QueenofSheba
Keep It Funky!!
Scholar T - Rinse Saturday 9-11pm
Angie B - Rinse Saturday 3-5pm
Funk B - Deja - Saturday 8-10pm
Mystery - Deja - Thurs 8-10pm
Rogue - Deja - Sun 2-4pm
Shoulda put that up first time round really
Funky/London/UK House
Scholar T - Rinse Saturday 9-11pm
Angie B - Rinse Saturday 3-5pm
Funk B - Deja - Saturday 8-10pm
Mystery - Deja - Thurs 8-10pm
Rogue - Deja - Sun 2-4pm
Shoulda put that up first time round really
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
I quite like the Musical Statues track tbh. Feeling the interactive nature of it, the way they call to the selector to stop the track, give shout outs to the different London districts, etc.
A few more random thoughts on the whole MC thing, as I'm bored and trying to avoid what I'm supposed to be doing:
1.) What QOS and others are saying, that MCs in future should other put together their own tracks or at least get clearence from producers before they start versioning their tunes, this seems perfectly sensible to me - it's only going to cause unnecesary conflicts and divisions in the scene if people are getting their tunes nicked, esp if the new versions are clumsy and don't add much to the original.
However, having said that, I think it would be a shame if the majority of newly produced tracks became basically MC tools, at least at this stage. What I like at the moment is that a lot of the fresh new productions seem quite tracky, quite sparse and stripped-back to the point of almost being minimalist, so they leave plenty of space for to spit bars over them, and have the sorts of repeating structures that tend to help this. But at the moment the tunes do still also work as stand-alone objects for listening to, and as beats and grooves that will rock the dancefloor, and I think it's important that those two functions aren't forgotten about
2.) A lot of these novelty, dance-move, sing-along-a-nursery rhyme choruses, they strike that they might work better as standard, anoymous bars that MCs at raves could chant when doing the hosting/crowd-hyping thing. No doubt that's where a lot of the bars originated in the first place. But they perhaps don't always need their own stand-alone record.
3.) Flashing on various historical precedents for this. Aside from the obvious garage-rap/proto-grime similarities, I sometimes get reminded of those late 80s house records where the lyrics are endless combinations of 'jack', 'house', 'work it' and so forth. But the big thing that the idea of 'nursery grime' reminds me of is the craze/controversy around 'toytown techno' in the early 90s after Charly became a massive chart hit. Now to an extent I find those records endearing, if only for the way that they wound up people with a purist, po-faced approach to the music. But as listening experiences, there's a limit to how often I'd put on SeasmE's Treat or A Trip To Trumpton, for example. I'm not sure they even work too well as novelty-pop tunes, they're just too cut-and-paste, too all over the place for anything to really grab you. (Though of course it goes without saying that the Alley Cat Mix of Charly is one of the best pop songs of the 90s and possibly of all time).
A few more random thoughts on the whole MC thing, as I'm bored and trying to avoid what I'm supposed to be doing:
1.) What QOS and others are saying, that MCs in future should other put together their own tracks or at least get clearence from producers before they start versioning their tunes, this seems perfectly sensible to me - it's only going to cause unnecesary conflicts and divisions in the scene if people are getting their tunes nicked, esp if the new versions are clumsy and don't add much to the original.
However, having said that, I think it would be a shame if the majority of newly produced tracks became basically MC tools, at least at this stage. What I like at the moment is that a lot of the fresh new productions seem quite tracky, quite sparse and stripped-back to the point of almost being minimalist, so they leave plenty of space for to spit bars over them, and have the sorts of repeating structures that tend to help this. But at the moment the tunes do still also work as stand-alone objects for listening to, and as beats and grooves that will rock the dancefloor, and I think it's important that those two functions aren't forgotten about
2.) A lot of these novelty, dance-move, sing-along-a-nursery rhyme choruses, they strike that they might work better as standard, anoymous bars that MCs at raves could chant when doing the hosting/crowd-hyping thing. No doubt that's where a lot of the bars originated in the first place. But they perhaps don't always need their own stand-alone record.
