I recently went to the annual Festa de jongo at the Quilombo São José in Valença, in the interior of the state of Rio de Janeiro. São José is a community of about 200 people of the same ancestral family founded by former slaves 150 or so years ago. The dance and rhythm jongo, was brought from Angola and is considered one of the origins of samba. Clementina de Jesus is from here and there’s lots of folks over 90 years old (so says their blog - it was certainly an all ages event).
In keeping with tradition, the roda de jongo was started by lighting a huge bonfire while the oldest couple from the community took the first dance……and then group after group comes through representing other communities. Here’s a ponto de jongo from the festa recorded on my still digital camera.
There were many different folkloric groups visiting from all over Rio de Janeiro state, as well as groups from São Paulo and Minas Gerais (where jongo can also be found). The group with the white shirts above is the local crew from Quilombo São José and the pink and white group are visitors (like most of the people there).
It was really dusty and hard to take photos with a flash! The festa began in the morning on Saturday and only ended the next morning. Below is the full schedule tacked onto the side of the sound system. Unfortunately, we had a 4 hour drive back to Rio and had to leave on the early side. Next year, I bring a tent and food and more clothes (it was cold!) and cachaça……
You can get the CD from Jongo da Serrinha, a group based in Madureira, Rio de Janeiro here. Still jongo, but lots of elements of samba, more urban sounding and well recorded. Aside from some guy I ran across on soulseek who had a bunch of unlabeled 96 kbps mp3s of “jongo do quilombo são josé…faixa 1, faixa 2, etc.,” (and who disconnected almost immediately) I haven’t found any recordings from quilombo São José.
A general overview on jongo do quilombo de São José is here. A very detailed paper on jongo from são benedito, Espírito Santo is here. These are all in portuguese….
Below are 2 documentaries (each in 3 parts) on jongo do quilombo São josé. The first has an interesting breakdown of the drum patterns and the lyrical content, while the second is more focused on jongo, the dance. Highly recommended!
I’m extra pleased to pass along the news that Jahdan’s new record on Dutty Artz got picked up by Gold Dust media for a fall release. Last year I had the pleasure of working with JD on a number of tracks - 2 of which appear on the album.
Recording at Chez Jones aka DA HQ, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Abena Koomson writing lyrics for Rise Again, which closes the album and Mr. Jones hard at work in the background.
Filastine’s just posted video which accompanies “B’talla” (released on his awesome new record, “Dirty Bomb”) during his live set. He recommends selecting the HQ button to see in all its glory. Also responsible for the video are Barcelona based Proletaricratz
After many visits to South Africa, connecting with the African Dope Records crew - Fletcher, Teba, Sibot, and Max Normal in particular, DJing all over SA from Cape Town to Joburg, producing and recording music, here is the third video clip to accompany my record, “Archipelagoes,” released recently on Soot Records. “Nqayi feat. Teba.” was also chosen to represent the sound of Cape Town on the latest African Dope Records compilation, “Cape of Good Dope 2.”
The video was shot over 2 days in Guguletu, one of Cape Town’s most notorious townships and Teba’s home turf - with all borrowed equipment - borrowed camera, boom box, the car on loan, people leting us into their houses to film. Back in the day, Teba was a member of the super successful kwaito group Skeem, which put out several albums before he left to do more socially conscious work. He now leads workshops in lyric writing and gumboot dancing (!), is part of the African Dope Sound System, has his own live band and has collaborated with the likes of Stereotyp, Godessa and SiBot.
A slow hybrid funk/macumba/ragga beat sung in Xhosa and English, the lyrics talk about the difficulties faced by youth in townships today and how society tries to force them to drink and take drugs. Nqayi means baldhead and refers to fake rastas posturing themselves, but then bending over to the pressures of society and shaving their locks. An interesting element of the lyrics to this track are in the chorus where he uses the Xhosa ‘q’ sound, a click made with the tongue and the roof of the mouth, as a percussive element. Check the end of the video for a quick lesson…..
You can check the other videos from Archipelagoes “Fire feat. Xuman” and “Saye Mbott feat. ALIF with Ndiaya” here on Vimeo and here on Youtube.
Timeblind has been doing his thing for many years now - making dubstep tracks before dubstep was even a name. While his name may not be the most hyped or the biggest font on the flyers, his work is LARGE. His beats are some serious bidness - rich texures, heavy grooves and a razor-sharp sensibility for pacing, silence and space. He’s got releases on Shockout, Soot, the Agriculture and Orthlorng Musork, among others. He’s got a new 12″ - Version - and dates coming up at the Clandestino Festival as well as at Raum 18 and the Ngoma party in Berlin. check his site for more info. Download his new mix.
