Post colonial angst, is so well articulated in this song it makes me cry. The way he captures the irony of an africa so obsessed with western education, against the equally jarring diatribes of Boko Haram, whose whole screed is about the ills of western education. Beautifully executed song and video if I should say so myself
Youtube Dumps: Stuff I am vibin to
The instagram/FB crash was treated like this great momentus and weird thing. I personally never get surprised. Silicon valley and all the technologists, are often charged with being the people pushing us into the future. Yet in truth like Politrix, these institutions stifle creativity, favor tradition and lazy bureaucracy and most importantly are so driven by the profit model that they have not confronted the collective harms futurists assumed we would have solved by now.
An evocative and interesting visual essay on one of the worlds most enigmatic artists
The upsetter is is forever one of the most interesting characters to come out of Jamaica. In this documentary you get rare and interesting insights into the mans life and what makes him tick. You also get to hear his musings about everything from the bible to long winded screeds about how stones informed his production style. This is an hour and a half well spent, cant believe the whole thing is on youtube either.
Whats more thrilling than Sean Price bending language to his will
Dj Premier breaking down Biggie Smalls’ Unbelievable
Djhamaradios listography: Fela Kuti Part II
When I first joined college radio, I have this experience of meeting an older white guy playing ‘Roforofo fight” at a cramped college station studio and this moment struck me with the fact that this dude’s music is universal. Fela got me into the Talking Heads because I read David Byrne was a huge Fela fan, so is Flea from RHCP, and the fact that Brian Eno, was also a huge fan. Fela’s music connected many dots for me and opened my ears to a ton of sounds from the free jazz squelching of The Art Ensemble of Chicago to the finely tuned thump of bands like CAN or the dreamlike meandering of compositions by Mulatu Astatke. Fela also taught me to take pleasure in long songs and by long I am talking t45 to 50 minute songs. These songs often meandered and went all over the place but where grounded in a tightly wound african rhythm steeped in a magical hybrid of James Brown and traditional Yoruba rhythms. He taught me to listen with a focus on delaying gratification for the intent of enjoying the dynamics of the interplay of instruments as the ensemble communicates with each other on the track.
I also had the pleasure of watching a beautiful and informative documentary on Fela one that is very recent and goes into deep details about the mans life and legacy. Watch it below or Here
Most importantly I heard Fela in the music of some of my favorite rappers, from Common to Missy Elliot. So with all this in mind I decided how about a spotify playlist and a list of 10 covers and songs that sampled or where inspired by Fela Kuti.
Arguably one of the best covers of a Fela Song, its completely its own song borrows the recognizable bass line from Zombie but is a pure freejazz vamp that only The Art Ensemble could do. Plus rumor has it Lester Bowie actually played uncredited on Fela’s Zombie.
Easily one of the best album openers ever. Mos almost does nothing to change the original Fela sample, but he sounds so natural over this beat. Simmering with pan-african hubris and joy.
This is a sick ass flip and does the original justice, the original which is grammarticalogylisationalism boss
This record speaks to Timbalands ears for great grooves and he very expertly loops the most rhythmically exciting part of the original fela record which is Colonial Mentality.
Phil Corans a major figure in the world of spiritual jazz got his eight sons together and they formed a afrofuturistic brass band of earth shattering proportions.I argue that this band is one of the illest bands ever and this cover of water is pure magic.
These dudes signed to Daptone records are arguably one of the best live afrobeat bands doing it. They capture Fela’s bands dynamism and adherence to tight grooves while adding a splash of modernity to their music without sacrificing the essence of the sound.
Love this song, the imagery and they way it straddles the traditional and the modern. This kind of bold original vision can only exist because modern artists have taken notes from the boldness of Fela Kuti. Below is a playlist of Fela Kuti cuts, samples and covers enjoy.
