:45:00.000-03:00

....the Jet Li DVD was so scratched up it wouldn't play! hahaha!

Today was a little better. Only one cancellation - Sweet Ray. Matona and I did manage to record a couple ud tracks and we redid the violins for another track. All in all, pretty damn good for 1 1/2 hours. After listening back to everything in my "down" hours last night, I realized that his shit is so good that I just have to trust it. I worked out everything that needs to get tracked and by who. Now, just gotta do it. Time is starting to feel a little short. I've got another 2 weeks or so here and then it's on to Bongo and Bagamoyo.

plans and no plans

2006-08-23T14:38:00.000-03:00

Today didn't pan out at all like i'd planned. Par for the course in these parts, really.

I DID manage to do a cross countryside jaunt on my vespa. I drove to Uzi Island, which is about 40km south and east of Stone Town over a good road, then a dirt road, then a bad road, then a rock track across a mangrove swamp, then another bad road to a trail head (with monkeys chowing down on food left in plastic jerry cans cut in half and tied into the trees by fisherman) that lead through a submerged trail through another mangrove swamp and out the other side at beach. I hung out a little while at the beach and then decided that I'd better go. I was a little worried that the coral rock road which cut through the mangroves would be inundated by the coming tide and I'd get stuck. After getting to the dirt road and a small village, I saw an old man selling coffee on the side of the road and decided to stop for a little break.

Sitting down and greeting everybody and getting a cup of coffee, I chatted a little with the mzee about the road and we both agreed that last little stretch back there is mbaya sana. then i noticed the guy squatting half in the road across from me. I thought he looked familiar and then he asked me if I remembered him. I did, but wasn't sure from where. He said, sukomuhogo. I didn't remember, but he continued on.

I had been drinking coffee (again) at Jaws Corner and I met his wife who apparently is mzungu. Then, it hit me who he was. I was drinking my coffee staring in space thinking about whatever, his wife sat down near me (I'd seen her around before) and a sort of seemed like he was drunk crazy guy with scabs all over his legs thrust a tourist propaganda pamphlet in my face. when i didn't take it from him (even though he was demanding that I read it), he set it on my lap. I said thank you and turned thank you, but isn't this her's (I hadn't seen them together and had only seen her out of the corner of my eye. There were other pamphlets laying next to her)? She said, that no, it was his. He kept talking to me. Sort of, rastaman, i & I, one love babble. I finished my coffee and took off.

Now, here he was squatted in front of me in this totally out of the way little village. The respectable and solid wazee from the coffee baraza didn't seem to be put off by him. He even spoke english well, even though his thoughts were downright incoherent. He insisted that I come to his house and meet his wife (I still didn't know that it was that woman from Jaws Corner). I declined saying that I had to be back in Stone Town for a meeting. He insisted and insisted and then said he was going to get here and I should wait. So, i waited and chatted with the wazee some more (they were very cool). Ate a banana.

Eventually, he showed up with that grey haired, spectacled and also very scabby, hippy german woman from Jaws Corner. She told me that she'd lived in that little village for 7 years and was a plastic artist and then insisted on having me visit their house down the road. Of course, I went, but of course, she had to stop off and buy oil and kerosene (they didn't have either), and chat and buy vegetables too, but eventually were on our way. Their house was a very run down and dirty mud house (she called it a pigeon house?), fenced around with palm thatch, and filled with all kinds of random animals - dogs, cats, birds, insects. Her art wasn't so in evidence, but she did show me 2 fish carvings painted day glo colors and embellished with soft dried coral. She smoked. Abdullah, her husband came back and weaved around drunkenly, saying, "I am not a rastaman. I am not a hippy. i am a natural man. i am a good and I am a bad man. If you treat me good, then I am good. if you treat me bad, then I am bad." They invited me for fish sometime. i told them I'd see them at Jaws Corner and made my exit. Abdullah followed me saying that he wasn't a rastaman or a hippy and alla dat again. When we were to shake hands he made a fist instead. I put up my fist and he smacked it really hard and said one love or something.

Back in town, the meeting with Kapande at alekaifak didn't really work out. he had been expecting Khamis to come also and that there and then we'd listen to all these tapes and choose which ones to transfer to CD. Sounded like a lot of work to me. Khamis wasn't around and I had to go and meet Matona. We left it for tomorrow......

Back at the crib, Matona never showed up. I got a text message from Sweet Ray saying that she couldn't come for the 9 pm session, but we could meet tomorrow instead.

I rented a Jet Li DVD and am gonna just chill.

Mimi

2006-08-14T13:42:00.000-03:00

Mimi nakwanza kusema kiswahili

My swahili has been getting better. I guess I speak enough to lead people into thinking that I can understand them speaking normally. I know enough to be dangerous so to speak. Usually another way of saying that I don't really know squat but that I can sometimes make like I do. Actually, it's very cool. People really like and appreciate it if someone is trying to learn Swahili. Totally the opposite from my experience speaking portuguese where everybody wants to try their english out on you and automatically assumes that you don't speak portuguese. But then, I'm talking shit and just generalizing......yeye mzungu....anajua kiswahili?

BTB and friends listening to playback.

Home style reverb chamber...

Recorded the "reverb chamber" for the BTB choruses today. Sounds cool. Last night we recorded the vocals. They're super happy. I left them with a rough mix and the beat and chorus.

I went back to Akhenaton studio to give them a crash course in Reason. We crammed in front of the monitor on some salvaged 70's bar stools and squinted. The only light came from the vocal booth (covered in foam cushions grafitted with bikini'd women and tags and lyrics and whatnot) and it was dark and the mosquitos bit my feet. Just the basics - open a session, create a template, create a mixer, redrum machine, Dr. rex player, synth, sampler and effects. then I programmed a beat, made a bass line and a chop stylee reggae rhodes line and made some simple effects automation. They asked me to come back again and do a track for Muda Criss who is one of their family rappers. There was another guy who had come specifically to meet me and have the lesson. I didn't know him before. He has a small studio just outside of stone town. His main priority is to learn how to record live instruments. He invited me to come over later in the week. Afterwards everybody talked about the different things they wanted to learn and focus on and it gave me a lot of ideas as far as designing workshops and teaching people.

It's kind of crazy. The more I talk to people that are really interested and struggling to learn even the basics of digital audio recording and production, the more I realize how damn hard it is for someone in a place as "isolated" as Zanzibar. AND, how important it is to maintain, develop and sustain local culture and tradition. Modern taarab has become so incredibly popular as a result of the fact that there are very few experienced people and very few places to record live orchestras. That, and the fact that a keyboard is just plain way easier to deal with. It's also the reason why most of bongo flava sounds exactly the same.

there's gotta be a whole movement out there of people who are totally into international lounge casio cheese. I'd make a compilation if I could stomach listening to enough of it. But, I digress......

One of the guys watched me setup a compressor in the reason session and asked me if there were any presets for "hip hop kick drums." Fortunately in Reason it's a little bit more complicated (or at least circuitous) to save a compressor setting than just saving it as a patch. I told him that he should just pick one instrument, patch it into the compressor and play around with the sound until he was bored out of his head. Then put it on whatever setting he thought sounded the best. They are really interested in having higher quality mixes, but the standard for quality is not simply their own ears, but american hip hop (for the most part). i think it's great to listen to other music that is mixed well side by side with your own original music, but that is like mastering. The choice of kick drum shouldn't play into this. the kick drum simply IS and that's what you have to work with in the mix. The kick drum IS what it is because it was chosen for it's feeling and vibe. NOT because it's like 50 cent's kick drum or the rest of the bongo flava kicks.

But, then all of these judgements of mine are from a place divorced from economics. They also want to know how to get their music out to the public. They want to make money at it. If it doesn't fill the floor at Bhawani Hotel on saturday night, it ain't workin. Lovely, that there may or may not be some erudite music fan in Norway or Tokyo that appreciates their well chosen kick drum, but that ain't selling cassettes in Dar es Salaam. All of this actually makes me want to try and make a total pop song to make all the asses shake at Bhawani and all those discos witht he fucking smoke machines and cheesy lights and too drunk people. Just as a challenge.

Today, i also got a call from one mr Jhiko Manyika, who I had originally met at the music academy. he was here in Zanzibar to perform during the ZIFF. He said he liked my tracks (and especially the one with Xuman) and would like to work with me AND that he invited me to come and stay some days at his house in Bagamoyo. Well, damn! I'd been thinking about him as well and the possibility of doing just that and whatdya know? He was also pretty psyched to hear that Matona and I have been cooking up some sounds together too.

