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Featured Gallery Music Q&A With The Indelible Talib Kweli

March 11, 2011 - 2:52 pm

Hip-hoppers at Winter Music Conference this year got a special treat when the Red Bull Music Academy announced a special two-day event featuring indelible MC Talib Kweli and producer 9^th Wonder that hoped to provide an intimate look into two of the game’s most talented and influential artists. After an interview and Q&A session on Thursday, the two artists would then regroup at the Delano Hotel’s Florida Room for an “On The Floor” performance. We had the chance to interview Talib before he took the stage for the interview portion of the event, held at the Raleigh Hotel. Then, due to flight delays with 9^th and the session moderator, we jumped on the mic to kick off the discussion while we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive. Below is a portion of our conversation.

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Music David Rodigan Rules: Red Bull Music Academy at Shoreditch House

by Amanda Boyd and Steve Stills

March 4, 2011 - 11:13 am

David Rodigan is so freaking adorable I can barely handle it.

On Monday night, Red Bull Music Academy held an event at Shoreditch House in East London which featured a lecture with legendary reggae / dancehall DJ David Rodigan, followed by sets with Kool Clap, The Drop and one by the aforementioned legend himself.

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Music Spank Rock! Need I Say More?

by Shop Keeper

January 7, 2011 - 9:16 am

Hmmm. Here’ a particular group with songs called “Pu$$y”, “bitch,” and “BOOTAY.” And albums called YoYoYoYoYo!, and Bangers and Cash, as well as the pictures of some fairly big-bootied girls on the album covers. The question is: Has 2 Live Crew reunited yet again, or could there be a more devious, tongue-in-cheek rapper/DJ behind this nasty piece of work?

The answer, perhaps thankfully, is that the guys who wrote a song called “Get the Fuck Out of My House” — and meant it seriously — have been successfully parodied (perhaps unintentionally) by a more talented and spinner(s) named Spank Rock. Yes, no one’s still quite sure how many are in the group altogether. But when Xfm London breakfast DJ Lauren Laverne gives you her prestigious “Album of the Year” Award, and you’re being played on a Wish-Bone salad dressing commercial, people tend to sit up and pay notice.

His — or their – hip hop songs run the gammut, from the hard-hitting and bass-heavy rap of the early 90s, and combining it with that electro sound that’s dominating the charts today — all for a sound that sounds eerily like the aforementioned Crew, actually — and they’ve even composed an ode to producing God Rick Rubin. You can get a piece of the action right now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Featured Gallery Music LA Crews Flex at the Red Bull Music Academy Culture Clash

by Rich Thomas and Sidney Bensimon

December 6, 2010 - 12:57 pm

Four stages. Four Los Angeles crews. Four different sound systems. The minute you stepped inside the arena at the Red Bull Music Academy Culture Clash, you knew your ears were in for some serious damage. Held in downtown Los Angeles at the Exchange LA, Red Bull Music Academy’s first US installment of the Culture Clash matched some of the city’s best DJ collectives against one another in a decibel battle that would last nearly four hours. With each crew repping their own style—Stones Throw with rare groove funk and hip-hop, Smog with dubstep, Dub Club with roots reggae and dancehall, and Dim Mak with dance-rock electro—the sonic and thematic variation was off the charts. But within the traditional, multi-round sound clash framework, each crew had a chance to flex skills outside of their own comfort zone.

“When you have four different sound systems in one room, that’s just war,” said legendary reggae singer and 30-year sound system veteran Shinehead, there to rep Dub Club. “Best man win, last man standing. We rip each other’s face off, then we go to the bar and have $10 glasses of champagne.”

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Music The Grandmaster of Reggae: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry

by Shop Keeper

November 17, 2010 - 10:52 am

There’s a credo a few of us could stand to live by — and the main philosophy of a man who’s spent the majority of his life in the studio, either behind the production board or behind the microphone. He’s been dubbed by many the “Grandmaster of Reggae,” and while that may seem a dubious moniker for those of you who believe the genre lives and dies with The Wailers and Jimmy Cliff, it’s hard to argue with tracks like “Dreadlocks in Moonlight” — songs that, while tongue-in-cheek, are overflowing with the man’s pure and honest love for a genre he helped revolutionize.

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Music Get yourself some Silver Apples

by Shop Keeper

November 1, 2010 - 10:49 am

The School of Seven Bells’ Ben Curtis said it best when rattling off a list of inspirations: in so many words, Silver Apples was the band that was doing some of the most progressive and radical things in music, and decades ahead of bands that pride themselves on being so ingenuous nowadays. They were one of those groups that successfully wove together elements of hippie, flower-power music, psychedelia, Moody Blues-esque, symphonic prog-rock.

And just to throw you off, there’s some random samples from commercials and shows and dead phone lines as well thrown into that mix, if for no other reason than to simply drive you mad and confirm with absolute certainty that there has never been, and will never be, a band like Silver Apples. As the group’s sole composer, New Orleans-born Simeon Coxe III says, “They didn’t have any synthesizers, so I had to make one.”

