Joe Cuba Reissue Party at LPR feat. Chico Mann and Boogaloo Assasins: An interview with Bobbito Garcia

Mar 3, 2010 News Leave a comment
Posted by Ezra

Words By Ezra Gale, Photos by Quoc Pham

Last Wednesday, February 24th, the cavernous downtown basement space that holds Le Poisson Rouge shook with a party that recalled the best years of New York-based Latin music. A record release party for the reissue of Joe Cuba’s El Alcalde del Barrio: The Architect of the Nuyorican Sound, the night was jointly produced by Fania Records and Wax Poetics magazine and the Sound Liberation Front had the honor to be one of the event’s co-sponsors.

Wax Poetics is currently involved in helping to reissue a treasure trove of records from Latin music’s heyday of the 1960’s and 70’s-when salsa ruled radio airwaves and dance floors, much of it recorded in New York and released on Fania and several other smaller labels. Though much of this classic music fell into out-of-print obscurity over the last couple decades, Codigo Music has steadily bought the catalogs to many of the era’s classic record labels and now owns not just Fania but also smaller labels like Seeco, WestSide Latino, Discuba and others. The good news for music lovers is that Codigo has contracted WaxPoetics to catalog, remaster and essentially curate a series of forthcoming reissues that will reintroduce this irresistible music to the world.

The Poisson Rouge party was a coming out of sorts for the reissuing of many of these classic records that have been unavailable for so long, starting with the Joe Cuba release. Featuring the Boogaloo Assasins from Los Angeles – a tight, nine-piece Salsa group that rocked the dance floor with their take on the classic boogaloo sound of the late 60’s, and Chico Mann, whose electro-afrobeat was augmented for the night with samples of Joe Cuba’s music – the night was a perfect tribute to Joe Cuba, a conguero and bandleader who was one of the first Latin artists to mix Latin rhythms with funk and pop and gain wide popularity (his 1966 song “Bang Bang” was a massive hit and gave Cuba his nickname of ‘The Father of Latin Boogaloo’).

Manning the decks on Wednesday — along with DJ Turmix — was Bobbito García, a DJ, writer, entrepreneur and acknowledged authority on all sorts of urban culture for over two decades now. We talked to Bobbito after the party about Joe Cuba and his enduring legacy.

SLF: So, how was the party?

Bobbito: The party was so much fun. I walked in there and immediately had a great feeling. That space, a lot of people don’t know, that’s the basement of the old Village Gate. I used to do a spoken word open mic, which is still running now at the Nuyorican Poets Café. We started that back in 1992 at the Village Gate, so I have a long history at 158 Bleecker st. So whenever I go down there I feel special. Rich Medina and I did our Happy Feet party there. So it’s a great space, great soundsystem, great staff, and you know, I’m not even talking about the party yet! I’m just talking about arriving there. So already I’m feeling good.

And then seeing Joe Cuba’s family there, seeing Sammy Ayala, a singer from Puerto Rico, Joe Bataan was there, Larry Harlow I saw outside, you know, cats were up in to support, and I thought that was lovely.

SLF: So for people who might not know, who was Joe Cuba?

Bobbito: Well, for people who might not know, Joe Cuba is an artist that used to be on a label called Seeco, basically he started recording with his own sextet in the late 1950’s early 60’s. And at that point in time, there was no term for salsa. So basically you had mambo, you had cha cha cha, you had boleros, you had guanguanco, you had all these different, beautiful Latin rhythms, which eventually got put under the term “Salsa.” You also had Pachanga, which was another popular rhythm in that time frame, to which Joe Cuba, really, he rocked with all of those, he was a very versatile artist, and towards the mid 60’s and the latter part of that decade, he was instrumental in developing the sound called boogaloo, which was the next Latin rhythm, with an emphasis on the one, which is a foundation for funk, which became a foundation for hip-hop.

Basically, he was using a sort of strategy that a lot of genres have used since, mixing Latin music with R and B music, and you know, he had a huge hit with “Bang Bang,” and it just really stamped that whole Nuyorican sound. For those who don’t know, Nuyoricans are Puerto Ricans born in New York, with strong ties to the island, but with sensibilities of the ‘rotten apple.’

He was also one of the first artists to have his singers perform in English, but with strong Latin rhythm behind it. He was really just a forward thinking dude, in a lot of ways. And his career endured, he kept making albums all the way into the 80’s, he kept on performing all the way to the 90’s. So I don’t think so much that there’s a Joe Cuba revival right now, insomuch that I can’t think of a time when his music was not relevant! In 1992 I had a DJ gig in Toronto, Canada and threw on “Bang Bang” in the middle of the set and the crowd just losing it! I think that’s testament to the fact that, as a conga player, bandleader, he just spent a lot of time with the music.

SLF: What do you think about Wax Poetics helping to reissue all of these Latin catalogs?

Bobbito: I think it’s natural. If one reads the publication, since day 1 it’s obvious that there is a care and concern and a depth to their approach towards music, I’ve often felt like each edition is not a magazine, but it’s a book, it’s a paperback book that comes out every two months. So I think it’s no surprise there that Fania would be insightful enough to partner with Wax Poetics to do these reissues, it works for everybody.