This week is looking pretty busy. I've got things lined up with Sweet Ray, Mjus, Matona and another rapper name MT AND tomorrow I'm picking up the vespa again to do some cruising. Pretty stoked about that.

Where I eat dinner.....Forodhani "Gardens"

Zenj to Bongo to Zenj

2006-08-13T07:51:00.000-03:00

I'm back from Dar es Salaam. I have a computer that works. Still haven't figured out what the hell is going on with my email all of a sudden not working, something about a massive delay in the traceroute somewhere in europe? Right. Ask your ISP, they said......

Kipande and Khamis in front of Alakaifek.

Today I hooked up with Khamis who runs Kizoro Presents and he took me to Alkeifak over at Darajani to check out their taarab collection. It seems that he's the dude for taarab in town. They work mostly with cassettes. A lot of the cassettes that are for sale are simply live recordings of Malindi Music Club (Ikhwaan Safaa) and variations on their configuration. He showed me a CD which they were just begining to print the covers for and I asked if it was a pirate copy. Not exactly, although they do have some pirate stuff there. That particular record was recorded by a Zanzibari guy living in France. Upon completion of the production of the record in France, he visited Zanzibar and essentially sold "copying rights" to a bunch of shops around town. Total DIY punk rock setup. That seems to be pretty common.

The one main exception is the Culture Musical Club which is connected to Werner Graebner. They are under contract and about the only record of theirs that you find around is the record recorded and produced by Mr. Graebner. Because Malindi Music Club (Ikwaan Safaa) is much more relaxed and informal, it's possible to negotiate things with much more flexibility. Mr. Kiponde had 2 proposals for me. One to transfer as many cassettes to CD, remastering them in the process. Then Kizoro Presents would deal with the covers and duplication. All of the music that he wants to sell in this way, he knows the artists and has (or will have) agreements with them. Seems like a pretty good deal for everybody all in all. Artists get paid, music gets out there, and I get some free music for my time. The other proposal was that we hire a slightly smaller orchestra to play selected songs. We record this and release it. I got pretty excited about this, even though I realized it's not really even remotely possible right now because I don't have the gear to do it. I just thought it was exciting to have the connections to be able to do something like that. Maybe for a future trip to Zanzibar........So, the conclusion is that I will transfer 10 cassettes for them and I get to keep the CDs for my own work. There was some talk of sampling rights as well, but that never got discussed in detail. I'm gonna have a listen and work that out later. I'm happy just to have some new music. Now I'm just waiting for them to get me a cassette deck.

Matona the front man surrounded by the ladies.

Speaking of Ikwaan Safaa, I went and saw them at their notorious venue, the Haile Selassie Primary School. The venue was the open courtyard/basketball court in the center of the grounds. I got there a bit late and there were only a handfull of people there, so I took off and came back even later. By that time, they were already underway. The music was cool, but honestly, I was a little disappointed. the lame Yamaha keyboards were on equal level with the orchestra playing cheesy electric piano patches. so, every once in a while, there would be a sort of call and response type thing typical in egyptian orchestras between the strings (5 violins and a contrabass) and the keyboard. It was like switching the cheese switch back and forth. Aside from these moments, the keyboard sat more humbly in the mix most of the time. There were quite a few singers who came up and did there thing. Every once in a while the feedback came up with a vengeance. It was kind of funny to see almost everyone put their hands over their ears all at the same time. Of course, I sat there imagining the potential of such distorted feed back moments and chuckled to myself that surely I was the only one enjoying the noise. The ladies! The women were dressed absolutely to the 9s and were looking GOOD. The dresses were super extravagant. It was almost more of a beauty pagaent than anything else. Whenever the singer would sing a verse they liked, the women would all start getting up and walking toward the stage waving money in their hands. Seemed like the bigger the bill, the longer you could stand dancing in front of the singer when you got there. Although, I saw one woman who was flaunting a Tsh10,000 note and she never gave it away! It also seemed like the women going up there were unmarried women showing off their stuff. I liked that. Every once in a while a man would go up and give something and then rush away sort of embarassed. There was one guy who was special guest singer and then hung around bouncing between different circles in the audience. Saying hello to everybody. Then he'd get up and singer a tune. His shirt was this, I don't know, silk, sharp cut job with gold, silver and black threading. Very much styling and shining brightly. The orchestra were a bit more subdued in their black ties. Matona came up (he also played violin and bongos) to sing a song. Jeez! The women loved him. There must have been 25 women gathered around him singing along and dancing. Man, he was holding it down.

BTB in "the studio."

In other news, I recorded with BTB. They were super excited to be "in the studio." Their cell phone rang a few times and they told everybody that they were in the studio and busy. The excitement dwindled after not too long and as the reality of being under the sonic microscope set in. They didn't have much studio experience and I realized that the challenge was to help them bring the nice live energy that I heard in their reverb chamber (see below) to the studio. They couldn't seem to do any of the verses in the same time more than once. So, I recorded the chorus, pasted it out and setup the times for the verses. Then had each of them go over their verses again until they hit the right time (even though the performance wasn't so hot) and then made a bounce of the full mix and the beat and chorus. Then I asked them to go and practice. Tonight we will record again.

I had a bit of a similar experience with Mjus, who I finally managed to hook up with. He liked a 75 bpm track and already had lyrics to go on it. he also was haviing trouble getting the verses to fit in the appropriate time, so I made him a full mix and beat and chorus. We'll meet later this week.

Still can't seem to hook up with Fid Q, who was supposed to come over today from Dar es Salaam. He's getting ready to go to the UK to do a show. Hopefully, we can hook up before he takes off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This was to be my last post before my power adaptor died.......a little out of order now, but I don't imagine it makes that big a difference, does it?

Checked out BTB (Brown Town Boys) today. They just got a CD from a friend in Dar es Salaam with the full track and the instrumental or beat and chorus. "Beat and chorus" is the catch phrase for base or instrumental. It's common to have use a CD of the instrumental and the backing vox for performance. They were singing on top of their friends track at their club house. Beat and chorus playing on a sound system made of cannibalized audio equipment and their voices filling the super all concrete room was spectacular. Decided that I'd setup a special session just to get the verb in that room and their voices.

Still grinding away on a couple few different remixes and mixes. Been doing everything in my headphones. Gets a little tiring on the ears after a while. Maybe next time I'll have to pack some of those little self powered monitors. The battery on my laptop seems to be crapping out or maybe the power input circuitry of it is fucked up because it only sometimes starts charging when I plug it in. But, it always gets down to around 6 % and I think oh shit. and then it starts charging of its own accord. The electricity is definitely suspect. It oscillates quite a bit and the other day it just went out. But, that was because Sheahani didn't put more credits in (all houses have an electricity meter with a keypad and a digital readout. You go to the electric company, buy a code and then plug it in at your house. The new amount comes up on the readout. People say that it's about $1/day to power an apartment. Anyway, electricity is sketchy and the plugs are the ugly english stylee and sometimes the round 3 pins like in India and my adaptors never seem to fit just right. So, I wonder.....I know there is a mac vendor in dar es salaam........

Drove to Fumba, which is about 25km south of Stone Town to check things out. It was a dusty and really rugged road starting from where the asphalt ends near the airport. I went to the local beach (covered in plastic bags) and to the fancy schmanzy resort (not covered in plastic bags). The guards at the gate asked me to give a ride to their friend back to town. I warned him that I hadn't ridden with anyone on the back (since I had an accident doing exactly that back in 1991 in Phoenix), but I'd try if he wanted. It was totally fine until we approached the police checkpoint. Fortunately, I had been driving on the wrong side of the road. It so rutted with holes that 'the way' of the road criss crosses and meanders through potholes and I had been zen-ly following my path that took me to the right side of the road and just out of sight of where the crew of 6 or so cops was seated under a tree. But, we could see the black and white painted 55 gallon drums with the big stick on top blocking the road. He jumped off and went to the other side. I waited a bit and went on. There I met my new friend Ahmed (we had met on my way out to Fumba). I managed to remember his name and greeted him. Salaam alaikum, mambo vipi? Habari yako? Habari ya kazi? Asante sana. Then he started telling me that he was hungry and hadn't eaten and he had no money and that both of his parents were dead and could i please help him? I said I don't know (it sure is convenient when you can fib that you don't speak a language and selectively understand things. For the life of me, I can't do that in English or Portuguese, thank god my swahili is terrible). How would you like me to help you? He actually said that he wanted me to give him money. He didn't have me on anything! AND, he was my FRIEND. Ha ha. I just said no and he said okay, see you next time. We shook hands and I cruised around the bend to pick up my passenger.

