Funky/London/UK House

B

boomnoise

♫
some lyrics from the new donaeo album:

ey si mi now
see i want peace
si mi now
coz london bridge is burning down
so 'llow the beef
eyyy
coz soon there will be no more cows
ey
see i want peace
it's like we're living in a warzone here
i pray some day we'll see why
huh
god please have mercy for the judgements near
so ring the alarm
ey donaeo's coming
si mi now ey
so ring the alarm
i'm coming
wit' that wit' that
riot riot riot riot music
riot riot riot riot music

etc


now who on here was saying the man's not a lyrically genius?
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Tentative Andy said:
Aiming to have the blog post up by tomorrow..
Click to expand...

In the most liberal understanding of 'tomorrow' ever undertaken, this article is now finally up:http://tentativeblogger-andy.blogspot.com/2009/05/unity.html
It's a bit of an epic with links, embedded Youtube, the whole bag. Would be more than happy if people took a look, but please do read and bear in mind the disclaimer first!
(Also not adverse to giving this one a few edits, already suspect a few links could be shaky etc. But not tonight!).
 
F

franz

Well-known member
a propos of file under i don't know what. wouldn't want to let Braiden's FACT mix (52) slip by without notice.
 
4linehaiku

4linehaiku

Repetitive
boomnoise said:
some lyrics from the new donaeo album:

ey si mi now
see i want peace
si mi now
coz london bridge is burning down
so 'llow the beef
eyyy
coz soon there will be no more cows
ey
see i want peace
it's like we're living in a warzone here
i pray some day we'll see why
huh
god please have mercy for the judgements near
so ring the alarm
ey donaeo's coming
si mi now ey
so ring the alarm
i'm coming
wit' that wit' that
riot riot riot riot music
riot riot riot riot music

etc


now who on here was saying the man's not a lyrically genius?
Click to expand...

Donaeo bars ghostwritten by the infamous MC Boom scandle coming soon.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Enjoyed the blog-post, Andy. I've very briefly touched on the same subject on my blog but with absolutely no background info or arguments regarding hardcore-continuum/various characteristics of contributing genres when placed in relation to others... so it was eye opening.

I've only really heard DJs like Bok Bok, Brackles, Oneman etc. mixing it all up - all great DJs, but perhaps appealing more to a more internet based, non-'urban' and hipster audience. Are Boy Better Know the main crew in the urban scene mixing things up like this?
 
Simon78

Simon78

Well-known member
Corpsey said:
I've only really heard DJs like Bok Bok, Brackles, Oneman etc. mixing it all up - all great DJs, but perhaps appealing more to a more internet based, non-'urban' and hipster audience. Are Boy Better Know the main crew in the urban scene mixing things up like this?
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Cameo, Maximum, Spyro, JJ, Spooky & Smallz all play Grime, Funky, Garage, Dubstep & the odd Bassline tune.

Got the new Donaeo album yesterday. Not sure why I bought it to be honest as I own all of the vinyls. I was going to get my Dad that Crazy Cousinz cd for fathers day but I think he is getting this now. I might rip Riot Music & Watching Her Move first though. Shame it didn't come with an instrumental cd.

Anyone got that Crazy Cousinz cd? Are both cd's mixed?
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Corpsey said:
Enjoyed the blog-post, Andy. I've very briefly touched on the same subject on my blog but with absolutely no background info or arguments regarding hardcore-continuum/various characteristics of contributing genres when placed in relation to others... so it was eye opening.

I've only really heard DJs like Bok Bok, Brackles, Oneman etc. mixing it all up - all great DJs, but perhaps appealing more to a more internet based, non-'urban' and hipster audience. Are Boy Better Know the main crew in the urban scene mixing things up like this?
Click to expand...