He did — mostly out of spare parts laying around, McGuyver-style.He’s worth checking out now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio, if only to hear reminisce on the days before there were Ensoniqs or Korg Workstations and this guy had to build it out of nothing. Coxe eventually picked up and moved to the NYC. And after witnessing Dave Bartholemew and Fats Domino live in concert at the tender young age of 15, Coxe was For English buffs like me, haha, the band’s name is based on The Song of the Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats.

Music Fujiya and Miyagi: Divine Chill

by Shop Keeper

October 22, 2010 - 10:22 am

Here’s what may be the most chill of all chill, relaxing, laid-back pop-it-in-for-your-Sunday-drive-in-the-countryside, noontime tea-and-crumpets electronica acts. (They are Brits, so this may help you get in the mood.) While ITunes’ Genius feature tells you that if you dig Fujiya and Miyagi, you may like !!!, The Rapture, and other drum & bass E-rock acts, take such advice with a grain of salt : F&M goes past laid-back, almost into nod-off. Their minimalist synth melodies and bass-pedaled beat samples are more reminiscent of The Human League or Kajagoogoo, but they’ve got enough groove and hipness in them that they’ve already found a loyal audience in both the young, and the older, nostalgic-for-New Wave-past.

Lyrically, their self-effacing, tongue-in-cheekiness tendencies make for an extremely entertaining listen, and serve as a reminder that they absolutely refuse to take themselves seriously. I guess bands like this have to. If they didn’t tell you that their moniker has, yes, been partly spawned from Daniel-San’s teacher in the Karate Kid movies, or write songs like “Uh,” — the lyrical personification for a disaffected, ambivalent youth (“I guess I wasn’t feeling okay…I guess it knocked me sideways/oh/she made me go uh…/uh…/ah, ah“), you might end up just scratching your head and missing all the fun. F&M is a good time for the indifferent in all of us, and you can check them out now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Music Eglo Records: Adding a Bit More Glo To Your Soul

by Shop Keeper

September 29, 2010 - 10:34 am

Eglo Records is the brainchild of Alex Nut, a brave (or crazy) young soul from the UK who cobbled together a bunch of fellow music enthusiasts for the soul purpose of having a place to call home. It just so happened that the ‘home’ became a label where he could create his own funky R&B rhythms, as well as spread the word of others just out of the limelight. Alex had already spent his formative years dirtying his hands with the likes of his other group, Rinse FM, and partner-in-rhyme Sam Shepherd (the other Sam Shepherd) — and thus the time had come to give a little love to guys who just weren’t getting their share of attention.

Enter Floating Points, a burgeoning new musical prodigy who boasted the amazingly talented voices of Fatima and Shuanise, two of the UK soul scene’s most talked-about vocalists — and Alex was going to be sure to look after his baby closely. But as the label’s biography states, this is a labor of love amongst some tight-knit friends who view the label as a home, which is really what’s made it throw out such unique music, and keep that family feeling while avoiding corporate pitfalls. Other rising stars like West London’s own FunkinEven are aiming to help the label rise above, as well promote an already blossoming West London dance scene. You can check out Fatima on Myspace right now — but more importantly, get a listen of some of the label’s newest track and acts on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Music Bullion is Gold, Jerry!

by Shop Keeper

September 6, 2010 - 10:19 am

With a name like Bullion, and the kinda dorky-looking white kid who was in fact raised on gangsta rap behind it, what’s not to love? Sure, the music is what’s important, but it’s still just cool to know that the dude has no qualms about said dorkiness…and anyways, it’s about the energy, the good vibes, the eclectic sound, the chaotic-yet-hypnotic, laid-back soul of tracks like “Young Heartache” and the rhythms and beats behind them, more than it is about, y’know, appealing to some facet of fairweather fans that would likely later ditch him like they have of every other white rapper on the block (remember Snow?!). Bullion is one of those artists that is so much better when he’s heard, when he’s experienced. And the player below will only give you a hint of what’s really there — to get the real feel of what Bullion’s doing, you should really just pick up a copy of Young Heartache. Get thee gone wastrel, and hence to Red Bull Music Academy now.

Gallery Music Tutu Sweeney & the Brothers Band Grace Red Bull Studios

by Mike Bucher and Dustin Downing

September 1, 2010 - 11:56 am

Being at Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica is an audiophile’s dream. Perfect acoustics, the best gear available, and all the Red Bull you could drink. It is especially fun when a studio like that gets put to use at the highest level, recording a full band “live.”

I walked into Friday’s session not knowing what to expect and was delighted to learn that Tutu and his gang of artist friends would be tracking the session “live.”

As the studio engineers set up the microphones and EQ the instruments, Te’Amir Sweeney (Tutu’s older brother) eases into a tasty groove. Tutu and friends join in. Tutu’s tunes are arranged, but as guitar player Michael McTaggert tells me, “They come out different every time.” The band is young, most of them circa 20 years old, but by their casual demeanor, I can tell this is probably not their first rodeo.

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