Dead laptop

2006-08-10T06:30:00.000-03:00

Now in Dar es Salaam. Been a bit absent - my laptop died (hence the trip to Dar es Salaam). I had to cancel all of the recordings for this week. nothing like a computer that won't power up.

So, I took the early morning ferry and sat between 2 puking passengers, crying babies and an open door blowing seriously cold air into the cabin (they said it was cold in the back). I did notice that when they eventually closed the door, the puking increased. I guess it was better to just have cold air.

Anyway, I went straight to the local apple dealer and diagnozed that my power adaptor was bad, paid $100 bill for a new one and now I'm waiting to meet with Fid Q, the rapper based here, before I head back to Zanzibar.

Tonight I've been invited to go to the Culture Musical Club rehearsal. Should be cool.

More soon...........

Little Things and more little things

2006-08-05T14:20:00.000-03:00

A little time has gone by and it seemed like nothing really was happening, but now I realize that's totally untrue. Lots of little things leading up to, well, other little things.

Recorded again with Matona. This time at my nyumbani. I turned one of the coconut cord meshed, wood bed frames and coconut fiber mattresses (for all the techno geeks reading this. This is good sound. ;-) ) on their sides and angled in a sort of alcove with some cushions that I grabbed from the chairs in corridor. It deadened the space a little, but it's still pretty reverberant. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure that I've even been in a space here that wasn't constructed of concrete or coral bricks. I'm trying to utilize it in at least an interesting way. Mic placement. The other difficulty is noise from outside. Even if I close all my windows, there is a construction site going on next door. it's all manual, but there are a lot of men working. and banging and shouting. Then in the evening it's the little kids playing foot ball and the neighbors shouting at each other. Somehow, in between all of that (Matona would translate some of the stuff people were saying while we waited for them to shut up to do a take. Ancient woman on the opposite doorway yelling at the kids that it's not the time or place to play football, etc.), we got some good takes of ud and violin. Setup the basic framework for 2 tracks that'll have female vocals and did a guide vocal track. I've been quadruple tracking the violin and it sounds pretty nice with this lovely concrete room. It a traditional taraab tune that you'd most definitely hear at almost any wedding according to Matona. he calls it beni style. From my end it's ragga dub wise. But, they go right together. He likes to sing his ideas of the effects and even will spit a few rhymes (he talked about going down to Forodhani and buying some chicken and mishkaki and chapati and chips and sitting down and eating all of it and then burst out laughing).

Tonight, we were to record, but I was 10 min. late arriving at the school and he had already left. Strange, considering that usually he comes about 45 minutes late. :-) Oh well, i'll go track him down at the academy. he doesn't have a phone and is famous for it. He told me that his one year old daughter dropped it in the toilet. Then he just laughed and shook his head. Anyway, he's just around....

Haven't heard back from Fid Q aside from him calling to say that he couldn't open them on his computer. I emailed them to him and checked the links. Seems like all is fine.

I'm starting to think that I need even more beats for folks in Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo. Gotta do that.....

Oh yeah, I wanted to explain that Bongo Flava or Flavor or Flavour is hip hop ragga zouk even soukous reggaeton made and/or played in Dar es Salaam aka Bongo. Zenj flava is the same thing, but from Zanzibar aka Zenj. I probably won't be posting any of this stuff until I get back to Rio. Bandwidth here is limited.

Sweet Ray came over and listened to some of my beats. We had a nice time trying to communicate. Her English is about as good as my Kiswahili, but we managed just fine. She is sweet (like her name) and enthusiastic. I think she's from the mainland, but I'm not sure. I do know that she has 4 brothers, though. and is qualified and works as a hair dresser. She was really feeling the ragga 95 to 105 stuff. i think she has an attitude for it. I gave her a cd of mnazi. She asked for a week to figure something out.......

I dropped a CD with BTB - Brown Town Boys and hung out in their "Cup is Broken" room. They don't have a carpet there. Other cryptic slogans are scrawled on the wall and there is a dead animal's head in the corner. They are pretty excited about these 2 bases that I did in Senegal that never ended up getting voiced. They were already rapping on top of it working how to fit on the track. Today, I asked them what they planned on doing after I left. They were pretty (not really) confident in saying that they would find another producer and continue. I gave them a bit of a rundown on stuff they should have if they want to learn, progress and evolve in music and music business. I explained a one sheet, a photo, their CD (they'll have 4 recorded songs), cell phone, email. Be diligent, disciplined and just keep at it. I guess i was saying some obvious things, but I think they were somehow glad to hear it that way. We scheduled to record on tuesday next week.

I met with Khamis, who works just a couple doors down and is the owner/director of Kizoro presents as well as the husband of Halda who is the secretary at the music academy. They deal with recycled art. Actually, it is 2 kinds of art. One is their line of boxes and little objects made of newspaper papier mache (that's kind of redundant) and the other is their CD shop. the CDs are about 80% pirated CDs of stuff ranging from putumayo presents (they represent pretty heavily) to Misty in Roots to local zanizibar hip hop. they have about 40 CDs total. They design the covers. In most cases, they simply scan the original CD cover and then add Kizoro presents on the front. Samid is really very cool. He is "releasing" Matona's CD as well as 2Berry's and B-Z-Broo (Zanzibar hip hop) and really wants to help the scene. I haven't asked him yet about the recycling music trade yet.

I've been contacted by a guy named David who works at, or is, Akhenaton productions. I've yet to meet him, but I've heard that he is from Uganda, really into the Zenj and bongo flava scenes and he has a studio where a number of people work. he asked me to come and talk to them about software, editing and music production. I'm very happy - I've been wanting to pass on some knowledge if possible. We spoke on the phone and he sounds very welcoming and enthusiastic.

Finally, the other big event is that I rented a vespa scooter and took off. Wow. It was fine to be out in the countryside! I went Mangapwani, about 26 km north of Stone Town, and looked at a cave where illegal slaves were hidden (by the arabs against the British who had declared slavery abolished) and then took a look at nearby building built before the abolition specifically for holding slaves before they were shipped off from the nearby beach. I learned that many of the these slaves (which came from as far away as Uganda and the Congo) were sent specifically to Rio de Janeiro. The placard also assured me that the treatment of the slaves during their "shipping" wasn't indicative of their living conditions upon arrival at their destination. I walked to the cliffs which overlook the beach and checked out the view up and down the coast.

A good day

2006-08-01T09:31:00.000-03:00

Today was a good day.

Dealt with changing my ticket at south african airways. Seems like that happens on every trip I ever take. I change the date of return/onward travel. usually to postpone it. Moved it to sept. 7 to go to Joburg and hopefully do a couple gigs over the weekend there. I've been in touch with some of the very fine folks at African Dope Records and it looks like somehow somewhere so sound system action will happen there. Then back to Rio.

Lunch at this new place that Hilde told me about on a corner with umbrellas and coconut palms surrounded by a low wall. I got down with some wali na maharagwe na kuku. Yes!

Back to my upstairs dungeon to get ready for the recording session in the late afternoon with Motana. I've been finishing up a whole slew of tunes from the last year or so that I hadn't had time to deal with yet. I managed to do the final listen and bounce of Saye Mbott that I did with ALIF in Dakar last year. Burnt it to a disk and deleted it to make more room for new stuff to be recorded today. on the the next thing. I'm doing a remix for Dr. Das and Pitcho. I do that in my solo time at the upstairs dungeon. I like those kind of moments where I'm just in my own space that travels around the world with me. A simple desk and chair. My computer, camera, ipod, phone, notebook, a pen. My portable office/studio work space.

Then I got distracted and made 2 new beats quick like in Reason. Realized that it was 5 to 4 and I had to be at the academy to meet Matona. I stuffed things into my backpack, grabbed my mic stand and went of the the school. He was still finishing giving a class (I caught him having a smoke break in the middle of the class) and asked to meet in a half hour. I set up my laptop on a step of the room often used as a recital room, grabbed a wooden stool and got to work fixing up the 2 beats to be able to do with matona. It was a little hard because there was this rasta guy camped out on the step next to me playing one of those big casio keyboards with the speakers on either side playing as loud as the guy on my other side who just arrived playing the upright piano just because he happened to stop by today to play some piano. i battled to hear what I was doing while those guys hammered away. Eventually, matona appeared ready to record.

