The week in YouTube Dance

Each week I troll youtube for my favourites clips, teasers, routines and music videos.

If you thought you were in danger of not seeing an overweight boy dancing to house music, you have nothing to fear.

Ed Sheeran's I See Fire (Kygo Remix) is given the new school treatment care of the boys from Dance Centre Myway with choreography by Sasha Putilov

The dancers from Dance Centre Myway go in on Beyonce's - Ghost/Haunted, choreographed by by Miss Lee

I liked Kaelynn "Kay Kay" Harris going in to Missy's Pass that dutch at World of Dance Bay Area 2015

Who else would we finish with but the one and only Poreotics at World of Dance Bay Area 2015 

Three Questions about Creativity with Musician/Artist/Designer/ Conor Grebel

Sometimes we find it hard to describe ourselves. What are we? Dancers, writers, film-makers, visual artists? 

All of the above?

I wanted to speak to Conor Grebel a 'creative' form San Francisco, mainly because I wasn't completely sure what it was he did. Turns out he's not quite sure either! Read on and find out why that might be a great thing.

I don't know if I'd call myself a designer! I used to just be a kid that drew a lot and loved making worlds, then wanted to be an animator, then found out motion graphics was a thing...then just...got into it. I inspired myself to do these things. Along the way you see work/artists that inspire you...piece by piece. I don't even know what I am or want to be...musician? SFX artist? Animator? set builder? live stage designer? Music video director? Human? Ant? Still unsure on most of those. The most liberating thing that ever happened is when I stopped trying to discover what type of artist I was, or what direction or style was 'my calling'...and started accepting an open passion to any thought/style/project/medium that inspired me...project to project. Being open to whatever you wanna do and then doing it...even if its jumping from animating to woodworking. Do it. Freedom!



Conor is passionate about whatever he chooses to do. Being inspired is the first step, but then you have to take that passion for your craft and believe that you can add to the world in your own creative way, whatever form that may take. 

Of course it's not easy once your on that journey, and the road is destined to be littered with speed-bumps. What do you do when it feels like you've run out of ideas?

Stop struggling. Let yourself be unmotivated and stop giving yourself a hard time about it. The more you struggle with it the worse it will get. When you get a cold you don't work hard at getting rid of it, right? You cant exercise and stress out and get upset about it...otherwise you will tire out more and the cold will get worse. The best thing to do is to accept your situation, relax yourself, and take care of yourself. Same with periods of low motivation. Trust in yourself, your body, and your mind. 

Bedtimes - It's a Trick from Conor Grebel on Vimeo.

Don't forget to chill out. No-one is going to arrest you if you take a break. Get your sleep and have some down time. You'll find this is the time when the ideas start to flow. Don't force it.

That said, taking a breather might relax you about your situation, but it won't in itself give you ideas. If you're still struggling to break the shackles of your creative prison, get out and experience the world. You can do this in any number of ways.

Watch / experience other peoples work. 

Start making a habit of writing down ideas. Once you start doing this, ideas seem so much more real...and you start to expand on them.

Music.

Take a walk.

You never know where your inspiration will come from. Just get up from the computer, step away from the canvas and go interact with the world around you.

And don't forget, if you think we all have things sorted, we don't. None of us know what the heck we're doing! Just get out and do it and the rest will fall into place.

I'm still figuring out shit myself. We all are! Everybody has no clue what they are doing, they are all trying to figure it out as they go.

Like the great William Goldman once said about Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything"!

Check out all of Conor's work. He is a very talented dude, but more importantly he is very passionate and imbues his art with a quality borne of hard work and belief in his ideas.

Conor Grebel performs as Bedtimes and his great EP 'It's a Trick' can be found HERE
He contributed to Vice's Creators Project with his video for Tycho's 'See'.
Check out his Vimeo portfolio HERE
Twitter: @ConorGrebel

Check out the fantastic 'Box' below, which was a Vimeo Staff Pick in 2013

Review: Azealia Banks - Broke with Expensive Taste

Azealia Banks is 23.

It's important to remember that fact when you consider the tumultuous two year period leading up to the release of her schizoprenic and excellent debut album. 

In those two years, she has amassed a mega-hit song, several acclaimed mixtapes, won and lost a major label deal and instigated many twitter beefs. She went from unbeatable to, in her own words, "untouchable".