3.) Flashing on various historical precedents for this. Aside from the obvious garage-rap/proto-grime similarities, I sometimes get reminded of those late 80s house records where the lyrics are endless combinations of 'jack', 'house', 'work it' and so forth. But the big thing that the idea of 'nursery grime' reminds me of is the craze/controversy around 'toytown techno' in the early 90s after Charly became a massive chart hit. Now to an extent I find those records endearing, if only for the way that they wound up people with a purist, po-faced approach to the music. But as listening experiences, there's a limit to how often I'd put on SeasmE's Treat or A Trip To Trumpton, for example. I'm not sure they even work too well as novelty-pop tunes, they're just too cut-and-paste, too all over the place for anything to really grab you. (Though of course it goes without saying that the Alley Cat Mix of Charly is one of the best pop songs of the 90s and possibly of all time).
Algierstwin
Well-known member
aren't we looking at this a little bit too deeply?
It's just a strand of the genre that will be pushed by the money hungry ones. Maybe I'm wrong but I haven't heard any of these tunes creeping into the sets I listen too. . .
. . .
but I hear you on the rest.
corpsey - just tune into rinse randomly. . usually does me. and i'm a london outsider too.
It's just a strand of the genre that will be pushed by the money hungry ones. Maybe I'm wrong but I haven't heard any of these tunes creeping into the sets I listen too. . .
. . .
but I hear you on the rest.
corpsey - just tune into rinse randomly. . usually does me. and i'm a london outsider too.
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Algierstwin
Well-known member
Isn't that what we're all here for, though?
haha i guess soo. . well as long as I aint really hearing these I'm not going to complain.
i thought blackberry hype was pretty poor. But then I went in there with pretty high expectations from the name alone.
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
I dunno, what appeals about Blackberry Hype is it seems to have one of the best 'fits' between the grime mcing and the funky beat that I've heard so far. Lacks the clumsiness of a lot of the other tracks.
slackk
-
That tune's incredible. In the Moony set I posted a few pages back; I have tried (unsuccessfully) to obtain it still.
Re "Toppa 5", it's up for download at ukfunky.com
Swift Jay is a fantastic and underrated producer - see also "Tribe" (which I think is billed to Swift Jay vs Suges) which reminds me of old Low Deep instrumentals.
I have the feeling though that a whole swathe of producers like him will end up being ignored when the official accounts of the scene get written (see also my other heroes Funkystepz, Seany B and Madd.One/Devine Recordings). Not auteurist enough I guess.
Mak 10 can be inconsistent, but at his best (like the March 26 show posted earlier) he's very exciting. What I like about that show is how it sounds almost more like an R&B vs Rave melting-pot which cuts through house only accidentally - which isn't to say that he's not housey, but rather that he seems to have even less apparent allegiance to traditional notions of house than Marcus even. A lot of the vocal tunes avoid "soulfulness" in favour of a dark-sickly-sweetness that reminds me more of 2-step. The O.B. remix of Addictive's "Domino Effect" being an excellent case in point, it's like Cassie's "Me & U" meets Nightmares on Wax's "Aftermath".
Marcus is a bit more bipolar, swinging between more typically soulful vocal tracks and grimier stripped down tracks.
What I don't particularly like is the way the incursion of grime MCs is being used to make this issue so oppositional, as if the choice is between "Too Many Man" and Angie B sets. Which are basically just house sets with a perfunctory amount of MCing on top.
I mean, props to Angie B and Dogtanian for their formative role, but surely it's precisely the sound that Marcus and Mak 10 have been pushing that has transformed funky into a scene worth listening about. Otherwise, if the choice is between "dubbage" and, oh, say, Innervisions material, I'd definitely go for the latter.
It's right to say that funky circa 2005 wouldn't have played knocked-together tunes, but that's because the only stuff that was being played was established US material or UK stuff that had been painstakingly designed to sound indistinguishable from those tunes.
The knocked-together quality of a lot of current funky (whether MC based or not) is an inevitable flow-on effect of its experimentalism and range. This is how progress happens: people jump on particular sounds and ideas and reproduce it (often poorly!) until they make something new. "Sirens" begets "House Girls Part One" begets "Inflation" begets...
