Drop the bass! (Miami style)

[Woebot]

nah bollocks, i know you lot! grand royal invented a lot of people.. they didn't know lee perry, didn#t know bass, never heard of a mullet. you didn't necessatrily have to read it to be influenced by it just like people never had to read heronbone but still found out about nasty crew cos of it or whatever.

i didnt hear about miami bass until MUCH later than any Grand Royal piece (they folded ages ago right?)

ha ha ha

 

[baboon2004]

I'm just defending ghettotech and not the getto boys or whatever , i don't think the language of ghettotech is ever threatening or violent towards women, it's just pornospeak, sexually aggressive physical language, from boys and girls,
also the thread as it is started from me saying how many women turn up to ghettotech nights over other fast electronic music nights.
anyway, i've asked a couple of women directly for their opinions on the subject, will get back to you.

Fair enough about ghettotech - pornospeak is very much okay by me. I suppose I conflated that with a wider point (difficult thing about dealing with several replies from different angles) about misogyny, which let's face it, is rampant in hip-hop and will probably always be, for whatever reasons. Ain't nuttin nobody can do to change it. Or something.


What is Grand Royal anyway? And you could read about 2 Live Crew in Time magazine in about 1989 or whenever, cos of the scandals. Would be pretty eaasy to follow up on their influences from there. Tho' I agree with the love for Westwood - who else could be that ridiculous and simultaneously play consistently great music?

 

[Diggedy Derek]

Grand Royal was the Beastie Boys' magazine. A pretty great fanzine type thing. The Miami Bass article was massive- around 30 pages, a similar length to what they dedicated to Lee Perry. A mighty article- loads of interviews, loads of reportage, loads of crazy shenanigans.

 

[mms]

Fair enough about ghettotech - pornospeak is very much okay by me. I suppose I conflated that with a wider point (difficult thing about dealing with several replies from different angles) about misogyny, which let's face it, is rampant in hip-hop and will probably always be, for whatever reasons. Ain't nuttin nobody can do to change it. Or something.

anyway quote from a female correspondent:

"was at WIDE thing with a load of mates (mostly female) the otehr week and everyone was saying "they're not playing enough booty!" - we can't get enough of it. The lyrics are just funny - i can't listen to smilex's big booty BBQ mix without laughing. Aside from the vocals the tunes are phat as, loads of bass and really fast.

"lets hear it for the small booty hoes!""

 

[baboon2004]

Must check out more booty music, starting with that Dj Godafther mix that's up on bassnation now!

To bring the topic back to Miami bass (!), just played that L'Trimm track 'The Cars That Go Boom' with the bass turned way up, and it is f$cking ruff as. LOVE the contrast between the teenpop vox and the low end -that kind of incorporation of b-boy/junglist tricks into superpop brings to mind 'Genie in a Bottle' and, of course, 'One in a Million'.

 

[mms]

yeah that l'trimm track is tops, btw there is an early ghetto boys track called "car freaks" that's a kind of answer to cars that go boom.

There is an artist called l'juan love that skywalker produced as well that's a little kid doing mcing, thats cool as fuk.

 

[baboon2004]

This shit just gets better. On a related note I heard Kriss Kross in a club recently, inbetween some recent hip hop, and it just sounded, well, quite cool.

So, to open up another hornets' nest of terminology, what (good) electro scenes are missing from my hastily compiled and absurdly over-ambitious list?:

Miami bass (naturally)
Booty bass/straight-up Detroit shit
Drexciya/Adult/ more sinister stuff (including UR)
Hip-hop electro funk early 80s records (Bambaataa et al)
Netherlands cocadisco/Miss Kittin/ other 'euro' vocoder things
Classic Italo-disco/Black Devil Disco Club etc
Favela booty
Turn of the millennium electroclash

 

[bassnation]

This shit just gets better. On a related note I heard Kriss Kross in a club recently, inbetween some recent hip hop, and it just sounded, well, quite cool.

So, to open up another hornets' nest of terminology, what (good) electro scenes are missing from my hastily compiled and absurdly over-ambitious list?:

Miami bass (naturally)
Booty bass/straight-up Detroit shit
Drexciya/Adult/ more sinister stuff (including UR)
Hip-hop electro funk early 80s records (Bambaataa et al)
Netherlands cocadisco/Miss Kittin/ other 'euro' vocoder things
Classic Italo-disco/Black Devil Disco Club etc
Favela booty
Turn of the millennium electroclash

i'd say you are missing modern euro electro - carl finlow, wevvers, radioactiveman, manyst etc...

actually i'm going to be interviewing manyst for a website i'm doing some writing for - hes a belgian producer who relocated to detroit recently, hes doing shows with people like ectomorph etc.

 

[captain easychord]

just chiming in on the sexism thing...

by all anecdotal evidence the ghettotech scene is empowering for women if anything. at parties the women are the center of attention: the booty-shaking contests, the fixation on the woman's anatomy etc. it's not like they're being molested or anything, quite the contrary. if a guy tries to physically harm/harass a girl while she's shaking it there are repercussions, there's a definite line between reality and the world of the song... how can that be more marginalizing to women than a d n' b/techno party, where the guys are more interested in drooling over the decks than the opposite sex (and that's if any girls show up...)

 

[DigitalDjigit]

Miami Bass had some influence on the whole techno/hardcore thing in Europe. Beat Club - Security was played a lot and sampled lots (LTJ Bukem & Tayla - Bang the Drum for one). Dynamix II - 1,000,000 Mhz has such a jungalistic bass, my fave tune by them.

That AWOL miami thing, I doubt they were electro producers. Miami is one of the centers of the rave scene in the US, and they have that winter music conference thing which draws the top d'n'b producers. Bassnation, you got a better description of the tune you are looking for off that mix? Perchance we can help? I have the mix, you can just tell me where in the mix it is.