Release plan

Ideas:

Album: Azucar Negra - Andar Andando
Album: Lewis Taylor - Lewis Taylor
Album: Corinne Bailey Rae (1st)
Album: Morelenbaum2 & Sakamoto
Album: Kano
Album: Blue Bossa
Album: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Musst Musst
Album: Luiz Bonfa - Solo In Rio
Album: Roots Manuva - Brand New Second Hand
Album: They Call It Murrrda


Song: James Brown - Make It Funky
Song: Manu Dibango - Soul Makossa
Song: Asian Dub Foundation - Culture Move
Song: Fallacy & Tubby T - Big 'n' Bashy
Song: Maze - Before I Let Go
Song: Shy FX, T Power & Top Cat - Everyday
Song: Square One - Beggars
Song: Mr Vegas - Mus Come A Road
Song: Ms Dynamite & Sticky - Boo

Artist: Kardinal Offishall
Artist: Thelonious Monk
Artist: Dizzee Rascal
Artist: A.R. Rahman

Special: Taxi riddim
Special: mixtapes
Special: Reggaelution
Special: Police & Thieves incl The Clash & Kano
Special: Reggaeton
Special: Soca
Special: boy vs girl songs
Special: Timba
Special: Jamaica & India

?: Juan Luis Guerra

Stalag Riddim

This weekend I suddenly realized that none of the five updates in the first week of Likeable Music featured any Jamaican music. It's a bit unlike me, because while I know and like a lot of different music, my desert isle disc would probably be something Jamaican. The classic ska and rocksteady of the sixties, the reggae and dub of the seventies and the dancehall and reggae of the eighties onwards, Jamaica has always pushed the envelope and given the world new exciting music.

I'll leave for another post or ten to delve into the rich history and present of Jamaican music. For this post, a dozen likeable songs will have to do. They all have something in common. Well, actually the only thing they haven't got in common is the vocals. What remains (more or less) the same on all these tracks is the backing track, known in this context as the riddim.

Incoming! Warning shot fired

In the immortal words of Public Enemy:

I got a letter from the government*
The other day
I opened and read it
It said they were...

Well, it said they were keen to inform me that the way I present music in my blog postings meant anyone can right click the songs and download them. They weren't too keen on that, and as a warning shot they had one of my blog postings removed (the one about the Stalag riddim).

That means I'll have to make sure the songs aren't downloadable any more. Which means finding a way to allow you to listen to the music but not to download it.

So if anyone has tips on how to do it please let me know.


* All right, it was from Google, not the government

Song: Mr. Vegas - Mus Come A Road

Jamaican music has always been known for innovative use of previously recorded music, be it recording versions of American or British hits, giving Jamaican music the dub treatment or recording new vocals over old instrumental riddim tracks.

The last couple of years there has been a couple of examples of a new way to recycle old songs - laying new vocals over remixed classics. In 2002, Mark Ronson chopped up the intro from the classic
Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking
on the I'm Still In Love With You riddim, and turned it into
Sean Paul & Debbie Nova - International Affair

Today's song, Mus Come A Road from 2008, uses a slightly different approach. The

Album: Easy Star All-Stars - Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band

Imagine a parallel universe where John, Paul, George and Ringo were born in Kingston, Jamaica. Maybe they would have started off as a ska group, developing up through rock steady and reggae. And maybe they would have kept the band together for long enough to link up with King Tubby and take part in the creation of dub music. And (heretic alert!) maybe that version of The Beatles would have sounded even better than the Liverpool band.

The third album by Easy Star All-Stars, Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band, might be as close we can get to how the Jamaican Beatles would sound like. They are a Jamaican/American band specialising in reinterpreting classic albums. Easy Star released their

Song: Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come

Written by Sam Cooke, A Change Is Gonna Come was released posthumously in 1964. Like in all of Sam Cooke's music, the gospel roots of soul music are very audible in the song. Where his earlier music had been sweet, polished songs about innocent love, though, the lyrics of A Change Is Gonna Come were a stark look at the racial segregation of early 1960's America.

I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep tellin' me, "Don't hang around"

But after the trials and tribulations, the song ends on an optimistic note:

There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time comin'
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Album: Ana Moura - Guarda-Me A Vida Na Mão

The first time I heard Ana Moura singing fado was, of all places, in a restaurant. Or to be more exact, in the Lisbon fado house Sr. Vinho.

A fado house is basically a restaurant where the main attraction is live fado music. During and after the meal, a fado singer and two or three guitarists take their place between the tables and play a set. In one night, there are maybe three to five sets with different fado singers (fadistas).

This particular night in early 2004, I and my wife visited Sr. Vinho for the first time after hearing that it was the place to go to hear the best fadistas. The main attaction and the final singer of the night was Ana Moura.

Song: General Levy - Heat

London based General Levy started off in the early nineties as a dancehall deejay. Around 1994 he became one of the leading MC's of the burgeoning jungle scene, a musical genre that would later transform into drum 'n' bass.

He is easily recognisable through his rapid-fire vocal delivery and his inventive use of breathing sounds between words. Just check the beginning of the first video to see what I'm talking about.

Heat is a straight dancehall track from 1992, with a fast, bouncy beat that matches his vocal style well. He switches between normal speed vocal delivery in the chorus to just plain ridiculous speed in the verses. In only three seconds (from 0:45 to 0:48) he manages to squeeze in all of this: