If you happen to be in Berlin this Thursday, come down to WMF where we´ll host #3 in the HEAT-Party series. Our special guest for the night is WILDLIFE!, the man who made the beats for Terry Lynn´s “Kingstonlogic” album and recently banged out some amazing remixes. Start: 11pm, Admission: 6 €
João Brasil played at Shirkhan´s show on Radio Fritz Berlin last Tuesday, here´s his mix which makes any snow melt instantly…
Almost half a year after the closing of Berlin´s Scala club, where we had our last regular club residency, we are now happy to announce the start of a new monthly club event in Berlin. The night is called “Heat” and will be every 2nd Thursday on the small floor at piping hot WMF club in Mitte.
Our very first guest at Heat next Thursday (10th of Dec) is DJ Beware. On January 14th there is João Brasil and February 11th Wildlife!. Every three months a Heat special will be staged on the big floor at WMF, the first is on Jan 30th with Sinden, Drop The Lime, Schlachthofbronx, Ku Bo Live and myself. Berlin, the heat is on!
I recently met Diplo in Berlin, while he was promoting his “Major Lazer” album for German media. German club culture magazine “Groove” features a full page on our meeting in their “Nimm Zwei” (”Take Two”) series. Here´s the translation:
Not far from the ambassador´s quarter in Berlin, two music ambassadors meet to exchange news and music. Names like Schlachthof Bronx or Justin Martin start to fly as Wesley Pentz, a.k.a. Diplo, 29, meets his colleague Daniel Haaksman, 40, boss of Man Recordings, to talk about the current state of Germany´s music scene. Satisfied, both conclude that the children of Kraftwerk open up their ears – and sample banks – to phenomenons such as Kuduro, Cumbia to Funk (Rio) to Funky (London). Haaksman lives in Berlin, Diplo is in town to talk about “Guns Dont´t Kill People, Lazers Do”, which he co-produced together with Switch.
Interview by Eric Mandel
Daniel, four years ago you invited Diplo to play at Berlin´s 103 club, and only a dozen people showed up. How would that be today?
DIPLO: Our small scene doesnt get much press. We are pretty much invisible, coz loads of things are based on file sharing. Daniel is here in Berlin, in England there´s Mumdance or Jammer, Crookers in Italy, Al-Haca in austria. We all do pretty much the same, an eclectic sound, we´ll never fit into one box. So we stay in contact, share music and support each other. The dub step guys don´t like Rusko and the old techno heads hate Crookers, because their tracks don´t peak after five minutes but after 45 seconds, haha. We are all pretty much fans of each other.
HAAKSMAN And this has reached a critical mass now. 2006 you could count the people involved in this scene on one hand. Now you have Crookers topping the pop charts worldwide, M.I.A. broke with “Paper Planes” and a new generation of club kids was raised on a sound that gives you an alternative to the ubiquious sound of house and techno played all night long. Those kids have an eclectic music taste, and this includes everything from rock, cumbia, reggaeton, ghettotec, whatever. Many of the elements that are relevant in techno – sound engineering, technology, long blends in mixing – are not relevant in this music. The idea of an spiritual expierence or states of trance on the dancefloor are not important for our audience, it´s all about pure energy. Styles like kuduro or baile funk inspired people like us with new ideas. Thus we became ambassadors which bring people from Brasil or Angola over here and put those people into contexts both in production and labels.
DIPLO It´s necessary, otherwise it´s just world music for older intellectuals. But it´s both ways: DJ Znobia from Angola recently sampled Switch. DJ Sandrinho samples Baltimore beats for his baile funk parties in Rio.
HAAAKSMAN Earlier, there was only very little musical exchange between Angola and BRasil. Now you have the anthem of Flamengo as a Kuduro remix from Angola. People can jump the artificial barriers today that the old media structures, the major labels or media company used to rule. Today, people can directly exchange ideas and music, and it´s all thanks to the internet.
DIPLO It´s kind of weird for me to see that Berlin is only getting it now, as Berlin is considered to be Electro-City. When I grew up in Miami I had this 2 Live Crew record, there was this track called “We Want Some Pussy (Live In Berlin)”, and it sounded as if they were playing in front of 20.000 people. I thought they were the biggest thing in Germany. I mean you guys had Kraftwerk, they invented the damn beat!
HAAKSMAN Yes, but here it went completely different ways. When Bambaataa used “Trans Europe Express” he created the electronic version of afro-american funk. In the U.S. this led to both Detroit techno and Miami bass. Electronic dance music in Germany wasnt very much influenced by “Planet Rock”, only when later, in it´s bastard child versions of Detroit techno or Chicago house. In Germany in contrary, e.g. DAF, was pretty straight and totally “white”. This preference has remained until today in large parts of the German dance music scene. There´s a few islands across Germany which follow afro-american music innovations, but the majority is completely self-centered. All the afro-american music innovations of recent years – bmore, chicago juke, etc. – werent registred over here. The same is for bubbling from Holland, which comes from a very vibrant black community.
