Rolling afrobeats thread 2014

the whole thing will explode once Pooley wins the ilm year poll.

Yeah!

No crossover US radio play and no album pitched to US critics

Well, I'd say Am I Wrong was quite afrobeats-like, no? I mean, in a crossover sort of way. It always seems like something that would be a bit cultish to me, like k-pop. But k-pop has had smash-hits, obviously.

I'd say this one is with the djs. If you start working some of these songs into "other" types of sets it might roll from there. A lot of it is eminently danceable and good vibes all around.

T.I. Is on the new P-Square single btw, but rhytmically it's a pretty straight disco number.

I dont understand why ppl care about interzone or disclosure when nigeria is clearly running the table on dance music in 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjo_72ERSZU

D'ADSHAS - Ekomosi ft Upper X

Also i try not to link my stuff generally but just bc I felt like it was kind of broadly slept on & bc it points to a way in which nigerian pop broke through in the states this year here's the Fader piece:
http://www.thefader.com/2014/08/01/say-yes-how-a-michelle-beyonce-and-kelly-gospel-record-points-to-pop-musics-nigerian-future/

Michelle Williams got a number one gospel record w/ a nigerian-inflected destiny's child reunion single produced by harmony samuels (ariana grande's "The Way") who has also produced jams for Tiwa Savage like the incredible "Love Me x3" which, as brainwasher once said to me, would obv be a hit if it was a rihanna song dropped in the states:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oSY4CYfXV4

rise, rise aloft on wings of challop gold

More a troll than a challop

I was out at a club in brooklyn last night---more a traditional bk hip hop/dancehall type joint than a "hipster dance club" type spot--and they played yemi alade's "johnny" (into that uk funky joint I forgot about, "party hard") which is the first time I've heard nigerian music in my world of no longer so young people

damn andrew wk still getting play

that anecdote p much encapsulates what i restrained myself from saying in response to ur goading tho, ie hi we been on that d'adshas funky dancehall tip in 2009

now you'll find the general ldn populace has shifted from african warrior to https://soundcloud.com/rs4house/gladiator-ft-kadey-james

i'm rly not trying to deny the vitality of this music at all however, just saying these lines of attack are misguided and never have been ur forte

i dont actually know what is popping in london ~obviously~ and if anything i think ~hip~ (not that hip) america is overly anglophilic when it comes to this stuff anyway but you have to understand that your biggest exports in the states right now are disclosure and kiesza and shit like that.

feel like this has more to do w/ the uk's discursive presence or w/e than w/ the uk actually being some kind of vanguard of music future

Really enjoying this thread, but can I ask the possibly stupid question of where one can download / buy these tunes? A lot of them seem to be stream/vid only...?

google play is where i cop most of them - or itunes but google play seem to be a bit quicker in getting them out there. These low bitrates on the free stuff are seriously scandalous though. I neeeeed this new Wizkid remix of You Garrit in proper quality: http://www.hulkshare.com/djrans4d/orezi-ft-wizkid-you-garrit-remix

yeah, i can't stand low bit rates. would love to play some of these tunes out but shitty quality mp3s won't cut it.

New Wizkid! https://soundcloud.com/legendury-beatz/oje-feat-wizkid

feel like this has more to do w/ the uk's discursive presence or w/e than w/ the uk actually being some kind of vanguard of music future

As I keep saying in this thread it has to do with a load of the big names in the scene having spent time in London (and in some cases actually living here) and having been exposed to 08-09 UK funky at the time. It's one of the major building blocks of a lot of this music - obviously there is a load of US rap and dancehall mixed in as well but they are global pop ligua franca in the way a mostly-overlooked UK subgenre of five years ago isn't. Its presence in a lot of this music is disproportionate to its impact in the UK or anywhere else.