This to me os his legacy, the fact that in this video you have an eclectic cast of children of this earth unpretentiously vibing to Fela. I found a youtube comment that captured this Youtube video well for me “How does this happen? So many people, not a duff note, not a skewed rhythm, no momentum drops, 9 minutes before Seun opens his mouth – the pressure to not up mess all that went before! And all underpinned by one drummer throwing in all these extra fills with everyone else depending on him to drive the pace. The pressure on him! Music is some sort of alternative universe! Brilliant.” Youtube Commentator
Djhamaradio’s Listography: Fela Kuti
Their are artists that exist in your subconscious in ways that are inseparable from everything else that constitutes you as a person. Bob Marley is one of them, Fela is one of them, as a child listening to his music, I felt like I was listening to the absolute essence of Africa. Music that was kinetic, electrifying, educational, revolutionary and confrontational all rolled into one of Fela Kuti’s thick ass blunts. Fela was a true firebrand, to have the balls to smoke weed openly in a very conservative post colonial society where weed or any intoxicants not approved of by her royal majesty the queen (I say this in jest) or the military dictatorship running Nigeria’s elite, would incur hefty ass fines or prison time and potential death. His marriage to 28 wives all at once, while an interesting factoid I feel tends to be sensationalized by westerners, obsessed with the idea of the sex crazed African wild man, you also have the darker more sinister aspects of the man. For me when I think of Fela I think of a complicated, frighteningly brilliant mind, one that greatly shaped my ear. He was part of my immersion into the myriad forms of black atlantic music from Pharoah Sanders, to Miles Davis to Orchestre Poly Rhythmo to Chano Pozo. I was thinking of Fela as i was reading through this article from the website “The Ringer” the article Here, and his current nomination for the Rock Hall of Fame. He is beloved by everyone from the Talking Heads to Paul McCartney. He is the perfect distillation of pan-africanism.
List of my favorite Fela songs in no particular order
Water no got enemy:
I think his capacity as a very contained and witty wordsmith point to how rooted he is in African oratorical traditions. His lyrics are rarely these longwinded diatribes and musings, instead they are usually compact phrases dripping in a pidgin thats understandable for those not accustomed to it. On this song he out does himself expressing a sentiment that isn’t particularly political but is a truism thats applicable and true in any cultural context or time frame.
Mr Grammarticalogylisatitionalism is boss
The song title is a strange mish mash, but once the songs tripped out psychy meandering gives way to his lyrics its a tour de force. From my studies of Fela I heard he was heavy into studying Handel, and i can hear some of that churchified chord playing in the intro to the song and that begins to open up into and the tightly wound bass picking and equally expressive and locked in chicken scratch guitar. All of this occuring as his trumpet playing performs its usual magic and his band is lockstep behind him in this very restrained cool dirge of a song. My love for this track begins when I heard I will not apologize off of The Roots 2008, magnum opus Rising Down, and I heard the song and could immediatly tell this was psyched out Fela, and I went and found the song and It was a rapturous moment for me. Who despite being 24 years old, was an avid Fela fan and couldnt take the walk to class on my campus without his music pulsating through my being. His lyrics on this one very poignantly and in his brief poetic way, criticise Africans and our obsession with western language. He describes how for the colonised access to power, sustenance and dignity has always been connected to our capactity to sound like our colonizer.
Fela Kuti: Zombie
Zombie is so devastatingly beautiful, I sometimes listen to this and i understand how Fela, set my path for loving ugly sounding sax players. He taught me Trane, He taught me Pharoah, but most importantly in this song its built on a groove that spans the black atlantic experience, absorbing long lost things, incorporating new ideas and rebuilding a sound thats African but is rooted in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Colombia, Nigeria and Augusta Georgia. The refrain in the song, is a critique of Nigerian soliders and how blindley these sons of these oppressed regimes are willing to oppress their own people. These issues exists today the Zombie nature of Western policing in the UK or USA, Zombie policing that targets youths in Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda or Colombia.
Fela often chides the west, but hurls his most indignant critiques at the African, the African pretending and trying everything in his or her power to be like his colonizer. Gentleman opens with what quite arguably is one of the most savage sax intros in any genre, thats punctuated by an opening that’s so wondrous everytime I hear it I get goosebumps. This has to be my favorite Fela song, I recall times of deep doldrums when this song would electrify me in no way any modern music could or can.