We shut ourselves in a classroom adjacent to the pianos. Inside, I could hear somebody playing violin. I looked out the window and there was a guy doing just that. And, the pianos. Matona asked them to go away or to other rooms. We tried again. But, the violins started again. i went out that time and began to ask them to go inside and shut the doors, but Adel, the bass player saw and chased them away. he hooked us up with quiet for a good hour.

matona wanted to work on this ragga track that I named, "mnazi" for lack of anything else more meaningful. It's coconut. He recorded a couple passes. In my mind it was all useable, but he just kept getting better. Then we moved on to the 2 tracks that i'd done the beats for earlier. I didn't really like the first one. I kind of thought, "what was I thinking when I made that." But, matona flowed on top of it and almost made it seem right just with his nice playing. The second tracks nailed it though. That one worked out well. He seemed pleased. Adel came in and had a listening saying he thought it was good. I'm stoked.

Oh yeah, i forgot...earlier on the street, I ran into Farid, who I had met earlier in my stay here in Stone Town. He is somehow related to the coach of the Women Fighter's Football team and I see him everwhere. He asked what I was doing here now that the filming was over, what was I doing. I told him I was looking for musicians and rappers. He said, Oh! Then come with me. I followed him round several side streets and into a courtyard where he started banging on the door and yelling. Eventually some people came out. They were BTB - Brown Town Boys. We chatted. One of the guy hugged me when he heard that I'm a producer. I liked them and wanted to hear their CD, but the only copy was at a friend's house and they couldn't get it, so we set up a meeting for later in the evening.

Fast forward. i did me usual internet down/upload at the post office internet cafe. Cut over and somehow found their place again (it was really dark). I listened to their 2 recorded songs. There was something there. The production was pretty rudimentary, but there was a certain charm. What the vocals lacked in precision was made up for in heartfeltness. Then they wanted to hear some of my beats. They loved Omzo and ALIF from Senegal. Also marechal from Rio. They really liked 2 riddims that I'd never recorded anybody on from senegal. They fresstyled and freestyled and freestyled while I just hit repeat on the ipod that we'd jacked into their boombox setup. mbhangi went around. they were really digging the tracks. So, I offered to produce their choice between the two.

Musical Clubs

2006-07-31T13:08:00.000-03:00

Musical Clubs

Finally managed to get that last post out. I tried doing the remote email posting thing with the picture and it just never arrived. Hmmm, I'm told mercury is in retrograde, but whatever, digital bugs are digital bugs and when it's user error it's just that - user error.

So, this last post is a bit late. The session with Mahsin that was to happen on Saturday never happened. I called to confirm and he said he was on his way to do a workshop in Pemba, a neighboring island and that he'd be back in 2 weeks. Good thing I called to confirm.

The big recording of Safar that I was so excited for that was meant to happen today was cancelled as well. I got the heads up from Hilde, the director of the music academy, who brought good and bad news - no recording and sorry for them not contacting you, but would you like to have dinner? Yes. Of course.

So, last night I had dinner with her at her incredible rooftop apartment in Stone Town. We drank red wine and listened to Werner Graebner's 2004 recording of the Ikhwaani Safaa Musical Club (also informally known as the Malindi Musical Club) and many other choice bits. I got to hear lots of interesting gossip and insider info on local personalities, music, and the "place that is not as it seems (famous quote from Livingstone commonly seen in tourist brochures and such)." Long story short, there is a lot that goes on behind the veil so to speak. She also gave me a tip for a place to buy music and more specifically, cassettes of old school taraab. So, my promise that I'll post some music is slowly coming to fruition.

Aside from being the director of the music academy and a well known figure about town (it's so small here that you can't do ANYTHING without EVERYBODY knowing it), she is a violinist and has played with the Malindi Musical club off and on. She invited me to go and check out one of their rehearsals sometime soon. I'm very curious. A Musical Club. Hmmm..first impressions are from Buena Vista Social Club. That is a fairly apt comparison, but the main difference would be that although the Malindi Musical Club is the oldest club (founded in 1905) in Zanzibar, it is not in fact, composed of professional musicians (there are a few exceptions though, which I'll get to later). It is a Musical CLUB. Meaning, it is a social occasion. Normally, they rehearse every night. They have a starting time, but really people just show up when they show up. They go there for the music, but they also go there because they want to see friends, gossip (this has got to be one of the most important things there is to do here. for example, the greetings totally encourage this: "mambo vipi? habari yako?" how are your affairs? What's your story? and then on and on....asking about work, home, family, wife, children, whatever else), maintain an affair with the singer or whoever.

Eventually, I found my back to my new digs. I moved to a dingy little place with lumpy, uneven beds (I have 2) and too small mosquito nets. At least here I can have musicians come over to record. That is, if I can ever actually get anyone to record. ;-) My last place, although clean and nice was loud and didn't allow guests. so, I've sacrificed puritanical family regime and spotless tile floors for cracked, dirty nastiness and autonomy. it's best to be independent, me thinks.....

when I got home my friend Star (Klaus over at Out Here recordings hooked me up with him) stopped by and invited me to go with him to Bhawani, the one and only club in Zanzibar. I hesitated, but decided I had had enough wine and that if I was gonna go, this was the time, so I said yes. We hopped in a cab and in 5 minutes we were there.

Weird. Weird. Weird. It's a big place. almost like and amusement park. Tons of youth roaming around outside. Not what I had in mind for a hotel. anyway, we went up the big curved walkway that led up to the pool area. An enourmous inverted cone balanced itself over the bar area where a DJ spun modern taraab to a dancefloor that had no one on it. The pool was deep, but empty and lined with ropes. nearby was the bar with its standard caged in bar area. you have to reach through the bars to pay and get your drink. People swarmed around the pool area and the bar. We circulated. I ran into a Belgian pilot who has lived pretty much everywhere except Belgium. I ran into my new landlord (not a good sign). eventually, we decided to go down to the club. We made our way back down the curving walkway and a girl yelled out from behind me, "hey! excuse me! Rasta!" Then someone grabbed my wrist. "I want to dance with you. I like you." I still hadn't seen her yet. I said thank and see you later. I wriggled out of her grasp. never saw her again.

At the bottom of the walkway we found ourselves in front of yet another cage. This time the ticket booth. We struggled and pushed to get to the front and pay and then struggled and pushed again to get past the bouncers and inside. it got darker. Big doors. A woosh of cold air conditioned air. Smoke from a smoke machine. Lights. Loud music. Strobes. I can't really even tell you what was being played there. It was a competent sound system, but unfortunately, the music was just plain shit. Not sure how else to put it. The lyrics were always about "I want to get closer to you baby." or "Other people want to be with me, but I only want to be with you." or, "I'm gonna spend the whole night with you." Slowly, I just kind of faded that out. Still, people bumped and grinded and jived. oh yeah, my favorite was some jamaicanesque one that said something like, "I'm young and at my peak and I'm gonna shake it like that." The beats were reggaeton/bongo flava. Maybe it's me, but I hear a lot of that - loud - and it leaves me flat and empty. Like there's just no energy from the heart in there. I sat down and watched people for a bit. there were some very sexy girls there grinding mostly on white guys. not really sure what the arrangement was there. Decided I didn't give a fuck and then just closed my eyes and reclined on the couch and tried to get into the music. Couldn't do it. Not even to feel the bass in my stomach. So, I left.

today, i went to meet with my other new contact, Matona. he is lovely and super enthusiastic. Aside from being a teacher at the music academy, he is a member of Malindi musical club, has his own quartet, plays in Safar as well as various other projects. He is totally down with blending hip hop and ragga with taraab and arabic music. I played him my 73 bpm rugged beats with a little hesitation. he just seems so nice and I thought he might take it a little strangely. On the contrary. He starting singing on top of it and I envisioned a chorus of women singing. he agreed. yes, that is the chorus. we can get call some women to sing for us. Well. Okay! That's what I'm talking about. He liked my idea of a taqsim and distorted drones. they rehearsed a little bit - some old taraab tunes with vocals toward the end. Damn! I found my peoples! So, we'll be hooking up tomorrow late afternoon.......this week should be interesting.