Whilst the twitter beefs don't look like they'll abate any time soon, there is this album, and what a gorgeous mess it is.

In an age when average-joe consumer is likely to say that all music is mainstream, lets be clear.

This is not a mainstream album, but it is a great one.

I've been listening to the album in the background most nights, not really deeply listening, and it's almost as if that's the way it should be listened to. 

One time I walked in to the lounge-room and Azealia was adopting a perfect Spanish flow like a true chica on the funkily salsified "Gimme A Chance", whilst another time I found her doing her best Annette Funicello impression on the 60's Beach Party banger "Nude Beach A Go-Go". It's not a concept you're brain easily grips on to.

It doesn't stop there. Having equal skill in both singing and rhyming allows Banks to be flexible, but it also means she's spoiled for stylistic choices. If I'm so good at all these styles, why not do them all? 

There's a Garage/2-Step track "Desperado", sampled from the fantastic early aught's MJ Cole classic and there's of course her house-influenced 2012 world-beater "212".



You can see why Interscope was baffled with how to market her.

Regardless of whether she's mainstream or not, Banks is just being herself, a product of a broad cultural upbringing. She hails from Harlem, which up until the 90's was predominantly populated by african-americans. By the time she was a teen, she might not have even noticed that her neighbourhood had become more multicultural. 

Banks would have grown up in a populus that was infused with the DNA of local Hip-Hop denizens like Tupac, Cam'ron, A$AP Rocky, Mase and P. Diddy. Added to that, she would also have felt the influence of incoming White, Hispanic and foreign-born African communities, who have increasingly made up Harlem's numbers as Manhattans property prices have risen sharply in price.

This diverse cultural background partly explains her list of collaborators, which is as varied as it it is long. Lone, Diplo, Baauer, Disclosure, MachineDrum and Hudson Mohawke are among the better-known producers who have worked with Bank$, none of whom are among the mainstream soundsmiths that we typically associate with chart-topping pop acts.

However, it's precisely this melange of differing collaborators that ensures that Expensive is as restlessly interesting and entertaining as it is.



"Chasing Time", produced by Philly producer Pop Wansel, is classic Banks. It's an uptempo dance track that allows her to flex her considerable house muscle, but also challenges her to keep pace with her rap verses. This she does with an ease that very few, if any, of her contemporaries could manage. How does this happen? How does Banks rip through a track that most pop stars wouldn't even consider? Wansel has an idea. "Most rappers are not in a space right now to be innovative or to be open to different shit. They want to chase what’s on the radio. They want a “club banger.”

Banks wants club bangers too, but she also wants 60's pop songs and Garage tunes.

This record is not for everybody, hell, I'm pretty sure it's not even meant to be for me. For the person that it is for, Banks herself, it's important.

It's shows an artist in motion, someone who has spent the last three years working out who she is, and someone who is still working that out. 

As fascinated as I am following her journey, I kinda hope she never stops searching.

Three Questions about Creativity with Battle of the Year creator Thomas Hergenröther

Any Bboy or Bgirl who hasn't heard the name Thomas Hergenröther probably hasn't competed in Battle of the Year. Hergenröther is synonymous with BOTY because he was the man that created it.

As a fan of many BOTY's and of course the stellar 2007 documentary Planet BBoy, I knew I had to talk to Thomas about creating an event that has gone on capture the worlds attention.

Thomas was very generous with his response and his story encapsulates what happens when you have a great idea, a little motivation and an inclusive attitude. 

Most big undertakings start from humble beginnings with a few creative and motivated people, so my question was to find out what or who inspired Thomas to create Battle of the Year in the first place?

I was a Bboy and in the end of the 80s it totally died out in Germany/Europe. I kept on dancing and finally found few other Bboys who were still left. We sat down, discussed and then decided to try to bring it back and show the public that to us Hip Hop including Bboying is more than a fashion but passion. That was my/our first motivation to start the BOTY without knowing of course that in the future it will last so long and will grow so big.

In the end of the 80s we also met Battle Squad with Storm and Swift and they probably were our main inspiration at that time encouraging us to do something.

Creative people challenge the status quo, knowing that our best as human beings is always still ahead of us. Thomas found that although popular culture at that point had chewed up and spit out breaking, the spirit of the culture was still young and there were people crying out for a unifying event, not just in Germany, but around the world.  

