This week’s selection is brought to you by Sweet Kid:
In which our hero puts an alarming amount of amorous activity into wooing said Brenda. But she seems almost catatonic in her lack of enthusiasm for his efforts. Give it up mate, she’s more trouble than she’s worth!
Sweet Kid is a great name for an artist, I’m half sure there’s a grime “Sweet Kid” or possibly a mid-90s UK ragga version. This Sweet Kid is known to his no doubt proud Mum as Moses Sserwada, and she brought him into the world in 1982.
There’s a good article on him over at UG Pulse, which gives some more information – including the unfortunate come-back this tune had on his relationship when it became a number one hit.
Vagina Dentata Organ
THE LONDON PUNK TAPES
Exhibition
15 JULY – 26 SEPTEMBER, 2010
ARCHIVE
La Ramblas 7, Barcelona 08002
During 1976 and 1977 Jordi Valls recorded live on nine audio cassettes some of the early punk gigs in London. These tapes, featuring The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Subway Sect, Billy Idol & Generation X, The Slits and Buzzcocks, capture the true sound of punk — raw, countercultural and subversive — as a phenomenon that had a radical impact on popular music and fashion, first in Britain and America, and then worldwide.
Arguably the most interesting aspect of punk is its vital, visceral energy, and the demonstration that the only thing that really matters is the intention, the power of the imagination, and nothing more. Sound, photographs, an audio-visual with punk iconography by Franc Aleu-Urano Films and an installation combine here to profile a rebellious attitude firmly committed to its time.
Unknown by Unknown. Pah. (Remember when Mixmag or Muzik would have those ridiculous DJ top tens every month, and one of them would always be some drum ‘n’ bass guy boasting about how he had loads of white labels of unknown providence? I swear that’s where Origin Unknown got their name).
Nice bit of female vocal anyway – not the best quality, but vibes galore (as they used to say when flogging you yard tapes). Seems like the last part of the tune is a series of shout outs to various districts, which is always good.
[listens again and googles a bit]
Actually, she might be Nazizi? Not sure who the guy is.
This week’s selection from the man like Bobi Wine, the self-styled “President of Uganja”!
A tune called “Bam Bam” which isn’t the Toots or Pliers or Sister Nancy ones. Echoes of TOK or Ward 21 with the low backing vocals. Echoes of many JA videos with the visuals. Still a nice track, though – kind of thing you might hear Heatwave playing, maybe…
Looks like he is up there for ragga swagger also, check this recent news story which features disrespect to dignitaries and also getting into trouble over weed smoking!
But he’s obviously something of a (ahem) complex figure. In this interview he comes across as a bit of a mental primadonna, bigging up Idi Amin and saying he had to build a stupidly massive house because of some beef with another artist.
But then you get some raw stuff like this:
“I don’t hate poverty,” Wine said, as if the word hate was not strong enough. “I. Fear. It.” The words seemed to tremble in his mouth. […] “I was reading Milton Obote’s writing, and he said it’s good to die a bit,” he said softly. “So you live longer. There was a time…when I never existed. I died—in poverty. I didn’t have slippers, breakfast or lunch. I had no hope.”
Other online sources go into his early days in music:
“Underground shows with a Walkman, a borrowed amplifier and a speaker was how I used to make ends meet. I would spread the word and after school charge students fifty shillings (less than half dollar) per head and we would jam! I got into trouble with the school administration but that was the way I made my pocket money.”
So he’s a mixed bag. Top tunes though, which I guess should be the main thing.
So this is an undisputed classic UK MC tune, OK? If you had a Papa Levi acapella in the early 90s, you’d seriously consider doing a jungle relick, right? No brainer!
But… would you make it a lounge-jazz version with completely pointless Malcolm X samples? Well, these guys did. And they also pitched up the acapella so it goes all Minnie Mouse. Which is probably par for the course, but not helped by the crappy bitrate here.
Sounds like the vocal is taken off Levi’s own ragga relick of the original, which was released on Birmingham’s Spider Ranks label – probably around the same time. That cut is wicked and I think I played it on RSI Radio vol 3.
I’m pretty sure Spider Ranks was allied to the Luv Injection soundsystem, so I guess this jungle tune (credited to “The Link (Love Injection Music)”) had something to do with them. There was a fantastic TV documentary about Luv Injection clashing Ricky Trooper in Birmingham in the 90s, which I have on a VHS tape around here somewhere.
See, people go on about how the youth of today are all horrible, but one of my teenage neighbours just helped someone else on the block get into their flat (possibly just to end the horror of me attempting to post my daughter through a tiny window).
And earlier today 17 year old Grime producer J Beatz asked very nicely if he could send me a promo of his latest EP. So of course I said yes, even though most of the music I get sent these days is rubbish.
I’m not the world’s hugest fan of instrumental grime, but I’ll definitely take that over generic wobble-step if given the choice. This is good gear, thank fuck.
Dutty‘s beats are exactly the correct combination of swing and stiffness and all the freaky growling + airy synths over the top of them do some nice things to my head. Cash Point is a bit more full-on and ravey (i.e. exhausting, for old gits like me) with some good video game type sound effects.
Tazer really reminds me of grime beats circa 2003 – plucky strings, weird bubbling beats, sinister b-line. Top stuff – almost like a Jon E Cash / Black Ops joint!
Ragga Muffin obviously piqued my interest. Am I just biased or do grime people make reggae pastiches a million times better than dubstep people? This is great – some UK Dub-style skanking going on, lickle sample of a soundman and soundsystem effects. It works precisely because it isn’t a really obvious mahoosive bassline over a really obvious reggae vocal. I definitely want to hear an MC over this one…
Anyway, I reckon this is well worth investigation, but don’t take my word for it – there’s a youtube promo clip up here. (Ragga Muffin starts at about 4:35)
J Beatz: 1 Dutty EP – out on digital and vinyl on Crown Jules Records on July 19th.
This is a bit more lightweight and summery than my previous offerings, a nice combination of African pop and reggae stylings.
But don’t let the easy skanking fool you! This tune seems to be about wife-beating and has a disturbing statistic about its prevalence buried within the footage. I think the issue is dealt with in a less heavy handed (if you’ll pardon the expression) way than some other reggae tunes. “Don’t Bax Your Lady” by DC Ninjan on Unity Sound is a particularly excruciating example.
Jose seems a bit more media savvy than Master Parrott and DJ Micheal too, he even has his own myspace and wikipedia entry. Unfortunately they don’t give away too much biographical information, but there are some tunes to check out on the myspace and I did learn that Jose has scored an appearance on some kind of official world cup tune alongside Kelly Rowland.
Which even I realise is a big deal, but it seems like there is disquiet in Uganda about his success! Check this out from Uganda Musicians dot com:
All Ugandans are happy for this but our local musicians may think that its a lie and if not this guy uses witch doctors to be a star. Think no more but just thank God that Uganda has a talented artiste who sings what touches broken hearts. Infact we should consider Chameleone as Uganda’s Export since he fetches tax for the government in all his local and international concerts.
The accusations of witch-doctor bizness is a refreshing change from implications of casting couch scenarios anyway…
People with more patience than I have can figure out whether or not Uganda actually qualified for the world cup this year, but the rest of you might enjoy checking this topical tune from the Ugandan all-stars instead.