Marcus of course is fencing himself in by trying to wage a war against both extremes, rejecting traditional house conservatism and MC tunes simultaneously. This seems a bit over-reactive to me, but at the same time I suspect he rightly recognises that the current debate acts as if the style he plays simply doesn't exist. But all my favourite tunes of this year fall into that Marcus/Mak 10 interzone, and often even more specifically within that sound that a lot of people seem inevitably to be calling "tribal":
Crazy Cousinz - Inflation/Always Be Mine
J Will - Deja Vu (??? Remix)
Addictive - Domino Effect (O.B. Remix)
Perempay & Dee - Buss It
Mos' Wanted - Frozen
Lil' Silva - Sunshine/Burning
Funkystepz - Funky Sound/Gamechip/Trinity Hill/Dancing Scene
Devine Recordings - House Girls Part One/Tribal Congo
Swift Jay vs Suges - Tribe
Fuzzy Logic - In The Morning/Cuban Linq/Polyfunk/The Way You Move/Roots
DJ Naughty - Love Lockdown
Darkus Beat Company - Rubicon Guava
Mercurial Myrmidon - Moving Shapes/House of Emotion
Fr3e - Skank Calm Down
KIG - Head Shoulders Knees & Toes (Donaeo Remix)
Jalla - Turbulence
Tribal Audio + NST - Hard Steppin'
Whytepatch ft. Gift & Miss Teejah - Fresh Air
Mischief - Red Bull Skank
Rudenko - Everybody (Fingaprint Mix)
Ill Blu - the track on the Fantastic 4 EP
Swift Jay is a fantastic and underrated producer - see also "Tribe" (which I think is billed to Swift Jay vs Suges) which reminds me of old Low Deep instrumentals.
I have the feeling though that a whole swathe of producers like him will end up being ignored when the official accounts of the scene get written (see also my other heroes Funkystepz, Seany B and Madd.One/Devine Recordings). Not auteurist enough I guess.
Mak 10 can be inconsistent, but at his best (like the March 26 show posted earlier) he's very exciting. What I like about that show is how it sounds almost more like an R&B vs Rave melting-pot which cuts through house only accidentally - which isn't to say that he's not housey, but rather that he seems to have even less apparent allegiance to traditional notions of house than Marcus even. A lot of the vocal tunes avoid "soulfulness" in favour of a dark-sickly-sweetness that reminds me more of 2-step. The O.B. remix of Addictive's "Domino Effect" being an excellent case in point, it's like Cassie's "Me & U" meets Nightmares on Wax's "Aftermath".
Marcus is a bit more bipolar, swinging between more typically soulful vocal tracks and grimier stripped down tracks.
What I don't particularly like is the way the incursion of grime MCs is being used to make this issue so oppositional, as if the choice is between "Too Many Man" and Angie B sets. Which are basically just house sets with a perfunctory amount of MCing on top.
I mean, props to Angie B and Dogtanian for their formative role, but surely it's precisely the sound that Marcus and Mak 10 have been pushing that has transformed funky into a scene worth listening about. Otherwise, if the choice is between "dubbage" and, oh, say, Innervisions material, I'd definitely go for the latter.
It's right to say that funky circa 2005 wouldn't have played knocked-together tunes, but that's because the only stuff that was being played was established US material or UK stuff that had been painstakingly designed to sound indistinguishable from those tunes.
The knocked-together quality of a lot of current funky (whether MC based or not) is an inevitable flow-on effect of its experimentalism and range. This is how progress happens: people jump on particular sounds and ideas and reproduce it (often poorly!) until they make something new. "Sirens" begets "House Girls Part One" begets "Inflation" begets...
