Yo Fam: The Politik album drops in a week's time! Bembe and I are well excited about finally having the album see the light of day (and dark of night!) and getting the sounds out there ... Check out the sneak preview mixtape ...
Bembe Segue/MdCL collabo project The Politik - album preview mixtape: Download
About MdCL:
'... the man behind a million great tunes' - Gilles Peterson/Radio 1 Worldwide [UK]
'Call it nu-jazz, call it nu-house, call it future-jazz, in fact call it what you want, I'm sticking with the words awesome and genius' - Wax Magazine [UK]
'... a Herbie Hancock for the new millennium' - Montreal Jazz Festival [CANADA]
About MdCL by MdCL:
I'm a producer, beat maker and keys player, one half from NZ and the other half from Japan living in West London. Music's been my thing the whole way since starting on the piano when I was 4 - growing up through classical, then jazz and the beats. Now it's all come full circle and the music keeps on getting twisted up more and more - broken beat, spacefunk, 21st century soul, cosmic hip hop, whatever you want to call it :) I've been fortunate to collab in different forms with a lot of great producers and artists - Restless Soul, DJ Spinna, Dego (4Hero), Jody Watley, Lauryn Hill, Bugz in the Attic, Kenny Dope/MAW, Wajeed/PPP, Pino Palladino, Bembe Segue, Omar, Jazzysport, Joe Clausell and plenty more... people who all have great beat and music sensibilities and we can knock heads and come up with something unique together.
The new album JOURNEY 2 THE LIGHT will be out Summer 2007 on Freedom School Records out of Japan... hope you get to check it, hope you dig it. My other main projects at the moment are THE POLITIK with Bembe Segue, FREESOUL SESSIONS - a fully improvised beat head experience and UNIVERSAL SUN with Chris Cox . Check them out (and other friends n fam) in my Top 8.
Free Download - The MdCL album Six Degrees. Written, recorded, produced in New Zealand Dec 1998 - Feb 1999 after a year long trip around the world visiting the musical hotspots of Cuba, NYC, London and Tokyo. Released in NZ May 1999 and worldwide on CD and 2LP May 2000. Just a shame it's so damn hard to find now... Enjoy! :) Read the story behind the album...
Free Download - The only official remixes from the Six Degrees album were handled by Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and DJ Spinna. Spinna's mix was licensed to the Cafe Del Mar series and sold over 700,000 copies worldwide.
REMIXERS:Download the vocal and flute parts for Day by Day from Six Degrees and post your remixes online!
‘Karma’ is Sanders’ third recording as a leader, perhaps the most famous of a number of spiritually-themed albums released on the Impulse record label in the late 60s/early 70s, which have ensured his reputation today. Although it is followed by the brief ‘Colors’, the album is most often remembered for one track, the 32-minute long ‘The Creator Has a Master Plan', co-composed by Sanders with vocalist Amos Leon Thomas Jr. (born 1937, died May 8, 1999 due to heart failure).
Below is an excerpt from an interview with Leon Thomas that appeared in Straight No Chaser #33, Autumn 1995. Straight No Chaser is a really groovy English jazz magazine, covering the resurgence in interest in great music (Acid jazz, jazz funk, kozmigroov, Latin & Brazilian) that those of us in the States wish was happening here on the same scale. It's available in most big record stores. The interview was conducted by Damian Lazarus.
"I was playing in Brooklyn with Randy Weston when Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders came by. They began to visit regularly and often jammed with us.
"Pharoah had this song called 'Pisces Moon,' which he was playing every night as a theme in New York and he asked me if I could put some lyrics to it. I came up with 'The Creator Has A Masterplan.' A classic was born..."
The yodelling trademark first materialised in the late 1960s and came as a result of somebody owing him money. "I'd been trying to reach this cat for ages with no luck. I was at home and thought 'I'm gonna make this cat pick up the phone'--mentally. I began my yoga exercises and got to the head stand. With one intake of breath, I planned to walk to the phone upside down, dial his number, and make him answer with this mental projection.
"As I crossed the threshhold of the bedroom, I transcended. I was one place and my body was another. I dropped to the floor, right on my face and my teeth went into my bottom lip. There was blood everywhere...
"So I couldn't do my own show with Pharoah. I had eight stitches in my mouth. I couldn't do anything. Pharoah came by to see me [and he said] you can't pull out."
Leon decided to play the gig, a church benefit for a group of anti-police activists in New York. "I couldn't smile. I could hardly open my mouth...but I went along anyhow. I got up on the stage and when it came time for me to scat, this sound just came out. It shocked me. I didn't know where it was coming from.