Creating something is only half the battle, as you have to keep working on it day-in and day-out. I wanted to know what kept Thomas motivated to keep pushing year after year, especially in the early days?

Motivation especially in the early years was easy. It was all a big adventure during the age of no you tube, facebook and emails. You never knew what will happen and every BOTY from 1990 to 2000 was kind of unpredictable in terms of knowing which dancers and crews and also how much crowd will show up. Especially the first five BOTY editions (1990 – 1995) still had that original jam character, it was a very close and interactive atmosphere, very original in terms of the true meanings and vibes of hip hop culture.

It was more in and after 1999/2000 that I questioned our ideas a lot since we got quite some negative feedback in terms oft hat BOTY got too big and commercial, saying that we sell out the hip hop culture, which from my side really never was the case. My heart was and still is always with the culture and dancers of course with adapting to time and in the end of course business.

But I totally got over it since today I am totally convinced of our event and philosophy we spread for BOTY, plus nowadays we have so many BBoy events and the scene and audience for everything is so big that everybody can choose were to go and where not to go.

My main inspiration and motivation up to today still are important people keep on pushing us such as Storm, Mode 2, Crazy, Vartan / Flying Steps and also my brilliant team which is like family, with some we work together since 1995.

Youthful enthusiasm and having low expectations can provide motivation when you're starting out, but the inspiration you get from others you've met and work with because of your creation is what keeps you working on it.

Battle of the year is over 25 years old, and Thomas is a veteran of the scene now, so I was curious to ask Thomas if there are specific things that he does that helps him get in a creative state of mind?

I travel a lot all over the world watching different kinds of dance events, not only Bboy event but of course mainly Bboy events. I think we can learn from younger/new events sometimes. If we would still do the same things with BOTY as we did in the early 90s it would not work, time is running and the kids and also the Bboys change in attitude, needs, behaviour …

Beside that I do a lot of sports especially outdoor activities in my life and this keeps me down to earth plus calms me down a lot to think about new ideas and concepts for our events.

Although BOTY is Thomas's focus, he has other hobbies and sports that allow him to take time out from his work. Sometimes when you work in your business, you are so concerned with the day-to-day operations you forget you need to work on your business, and some of those business decisions require a clear and creative mind. The time away from work gives you the opportunity to think differently and more broadly, helping create new ideas and to remind you why you started in the first place.

Thomas has worked hard to create an event that has stayed as true as it can to the original spirit of the Hip Hop culture whilst still growing and changing with every generation. If you're looking to stay relevant creatively and culturally for the long run, taking Thomas's example is a good start.

Battle of the Year website
2014 BOTY Final on Youtube

DJ Quik finds beauty in the Midnight Life

There's very, very few Hip Hop MC's that you can say were relevant in 1990 that are still relevant today. The list of relevant producers is even shorter, but DJ Quik is both relevant as an MC and a producer. More than relevant, he excels at both.

Midnight Life is his 9th studio album, and it's one of his best, which is saying something.

"Beauty is the promise of happiness" - Stendhal, 19th-century French writer 

"My music is flawless" - DJ Quik, Pet Sematary 

The live instrumentation that Quik raps over bears the signs of a restless producer who's been searching for the perfect sound for more than half his life. If beauty is truly the promise of happiness then Quik is trying make a lot of people extremely happy. 

Although this album revels in perfecting old school styles (G-Funk, Jazz, Vocoders) there are signs that Quik has one ear to the mainstream. With a little Ratchet here, and a little Trap there, Quik can co-sign the latest fads without giving over to them. That he is able to mesh more contemporary beats with the sounds that have cemented his legacy since Quik is the name, is all the more impressive. 

In taking the best of all genres, Quik constructs a well-designed piece of art, a package of sound that acts as a reminder to us of the values we wish to see in ourselves - clarity, attention to detail, integrity, depth, dexterity and perfection. 

However, Quik doesn't let perfection get in the way of a good time. A party starter from the get-go, the music of the Midnight Life reflects the attitudes of the easy-going Quik. The Jazzy late-night groove of 'Pet Sematary' lulls you into Quik's world, one that is simultaneously partying like its 1989 and 2014. 'Puffin the Dragon' even sounds like a TV theme song from the 1970's. 