Marcus of course is fencing himself in by trying to wage a war against both extremes, rejecting traditional house conservatism and MC tunes simultaneously. This seems a bit over-reactive to me, but at the same time I suspect he rightly recognises that the current debate acts as if the style he plays simply doesn't exist. But all my favourite tunes of this year fall into that Marcus/Mak 10 interzone, and often even more specifically within that sound that a lot of people seem inevitably to be calling "tribal":
Crazy Cousinz - Inflation/Always Be Mine
J Will - Deja Vu (??? Remix)
Addictive - Domino Effect (O.B. Remix)
Perempay & Dee - Buss It
Mos' Wanted - Frozen
Lil' Silva - Sunshine/Burning
Funkystepz - Funky Sound/Gamechip/Trinity Hill/Dancing Scene
Devine Recordings - House Girls Part One/Tribal Congo
Swift Jay vs Suges - Tribe
Fuzzy Logic - In The Morning/Cuban Linq/Polyfunk/The Way You Move/Roots
DJ Naughty - Love Lockdown
Darkus Beat Company - Rubicon Guava
Mercurial Myrmidon - Moving Shapes/House of Emotion
Fr3e - Skank Calm Down
KIG - Head Shoulders Knees & Toes (Donaeo Remix)
Jalla - Turbulence
Tribal Audio + NST - Hard Steppin'
Whytepatch ft. Gift & Miss Teejah - Fresh Air
Mischief - Red Bull Skank
Rudenko - Everybody (Fingaprint Mix)
Ill Blu - the track on the Fantastic 4 EP
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Damn, I thought I was keeping up with new tunes ok, but I can only have heard about half of those!
Your points make sense anyway, I do hope that Marcus/Mak 10 can keep a territory marked out for their particular sound for at least a little while longer.
Algierstwin
Well-known member
bravo. seriously. . . !
I should note that basically all of the above recommendations come from listening to Mak 10/Marcus Nasty and related sets, and trawling producers' myspace pages and ukfunky.com.
As always, there are many tracks that belong in the list but which I cannot even begin to ID.
Funky tracks can be very difficult to ID: producers like Fuzzy Logic and Funkystepz have such diverse production templates that it's impossible to assign to them a particular sonic signature - in fact in both those cases it's almost a case of them checking each box (assymetrical grimy track - tick - dancehall flavoured track - tick - big vocal anthem - tick - piano stomper - tick etc. etc.).
This would be true even for a lot of Crazy Cousinz productions if they didn't helpfully include their recurrent "Wooh!" samples. e.g. "Inflation" is their Hardhouse Banton nod, "Always Be Mine" their Ill Blu nod...
As always, there are many tracks that belong in the list but which I cannot even begin to ID.
Funky tracks can be very difficult to ID: producers like Fuzzy Logic and Funkystepz have such diverse production templates that it's impossible to assign to them a particular sonic signature - in fact in both those cases it's almost a case of them checking each box (assymetrical grimy track - tick - dancehall flavoured track - tick - big vocal anthem - tick - piano stomper - tick etc. etc.).
This would be true even for a lot of Crazy Cousinz productions if they didn't helpfully include their recurrent "Wooh!" samples. e.g. "Inflation" is their Hardhouse Banton nod, "Always Be Mine" their Ill Blu nod...
Also Footloose's 1xtra show, though I don't listen to this as much as I'd like as I'm not in a position to listen to the full stream at my home computer very often.
Footloose is a good example of someone who has a very expansive notion of what UK funky can be, he seems equally at home with Frankie Feliciano on the one hand and KIG on the other.
Footloose is a good example of someone who has a very expansive notion of what UK funky can be, he seems equally at home with Frankie Feliciano on the one hand and KIG on the other.
echevarian
babylon sister
Speaking of Footloose, I want that El-B dub he keeps playing.
That track needs to come out sooner rather than later.
That track needs to come out sooner rather than later.
i'm anticipating 28 individual tracks rather than something you have to buy all together although i guess the word pack does imply otherwise :S
Algierstwin
Well-known member
pow.
Fingerprint – Night Time
Dotstar – Stick Up
Crazy Cousinz – Inflation
Yonurickan – Boriken Soul Yonurican Club Mix
Cleverkeys – Misconception
MA1 – Waterfalls
Lil Silva – I’m The Man
Tadow – Phaser
NG in for Footloose.
Fingerprint – Night Time
Dotstar – Stick Up
Crazy Cousinz – Inflation
Yonurickan – Boriken Soul Yonurican Club Mix
Cleverkeys – Misconception
MA1 – Waterfalls
Lil Silva – I’m The Man
Tadow – Phaser
NG in for Footloose.