BY ROSE PARFITT

A world-class jazz musician producing groundbreaking dance-floor records; a national hero in New Zealand completely at home in West London’s broken soul scene; a sharp-suited Kiwi in a world of T-shirted British studio dwellers. Maybe talent is born of contradiction, who knows? The conclusion is that Nathan Haines is exceptional, in all senses of the word.

Son of the bassist Kevin Haines, Nathan has been playing jazz literally from the cradle; he and his brother Joel were learning music and imbibing jazz before they got anywhere near primary school. By the time Nathan formed his first band – the Jazz Committee – at 18, he had New Zealand’s thriving underground jazz scene in the palm of his hand. For almost two years, Freebass and The Enforcers (his next two bands) packed out Auckland’s Cause Celebre every single weekend, and did not escape the ever-beady ear of Talkin’ Loud’s Gilles Peterson who snapped them up after catching a show. The forthcoming record deal with Huh! led to Haines’s first album, “Shift Left”, which became the biggest-selling jazz album ever to come out of New Zealand. Precocious as ever, he managed to bag New Zealand’s Young Achievers Award normally reserved for mainstream classical music or sports, and moved to New York to study with two giants of jazz – Blue Note’s Joe Lovano and George Coleman, Miles Davies’s saxophonist.

In New Zealand, Nathan Haines is known first as a jazz prodigy. But elsewhere, ever since the “Earth is the Place” broke on the dance scene, becoming an anthem in clubs from London’s Co-Op to New York’s Body & Soul where new sounds are made and strangleholds broken, he is better known as the pioneer of a jazz-dance hybrid never seen nor heard before. His determination stretch the concept of fusion to its limit stemmed first from jamming with NYC jazz-dance group, Groove Collective, and when he moved to London in 1996 the path was set. The next few years found him releasing singles on Goldie’s label Metalheadz (under the pseudonym Sci-Clone) with the drum’n’bass producer A-Side, and jamming over DJ sets from Roy the Roach and Paul “Trouble” Anderson. He set up the long-running night “Beshma” at West London’s Notting Hill Arts Club. DJ sets fused with live music from producers like Phil Asher, Patrick Forge and 4Hero and musicians including Billy Cobham, Daniel Crosby and Simon Colam, creating an electricity that has since influenced many of the participants’ future projects.

Meeting Phil Asher – granddaddy and talent nurturer of the broken beat and nu soul scene – was the big turning point. Haines guested on many of his remixes and productions and then in 2001 the two produced “Soundtravels”, the first Nathan Haines album to be released on Dr Bob Jones’s Chillifunk Records. “Earth is the Place”, subsequently remixed by Jon Cutler, was the big smash, but “Long” and “Believe” – remixed by 4Hero and MAW’s Kenny Dope respectively – caused a sensation in clubland on both sides of the Atlantic. International jazz festivals lapped him up, including the Drum Rhythm and North Sea Jazz Festivals in Holland the Nu Jazz Festival in St Petersburg, Russia and the Blue Note in Tokyo – and the rest is history.

Nathan Haines releases “Squire for Hire” on 8 September, his second Chillifunk album. Like “Soundtravels”, it is produced by Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and features Da Lata’s Chris Franck – two men whose responsibility for the explosion of jazz and Latin influenced dance music in Britain is indisputable. It also features collaborations with many of the most exciting artists sheltering under the broken beat umbrella. These include Lyric L (voice of the Bugz in the ttic anthem “Loose Lips”) on the track “Doot Dude”, the next track to be released as a single; Bugz’s Kaidi Tatham (whose debut album, “Agent K” has just been picked up for US release by Giant Step); and fellow New Zealander Mark de Clive Lowe, who plays keys on “O Misterio”. But the album also has more than a few suprises in the bag: Marlena Shaw for one, who gives the title track the full “Woman of the Ghetto” treatment, while Damon Albarn (the mysterious D2) makes an unexpected appearance – not least by providing the vocals on a cover of Steely Dan’s “FM”. Listen out also for some tough spoken word from the Philly-born jazz poet, Rich Medina.