It's not all gin and juice though. Anyone who heard the more scathing tracks on Quik's 2011 album The Book of David will know his real life has not been easy, and this every present fear pervades every verse of this album. Hailing from the notoriously violent suburb of Compton, and entering the game with the likes of NWA, Quik knows the gangsta life. 

His hood side is present on bangers like 'Trapped on the Tracks' and 'That Getter', although the paranoia explicit in those tracks is also sprinkled right through his album. Like the mafioso in the diner, Quik never has his back to the door. 

 Where does this perceived fear stem from? Maybe Quik feels that his comparative lack of success is unwarranted? 

 I suspect that he is keenly aware that his take on West Coast Hip Hop long ago ceased to appeal to the casual rap fan, and I believe he doesn't mind being the odd one out. 

If Quik is truly aiming for beauty in his art, and if art really is the "criticism of life", then Quiks art comes at a price, which may be in the form of decreasing radio spins and albums sales. 

That may be all be true, but in any case, the world is better off when Quik's trying to rupture the status quo.

Play now at Spotify 
Buy now at Itunes

Iggy Azalea and the Appropriative Ceiling

I'm not here to comment on the already exhausted arguements about Australian-born rapper Iggy Azalea not rapping in an Australian accent, in fact I support her doing it.

Where would Hugh Jackman be if he didn't switch to the american drawl in his blockbuster role 'Swordfish'. Aussies have been donning the american slang since Errol Flynn was in tights, so why should we be angry that an Aussie popstar has done the same.

That said, making Hip-Hop in an American accent probably disqualifies you from claiming you are making Australian music, much the way Hugh can't claim that X-Men is an Aussie Franchise. This may expain why Iggy has long since distanced herself from her heritage in as many ways as possible. 

"To be 100% honest, I don't have any friends in Australia, just my family. I identify with Australian culture, of course; I was raised there. But there are parts of other cultures I identify with more, which is why I moved". 

But I don't really want to talk about that, as fascinating as that conversation is. No, I want to talk about the other controversy plaguing the Iggy persona - cultural appropriation.

Much has been made of her story - Girl from a small town learns to rap to American Hip-Hop in an American accent, is pushed out of the local hip-hop scene and runs away to the USA to become a star. I make it sound like an overnight success, but to be clear, her road to success actually took quite a number of years. I digress.

Along the way, as we know, she developed what Oliver Wang described as “a hat trick of appropriation: not American, not black, not southern”. 

With this triumverate of acquired skills, she has accumulated a hit single and the co-sign of one America's most successful rappers. The question is then, where does she go from here? She has the skillset, work ethic and connects, but she's yet to make a compelling personal record. 

If she doesn't have the benefit of american cultural DNA and she's unwilling to discuss her Australian upbringing, where is she going to get her lyrical content from? she can't adopt much more from African-American culture you would think, but it's an interesting question -  what's Iggy's Appropriative ceiling?

Characteristics of a Classic

If you look at the best African American, Southern hip-hop albums of all time, you can start to paint the picture of the directions Iggy would have to take to actually record a new classic .
Here's the characteristics of some of the best known Southern Hip-Hop albums.
Personal self-reflection - (8 Ball & MJG - In Our Lifetime, Vol. 1, Scarface - The Fix, UGK -Ridin' Dirty)
Street persona - (Rick Ross - Teflon Don, Young Jeezy - Let’s Get It, T.I. - King)
Social commentary - (Outkast - Aquemini)
Spirituality (Goodie Mob - Soul Food)
Violence and mayhem (Geto Boys - We Can't be Stopped)

For most of these artists, and indeed Hip-Hop artists in general, their best albums were recorded early in their careers. The characteristics listed above are not adopted, they're ingrained in ones upbringing and provide a life-times worth of first-hand experience.

I find it hard to think that Iggy will be able to embed her lyrics with these same regionally specific characteristics. At best you can hope she imbues her content with more story-telling qualities, recounting her travels through her early years in Australia and the US with the specificity and soul her music currently lacks.

Country Grammar

Iggy's not lyrically complex, and this holds her back in any argument for her Hip Hop immortality, and it doesn't stop there. Although her flow is precise, it's very studied and not yet lived-in, a product of performance over naturality. 

There's a sense that her flow will relax with time, into something that feels more an exaggeration of her true self and less like a Siri-fied T.I.

The Dungeon Sound

Another interesting point is that The New Classic doesn't sound geographically southern either, an indicator of a more globally-focussed Hip-Hop industry and a commercial sound designed to appeal to the largest number of music fans.

