GZA The Genius

1995 was a whole 13 years ago whilst your narrator was only 12 years of age when GZA the Genius of the seminal New York hip-hop group Wu Tang Clan released his now legendary Liquid Swords on major label MCA. Many critics have claimed this chess, martial arts, Staten Island New York projects and Nation of Islam themed album as one of the best solo Wu-Tang albums alongside that of Raekwon The Chef’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… and Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale.

Luckily for Footurama, GZA will be performing this mid-90s rap classic in full at a concert at The Hague’s Paard van Troje on Thursday 20 November 2008. Stay tuned to read a full coverage from this excited writer!

Here's a clip to quench your thirst:

What we want? Soul Power! Soulnation Festival, Jakarta 18 October 2008

I recently cast my mind back to the previous decade of life in Jakarta by trying to remember who and where western artists were invited to play and entertain in Jakarta. Sure enough only a handful of artists spring to mind; Metallica at Lebak Bulus sometime in the 90s (ended with riots), Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys, Greenday & Mick Jagger at Istora Senayan to name a few were the handful of artists who played in the nation’s capital where tickets were as good as gold dust and attendance a mere dream. Let’s not even mention any alternative acts shall we (Sonic Youth withstanding)? A decade and the fall of Orde Baru later, the entertainment industry in the capital seems to have been turned on its head. A Deep Purple gig here, The Roots concert there, Megadeath belting out their metal tracks, The Bravery appearing at Ancol, Rihanna showing her Barbados backside later on in the year. Things have changed for the better.

The Jazz World has been slightly different with the Java Jazz and the Jak Jazz festivals a constant and regular occurrence in Jakarta boasting heavyweights of the genre down the years. Yet these festivals are mainly geared towards Jazz aficionados and any rock/soul festival has been conspicuously missing from the lists of events the capital can offer. Whilst no rock festival is yet to occur, the good people from Java Jazz have had the good sense to organise Jakarta’s first Soul/R&B/Hip-hop (I hate using this term, but call it black music if you like) festival on the 17th and 18th of October 2008. Footurama of course didn’t hesitate to attend this festival and bring you a comprehensive report on the latter day of this two day festival. Why the latter day only I hear you ask? Mainly because alternative acts like Blackalicious and Arrested Development were scheduled to appear on the 18th and as you know, our mission is to provide you, the reader, with alternative news and reviews.

The festival itself, being the first, was not without its faults. First of all, many of the prospected artists who were due to appear changed from week-to-week and in some cases from day-to-day. From boring bling-bling rappers like Souljaboy to big time MCs like Snoop Dogg to artists Footurama were dying to see such as DJ Premier appeared and later disappeared from the list of performers. Worse still, Arrested Development were scheduled to play on the 18th and disappeared from the list on the 11th hour leaving many fans rightly disappointed and highly confused. Secondly, the promotion of the festival perhaps could have been better with very few print and electronic advertisements used to promote the show. Relying on word-of-mouth would be much more beneficial once the festival has already been imprinted in the minds on Jakartans and not for the first occurrence. That said having a festival like this in itself was nothing short of revolutionary as Soul Music Festivals are not widely available in Europe, never mind South East Asian countries.

The festival was held at Istora Senayan with 3 outdoor major stages circling the main indoor grand stage (where the most popular/mainstream acts were held). Dotted around the area were also stalls for sponsors as well as copious amounts of food vendors/stalls which differ greatly from festivals held in the western hemisphere which tend to be dominated by alcohol selling stands. While this provided festival goers with their necessary food requirements, the multi orgy of stalls made most of the few people who attended spread out and not congregate in front of the stages. This made most of the performers play in front of a small crowd hardly exceeding 100 people for the small stages.