Fela’s abilities as a keyboard player are in full display, juxtaposed with his genius as a composer on the same level as heroes like James Brown, Duke Ellington or Charles Mingus. Its an ode to black women to the power and importance of the black woman as a central figure in African society. His own mother being a significant figure in the narrative of black post colonial liberation. As an African him proping up the societal position of the african market woman, is a huge deal because in the society the market women provides sustenance and strength to our societies, she is key and essential to us finding ourselves.
This is an early love of mine, a song that I heard growing up that absolutely elated me as much as any Michael Jackson or Stevie Wonder record. It truly captures his compositional genius.
I was transfixed by the show Narcos, like a lot of people where, and in the scene when this pair of dudes where arrested and this song played, I almost had a heart attack. This is from his much ignored London Sessions, when he is perfecting his sound. Hearing Fela all over popular culture is a biggie its an acknowledgment of his genius and his inimitable style and stance. I am Zambian so I don’t understand what the brother is saying but whatever it is, it sounds earnest, compelling and but most importantly it sounds African meaning it can resonante anywhere where melanated people reside.
This is an unapologetic dance rhythm, a song that works well on modern dance floors and has a timelessness that forces me to play it everytime I dj a set for people dancing.
Je’nwi temi, is that distilled African mind, a song of relentless groove and poise.
Another romper, another work of inimitable Afrobeat, a pulse that resonates to this day from J. Balvin to Burna Boy.
When I first had a radio show, this was a standard for me I played this cut a lot. As usual the composition was undeniably funky.
This is a good primer on Fela Kuti for those that don’t know.
Vote 4 Fela Kuti
Cosmic Slapper of the day: R.I.P Black Rob
When Black Rob’s wow came on at the few dance’s we had in high school, the dance floor erupted into a melee. A melee of stomping feat, punches and straight up punk style moshing. A few months ago I realised there was a similarity between the Tiger cut when, and how the chorus is performed with how Black Rob approaches his Woah. R.I.P Black Rob
World of Cinema: Exterminate all Brutes
This sentiment is echoed in the Proud boys refrain “the west is best” or in the preachings of right leaning thinkers who think any criticism of the western experiment is unfair, wrong and dishonest. In “I am not your negro” film director Raoul Peck uses the words of the inimitable James Baldwin to concoct a potent mix of words and images to boldly challenge this notion of western innocence and self righteousness.. .In Raoul Pecks latest work he confronts this notion of western innocence.
This film opens on Wednesday April 7th on HBO but whatever you do try seeing this.
Cosmic Slappers Mix # 1
This Dj mix is the by product of stimulus check anxiety (That’s my fear of my money getting taken from me by creditors. Its inspired by my constant defence of fun and odd black music. Sometimes I get really sick and tired of trying to let folks understand Alaska, Kool and the gang and Marvin Gaye mean more to me than Led Zepplin. Its the realization that despite my admiration for the musical chops of some of these great rock bands, when I’m at home unwinding I listen to Fela Kuti or Marvin Gaye and not Black Sabbath (Who I love). Link to mix here
World of cinema: Vice presents Sakawa
Africa is a land of the young, its largely populated by young people and some segments of these young people live in sprawling urban cities. Often hustling to eke out an existence in environments designed to crush them. Pair this with the shrinking of the world, and the proliferation of images and ideas about the west it’s no surprise millions of these young men and women want to live the American or western dream or just leave and live the american dream. This documentary is presented by Vice magazine, who have had some really troubling reporting about the continent in the past. This movie is helmed by a Ghanaian director based in Brussels, belgium and he approaches the subject matter with a lot of soul and humanity. The subjects all take part in an industry that many frown upon in the west and in Africa. Its the industry of trying to lure western victims looking for love and lure them into sending them money. Its become something of a cottage industry for these young men and women, a way to break the cycle of desperation and inadequacy that plague these young men and women. A must watch for anyone that’s interested in unpacking the motivations behind the Nigerian email con, that very often don’t originate in Nigeria.