"I realised it was me and I realised that the ancestors had arrived. Pharoah, standing beside me on stage just raised his eyebrows at me. The ancestors had given me what we call throat articulation and they said to me 'You will sing like this with your mouth CLOSED.' And that was the first time it presented itself to me, in a church. My God! Thank you....It surprises me, it does everything of its own volition. I call it Soularfone. The pygmies call it Umbo Weti....This voice is not me, my voice is ancient. This person you see before you is controlled by ego but my voice is egoless."
KT: Well!! Last night I listened to "Cameleon" Herbie [Herbie Hancock: Chameleon, Head Hunters (Columbia/Legacy, 1973)], and still to this day it makes me shiver. After the breakdown, Harvey [Harvey Mason, Sr.: drummer] does a fill on the hats. Then the most incredible 4 bars ever ... It has been sampled a few times, but that is my ultimate Tune ... What is yours?
I will make this brief :-) Started flute at the age of nine. For 2 years I played in the National Childrens Wind Orchestra (in the West Midlands). Moved down to the rowdy south London. Got into a performing arts course (2 years) … Met a few people ... Met my best friend - Mr Grand piano!!! That was it!! My friend Kester, who was on the same course, had a studio in Kew. He introduced me to Jake Wherry..We jammed, and formed a likkle funk band! (as u do) called the Propheteers ... Then The Herbaliser was born … Kester had a studio next to the herbs, and one day I put my head in to say hello, and I got introduced to Alex Phountzi + Orin Walters. Orin had a flat in Richmond, and a studio. Things started and Bugz In The Attic was born. Met I.G Culture, and we both musically connected. Then 4hero ... Phil Asher ... Domu … Mark de Clive-Lowe … etc ... I could go on…
Before serving a life sentence in a Pennsylvania state prison for his role in the murder of a Philadelphia police officer during a botched bank robbery in January 1996 Steady B's Serious remixed by Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone (KRS-One) was one of the myriadantecedents that corroborate '88 as my favorite year.
Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. In the '80s, he became one of the most singular talents of the rock 'n' roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Find out more about him! Hear "Planet Earth" now! Read Icon Series: Prince View Prince gallery
In other unrelated news: Google Cookies will 'Auto Delete': BBC News I Playahata Chimps on Treadmill Offer Human Evolution Insight: BBC News I Reuters I Playahata China Experimenting with Rockets to Disperse Rain Clouds: ESPN I Playahata
I Was There Words: Sacha Jenkins Images: Ben Watts
Excerpts:
XXL: Some of Cam’ron’s jabs are about your not being in the streets with the people.
50 Cent: The same idiot that you you just mentioned went on 60 Minutes and said he wouldn’t tell police about [the whereabouts of] a serial killer. Only thing missing from hip-hop is an IQ test [set in boldface type for emphasis]. If you’re smart, you know that’s not the fuckin’ place to say that. Then you gotta send a statement out and apologize. What does that mean? That he will snitch?
XXL: Why would someone saying your name…
50 Cent: That’s another point. Like I’m telling you, you’re dealing with a real idiot. He calls me the name my mother named me, to make me feel like that’s a disrespect on some level. Doesn’t make sense. Curtis is now the name of my album.
AllHipHop and iTunes have come together to extend our unique playlist as the finale to Black Music Month! The editors at AllHipHop have combed through dozens of songs from iTunes store to provide a diverse playlist that features popular Hip-Hop, conscious Hip-Hop and even spiritual Hip-Hop tracks. Artists like Snoop Dogg, Krs-One and Marley Marl, Prodigy, RZA, J. Dilla, Public Enemy, Mac Dre, Consequence, UGK, C.L. Smooth and others are featured on the diverse playlist, which is available for FREE download. Simply click on the link below to receive an email that contains a 12 digit alphanumeric code, where you can redeem your free download from iTunes. This is just one way AllHipHop and iTunes would like to thank our loyal audience and remember, Black Music lives all year long! To get your FREE code to download the playlist, click here
*Note all codes are available and redeemable for download up to July 31st 2007, which is when this promotion ends.