Really the way I look at it is it’s a great era of music and a great body of compositions, and they were huge back in the 70’s, but there’s a lot of it that is not being created so much in this day and age, so it’s a pleasure to try to attempt to continue the exposure of the sound.

SLF: Do you see new artists that are doing this sound?

Bobbito: Yeah sure, there’s a bunch. But they do it in their own way. You know, Boogaloo Assasins and Chico Mann are sort of obvious, because they performed at the party. I never heard Chico Mann or Boogaloo Assasins live, and was definitely delighted at some of their interpretations of the songs and the energy they had on stage.

I have a new label called Alala, which I’m just launching this month, it’s a very tiny indie label. There’s a lot of cats out there still making great music, it doesn’t necessarily get heard, it might not get the radio exposure, but that’s where my head is at, I love hearing and playing stuff like that.

Tags: Alala, Bobbito, Bobbito Garcia, Boogaloo Assasins, Chico Mann, Codigo Music, DJ Turmix, Fania, Joe Bataan, Joe Cuba, Larry Harlow, Sammy Ayala, Wax Poetics

Review and Pictures of Afro Dub Sessions II feat. Subatomic Sound System @ Rose Live Music – Brooklyn 02/27/10

Mar 1, 2010 News Leave a comment
Posted by Sound Liberation Front

It’s been a busy few weeks here at the SLF. With both Joe Cuba CD release party and Soundlib last Wednesday, we were pretty hyped up about the Afro Dub Sessions. Without surprise, the party was a success with great music throughout the evening. We had a blast and it was good seeing many people come out to be part of it.

DJ Linh started the night with some massive tracks, seamlessly mixing dancehall classics with afro funk grooves. Super Hi Fi was banging as usual and we had the pleasure to have John Brown’s Body Sax player Drew Sayers sit in on some tracks and perform some insane solos. Emch, the session’s special guest, then came in and added a layer of dubby sound effects and melodica on top of the live band before starting his own DJ set.

For the next hour or so, he unleashed a diverse selection of classic dub, dubstep and dancehall bangers mixed in with some original Subatomic tracks including his trademark dubstep remix of Lee Perry’s “Blackboard Jungle” as well as a new dope remix of legendary U-roy. Halfway into his set, he was joined by vocalist Donny Yardas for an impromptu rub a dub session. By that time, the dance floor was packed and the entire place was getting down to some serious heavyweight music. Super Hi Fi then came back for a second set before Q Mastah and DJ Lil Tiger finished off the night in SLF fashion.

We’re pretty stoked that there are still clubs left in this city that support alternative music (especially on a Saturday night) so big up Rose Live Music for letting us do our thing and to everyone who came out and enjoyed themselves. See you all next month (3/27) for the next edition of the Afro Dub Sessions featuring special guest DJ DRM from Bastard Jazz Records alongside the usual resident SLF crew.

Tags: afro groove, afro-beat, afro-dub, afro-dub sessions, Afrobeat, antibalas, aphrodesia, blue man group, brooklyn, buhbOmp, DJ Lil Tiger, dj linh, Dub, dubstep, Emch, Q-Mastah, Reggae, roots, rose live music, sharon jones and the dap kings, slavic soul party, Sound Liberation Front, Subatomic Sound System, super hi-fi, the brmg, the superpowers, Williamsburg

African Disneyland? “Fela!” on Broadway, a Response to the New York Times

Feb 8, 2010 Features, Reviews 4 Comments
Posted by Ezra

Words by Ezra Gale

This is in response to Charles Isherwood’s article on the Broadway musical “Fela!” in the New York Times on Sunday, January 28, 2010. I took a special interest in his critical take on the show not only because I recently saw the show- which is set at Fela’s Lagos, Nigeria nightclub the Shrine- and not only because I have been a devotee of Fela Kuti’s music and life story for years, but also because in 2006 I had the unforgettable experience of traveling to Lagos, Nigeria with my band,  Aphrodesia, where  we played at the Shrine with Fela’s son, Femi.

Mr. Isherwood is to be commended for thinking so critically about the musical. Race is, as he notes in his opening paragraph, an incendiary topic, and those of us involved in any debate on it too often devolve into knee-jerk ‘reactionism,’ often fed by notions of political correctness and white guilt. Mr Isherwood’s thoughtful, lengthy critique in a major American newspaper should be taken by fans of afrobeat and of the musical as the highest compliment (he is also right to urge everyone- as I emphatically do as well- to go and see the show for themselves).

That said, Mr. Isherwood is wrong on the major themes of his article.

He’s right that “Fela!” the musical isn’t perfect. The plot is weak, and character development almost nonexistent. The plot could be accurately summarized as “Fela says he’s leaving Nigeria, then he changes his mind.” And although we are witness to the development of Fela’s life through flashbacks, there are no meaningful changes in the portrayals of the major characters through the passage of the show, as is often the case in Broadway productions.