For some, Nathan’s fixation with the dancefloor is a waste of his talents as a jazz musician. For Richard Betts, for example, of NZOOM.com, listening to “Squire For Hire” is “like going to see Kiri Te Kanawa perform a Mozart opera, only to find she’s been stuck somewhere in the back row of the choir.”
This is pleading for a “real” jazz is something of a vexed issue for Nathan. “It’s all jazz to me,” he says, firmly. Mundovibes asked for some elaboration…

So the album’s already out in New Zealand?
Yeah, it’s gone really well. But New Zealand’s where I’m from and I’ve been putting out records there for 10 years, so it’s a little bit different than England.

In the New Zealand press it’s like you’re a national hero. But I found a lot of people are desperate for you to make a straight-ahead jazz album.
I want to do that, yes.

Are you still playing a lot of jazz?
Well yeah, of course – it’s all jazz to me. I mean, jazz isn’t a popular music, you don’t hear it in clubs. So I moved here from New York I got into club culture, and going out and that’s sort of taken me to where I am now, but I’m a jazz musician at heart, my father’s a jazz musician, I love playing jazz – but it doesn’t really matter to me in what setting or style, it’s all jazz but I do really want to do more of straight-ahead album. The album I’ve just made, there’s jazz elements in there in every track, very much so – obviously the one I’m singing on, “Oblivion”. Eventually I’d like to do a jazz album. I’m not saying that my album isn’t a jazz album but, you know I’ve got lots of albums to make so I think my next project is going to be more of a straight ahead album, just to sort of get it out of my system. People can say what they like but I haven’t got where I have now by just putting out records with long sax solos on them. It doesn’t work like that, you know? People aren’t interested in hearing that. I mean some people are, obviously, and that’s something I’ll address in my next album. But just for these last albums I’m making music for the dance floor. Not on a classical thing, not for jazz, for the dancefloor, so people who buy dance records…

And so are you pleased with the album?
Oh of course yeah, I mean it was a year in the making and there was a lot of work in there. Every single note on there I’ve had a hand in, you know, absolutely everything, every single instrument and note and sound – there’s nothing left to chance. And we’ve also got some amazing people involved. The best thing about albums is making them, and them you finish them and go onto the next one.

With these collaborations with people like Marlena Shaw and Damon Albarn, how did it happen – did you know them already or did you think about it and think right, that’s the person I need?
I’ve been working with Marlena for the last couple of years playing in her band. It’s really important for me to hold onto that side of my musicianship, working for great singers like that – it’s very different from club culture. It’s a different discipline, but it’s something I really enjoy and I’ve learned a lot from. I was doing a week with her at the Jazz CafÈ last year and I said to her would you like to do something on the album. And she’d heard the last one and she said, sure. I’d like to do some more tracks with her.

The album as a whole seems include fewer dance tracks and have more of a rare-groove sound to it than the last one…
I guess calling it something isn’t really my job. But, you know, anyone can check my credentials, I’m a jazz musician and people can say this or that, stylistically. But, I don’t get gigs like playing with Marlena Shaw by not being a jazz musician. When you’re playing with Marlena there’s nowhere to hide; you have to know what you’re doing. When I play jazz gigs – it’s pretty easy to fake it in this world today, in this world of pop stars and all that sort of thing – but with jazz music if you don’t know the chords and the changes…even people in the audience might not know but you’re going to know and the other people in the band are going to know and other musicians are going to know. And they’re going to be like, that’s bullshit. The first time I played with Marlena I hadn’t really learned the material and she sort of really took me aside, well not took my aside but she was like – learn your shit, you have to learn these songs. So I went home and learned them all again and it was cool. So it’s very, it’s a different school of thinking, it’s a different thing. And then, you know, after you’ve learned them [modes, scales, jazz theory etc] you have to just let it go and go with your feelings. And that’s why it’s great working with Phil [Asher] because if it was up to me I’d just be making jazz records but with Phil he really stretched my mind and made me stop thinking about those things. I mean, sometimes these things can really be a barrier between you and the audience. So working with Phil has really brought that home to me. Just forget about all that, all those ideas, and just really get into music and – just simple sometimes is better, it really is. We wrote a lot of demos together at Phil’s house, Phil would be on the drum machine and I’d be on the keyboards and that’s how most of the songs came about. Very simple, and I’m not the best piano player but we’d bash out an idea and once we’d got the original idea we had to sort of preserve that idea and make sure it didn’t get too complicated especially with big recording studios and lots of strings and horns. We had to try and keep it how we originally envisaged it as a demo and not get too carried away. So the thing that took time on the album. It’s different doing an album when you’re all in the studio together as a band and just bash out a whole album in two days. I’d love to do that again.

