11

Nov

#cultureclash

Last Wednesday was a momentous day. Obama was re-elected. Celtic won against Barcelona. And grime collective Boy Better Know beat Annie Mac, Major Lazer and reigning champs Channel One at the Red Bull Music Academy Culture Clash.

I jest, slightly.

Culture Clash was more than just an awesome night of sound entertainment, and I’ll tell you why. First, it’s the full and final confirmation that the British iteration of the Jamaican dancehall soundclash has been fully revived and revitalised. Secondly, it tells you a lot about the power and forward motion of grime. And thirdly, much like in the ‘90s when rave music was all over the charts, it means our current crop of teens are getting schooled in UK street-up music, which bodes well for the next generation of British musical hybrids – and indeed for British culture and society in general. Mainstream society might not recognise it as such but this is art.

The original Jamaican soundclash was a development of the way liquor store owners set up speakers outside their shops to bring in more custom. This turned into dances as we understand them: outdoor musical events where American R&B, and then new Jamaican music was played to appreciative crowds at loud volume. Rivalries ensued between competing sounds, which eventually turned into the soundclash, where two systems would be placed facing each other with the crowd inbetween and would take turns to play sets, with the people deciding the winner through the volume of their appreciation.

In the UK, it shifted and changed. It wasn’t possible to hold dances outside and most of the year it’d be too cold anyway. So the dance moved into community centres and the clash moved with it. Two sounds at either end of places like Pountley Hall, showing off their selections and their ‘specials’, big songs that had been re-vocaled by the artist to ‘big up the sound’ or diss a rival. I don’t know exactly when the soundclash died out in this form but it must have been at the point that single sound dances run by dons like Aba-Shanti-I or Jah Shaka took over, so perhaps the late ‘80s.

In the interim, there was silence. Well, that’s not exactly true. Soundsystem culture swung into the DNA of every new hybrid of UK street music since Lovers Rock, coursing through our version of house music, jungle, garage, grime and dubstep. But there was no clash apart from the grime MC battles so memorably recorded on the Lords of The Mic DVDs or perhaps in the shadows of the MCs waiting to get on stage at grime raves like Sidewinder determined to outdo the previous performer, or perhaps even in the idea of the b2b where two DJs would play together, five tunes on, five tunes off.

In November 2010 as part of the London Red Bull Music Academy (of which I was part – I’ve hosted interviews at the Academy since 2002) the clash was revived. DMZ, Metalheadz, Trojan, Soul II Soul went head to head in a supersized four-way clash at The Roundhouse. I’m easily pleased by this kind of thing but this was a night to convert even doubters. This was high-octane musical collaboration and abrasion at it’s finest. Metalheadz had Goldie dashing about on stage, DMZ frontman Sgt Pokes insulted everyone, Trojan drew for the original style dub reggae and Soul Jazz mixed up the selection. Metalheadz won. The following year four different sounds (reigning champions Metalheadz, dub specialists Channel One, Soul II Soul and Skream and Benga) stepped up with similarly energetic effects – and Channel One reigned supreme. This week, the whole thing moved up a notch or two. It was at Wembley, there were 7,000 people there including a swathe of 16-18s allowed by the lowering of the entrance age and the participants came from Radio One (Annie Mac’s AMP stage), from LA, with hitmaker to the stars Diplo aka Major Lazer, reigning champions Channel One and grime dons Boy Better Know. I hate to sound smug, but my money was on BBK right from the start because who knows better about battle styles than London’s grime MCs?

I’ll post some footage when it’s up.