Pod Sessions: Rough Translation rewriting the travel guidebook
I listen to podcasts and music every single day. I listen to them when Im working, when I am walking around my city and sometimes when I am in the bathroom. With this in mind I decided I needed to document episodes that moved me and call these articles or essays Pod Sessions. For my first I am going to start with an episode of NPR’s excellently done Rough Translation. Which is a globe trotting podcast that explores stories from different parts of the world and from voices of people you’d never imagine existed from an immigrant navigating the complexities of refugee asylum to come to the USA to the complexities of race issues in Brazil. The most recent episode hit me like a ton of bricks because it reminded me of my own experiences. The episode involves Kenyan writer Nanjala Nyabola, who discusses her experiences dealing with traveling as a woman of color, as an African and as a black person.
She says some interesting things that resonate with me regarding travel. In this podcast she very capably unpacks the complexities that inform how and why people travel. How for example often as an African student as a traveler people often always assumed my financial status in my country and assumed I was a refugee. They couldn’t imagine my father purchasing my ticket and my parents driving to the capital city to send me off to school in a rite of passage that was visited upon all three of my siblings and some family members. She discusses the colonial legacy of travel and the weight english colonists placed on paperwork for Africans to move in and around their colonised nations. In Zambia in particular the papers were called Ifitupa, my Kenyan friends called them kalatasi. These forms of identification often contained name and age but most importantly the origins of your ethnic group and the region they came from. The english where obsessed with categorizing things splitting them up and establishing neat hierarchies sort of like they had in their own country. Often these definitions and descriptions of ethnic groups allowed them to divide and conquer and to create a ruling class to act as a bulwark against the rest of the population. In this podcast episode she describes the impact of these delineations and how they impact her sense of identity within Kenya. One thing I resonated with is the idea of the Muzungu and how she does an incredible job of defining whats actually meant by this word. I always thought Muzungu or Umusungu, simply meant white person and is a jibe often used my fellow country men to say I act foreign or I am not Zambian enough when i speak Bemba with an accent and often replace words with english words because my vocabulary sucks. The word I found often used to describe white people but i found actually meant wanderer or in other cases the other or outsider. I loved how she unpacks how being called this made her feel and again how the meaning changed based on where she was traveling. Most importantly the dangers of traveling as a black woman, and an African, especially in many places where it is just assumed she was a prostitute or a refugee.
Cosmic Slapper of the day: Infinite Aziz
No music suffers the pressure of being told what it is and isn’t more than black music. Critics of Jazz had vocal civil wars defining what Jazz was and wasn’t as the music metamorphosed into more and more forms and subgenres in the early 60’s. The R&B title was often wrongly attributed to artists for whom the only thing that made their music R&B was the fact of their blackness. This is the same for Hip-Hop, which has morphed into so many forms and distinctions that on occasion it’s hard to put a finger on what you are listening to. This is what it was like to walk around the city of Cleveland playing this on my headphones. I was immersed in a hazy world of random sound clips, beautiful sound loops and equally resplendent rap bars. Often the rap bars are swimming in a thick fluid of haze and sound effects. Its music that’s equal parts personal while also having the guts to transcend time and space. It peddles a transcendent blackness in a thick haze that evokes the persmism of modern life, capitalism and violence.
World of Cinema
I am a proponent of all things african from music to cinema and when I saw this trailer i new 2021 was off to a good start. I love serious and thought provoking african films, and in the case of this particular film it seems to do a good job of incorporating a bit of magical realism and political intrigue set inside a jail where a young newly jailed prisoner is expected to tell stories to keep from getting killed. Directed by director Phillipe Lacote out of the Ivory Coast I am looking forward to anything else he does.
Djhamaradio’s personal most impactful albums of the 10s
The decade began abruptly for me, I graduated from undergrad with a degree in Journalism . I had just broken up with a girl I dated for a short time. While this was happening I was working a horrible job in a slaughterhouse in my college town, working with a combustible mix of Mexicans, rednecks and local townies.At the Slaughterhouse you also had a contingency of small time drug dealers from surrounding rust belt towns, and a bunch of NASCAR loving hillbillies.