But- and it’s a big but- that’s not the point. “Fela!” is instead a raucous, bombastic, thrilling and at times touching show that transports the audience to a specific time and place- Fela Kuti’s Lagos nightclub, The Shrine, in the late 1970’s. I am no Broadway musical expert, but I believe the show’s positioning of a radical figure like Fela as the hero, its use of Afrobeat, a previously little-known, stubbornly funky and uncompromising music, as the score, and its celebration of strikingly non-Broadway ideas of showmanship, such as African dance and the inclusion of the audience, is groundbreaking for the Great White Way. In essence, “Fela!” brings a new theatrical and musical tradition to Broadway, and Mr. Isherwood mistakenly judges it by his own standard.

One of Mr. Isherwood’s major complaints, for example, is with the look of the show. In crafting a musical that looks (and sounds, thanks to the expert recreation of Fela’s music by a band that includes members of Antibalas) like Fela’s Shrine, the creators of “Fela!” have built a set that Mr Isherwood dismisses as an “African Disneyland.” Yet I found the set design to be one of the most transporting and authentic elements of the show. I should point out that the Shrine I visited and played with Aphrodesia was not the Shrine of the musical- that Shrine was bulldozed by the Nigerian government soon after Fela’s death in 1997. Rather, the Shrine we experienced was Fela’s son Femi’s recreation of his father’s nightclub, in a different neighborhood of Lagos, which he calls “The New Afrika Shrine.” But although the building is different (much bigger, and, we were told by more than one Nigerian, with a much better sound system), by all accounts the vibe and feel of the place is very much the same. And so I can only assume that the set of “Fela!”, looking much like the Shrine I saw, nails the look of the original Shrine. Mr. Isherwood writes that the set is covered in corrugated metal and “African gee-gaws.” Yet I wonder if he is familiar with the clash of cultures that make up the world of Lagos and much of West Africa, where African religious and cultural icons mesh with appropriations of Christian symbols and elements of western culture. Walk down the street in Lagos or Accra and you will find shacks housing businesses with names like “God is Great Beauty Salon” and “He Is Arisen Electrical Shop;” women in traditional cloth dress sell bags of water next to men in business suits talking on their cell phones. It is this world that gave birth to the Shrine, and so while “Fela!”’s set design may have looked contrived to Mr. Isherwood, to me it looked strikingly authentic. At the New Afrika Shrine the slapdash construction of corrugated metal was covered with objects like a giant map of the world with Africa colored in red and a giant slogan that read ‘Movement Against Second Slavery;’ one corner held a religious shrine to Fela. I can only assume the objects that decorated the walls of the original Shrine held a similar significance. An African Disneyland? No, Mr. Isherwood, that musical was named “The Lion King.” This is simply Africa.

Entrance Gate to the Afrika Shrine, Lagos 2006 (Photo by Ezra Gale)

Another of Mr. Isherwood’s complaints is that in walking and dancing among the audience the performers have broken the “Fourth Wall” that normally places performers on stage and audience members in the seats. I’m not enough of an expert on theater to say if this sacred separation of performer and audience is a European construct; I can say though, that the ‘call and response’ format of much West African music- so integral to Fela’s music and deeply influential in much of today’s pop music as well- is rooted in the involvement of everyone present. A singer ‘calls’ a phrase or sentence, the ‘response’ comes from everyone. Music in West Africa often serves a much more universal function than it unfortunately does here in America, where we are bombarded with background music nearly every minute of our day. As I found while I was there, there are songs to telegraph the news from the next village, there are songs for cooking fish without too much salt, and, as Fela proved, there are songs for calling your government a bunch of thieving oligarchs. All of these songs are meant to include the listener in a way that I would guess stands out from Mr. Isherwood’s previous Broadway experience. It is to this tradition that the practice of sending the dancers and performers among the audience, and of asking the audience to sing, and to dance, as “Fela!” does, belongs.

I think Mr. Isherwood’s critique reveals more about himself, and by extension white American attitudes towards race and Africa, than he does about the show. He accuses the show of ‘fetishizing’ the exotic with flashy song and dance, and yet I’d guess there’s nothing exotic about the song and dance in the show to most West Africans, and certainly not to the ones in the mileu portrayed in “Fela!” In tagging the music and dance in the show as belonging to a ‘spectacle of African culture’ that he says tilts too closely towards ‘minstrelsy,’ Mr. Isherwood makes the mistake he accuses the show of making- he assumes that the ‘ecstatic’ music and dance in the show is somehow beneath the dignity of these characters (it reminds me of the argument that music should be taught in schools because it helps kids with math, to which my response has always been, ‘Really? Maybe we should teach math because it helps kids with music’). I think the music and dance in the show is portrayed, accurately, not as light entertainment in service of some higher goal, but as that higher goal itself. And not incidentally, the music and dance (including the beautiful Nigerian women dancing suggestively all night long) portrayed in the show is pretty damn close to the Shrine as I remember it.

Fela!, Eugene O’Neill Theater, New York 2009

Femi Kuti, Afrika Shrine, Lagos 2006 (Photo by Ezra Gale)

Mr. Isherwood seems to believe the emphasis on music and dance is exploitative, but I’d bet Mr. Ishwerwood dinner at Sardi’s that not a single one of the approximately 150 million-plus Nigerians, given the chance to come to Broadway and see the show, would leave the theater feeling exploited. I bet they’d feel proud that this part of their culture and history was being so lovingly crafted and performed in front of such a mainstream American audience every night. I am reminded of my own experience in West Africa. We were a white band, playing African music, in Africa. Before we left we were bombarded with well-meaning concerns from friends about whether the Africans we met would be insulted by what we were doing, whether they would see us as exploiting their culture. But our experience once in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria was the opposite- people were almost universally thrilled that we were playing their style of music, that we had taken the time to learn it and that we obviously loved it so much we had traveled all the way to Africa to play it and learn more. The questions of authenticity, exploitation and cultural stereotyping and racism that had confronted us faded away as we met Africans who were- rightly- proud that their music and culture was strong enough to make such an impact on people on the other side of the world. We encountered a much more nuanced (and refreshingly blunt) view of race as well- of course, there is black and white, but there are many shades of each. For me, Mr. Isherwood’s critique represents these type of questions- well-meaning, but naïve as to what really constitutes the difference between exploitation and respectful tribute.

Mr. Isherwood says it “seems odd that the only character other than Fela Kuti who has any sustained dialogue is an American.” Actually, it’s not odd: it’s appropriate. Fela’s music was as American as it was African- a synthesis of James Brown funk, American jazz and African Rhythms. And that “brash woman” whom Mr. Isherwood declines to name was Sandra Izadore, who, meeting Fela when he lived in Los Angeles in 1969, introduced him to the politics of the American Black Power movement and the Black Panthers, forever changing his life, music and politics. Far from being the “festive window dressing” Mr. Isherwood accuses the women of Fela of being portrayed as, Ms. Izadore comes across as strong and independent in the musical. Fela is entranced by her, he woos her simplistically, and receives a stack of Black Power literature in return (this portrayal of Ms. Izadore seems correct- I’ve had the priveledge of speaking to her by phone once; she still lives and works in LA, working with community organizations and occaissionally producing afrobeat-themed concerts with local bands like the excellent Afrobeat Down).

I will leave for elsewhere a discussion of Fela’s problematic attitudes towards women (seek out Nkiru Nzegwu’s essay on this in the excellent collection of scholarly articles about Fela, Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway). But the sexuality that Mr. Isherwood seems to find gratuitous and degrading from Fela’s backup dancers and wives in the show (and it was clear to me that they were his wives in the show, perhaps Mr. Isherwood went to the bathroom during the scene when he marries them?) is an accurate portrayal of Fela and his son Femi’s show. The sexuality from the dancers is undeniable; it’s also proud, and I believe here again Mr. Isherwood is imposing his own views and standards uneccesarily.

The “Wives”, Afrika Shrine, Lagos 2006 (photo by Ezra Gale)

Mr. Isherwood discounts the political context given in the show by saying that “you learn more about the sociopolitical situation by reading the newspaper headlines in the video projections on the set.” Actually, Nigerian soldiers’ raid on his compound and the murdering of his mother by them is the main dramatic episode in the show. This event- a reference to the Kalakuta Raid of February 18, 1977- is put in its proper context as a reaction to Fela’s outspoken criticism of the government’s corruption. The episode when Fela was jailed for marijuana possession, but released after several days for lack of evidence (the creative details of which make for one of the more entertaining passages in the show, and which yielded his classic song, “Expensive Shit”), appropriately portrays a government furious at his dissent, yet fearful of confronting his enormous popularity. Yes, there are political elements left out- viewers will have to dig elsewhere to learn about the bloody Biafran War of 1967-70, a civil war estimated to have killed as many as three million people and which shaped the political culture of the Nigeria inhabited by Fela (and perhaps even more importantly, by his politically outspoken mother, too). Absent too is talk to the ethnic tensions within Nigeria between the Igbo and other groups like Fela’s Yoruba, which contributed to that war and were exacerbated by Britain’s colonial administration, itself touched on but not deeply examined in the show.

But a full revealing of these political complexities would turn the show into more of a lecture and less of an entertainment. And that’s what Mr. Isherwood misses in his critique- this is a show, and deservedly so. Fela knew that his politics had to be coupled with his music to gain traction with the population; likewise, the musical “Fela!” would be sorely off-base if it left out the sensual side of its main character.

The show is far from perfect- for that, the plot and narrative would have to match Bill T. Jones’ breathtaking choreography and the irresistible Antibalas-fueled live soundtrack. But what flaws it has do not stem from exploitation or racist assumptions about Africans and African culture.

Tags: Afrobeat, aphrodesia, Broadway, Charlse Isherwood, Ezra Gale, Fela!. Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti, Lagos, New York, New York Times, Nigeria, Shrine, Theater

Review and Pictures of Afro Dub Sessions feat. Ticklah @ Rose Live Music – Brooklyn 01/30/10

Feb 5, 2010 News Leave a comment
Posted by Sound Liberation Front

Thanks to everyone who came out last Saturday to Rose Live Music for the inaugural event of our new monthly Afro Dub Sessions party. We couldn’t have hoped for a better turnout especially considering the biting cold NYC winter that was in full force that night. More importantly, the vibe was great and the crowd seemed receptive to the unusual combination of dub music and afro sounds.