BBK’s powerful, hilarious, no-holds-barred final round and eventual win says a lot about the healthy state of grime. Wiley is all over the charts and is packing out his Eskidance raves. Elijah and Skilliam’s Butterz empire has shifted instrumental grime into hyper-loaded jump-up rave territory but with brilliant tunes that nod to early grime instrumentals like Musical Mobb’s Pulse X and multiply them. JME’s ‘chatty policeman’ series on YouTube, where he films himself being (repeatedly) stopped and searched has many thousands of views. Grime is national, multi-ethnic and as open to ladies with the right flow as it is to the thousands of boys who step up their literacy by writing and practising bars every lunchtime. If the government wants to explain recent rises in literacy (according to NASUWT, not Michael Wilshaw) it might want to thank grime rather than the counterproductive literacy curriculum which gets results despite of rather than because of its impact.

So who’s for next time? There are some big names who have not yet entered the arena: David Rodigan; Jamaica’s multi-winning Stone Love team; the aforementioned Butterz; Lemon D and Dillinjah’s Valve Sound; a UK garage sound headed perhaps by revivalist DJ Oneman… this thing could run and run. And hopefully, it will.

189 days ago Short URL Comments

carnival/Dub Reggae/Dubstep/Education/Grime/Jungle/Music/Nightclubs/RBMA

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05

Oct

Jay-Z, Nas and the Illuminati

An argument broke out yesterday down at LIVE Magazine, the youth-run website, magazine and Youtube channel where I work as editorial mentor. It all started because someone said that they couldn’t even look at Rihanna because of her ‘illuminati ways’ and before we knew it a 45-minute debate broke out across the banks of Macs.

Jay-Z wears illuminati clothes. He knows what he’s doing. He’s controlling the youth – he’s a big man, how could he not know what he’s doing? The illuminati run everything. They run politics and banks. Everything is organised, nothing happens by chance, and devil-worshipping illuminati are controlling hip hop in order to control the youth. Frank Ocean denying its existence only makes him more guilty. The only exception, it seems, is Nas – and if I told you why I’d have to kill you.

This is a discussion that comes up at least once a month and it’s done so for pretty much the entire five years I’ve been involved with LIVE. It’s perennial and perennially depressing because conspiracy theories alienate young people from democracy. What’s the point in voting when the illuminati really run everything?

There’s also a shadow of anti-semitism that runs through all illuminati rumours. I was reminded of how wrong these things can go (as if you need any reminding, with Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria and a terrifying ramp of examples of ethnic massacres) by that lovely long-haired Scottish man who does TV history shows and looks like that bloke that used to be Robin Hood in the ‘90s. He talked about Viking incursions into Britain a thousand years ago – and how in retaliation, King Ethelred ordered the slaughter of all Danes living in the country. These were just normal people. Danes who’d been living in England for generations. They weren’t Vikings, they weren’t a threat, they weren’t running anything or trying to control the population. They were Danes… actually, they probably thought of themselves as English, with Danish forefathers, and they’d been brutally cut down whilst running away, with the sword marks visible on their bones and skulls a thousand years later. Hatred, and in the worst cases, death is what really waits at the logical conclusion of the illuminati idea.

The world is way too complex for over-arching conspiracy theories to be true, although that doesn’t negate the reality of powerful people manipulating crises, currency and communities for their own personal profit. That’s not a conspiracy – that’s abuse of power.

Conspiracy theories are widely circulated through Youtube films that review film, music and even the Olympic opening ceremony through an illuminati prism. This is no longer just the domain of people who spend their evenings stuffing their lungs full of high-grade skunk. Ten years ago, as my twitter friend Tramshed3000 pointed out, only Wu Tang fans and arcane book geeks were into conspiracies. So why now? Conspiracies are a comforting blanket when faced with real disempowerment, unemployment, widespread anti-youth messages in the media, racism and a serious lack of autonomy – no-one asking people what they want for their schools or their jobs or their lives. I’m with Bonnie Greer, who made a speech entitled ‘yet the young lead’: maybe then conspiracy theories would dissolve back to the edges rather than the bizarrely central position they currently occupy.