Figurative Hiccough

2006-07-30T13:58:00.000-03:00

Brazilian vessel in Stone Town Harbor, Zanzibar. ;-)

This week has been a bit of a figurative hiccough. Set up recordings with Mahsin and then had to cancel. First, because I was laid low by a food poisoning gut wrenching diarrhetic (is that a word?) bout of nastiness and then when we rescheduled, we were competing with a rehearsal of an 8 piece taraab orchestra in an adjacent room. So, it's been rescheduled again for saturday.

However, all of this confusion has given me lots of time to hang around the music academy and meet people and make some connections. As I've already mentioned in a previous post, there is only one recording studio on the island, which I still haven't visited yet. It seems that the fact that I am a recording engineer has slowly gotten around and I've been asked to record a demo for the band Safar, which is composed of students and teachers from the academy. The ZIFF program (where they recently performed) says, " Safar means 'journey' in Arabic, and reflects the diverse musical styles represented in the group. Visit the changing landscapes of afrobeat, ngoma, taraab and arabic styles. Enjoy the encounters as style complements style, never dominating each other [sic]." I'm quite excited for this. I'll be working with Excel, who is the in house music technology guy and who will be my assistant engineer. We've managed to assemble a bit of a mish mash of equipment to get 10 separate channels. We're making due with what we've got.

I also met with a Jhiko Man, who is a musician/singer based in Bagamoyo. I got a really nice vibe from him. The more he said that he didn't want to "put in a box," the more I felt like I identified with him. I hope to connect with him in Bagamoyo eventually. I also met Adel Dabo, who is a bass player and teacher at the academy. He plays both with Safar and Jhiko. Super nice guy who's been all over the world playing music and has decided to base himself at home in Zanzibar.

At the last night of the ZIFF, I met Fid Q, who I was referred to by Ralph from Nomadic Wax. I didn't understand anything he was saying in his lyrics, but he had a really good stage presence and a tight flow. We exchanged greetings and telephone numbers. I sent him some beats via the internet to consider. He lives in Dar es Salaam, so if something works out for us to work together, we'll have to do some travelling.

The last little bit of news is that I met a guy named Matona who is a multi-instrumentalist, an instructor at the academy and a member of Safar. It seems that he is the person most oriented towards making recordings for release that is based at the academy. We had a short meeting today and he seems pretty interested in working together. I was happy to hear of his idea to make new renditions of old taraab tunes because I already had that idea and he said it before I said anything. Sometimes, life is like that....we'll be meeting on saturday to listen to music and exchange ideas.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that I've heard from many different people (totally unprompted) that they admire Senegalese hip hop and especially Daara J. They performed here a while ago and it seems to have had a really big impact on a lot of people. Their work really stood out when compared to the majority of bongo flava because they make a point of using traditional (oooh - i know I'm using that word a lot.....What is traditional? I think that word could merit a whole post...but that'll be for another time), acoustic instruments. Some people know about Didier Awadi (formerly of Positive Black Soul, now minus Duggy T, PBS Radical), who is a prolific producer and record label owner based in Dakar (I've heard he also owns a security company as well, so I guess enterprising young business man could be added to his list of hats).

The general consenus is that it's next to impossible to get this "interesting" kind of music played on the radio. The radio runs on the jabá or payola system. Musicians, singers, composers, and producers are paid a pittance for their work which is produced extra quickly and is put directly into rotation on the radio and distributed on CD and cassette. If you're not inside this system, your music doesn't get played. Because the general public isn't very well educated about the realities of this (not to mention having access to information about other alternative music), it's even harder for "interesting music" to get out there.......hmm, sounds familiar.

"We know we shall win, as we are confident." Spray painted on a wall at Jaws Corner, Stone Town where I go to have my morning coffee from an old man with a charcoal stove and BIG kettle and lots of little cups (obviously, originally, it's from Bob Marley).

PS, Blip - sou americano de Seattle, mas moro no Rio há 7 anos e ainda estou (e vou continuar há muito tempo) aprendendo português. :-)

2006-07-24T13:47:00.002-03:00

Beat Making.....

Been busy making beats these past few days. Just cranking things out to have as bases for future recordings and hopefully for future tunes. Base (pronounced bah-zi) is a word that I am borrowing form portuguese that means anywhere from a basic drum loop to a fully mixed instrumental. There isn't really a word in English that means the same thing. Track is a bit more general and can mean a song with vocals in it, but it also leans toward being a more finished piece. Base is like a foundation. It can be built on.

so, I've been busy making bases. I finally got a copy of Reason 3.0 (was using 2.5 before) and have been really enjoying some of the new features. I like that you can change a sample in the browser window while the beat is playing and it'll let you hear the sample you're auditioning. Man, that saves time! Also, the mastering suite is very nice for my work flow. It makes bases sound better more quickly. That's especially cool when I'm out showing my work to people I don't know that I want to work with.....

Like today. I met with Mahsin who plays qanun and darabouka. He said he liked a few of the bases and so we'll be meeting tomorrow to record some stuff. He's still pretty reserved with me, so sometimes, I don't exactly know how or what he's thinking. Anyway, he's down. So, we'll just let the music do the talking.

Today I hung around the music academy. Mostly just sitting making beats with my headphones on and saying hello to almost everybody that passed by. I guess people will get used to seeing me around. I'm still trying to connect with musicians.

I think the musicians at the academy have a bit of an aversion to electronic music and especially to bongo flava and modern taraab. (I promise I will eventually post some examples!). the modern taraab is a very diluted, pale comparison to "traditional" taraab. Everything that I've heard sounds like a conglomeration of preset synth patches and no acoustic elements and singing on top. Usually, the singing is quite nice. I don't understand the llyrics, but as far as I can tell, it's usually about love......

Bongo Flava can encompass hip hop, rnb, reggae and ragga and can be rapped, but is more likely sung. From what I've heard so far, it's super electronic. Pretty much nothing acoustic (aside from voice). Mahsin told me he thinks it's all bad music. Why? Because it's not original and the lyrics are all the same and they're not saying anything. so, what does he like of hip hop? He likes american "real" hip hop. Like what? Lil Bow Wow! Oh my god, I couldn't quite believe it. Well, to each his own. this guy is an amazing musician. Somehow, Lil Bow wow is good and ALL Bongo Flava is bad because it rips off american hip hop and rnb.........

I also saw some hip hop yesterday at the ZIFF. I met Sweet Ray there. A young female rapper. She pretty much stole the show. I talked to her after the show (she only did one song) and we traded numbers. Her song was about AIDS. Her english wasn't that much better than my swahili, but I got the idea that she wants to make people aware of AIDS and its dangers. My intro to Zanzibar hip hop......I'll be meeting up with her later this week.

2006-07-21T13:38:00.000-03:00

My first day in search of connecting with musicians.......

I went to the Dhow Countries Music Academy where I had already gone and introduced myself to the director. I think she was a bit dismissive. She told me that a lot of mzungus come to Zanzibar hoping to collaborate with musicians here. Most things never see the light of day. She asked if I was interested in working on music as a hobby. I said no, that I take it very seriously and that I have every intention of releasing the work produced here. Although she didn't specifically introduce me to anyone (although I asked her to), she did say that I was welcome to come and hang around to meet people.

So, that's what I did. There was a student group in the middle of a rehearsal for a concert they were to give later in the day. It was actually rather amusing and not at all what I had imagined I would hear. They were being conducted by 2 foreign instructors leading them in a samba! Samba played with violins, qanun, darabouka and the instructor playing cajon. Interesting......

After the rehearsal, I chatted with the director (who I'd met previously) and told her I'd like to meet the qanun player. He played a solo during the samba and it was totally clear that he knows his shit. I told her that and she said that he was the son of a famous musician (no longer alive) and that he also played darabouka, was a student at the academy and is a beginning darabouka teacher. I went and introduced myself to him. We agreed to meet today.

Today, I passed by again and chatted for 5 minutes or so. He seems interested. He is very quiet and it's a little hard to tell how he's reacting or how much he's understanding my english. I try and speak slowly and clearly.

He likes hip hop and bongo flava and we share the lament that popular music doesn't use much in the way of acoustic instruments. I was very clear in saying that I have no money to pay him. I proposed to give him my recording and production services in exchange for playing on my music. He has some experience recording with Bi Kidude in Norway and a few other things here and there. But, he's never done anything on his own. I asked him to think about it. I left him a CD of original material to get to know my work. Hopefully we can work something out.