The night started out with our own DJ Linh, spinning some dope afro funk and old school dancehall to warm up the crowd before resident band Super Hi Fi performed their first set. With Ticklah manning the soundboard, they delivered a tight set of instrumental dub infused with funk, rock and afrobeat influences creating an irresistible groove which got the entire audience converging toward the dance floor.

Ticklah then came on the turntables, spinning  an all vynil set of rare afrobeat and dub classics. By that time, the venue was so packed it was hard to move around. Following his DJ set, super Hi Fi came back for a killer second set before SLF resident DJs Q-Mastah and Lil Tiger finished off the evening of great music with a blend of  heavyweight dub and afro grooves.

We all had a blast and we’re already working on making the next one even better. If you couldn’t make it to Rose last Saturday, make sure not to miss the next Afro Dub Session on Saturday February 27th with DJ Emch from Subatomic Sound System.  More info to come soon…

Tags: afro groove, afro-beat, afro-dub, afro-dub sessions, Afrobeat, antibalas, aphrodesia, blue man group, brooklyn, buhbOmp, DJ Lil Tiger, dj linh, Dub, dubstep, mark ronson, Q-Mastah, Reggae, roots, rose live music, sharon jones, sharon jones and the dap kings, slavic soul party, Sound Liberation Front, super hi-fi, the brmg, the superpowers, ticklah, victor axelrod, victor “ticklah” axelrod, Williamsburg

Rich Medina and DJ Spinna @ Giant Step’s 6th Annual MLK & Haiti Benefit Party – New York

Jan 18, 2010 News, Reviews Leave a comment
Posted by Sound Liberation Front

Words and Photos by Quoc Pham

As everyone should be aware, a tragedy of unthinkable scale happened last week in Haiti. Considering that New York City has the largest concentration of Haitians in the United States, it was easy to feel the impact of these these events here in New York. Last weekend was also Martin Luther King weekend and this year, the traditional king day of service – day of citizen action volunteer service in honor of Dr. King – had a different meaning with community organizations, non profits groups and volunteers mobilizing with the relief effort.

The music world also did contribute to the cause with many popular artists using their star power to raise awareness of the tragedy and encourage action. Wyclef Jean, probably the most famous Haitian American, raised millions of dollars through his Yele organization with a clever text message campaign. In France, dozens of French rappers and pop stars joined renowned singers Charles Aznavour and Youssou N’Dour to record a music video which will be widely broadcasted on national television.

On the local grassroots level, it was great to see many improvised benefit shows and parties pop up in New York. Since here at SLF, we’re all about partying for a good cause, we attended Giant Step’s 6th Annual MLK tribute party which was a benefit event for Doctors Without Borders in regards to Haiti. For the occasion, seminal NYC party veterans Rich Medina and DJ Spinna delivered the goods to a packed audience at the ever trendy club Cielo. With a groovy blend of soul, funk, classics and house, the duo did not fail to turn the event into an entrancing dance party and get everyone in a collective mood of celebration.

Overall, it was a fun party with a positive message and it reminded me of this spirit of solidarity and community which I think is partly what makes this city truly great.

Tags: Afrobeat, Cielo, Dj Spinna, Events, Giant Step, Hip Hop, House, New York City, Rich Medina, Soul

SLF Presents AFRO-DUB SESSIONS with Special Guest TICKLAH @ Rose Live Music, Sat. 01/30/10 – Brooklyn

Jan 12, 2010 News 2 Comments
Posted by liltiger

To start this new decade, we’re proud to announce the AFRO-DUB SESSIONS, a new monthly party taking place every last Saturday at Rose Live Music in Williamsburg.

Since you probably don’t want to hear our music nerd babbles about the concept behind the party, we’ll keep the academic  details for SLF staff meetings. All you need to know is that you should come witness a unique blend of live dub music and DJs showcasing the latest in Afrobeat, Afro Groove, Reggae, Dub, Dubstep and more. There’s no cover so you have no excuse for not coming through!

Each month, we’ll feature a special guest DJ in addition to resident live band Super Hi-Fi and the Sound Liberation DJ’s. For our launch party on January 30, we called on our good friend and quintessential afro-dub advocate  VICTOR “TICKLAH” AXELROD, to bless us with his many talents. If you’re not familiar with Ticklah, here’s a bit from his bio:

NYC based producer, keyboard virtuoso, and vintage Reggae wunderkind VICTOR AXELROD, aka TICKLAH, has been a continual and integral part of the NYC music scene for over a decade – as a performer, TICKLAH is a founding member of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Antibalas, the Easy Star All-Stars, and worked with Mark Ronson on both the Amy Winehouse and Daniel Merriweather albums. As a producer, TICKLAH was behind the boards for the Dub Side Of The Moon album (co-production, mixing), remixed Shaun Escoffery’s classic “Days Like This” (alongside DJ Spinna), produced 2001’s legendary Roots Combination album, and released his own critically acclaimed solo Ticklah Vs. Axelrod LP on NYC Reggae label Easy Star. The list goes on and on. … Victor is a man in very high demand from some very big players for his untouchable musical aesthetics, his intricate attention to detail, and a true understanding of our musical past.

Hope to see you all there! Here are some more details about the party:

==========

Sound Liberation Front + TheBRMG + buhbOmp presents:

[[ AFRO-DUB SESSIONS: Sounds of the Rhythm R(evolution) ]]

SATURDAY | 30 JAN 2010
(and every last Saturday of the month)
10p-4a | FREE | No dress code

@ Rose Live Music
345 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
- Between Marcy Ave. and Havemeyer St. in Williamsburg
- G/L train to Lorimer or the L to Bedford)
718.599.0069

featuring:

[[ TICKLAH aka VICTOR AXELROD ]]
( Easy Star Records, Antibalas )
+ facebook fan page | myspace.com/ticklah

w/ resident live Afro-Dub band:

[[ SUPER HI-FI ]]
( w/ members from Aphrodesia, Slavic Soul Party, The Superpowers and Blue Man Group )

and resident DJs:

[[ Q MASTAH ]]
( Sound Liberation Front, Music Nerd All-Stars )

[[ DJ LINH ]]
( Sound Liberation Front )

[[ DJ LIL TIGER ]]
( –=(] buhbOmp [)=–, Sound Liberation Front, touch&feel:radio, Music Nerd All-Stars, Soular Grooves )

more info:
+ facebook event page
+ going.com
+ eventful

maps:
+ google
+ hopstop
+ yahoo

Tags: afro groove, afro-beat, afro-dub, afro-dub sessions, Afrobeat, antibalas, aphrodesia, blue man group, brooklyn, buhbOmp, DJ Lil Tiger, dj linh, Dub, dubstep, mark ronson, Q-Mastah, Reggae, roots, rose live music, sharon jones, sharon jones and the dap kings, slavic soul party, Sound Liberation Front, super hi-fi, the brmg, the superpowers, ticklah, victor "ticklah" axelrod, victor axelrod, Williamsburg

Sound Liberation Front presents [[ SoundLib ]] 01/13 WED @ Moe’s in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Dec 29, 2009 News Leave a comment
Posted by liltiger

SOUNDLIB is back! Sound Liberation Front is hosting another night of great music, soulful vibes and good times in Brooklyn at Fort Greene’s legendary Moe’s Bar. Come by for eclectic, soulful selections from the Music Nerd All-Stars that span the depths of soul (new and old), Hip-Hop, afrobeat, house, reggae and much more.

We won’t keep you out too late either: 9pm-1am. Perfect for unwinding after work, having a few beverages and listening to some good music with friends. …

==========

[[ SOUNDLIB ]]

presented by Sound Liberation Front + buhbOmp + The BRMG + Rappers I Know

WEDNESDAY | 13 JAN 2009

@ Moe’s
80 Lafayette Ave
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY, 11217
718.797.9536

C to Lafayette Ave / G to Fulton St
Also within walking distance from the Atlantic Ave station (B-Q-2-3-4-5 trains)

featuring:

MUSIC NERD ALL-STARS: [[ DJ LIL TIGER + Q-MASTAH ]] :: NYC
( Sound Liberation Front, –=(] buhbOmp [)=–, touch&feel:radio, Soular Grooves )

9p-1a | FREE | No dress code

+ facebook event page
+ going.com event page
+ eventful event page

map:
+ google
+ hopstop

Tags: Afrobeat, brooklyn, buhbOmp, Dancehall, DJ Lil Tiger, Events, Fort Greene, Hip Hop, House, Moe’s, Music Nerd All-Stars, Music Nerd Club, Q-Mastah, Rappers I Know, Reggae, Soul, TheBRMG

Music is a Human Right: Haroon Bacha @ Littlefield – 12/10/09 – Brooklyn

Dec 12, 2009 Reviews Leave a comment
Posted by Q Master

Words and Photos by Quoc Pham

The freedom to express ourselves, our identity and our culture through artistic expression is a right that is often taken for granted in our complacent society. Last Wednesday was the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and for the occasion, we attended “Music is a Human Right”, a musical event at Littlefield in Brooklyn. The event was organized by Austin Dacey, a human rights activist whom we had the chance to interview earlier that week (Read the interview here).

The event featured Haroon Bacha, a traditional Pashto singer who fled his native Pakistan under the pressure of the Taliban regime. Haroon comes from the north western part of Pakistan, a mountainous region which is home to the Pashtuns, a pacific muslim ethnic group. Like many other Pashto musicians, he has been the prime target of the Taliban’s tragic campaign against popular culture and musical expression considered un-islamic. Even though he is a star in his home country, Haroon Bacha was forced to escape persecution and find asylum in New York City where he now resides. The performance was a tribute to Anwar Gul, another notorious pashto musician who was murdered by a Taliban militia a year earlier.

