We know what you’re doing next summer! Yes indeed, Gilles Peterson returns with his genre-defying, all embracing festival. The Worldwide Festival is back in the idyllic small fishing town of Sète (South of France) from the 8th to the 11th of July 2010. Behind the scenes Gilles and the WF gang are cooking up an amazing line-up for this 5th edition of the WF in Sete which promises to be the best yet.
Limited supplies of discounted (early bird) 4 day pass are now on sale and you have until the 31st of December 2009 to get your hands on them. Early bird tickets save you 30 euros off a 4 Day pass! The number of Early Bird 4 Day pass is limited and extras will not be released. To find out more about the early bird offer click HERE.
Hosted by BBC Radio 1’s Gilles Peterson who will be spinning his favourite Cuban joints from past to present, the 9-piece Havana Cultura Band headline this Cuban extravaganza, ripping through an awesome selection of the album’s biggest tracks with vocals from Havana Cultura mainstays Ogguere and Danay who are flying in live and direct from Havana to maximise the Cuban party vibes.
Ogguere are the elder statesman of Cuban rap. Members Edrey and Ulises got together in the early 1990s, blending a mixture of Cuban rhythms – mambo, son and cha-cha-cha – with funk, rumba and rap to create their own inimitable hip hop hybrid.
A 24 year-old soul sister who has already drawn comparisons with the likes of Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, Danay eschews a gangster lean for a more conscious delivery, switching effortlessly between honeyed vocals and effortless rhyme flows. Born in Havana’s Cerro district, today she lives with her mother and sister in Santa Fe (on the fringes of the capital). Solo material is scarce but she has collaborated with Aldo – of Los Aldeanos – and Cuban fusion superstar X Alfonso.
DJ support comes from London’s Sofrito crew – Hugo Mendez, Frankie Francis and the mysterious Mighty Crime Minister. Renowned for their legendary Tropical Warehouse parties in London’s East End, Sofrito has brought together musicians and artists from Ghana, Nigeria, Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia to celebrate the heaviest sounds from across the Tropical spectrum. Your hips never had it so good!
How many of y’all have heard of Melody Gardot?
I heard from her a couple months ago but since she’s touring right now it’s probably time to focus a bit on her. She had a serious accident at the age of 19 and recovered thanks to the power of music therapy. She then started writing songs listening to Janis Joplin, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. In 2005 she released her first tracks on iTunes and called it “Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions“. 3 years later came her first full-length album on Verve Records “Worrisome Heart“. Meeting Larry Klein, musician and ex-husband of Joni Mitchell helped her to release her new album that came out in April of this year “My One and Only Thrill“, also on Verve. “Baby I’m a Fool” is a beautiful track and the whole album has the same calm atmosphere, great stuff!
She will be in London on November 15 @ the Royal Festival Hall. And don’t forget to cop her album on iTunes or at your local record dealer.
As blogged by GP on his MySpace last week in Japan:
I never fail but to come back from Japan refreshed and motivated. Last night at Liquid Rooms was so great. All my friends and supporters over the years still coming out and a fresh new audience always adding the energy. That’s the point – keeping it fresh with new sounds mixed with classics from the distance.
I did some great shopping too – although the Pierre Cardin shoes I picked up for 1000 yen did fall apart halfway though the night – thank God for super glue – lol!
The bands all did great last night – adding a little Afro Cuban spice – Quasimode did ‘Afrodisia’, Salsa Swingoza did ‘Roforofo Fight’ and Cromagnon just get better – loved the way they started playing low volume as my last tune faded out with the curtains still down – nice touch from a perfectly tight disco jazz unit – need to bring ‘em back to Europe!
Tokyo Heavy Hitters DJ attack worked really well – better than last time – from Kentaro to Sunaga T everyone took full use of their 3 minutes to keep the audience hyper excited!!
Big ups to Mari who put the whole thing on and continues to be the unsung hero for this scene here in Japan. Her strength and energy continually pushing out the music on Jwave and believe me, the girl knows when to take her ear piece out and party with the best of ‘em! Toshio Matsuura looks after all the tiny details a man like me demands!! Big love and continued success and good luck with the role of fatherhood on the way – your life is just starting sir!
So I’ll take a final stroll around the stores of Aoyama and Shibuya today – pick up some of my favourite comme des garcons aftershave and possibly find a hat for Zinger… a last meal at my favorite Sicilian Japanese fusion restaurant with Andy and the crew – possibly a special drop of red!
Big love also to my record label Beat Inc too – a brilliant job has been done getting the locals to find out about the Havana Cultura cd which came out with extra track this week – nippon special!
Flight leaves at 11 tomorrow am – might just have to avoid my bed and go straight from Microcosmos (UFO reunion), the Room (tykler askew/simone/shuya) and Air (king britt) – its a long 12 hour daytime flight that should land just in time for the West Ham vs. Arsenal game!
As I often say I sincerely appreciate the blessing of being able to play Cedar Walton tracks for a living and not
doing a normal job….yet!
If you know about Exile and DJ Day, it’s a good thing, then you know how talented these cats are on the Akai Mpc sampler. Playing with pads like it’s a toy and chopping up beats like nobody else. If you don’t know about them, then you should know that they are both incredible producers for the likes of Blu, Mobb Deep, People Under The Stairs, Medaphoar and many others of course. Both have several records out and DJ Day had a nice track featured on Brownswood Bubblers. Last summer I invited them to rock my stage at the Dour Festival in Belgium and they killed it. Here’s a serie of pictures taken by Kmeron during their set at the festival.
Now, this isn’t the reason why I’m writing this post. The reason is that they rocked The Root Down last night, it’s a nice club; it’s also the club where Dusk used to host parties; i rocked it one time and had Evidence, Planet Asia and many others on the dancefloor, funny! Anyway, last night Exile & DJ Day did their thing, chopping up beats real time with two samplers.. they rehearsed the day before for this one, check this video out, it’s nice like that:
Hope you liked it, let me know what you think about this…
I worked hard with the Democrazy promoters to make this event succesful. Last friday was live and want to thank everybody coming down to the first edition of “LeFtO Presents“, a concept reflecting the music in my radioshow. It wasn’t that easy as on friday late afternoon, Breakestra was late and Sa-Ra Creative Partners missed a train, it didn’t look good. So we had to open 30 minutes later, which wasn’t too bad after all as people came in later. It was important for me to make the artists feel like home, getting them on stage in time and giving them the comfort they needed. To start the show I had homeboy Cris Prolific on the turntables, it was quite early and I dunno why people always come so late. So late that it was not easy for me to see Vadim go on stage in front of a small crowd, well that’s what I thought it was until I realised there was a 100 more outside smoking… So it came out good, the venue was full, finally! DJ Vadim has a totally different show and some people didn’t expect that kind of show I think… so the atmosphere was a bit strange, the crowd was lame! After Vadim, I gave Cris Prolific some extra time to promote his album “Art/Money” that will see the light through Universal soon, can’t wait for that, glad I was part of that project, too bad half the crowd went outside to smoke, what a shame. After that, Sa-Ra Creative Partners came on stage; I enjoyed the little discussions I had with Om’Mas & Taz backstage, those guys are special, like it. On stage, slammin’ beats, going wild and singing all over the place. Girls in the front seemed to enjoy the freaked out scenery in front of them. Great producers and good to have them on my first edition. It was my turn to serve the crowd with a couple records, right before having the Breakestra on stage. Breakestra was hard on stage, they are the best cover band i’ve seen in my life; they have the perfect musicians for it and the woman replacing Mixmaster Wolf was killer. 12 years in the game and Breakestra is still going strong, Miles you the man, keep the funky music alive, it’s sick! That was a perfect last live act. I was really happy with Krewcial’s visuals all night long, he did a great job, thank you brother. I rocked the afterparty a couple hours, actually way too long.. I didn’t expect the people to stay so late after all the shows they’ve seen and especially having Benga and Skream next door. Even I was hoping I could stop earlier to see Benga in action haha, but it’s all good, next time. I must thank everybody who helped to promote this event and the ones who came down. It was a good one, up to the next one, early next year probably. By the way, check out the video, there’s interviews in between.