Surprisingly the act that attracted the most number of punters (outside of the main stage) was Jamie Aditya Graham, a local musician/ex-MTV VJ/travel channel host whose nu-soul band combined modern soul keyboard chops with a slightly more laid back jazzy sound of 90s acid jazz outfit Incognito. Add that with some political jabs/references and spontaneous humour by Jamie, it was a thoroughly enjoyable performance by this local act and gave a positive prospect of the nation’s non-pop musical landscape. After his show ended I ventured down to the main stage to try and get a glimpse of Arrested Development only to find out that R&B band Blackstreet were playing their radio friendly tracks instead to the enthusiastic crowd (the biggest I saw on a single stage throughout the festival) that filled the main stage. I was fortunate enough that Arrested Development didn’t get a chance to play as cameras were off limits from the main performing stage (which was confusing to say the least).

Amid all this confusion I visited the other smaller stage to find out that Dutch acts La Melodia & DJ KC The Funkaholic were performing who appeared courtesy of Kindred Spirits, an Amsterdam based record label/collective responsible for releasing Madlib & Ivan Conti’s 2008 album Sujinho. It was such a shame that they performed only in front of a very small yet partisan crowd hardly exceeding 50 spectators. This was a particular shame as their very hip-hop orientated performance displayed the art of sampling manipulation at its finest by the aforementioned DJ KC The Funkaholic (who recently released a John Coltrane tribute: the Love is Supreme EP on Kindred Spirits). I’m also compelled to give a special hats off to MC La Melodia and the band who kept up their performance despite the absence of an actual credible crowd.

Following these Amsterdam geezers were Blackalicious, one of the main reasons Footurama attended this festival. All of the main suspects attended the show with DJ Chief Xcel, MC Gift of Gab, two excellent backing vocalists and the quite frankly jaw-dropping Parisian keyboard player (all present in the 2006 Blackalicious DVD set: 4/20 Live in Seattle). Blackalicious mixed track after track from their 3 previous albums: Nia, Blazing Arrow and The Craft with clinical precision with The Gift of Gab adding the hip-hop standard call and response routines. The short yet intricate instrumental session between Chief Xcel and the Parisian keyboard player was the highlight of the performance even if it only lasted for about 2 minutes. Sadly this posse wrapped up their performance after 45 minutes or so out of the scheduled 1 hr 15 minute slot which was perhaps not completely surprising as performing in front of a crowd totalling less than 100 (the rest were busy ogling Ashanti at the main stage) was bound to be uninspiring to a certain degree. After the band failed to heed the encore calls, the crowd left shortly afterwards and so did yours truly to cap off the evening.

Yes there were promotional problems, yes most of the acts played to a small crowd yet it was truly heartening to see such a festival showcasing both commercial and alternative Soul/R&B/Hip-hop acts held in Jakarta. Better still Soulnation is planned as an annual event which should only get better and better in the coming years.

For further information on Soulnation 2008, please click here

Pictures to follow!

Say shit, Goddamn, get off your ass and jam!

As previously discussed on these pages, 30 years ago George Clinton and his posse created arguably one of the most far-out R&B albums to date, 1978’s One Nation Under a Groove. Not only did he release that bombshell, G Clinton was also responsible for his personal crazy rainbow coloured dreadlocks, guilty of creating a band/funk circus which consistently produced fantastic drug fuelled concept albums, helped create the sound of gangsta rap (G-funk), wore wacky and truly brilliant stage costumes as well as employing virtuoso, prodigal and insane live musicians. For me this was definitely one of those stages where I regret not being born 30 years previously for me to be able to see Clinton and his funkateers in the flesh.

Now I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to see all of his theatrics live since his beloved P-Funk (Parliament-Funkadelic, Plainfield-Funk, Psychedelic-Funk, depending on who you hear and what you read) was disbanded sometime in the 80s and although Clinton himself has been working on solo albums ever since P-Funk folded, I never expected to see another live outing by arguably THE most explosive black rock/soul/funk band ever to have graced stage and record. Furthermore, reunions are not always a good thing either: the hullabaloo around Led Zeppelin’s reunion was probably bigger and more news-worthy than the actual reunion gig itself and this was my concern when learning that I had managed to get myself tickets for this P-Funk show. 30 Euros (Rp. 400.000) was quite a sum to splash out too but luckily for me and for the majority of punters at the Paradiso that night, the P-Funk lineup was probably at its best since the mid to late 70s. OK, Eddie ‘Bootsy’ Collins wasn't there, neither was Bernie Worrell, nor Billy “Bass” Nelson, nor the deceased Eddie Hazel but a show they did still put on.