(Okay as I have kept saying in previous afrobeats threads...)

the people i've talked to don't think that uk funky is quite as key in its development as you do. Not to say you're wrong per se, but one of the DJs I spoke with hadn't even heard of it.

and i say this as someone who explicitly asked about a relationship between uk funky and this stuff—maybe he was simply not interested in giving credit to the UK for the evolution of the sound, or maybe he's unaware of how many producers spent time in the UK during its heyday, but he thought of that stuff as afropop made by immigrants in the UK, not not a genre unto itself that inspired current afrobeats.

yeah as mdc says this was discussed on previous year's threads. it's an unknowable mystery quantity tbh, on one hand it's easy to instinctively believe funky wasn't a big deal (if any) for the creators and that the idea is a textbook critical overdetermination but on the other the resemblances really are often too startling to scan as coincidental

just some ancestral bloodline juju i guess ¯\(°_o)/¯

to get back to the og point tho i still dunno if deej was rly claiming that current us anglophilia actually is iho inhibiting possible avenues of reception for afropop or if that was just lashing out at whatever

i mean if it's any consolation we'd rather you didnt have larry fitzmaurice either

oh nah i wasn't saying anglophilia hurts our reception of afropop, if anything it improves the odds

i wouldn't think that [and i can go back and read the discussion re: uk funky i suppose] the resemblance is 'coincidental' as much as one would argue that its manifestation in the uk is like a satellite of something that was happening concurrently but idk.

im curious what tsrobodo thinks

Do Lagos djs use the same 4 MB tracks that the rest of us get or is there some secret underground community basking in 320s and wavs? These shitty versions seem so unnecessary.

It's also true that this (broad) sound has been emerging for years, long before Oliver Twist brought the discussion on here, it was emerging in 2008 and maybe before and that cross-pollination would have influenced funky as much as vice-versa. I'm not saying it's the main component and certainly not that it's present in all afrobeats records, but it's clearly not coincidental. There are azonto records that literally reference UK funky tracks, Donaeo pops up all over the place, lots of these videos are shot in London, but likewise the African influence in UK funky was greater than it is in most other UK dance genres. It's all cultural exchange.

This is ancient history now to a big extent and certain sounds are so much in the DNA of a lot of this music that I doubt it even occurs to the majority of producers or songwriters.

i honestly couldnt point to any substantive evidence that afropop/hiplife had a musical influence on funky's emergence or development... what direct interaction with africa there was was from south african house, mostly swish stuff like kentphonik and also very seldomly a ruffer bit like dj cndo 'terminator' (and 'township funk' duh)

also i don't really think of azonto coalescing at all until 2011 or so? (happy to be educated otherwise). funky had more or less run its course by then

tempting in retrospect to look at ramzee 'ghana riddim' (q1 2012) as an effective handover moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP0MyfxT2y4

The ppl I talked to root the afropop sound in early 90s pidgin English rap records followed by late 90s r&b and faux jiggy 90s rap. Nigeria also has a much larger population than the uk...saying this as someone who was drawn to afropop for it's similarities to uk funky, it still strikes me as reasonable that the continuity would be the presence of an immigrant population who kept in touch with popular music from home even though that music at the time may have had a less developed industry? Or less penetration on the national stage? I say this also because the nigerian immigrant population would be much more in touch with their culture at home than the diaspora of descendants of slaves who were ripped from theirs and whose cultures had to be created through that kind of distortion

Idk just seems feasible to me that uk funky would be an especially visible, market-ready version of a style of music already existent but this is somewhat devils advocatty

a typo after my own heart

er not a typo yknow what i mean

idk ur talking about a broader (naija-centred?) afropop (which i don't doubt has had a street pop element since the 90s) whereas rightly or wrongly i guess i'm more stuck on the idea of 213 azonto kicking off or reifying a fresh take of its own which has then spread across

like yeah when i was last heavily into this i'd had the vague mental grouping that nigeria had the flair for melodic synthy pop euphoria and ghana was really pioneering the intense freaky rhythmic dancehall vibe

to what extent that was never the case or has since changed isnt really here nor there, i'm just explaining where i'm coming from

from what i remember the azonto sound took off in late 2010/early 2011 when the skillions crew from Accra (which originally included E.L. Ball J and Krynkman aka Nshona) switched from hip hop to a more dancehall influenced sound, Sarkodie´s ´U go kill me´ being the jump off. I´m fairly sure these guys had all been clubbing in london around that time and had picked up some ideas.

this thread has really took off since i stopped posting in it!

Deej, if you're currently pitching stuff I'd be interested in reading an interview with Masterkraft on the question of origins, inspirations, goals etc. He's particularly interesting since he's doing stuff like this http://www.hulkshare.com/afritunez1/masterkraft-%E2%80%93-started-from-the-bottom along with more traditional afrobeats stuff. (cf. also his Oliver Twist remix.)
Obviously, he's trying to branch out a bit and his perspective might be interesting.

I can definitely and confidently say in doing research I have come to the conclusion that I much prefer a geographically focused approach to the sort of generalized "afrobeats" = genre thing and I'm much less familiar w the Ghanaian sound than the naija one so

Silva’s career began in London’s UK funky scene in the mid-2000s, MCing over heavy, percussive club grooves. After spending time in Ghana, he returned in 2011 and turned his attention to Afrobeats,

Various Ghanaians (born there or in UK) going back and forth

http://thump.vice.com/words/its-called-afrobeats-not-afrobeat-and-its-taking-over-london December 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/jan/19/the-rise-of-afrobeats January 2012

I can definitely and confidently say in doing research I have come to the conclusion that I much prefer a geographically focused approach to the sort of generalized "afrobeats" = genre thing and I'm much less familiar w the Ghanaian sound than the naija one so

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Monday, 8 September 2014 01:51 Bookmark

it's excellent to focus geographically but i would have thought it better to do so with an awareness of what makes that particular geography distinct and the context it draws from and emerges in - you've not actually ungeneralised or broken down afrobeats at all is the thing, and you're provoking discourse with the generalised term still in mind, so it's just led to a weirdly myopic pov hence all the confusion itt. like i'm hardly surprised nigerian dudes you spoke to didnt know wtf funky was or downplayed its significance, the post-2011 rise of afrobeats was driven by azonto's emergence and most of the cultural trade came thru that angle. discussing afrobeats without ghana is nutty as fuck! (commendably so tbf but still)

i mean i'm not saying nigerian stuff hasn't had a part to play tho, far from it, and certainly there has been cross-pollination within africa in rhythmic terms, but imo the specific nigerian pop crossover story might have been tighter zoning in on the singular aptitude for afroPOP - 'pakurumo', 'dami duro', 'jasi', 'girlie o', 'dorobucci' - rather than also folding in and geo-crediting post-azonto afrobeats ('you garrit', 'phyno', d'adshas etc) ('phyno' is kinda actually a perfect blend of the two i guess). i know that seems pedantic and doesn't materially alter the thrust of what you've been saying, ie hey appreciate this healthy scene, but in polemical discursive terms i think it's fairly key

lol i'm still not rly compelled to check for this stuff on the regs these days btw idk why i'm doing my longest posts of the year here

this thread has really took off since i stopped posting in it!

― Benny B, Sunday, 7 September 2014 21:12 Bookmark

yeah i really wanna know why this is! (lol mainly what i meant by chattering classes comment above). i just thought there was a new blog or something

dancehall seems to go curiously unmentioned when people talk about afrobeats...again i don't know what the actual concrete connections are, if any, but the audience overlap and uh spiritual similarity seems pretty relevant

Ghana’s Fuse ODG and international dancehall champ Sean Paul launches Afrobeats Vs Dancehall competition driven by their collabo single ”Dangerous Love”. The contest is a dance video competition whereby participants upload their videos dancing to the song and popping their best Afrobeat and dancehall moves.

Silva’s career began in London’s UK funky scene in the mid-2000s, MCing over heavy, percussive club grooves. After spending time in Ghana, he returned in 2011 and turned his attention to Afrobeats,

Various Ghanaians (born there or in UK) going back and forth

http://thump.vice.com/words/its-called-afrobeats-not-afrobeat-and-its-taking-over-london December 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/jan/19/the-rise-of-afrobeats January 2012

― curmudgeon, Sunday, September 7, 2014 10:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is exactly the kind of weird sentence i'm accusing of being myopic w/r/t afrobeats upthread. what if 'uk's funky scene' is already afrobeats ... in that case it was more like, 'after recording over afrobeats made by his fellow immigrants, he moved home and met people still living in ghana who made afrobeats and worked with them too.'

what if 'uk's funky scene' is already afrobeats Is that right?

Or is it: 'after recording over UK Funky tunes made by his fellow immigrants, he moved home and met people still living in ghana who made afrobeats and worked with them too.'

http://mefirighana.com/mefiri-ghana-meets/

Having the grime background we then progressed into the funky genre where we have produced tracks such as “if you are on this let me know” and “10 out of 10” which went crazy in the raves. In 2011 I decided to venture into the Afrobeats scene and being a Ghanaian I thought why not try it out. Linking up with Flava, Kwamz and A-star, we released the “Bo Wo Sem Ma Mi” track which received a very good response and it kind of just took off from there. The Afrobeats genre is definitely an area I am looking to do big things in.

Or is it: 'after recording over UK Funky tunes made by his fellow immigrants, he moved home and met people still living in ghana who made afrobeats and worked with them too.'

― curmudgeon, Monday, September 8, 2014 12:29 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're not understanding the exercise at all

death of the author, benny b

anyway give me a sec to respond to RTC's post

it's excellent to focus geographically but i would have thought it better to do so with an awareness of what makes that particular geography distinct and the context it draws from and emerges in - you've not actually ungeneralised or broken down afrobeats at all is the thing, and you're provoking discourse with the generalised term still in mind, so it's just led to a weirdly myopic pov hence all the confusion itt. like i'm hardly surprised nigerian dudes you spoke to didnt know wtf funky was or downplayed its significance, the post-2011 rise of afrobeats was driven by azonto's emergence and most of the cultural trade came thru that angle. discussing afrobeats without ghana is nutty as fuck! (commendably so tbf but still)

i mean i'm not saying nigerian stuff hasn't had a part to play tho, far from it, and certainly there has been cross-pollination within africa in rhythmic terms, but imo the specific nigerian pop crossover story might have been tighter zoning in on the singular aptitude for afroPOP - 'pakurumo', 'dami duro', 'jasi', 'girlie o', 'dorobucci' - rather than also folding in and geo-crediting post-azonto afrobeats ('you garrit', 'phyno', d'adshas etc) ('phyno' is kinda actually a perfect blend of the two i guess). i know that seems pedantic and doesn't materially alter the thrust of what you've been saying, ie hey appreciate this healthy scene, but in polemical discursive terms i think it's fairly key

lol i'm still not rly compelled to check for this stuff on the regs these days btw idk why i'm doing my longest posts of the year here

― r|t|c, Monday, September 8, 2014 2:36 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was about afropop; i'm certianly not claiming that nigeria's sound is wholly nigerian, i think it's a pretty omnivorous animal taking in sounds from jamaica and the states and ghana and south africa and hoovering it up through its industry which, as far as I can tell, remains much more prominent and central (prob a combination of money x population) than ghana. Not to downplay Ghana's role. you're welcome to make more clear the distinction between afropop and "afrobeats" in orezi or d'adshas considering both those artists are from nigeria and popped off there. Nigeria's industry and wide variety of sounds as afropop make it sound to me like a triangulation & as such stronger than the sum of its parts.

as to why people are caring about this now vs. two years ago, isn't it just the amount of quality music coming out in aggregate over the past few years since the D'Banj record?

dancehall seems to go curiously unmentioned when people talk about afrobeats...again i don't know what the actual concrete connections are, if any, but the audience overlap and uh spiritual similarity seems pretty relevant

― lex pretend, Monday, September 8, 2014 11:27 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Some artists play with Jamaican history: Burnaboy's "Don Gorgon" swipes the costume of early '90s dancehall like Supercat, but bends it into a completely new shape. Patoranking, on the other hand—whose "Girlie O (Remix)" has been a Nigerian smash—is generally considered a dancehall artist. Nigerian Afropop artist 2Face had a hit in Jamaica with "African Queen" in 2006. And Jamaican artist Busy Signal has recorded a version of P-Square's "Personally" retitled "Professionally." For those not paying close attention, Nigeria's relationship with Jamaican music is pretty tangled, although the underlying pulse of South African house inside the former might be one way to differentiate the two genres. But it's not just about the beat: "If a Jamaican producer produces a beat for a Nigerian artist, and a Nigerian artist sings over that beat, you would think it was Nigerian music," says DJ 3K. "Same goes for if a Jamaican sings over a Nigerian beat...there are some similarities. But they are different."