I think part of the reason that there is not more of a connection between electronic based musics (hip hop and bongo flava specifically) in Zanzibar (and possibly Tanzania in general) is because there are very few recording studios and very few people with experience in production and working with these different elements. In Zanzibar there is only one recording studio - Heartbeat recording studios (you can find in on the internet - sorry, but I'm not online to get the link...maybe later). I hope to visit in the next few days.

Still in search of a suitable place to record/work/live......

2006-07-20T07:33:00.000-03:00

Okay, so here I am. In Zanzibar. I got here because i got hired to work as sound recordist for a documentary already in progress (the other sound recordists got too sunburned/drunk/sick with malaria and had a baby respectively). I read an ad announcing the need for a sound recordist on mandy.com, submitted my resume and got the gig. I had 5 days to get a ticket, pack my shit and get from Rio de Janeiro to Zanzibar. Cool, I thought. I'll go, do my job (which I really enjoy and arguably has everything to do with my "real" work as a producer/dj/musician), get paid and then stay for a while to make music.

I've been to Zanzibar before back in 1994 on my super long, blurred, aimless, wandering journey from Cairo to Cape Town alone with a backpack, a cassette recorder and a disposition to ride on every and any form of public transport. At the time, it was expensive. Everything was priced in dollars for foreigners. I stayed 3 days and moved on. I'd spent months in Lamu, Mombasa, and plenty of other towns on the coast from northeastern Kenya to Mozambique. I schooled myself with a teach yourself Kiswahili book. Eventually, I went back to the states and dreamed of coming back to Tanzania. Time passed by and my tentatively conversational grasp of swahili turned into "can't remember shit other than the greetings." Then I learned portuguese and it was all over. I think I might just be a 2 language person........still not sure, but in the process of finding out.

So, I got myself another teach yourself swahili book and have been dutifully studying. The hard part is that when I don't know how to say something, the word in Portuguese just jumps right out of my mouth. As though it might make sense in Swahili....like when you don't know the word in Spanish and you put an O at the end or in japanese and you put -san on the end. Stupid, yes. Swahili actually does have quite a few words on loan from english - teksi, dereva, benki, posta, gari, and of course, many from Arabic as well. It's been fun listening and being able to identify words, but it's still hard as hell to say much beyond the greetings, but, I press on.

Now, my task is to connect with musicians. On my other trips to places which are (for me) far away and new, I have always tried to contact everybody I know who has any knowledge of/friends/connections/experience/etc. there that can help me. In the 5 days before leaving and during the very few lulls in action while filming, I managed to connect with a few people. Massive thanks to the Nomadic Wax and Outhere recordings crews for helping making connections. I had connected with them via my trip to Senegal last year and they helped hook me up with some good people there. It seems that the Africa hip hop massive is massive and well-connected.

So, I've got a nice little list of people to contact, 6 weeks, my laptop, mic and headphones. My goal is to produce 4 to 6 tracks with musicians, singers and rappers from here (Zanzibar and possibly Dar es Salaam). Of course, the sound will be Maga Bo Flava and not Bongo Flava (if you don't understand that, then read the previous post), but may contain elements of Bongo Flava. The most important element and Flava, however, will be taraab. I'm really into the acoustic classical sounds - things that are almost completely absent from Bongo Flava. So, qanun, ney, darabouka, violin, double bass and voice.

Aside from making connections with musicians, I'm looking for a suitable place to live/work. Stone Town is loud and living conditions are cramped. It's hard to find a truly quiet place. So, I'm counting on close micing and luck. Also, I don't so much mind if some ambient sounds get in. Personally, I think it makes it that much more interesting and textured.

At the same time, I'm working on beats which will become the basis for the tracks. I work in Reason and Live synced together. I like to work fast and trust my intuition. Some things work and some don't. It's better to find out quickly. When I have a 2, 4, 8 or 16 bar loop that's working pretty well, I'll export it into Pro Tools and do a quick mix so I'm ready to record instruments on top. Then I make bounces so that when i meet with musicians, I can show them what I've got. I just show everything and let them pick what they're feeling.

when we record for the first time, I usually give a little direction, but always try and leave it really open and free for them to express themselves. We record. Usually, keeping first and second takes and then moving on. That way it's quicker for them and we get more material covered. Then, the work really begins for me. I got over everything - listening and editing. Then, more instruments and slowly the song emerges. It's kind of a sculpture. Eventually, I call in vocalists. I am aiming to do rough mixes here before leaving to pass out, but the main mixes will be done in Rio on studio monitors (I only have headphones and my built in laptop speakers).

Anyway, that's the general gist of things. I'll be plugging back in to post on progress. Salaama.

2006-07-11T14:50:00.000-03:00

The beach in front of the venue.

Booed of the decks at Kendwa Rocks

i was pretty excited - go out and play a gig on an idyllic white sand beach with a good sound system in Zanzibar. My friend, colleague and camera man from the documentary I'm working on and I rented a jeep and set out across Unguja (the real name for Zanzibar island) after finishing a long day doing several interviews. It was my first time out of town proper (aside from our daily jaunts to Bububu for at the coach's house) and I loved it! Coconut palms, banana trees, red earth, sky, sun, lots of people out on their way home, Tanzanian soukous on the radio. Work was done, life was good and we were going to a party.

We arrived about an hour and a half later, parked, walked down to the beach and said hello to DJ Yusuf, the resident DJ. Actually, he is the director of Busara Promotions and does this party in different places on a monthly basis. Then it was out to the beach, which is all of 2 minutes walk away, to check out the sunset. If I've ever been to a stereotypical tropical paradise - that was it. Totally transparent turquoise water, white, fine sand, dhows anchored a short way off, palm trees stretching out over the beach, a huge sky with a few clouds to make the sunset interesting. seemed like all was in place for a great night.

I played a one hour set of some kind of chill stuff that I never get to play in any other situation, like oumou sangare, the cotton belly remix of "by your side," by Sade, some dub from African dope records, "eu sou favela," by both Seu Jorge and the original by Berra da silva, ursula rucker, gnawa diffusion, Daddy Ous, Khaled. Then I had to stop to get some dinner. then people started showing up - tourists and locals and people from Stone Town and Dar es Salaam as well. It seemed like that was the most happening event that night and everybody was there. An interesting mix. Mostly locals.

Yusuf played tons of Bongo Flava, some new school rai stuff, blinged out american hip hop, a track or two of kwaito, a few reggaeton tracks, soukous - basically all of the elements of Bongo Flava. The crowd knew the majority of the tracks. He didn't really mix tracks, but selected them - well. He really knows his crowd well.

i got a bit worried that things weren't gonna go well for me - it was starting to seem like the time that I played in Dakar with Gee Bayss from Pee Froiss. There, they alternate between sets of techno/trance/hi NRG, Mbalax, reggae, ragga and hip hop. but, there are tunes that work....and his responsibility is to play those songs that work. Not the most inspiring scene. The women starting showing up around 2 am and then men a bit later. That was even late for Rio standards. Eventually it was kind of sort of full. The women danced alone and watched themselves in the floor to ceiling mirrors that lined one wall of the dance floor. Weird. Really weird. The men tried to step up to them, but they weren't having it. Then the music would change and the dance floor would empty or fill, depending. I managed to keep a crowd for 2 tracks and then I changed (! Oh my god, a new style!). They never came back to dance and eventually I had to give it back to gee bayss. and he knew just the tracks to play to make it work.

The other night was similar. Here is my set list (this set lasted about 25 minutes):

Set List
1. Funk n Lata - Lata's Groove
2. Team Shadetek - Brooklyn Anthem
3. Digitaldubs Sound System - Babylonia feat. M7
4. Daara J - Bopp sa Bopp
5. African Beat Riddim
6. Black Alien - Estilo do Gueto
7. Tata Pound - Badala
8. A Filial - Truth and Rights Riddim
9. Pompidou - Synthesizer Voice
10. John Wayne - Call the Police
11. Beelow - Call the Police feat. David Banner
12. DJ Shadow - Walkie Talkie
13. Afu Ra - D & D Soundclash
14. Barrington Levy - Collie Weed
15. Admiral Tibet - Leave People Business Alone
16. Freddie Cruger - Runnin from Love (Instrumental)

The venue and yours truly (sweating).