As she gains more autonomy over her sound, there is a chance that she would find productions that better suit her flow and even more promising, producers who craft tracks specifically for her.

Respect M.E.

Apart from the Southern Hip-Hop artists listed previously, Iggy's most obvious female comparison would likely be to Missy Elliot. Whilst other female rappers have made sexuality the focus of their lyrics (Lil Kim, Gangsta Boo, Trina), Elliot carved her own way, through the tripped out party music of frequent collaborator Timbaland. 

Her distinctive style set her apart, and yet Elliot found that she was able to stay largely away from personal lyrics whilst still being commercially and critically successful.

However, Iggy doesn't have Missy's cartoonish personality or a frequent collaborator like Timbaland, she lives or dies on hot beats from a coterie of collaborators. This typically works short term, but in the long term just focusses peoples attention on your producer.

Future 

Iggy could refashion herself into a trend-setting,globe-trotting chameleon, much like Diplo or M.I.A.,  however for now she seems content to stay her lane. 

Wherever she goes from here, it will be an interesting ride. Lets just hope that her success leads to more homegrown American female rappers getting deals and making great albums and not to more thinkpieces like this one.

Appropriative Ceiling: The upper limit to which you can  take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself, often without permission

Barcelona Part 1

So it's not the first time.

However, it seems like a different experience this time.

This time I wasn't young, and I wasn't getting off a crowded bus in Las Ramblas having slept fitfully the night before, but it didn't matter.

The excitement was still there, in as much as I can muster excitement at 39.
As we dropped our bags off at our apartment, headed downstairs in our creaky two-man elevator and stepped outside through the heavy door, the surreality set in.

There was a calm; a sense of 'what do we do now?'; the kind you get when you realize the event you've been waiting for these past few months is in reality a non-event, and adjusting your expectations accordingly.

We walked around a couple hours, acquainting ourselves with our neighbourhood. We passed through Passeig El Born, our temporary main street that looked under and overwhelming at the same time.

I was right. This was no Woody Allen movie, no, this was more like a Miyazaki dreamscape, complete with fantastical creatures in beautiful costumes. It dragged me in, I wanted to be one of them.

My bare spanish proved to be a burden in Spain, and not just for my mediocre pronounciations. Catalans do not in fact speak common Spanish, which impacted me in the most direct of ways. I did not find out until the end of our trip that coffee with milk was in fact two entirely different words in Catalan than it was in Spanish. This was not held against me as a Spaniard, but it did out me as a foreigner, which is an entirely different 'ism.

After all that, the coffee was almost entirely awful. If not for the fact that we lived around the corner from the crowned kingdom of Catalan coffee 'Cafe El Magnifico', I dare say I may not have drank coffee for several days (a record by several days).

'Cafe El Magnifico' was not only rare in it's coffee quality, it was also one of the few genuinely friendly conversations I had with retailers in Barcelona. That's no dig, Barcelona has the best service I've encountered anywhere in the world, it's just that service comes at the expense of friendly banter. 

The Picasso museum beckoned us, but only in the way an unchecked to-do list beckoned you to pick up some extra onions from the shops. We weren't here to get stuff done, we didn't have to do anything, so we didn't. In that way we were free to do everything, at our own pace.

The weather was hot, but not hot in a way that made you want to strip down to near nothing. You couldn't anyway, it would appear, because civilization was all around you, and stepping outside was an invitation to be judged on the Catalan catwalks.

Catalan's dressed to the nine's and ten's, and heat would not deter this. Taut, light fabrics were tailored to the summer sun, allowing the locals to maintain a conservative and European cut to their cloth.

We followed suit (pardon the pun). The best way to deter pick-pockets was to dress like a local, which we took as an invitation to shop. The clothing was indeed light and somewhat prudish, however it was never less than stylish.

My search lead me to Espadrilles, a shoe which I had been trying to buy for at least 12 months, with no success. Here they numbered in the hundreds. The appeal is simple. A light summer slip-on that covered the foot and looked stylish? Sign me up.

The beach was a like a sandy Las Ramblas, with tourists claiming a stake in almost every square inch of real estate. We sat on deckchairs that were surprisingly empty, only to find out later that they were owned by the council, and inspectors would come around from time to time and collect fees for sitting on them. Obviously they're not as diligent as our parking inspectors, as we sat undisturbed for at least a couple hours.