The evening started out with a reception followed by a brief introduction of the performance. Haroon Bacha then took the stage accompanied by his musicians – masters of the tabla and rubab – and proceeded to play an extensive set of traditional pashto music in a typical formation.   Haroon’s sweet high baritone voice combined with intricate polyrhythms and melodies led the audience into a dancing frenzy. Halfway through his set, he paused and took the opportunity to speak about Pashto culture, peace and tolerance. The evening ended with a set from DJ Rehka of Basement Banghra fame. Overall, it was a very inspiring event and a evening of magnificent music which – as organizer Austin Dacey would say – should not be silenced!

Tags: brooklyn, Concert Review, Human rights, Littlefield

FREEDOM FIGHTER SERIES: Music and Human Rights, an Interview with Austin Dacey

Dec 7, 2009 Features, Interview 3 Comments
Posted by Ezra

Note: The Freedom Fighter series highlights individuals who have been dedicated to music and its power. For the first installment of the series, we sat down with Austin Dacey, philosopher, human rights activist and organizer of “The Impossible Music Sessions”, an upcoming performance series intending to showcase musicians who have been subject to persecution and censorship.

Interview and Words by Ezra Gale, Photos by Quoc Pham

The power of music to incite, liberate, provoke and generally upset the status quo is one that seemingly disparate artists from The Clash to Fela Kuti to Dead Prez have mined for explosive and often political effect. It may be hard for us to picture here in New York and elsewhere in the developed western world- where music is as background as your screen saver- but there are still many places where music is as contraband as dynamite: an uncontrollable substance dangerous to autocratic regimes from Iran to China to Guinea-Bissau who would just as soon banish its potentially subversive effects.

This Wednesday, December 9, marks the start of a performance series at Brooklyn’s Littlefield that aims to showcase banned music from around the globe- music literally declared too dangerous to exist in its home country. Wednesday features Haroon Bacha, forced into exile from his native Pakistan because the encroaching Taliban deemed his lyrics insufficiently puritanical. In 2010 the series will morph into “The Impossible Music Sessions,” a series of performances meant to connect performers here in New York with underground and essentially illegal bands and artists in Iran, Africa and elsewhere. It’s all the brainchild of Austin Dacey, whose vision of combating tyranny includes using music as ammunition, and who has set out to support musicians worldwide doing just that. We sat down to talk with Austin about the upcoming series at Littlefield, and about our favorite subject here at Sound Liberation — the power of music.

So how did you get involved in human rights work, to start?

Well, I’m a philosopher by training, and for the last ten years I’ve worked at doing philosophy in public life. I was working with a non-profit organization that’s interested in freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry. It’s called The Center for Inquiry, and it defends the liberty to doubt and question and dissent from orthodoxy, wherever you are and whoever you are. And that brought me to the United Nations, where we were involved in some of the struggles there to try to protect the human right to doubt and question, and to express those doubts.

And so where along the way did music become involved? How did you decide to incorporate that in what you are doing?

Well, since I was a young man, I was a frustrated musician. I was always looking for a way to get back into music. In the last few years, I was working with dissidents and secular voices from the Arab and Muslim world, and I was finding all this amazing music. The first music I really got into was Persian hip-hop from the underground in Iran, and in the Iranian expatriate community. It was great music and it was obviously an exercise of a human right. People were talking about the situation in their country and opposing a totalitarian theocracy with their music. I started looking around to see if there was anyone talking about the human rights of musicians. I found one organization based in Denmark that had been doing that for about ten years, and so I started volunteering for them.

And are you doing that now, working for them?

Yes, I’m an advisor for Freemuse, the World Forum on Music and Censorship. They’re based in Copenhagen. What Reporters Without Borders is for reporters, Freemuse is for musicians.

That’s interesting, because I bet most people wouldn’t put musicians in the same category as persecuted groups like reporters or dissidents.

Human rights are important because we are all vulnerable to exercises of power. Music is as threatening to the powerful because music has a power to move that is autonomous from the other centers of power in society. It doesn’t respond to command–it responds to its own impulses. Music is also a source of community identity for many religious or cultural minorities who threaten the majority or the orthodox. Music is a convenient target for supressing that pluralism. There are cases of cultural repression, for example, societies where women are not allowed to sing before mixed audiences. Or political censorship, in which certain messages are prevented from getting on state-run radio or television, up to outright bans, where particular songs are considered blasphemous. There are many cases of musicians who have been imprisoned and killed for playing a tune.

Do you think there are repressive regimes that are particularly afraid of music? Do you think there is something about the power of music that makes them want to suppress it?

I think that all totalitarian or autocratic governments are tempted to do that. Probably the worst offender right now is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has been called the biggest prison for journalists in the world. It’s a difficult place for any kind of expression, but in particular for so-called western music forms like hip-hop and rock. Music is very tightly controlled by government ministries. Some of the most beloved rock bands and hip-hop artists in Iran have never played a single show in their country because if they did they would almost certainly be harassed or arrested.

The state-run media in China have prevented some Tibetan-language artists from being heard, so that’s another problem area. And the most outrageous repression of music we’ve seen in recent years was under the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Yeah, I was going to say, they banned music completely, right?