With all these groups and individuals producing music in and around West London – Bugz in the Attic, Phil Asher, Patrick Forge, all of them – it’s like everybody’s collaborating on with everybody else; one big collective, basically.
Yeah it is; it’s an incredible collective. I mean, I’m from New Zealand but I’ve been lucky that people have supported me and allowed me to work with them and come into their scene. I mean people like Chris Franck [Da Lata, Smoke City] I mean he’s really respected as a musician, he’s just incredible. And then Kaidi Tatham [Bugz in the Attic, the Herbalizer]. We all support each other and its rough out there for us; none of us is selling loads of records. But it’s my life’s work; I’m absolutely determined to sell records, that’s what I’m here for. So it’s going to take many paths throughout my life. But for this time, yeah it’s a really encouraging environment to be in and there’s a lot of challenges out there, we’re all just helping each other really, but it is quite rough.

Yeah, it must be a bit disheartening. But it does seem to be taking off a bit…
Hmmm, I don’t know about taking off, I don’t know about that. Because I think the music that we’re into, not everyone’s going to be into it at the end of the day because you’re dealing with music that’s got a lot of emotion in it and a lot people can’t handle a lot of emotion. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s only a certain type of person, so it’s never going to be popular. We’re not writing three-minute pop songs with videos – none of us are doing videos because the records aren’t selling enough. That would be all that it would take would be for one of us to do a wicked song with a video.

“Earth Is The Place” was massive though, or maybe only in a certain type of club …
Yeah, it was…well I don’t know about massive but it worked in clubland but that didn’t really change into sales. Not really. But I think the good thing about that tune for me and for Phil was it just sort of got my name out they’re internationally.

To go back to the beginning, you were playing jazz from day one?
Yeah, well I just grew up playing with my dad [Kevin Haines] but my dad started teaching me when I was four. I was classically trained [on the flute] until I was about 14, and then started playing the saxophone. But already by then I’d learned a lot of sort of Charlie Parker stuff and sort of learned the rudiments of jazz and most importantly just the development of an appreciation of music, like I really loved it – it wasn’t like I didn’t like it, I really, really, really loved it. I formed a band with some friends when I was 15, and basically from the age of 15 I’ve been playing every weekend of my life.

And you moved to New York at 19 to study with George Coleman and Joe Lovano?
Yeah, they were both really good teachers and taught me a lot. But mainly it was just being in New York that taught me the most. Just about life, you know. Because the thing about jazz is you can learn it when you’re young, but you can’t really play it, you know, like what can you really play when you’re 14 years old? It’s such a complex music and it’s about lost loves and all these things that you don’t know about when you’re young. So basically I’ve just been learning about life. You don’t have to go through all this training and stuff, it doesn’t really mean anything – that’s the path I took, but you either move an audience or you don’t. It’s very simple.

How come you decided to come over to the UK?
I had a friend and her boyfriend was [DJ] Roy the Roach. He saw me playing with my dad in New Zealand and say you know, you should come over. So he arranged for me to come over and I did some gigs with him and he took me to the Loft to see Paul “Trouble” Anderson and all this sort of thing, and I hadn’t seen anything like it before. It was amazing – and I thought there must be some way that I can combine jazz with the club scene.

So you were doing soloing over their sets, and collaborating with Metalheads…
Yeah, that was quite an exciting time actually being involved with them, going to gigs and seeing what’s happening. They became massive because it was like a fashion at the time, and I think everyone’s always looking for the new sound. And when drum’n’bass came along it just sounded very new. And it was new, there was nothing new about the actual music but there was something new about the sound of it, there was new sounds going on and people hadn’t actually heard anything like that before. I mean it just sounded like be-bop for me, because you know it was fast. I wanted to hear some more chord changes and stuff but the music was quite – it wasn’t jazz based because there were no jazz musicians but it was just an exciting and happening thing, and I got involved but it didn’t really end up being what I was looking for and then things changed, egos were involved, you know. But it was an interesting time and I’m still friends with Goldie now, I still work with A-Side.

