Funana Island Rockers

Funana is rocking Ghetto Bassquake hard right now. Accordeons, breakneck speed drums, sweet vocals from Cape Verde's finest. France's DJ Vielo tears it up Funana style on this tight little mix.

DJ Vielo - MiX FuN@N@

Champeta!

San Francisco! Come get your perrrrrrrrrrrreo on!

Calypso Clappers

Chief Boima has done it again. Not content with blowing our minds with his Descendants United mix for The Fader he has made a freakin awesome Calypso reggae meltdown over at our US buds Green Owl. If this doesn't get your summer BBQ going then all your friends secretly hate you.

Chief Boima - Ghetto Bassquake Vs Green Owl Calypso Mix

Reminder: Tonight, Descend and Unite!

We have quite a lineup of guests coming up this summer at our new weekly that's starting tonight in Oakland, CA, Descendants United. Come experience the Ghetto Bassquake en vivo, every Thursday! As evidence by last weekend at The People party, Oakland can be a special place when folks get down.

Resident DJ's Aebl Dee, Chief Boima, Refusenik, Shawn Dub.

Tonights special guests:

Jennifer Johns R&B/Soul, world spirit channeling singer out of Oakland.

Geko Jones. Wobble Bass, Dutty Artzer outta BK, NY! Warming up in Oakland and blasting off at Little Baobab in San Francisco this Saturday!

Location tonight and every Thursday is Luka's Taproom on Broadway in downtown Oakland.

Transnational Rasta Bass

Mr. Maga Bo recently released his third video clip for the record, "Archipelagoes." Teba's a wicked MC, with his gruff delivery, and socially conscious lyrics. FCK always gets plays for me. He doesn't disappoint on this one. Can you say the Xhosa chorus? Practice with the kids at the end of this video, it's fun! Kids are fun.

Some interesting things about the video from Maga Bo:

The video was shot over 2 days in Guguletu, one of Cape Town's most notorious townships and Teba's home turf - with all borrowed equipment - borrowed camera, boom box, the car on loan, people leting us into their houses to film. Back in the day, Teba was a member of the super successful kwaito group Skeem, which put out several albums before he left to do more socially conscious work. He now leads workshops in lyric writing and gumboot dancing (!), is part of the African Dope Sound System, has his own live band and has collaborated with the likes of Stereotyp, Godessa and SiBot.

You can check the other videos from Archipelagoes "Fire feat. Xuman" and "Saye Mbott feat. ALIF with Ndiaya" on Vimeo and on his great Youtube page that includes his interview series, which is a definite Global Bass primer.

Alien Vocal Wars: Panama Vs Nigeria

I'm watching Duffy on MTV playing a live concert in Europe someplace. The sound is off. Even the crowd look bored. I'm bored!

So I was thinking about crazy vocals. The autotune is kinda tired but there are some tracks out there that take it to another level.

From Panama Cocoman's 'El Marciano' (The martian) has both high AND low alien vocals. It's a bizarre proto-Reggaeton track that I'm told was was pretty massive all over Latin America back in the day (early 90s).

Cocoman - El Marciano

Big with Peruvian clown fellers apparently.

VS

Nigeria. I picked this cd up in a London market from a guy selling cds called Nigerian Vybz vol.1-8. I don't know much about X-Project but they make coupe decale style bangers from Lagos like this. The alien voice only happens on one verse. Played by a dwarf in in the video.


X-Project - Lorile


WHO WINS - YOU DECIDE? (IN THE COMMENTS)

Get Busy Time

Once again Busy comes correct like the relentless hitmaker that he has become. Phil Collin's One More Night gets the Busy rub and it's straight summer lovin time.


Busy Signal - One More Night (divshare)

Cheers to Ghetto Palms for the heads up.

Buy his excellent Loaded album here

Secousse May Photos

May was a big one: Rammed, air raid sirens, hands in the air all night, BLK JKS in the house and Afrikan Boy smashed it with Cherry B from De Tropix. Get yo ass to the next one on June 5th.