The crowd had commentary for each and every one of my tracks. So did the lone Brazilian guy who came over talking to me about his computer and this and that (all in portuguese) and was I using live and just kept talking and talking, but at least he liked the music. One guy asked me if I was playing music for myself or for the crowd. Hmm, good question. But, I'll get to that later. Then, he made it his duty to let me know whether or not he liked each and every track. Others gestured or said things I didn't understand in Swahili, but that I knew weren't elogies. These guys were the Bongo Flava/blinged out set. the dancefloor emptied and people seemed to be observing me with very much less then benign looks. It seemed like there was a vacuum that was sucking people out of there. The vibe came down a huge notch in energy. I tried to work with it and give them what they might be able to identify with...but still within my sphere of aesthetics. After all, I was the DJ, wasn't I? But, the possibilities seemed to narrow down to a small handful of tracks and even then I'd just plain lost the attention of all but the drunk guys who hadn't even noticed that the DJ had changed.

At least there was the small crowd of reggae guys who were all peace and love. But even that was pretty silly. Sure, they liked some some of the tracks that I played, but was it for the right reason? Surely it wasn't for how well I mixed from one song to the next seemlessly or my clever use of EQ and FX. Or was it that I connected tracks astute lyrical references, killing de sound bwoy dem wid it? I have a feeling that their reaction would have been the same had a jukebox been randomly selecting the tracks with a pre-set cross fade on default. They shouted, "Yes Dread I DJ," or some such nonsense and skanked away with their bottles of beer. the complaining guy said that Afu Ra wasn't really reggae. I told him it's reggae mixed with hip hop. He said it's not hip hop either. I just shrugged. I couldn't win. Barrington Levy was just okay. Play something different. Why don't you play the music that we want to hear? Admiral Tibet was too old. To make matters worse during the whole time, the sound dipped in volume and half of the sound system went out. We never did figure out what caused it. But, that went on for my whole set. Another guy asked me if I didn't know how to work the equipment. Finally, Yusuf came back and asked if he could put the next rack on, as people were starting to leave and asking what was going on with the DJ. I happily agreed. He put on some soukous and returned to playing a track from its start to finish and everybody was magically dancing and enjoying the party once again.

So, really, what happened there? Is it that I suck as a DJ? Is my taste just plain bad? Or was it the wrong party for me to play at? Do they just not know how to appreciate good music? All of that and more? Am I just way off? Do I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about/DJing?

It is interesting to note that many of the modern urban international ghetto favela shanty town barrio beatbox whatever the fuck you want to call it kind of musics that are principally created and consumed in low income pockets around the world tend to lack sophisticated production techniques. They are produced on computers with minimal external gear - flat reference monitors, quality microphones and preamps. or, fuck, for that matter even a microphone stand. One studio I know of in Rio uses a refridgerator and masking tape as a mic stand (I wonder if he turns the fridge off when he records?).

Yet, this "low quality" music sells like crazy and is enjoyed to the utmost by tons of people. so, why do so many from the west, or the "developed" world, europe, america, japan wherever, go on about how unrefined it is and IF they mixed it with their traditional roots sounds, it would be more interesting. But, why the hell should they learn to program their Yamaha DX7s beyond selecting cheesy preset flute sounds if everyone is buying it in loads and everybody is shaking their ass to it? Are even more people going to shake their ass if they have a real flute and a few variations in the drum loops? I don't think so.

But, just for the sake of argument, if audiences were educated about the existence of music outside of their comfort/acquaintance zone wouldn't the array of musical offererings in the market/radio/tv/film/disco/minivan/bus/other modes of public transport be much wider, richer, deeper? I don't know........

Honestly, I can't stand to hear that fucking rimshot or that reggaeton all purpose drum loop one more time. So, yeah, I guess at the core of it all, I'm playing for myself......or at least staying as true to myself as I can. If that means that I get booed off the decks, well, then, so be it. Does that mean I'm selfish? Geez, I even played that gig for free.........

2006-07-07T13:56:00.000-03:00

Video game (only football) parlor, Zanzibar, Tanzania.

I was bummed that Brazil lost to France - especially after the 1998 world cup when they lost.....but, as a couple of friends who wrote to me said, they played like shit and they deserved to lose.

Last night, a big cheer went up at the bar next door late at night. Later, I found out that Germany had lost to Italy. I guess that's what the cheering was about. Now that Brazil is out, most people don't have anyone to root for here, so they're rooting against whoever it is they don't like. Portugal/France is going on as I write this.

Later......Portugal is out. Jeez, seems more like a European cup than a World cup....

Here is a Bebeto track, "Manda Vê Menino," about a torcedor doente (sick fan - or somebody who is just seriously fanatical) rooting for his team and equating a football game to love and that he just can't lose - it's his team after all. There's a killer breakdown with tamborim and horns toward the end - worth waiting for.

Sorry for the sporadic posts....the work load is heavy and time is short. I do like to eat and sleep now and then......more soon about music in Zanzibar.

2006-06-30T04:10:00.000-03:00

Greetings from Zanzibar, Tanzania. I'm here to do sound on a documentary on a women's foot ball team. Yesterday was my first time meeting the team members - an important first step. So at the end of their training session, I was called in front of the team (yes, the entire team) and introduced. At first (like ALWAYS happens in Brazil), they couldn't get/pronounce my name. I repeated it several times and then I spelled it. Then they all started laughing. Laughing a LOT. Bo means penis in Kiswahili. Yep.

okay....addendum....actually it is Mbo. minor detail that M....

Anyay, before I get going writing about Zanzibar and things from this side of the world, I want to big up one Marcos Cunha, who I was cyper-duced to via a news group I participate in which is composed entirely of producers working with Brazilian electronic music. Mr. Cunha, who I still don't know personally, is based in Rio de Janeiro and is a multi-instrumentalist and producer extraordinaire.

I was introduced to his work via his sound track for Fabio Fabuloso, a documentary about Fábio Gouveia, probably the best known Brazilian (ele é Paraibano) surfer on the WCT, or ever, for that matter. Aside from being an amazing super stylee surfer, lover of donkeys (seriously), and world traveler (who can't speak English worth a damn as hilariously shown in the film) he is above all a family man and even takes all his kids on tour around the world with him.

The doc is great fun and an amusing introduction to Fábio's world, style of surfing and the importance of surfing in Brazilian culture. What I really loved, aside from the super funny edits and jibes at northeastern Brazilian accents, slang and culture, was the sound track.

Produced entirely by Marcos Cunha, the soundtrack includes participations by Plinio Profeta, Black Alien, Mr. Jam, and tons of other people that I can't remember right now (desculpe!). There's a wide varitey of styles - baião, forro, maracatu, repente hyridized with techno, breakbeat, dub, ragga, hip hop and drum n bass. In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of the techno/breakbeat in general, but he has achieved a really nice balance between the electronic and the acoustic. Caipira brazil is nicely represented. The timbres and textures of the production (both the acoustic recordings /samples and the electronic based sounds) are excellent and in very good taste. I never found myself recognizing snare drums and going, oh yeah, right, he took that from a Yamaha RX-11 drum machine and the synth is from that reason subtractor preset patch. That's super good in my book. There is depth and feeling in this music and it sounds great. If you can get a hold of the DVD, there is a remix by Moshila Sound System of "Idalina" which is the shit (the original is cool too). By far and beyond my favorite track of the bunch. Zabumba on da riddim, the lyrics of Idalina are from a capoeira song by Traditional (c) ;-), some nice edits that could conceivably fit into a click hop tune and a killer dirty drone thing that comes in every once in a while (don't even know what it is - a processed guitar, a synth?).

yeah. Tutaonana kesho. Kwa heri.

2006-06-23T18:01:00.003-03:00

I'm leaving tomorrow to Zanzibar to do sound for a documentary on a women's football team during the World Cup and then to take time on my own to work on music. Expect postings in the near future on Bongo Flava and Taraab.....for the time being, check out the Dhow Countries Music Academy (that's a dhow in the photo in front of Zanzibar Stone Town) for lots of info on various traditional musics of Zanzibar. The official site for Zanzibar has lots of general info on the island as well as a fairly comprehensive rundown of musical groups based in Zanzibar.

Here are a couple of tracks which are dedicated to the shining, valient men of the Polícia Militar do Rio de Janeiro (vai se foder mother fuckers!) that I met after said festa at casa da matriz below.

Rebel MC remix of an original Jah Screw production featuring Barrington Levy and Beenie Man - Under me Sensi (Jungle Spliff). 1994 Greensleeves.