Now, honestly, can someone explain why Nas isn’t illuminati? And ‘because he doesn’t worship Satan’ doesn’t count…

226 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Live Magazine/Music/youth

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24

Sep

XL Recordings Documentary on BBCR1

The BBC are broadcasting a documentary about XL recordings tonight. It’s made by the extremely talented Becky Jacobs and is well worth a listen as Richard Russell’s label is one of the most influential we’ve ever had, right up there with Island, Factory and Rough Trade.

XL started out as a hardcore breakbeat label born out of the acid house explosion, releasing the music people started making when the Roland 303 acid bleeps faded out and breakbeats took over. They were there when Prodigy did their first gigs at rave chaos-pit Labyrnth and that signing bankrolled the label for the whole first phase of their life. Happily, and unlike other label heads, they chose to spend the money on more music rather than a big diamond watch and a Boxster.

There’s a million things you could say about XL: the way they shifted to bands in the early 2000s; the finely-tuned radar-ears that allowed them to sign Dizzee on the back of the I Luv U white label and allowed them to release Boy In Da Corner in all it’s pristinely raw-from-road honesty; the genius of re-releasing the first two White Stripes albums and getting Jack front and centre of their newly-expanded internationalist roster. And that’s only the half of it. All record labels go on about only releasing music they like but either a) some of them are lying or b) some of them like horrible music. XL have remained like that music loving person you know: slightly arrogant but pretty much right about everything, and hallelujah for that.

If you were to ask me which labels are doing the same thing now, I’d have one answer. The Rinse family of labels, events and radio. They’re connected to the roots of their culture in exactly the same way XL were, and to a pretty large degree, still are.

One way of ensuring that you stay relevant is to focus on the roots, not fruits of a culture, and XL are definitely in camp roots.

Info here.

237 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Music/Radio/Uncategorized

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16

Sep

Andrew Weatherall at Festival Number 6

I had the pleasure of hosting another conversation with Andrew Weatherall, this time at Festival Number 6. There was a sizeable crowd to see him, and there were laughs from the off – and some good heckling from a Glaswegian Love From Outer Space regular. Weatherall is always impressive and I could probably write reams and reams about why he’s so influential, but instead, I’d just like to leave you with a tiny nugget, right from the end of the session. We’d been talking about his BBC6Music radio shows, and specifically, the one where he played the music that made Screamadelica, a show that featured tunes from Can, ACR, Prince Far I and Isaac Hayes. What, I asked, might be on a show that explained the music that makes him right now? 

I’m paraphrasing but the answer is perfect, because it explains why he’s still as relevant now as he was when he and his pals started Boys Own back in the late ’80s. “I value authenticity over originality.” 

Or to put it another way, come as you are. 

 

 

You can see my interview with him at last year’s RBMA here.

245 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Music/Uncategorized

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16

Sep

Primal Scream, Port Meirion and Freedom of Speech

Primal Scream’s set at Festival Number 6 last night was unexpectedly impressive for a number of reasons: their epic showmanship, the way Bobby Gillespie makes the tambourine look completely rock n roll and the ten minutes of feedback, loops and retina-burning strobes at the end, for example.

The thing that really stood out for me, though, was about two tracks in. Bob was standing in the front of the stage, still skinny in black. “Clap your hands if you fucking hate the Royal Family” he said, banging the tambourine. And then he repeated it, a few minutes later.

Now I’m not saying I agree with him, because I’m towards agnostic when it comes to Mrs Windsor and family, but I admire his total and utter lack of self-censorship and it made me scan through my mental list of my favourite bands and DJs. Who else would say this in public? I came up with a sum total of zero. No-one.

And disagreeing with the monarchy’s only a minor thing really. But where are the people who are prepared to speak their minds? And how have we ended up in a situation where self-censorship is rife, even among our marginal music-makers?

I heard an interesting argument about this from Index On Censorship. “What’s more important,” they said. “My right to say what I want, or your right not to be offended?”

Basically, we need more people who are prepared to say what they think – and we all need to do a whole load of getting over ourselves. We’re adults in an adult democracy and we are allowed to have opinions even if other people will disagree. We some more Voltaire, who wrote ‘Monsieur l’abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write’.