Two very special Havana Cultura launch parties featuring Gilles Peterson, DJ Lubi, Vince Vella and Simbad plus the Havana Cultura Band in full effect. Tickets available right HERE.
Show n° 406 yes, with some new music by Fresno emcee Fashawn, who just released his album “Boy Meets World“, entirely produced by Exile, beautiful. Another beautiful thing is the Shuanise Ep, very nice, she’s special. Hiphop veterans Del and Tame One teamed up for an album and Tokimonsta gave us a Tweet remix to celebrate her participation to the Redbull Music Academy haha, congrats girl. There’s a couple hidden tracks on this mix but Machinedrum should be a hint for the track right before, what a underrated producer. Also check out R-04 and Dorian Concept’s track that didn’t make it on the “Trilingual Dance Sexperience“… All that by clicking on the picture as usual… Enjoy! Salut.
Featuring the work of over 20 musicians and artists recorded across 28 tracks, this double CD album is a celebration of Cuba’s freshest musical talent from Latin, Afro jazz and fusion to hip hop, funk, reggaeton and R&B. CD1 consists of brand new recordings produced by Gilles Peterson jointly with Roberto Fonseca and Vince Vella. Fans of Cuban music will also recognise a handful of traditional Cuban classics such as ‘Chekere Son’, which have been carefully re-imagined and re-recorded. CD2 features tracks from Gilles’ favourite new discoveries. New talent such as vocalist Danay (described by Gilles as “Cuba’s Jill Scott”) and Doble Filo, in addition to international award-winning artists such as rapper Kumar and pianist Roberto Fonseca.
The album was recorded in the world famous Egrem Studios in Havana, where all the major figures of the Cuban music scene have recorded including Beny Moré, Arsenio Rodriguez and the Buena Vista Social Club. It is the latest in a series of cultural projects from Havana Cultura, which has been designed to give artists in Havana a global voice via the Havana Cultura website.
You can get your mitts on the album at the following spots:
Back from the beautiful London; Got in on friday and went straight to Kensal Rise to meet my buddy Franck; and from there straight to Old Street by overground and train (yeah I didn’t know there was a train going straight from Highbury & Islington to Old Street) to meet up with some of his friends. Went to East Village around 9pm to set up everything, especially for my Serato since they have those crazy big ass mixers in there; Franck had a few records with him and started upstairs with a nice selection, never heard him play before, was good. Ahu was up next upstairs while Mamiko arrived to set up her stuff downstairs; Ahu played quite uptempo, didn’t expect that, liked it and so did the crowd; it took them so much time to get downstairs where Mamiko Motto played nice gems, Hud Mooooo… I was up next and that’s when half the room downstairs was full; played very much everything I liked from hiphop to dubstep and broken beat… saw Tommy Tempa there, he’s always around, dope cat. Some Belgian buddies were there too… I had fun. Seiji came in, and did a nice set, he spun that dope track by Funkineven “Must Move”, damn I need that joint. bPm killed my ears with the supabass of Italoboyz and Joy Orbison, it was hard for me to stay close to the speakers haha… Anyway, it was a nice first edition; expected more Brownswood heads though for the first one, saw a lot of unknown faces which isn’t bad but you always want to have the local family around you when you organise something like that. Up to the next one… More info coming soon. Ow yeah, and what’s up with Arsenal? Here’s my little video report, it was too dark in there to film actually:
