funky house sceptics, let me draw your attention to this

Rev, "Wad" is definitely funky.

black sun is really great i think. ditto the b-side.

marcus was brilliant tonight. there was one dj (the guy before doctor cosmo or whatever) who was brilliant.

Me on Dubplate Wonder. If I'm really nice I might even upload the mix of his I talk about a lot in the post, which seems to have gone off the internet.

http://getphysical.blogspot.com/2010/01/dubplate-wonder-dubplate-wonder-and.html

wow Tim, you have brought us the future - it's still 2009 here! (not according to the post timezone thingy below)

I should note that I did not spend my new years eve writing about Dubplate Wonder.

That said I also didn't spend it dancing to UK Funky so :-(

haha Tim, I was just using Tom's phrase

Well I'd get people being uncertain if it's funky or not (mostly due to Ramandanman's lineage)... But in fact it's much more so than, say, most Bok Bok or Julio Bashmore tunes I reckon. But it's very hard to say why precisely - one of the odd (reynoldsians might say "weak") aspects of funky is that there's no single ultimate litmus test for saying what is or isn't funky (whereas 2-step at least had the 2-step beat itself).

My distinction above is not a criticism of Bok Bok etc. either, or some comment on who is part of the "scene". There's a Wookie remix of (Lex will cringe) Le Roux's "Bulletproof" which I think is marvelous (vocals notwithstanding) and rather similar to the Fingaprint remix of Rudenko's "Everybody" (the virtues of which I have extolled previously) and yet for reasons I can't quite put my finger on (not Le Roux) I'm reluctant to call it funky... (it's def. worth checking though!)

one of the odd (reynoldsians might say "weak") aspects of funky is that there's no single ultimate litmus test for saying what is or isn't funky

that's such a strength tho! it means funky can take all sorts of things that weren't originally intended as funky (like "Turn Me On" or "We Belong to the Night" or "Self-Religion") and make them funky by proxy

I agree! I like r|t|c's image of the genre being suspended in amniotic fluid (though me saying so may cause him to disown it).

I would think that in general, the more malleable a genre is, the stronger it is. That Reynoldsian line is completely antithetical to my thoughts about genre

btw, how is the future? do you have a personal jetpack?

I'm over-simplifying SR obv - it's more like what a reynolds-fan who wanted to use the singularness of jungle etc. as a stick to beat the present would say.

I would not say that malleability automatically equals strength - it's that odd combination of malleability and absolute self-confidence that funky inherits from... what? us hip hop? dancehall?

(maybe this is why I kneejerk don't like the whole "let's dance to dubstep/wonky/funky/etc." movement - can't help but see it as the upmarket equivalent of hollertronix, implying by its self-conscious eclecticism that the individual genres aren't wide-ranging enough on their own - even if that's inaccurate or unfair)

The future is not as tired as it should be after last night.

Here's a download link for Dubplate Wonder's Wonderland '09 mix:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/r16fnl

the (free d/l) new nguzunguzu ep is amazing - need to find out more about these dudes, all i've known so far is that they're affiliates of kingdom http://www.wholeareas.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/dec/31/music-tips-for-2010

i can think of several dozen other names id rather have seen than kingdom and bok bok personally, who i think might have deserved it more, but hey, sort of good to see them there.

kingdom's "mind reader" is one of the best songs of this/last/any year, and there were nice parallels in the way both of them started out and made their names as club promoters and djs

I'm interested to know whether anyone had any reactions to the Dubplate Wonder mix - I feel too close to this stuff to accurately guess whether whatever I perceive as brilliance is something me-specific or if others will see it too.

Great Marcus Nasty set with Majestic on the mic here - good quality, and some real bad boy riddims (as well as big vocals) here.

ttp://soundcloud.com/marcusnasty/marcus-nasty-ft-majestic

Seriously, don't sleep on this, it's a great summation of funky right now.

Link fixed btw:

http://soundcloud.com/marcusnasty/marcus-nasty-ft-majestic

if I don't see more assent, I'm going to have to check myself in

is there any funkstep

pictureofheadexploding.jpg

ha

not sure if you were serious or not, but here's a couple things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juzk7MqnrBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIbkC1NMM1k

Your post won't load for me while i'm at work Rev, I'm almost afraid.

Seriously I'm gonna start uploading ordinary funky sets as rickrolls under cover stories like "this dude is from AMSTERDAM, yes it's true he makes funky but he namechecks DERRICK MAY, hangs with MARTYN and likes to parade his BOLANO books in interviews while playing THIS HEAT in the background!"

Instant front page of some zine or other.

It's "Wad" and "Love Dub (Refix)"

i.e. calm down

hey bolano is awesome

I know I'm reading Savage Detectives right now - Derrick May and (sometimes) Martyn and This Heat are awesome too!

I wish Scratcha DVA's "Hard House" was on youtube or like, if Scratcha's stuff is by definition funkstep then that is far and away the best example (or tied with "Wad" maybe). Ridiculously... funky!

I'll give the Marcus Nasty and the Dubplate Wonder a listen.

I'm a little less cranky tonight, its got a better chance of getting through.

Majestic really reminds me of Gods Gift. Kind of wish it was him actually.

Come to think of it, Gods Gift used to do safe sex bars back in the day. Can anyone tell me if I'm crazy or not, Majestic = Gods Gift? This whole set reminds me more of that rolling not quite garage, not quite breaks, not quite grime thing that Slimzee used to do back in 2001 or so.

That's a good point of comparison for it actually.

Majestic ain't God's Gift - you can hear a lot more of the Carribean in God's Gift's rapping.

The safe sex rhymes are great.

"Silly billy got a case of chlamidy!"

"Are you gonna bang? 'Course I am!"

Sorry, it was definitely giving me a little deja vu, same sort of vibe without God's aggro yardie thing. Nice to think that he might have influenced some people at least, he's one of the most underrated MCs of his time. Kind of brings me back to downloading shitty 128 kbps rips of grime sets off of DC++ forums back in 2003 and 2004. Man, I loved Slimzee's sets.

Yeah I love God's Gift, you're def. right about the resemblance.

btw No More (Ill Blu Remix) by Suncycle ft. Mavado is a free download on 7digital

A tracklist has emerged for the (still brilliant) Marcus + Majestic set:

1. LIONS, TIGERS & BEARS - GREYMAN
2. SHITTA - (un-edited version) BASSBOY & MARCUS NASTY
3. IT’S YOU - DJ NAUGHTY FT MISS FIRE
4. MALIBU – FUNKY STEPZ
5. BOUNCE – FUNKY STEPZ FT LILLY MCKENZIE
6. STAMP – MARCUS NASTY & BASSBOY
7. TRIBAL DAY DREAM – DEVINE RECORDINGS
8. CRACKISH – GENIUS
9. TOUCH ME – J LABELS FT NAUGHTY NATZ
10. MOTHERBOARD – CHAMPION
11. LETS GET NASTY – BASSBOY & MARCUS NASTY FT CAD
12. KISS – SCREAMA FT FARAH
13. GANGSTA – SCREAMA
14. CANT SAY NO – DIGITAL DUBSTAR FT MISS FIRE
15. FUNK JUICE – NASTEE BOI
16. SKANKIN THE HARDEST – FUNKYSTEPZ FT BLACK BISCUIT
17. DIFFERENT (Marcus nasty VIP) – LIL SILVA
18. CHEEKY BARSE RIDDIM – NAUGHTY RAVER
19. TAKE ME – SCREAMA FT PHE PHE
20. DRAMA – NAUGHTY RAVER
21. JUST TO GOOD – BASSBOY FT CAD
22. STICK & STONES – NAUGHTY RAVER
23. LUSH – FUZZY LOGIC FT SKEPTA
24. DRIP – MARCUS NASTY & BASSBOY
25. FRIEND OF MINE – METRIC MOSES REFIX
26. N/A - GREYMAN

The Bassboy/Marcus Nasty tunes are uniformly excellent!

the fuzzy logik remix of "lush" is so good.

that set was pretty good though i could've done with a lot less majestic tbh.

i do like majestic but there are times when he tries to do over tongue twisty type rhymes and it just sounds a bit ropey.

i would love to hear gods gift on some funky, if only for one set.

god knows it would be better than that awful attempt at a commercial hit he made a few months back.

I think Majestic is great, the perfect tone for a funky MC in my opinion.

Tim is there a tracklisting for the Dubplate Wonder set? I like it, btw, but the sound quality is awful which kinda hampers it for me... it possibly feels a bit early in the day for there to be a 2ManyDJs of UK funky although I'm enjoying the recontextualisation of The Whistler as the ur-funky track.

There was at least one track on there that was stupidly awesome and I had never heard before.

Not that I'm aware of Matt. The only tracks I can really ID are his remixes of other people's tracks.

btw No More (Ill Blu Remix) by Suncycle ft. Mavado is a free download on 7digital

This is very good but spectacularly emo.

mavados always emo