"See I like Beyoncé, but she dey with Jigga / I like Nicki, her yansh is bigger..." // D'BANJ - OLIVER TWIST // afrobeats in the charts

what pirates are playing this stuff incidentally. Maybe there is already some ninja djs out there playing this stuff we don't know about yet?

actually, this guy Wavy J is a good dj. Not Mak 10 levels or owt, but his AFROBEAST mixtapes are well mixed. Other than Abrantee and Neptizzle I haven't heard any other afrobeat djs tbh.

http://soundcloud.com/wavyj

i know its quite old, but did anyone see this horrible, mean-spirited and utterly stupid article in the Voice?
http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/step-back-afrobeatreggae-still-rules

ugh^

nice video this but the second track of her EP is better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-ptJ-nZ7g

ut i do agree a lot of the ghanaian stuff can be startlingly funky-esque. like i give world music tourism brutally short shrift and i feel as if this stuff has naturally come to me and my londoncentricism (rather than me towards it)

Yeah this makes sense. Like this is a total assumption and possibly way off-piste but I'd guess a fair proportion of these guys come from relatively wealthy backgrounds and will have spent time in London including going to clubs and absorbing music from over here, including funky.

I mean that's not even taking into account the sort of cross-pollination you get from Youtube etc. Dunno about the Ghanaian artists but Don Jazzy, who's produced a shitton of Naija stuff has been living in London for a decade.

hadnt seen that voice article but i feel like that's not the first time i've come across butthurt jamaicans wait let me rephrase that detected a resentful antipathy from that side

basically a belated realisation of how faddishness works after years of telling themselves all manner of nice things to soothe why the early to mid 00s limelight went away. insert your own proud wifebeaten tart with a heart analogy

again i think it's partly a misapprehension born of sometimes inadequate, sometimes novelty-ish presentation; you never know how serious robbo ranx is with this stuff (can be slyly very cutting in the margins of geniality) but recently on his show he'd been pressganged into having (the pleasantly pointlessly avuncular) dj edu guesting as part of 1xtra afrobeats week and it was a crying shame listening to edu's miserable attempts to convince robbo with the most uninteresting blatantly dancehall-derived stuff, like dudes speaking in ja patois and so on, everything to back up the suspicion of afro as shonky facsimile dancehall. a revelatory opportunity missed

not that it particularly matters what robbo thinks of course. the most interesting thing is that edu was convinced dancehall was sounding more like afro! (with particular reference to konshens 'stop sign/gyal a bubble part 2' iirc). oh how you could hear robbo silently bristle at that

really hating the way that daytime R1 DJ's seem to be treating Robbo Ranx and this track as some laughable onetime breakout.

from the observer today - 'The impossibly infectious "Oliver Twist" was a calculated attempt to crack the market in the UK. "I thought we could do with a sort of funky house sound. I thought: 'It's not like the music is that different from the music we listen to here.'"'

The EL album is fantastic.

killer track from last year i just came across on youtube. Amanda's getting it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6WvHVHkM7I

plenty of freshness on this new Selecta Maestro mix

http://soundcloud.com/selectamaestro83/afrobeats-workout-session-vol

still haven't caught up with all the youtubes in this thread because i can't watch youtube any more on this laptop but here are a couple of amazing songs that are new to me that were played at the afrobeats somerset house show at the weekend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5u1w-tUxaM

"save the drama for your baby mama"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXgkI7bRFHo

mista silva has an ep on itunes called full vim, i recommend it

oh wait apparently "kele kele" was on that abrantee mix i've played about 50 times, had never noticed it before. see how great songs stand out so much more in isolation

this is on this weekend also:

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/music/gigs-contemporary/tickets/the-ultimate-afrobeats-utopia-66326

finally on YouTube, the hottest bangingest track off EL's "Something ELse" album: Egbee Mli.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfoZT7WFW9I

EL is a brilliant producer, I love the synths on that one above, banging beat, too!

So many good productions on the E.L. album, it's a bit more fake-dancehall but I adore "Mame Wossop".

e.l is pretty good but making a big deal of him is v much like saying your fave funky producer is roska

LOL what a thing to say.

The new Roska album is good actually! Poor dude, he finally does something that might please the audience who initially threatened to embrace him, but they've stopped listening.

Re azonto etc. I'm not really in a position to think in terms of "fave producer" yet anyway.

new neptizzle mixtape!
http://mixtapemadness.co.uk/DJneptizzle/UltimateAfrobeats2012/552

and just realised that his weekly shows are archived here
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24197216

My favourite producer is whoever made that Amanda riddim. Zigi himself? Or maybe Richie? Haven't been able to find out.

Here's the new remix of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lBPusVgJnU

according to google it is richie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richie_Mensah

well it doesn't mention that song on that page, but yeah i suppose it must be him.

Talking producers, I really rate Ball J who produced Lapaz Toyota for Guru.