I can try and describe the gig in a couple of pages but perhaps it's best to illustrate that the show in its entirety was like pressing ‘play’ and ‘auto mix’ of your entire P-Funk collection and seen it done in front of you live…in medley! From the mid-to-late 1960s Parliament tracks, early 70s Funkadelic’s hazy psychedelic rock, mid-to-late 70s Parliament fuzzy funk were all tightly preformed with George Clinton holding the 15-piece orgy together in a tight knit group. He may have arrived an hour late into the set but the band kept the crowd highly entertained up till that point with Garry ‘Starchild’ Shider (Rhytm guitar, dude with the diaper), DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight (Guitars, general band director), Michael ‘Kidd Funkadelic’ Hampton (Lead guitar, successor to Hazel) forming the backbone of the rest of the group to groove to. The crowd went ballistic by the time Clinton entered the stage, where most of the Parliament-Funkadelic classics such as 1971’s Maggot Brain was belted out (yes, a full brain bending 20 minute version of it). Singles and album tracks like Flash Light (1977 - Funkentelechy Vs The Placebo Syndrome), Star Child (1975 – The Mothership Connection), Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow (1970 - Free Your Mind…And Your Ass Will Follow) and Atomic Dog (1981 – Computer Games) to name but a few were cut, mashed, and jammed into one song and another for hours on end. Every time the crowd anticipates an ending to their set, they’re proven wrong.

In true P-Funk style the band called it a night after 3 ½ hours of jamming, singing and rapping (endurance concerts were one of their traits back in their heyday). If you came expecting a full-blown P-Funk gig, you won’t be disappointed. If you came having no expectations at all, you will still have left Paradiso blown away (either by the length of the gig, the virtuosity of the players or both). I certainly said shit, Goddamn and I got off my ass and jammed!

All photos by Erick Wicaksono & Ffonz

Here are a few clips to see Geroge Clinton's P-Funk in their 70s heyday:

And say children, what does it all mean?

Way back in ’83 two geeky white boys namely Douglas Di Franco and Steve Stein (Double Dee & Steinski) both entered Tommy Boy Records’ contest for an original remix of tracks they later christened Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix. Their entry won the competition hands down and has ever since become a hip-hop classic. The duo added two extra mixes namely Lesson 2 - The James Brown Remix and Lesson 3 - The History of Hip-Hop in 1984 and 1985 respectively and the 3 ‘Lessons’ have been bootlegged, referenced, sampled and paid homage to by producers and DJs ranging from DJ Shadow, Prince Paul (De La Soul) and Cut Chemist (Jurassic 5) to name but a few.

With the 25th anniversary of Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix looming large, Nate Patrin of Pitchfork Media conducted an interview with the maestro himself, Steinski. Click here to read the full interview.

And speaking of the 3 remixes:
1. Lesson 1 - The Payoff Remix

2. Lesson 2 - The James Brown Remix

3. Lesson 3 - The History of Hip-Hop

These are the breaks! - Kurtis Blow in Stereo

Kurtis Blow

Released: 1980

Mercury Records

What is the first rap record you’ve heard? If you’re in your mid-20s and spent most of your life in Jakarta then Snoop Doggy Dogg, Biggie, bor the forgotten (quite rightly) Coolio were most likely to feature on your list. Yet for the wider world and New York City in particular, the first full-scale Bronx approved rap record was 1980’s Kurtis Blow. Sure, Sugar Hill Gang’s 1979 radio hit Rappers’ Delight was the first universally accepted rap record to successfully make a crossover appeal yet ‘The Breaks’ put hip-hop on the map as well as coining the term ‘break’ for the first-time.



With hip-hop culture and rap music spreading around the American East Coast as well as slowly reaching other parts of the world in early 1980, a popular jive talkin’ rapper by the name of Kurtis Blow who already made a name for himself as a break-dancer and DJ in his native Harlem and Queens picked up the mic and made the transition to MC and in an even more important timeframe for this fledgling music genre, Kurtis Blow caught the ears of Mercury records and soon signed up to release his signature record and single on this label: The Breaks.