So next time someone offends you – say thank you. It’s a reminder that we live, more or less, in a free society.

There were loads of other brilliant things about Festival Number 6, but you’ll have to wait for that. I’m off to bed.

245 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

Music

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28

Jul

Banned! Music and The Opening Ceremony

You knew that last night’s Olympic Opening Ceremony was going to be musically special when the first minute included Elgar, The Jam, the Eton Boating Song and Fuck Button’s ‘Surf Solar’, as the camera tracked from the source of the Thames down to the Olympic Park.

Fuck Buttons!

This is, by definition, the most mainstream event on the plant, and Fuck Buttons are there, right at the start as a wild and wonderful flag-waving celebration of what is real and wonderful about our world. Not built-by-numbers pop hits, but by a gorgeous, brutal piece of Andrew Weatherall-produced synth noise, a ‘Glider’ for this decade.

Underworld, who masterminded the soundtrack to the ceremony, subverted everything music is supposed to do at a showcase event like the Olympics. Instead of broadcasting pop hits that were built with profit in mind, or that smooth out the rough edges of life into a lowest common denominator average, they took the music not underground, because these were predominantly pieces of music we all know and love, but back to the margins, where all the most interesting things begin.

Along with the aforementioned Fuck Buttons, whose name is censored down to a more acceptable F Buttons on TV and radio, the show also included at least five pieces of music that were either banned at the time of release or that had a controversial relationship with the establishment. There was not just one Sex Pistols track, but two, starting with God Save The Queen and culminating with the pogoing punks with big heads going mental to Pretty Vacant, a song whose chorus is usually sung along to with particular focus on the last two syllables of the final word.

You can only imagine what David Cameron made of it. #savethesurprise? Ho ho, yes!

Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ was intended by ZTT label co-founder Paul Morely as ‘an assault on pop’, an overt recognition of the band’s keystone reference points of sex, war and religion. Let’s not forget that the original ads for the release featured images of Rutherford in a sailor cap and leather vest and were accompanied by the legend ‘All The Nice Boys Love Sea Men’. As well having all the requisite rub points for an AIDS-bombarded youth, it was an awesome piece of pop music that cost producer Trevor Horn a reported £70,000 of studio costs.

Then there’s Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’, the most commercial tip of an iceberg that started with hardcore and rave and their early shows at Dalston’s rave-mine Labyrynth and wheeled through jungle before ending up with the freak-faced hardcore pop of ‘Firestarter’. The video was banned by the BBC on the laughable basis that it might encourage arson.

I could go on, about the brilliant use of Underworld’s ‘Dark and Long’ (also used to soundtrack Renton’s worst hallucination in Trainspotting) or how grime was celebrated and showcased, or about how the athletes walked into the stadium to the sound of The Chemical Brother’s ‘Galvanise’ or about the twitter query that maybe, had the KLF organised the opening ceremony? (answer: there would have been a damn sight more blood and burning if they had) or just the whole, fantastic honesty of the thing. But instead, can I just say a heartfelt thank you to whoever let Danny Boyle and Underworld do whatever they wanted. It was an emotional, political, musical riot.

Just imagine, we could have had Gary Barlow in charge.

Fuck Buttons pic: mehan jayasuriya

295 days ago Short URL 10 Comments

Music

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30

May

Sound At The Science Museum

I went along to the Science Museum Lates night because it was exploring the science behind music. I was imagining exhibits about the power of sound waves, or perhaps some music, and maybe some machines. What I got instead was a metaphorical punch in the heart courtesy of a remarkable man called Professor Nigel Osbourne, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University. You can see a YouTube clip of him talking here and here.