By Tony Green Posted Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2004, at 8:15 AM ET
A skilled instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, bandleader, and performer, James was an heir to the do-it-all mantle that Prince fooled everybody into believing was his alone. The classic "Rick James sound"—new-wavey synths spread over a barely discernible rock foundation (he shared bandspace with Neil Young early in his career and played a Rickenbacker bass more often adopted by rockers like Paul McCartney than funksters)—was just one color in his sonic palette. As a producer, he knew when to get out of Teena Marie's way, how to make the Mary Jane Girls sound even better, and how to distract listeners from Eddie Murphy's voice (on the Murphy vanity project "Party all the Time"). He could funk with the best of them ("Loosey's Rap") and craft the kind of slow-grind ballads ("Fire and Desire," "Ebony Eyes") that cause birthrate spikes. He fit in with both MC Hammer (whose "U Can't Touch This" spun off James' "Super Freak") and old school stalwarts like Smokey Robinson and the Temptations, both of whom he penned tunes for. Not for nothing did the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honor him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in June. Unfortunately, James' salad years coincided with the creation and consolidation of what Black Rock Coalition founders Greg Tate and Vernon Reid called "Apartheid Oriented Radio." It may seem hard to believe, what with urban culture leading the pop world around by its nose nowadays, but MTV didn't consider urban music part of the "rock 'n' roll" universe (read: everything that mattered) until Sony allegedly threatened them with a companywide boycott if they didn't allow Michael Jackson in their rotation. That opened things up for some other megastars—Prince, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson—leaving the rest to fend for their own on urban-only outlets like BET. The iron curtain separating "urban" (black acts) from "pop" (white acts, and black crossover acts) spawned a whole subgenre of artists—many of them gold- and platinum-selling—who are household names to African-Americans and trivia questions to nearly everyone else: Kashif, Roger Troutman and Zapp, Levert. James crossed over, to be sure, but the core of his listenership still consisted of the ordinary working-class African-Americans who flirted with the jheri curl for a bit, chilled out with Canei wine, and looked at you funny if you didn't know who Donnie Simpson was. The fact that 1980s funk and soul is still searching for its place in the retrospective pop timeline makes it even tougher to contextualize James. It was sandwiched between the '70s creative whirlwind (Sly, James Brown, P-Funk, the Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder) and the mainstream rise of hip-hop and New Jack swing, which is kind of like being president between Reagan and Clinton. One reason for this is that the '80s spawned what writer Rickey Vincent dubbed "Naked Funk." It was still funk, but without the extra-musical calling card that helped it break out of the "urban" ghetto. The great lie about music of the post-rock era is that it was something other than dance music at its core. Which is garbage, of course—the Rolling Stones aren't still touring because their fans are debating the meaning of "make some girl." But the appearance that dance music is something other than "just dance music" has always been essential to success in a pop-music universe full of fans who haven't yet disowned critical oxymorons like "intelligent drum and bass." When you heard P-Funk or Prince, you felt were getting, at the very least, something more than just a call to shake your ass. On albums like Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome George Clinton recontextualized extended dance jams as Star Wars-esque space epics with allegorical references to the corporate entertainment complex. Prince's mysterious (and sometimes creepy) take on sex and spirituality allowed you to think that your taste for armchair psychology was impelling you out of your seat. And more than one hip-hop scribe has ridden the "pain and roar of a disaffected generation" angle to mainstream status. James, as good as he was, never really had that kind of cachet—his hedonistic funk-punkster played well, but it didn't obscure the fact that he was just an extremely accomplished, seriously prolific, outlandishly funky individual who had more of an effect on pop music than people give him credit for. That should be enough for people to try to scratch the surface of the Chappelle caricature, and "Super Freak" and all the other totems that we associate with his legacy. But in the real world, it isn't. And that's a bitch.
At his best and most creative, James was the consummate showman. Oozing the raw sexuality of James Brown, the confident cool of Jimi Hendrix and the intergalactic style of Bootsy Collins, James took his Super Freakishness to a new level of performance art. Appealing to an impressively diverse audience in concert, on radio and video, Rick James became the supreme ambassador of funk for the masses. As a result, he opened the door to mass market acceptance for Prince and later, Lenny Kravitz, and paved the way for the remarkable mainstream triumph of OutKast. Offstage, James lent his often underestimated studio expertise to acts ranging from the Temptations and Smokey Robinson to Eddie Murphy. Even James' work with the Mary Jane Girls merits mention as it closely resembles Frank Zappa's creation of the GTO's and predates Prince's efforts with Apollonia and Sheila E.Sign 'O' the Times(1987; dir. Prince)Published March 14, 2007 by MThe camera then pans out her bedroom window and onto a stage where Prince begins singing "If I Was Your Girlfriend" . . . in a white fur coat. You gotta love the guy--extolling the virtues of monogamy while dressed as a pimp. No wonder Rick James hated him.That’s not the only reason, of course. As quiet as it’s kept in the wake of the closely timed double whammy of his death and his elevation as nationally beloved caricature in the hands of Dave Chappelle, Rick James was a very limited talent. Prince, especially by Sign ‘O’ the Times, seemed nearly limitless as a musician. The album demonstrated it flatly, and while the movie can be thought of as an extension of the album, and thus a like demonstration, it can also be seen as an attempt to do something grander. Sign ‘O’ the Times the album came together by concentrated work, yes, but also by happenstance, its initial three-album length shaved down unwittingly at first, the handful of binding concepts eventually jettisoned in favor of 16 songs that were both more various and more coherent. Sign ‘O’ the Times the movie, though, is anything but a scrapbook. Once Prince figured out the shape of his masterpiece, he could play with it, and he could also use it as a springboard to try to go beyond what he’d accomplished.