The beach sand was the mid-point between sand and dirt, and therefore was not as soft or pretty. Not pretty could also describe the multitude of local octogenarians who felt it was their duty to walk up and down the beach completely naked.

Sure, a few girls were morbidly curious enough to want a picture with them, but what about the rest of us. The sight of their sun-scarred, low-hanging dried fruit was enough to make you run for the nearest bar, which we did. 

It was a much better view, and the heat subsided under the shade of the restaurant. A cold pint of Estrella went down well with the lap of the beach and a balearic house DJ as a soundtrack. If it sounds idyllic, it was.

Of course, then you had to walk all the way back to apartment, some 15 minutes walk away, but there was never a dull view, and so a stroll went quick.

The city looked so unfamiliar upon our return. Even spots I knew I had walked on seemed different, as though I'd shot a film and come back 14 years later trying to replicate the camera angles from the home movies of my memory.

Montjuic castle, where we had spent an exhaustive evening back in 2000, sitting on our bags while an orchestra played in time with its namesake fountain, felt new if unexciting. Perhaps I was letting my brain convince me that the castle was not beautiful or breathtaking. In fact, the 'moment' of that visit was the old man and his lovable dog that doted behind him. He was forever calling it to catch up, and we tailed behind too, until we got close enough so that Kirsten could interrupt and be allowed to have a hold of the furry puppy. We laughed as he struggled and licked, as only a puppy can, and his owner conversed with us in his native language.

No coins for the train, getting a 50 euro note turned down at the Organic grocers. We had to buy pepsi's from a chain restaurant to get home.

This is not chronological, but I like it like that. I'm sure at some point I will sit down and mark dates and activities and food, but for now I like that it doesn't track the way it usually does. Every day feels like a dream.

New Music 2014: Chicago Bop, The Lisbon Sound, Hy Brazil and New-Wave Grime

Although this hardly touches the surface of new music in 2014, it does give some shine to a bunch of styles and sounds that have caught my ear, and have provided me hours of pleasure. I can understand if some of this stuff is not for everyone, it can get pretty niche. However, if you love music, I'm hoping this will be enough for you start deep-diving a few of these styles yourself and enjoying them as much as I have.

Chicago Bop

Chicago is known for its holy marriage of music and dance. It is the home of house music, and the birthplace of footwork and juke. Even more than house, footwork is inextricably tied to its signature dance style as much as the music that drives it.

And so it is with Bop. Influenced by the pulsing beat of house, the dance and percussive elements of Footwork and the swagger and flow of Hip-Hop, Bop is a sound definitively of this time.

It's also a sound of its location. The minimal beats and melody of Bop relay celebration, but it comes with a sinister undertone, like a bunch of mobsters living it up the night before a heist. Given the history of high murder rates in #chiraq, it shouldn't a surprise that even its most celebratory music is couched in paranoia and the threat of violence.

Although the stark beats feel dangerous, the intention of the sound is to get you on the floor. The Bop dance is a combobulation of loose yet precise chicken wing arms and complicated footwork. The sound ebbs and flows, the speedy high-hats competing against standard hip-hop snares, allowing the dancer to deviate between dance styles. 

Given that the dance is as synonymous with the music as the music itself, it's no surprise that Bop dancers are getting as much if not more love than the musicians. Lil Kemo is the undisputed king of Bop and can be seen #boppin with local acts in several Chicago area videos.

As for beakout acts, Sickko Mob have taken the sugar rush of Bop into the mainstream, signing to the record label owned by pop hit-makers Stargate, so you may hearing Bop grace the top ten sometime soon.

Either way, its yet another example of how place, time, cultural lineage and youthful enthusiasm feed into the way we create and the way we live.

Further reading:

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/49-chicagos-bopping-scene/

http://www.fakeshoredrive.com/

The Lisbon Sound

Lisbon is a city that has seen hard times in recent years. 

Long standing rental laws keep young people out of the city, forcing them into isolated suburban ghettos. But whilst ghettos inherently trap people in cycles of poverty, the close proximity to others and depth of population in project building areas also provides interaction and therefore inspiration and innovation through communication.

DJ Marfox, a lifetime resident of Quinta do Mocho, a housing project 30 minutes from the city,  was approached to join record label 'Principe' by its directors Pedro and Nelson Gomes. For the Gomes', the idea was to take the ghetto sounds they were hearing blasting out of local cars and expose it to the world.