And, Junior Delgado, obviously singing about Kingston, Jamaica, but quite applicable to Rio de Janeiro. The only difference being that they'd be calling in the army to control the police......No, really, jokes aside, there was a proposal not too long ago to bring in the national guard to aid the military police to invade key favelas in order to control the escalating violence associated with drug trafficking. But, then it's all so convoluted. What came first the chicken or the egg, the crime or the corruption?

"Armed Robbery," Junior Delgado from Original Guerilla Music-The Great JA Recordings.

2006-06-09T17:32:00.000-03:00

My peoples from Digitaldubs Sound System and their party every other week at Casa da Matriz are practically turning into an institution. Guests this month are Damien Seth (French producer and engineer based in Rio who makes some very dope beats and is also part of FURTO) and Marechal (one of my most really super favorite rappers from Rio (na verdade ele é Niteroiense)).

Digitaldubs has grown a lot over the last few years. I went to their very first party ever in Lapa. It was a bit of a bummer. (As I later found out) the amp blew and they had to find an emergency replacement at the last minute. As a result, they didn't open the doors until super late and there were only a small handful of people there (not including yours-truly - I was long gone home).

Now, their festa at Casa da Matriz attracts a very nice crowd as well as one-off events in other places around town and even in São Paulo. Nelson Meirelles, MPC, Cristiano Dubmaster and Kuque are the main dudes that hold it down on the 1s and 2s. In addition, there is the extended family of rappers and musicians (and there are a lot of them, so I won't even begin to name them all) that show up to make it a real sound system.

Aside from their performances, they have been really active in the studio and have just released their first record, "Digitaldubs Apresenta Brasil Riddims Vol. 1." There are some of the Digitaldubs MCs (M7, Lapide, RRamos, Jero Bantu and Biguli) as well as several guest apperances (Mr. Catra, BNegão, Ras Bernardo, Jimmy Luv and Gerson da Conceição). Expect dub, ragga, baile funk, samba and hip hop - all in varying degrees, combinations and intensities.

In the not so distant future, I'll be doing a special mix of Digitaldubs originals and remixes for my Sambacana show on Brazilnetwork.

From Brasil Riddims, "Pretinho Babylon featuring M7."

2006-06-08T01:25:00.000-03:00

Today, we're gonna have a New York minute....

Okay, first the good news. It's LEGAL to relate interracially! And it has been throughout the United States since...................1967!

Enough sarcasm. On the real, June 12th is Loving Day and is a celebration of the legalization of interracial couples. On this day in 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in the decision entitled Loving vs. Virginia that anyone could love anyone (well, that didn't include homosexual relationships, but that'll be a different Loving Day). Before, violations included marriage, sex and living together. Read more about it their website here. They also have a fancy interactive map showing where interracial relationships were illegal according to the year.

My friends at WorldUp! in NYC are throwing a party to celebrate. A rooftop barbecue...sounds pretty nice. I think Rio might even be on the cold side compared to sunny shiny New York right about now. Go to the party and show some love.

Now, the bad news.....September 11 was a pre-meditated (and therefore qualifies the perpetrators to be legally INSANE), fully orchestrated event - according to the folks at Loose Change. Download/watch their documentary here. That is some very crucial and very scary shit.

Huge big up to Nick Tha 1da, Swae, Smoke, and Skooly for the DOPE soundtrack!

Immortal Technique (with guest Mos Def) also had something to say about that in their swell little number called, "Bin Laden." This came out on a 12" on Babygrande Records in 2005. Buy it.

Afterwards, you can check the Dudes at Screw Loose Change - "Dedicated to exposing the lies, Distortions and Myths in the Movie, 'Loose Change'." Yep, they're for real, but I'm pretty damn sure they won't be at the barbecue......

2006-06-04T18:59:00.000-03:00

Mapaputsi smoking dagga in Zola. "You must photograph me doing this thing," Paps said, "I wee-dee-dah! As I said. Weed wee-dee-dah." Then he laughed.

Check out an interview with Mapaputsi, my favorite kwaito artist that I discovered during my last trip to South Africa. This is from the reporter's notebook section of a documentary on "South Africa's Kwaito Generation." The reporter's (Sean Cole) notes are candid and amusing. There is also a multi-part audio documentary that accompanies it (haven't checked that out yet, but looks cool). All in all, it's a good beginner's guide to Kwaito. Considering that there ain't a lot of in-depth discussion of the ins and outs of kwaito, or even ANY real kind of coverage of it, this ain't bad.

Here's my super-short beginner's guide to kwaito.....Kwaito is one of the main sounds of modern urban (and not so urban) South Africa. A mix of hip hop, house, ragga, township jazz, mbaqanga, kwela and whatever else finds its way into the mix (soukous and kuduro get some attention here too), kwaito is primarily electronic music. It's harder and slower than house music (generally around 100 bpm), but somehow straighter than hip hop (sort of 4 on the floor house beats on tranqulizers). Straight, but not un-swung so to speak. And speak they do....vocals can be, and are, in a whole handful of languages - sometimes all at the same time. Zulu, Sesotho, Setswana, Xhosa, English, Afrikaans or all of the above and more in what's known locally as totsi taal or "thug talk."

"Kas'lam"from Mapaputsi's 2004 release Kleva on Ghetto Ruff. Buy it.

I have no idea what he's talking about in this track. I asked a friend in JoBurg what the lyrics were about and the response wasn't much more elaborate (or poetic) than, "ahh, street shit - you drugs, guns, police, difficulties in life, etc." The only words I understand are "neighborhood" and "big shot." Anyway, his flow is tight.

This, of course, opens a discussion of what our responsibilities are as transmitters of music, ideas, culture, etc. As a DJ and music producer (and especially working with music that is in languages that I don't understand), I make a conscious effort to transmit a message that is positive and conscious. I don't play anti-homosexual dancehall ragga tracks for example. Small, seemingly inconsequential words often prop up much bigger and destructive social insitutions - like racism.

On the flip side, sometimes it can be interesting when a culture embraces a foreign language or style and makes it its own. Like funk and soul in Ethiopia in the 70's or baile funk in Brazil. American pop hip hop tracks got reinterpreted and brasilified. "Whoomp! There it is" became "uh!, tererê." Or, circus bands in India playing western rock music....it's human, natural and inimitable and ALWAYS real.

2006-06-03T22:21:00.000-03:00

The waves are massive (2.5 meters) in Rio today and should be bigger tomorrow. Apparently, there were 2 american tourists that had to be rescued by helicopter. No relation to me and I don't know em either....The shot above is from the top of the rock at Arpoador.

Yes. Yes. Been listening to Timeblind this last little while. I downloaded all the tracks from his site and have been having my own blind time em casa.

Dub, ragga, breakcore, sound design, super collider noisescapes and obscure samples all find their way in there. Very cool is Rastabomba . Also, Come Back Wicked with Wayne Lonesome is, well, wicked.

There's a track on his upcoming Soot Records release called "copycopy" that has some nice water swish samples that accompany the above photo nicely. Buy the record!

Aside from his killer tracks, he is one funny mother fucker. Pretty snazzy blog design too...anyway, you go dere an' dere you go.

2006-05-28T16:57:00.000-03:00

I've had a very bicycle oriented past few days. I was gifted a bike (Thanks Matteo!) - totally trashed and rusted, but it works. I took advantage of the fact that the beach side of the road from Leme to Leblon was open today (Sunday) and crossed Copacabana and Ipanema.

Kraftwerk ride bicycles too. Tour de France (1983 Original)

I've always loved bikes - from racing BMX when I was teenager to working as a bike messenger in Seattle in my early 20s. Then, I moved out of the country and put my bike in storage and (strangely) kind of forgot about how much I love bicycles.

When I got back home after this last tour in europe, there was an abandoned copy of Pedal (thanks Diplo) in my apartment - a documentary on bike messengers in New York City by Peter Sutherland. Very cool film. The best parts are the shots filmed right in traffic - following a messenger passing between cars and buses, running red lights. There are some interesting characters and it gives a taste of the subculture of messengers.

The only thing I really didn't like was the sound track that at times really detracted from the film. At one point early on, I actually stopped the film and checked everything to make sure that I hadn't inadvertently left some other audio running - like the sound track was totally detached from the film. But, then again, when you don't have anything good to say (they say), don't say anything at all.....anyway, well worth seeing.