I usually went about my day with my ever present earphones acting as a psychic protective shield, shielding me from the ugliness of the world, blasting Currensy, Flying Lotus and Odd Future,. I was also playing tons of Rick Ross, I was a little tired of indie rock, but played a lot of Arcade Fire, and I was super enamored by all the exciting post dubstep, UK garage and Grime hybrid stuff coming from groups like Mount Kimbie, Zomby, Mala and Wiley you also had the explosition of the off kilter post dilla rap beats of everyone affiliated with Low End Theory and let’s not forget all the cool neo-house of Daphni and Four Tet. On the opposite side the decade is ending with Hip-Hop reigning supreme but more fractured than ever in its identity, indie rock is low key dead, electronic music is mostly post dubstep douche bro mega festival glow stick loving garbage and all I do is listen to boogie reissues and Mach Hommy. Summing up my decade is hard because it’s the act of me trying to unpack and make sense of a very important change filled decade. So chances are I left out a bunch of shit but who cares right.
- Flying lotus: Cosmogramma
- Kanye West: My Dark Twisted Fantasy
- Frank Ocean: Channel Orange
- Currency: Pilot Talk series/Verde Terrace
- Tyler the creator: Bastard/Flower boy/Igor/Cherry bomb
- Rick Ross: Teflon Don
- Daphni: Jiaolong
- Sepalcure: sepalcure
- Earl Sweatshirt: Some Rap Songs
- Burna Boy: African Giant
- Santi: Mandy & The Jungle
- Prodigy & Alchemist: Albert Einstein
- Wiley: Godfather
- Kendrick Lamar : good kid mad city
- Pusha -T : Daytona
- Kamaal Williams : The Return
- Shabaka and the ancestors: Wisdom of Elders
- Solange Knowles: Seat at the table
- Mikael Saeifu: The Lost Drum Beat/Zelalem
- Danny Brown: Atrocity Exhibition/U know what I’m sayin?
- Popcaan : Where we come from
- Vybz Kartel: Kingston story/Pon Di Gaza
- Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band
- Mach Hommy : H.B.O/Bulletproof Luh/The Spook
- Westside Gunn: Flygod/Hitler wears Hermès 7/Supreme blientele
- Conway the machine: Don’t get scared now
- KA: Days with Dr Yen Lo/Honor killed the samurai
- Benny The Butcher: Tana Talk 2 & 3
- Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part Two
- D’angelo: Messiah
- Young Thug: Tha Tour Pt. 1/ Barter 6/
- Under the skin: Mica Levi
- Roc Marciano – Merci Beaucoup/KAOS/Rosebuds revenge/ Behold a dark horse
The power of Brazilian music
The Bug is endlessly inspiring
Sound system culture is something that I value deeply. My radio shows have all in some way paid homage to sound system culture. One artist who reflects this reverence for soundystem culture is the endlessly innovative The Bug whose album London Zoo still ranks as one of personal favorites. His sound opened doors for a very abrasive dubbed out distorted form of techno. This lecture was a Sunday well spent.
How does one handle the pure ecstatic menace that is exuded all over this track
Isiah Rashad on his chill shit
Isiah Rashad is my favorite member of the inimitable TDE click. This new joint finds him in his usual comfortable blunted out space.
Slapper of the day: HBD Duke Ellington (April 29th) better late than never
On the journey to making sense of Jazz, Duke Ellington was a seminal encounter. I understand the inimitable genius of Louis Armstrong, and the undeniable swing of early New Orleans jas bands. But Duke Ellington operates in a sphere all his own. Duke takes all these early influences of New Orleans of Louis Armstrong and then combines them with a whole universe of new experiences.
You can hear duke’s influence in a myriad of places from the work of folks like Sun-Ra who frequently covered the OG, to Charles Mingus who famously got kicked out of Dukes band for misbehaving. Duke does a lot of firsts he connects with music from around the world taking those influences and creating these emotive driving orchestrations, that will have you swimming on a beach in Zanzibar to hanging with Hindu monks in the Indian kush. He could out swing a hard bopper and out compose and out weird any free jazz freaks. His stamp on black classical music (What Rashaan Roland Kirk called Jazz) is transcendent his stamp on music in general is remarkable, Happy Birth Day OG/Ancestor.
djhamaradio 