Marfox and his contempories (including DJ Nigga Fox, Niagara, Lilocox and more) take traditional  Afro-Portuguese styles such as kuduro batucada, itself a sub-style of samba, and mix them with batida, kizomba, funaná, house, afro house and tarraxinha, genres mostly (but not exclusively) rooted in Angola, Cape Verde and São Tomé E Príncipe. 

The Godfather of the lisbon sound is a man regularly touted by Principe artists, DJ Nervoso. He was a heavy contributor to the seminal Lisbon compilation DJ's Do Guetto Vol.1.

The Lisbon sound itself is hard to define, due to its ever-expanding strains and sub-genres. However, if you had to describe it, it would be a style that is faster than traditional Portugese dance, with highly repititive drums and rhythms, programmed to perfection through drum machines. As Phillip Sherburne puts it in Spin, it's like "U.K. funky, the uptempo, Caribbean-flavored strain of British house music; but this stuff is even more intense".

If you're sick of pristine commercial EDM and want something with a little more edge and rhythm, then this raw, ghetto dance style will get your booty shaking.

Further reading:

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?2021

http://principediscos.wordpress.com/

Hy Brazil

Hy Brazil is supposedly a mythical phantom island in the Atlantic. However, in the present day, it's also the title of a series of compilations of various Brazilian music compiled by veteran producer Chico Dub.

Brazil is on the economic up-swing, so it shouldn't be a surprise that fully-formed bands and musicians are being curated and presented to the world.

It also shouldnt surprise that a country that is so culturally rich is producing such high-quality music. What is surprising is that up until now, it's been so hard for so many to be heard.

The music covers the spectrum of genres, with Baile Funk, Trap, Garage, House and Hip-Hop all finding there way into the various tracks across the four Hy Brazil compilations.

With the World Cup and Olympics coming up, it might be 'Hy' time that you bone up on your Brazilian and get into carnivale mode with this series of albums.

Hy Brazil Vol 4 is available from bandcamp for ‘name your price’.

Further Reading:

http://www.dummymag.com/new-music/premiere-hy-brazil-vol-2-new-experimental-music-from-brazil-2013-album-stre

http://www.spin.com/articles/hy-brazil-vol-4-brazilian-electronic-music/

Neo-Eski and New Wave Grime

Grime is a dormant genre, the successor to garage and 2-step and the birthplace of EDM stars like Dizzee Rascal and Wiley.   It's driven by its basslines, another bass-heavy strain in the lineage of the hardcore contiuum, and sounds to newbies like angular Hip-Hop. 

As Garage and 2-Step became mainstream, other producers started creating harder edged sounds, darker and sometimes enhanced by equally grave staccato rap flows. This became the template the for Grime, a sound that is said to have originally been created on Playstations (necessity breeds innovation).

The first wave of Grime rose quickly and died even quicker, taking Garage and 2-Step down with it. Violence, drugs and the media co-erced to bring an early end to any mainstream aspirations for grime.

So where has it been and why is it back? 

Grime, like most of the genres in the hardcore continuum before it, crashed and burned, and yet out of the ashes it birthed styles and stars that went on to become influences themselves. 

Without the violence and heavy-handed posse mentality of Grime, would we have seen the birth of dubstep? Dubstep was once an insular, hazy low-end dream, the polar opposite of Grime, but it was also direct descendant of it. 

Whilst dubstep morphed into the backbone of the first wave of EDM in the late noughties, strains of Grime DNA were finding their way back into UK clubs through new genres like UK Funky and the Purple sound coming out of Bristol. Not only did these both sounds lead to the third wave of UK House that is dominating charts all over the world currently, it also lead producers young and old back to Grime itself, an alternative to the safe, pristine sounds of groups like Disclosure and Rudimental.

It has been suggested that Grime didn't have the chance to grow and mutate as it should of at the time, and it's only now that younger producers are taking the templates of earlier incarnations of Grime and re-purposing and re-contextuallizing them for the future.

The beats and sounds are still minimal and stark, with clean, crisp synth stabs and staccato kick drums. But the melodies are more complicated, and in the hands of the more experimental, prettier and more melodious.

If you ever thought that a de-tuned guitar sounded beautiful, then maybe this your 21st century substitute.