The Breaks contain all the elements in this new culture which still rings true to when you think of rap music. Although The Breaks rely on live musical instruments as opposed to loops from a turntable, the track features deft rhymes with various homophones of the word ‘break’ (“If your woman steps out with another man/("That's the breaks that's the breaks)/And she runs off with him to Japan/And the IRS says they want to chat/And you can't explain why you claimed your cat/And Ma Bell sends you a whopping bill/With eighteen phone calls to Brazil/And you borrowed money from the mob/And yesterday you lost your job/Well, these are the breaks/Break it up, break it up, break it up”),an insanely funky rhythm guitar going on in the background as well as a few extended drum beats (the hip-hop term of the word ‘break’) in the middle of the record for the break-dancers to go crazy to. This single track became a staple for other hip-hop DJs to sample for many years to come as well as it being used and referenced in other areas of popular culture (featured on the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City OST to name but one).

The album itself is also a classic in the genre with the tracks using mostly the same formula as The Breaks with delightful variations to each track. In fact the first five tracks of the original LP (and the last 2 from the CD) are all personal favourites of mine and not even the major-label-induced two weak tracks of the album ‘All I Want in This World (Is to Find That Girl)’ or the rock-induced ‘Takin’ Care of Business’ take much off Kurtis Blow (the album) from being a classic and elevating Blow himself to the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash as the first pioneers of hip-hop.

I know he got soul – Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

Photos: Charles Nicholas/EPA

I’m a complete sucker for record labels (read: independent labels). They intrigue me: how it's run, how they stay afloat and especially how they create their own distinctive sound. Now how has the death of Isaac Hayes have anything to do with record labels I hear you ask? Simple really, one of those legendary labels under the genre of Soul is Stax Records based in Memphis Tennessee where Hayes played a huge role in the development of the label, especially in creating the legendary Stax sound.



Isaac Hayes passed away on August 10th 2008 in his Memphis home after more than 40 years in ‘The Biz’. Having been a talented child musician, Hayes joined Stax Records as a session musician and staff songwriter backing up and writing for luminaries such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and of course Booker T & the M.G’s to name but three. This lead to bigger and better things, namely a solo career which made Hayes the soul icon the he was best known for. His first 5 full record releases under Stax helped redefine his and Stax’s Memphis 1970s soul sound: the soulful Barry White-esque, long jazzy breakdowns of the 4-track Hot Buttered Soul (’69), The Isaac Hayes Movement (’70) …To be Continued (’70), the wah-wah backed funk of Shaft (’71) as well as the ever super hard to find Black Moses (’71). If James Brown single handedly created funk and hard funk in particular with his choppy guitars, rock steady beats and incessant screaming & shouting, Isaac Hayes was the Godfather of polished funk as his tracks were long winded sexy affairs with a slower fuzzed out sound accompanied by his slow crooning vocals.


Photos: Ronald Grant Archive

The decline and bankruptcy of Stax in the mid-70s spelled the end of Hayes’ first period of stardom. This was followed by the creation of his own record label ‘Hot Buttered Soul Records’ (under ABC Records), Scientology, film appearances (Escape from New York, Miami Vice, Flipper, Dr. DooLittle 2, etc.) and his most recent persona as Chef in the cartoon series ‘South Park’. In a strange twist of fate Isaac Hayes also appeared in a 2008 film, Soul Men, alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac who passed away a day before Hayes. So here’s goodbye to Isaac, a legendary songwriter, performer, actor and voice of a cartoon character. Isaac Hayes certainly had plenty of SOUL!

In the meantime…crate digging in Praha

Now there are many things a beautiful Central European city like Prague can offer; 13th century bridges, grandiose castles, renaissance style streets, medieval markets, the list goes on really. Yet if its music records that you’re after, the city doesn’t disappoint either. Yours truly took time out to venture to 5 nicely varied record shops in Prague city centre to try and serve as a small guide for anyone foolhardy enough to take a break from sightseeing, beer drinking and absinthe sampling to search for Vinyl (and Compact Disk) joints instead.