Cheers Corpsey. Simon78 has already answered for me basically (so thanks Simon! :) ), but yeah, my basic idea is that while it might be somewhat easier for those outside of the scene and the urban demographic to have total freedom over the material they play, ultimately the distance between what people like Bok Bok and L-Vis are doing and what someone like Spyro is doing isn't that great (and could well be come shorter still over time).
Then you have the fact that e.g. Oneman has semi-regular shows on Rinse, so although he might start off mainly with a following from internet/hipster/blogger folks, there's always a chance that a wider urban audience will catch the show through investigating the schedules, or tuning in before something else etc, and so it spreads.
This idea of shared channels of communication/distribution is quite important here I think. Kode 9 should be brought in again here - playing quite eclectic sets but more often than not at the big, core dubstep nights to the diehard audience (though then perhaps you get into the rather dodgy debate about whether dubstep as a whole is non-urban, I reckon it really depends how you define it). My final idea is that urban folks are increasingly all over the internet these days, though obv not always on the same sites as non-urbans, but I need to look into this more.

Do you have a link for your blog btw? Would be interested to have a look.
Edit: Never mind, I found it through the wonders of Google. Good stuff!
 
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Elijah

Elijah

Butterz
Corpsey said:
Are Boy Better Know the main crew in the urban scene mixing things up like this?
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On Rinse they do a Grime show when they turn up.

When they do live shows, they do PA or if it is a few of them, then a live set, like radio with maximum mixing it up.

In Napa is the only place where they do the full shabang with all the music mixed up. On some Heartless Crew type of vibe.

No others in the grime scene have this sort of versatility.

When you talk about Djs mixing it up playing a bit of everything, its just a thing that has come about especially with the Grime DJs, they dont want to pigeon whole themselves incase the scene dies. Some are not into the music as much as they were before, and some want to be DJing in the clubs, regardless of what they play.

Trying to be eclectic is the in thing right now. Listen to the Grime debate.

Most of them have been left in a position where the only time they play Grime music is on Rinse FM. To play in clubs they have to play funky. I think they look at people like Cameo & Target and think that is the way to get onto a legal station.

My position on it is the opposite, I can see everyone playing a bit of everything, so it nearly becomes a niche to be playing one thing. And because I have been so explicit about it over the last 6 months on Rinse I have gained more listeners and followers of the show. Some people dont like Funky, Garage and Bassline mixed into their Grime. Infact, im not even sure if I do. Right now im just pushing the music in places where these Djs have failed to in the past, and seeing what happens.

With Oneman, Brackles, Bok Bok and the like, they haven't had their names attached to a particular scene as much, so they dont need to conform to any particular demands of a scenes fanbase. They can literally play what they want especially to audiences like FWD, Night Slugs where they go to hear something new, or something old, presented differently. They are good because they are introducing new people into different strands of whats going on here, and getting different people into this music, that others haven't been able to reach before. Whereas people like Spyro and Maximum have had to their names attached to the Grime scene since 2003; so they will always be Grime Djs, playing sets to satisfy the grime fans, then their own pleasures whether thats funky or dubstep as well.
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
My position on it is the opposite, I can see everyone playing a bit of everything, so it nearly becomes a niche to be playing one thing. And because I have been so explicit about it over the last 6 months on Rinse I have gained more listeners and followers of the show. Some people dont like Funky, Garage and Bassline mixed into their Grime. Infact, im not even sure if I do. Right now im just pushing the music in places where these Djs have failed to in the past, and seeing what happens.
Click to expand...

good to hear. not many djs can do the eclectic thing right. not saying you cant but i wish more people stuck their necks out a bit more instead of just trying to please everyone.
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Elijah said:
On Rinse they do a Grime show when they turn up.

When they do live shows, they do PA or if it is a few of them, then a live set, like radio with maximum mixing it up.

In Napa is the only place where they do the full shabang with all the music mixed up. On some Heartless Crew type of vibe.

No others in the grime scene have this sort of versatility.

When you talk about Djs mixing it up playing a bit of everything, its just a thing that has come about especially with the Grime DJs, they dont want to pigeon whole themselves incase the scene dies. Some are not into the music as much as they were before, and some want to be DJing in the clubs, regardless of what they play.

Trying to be eclectic is the in thing right now. Listen to the Grime debate.