Cheers to Dave Swindells for the pics

Ghetto Bass Screening Room: Nollywood > Hollywood

If I remember to, I will try to post a feature length movie trailer once a week here... or remind Vamanos to post one. I was thinking only Nollywood, but there are plenty of industries out there that could use some attention. I studied film and video in college (um... Uni?) and was kind of bored by the focus on the U.S. and European film industries. I really wanted to study Latin American film, but the advisor in the department basically told me, "we don't do that here." Now that the Nollywood has passed Hollywood for 2nd place in number of movies made per year, it's a perfect time for me to get my revenge!!!*

For now I'm going to keep with the Naija theme: "Twin Brothers, Every parent must watch this!" And the announcer gets the award for most out of breath performance.

*What she actually said was, "we don't do 'ethnic' here."

Lusophone(ction)

I've made it no secret my love for Lusophone music, especially from Africa and the diaspora. Watch this great video at the Red Bull Music Video Archive for a brief rundown.

The compilation Comfusões is like a physical manifestation of the dreams in that video. It was put together by Maurício Pacheco and Outhere Records, a label based in Germany who have released some great albums the past few years. This one is a remix project that takes classic Angolan voices like my favorite, Bonga, and makes some nice hip hop and dance tracks at the hands of various Brazilian producers like DJ Dolores.

Bonga-Kapakiao (Kassin & Berna Ceppas RMX) (Direct Download)

Also on the Angolan front, updates from Benjamin at Akwaaba are still coming via Twitter. Kuduro videos, and tracks, and announcements about upcoming releases, and meetings with Paulo Flores, keep em' coming Benjamin!



On a final tangent, here is a video that was posted on Comfusões' myspace page, by an Angolan rapper, Gastevil, that uses my second favorite Young Buck instrumental (click here for my number one.) Get Buck!

Newcastle & Tate Modern This weekend

FRIDAY

Catch me and A.J.Holmes bringing the Secousse tropical heat to a tent outside at the Tate Modern, turning the Thames into the Amazon for a few hours.

Secousse Sound System DJs: A.J. Holmes & Vamanos 12 - 1pm
The Hackney Empire live 1pm - 2pm
Secousse Sound System DJs: A.J. Holmes & Vamanos 2 - 3pm


SATURDAY


This Saturday night catch me playing 9-10pm with Bassline MASTER, Dexplicit, outdoors. If it its anything like last year, s'gonna be Biiigggg.

SA Night Vision (extended)

Not often that I listen to tracks that are over 20 mins. This an exception. Villalobos weaves in and out of a chilean folk song sample (anyone?) making it sound like a football crowd dumped in the middle of a Spanish minimal party at 5am. That's a pretty bad description to what is an ever evolving, intricate, astoundingly deep track. Here's the rare 20 min version.


Ricardo Villalobos-1º Encuentro Latinoamericano de la Soledad (mediafire)

EDIT - Alex tells me that the sample is from a live track of the same name by Chilean prog rock band, Los Jaivas from 1974.


Shorter version on his excellent buyable Fabric mix here

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This one has travelled.

Estefanía Caicedo, Totó la Momposina, Paulino Salgado - La Verdolaga

A Colombian cumbia, sampled and Indianized by Timbaland, unearthed at Mudd Up and now lies in a rolling percussive haze produced by Michel Cleis, played by Villalobos.

Michel Cleis - La Mezcla (Original mix) (mediafire)

Buy it here

Bersa Discos Toy Selectah!

I've been waiting for this one!

Disco Shawn has offered up a free download for us from the Toy Selectah EP on Bersa Discos. From Shawn:

This tune is called "Hay Guey" and it's a reworking of a song by Tzochitl Soundsystem. The rest of the EP includes remixes of tracks by Boys Noize, classic Peruvian chicha band Los Mirlos, Argentinian cumbia producer DJ Negro, and Panamanian dancehall MC Japanese. The record is available through Turntable Lab. Toy also has an upcoming release on Mad Decent later in the year.