If you’re reading this blog, chances are that you already know my migratory brother and frequent partner in sonic crime, Filastine. His new record out and it is deep. Listen many times. He’s just released this video clip made in BCN by the Kognitiv Krew for the track “Singularities.”
My latest mini-documentary…….with Ghislain Poirier. The initial interveiw was made at his friend’s amazing rooftop apartment in DUMBO, Brooklyn and then we headed over to the Sub Swara party at Love in the city. New York City, in case you weren’t sure….There’s also some footage from the Club Transmediale festival in Berlin, as well as some excerpts from his music video clips.
I’ve been a big fan of Ghis’ full, round and sturdy minimal beats for a long time. He’s curious and open to new sounds. He does tropical tracks. In Montreal. He’s a really sweet, friendly and open guy, which, I think, is a big reason why he’s made all of these great tracks and collaborations. He makes the effort to get out and connect with folks from all over the place. It shows in the music.
In the process of editing, I started gathering all of his laughs and putting them at the end of the sequence, not really knowing what I’d do with them. ghislain breakcore laugh track? Sorry, they didn’t make it into the final cut, but just so you know, there were a LOT of them!
With this series of mini-docs, I want to demystify the music production process a bit and bring out the humanity of it. After all, music is a manifestation of history. of choices and relationships. This is common to any art, discipline, individual, group or society. Through communication, real and imaginary differences and similarities become clearer. Separatist ghetto exoticism cannot exist in this space. Tamu juntos e misturados.
You can check the rest of the mini-docs (DJ/rupture, Daniel Haaksman, MC Gringo, Diplo, Eritbu Agegnehu Askenaw, Xuman and Keyti, Fletcher) here on Vimeo (better quality) and here on Youtube.
Just in the inbox - a slide show by my friend Oriana Eliçabe. It is a document of her travels in various South American countries photographing people working with hip hop as means of promoting social justice. These are not the famous few that make it to WOMAD, these are the people in the trenches, on the street without whom hip hop would just be a meaningless catch phrase or marketing scheme. Far from being staged photos, these are observations of everyday life. I found this hugely inspiring. Check out the full release and her website and watch the slide show below (some great music in here too).
I’ve been holed up at home working in the studio with my head between 2 speakers and in front of the computer monitor. Sometimes, I can only take so much and I have to get out. I went up to the baile at Cantagalo at about 2:30am last friday night, as I often do. Piranhão was manning the 1s and 2s…er, well, the MP3s on his laptop. The rapaziada was in FULL effect, going around the quadra with one hand on the person in front and their AK or glock or whatever in the other hand. Nothing terribly unusual about this, although, this doesn’t usually happen INSIDE the quadra with SO MANY manos in the bondinho…..At one point, the music was cut and the MC asked for a minute of silence to remember those that were at Tabajaras that are no longer with us (see below).
This also is not very unusual, but that night, it was PACKED. The contrast of being between 2 opposing walls of speakers cranking out funk to the point that it made your clothes visibly vibrate to the same room full of completely silent people was tremendous. NO ONE spoke. Nobody moved. Weight being shifted from one foot to the other, a sniffle, a far away motorcycle and a rooster crowing down the street were the only sounds. Silence when you are alone and/or in a distant natural place are one thing, but a very large space filled with unspeaking, unmoving people is impressive.
About 2 weeks ago, there was an invasion of Ladeira dos Tabajaras by traficantes from Rocinha. After a big shoot out with police and local traficantes, part of the crew from Rocinha escaped into the forest nearby where they spent days before trying to escape last week. In the reports that I found, it’s a bit unclear, but the police then invaded Ladeira dos Tabajaras the following week (last week) where they killed at least 4 suspected traficantes (supposedly from Tabajaras - the guys from Rocinha were supposedly arrested april 1 while trying to escape).
Here is a a video of part of the shoot out from march 23 in Copacabana.
and another video talking about the invasion of the guys from Rocinha and where they tried to escape to. This gives a little better better idea of how a war like this can happen in the middle of a very densely populated city.
It continues to blow my mind that this sort of things happens ALL THE TIME here. This is NOT an isolated incident! Does this only come to the attention of the media and mainstream society when there is a shoot out on their block?
But, anyway, everything is just fine now…….Rambo has arrived! And, if that’s not enough, we can sick the Terminator on their ass.
A few blocks down the street (in the other direction)……….Sylvester Stallone just arrived in Rio. He is here to do a film about mercenaries. Seriously.