Most of them have been left in a position where the only time they play Grime music is on Rinse FM. To play in clubs they have to play funky. I think they look at people like Cameo & Target and think that is the way to get onto a legal station.

My position on it is the opposite, I can see everyone playing a bit of everything, so it nearly becomes a niche to be playing one thing. And because I have been so explicit about it over the last 6 months on Rinse I have gained more listeners and followers of the show. Some people dont like Funky, Garage and Bassline mixed into their Grime. Infact, im not even sure if I do. Right now im just pushing the music in places where these Djs have failed to in the past, and seeing what happens.

With Oneman, Brackles, Bok Bok and the like, they haven't had their names attached to a particular scene as much, so they dont need to conform to any particular demands of a scenes fanbase. They can literally play what they want especially to audiences like FWD, Night Slugs where they go to hear something new, or something old, presented differently. They are good because they are introducing new people into different strands of whats going on here, and getting different people into this music, that others haven't been able to reach before. Whereas people like Spyro and Maximum have had to their names attached to the Grime scene since 2003; so they will always be Grime Djs, playing sets to satisfy the grime fans, then their own pleasures whether thats funky or dubstep as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for this Elijah. This is the sort of debate I was looking to get going, and your view is a useful corrective to my eternal-ray-of-sunshine optimism :D . There's quite a few things I could say in response and I'm still adsorbing your points and thinking it over, but here's some quick thoughts for now:
First of all I should say that I'm really appreciating what you and Skilliam are doing with your show right now (as demonstrated by my flow of generic 'wicked tunes mate' texts in ;) ), there is definately a sense of coherence and purpose about your sets, so choosing to focus in on grime more solidly has almost certainly been the right choice.
I think I'd agree with you that the eclectic DJ sets are 'the in thing' right now; in a way that was the point I was trying to make in my blog post, this sort of thing is getting bigger and more common all the time. I certainly wouldn't want to suggest there's something shocking and rebellious about play eclectic stuff (maybe 2/3 years ago there might have been, but not now). I can totally appreciate why from your p.o.v the Spyro/Maximum/Cameo etc way of doing things can seem both lazy and a bit like jumping ship, and you're almost certainly right that a big part of the motivation is to with getting bookings, advancing their careers and so on. But that in itself proves that there is an audience out there that wants to hear, say, grime and funky mixed together in the one set.
My feeling is that currently, there is plenty of room at the DJ level for doing it both ways, your way and the Spyro way. Indeed, it's healthy that it works like that, 'cause the more eclectic shows can demonstrate the similarities and points of contacts between the styles and encourage people to produce stuff which draws on these, while the more specialist shows can make sure that the styles themselves keep moving forward, so we're not just stuck statically combining things. I reckon a station like Rinse does a decent job currently of combining the two approaches (though they could stand to lose a few of the boring, second-rate funky house shows imo). There may well be a stage where this 'big happy family' approach can't sustain itself, however, and then people would have to decide which side to come down on (and personally, I honestly couldn't say which way I would go).
Finally, I would say that it doesn't all have to be full-on, all over the place eclectism, in fact it's often more interesting when the points of contact between just a few things is explored. Your show, for example, is clearly a grime show, but to me it seems generally very 'forward-looking' and shows off quite a variety of sounds. One of the things I really like is that you play stuff like Joker instrumentals, where in the past a lot of people have said that while Joker is clearly grime-influenced, his stuff exists in its own little space and doesn't really mix with the more 'hardcore' grime - now I think we can all agree on here that this is just wrong, but it's important that you're proving it wrong, y'know.

Edit: having a listen to the debate you linked to right now, very interesting stuff. I should say here that I'm definitely not trying to claim that grime is dead or anything along those lines.
 