The billing in the programme looked cool: ‘Music, Neuroscience and the Real World’ and I hustled Robbie and Petra from Live Magazine, who’d come down to cover it, down to the ground floor so we made sure we got in. We were led down to the basement and into a room with round primary-coloured cushions on the floor and a jolly looking chap standing at the front. He used the microphone to tell us he didn’t want to use the microphone, putting it one side with a comment about not wanting or needing a ‘digital advantage’ and began a fascinating, moving half an hour which we heard about children he’d worked with in war-torn Sarajevo, in northern Uganda, in the world’s most densely populated place, Balata camp in Palestine, and along a disputed border of Thailand and Myanmar.

He interspersed stories about these traumatised children with facts about how trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder have a physiological effect on breathing, heart-rate and movement – and how music can counter these negative effects. It can alter the heart-rate, and slow the over-charged heartbeat of a traumatised person. Singing exercises the lungs (you use 100% of the lung capacity when you’re singing, as compared to 60% when exercising hard) negating the shallow, irregular breathing of someone suffering from PTSD, and music can deal with the hyperactivity or lack of response that’s common in children suffering in this way. We’re hardwired for sound, he said, banging a cupboard. We respond to noise, react to it, get information from it. Music, he said, probably exists as a response to our need to move to sound.

The real choker was when he showed us some footage to reinforce what he’d been saying. In one clip we saw him singing songs to a primary school-age group of children with disabilities who usually spent most of the day beating each other up and thus spent the day in a specially padded room. One boy was sitting in the circle, just to the left of the Professor. He never vocalised, we were told and was sitting mute with a tambourine on his lap. But half way through the song he stood up, began banging the tambourine and started making sound; singing, really.

Music, he said, can’t heal anything, but it can assist in the process of healing: it can make healing possible. It can be an agent for social change. We know that… but it was wonderful to see some of the science behind it.

354 days ago Short URL Comments

Music/Science/Song/Uncategorized

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12

Feb

Oh, Whitney

Just last week I was talking to a colleague at Live Magazine, about how you feel when musicians die. I wasn’t expecting to be reflecting on this quite so soon.

It’s always sad when someone dies too young, but there’s something particularly poignant about the early death of a musician who mattered when you were a kid, when music doesn’t just soundtrack your life – it’s part of it. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like certain songs are corporeal. If you did the musical equivalent of a drug test on my blood you’d get blasted with the results; Leonard Cohen, Dillinjah, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Dennis Bovell and the new release from Portico Quartet and Terror Danjah would probably come flying out of the test tube. Or something.

Anyway, enough oddly-angled magical realism. I certainly wasn’t expecting to wake up to find that Whitney Houston had died. I feel really sad that such an incredible singer couldn’t find her way back out, and I’m sorry for her 18 year old daughter, too.

I didn’t know Whitney Houston, so my feelings about her death are musical. Even though records like How Will I Know and I Wanna Dance With Someone are brilliant ’80s pop records, and set the groundwork for the street-up R&B that followed in the ’90s, she never really made the records she could have done. She had an incredible voice, but where were the sideways soul songs she could have done? Where were the strange and beautiful musical explorations that her godmother Aretha Franklin managed alongside mainstream success? I always felt Whitney was sold something of a major label lie, and that musically she suffered for it, although I’m saying this as someone who knows all the words to Saving All My Love and still believes that the lyrics of The Greatest Love Of All are a work of true philosophical wisdom, because basically the greatest love of all really is learning to love yourself, oxygen masks on yourself first type thing.

But anyway, the one Whitney song that you felt was really her was It’s Not Right, But It’s OK in 1999 with Rodney Jerkins (when we featured him in THE FACE it was with the headline ‘This Time Next Year Rodders, We’ll Be Millionaires’). Here was Whitney, strong in her exit from a troubled relationship with a song that was redolent of been-around-the-block sass and strut. I just wanted more like that.

One last thing I’d like to thank Whitney for, apart from blessing us with that voice. My first act of journalism was to make a school newspaper which had a pop quiz in it, which included the question ‘What is Whitney Houston’s middle name?’. The answer: Elizabeth. And no, I didn’t just need to check that.

RIP Whitney Houston, gone too soon.

462 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Music

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