In New Zealand is there a really strong jazz scene?
I mean, yeah, there’s all sorts – there’s only four million people there so things get blown out of proportion. But I think what I did when I was younger is I’ve never really been concerned about the jazz scene, I’m just into music. So I got signed, Gilles Peterson saw me playing. But they marketed me as a pop artist, they didn’t market me as a jazz musician. That’s why I’m so known in New Zealand, because of music videos and the advertising. So it is possible to make records that are more jazz based – it’s all about the marketing. So I’m just going to try with my next album, just concentrate on the music and then hopefully the record company will not market them as jazz albums. I mean look how the Nora Jones album, that’s just a surprise hit for Blue Note. And they spent billions and billions, and it’s just a lovely, simple, acoustic album of original material, you know? And it does show that people do what to do that. So that’s what I definitely want to do. But before I do that I’ve got to promote this last album! I think there’s an amazing array of people on it, and the actual sound of the album is very cool the way we mixed it, all the tracks sound great on the club and that’s the way we wanted it.

So is that how you imagine people listening to it, in a club?
No. But the way we mixed it you can listen to it quietly at home, or turn it up and it’s going to smash it in a club.

Well, it’s a great album and I really hope it’s a big success…
I’m not hoping too much. Like I said, the good thing is making an album and finishing it and getting it out and starting the next one. You know. There’s not going to be any smash hits [for the West London broken beat producers] because none of us is doing videos. But hopefully, hopefully with the new single “Doot Dude” which is the Lyric L song on the album, Ashley Beedle’s going to remix it and I’m trying to raise the money to do a video at the moment. But, you know, it’s alright for us because we know what the score is but for kids out there – if you’re 18 years old – why are they going to want to listen to my album? They’ve got Justin Timberlake who’s awesome and he’s got the Neptunes producing, and awesome videos. I mean, there’s a lot of competition out there for us and we have to be just as good as that shit, you know? It’s like we listened to that NERD album a lot when we were mixing that last album just because those guys really know what they’re doing with sound and production. Phil played me loads of stuff – we listened to Kylie, we listened to Brittney, you know, just to know what’s out there. If you’re not concerned about worrying about that market then you don’t worry about it. But obviously we’d love it. I’d love it if 15-year-old people were buying my records, but they’re not going to without a video.

So what comes next?
Basically I’m just having a bit of a holiday at the moment because the last album almost killed me! And every day when I’m in England and I look out in the morning and look and it’s a grey sky I’m thinking about New Zealand. And now I just really need to re-think what I do. I don’t want to make an album like the last one…so now I’m just sort of gathering ideas. I mean I’m promoting the last album I’m doing a lot of and a lot of shows, including September 5th and 6th at the Jazz CafÈ in London, and from October, Easy Living’s back on twice a month at Cherryjam, after the album’s launch party there in September.

Chillifunk

From the sound rigs in the clubs of Berlin to the foundations of Babylon itself Noiseshaper leave all systems shaking. The dubwise depths of the sound plied by Axel Hirn and Flo Fleischmann was first plumbed on their ‘Prelaunch Sequence’ LP. Their follow-up ‘The Signal’ is the sound of two men submerged not just in roots and reggae but in the multitude of music those styles informed. Since forming in their home town of Vienna in 1999 the two have been forging everything from house to downbeat to soul from the dub mold. Now resident in Berlin, their gigs at the Dub Club, Subground and WMF are renowned as rough and tough dancehall sessions keeping crowds bouncing until dawn. On ‘The Signal’ Noiseshaper offer a deep selection of dub-heavy tracks with guest MCs and vocalists Juggla, Tweed, MC Spikey Tee and Farda P spicing things up in a JAH conscious way. It’s further proof that the German dub scene is here to stay. Mundovibes checked in with Hirn and Fleischmann in between gigs to get their word on “The Signal”.

Does the place you are based in impact your music and how?

Axel: Yeah definitely, in Vienna the Dj`s used to play chill out music on the mainfloor. Berlin is much more uptempo and I think you can hear this in our music.

What are the most important elements of your music?

Axel: As our music is based on Dub and Reggae, the bassline is the most important element of our music and of course echos and spaced out effects are also very essential to the Noiseshaper sound.

How has your sound evolved from ‘Prelauch Sequence’

Flo: „Prelaunch Sequence“ was much rougher and had more electronic elements compared to „The Signal“ which contains a lot of live recorded instruments like guitars, bass and melodica. We wanted to achieve an even more organic and roots-orientated sound.

