Shook

Get Wise

The extended Unique Uncut Records crew have thrown down this very heavy hip hop mix. Cop it here. Once you've worn that out, head over to The Rub where Cosmo, DJ Eleven and the boys have done mixes for each year between 1979 and 1998 . Somebody's obviously been organizing their records by release date. We prefer to colour code ours by Pantone.

we're jammin

on record, he's sick. but live... oh my days. the bass just cuts through like a hot girl in a club queue, the backing singers put most contemporary acts to shame (harmonies that actually go somewhere), and stevie's vocals here are just too good.  & check the braids with the red & gold beads.  my ears hurt for playing this too loud.

Soundway presents Nigeria Special

Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6’

Since their inaugural release Ghana Soundz in 2001, the Brighton based Soundway label have forged a much needed bridge between the world music market and dancefloor friendly record collectors, with a series of well received compilation albums. Visiting fertile musical grounds across the globe (such as Columbia, Ghana and Nigeria), Miles Cleret and Hugo Mendez have lovingly compiled a series of less obvious – but by no means less worthy – tracks, that tell a story about a particular scene.

Coming from a DJ background, their take on world music is refreshingly different. This isn’t the rootsy, folky selection you might expect from Charlie Gillett – these are cuts that will incite a club crowd to get up and dance or satisfy a DJ hungry for new and obscure breaks.

‘Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues’ unearths a selection of rare 45s and forgotten LP tracks from Africa’s most populous nation, cut during the musically daring and adventurous period of 1970-6. “The world over, this was the most fertile, progressive, quickly evolving times in musical history,” says Miles Cleret, whose love of African music dates back 15 years.

The end of the Biafran war (claiming 30, 000 victims in 3 years) ushered in a period of dynamic optimism, boosted by economic boom. “The dark days of recession, and of Nigeria’s name becoming synonymous with corruption, overcrowding and embezzlement, were yet to come,” says Miles in his informative sleeve notes. Ambitious young musicians were breaking away from the traditional house bands owned by clubs and hotels, swapping freshly pressed suits for T-shirts and flares.

Traditional ‘50’s and 60’s highlife sounds (as heard on The Harbours Band ‘Koma Mosi’) were fused with elements of rock, Afrobeat, jazz and soul. The Sahara Allstars’ ‘Feso Jaiye’ exemplifies this mix of styles, while Mono Mono’s ‘Emo Kowa Iasa Ile Wa’ indicates the exciting new directions bands were eager to take. Victor Uwaifo (a former wrestler) mixes up highlife with traditional Erkassa music of the Benincourt and psychedelic Hendrix guitar licks. (Look out for a forthcoming retrospective album of his work on Soundway.) But as Miles explains, this experimental flourish was brief. “By ’76 Western records were flooding the market and it was harder for smaller bands to do something different and make a way. Many reverted back to highlife.”

By no means a comprehensive history of the period, ‘Nigeria Special’ presents a series of snapshots, taking the listener down less traveled roads. “There’s no Ju Ju or Afrobeat track,” says Miles. “Instead we’ve focused on rarities that might only exist in obscure collections or people’s memories. Many of the artists featured only cut one 45. A band might be given a deal based on an A and R man’s experience of them in a club. If it sold well, they were given a second shot. If not, they moved on.”

Part of Miles’ intention was also to preserve vital music on the verge of disappearing forever. “A lot the companies who own the master rights to this music have thrown the tapes away. Many of the actual artists don’t even own a copy. I tracked down a member of Mono Mono who now lives in Oakland, California. He hadn’t heard some of his early records in 25 years.”

Miles sourced many of the tracks from pirate tape shacks known as “recording studios”, where vinyl could be recorded to cassette for a fee. Changes in technology have been sounding their death knoll for the last ten years. Although there are still record collectors in Nigeria, vinyl is generally considered invalid and old. On several occasions Miles would arrive at a house, having been given a tip off, only to discover the collection had been tipped in a skip five years previously. He winces with pain at the memory.

Bucking the Lagos-centric trend of most Nigerian music compilations, Miles has cast his net further afield, including tracks from the Ibo-speaking southeast and the Edo-speaking midwest. But the influences apparent in the music extend much further; check out the hypnotic bassline on The Funkees’ afro-rock workout ‘Akula Owu Onyeara’. “Nigerians have a reputation for traveling a lot,” explains Miles. “There are musical influences from London and New York, while some tracks take homegrown Nigerian styles to another level.”

Unlike past DJ orientated compilations released through Soundway, ‘Nigeria Special’ is a deeper affair, more suited to the home listener. (There are plans to release a Nigerian dancefloor album next year). Once again every track hits the mark, further cementing the label’s reputation as a trusted authority. Knowledgeable sleeve notes (with extensive information on individual tracks) and stylish presentation make this a worthy historical artifact. Much love to Soundway for sharing their secrets.  (Sarah Marshall)

You can listen to the album, read about it, see pictures and watch clips at www.nigeriaspecial.info

brain implants

Hip Hop Is Dead (the NY Times said so)

"If you’re looking for a two-word motto for hip-hop in 2007, you could do worse than that: “Keep grinding.” This was the year when the gleaming hip-hop machine — the one that minted a long string of big-name stars, from Snoop Dogg to OutKast — finally broke down, leaving rappers no alternative but to work harder, and for fewer rewards. Newcomers arrived with big singles and bigger hopes, only to fall off the charts after selling a few hundred thousand copies, if that. Hip-pop hybrids dominated the radio, but rappers themselves seemed like underground figures, for the first time in nearly two decades.