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Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
gumdrops said:
good to hear. not many djs can do the eclectic thing right. not saying you cant but i wish more people stuck their necks out a bit more instead of just trying to please everyone.
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I take your point, but on the whole I don't think is what is going on here. I'm using the word eclectic like everyone else here, and technically it's probably the accurate term. but I don't the pejorative associations of eclecticism as a total hodge-podge of things thrown together in the hope of providing something for everyone is really applicable this time. I think most of the people playing the genre-mashing sets really are 'sticking their necks out' in terms of playing with conviction, playing what they themselves want to hear and want to see developed. Even in the cases of people coming out of grime where part of it is to do with getting more/better bookings, I doubt that they actually dislike many of the records that they're playing. When I hear them on radio there's an obvious enthusiasm and excitement in their presentation which is hard to fake.
It's a little hard for me to explain it, 'cause for me as a listener these genres just do make sense next to each other. The stylistic differences really aren't that great in a lot of cases I think. And again, this is why I wouldn't want to over-stress eclecticism, as if I think that single genres are always bad. On the contrary, what I think we need is a new, bigger genre, and that eclectic mixing of the current sounds could help pave the way for this.
(However, I accept that this is not all happy and lovey-dovey, as along the way to building the new meta-sound some styles will likely be deemed less important than others, certain sounds might get lopped off etc., and this will be very frustrating for people who love particular parts of the UK hardcore sound, rather than tending more to love the whole like I do. But of course this is all conjecture as it might not work out this way.)
 
B

Blackdown

nexKeysound
Elijah said:
Trying to be eclectic is the in thing right now...
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the thing about eclectic is it's all about how you do it. we play funky, grime, dubstep, w*nk and old school on our set but we cluster the different sections so the different records have some kind of dialog and are coherant.

kode9 plays a lot of different styles but i wouldnt par him with the word 'eclectic'.

whereas oneman et al that you mention just zig zag, which in most djs doesnt work for me, except oneman is an exceptional dj and so his mixing carries him through.

the real lesson from oneman - not that he invented this - is about defining your own space. interesting you mention 'grime' djs who 'have' to play funky in clubs. to me DJs who get to play liberated sets do so because people now expect them to. so play on rinse what you play in clubs i reckon!
 
G

gragy10

Veteran Lurker
Simon78 said:
Anyone got that Crazy Cousinz cd? Are both cd's mixed?
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It's pretty standard issue major label/Supermarket 'mix' cd business.
The first CD is more or less a mix comp of their own remixes which wears a thin prety quick, but cd2 is good fun in a Beginner's Guide way.
 
Simon78

Simon78

Well-known member
slackk said:
If you buy it on itunes you get them all unmixed.
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Cool, I just wanted to replace a few vinyl rips and there are a couple of other bits I want.

Not sure why my vinyl rips always sound so bad? I need to get that sorted really.

Think I will wait to see if Juno Download get it as 320's
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Blackdown said:
the thing about eclectic is it's all about how you do it. we play funky, grime, dubstep, w*nk and old school on our set but we cluster the different sections so the different records have some kind of dialog and are coherant.

kode9 plays a lot of different styles but i wouldnt par him with the word 'eclectic'.

whereas oneman et al that you mention just zig zag, which in most djs doesnt work for me, except oneman is an exceptional dj and so his mixing carries him through.

the real lesson from oneman - not that he invented this - is about defining your own space. interesting you mention 'grime' djs who 'have' to play funky in clubs. to me DJs who get to play liberated sets do so because people now expect them to. so play on rinse what you play in clubs i reckon!
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Thanks Blackdown, I basically agree. I was considering about whether to bring up your radio show in the blog post, but as you say, it does feel like you are doing things slightly differently from some, there is more of a sense of careful organisation (still mentioned Margins Music and your Pitchfork column though so I reckon you did alright from it ;) ).
As I said above, I'm using this word 'eclectic' a bit, in part 'cause I can't be bothered typing out something along the lines of 'set which crosses contemporary genres' every bloody time, but I reckon you're right to distance what you and others are doing from the more unsavoury 'zig zag' connotations of eclectisism. Your're right about Kode in this regard too, what I loved about him when I finally got to see him play out last month was just the near-perfect flow of his whole set, fantastic.
 
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