Music Antiquariant – Národni 25, Prague 1

Placed in front of a huge graffiti daubed wall close to the National Theater, this place struck me as the main HMV/Aquarius store for LPs and second hand CDs in Prague. The Vinyl section is divided mostly under rock/pop and the other genres namely jazz, classical, reggae, punk, metal, Czech pop/rock and the amusingly tiny section labeled Black Music are scattered throughout the fringes of the store. Prices are modestly priced ranging from 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) to 400 Cz (€16/Rp. 230.000) which doesn’t include the discount area LPs and CDs which go from around €1/Rp. 14.000 each.







Disco Duck - Karlova 12, Prague 1

This is my favourite store in town just a stone’s throw away from the aforementioned 13th century bridge (Charles Bridge) with an impressive collection of alternative records comprising mostly of hip-hop, reggae, soul, nu-wave, rock, punk, techno, garage, break beats, and a cool selection of t-shirts and vinyl bags as addition. The collection is by no means complete but the records they do have are interesting and you could be surprised at some of the records they do have lying around. I bagged myself a 1982 Sugar Hill Gang 12” as if to prove the point.

The downside with any seemingly interesting small record shop are the prices which in Disco Duck’s case doesn’t drop much below 300 Cz (€13/Rp. 185.000) for a 12” single and 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000) for a full length LP.







Maximum Underground - Jilská 22, Prague 1

The name describes this store pretty well. It’s by no means a straight forward record store as it sells anything required by the underground youth culture of Prague ranging from clothing, footwear, body accessories, and of course CDs and LPs. The music section of the store is also mostly attributed to the hard techno, drum & bass, punk, grime, dancehall, house, garage, metal, gothic sounds and beats.









Bbarák Hip-Hop Shop - Vodičkova 41, Prague 1

Situated in a Blok M style mini-mall, this place does exactly what is says on the tin; it sells clothes, caps and other hip-hop paraphernalia which of course includes rap, crunk, Czech & Slovakian rap, trip-hop, reggae/dancehall, and break beat 12” singles and full length LPs. The LP section might only comprise of 7/8th of the entire store but as it’s quite genre specific the selection provided yielded surprises with quite a few 12” singles from rap classics like Wu-Tang’s Protect Ya Neck, Jeru The Damaja’s D’Original to name but two. Prices are also reasonable ranging from 150 Cz (€6/Rp. 84.000) to 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000).







Black Point Music - Zlatnická 6, Prague 1

This small and cozy little record store with a friendly shop keeper is located on a small street in the tourist free area of Prague whose selection of LPs and CDs mostly comprise of good alternative rock/folk, blues and jazz. It also features an eerie yet surprisingly welcoming poster of Tom Waits on the window and his music is heavily represented in the vinyl section of this store. Black Point is also official distributor of Fat Possum Records, a Mississippi based blues rock revivalist record label with artists like The Black Keys and Solomon Burke in full supply in this particular store. It also has a cool selection of jazz LPs with my fantastically priced 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) full length 12” of human drum machine jazz legend Billy Cobham’s Supraphon (‘74) purchased here.

Spaced out there

Out There

Released: September 2007

Now-Again

http://www.stonesthrow.com/nowagain/


The Heliocentrics - Sirius B


It’s about time I sat down and start writing about one of the wildest albums I’ve heard in the last few years instead of just listening to it over and over again and keeping it from the rest of civilisation. Whilst Battles’ Mirrored woke me up to 2007 math rock, The Heliocentrics’

2007 record Out There sent me to hyperspace without really knowing what genre of music I’m listening to.