You have several vocal contributors on “The Signal”. Can you tell us about them and how you collaborated?

Axel: Most of the singers featured on „The Signal“ are basded in the UK and we got in contact with them through our label. With Juggla, who did „All A Dem a Do“ we have also worked live together since.

Flo: Vido is a member of the Noiseshaper crew for a couple of years now, he already sang „The Only Redeemer“ on our last album. By the way, the track was later re-released in the U.S. as a 12“ in summer 2002. He`s playing live with us as well.

The lyrics are on “The Signal” personal, political and JA-conscious…

Flo: Yes, I think the topics on the album are well balanced this time and that was exactly what we`ve been looking for.

You blend a number of styles and instruments on”The Signal”…

Axel: You know, music offers a wide variety of styles to express yourself. As we listen not only to reggae, we are also influenced by other styles like hip hop and house. So it`s obvious to use them when we create our music. We try to fuse things because we think experimentation is the true heart of dub.

Please tell us about your dancehall soundsystem…

Flo: We are not a Soundsystem in the first place but a live act. When we perform our music we are playing drums, guitars and keys, while Juggla and Vido are doing a good job on the mic. So we never fail to keep the crowd bouncing – we just dub it a right!

Is the a problem with violence in the scene?

Flo: Vido was once stabbed at a club as he told us. But as far as I know the scene is quite peacefull inna Berlin City.

What would your dream collaboration be?

Flo: We`d like to team up with Gandhi, Buddha and Marley in order to make the most conscious album in history.

Will you take your soundsystem on the road, say to the States?

Axel: We`d love to come over and spread some irie vibes in the states. I guess some Americans need to calm down a little anyway.

What does the future hold?

Axel: We have just finished a Remix for Sly & Robbie featuring Beans from Anti Pop Consortium. Now we are about to do some gigs around Europe and we`re gonna come up with a strong new album soon.

By Rose Parfitt

Dwele’s voice made its first appearance on legitimate vinyl on Recloose’s twisted techno-soul anthem “Can’t Take It”, which delighted every fan of mashed-up genres it reached. Stashed away in his studio, says Dwele, is more evidence of this fusion of Detroit’s two unequalled contributions to world peace (techno, soul), but right now he’s concentrating on the latter. Which is fine, since he is probably the most exciting member of that broad and strong family we call “nu soul” to arrive on the scene in three years or more.

Growing up with Detroit’s open-mike sessions and The Shelter’s notorious battle-raps (as recently immortalised in the film 8-Mile), Dwele naturally started off as an MC. But it was his singing that knocked everybody out (the rhymes were good, but everyone’s an MC in Detroit). Having taken piano lessons through school, played trumpet in the marching band and armed with his first keyboard – a present from his father who died when Dwele was just ten – and later with his trademark Fender Rhodes, he was also more musical than most.

Twenty-five years old now, Dwele put out his first demo Rise in ’98, releasing only a hundred copies for reasons of modesty, financial and emotional. It sold out in a week, and soon the record companies came running. Even with the Virgin deal sorted, it took a couple of years to finish the album off, leaving him only enough time to manage a pizza chain, go to university, work for the AAA and record two tracks for Bahamadia’s album, BBQueen. And the exceptional Slum Village track, “Tainted”.

Meanwhile, and in collaboration with such soulful luminaries as Jake & the Phat Man (percussionist-turntablist for the likes of Angie Stone, TLC and Kelly Price) and Eric Robertson (vocalist with Jill Scott, Osunlade and Musiq, among others) Subject gradually emerged – an album that has the sounds of childhood (Stevie, Donnie, Roy, Miles…Carl Craig…A Tribe Called Quest…) soaked up, grown up, and wrapped up in the essentials life and love.

Dwele, the Rhodes and the band hit the road in a few weeks. They’ll be in Europe from next month, with dates including the Jazz Café in London and the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 16th. So get your pumps on, and keep an eye on www.dwele.net for more info: this is not a gig you want to miss.

Whether he is breaking the trail for a new Detroit soul-sound – descendent of Motown, nephew of the Detroit Three and brother of the forward-thinking hip hop, spanning Slum Village to Eminem, that’s currently got half the world at its feet – will depend on who and what comes next. Whatever happens, this is a man to watch.