That’s right. Which they considered any singing, except their own. They have a traditional style of hymns, using tunes borrowed, incidentally, from popular music of the Pashtun ethnic group, from which most of the Taliban come. After the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviets and then against the US-led invasion of the country, thousands of these religious extremists have been displaced into northwest Pakistan, where they’ve been regrouping. In fact, this past year they made a bid to take over the region. The first wave of the campaign by the Taliban in northwest Pakistan was an assault on music. And so there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of Pashto, singers, dancers, composers, who were either forced to leave the country or were intimidated by threats of deadly violence.

And so what they ended up with was essentially a world without music? It’s kind of hard for us to imagine I think.

It is hard for us to imagine. Of course, as the manager of Swat Cinema, a movie theater in the Swat Valley, which was the epicenter of this war between Pakistan the Taliban, said to the BBC not long ago, “We also reserve the right to sing, laugh, and to express ourselves.” Even in Afghanistan under the Taliban, drivers would play popular music until they came to a checkpoint, at which point they would stick in a cassette of a Taliban singer wailing away at his hymns. People will find a way to make music. And in fact they have the support of international human rights law in doing so. Music most certainly falls under the kind of expression that’s protected under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the things that Freemuse intends to do in coming years is to bring this issue to more attention and begin raising the question of the human rights of musicians within the international community, at the United Nations Human Rights Council and elsewhere.

So tell me a little bit about the Impossible Music Sessions, how did that grow out of this human rights work?

I realized that around the world in places where music is really not fully free, there were these thriving underground scenes, some of which are producing really great stuff. And at the same time in places like New York and San Francisco and Berlin and London and Tokyo there were huge audiences of music lovers, musical youth cultures, and they didn’t know about each other. You know, people in New York who love underground music had no idea about the great underground bands that were playing in Tehran in people’s basements. I thought they would be natural allies, they would be interested in musical relationships, and maybe some community would develop. So I wanted a way to bring together these underground communities that would help get some of this great music out there but also of course raise the profile of these censored artists, hopefully to contribute to the debates within their own societies about pushing the envelope forward for freedom of expression.

And so what’s happening this Wednesday at Littlefield?

We have one of Pakistan’s most beloved Pashto singers, and one of the victims of this Taliban campaign in northwest Pakistan. Haroon Bacha fled the country last year after death threats to him and his family. He was granted asylum in the US and is now looking to re-launch his career here, and has been working with a radio service, an affiliate of Radio Free Europe, broadcasting Pashto language cultural programs back home. He’s going to be playing his own original compositions. It’s these lyrics, he claims, that got him in trouble back. He sings of pluralism, of toleration, of resistance to war, and of the ordinary concerns of people who work, fall in love, and get drunk.

He’ll be performing on the harmonium, which is a beautiful traditional instrument, and he’ll be accompanied by two masters of the tabla and rubab, a lute-like instrument.

Austin Dacey with Haroon Bacha

And in the future you want to showcase more artists like this as well? And maybe even some collaborations with artists who are based here?

The idea for the series is that censored artists will collaborate with artists here, and they will actually perform on behalf of the artists who cannot appear, whose music cannot be played in their homeland. So right now we’re creating some partnerships between hip-hop artists based in New York, and hip-hop artists based in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau who are currently confined to the underground by political violence and threats there. We’re going to be connecting a band here with an underground band in Tehran, and hopefully they can work out some stuff together. We’ll be getting them on the line and talking to them that night, creating an audience for their music here in New York.

Sounds like really a testament to the power of music.

Yes. Music will not be silenced.

Tags: brooklyn, Freedom Fighter Series, Human rights, Interview, Littlefield

Sound Liberation Front presents [[ SoundLib ]] 12/17 THU @ Moe’s in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Dec 7, 2009 News Leave a comment
Posted by liltiger

In the spirit of our SLF/MNC Spring Loft Party and our Music Nerd Club Fourth of July Rooftop Party from earlier this year, we’re hosting a new party called SoundLib featuring your favorite selectors, SLF’s own Music Nerd All-Stars (aka DJ Lil Tiger and Q Mastah).

We’ll be bringing good folks together for some drinks and quality music at the legendary Moe’s Bar on THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17. More info forthcoming. For now, peep the info below and spread the word.

==========

[[ SOUNDLIB ]]

presented by Sound Liberation Front + buhbOmp + The BRMG

THURSDAY | 17 DEC 2009

@ Moe’s
80 Lafayette Ave
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY, 11217
718.797.9536

C to Lafayette Ave / G to Fulton St
Also within walking distance from the Atlantic Ave station (B-Q-2-3-4-5 trains)

featuring:

MUSIC NERD ALL-STARS: [[ DJ LIL TIGER + Q-MASTAH ]] :: NYC
( Sound Liberation Front, –=(] buhbOmp [)=–, touch&feel:radio, Soular Grooves )

8p-1a | FREE | No dress code

+ facebook event page

map:
+ google
+ hopstop

Tags: Afrobeat, brooklyn, buhbOmp, Dancehall, DJ Lil Tiger, Events, Fort Greene, Hip Hop, House, Moe's, Music Nerd All-Stars, Music Nerd Club, Q-Mastah, Reggae, Soul, TheBRMG