Even through The Helios are signed to Stones Throw’s subsidiary funk label Now-Again, to call this album just plain funk would be like calling Miles Davis just a Jazz trumpeter. This instrumental album starts off with a voice sample of a stewardess introducing the listeners to the journey they’re about to take into a world far away. This world has an orgy of sounds and influences: Free jazz-check, fuzzed out funk-check, middle-eastern influences-check, African percussions-check, flower-power psychadelia-check, Javanese Gamelan-check (?!?) the list goes on and on. Malcom Catto - the drummer (Dj Shadow’s drummer amongst others) is noticeably the de facto leader of the group as his drums dominate the album without even playing one bore fest of a drum solo. The steady and highly funky beats he sets up are complemented perfectly by Jake Ferguson-bass & Thai guitar, Mike Burnham- modular synth & effects, Jack Yglesias- flutes, percussion & santur, Adrian Owusu- guitars, oud & percussion, James Arben- clarinet, tenor & baritone sax, Ray Careless- alto, tenor & baritone sax, Max Weissenfeldt- vibes & percussion as well as Khadijatou Silcott-Fraser- vocals (very occasionally).

Staying true to the Stones Throw tradition, The Helios are superb musicians producing superb pieces of work with almost no publicity. A quick Wikipedia search on ‘The Heliocentrics’ will give you 0 results. It’s a sad state of affairs so if a spaced out-jazzfunkrockpsychadelia happens to be your thing, go beg, steal, threat…anything really to get this album.

Side A:

1. Intro

2. Distant Star

3. Flight 583

4. Once Upon a Time

5. Beyond Repair

6. Sirius B7. Untitled

Side B:

8. They Are Among Us - Part 1

9. The Zero Hour

10. Joyride

11. The American Empire

Side C:

12. Before I Die

13. Intermission

14. Age of the Sun

15. They Are Among Us - Part 2

16. Winter Song

17. A World of Masks

Side D:

18. Sounds of the East

19. Somewhere Out There

20. Second Chance (K2’s Prayer)

21. Return Journey

22. Sirius A

23. Falling to Earth

24. Outro

Yèkatit - Mulatu & The Heliocentrics LIVE
by granjeros

Gettin’ down just for the funk of it!

One Nation Under a Groove

Released: September 23 1978

Warner Brothers

1978 was quite a wild year for popular music with disco, reggae, punk, new wave, rock and jazz-fusion dominating the radio waves. Abba’s ‘The Album’, Talking Head’s ‘Fear of Music’ and The Clash’s ‘ ‘Give ‘em enough rope’ amongst others were the chart toppers at the time who all reshaped the music scene for the next decade at least. The R&B world in the US was also going through a change where the sounds of funk and poetry of The Last Poets amongst others would later on form hip-hop. No-one really outside James Brown can be mentioned synonymously with funk except for George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic (P-Funk) and in ‘78 they released a bomb shell.

The P-Funk name had already existed for more than a decade before the release of One Nation Under a Groove where they pretty much re-wrote the rules of Rhythm & Blues by not only incorporating modern (late 60s – mid 70s) rock into their sound but also using blunted out and synthesized bass lines instead of drums and the wah-wah to create their rocky-funky sound. By the late seventies, George Clinton and his band, although by no means mainstream, were considered bedrock in African-American culture and music. In ’78 they released arguably their best album: One Nation Under a Groove which in short encapsulates all of their previous albums both as Parliament as well as Funkadelic.

Thirty years has passed since the release of ‘One nation…’ and George Clinton still plays a strong part in modern Afro-American music with his presence on rap albums (Blackalicious, Snoop Doggy Dog, Wu-Tang) and has truly put music fans under his groove. Why his name is not as a house-hold name as James Brown, Isaac Hayes and Quincy Jones I do not know.

Main LP:
"One nation under a groove" – 7:29
"Groovallegiance"– 7:00
"Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!" – 6:18
"Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo-Doo Chasers)"– 10:45
"Into you" – 5:41
"Cholly (Funk Getting Ready To Roll!)"– 4:27


Bonus EP:
" Lunchmeatophobia (Think!...It Ain't Illegal Yet!)" – 4:12
"P.E. Squad/DooDoo Chasers ('Going All-The-Way Off' Instrumental)"– 4:18
"Maggot Brain" – 8:28

Amerykahn Soul

New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)