Mundovibes caught up with Dwele at breakfast time in Detroit…

Morning. How you doing?
Everything’s good, you know, everything’s good. Everybody’s loving the album, they’re saying. I’ve done a couple of shows, but we should be hitting the road probably in a couple of weeks. We have a couple of shows coming up in New York, Philly. We really got to do the East Coast and I’m sure we got some West Coast dates coming up too. And then we’ll be overseas in July, probably. I’m not sure about the exact dates yet, but we will be coming to the UK. I can’t wait to get there!

Subject’s been some time coming, does it feel good to have it out?
Yeah, it’s been three years in the making, and it’s been the ups and downs and the frustrations and everything but I’m glad that we got to this point right here.

So where did it all start?
I guess it is started with the demo tape. It was called Rise. I put that out in 1998, only made a hundred copies, and I sold them around Detroit City. And Slum Village got ahold of one and brought it to their management, and their management got to me and said we can probably get a deal. I said okay lets do it, and from that a couple of labels came to the table and we decided to go with Virgin Records.

You knew Slum Village before that, right?
Yeah, I met Slum Village maybe a couple of years prior to that just by playing at Café Mahogany. I was playing the Rhodes for a band out there and they would come down a lot and check out the band. And that’s pretty much how we met. Because at the time I was rapping, so we used to bounce songs off of each other. We were kind of the same vein with music, at the time.

So what went on at Café Mahogany and The Shelter?
Café Mahogany was a spot for poetry, and for live jazz bands and things like that, on the weekends and stuff. The Shelter was one of the places that I promoted the tape at. I never really got into too many MC battles up there, I was kind of like the low-key MC, the MC that just played for myself!

And how were you making the demo, was it all your own work?
Yeah, I did all that pretty much myself, out of the back room of my house. That’s where I have my little studio, so that’s where I go and shut the world out and make my music, until I just finally decided to put something out and see how people would feel about it.

How did you feel about putting your music out there the first time, were you shy about that kind of thing?
I used to be really shy, at first. I wasn’t sure if people would like it, you know, or if people would hate it, I really didn’t know, so I only put out a hundred copies, I wasn’t losing too much money. And they started bootlegging it and copying it and CDRing it and everything.

Yeah, I mean that’s how I think a lot of your tracks made it over here, from being copied and bootlegged…
Yeah. I don’t know, I’m glad it happened. A lot of people don’t like bootlegs and things like that, but in this case I think it was good, I think it helped me out.

Which is your favourite track on the album, which one has the most meaning for you?
It’s a hard question because I like a lot of them. But I had to choose one, I’d probably say “Kick Out of You”. Because that was the one song, it made me stretch out a little bit, it wasn’t necessarily in my vein of music, really. It was kind of experimental almost.

And what about the title track, “Subject”?
I love “Subject” too – I love it! I think I really got my feeling across in that song, what I was really going for. It’s basically about – well actually the album and the song is about me being the artist, looking at a subject the way a painter would look at his subject or a sketch artist would look at his subject. And doing that you have to study everything about the subject, down to the curves of the subject, everything about it. And it just so happens that I’m talking about a woman.

There’s a lot about love…
I was really going for that with this album, because with it being my first album I wanted everybody to be able to relate to it. I feel that that’s one thing that everybody can relate on, is relationships. So that’s what I talked about, because I wanted everybody to be able to get something out of the album. And I think by making the album like this, it kind of opens it up so it can be listened to almost everywhere, whether you’re doing a barbecue or trying to make a baby you know, you can put the album on and listen to it.

You’ve used quite a lot of aliases in some of the stuff you’ve done, I hear. Are you also Platinum Pied Pipers?
Um, I don’t know anything about that…

What about the one with your name spelled backwards, Elleud?
Um, I don’t know anything about that either!

But your birthday is on Valentines Day?
Yeah, it is.

God love the Internet. And Detroit – you’re there now, do you think you’re going to stay there?
Yeah, I’m going to try to stay here as long as I can. As of right now I really don’t see a reason to have to leave Detroit. Because most people leave out of their city and go to New York or LA because that’s where all the producers are or that’s where the labels are and that’s where they go to try to get a deal. But, since I already have a deal and since I do most of my production I think I can pretty much stay rooted in Detroit. And I can bring the work to Detroit, that’s what I’m going to try to do.