Further Reading:

http://www.dummymag.com/features/trends-of-2013-neo-eski-alien-shapes-and-the-new-wave-of-grime

http://www.electronicbeats.net/en/features/lists/alien-resurrection-slackks-guide-to-the-new-wave-of-grime/

Review: Duck Sauce - Quack

Duck Sauce, which started as a side project for House heavyweight Armand Van Helden and Turntablist turned label mogul A-Trak, has become enough of a concern that the duo decided to release an album. 

That an album would appear this late in the groups rise is both a surprise and a relief. With the benefit of hindsight it's easy to say that after four years of working together it was inevitable that these two could make a dope album, but lets be honest, we all thought it could have been a disaster.

Thankfully it's another solid entry in the discographies of both of these artists catalogs, and that's saying something. This album was made with a purpose, and that purpose was to make you dance and dance as furiously as a Tony Jaa roundhouse kick.

The album kicks off with 'Chariots of the Gods' and does not let up for it's length. Sometimes the extended length of the tracks wears, but that's only because this music was designed for the stage and not for the headphones. 

'It's you' and 'Barbara Streisand' sound like novelty hits, but they also move, bringing levity without losing the tempo. On an album that is both pounding and funny, these tracks are a welcome interlude.

The apex of the sound of Duck Sauce has always been at the crossroads of the artists styles - the sample-driven House chop and flip of Van Helden and the turntable dexterity and humour of A-Trak. This comes through in spades on highlights like 'Radio Stereo' and 'NRG', although it could apply to 90% of the LP.

Whilst this album is better heard out in a field surrounded by like-minded duckologists, it still bangs in the bedroom and cranks in the car.

Not Sunday morning listening, but definitely gets you pumped for a night out... or even a night in.

Review: Schoolboy Q - Oxymoron

Beats, rhymes and life. That's all you really need to know.

Schoolboy Q is one of the signature pieces in the wardrobe that is TDE, the cohort of Californian rappers and producers that includes Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and board-smiths like Digi+Phonics and THC.

This San Fran gangsta not only plies his trade one of the most eclectic and exciting franchises in Hip-Hop, as a solo artist he operates in the tightly packed tranche that rests just below the upper echelons of Hip-Hop's ivory tower, and he is knocking on it's door.

Oxymoron then, is Schoolboy Q's coming out, the album that is required to build upon the success of his debut Habits & Contradictions, and give him an all-access pass to Kanye-like fame.

'Los Awesome' rides an uptempo synth-stabbing beat and trunk rattling drums courtesy of Pharrell. Typically, the backpacking sound of Q's early work would seem at odds with this speedy maximal offering, but the track showcases a sweet balance of low-end Hip-Hop and Neptunes-era gloss.

The backpackers get their shout-out in the form of 'Collard Greens', another uptempo banger, yet one that is more spacious and hollow. The openness of the beat allows Q and Kendrick Lamar to showcase their voices and lyrics. Both men appear lusty for the low-end bass and drums, with Kendrick introducing the track as "your favorite song".

The throwback boom-bap gets even thicker on 'Hoover Street', which starts a psychedelic treatise on familial relations over staccato drums, and then switches up into a buzzy, dusty groove that Odd Future would kill to be freestyling over.  'Prescription' is a gloriously trippy concoction that finds Q taking Recovery-period Eminem and restyling him as a sorry-for-himself addict rather than an empowered ex-junkie. It's pretty intoxicating.

Did someone say Odd Future? Not surprisingly, Tyler the Creator drops by for 'The Purge', a paean to death and destruction custom made for both men to go in with deliriously decrepit  (c)rhymes. Another spiritual brother-in-arms arrives for low-key head-nodder 'Blind Threats', as Raekwon the Chef preaches street justice in typically realistic fashion.

'Hell of a night' feels like an almost-single, a track too authentic to trouble the top 40 but important and street enough to live on car stereos for the duration of the summer. It stays the somber lane that the rest of the album refuses to deviate from, and yet you can still find fun in the middle of the paranoid haze.

The album closes with the celebratory 'Man of the year', its muted synths and hard drums making it almost jubilant in comparison the rest of the album.

The darkness and fog that pervades the album threatens at times to turn it into a downer, but the engaging flow of Q and  his high-caliber guests turn it into one of the years most distinctively enjoyable long-players.