Sales are down all over, but hip-hop has been hit particularly hard. Rap sales fell 21 percent from 2005 to 2006, and that trend seems to be continuing. It’s the inevitable aftermath, perhaps, of the genre’s vertiginous rise in the 1990s, during which a series of breakout stars — Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G. — figured out that they could sell millions without shaving off their rough edges. By 1997 the ubiquity of Puff Daddy helped cement hip-hop’s new image: the rapper as tycoon. Like all pop-music trends, like all economic booms, this one couldn’t last."

Read on

Burning An Illusion (dir. Menelik Shabazz, 1981)

There aren’t too many films that have really captured London on celluloid. It’s something the US does so well – where their cities are not just a background, but become an extra character in their films – helicopter shots over the Golden Gate Bridge, shootouts in Grand Central Station, or the ‘Rocky Steps’ in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

With Menelik Shabazz’s Burning An Illusion, besides the brilliant dialogue, it’s the slice of ‘80s London that’s a revelation – whether it’s the shot of Trellick tower, or the lead characters Pat and Del walking down Portobello Road and Goldhawk Road, or Carnival back when everyone still used to go. It’s London when there were still photo booths everywhere, London when Coca Cola cans still had ring-pulls. And more specifically it’s West London before house prices soared, when people would sit out on the steps of their Victorian town houses and shoot the breeze and when there were still dances in the area.

Filmed in the same year as Blood Ah Go Run, a documentary about the New Cross arson attack which killed a group of teenagers holding a house party, Burning An Illusion is a gripping slice of drama, dealing with issues that films rarely get into these days. While the first half is a sensitive exploration of the relationship between Pat (Cassie McFarlane) and Del (Victor Romero Evans), as they get together and then drift slowly apart under pressures of inner-city living, the second half is a highly politicised account of racial injustice in ‘80s Britain which forces both characters to examine themselves and to grow up quickly.

Screened by Kalabash World, this screening was the first of a new monthly session called Film Write – bringing together classic films and British writers for an evening of inspiration and debate.  On 12 Feb,  they’re showing out From You Were Black You Were Out / Black Britannica (Dir: Colin Prescod), while Ebele and Dorothea Smarta will be reading. For more info galang to Film Write

 

IT'S A WOMAN'S WORLD

Lead story from the Village Voice tells the story of Betty Newsome who's still waiting to get paid in full for her songwriting credit for 'It's A Man's Man's Man's World' and now also has Alicia Keys in her sights. It's yet another story from James Brown's ladies, who paid the cost to the Boss.

"Bobby Byrd rode shotgun in the limousine, while his boss stretched out in the back. By the early '60s, James Brown sometimes used a limo to escape the confines of his tour bus, but he hadn't always hired drivers. So Byrd and "Baby" Lloyd Stallworth, a Brown valet and sometime Famous Flames vocalist, often shared driving duties. This time it was Stallworth's turn behind the wheel for the nearly 1,000-mile, 20-hour journey from Harlem back down South.

On this trip, one of James's girlfriends, Betty Jean Newsome, shared the backseat with the Godfather of Soul, who died on Christmas Day 2006 of heart failure. As Newsome now recalls, at one point in the ride—shortly before they would drive down a stretch of Carolina highway lined with hooded Klansmen burning crosses—she was humming something to James, who listened attentively and even joined in the song.

"Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, man's world," the young dancer whispered to Mr. Dynamite as the limo rolled along, according to Byrd's sworn testimony in a 2002 deposition."

story by Michael Clancy, photo Alana Cluny

for the full story, go here

shooki-mundo time.

   

a brand new publication inspired by the five elements, the four noble truths, three - the magic number, forever two stepping (never half) but still always on the 1.

get your copy of issue 1 before they hit the shops. featuring too much good stuff - from a look at the burgeoning hip hop scene in detroit feat. denaun porter, guilty simpson, invincible and black milk. an exclusive interview with the original king of diggin' - dj muro. we track down elusive french street artist invader. new BBE signing robert strauss gets personal with leroy burgess. we get into the studio with benga, master of the 26 basslines. and take a look at the sound of uk bhangra through its cover art, and revisit  the New York downtown scene through the photography of paula court.

there's also interviews with arthur verocai, simphiwe dana, the mighty jeddo, yukimi nagano, jay electronica, christian prommer, paul white & interactivo.

plus columns from benji b, paul camo? / WE ARE..., heatwave, and all the usual reviews, travel, longplayers + charts. Get shook!

www.shook.fm