What was it like growing up in Detroit? Were you always involved in music?
Growing up in Detroit I wasn’t in the best neighbourhood but I wasn’t in the worst, you know, I grew up pretty much middle class. And as far as music, I always did music. I’ve been doing ever since fourth of fifth grade. I don’t think I really started creating my own music until maybe seventh or eighth grade. But I’ve always done it. I never really shared my music with anybody, I pretty much just kept it to myself until after high school, and that’s when I got a little bit more confident with my music and started letting people hear it a little bit.

Do you come from a musical family?
My mother used to sing but she was a teacher by trade. And my father, he used to play organ every other Sunday if he had time but he was a doctor by trade. And actually before he passed he had bought me my first keyboard, and he taught me a few things about the keyboard. And I think after he passed, by continuing on with it that was my way of honouring him, in a way, by continuing with music. And I think after a while, after I learned a little bit, I learned how to turn my frustrations and my emotions into music.

When you write a song does the music come first or the lyrics?
Most of the time the actual music comes first and I let the music dictate what I write about. But then sometimes it is a lyric that comes first and I do the music around the lyric. It works both ways, but most of the time it’s the music that comes first.

What’s the best thing about performing live?
I like performing live. I think the best thing about performing live is once you get real comfortable with your band and you’re not really worrying about what the band is doing, if they’re hitting the right notes or hitting the wrong notes, you can play around a little bit more on stage. And I love the crowd feedback, it can just make you do everything, they can make you do anything! I haven’t really performed overseas yet, but just from the love that they showed me when I came over to Europe I can’t wait, you know, I can’t wait to perform with the band.

You did the track “Can’t Take It” with Recloose – is there a lot of collaboration between the techno side of Detroit and the soul, hip-hop side of it?
That was actually the only song that I made as far as the techno goes, you know, collaborating with the techno side in Detroit. But I do play around with it myself; I play around with techno and house music and broken beat music. None of it has actually come out, I still haven’t let anybody hear anything. But, I don’t know, maybe I’ll let a few people hear it and if I get the okay on it then maybe I’ll put some of it on the next album, you never know, we’ll see.

Detroit is just amazingly full of talent; all this incredible music has been coming out of there for years – why do you think that is?
I don’t know, I really don’t know. I think by it being the birth place of Motown, our parents grew up watching this great city and this great sound come out of the city, and I think everybody just wanted to be a part of it. And that just trickled down through the generations, and I think everybody else is coming up like that too. Everybody grows up wanting to learn how to play an instrument, or wanting to learn how to sing or rap or something like that. And I think that just promotes good music out of Detroit.

Are there literally people singing and rapping in the street all the time? Because that really doesn’t happen that much over here…
Yeah, yeah. Always. It happens all over the place in Detroit. You can always find an open mike or you can always find a jam session or something going on.

Do you feel, you and Slum Village and the rest of you, like you’re on the crest of a new wave?
Hopefully, hopefully. I’d love to be part of a new wave, the new wave of soul music or hip hop. I’d like to be known as the start of the new Detroit – I would love it!

Philadelphia’s the other city with a long musical history that has the same kind of creativity today – different, but prolific in the same way. Is there a connection or a rivalry between the two cities? What kind of a relationship do they have?
I wouldn’t call it a rivalry, you know, Philly’s doing her thing and I love what they’re doing. And Detroit is doing their thing as well. If anything it’s a collaboration. From Jay and the Roots and James Poyser – Jay Dee [Slum Village] and James Poyser they’re working together – to me working with A Touch of Jazz, we’re trying to connect it. I think they see good music coming out of Detroit, we see good music coming out of Philadelphia and we’re just trying to make it happen. We’re trying to put the world on it.

So what happens next?
As of right now I’m just ready to get out there and get my skills up with performing, get my confidence level up. And I don’t know, make more music, put more out there – go platinum, I’m ready to go platinum! As far as working with different types of music, I’m always trying new things with music, every day. It’s just a matter of time, it’s just a matter of hearing the music a little bit more and finding out whose doing what in the business.