Released: February 26 2008

Universal Motown

Thank God for Erykah Badu in the age of The Pussycat Dolls we live in now. Her third studio album New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) gives that hope back of the old-school soul diva managing to mix all sorts of afro-centric genres to create something to give you goose bumps. If you’re looking for 40 years of Afro-American culture rolled up nicely in 1 joint then you’ll be ecstatic with this album released late February 2008. P-Funk, break-beats, hip-hop, soul, nu-soul, old-skool R&B, weird yet deeply psychedelic chanting voices and samples of political orations to name just a few, is just as varied as the topics she deals with: anti-Iraq (Soldier), self confession (Me), philosophy (Master Teacher), hip-hop (The Healer), loss of a friend (Telephone), decline of society (Twinkle) and of course drugs (The Cell).

Side A:

"Amerykahn Promise" (E. Badu, W. Allen) – 4:16
"The Healer" (E. Badu, Madlib) – 3:59
"Me" (E. Badu, S. Husayn) – 5:36
"My People" (E. Badu, Madlib– 3:25

Side B:

"Soldier" (E. Badu, K. Riggins) – 5:04
"The Cell" (E. Badu, S. Husayn) – 4:21
"Twinkle" (E. Badu, S. Husayn, Sa-Ra) – 6:57

Side C:

"Master Teacher" (E. Badu, G.A. Muldrow, S. Husayn) – 6:48
"That Hump" (E. Badu, O. Keith) – 5:25

Side D:
"Telephone" (E. Badu, Questlove , J. Poyster) – 7:48
"Honey" (E. Badu, 9th Wonder) – 5:21

The Electric Reporter: Joe Zawinul (1932-2007)

A year has almost passed since the passing of one of Jazz’s great underrated innovators, Joe Zawinul in September 2007. Sadly I’ve only managed to read a single obituary on the man since his death so here’s my two penny’s worth of thoughts on the brains and main innovator behind Weather Report.

The Austrian might not sport a household name as a Jazz artist unlike his fellow contemporaries Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea yet besides Davis, there are few as innovative in bringing new sounds to this old genre and adding a certain crossover appeal to mainstream listeners. Having being educated in music from an early age, Zawinul quickly left his hometown Vienna to follow his love of Jazz to the US. It was in the US that he started to attract attention from the Jazz aficionados, amongst other was saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and swiftly earned Zawinul a spot on Miles Davis’ legendary Bitches Brew sessions along with future Weather Report collaborator Wayne Shorter.

To you cats who are familiar with Bitches Brew, you would probably have seen Zawinul’s Weather Report sound shaping up. Yet with WR he and Shorter added electronic sounds and synthesizers to their classical Jazz repertoire which was quite unheard of at the time and quite despised of by Jazz purists around. Yet Weather Report continued to shape and reshape the sounds of Jazz with a handful of superb albums notably Weather Report (’70), I Sing the Body Electric (‘72) and the two Jaco Pastorius featured albums Black Market (‘76) and Heavy Weather (‘77).

R.I.P Joe, a revolutionary musician who passed away before his time, much like the appreciation of his music.

It did take a nation of millions!

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

Released: 28 June 1988

Def Jam

Now yours truly wasn't stuck to his boombox in 1988, but 20 years ago Public Enemy came up and shook us up with It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. It might be kinda hard to imagine a mainstream rap group releasing anything remotely conscious or political AND got heard by the common man in The Bronx, Camden or even Menteng but these cats did with a bang.

Rap groups like this don't exist no more: Chuck D was the voice, Flava Flav the annoying hype man and Terminator X speaks with his hands with the unruly Bomb Squad handling the production. Bring The Noise, Don’t Believe the Hype, Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, Louder Than a Bomb and Rebel Without a Pause were outrageously fresh as they were influential. With hip-hop starting to polarise with the rise of NWA influenced G-funk it was one of the final ‘Golden Age’ records to address social issues without advising everyone to shoot everyone else they thought was at fault.

‘It Takes A Nation’ was loud, street smart, a thorn in the establishment, and sounded like a riot of beats and melody all in one record. Sadly for us it took another nation of millions to stop caring about social and political issues in rap thus buying much less of these records to push conscious rap mainly underground.