This is like Lapaz Toyota part two
Guru - Karaoke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDJvbe_RpDQ

Obour ft. Mugeez - One people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lBPusVgJnU

Nhyiraba Kojo (ft.Skrew Faze & Ball J)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7R5jMLPk1A

more goodness from him here (Today be Today by Black Cat is cool)
didhttp://www.bigxgh.com/artist/ball-j/

soz, fucked some links up

Obour ft. Mugeez - One people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfZz5o0dBrc

Ball J produckies
http://www.bigxgh.com/artist/ball-j/

richie does all the production for lynx ents, it was on another page sorry

ball j is by far my favourite, i said already 'lapaz toyota' was my song of the year and 'karaoke' is just as good; him and his nu afrika posse seem particularly comparable to early-to-mid ward 21, the heavy rap influence and slight mad scientist auteur remove from the rest of the azonto mainstream whilst still being popular. guru is great too, love that low slung flow

rate you for putting the work in benny, good stuff

ah yes I thought ward 21 when i heard lapaz toyota too, if only because of the guy with the deep voice!

here's another great Ball J production

Aaah - Anomaba
http://archive.org/details/AnomaBa_AaahDaMusician

would have posted the youtube but the homemade video was just too hideous

"Karaoke" is brilliant!

I find it funny that there's a producer called De-Genius Selections too (dude did Raquel's "Sweetio" and Edem's "Over Again", two of my favourites from the first Neptizzle mix), they're making the dancehall comparisons way too easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLJ6M-lmrxo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JK0azayEoA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvT4fIUuGQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4i_SSx-3tA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27ANlCrs6E

Already love "Twaame Lala"... Got some homework from this thread now.

all those are ball j

appietus, gafacci, guiltybeatz, killa beatz, krinkman are other consistently great 233 producers

wow, Ball J ftw then

i know it's been out for months and is top of the charts and is ubiquitous yadda yadda but can i just underline the fact that lapaz toyota is the craziest shit ever?? my god did it blow my head clean off.

Holy shit @ all these Ball J tunes! Each one seems crazier than the last.

Between "Lapaz Toyota", "Karaoke", "One People", "Gbaa Alert", "Wa Sei Bebia" and "Twaame Lala" I could totally crowd out my year end top ten with these.

lapaz toyota is siiiiiiiiiiiiiick

I love how both of those Neptizzle mixes end with these beautiful, super saccharine-sweet love songs "Sweetio" and "Am in Love With You Now". I'm glad to be proven wrong, but you wouldn't really get anything that girly/vulnerable in Jamaican Dancehall, would you? Lot's of amazing songs on this thread, btw.

you are wrong, you knew you would be wrong, you will not receive the remittance of being proven wrong

Dammit, I guess an apology wouldn't suffice now, would it? I'll go off now and search for some Ragga Dancehall as sweet and girly as 'Sweetio' or "Am Love with You". Everyone carry on posting links to crazy, mind-bending Azonto.

Nyame-K - Sa Saaaa Saa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4zi_cOcKJM&feature=related

^ that one's Ball J. Dunno who made this next one but its nuts

Fada Gran Pa - To da center
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZxHXd_oUVs&feature=plcp

One of my favourite things about "Lapaz Toyota" on the Neptizzle mix is that it's one of the few tunes that gets a proper mix lead-in; every time I hear those stabs start to emerge I get really excited.

lord a mercy that nyame-k

http://w1.hulkshare.com/0747wkqslci3

this would seem to be the improved version

kinda late on this thread afaik

you can listen to EL's double album here: http://elrepgh.bandcamp.com/.

^^ that link leads to a dead end, i think? what's the name of the album?

so far, i've been listening to the first neptizzle mix posted here and it's great. considering the amount of links, i guess i have a lot of stuff to entertain me for quite some time. lovely homework.

i also love that 'tokota' tune that rob posted upthread. those menacing keyboards are sort of what i hoped from a kuduro intersection with stuff like 'onorthodox daughter' or 'ready fi de war' - which is subtly - if somewhat unknowingly - happening atm with some recent tunes from some of lisbon's upcoming kuduro producers.

This dewy number has rather grown on me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzW47so01EE

Woah, 'To Da Center' is nuts.

The disgustingly titled 'Vomit Me*' by Egudie Kwabena isn't on Youtube but is terrific.

*I am choosing to believe this doesn't mean what I think it means.

Also Naeto C is a long, long way from being the world's greatest MC but there's something quite sweet about this and the main hook has been in my head for weeks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFQ1fl8IGGM

Yaw Siki - One more flow
(not quite as good as 'Wup3 Dodo' as the chorus is a bit of a mess, but I like the beat)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJbYlEEnXUs&feature=player_embedded

Flexy da don - Wo de taataa me(Tsofi Sausage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar-YGPnNIQI

Guru - Akonta Fried rice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pybVtWSu8tQ&feature=related

Joe B ft. Guru - Dongor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1KQMCER1F8&feature=relmfu

and some older guru/ball j tunes i like

Guru - Anything goes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruHayKi8u3w

You go fly - Agbeko ft. Guru
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIIPOUtSOlA

I haven't got round to the last crop yet, but these Ball J tunes are all amazing. Like they pop off in all directions without ever coming unstuck. He's got a really good line in taking vocal effects (chipmunk vocals, cut-ups) and working them as percussive or textural tools that makes these tunes feel ravey in a way that a lot of this stuff, while fantastic, isn't*. Like the way he takes that frog noise on Wasei Babeiaa and works it like an acid line.

*Nor is a lot of ostensibly ravey US pop for that matter.

(I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm doing a disservice to other producers here but that's because I'm actually now paying attention to Ball J in a way I'm not with any other afrobeats producers except Don Jazzy).