Do you feel excited when you wake up in the morning? Have things changed quite suddenly?
Yeah, it does feel like it’s changed all of a sudden. I always wake up with about seven or eight calls on my cellphone, you know it’s like last week it wasn’t really like that. It’s crazy. My phone just doesn’t stop ringing now…

Dwele Homepage

[soundcloud width=”100%” height=”81″ params=”” url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/3476189″] Alexander Barck Interview by Fabien Vouillon for Mundovibe by mundovibe

By John C. Tripp

As Ocote Soul Sounds, Adrian Quesada and Martin Perna, respective bandleaders of famed ensembles Grupo Fantasma and Antibalas create desert- and sun-soaked psychedelic funk that entwines the grit and funk of the gridlocked NYC streets, with the voices and rhythms of the dusty streets of Latin America.

On “Coconut Rock” their third album, the slipped effortlessly into their trademark psychedelic afro-latin funk groove. From the Latin breakbeat rhythms of album lead-off ‘The Revolt of the Cockroach People’ to the cumbia bounce of ‘Tu Fin, Mi Comienzo’ to the easy guitar soundscapes of ‘Vendendo Saude e Fe’ featuring Brazilian songstress Tita Lima, ‘Coconut Rock’ is the third chapter in Ocote Soul Sounds’ unparalleled journey through sonic realms beyond.

The duo of Perna and Quesada developed their musical paths in eerily similar parallel universes. Though Quesada grew up in the Texas border-town of Laredo, and Perna came up in Philadelphia (later New York), both musicians straddled borders literally and artistically. Growing up on hip hop and the jazz and funk it was built on; both taught themselves to play multiple instruments; both had founded game-changing, booty-shaking big bands; and both were deeply moved by a powerful spirit of social and political activism, the spirit that was to become Ocote.

A chance biodiesel breakdown, which left Martin stranded in Austin, led to the two playing around with some song ideas together, hitting the studio and ultimately resulted in their 2005 debut ‘El Nino Y El Sol’. Four years and three albums down the line, they have evolved into a seven-piece live outfit.

Continue reading “Ocote Soul Sounds” →

by JC Tripp

He may love Baile Funk but DJ Sabo’s heart is in New York City. DJ Sabo has the city’s melting pot sensibility pulsing through his veins and his blood is the color of many cultures. Sabo has been serving up spicy beats for a decade, gaining international props and passport stamps from Brazil, Spain, Dominican Republic, Austria, Mexico, and Kosovo, as well as various cities in the US.

His productions include seven EP releases on his own label Sol*Selectas, two 12″ releases on Wonderwheel Recordings, and a full length album, “Global Warmbeats” with production partner Zeb. From Brazilian to Afrobeat, Disco to Reggae, Hip Hop to Dub, Miami Bass to House, Latin to Techno, Sabo flows seamlessly from one genre to the next.

If you haven’t caught him spinning around town you may need to step outside your box: He’s been a special guest at Turntables on the Hudson parties for the last 7 years, manages the Turntable Lab NY store, is an instructor at the Scratch DJ Academy, and has DJ residencies at Bembe, APY, and Nublu in NYC. He Dj’ed the infamous PS-1 Warmup Party in 2003, The Cooper Hewitt After Work Series in 2004 – 2006, and was nominated to URB magazine’s Annual ‘Next 100′ in 2006. He’s opened up for the bands Yerba Buena, Brazilian Girls, Antibalas, The Pimps of Joytime, and Si*Se, and has remixed tracks for Nickodemus, J-Boogie, El Guincho, DJ Sun, Nappy G, Kokolo Afrobeat Orhcestra, Los Monos, Pacha Massive Sound System, and Balkan Beat Box. Did we say this man is busy?

Mundovibe managed to track down DJ Sabo in his bassment lab (Turntable Lab that is) and make contact. In addition to his signature “funky music to make you feel good” style Sabo is also disarmingly nice and after his stint DJing for Huffpost’s inaugural party he was kind enough to be interviewed by Mundovibe via e-mail and to supply us with four hot mixes for our reader’s listening pleasure.

MV: DJ Sabo, congratulations on the release of “Global Warmbeats”, a truly worldly, mellifluous and deeply rhythmic recording. How did this full-length recording happen?

SABO: Gracias! This album started basically as me wanting to produce/remix tracks and having no clue how to do it. I started paying Zeb to come to my house and tutor me in Reason. I already had all the loops and samples and ideas ready to go, and Zeb would show me how to arrange and mix everything. After only a month or two we had like 4 tracks done. After that the songs were becoming more collaborations than tutor sessions, so we decided to just keep going and make a whole record.

Continue reading “DJ Sabo Interview” →