A member of our extended DJ family, who shall remain nameless, was recruited recently to DJ for a few of Prince's afterparties on his current concert tour. At one of the parties someone came over from the VIP area to ask if our friend had any Rick James.. he promptly fished out "Give It to Me Baby," but before Rick made could make it through the first verse one of Prince's assistants rushed over with a look of concern. "Prince doesn't like this song," she instructed him, "please mix out of it immediately." When our friend pointed out the guest who had requested it she rolled her eyes and explained "Oh, that's Morris Day, don't pay him any mind." Evidently Morris knew what would happen, and was playing a little joke.
Chronicmagazine.com: “Take off your executive hat. As a lover of hip-hop, what do you think about beef in the game?”
Kevin: “Back in the old days, there was a lot of beef too. I remember when Prince and Rick James couldn’t even be in the same venue. Michael Jackson and Prince had beef. LL and Kool Moe Dee had beef. Artists beef. Beef has been going on for a long time. Do I promote [beef]? No. If the record’s hot, I’ll promote it. Period. I’m getting it seen as much as I can.”
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The group name Alphabet Soup is explained as follows:
The communicative rudiments of language starts with the alphabet. The alphabet is a set of letters and/or other characters written or otherwise (oral-tradition, etc.) arranged in a customary order to convey knowledge or inform. The "Soup" was our music. Together the compliment of both words (alphabet) and music rendered the EP: Sunny Day In Harlem.
Holden Caulfield is a fictional character created by J. D. Salinger. Holden is the teenage protagonist of Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye ; Holden also appears in some of Salinger's other literary works.
Physically, Holden is gangly and tall. He is also described as having several gray hairs on the right side of his head. These two qualities contribute to Caulfield's appearing to be older than his age, yet his mannerisms and behavior contradict that impression. One of Caulfield's most striking and quintessential qualities is his powerful revulsion for "phony" human qualities. Qualities such as narcissism, hypocrisy, and superficiality embody Holden's concept of phoniness; and, unfortunately, Holden is adept at realizing these qualities in other people. This serves to bolster Holden's cynicism and consequently contributes to his mistrust of other people. Interestingly, despite Holden's strong disdain for phony qualities, he exhibits some of the qualities that he abhors, thereby making him a somewhat tragic character.
Caulfield is the second of four children, with two brothers, D.B. and Allie, and one sister, Phoebe. (There is also a second sister, Viola, who is briefly mentioned in the short story "I'm Crazy," but is never referred to again.) Allie is deceased at the time of The Catcher in the Rye. Their parents are left unnamed in Salinger's works.
Born into a life of wealth and privilege, Caulfield looks down upon the elite world he occupies. He questions the values of his class and society and sometimes appears to oppose conventions merely for the sake of opposition. He is widely considered to be the template for the "angry young man" archetype.
Accordingly, my man "2-Liter" considers my acerbic critiques a "hate" of everything and my "can't fuck with me B!!!" dancing rants didn't/ don't exactly raise the bar thusly "2-Liter" has thereupon labeled me the consummate Holden Caulfield of the east-coast.
GED
To MC/Emcee is to move the crowd through master of ceremony microphone control.
GED is a MC/Emcee. GED is an abbreviation for Gorilla Ed. GED has previously performed under following names: "Nubian", “Low Key”, “Ed Lowe”, “Lowe” and currently Gorilla Ed/GED
GED is, most recently, featured on the first two mixtapes of the Shine Mixtape/ XM 66 Raw series: Volume 1, hosted by Jim Jones and Nore and Volume 2, hosted by Nas and Swizz Beats.
Free Download - The MdCL album Six Degrees. Written, recorded, produced in New Zealand Dec 1998 - Feb 1999 after a year long trip around the world visiting the musical hotspots of Cuba, NYC, London and Tokyo. Released in NZ May 1999 and worldwide on CD and 2LP May 2000. Just a shame it's so damn hard to find now... Enjoy! :) Read the story behind the album... 
Free Download - The only official remixes from the Six Degrees album were handled by Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and DJ Spinna. Spinna's mix was licensed to the Cafe Del Mar series and sold over 700,000 copies worldwide.