DIPLO It´s great to mix with hard stuff, but by now it has become a no-word because for many years it has become really trendy. It´s a mix of Caribbean reggae and Dutch house, right in the middle.
You two have an ear for regional phenomenons. What is on your radar these days?
HAAKSMAN There´s hundreds of local dance music styles that are still to discovered. Tecno brega from Manaus for example. I´m currently into UK funky. Many of the UK funky guys come from Grime and they were fed of the clicheed strings and MCs. It´s sort of the UK answer to the breakbeat thunderstorm which poured over UK in recent years in forms of Kuduro, Soca, Baile Funk, Juke and Bmore.
DIPLO They want money, hehe! To be honest, I like UK funky, some of the instrumentals are great, like K.I.G.´s “Head, Shoulders, Kneez & Toez” has a good flow. But the majority of tracks sound to me like a cheap version of Bugz In The Attic. And when there´s “African” vocals, like (singing) “I play my conga”, then it sounds like the stuff my mother listens to when she visits a world music club night. At the same time it´s a mixed scene, with black and white kids, and that´s cool with me.
Read the original interview in German in Groove Magazine #119. Out now.
“Musical subcultures between rebellion, controlling formats and business ideas Berlin and Rio De Janeiro” is the topic of a panel discussion in Club Monarch in Berlin-Kreuzberg this coming Thursday (18th of June). The panel will discuss the book “FUNK THE CITY” in which the relations of urban every day life of Rio De Janeiro and Berlin are in focus, with their musical subcultures of hip hop and baile funk – which are stigmatised by the middle class with terms such as ghetto, violence and marginality. Do these cultural practices from the urban peripheries present new ideas for a “policy after politics”? Do they offer any resistant “urban action” with which the inhabitants of both the favelas and the immigrant quarters can fight against their marginalisation? Or do they merely create “exotic” music and life stles with an economic surplus which are skimmed by the global cultural industries? Or are they even instrumentalised by the reigning powers, accessing the particular cultural practises of the “poor” and thus ruling them ?
“Funk The City” is based on long term research and various interviews with activists from both Berlin and Rio De Janeiro and collected analyses, essays, talks, photos and lyrics about the sound and urban action from the peripheries of Rio De Janeiro and Berlin.
“FUNK THE CITY” Book release party @ Club Monarch in Kreuzberg, 18th of June, 9PM
Another reason to finally learn some German for y´all Anglo Saxons out there is the new book “Funk The City”, which will be released by Berlin based publisher B_Books next week. “Funk The City” focuses on the urban every day life of Rio De Janeiro and Berlin and the subcultures of hip hop and baile funk that shape each city´s popular culture. In both cities, hip hop as well as baile funk are considered “ghetto” and associated with violence and marginality by the mainstream press. “Funk The City” asks: Do baile funk and hip hop represent a culture of urban action as resistance, with which the residents of the stigmatised favelas as well as Berlin immigrant quarters fight symbolically against their social marginalisation? Do they create more than “exotic” music and lifestyles or are they are a mere economic surplus which gets skimmed by the global cultural industries? “Funk The City” is based on year long researches and various interviews with activists from both cities, summarizing analyses, essays, talks, photos and lyrics of the sounds and cultural practice from the peripheries of Rio De Janeiro and Berlin. Featuring interviews with Mr.Catra, DJ Marlboro, Denise Garcia (director of “I´m Ugly But I´m Trendy”), myself and many others.
“FUNK THE CITY- SOUNDS UND STÄDTISCHES HANDELN AUS DEN PERIPHERIEN VON RIO DE JANEIRO UND BERLIN”
By Stephan Lanz/Gese Dorner/Katharina Gaber/Nele Harlan
Nadine Jäger/Sigurd Jennerjahn/Birke Otto/Swantje Plähn
Berlin, b_books, 2008
metroZones 9/b_books
218 Pages
ISBN 978-3-933557-91-9
If you´re in Berlin this weekend, come down to Scala club on Friedrichstrasse in Mitte. Very special guests at our newly established Man Recordings night @ Scala is ZZK sound system from Buenos Aires, Argentinia. ZZKers El Remolon, Villa Diamante and ADJ Grant will present what is quiet likely the first ever cumbia night in Berlin. I will present new baile bangers from Rio and Man Rec – the upcoming Funk Mundial #8 release ZZK vs. Man Rec included.
See Deize Tigrona performing her Diplo produced track “Bandida” live @ Berlin NBI. Valeu, Deize!
#3 of the Man Recordings party series Ghettoblaster featured special guest Diplo who rocked the bells so hard
the light system broke down. Tape club boasted one of the first evenings with their brand new Function One sound system. The night proved they have the best sound system in town.
Daniel Best and Mr.Wix adjusting the bass
Diplo heating up
Yeahhh
Well done, Wes
We are proud to present #3 in the Man Recordings Presents Ghettoblaster party series. This Thursday at Tape CLub in Berlin we´ll clash with Mad Decent don DIPLO special guest is DJ Edgar straight outta Rio. Don´t miss it….
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