Tzochitl Soundsystem-Hay Guey (Toy Selectah Remix) (Direct Download)

Dis a go Make You Party Hard

Super Hot Fire U.K. Funky track from Donaeo gets the Heatwave Refix treatment! This is such a big tune, designed to make you do exactly what it says, and now with juggling! We go Party Hard!

Donaeo-Party Hard featuring Capleton, Vybz Kartel, Danny English and Rubi Dan (Direct Download)

Also comes in Mediafire.

Descendants United

Hey folks, a little self plug here... I did a blend for Ghetto Palms! Drop by The Fader website to pick it up, hope you all enjoy! It's called Descendants United. Also check here and here for info on the parties listed. Big Up, once again Eddie Stats!

Chelsea Vs Liverpool

NOLLYWOOD STYLE

Coast 2 Coast

After my trip to Nicaragua I realized that I also had some music from the Caribbean coast which is totally different to the stuff on my Volcanics mix..

Nicaragua's Caribbean coast is one of the few parts of Latin America where English is spoken. The Nicaragua Creoles that live there are descendants of Jamaicans, fishermen, pirates, and indigenous people. The music is really close Jamaican Mento music with a bit of reggae, steel pan and cumbia thrown in. One of the most 'Tropical' sounds I've ever heard.

The people in Bluefields city make Coast music or Palo de Mayo (may pole) which is proper street party carnival riddims.



The biggest band is Dimension Costeña who do these awesome 8 minute high speed ass shaking jams like this one.

Dimension Costeña-Fiebre Costen`a (mediafire)

Here's a dance demonstration by Stacy. Holy shit!

The Bluefields sound system are dedicated to preserving Coast music with their Nicaraguan reggae jams. They've made a cool little film about that sound.

Akwaaba to Angola

Benjamin's on Twitter, and better yet he's in Luanda, follow him RIGHT NOW! Soon come plenty o Kuduro, Semba, Tarraxa, Kizomba, House Angolana, Batida, Reliquia, and Hip Hop.

Have you been picking up all the Akwaaba releases?

Ghetto Bass Reading Room

Right now I'm reading The Brief Wondorous Life of Oscar Wao. Proximo libro voy a leer Reggaeton. So , in celebration de mi actividades literarias diarias, voy a salirme de las paginas y me voy pa Tormenta Tropical tonight in San Pancho para chequear Maluca, y la HOME GIRL Isa GT.


Who's with me?

Hi Hata! Funn(k)y

Had to post it! "What's wrong wit your life?" LOLOLOL!

Musical Inheritances

I was sitting in a studio the other day and the engineer was playing a hip hop tune that sounded like it came from a kid sitting in a living room with his parent's collection of Motown LP's. I instantly recognized the musical voice of J Dilla. It was his work on projects like Donuts that really painted for me his ability to dissect a song and make it more than just a hip hop beat, but a look into how we are all functioning as post modern cultural producers. This was more than chopping up a song that you dig out of a record store crate. This was chopping up your ancestry. Here is a track I got awhile back at Soul-Sides.com, reworking a James Brown classic.

This is Dilla's World-J Dilla (Direct Download)

Dilla's name instantly rang out in my head when I heard Koffi Gnato (the Bété Cratedigger) via his myspace. His chopping of African LP's from the 70's instantly reminded me of J Dilla's experiments with American Funk and Soul. I'm particularly feelin' Poisson Aromatise.

From his page he says, "This is about the record collection my father left me. This is about cutting and choppin then editing it so you can hear with a hip hop flava those psyche sounds of zaïre, senegal and more. This is memories. All about music and love."

I'm excited to see what he comes up with on the production tip in the future. Check out DJ Mixes at the label Palm Wine Records based in Lyon, France.