Big Big Business

Carnival is a big big bizniiiice, says Olatunji. Round these parts it’s a bizniiice that mixes electronic marimbas, twisted synth licks, basslines deep like the Mariana Trench, scattershot syncopated percussion and excess amounts of bump and clap. From the Caribbean to London to West Africa, this is Riddim Shack 4. Other mixes in the series are here, here and here.



Tracklist:

Jean-Marie Bolangassa - Rikikida
MC Boy - Shubbout
RDX - The Bruk Out Song
Point O - Dancing Time Again
Double K - Last Night
TOK - Doing It Big
Trey Pound - Ebe’ano
Ding Dong - Just Lowe Mi
Charly Black - Bubble Dung
QQ - Tip Pon Yuh Toe
Espoir 2000 - Abidjan Farot (RMX)
Leontre - Dancers Anthem
Aidonia - Clock
Mofe Boyo - Gba Brake
Jo Jo - Drum Roll
Kerrecia - Wuk Dah Wuk
Pamputtae - Pon Di Soca
Olatunji - Big Business
Team C2 - Go
Tiwa Savage - Kele Kele Love (Busy Twist RMX)
Atalaku 8 - Siwo VIP
EL - Obuu Mo
Andi-ites and Hiawondah - Herb Tea
Funkystepz - Warrior
Skinny Fabulous - Waist
South Rakkas Crew ft. Catnapp, Rage - Going To The Dancehall

(Thanks to: Hugo Mendez.)

Rave o'clock in Dominica

“So the massive want it, and so the massive like it, and so the massive want it, siwo all night long.”

Unlike other Riddim Shack installments (here and here) which have travelled widely around the Caribbean and Africa, this one mostly keeps it locked on Dominica in the eastern Antilles. Bouyon developed in the 1980s and to the uninitiated can most readily be described as Dominica’s take on soca (although it actually evolved from various local sounds): clocking in at around 150 bpm, it is all about big hands-in-the-air choruses, sudden percussion breakdowns, synthesizers emulating accordions, steel band riffs and soaring vocal lines interspersed with cries and chants. An informative introduction is Garford Alexander’s 2014 film, This is Bouyon:



A short history and description can also be found in the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 9: Genres: Caribbean and Latin America, Bloomsbury 2014, pp.83-4.

This mix is just a bunch of bouyon tunes that I like playing, spiced with a few pieces from further afield: South Rakkas from Florida remixed by Toronto’s Marcus Visionary, Poirier from Montreal channelling Trinidad’s Kes the Band and a raw edit of a production from Paris-based Angolan singer Elizio. The previously unidentified track (#3) which comes off a CD I was given in Dominica with “Old Skool Bouyon” scribbled on it and no other info is actually from Antigua - thanks to @copasetiq for the info!

Riddim Shack 3 - Rave o'clock by Musik_Line on Mixcloud

Tracklist:

Swinging Stars - Blaze It Up
Skinny Banton & Klockerz - Tonight A Di Night (Fade 2’s Rub Me Down Edit)
Burning Flames - Tout Moun Dance
Ruff and Reddy Band - Difé
Royalty Band - Siwo
Nayee and Skinny - Signal
Lloyd D Energizer - In The Road
South Rakkas Crew - So It Go (Marcus Visionary Subsoca Remix)
Elizio - Sabi Di Mas (Fade 2’s Mas Ambiance Edit)
Kes The Band - Where Yuh From (Poirier’s Work That Riddim Remix)
Royalty Band - Let We Celebrate

(Thanks to: Hugo Mendez, Franklyn Lockhart, Poirier, @copasetiq.)

Gwoka Nation: Jocelyn Gabali and the Music of Guadeloupe

I came across Jocelyn Gabali's Diadyéé by accident last year, browsing in one of Paris's Harmattan bookshops. Aside from the fact that it was printed in Paris, bibliographical information is hard to come by. The British Library catalogue infers that the word "Gwoka" on the cover signifies the publisher, gives the place of publication as Guadeloupe, and estimates that the book came out in 1984. It was evidently reprinted in 2004, by Créapub, with a slightly different cover.

(Source: kamaniok.fr)

The author is described on the back of the second edition as a teacher of modern literature and regional languages and cultures, as well as a writer and musician. Strangely, neither edition is to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale Française - a fact that might support the author's thesis, as we shall see. Nor does it seem to be currently available from Amazon or the usual second-hand outlets. Even the title is something of a mystery; written as one word on the cover and title-page, it is split into two at the end of the prefatory verses: "DIADIÉ, É". It is not included in either of the two dictionaries I consulted: H. Tourneux and M. Barbotin, Dictionnaire pratique du créole de Guadeloupe, Paris 1990 or R. Ludwig et al., Dictionnaire créole français, 2002: if any readers can inform me of its meaning, I'd be grateful.

Given the apparent scarcity of this work, and the lack of much readily-available and detailed information about gwoka in English, I thought a summary of Gabali's argument might be of interest. I've already mentioned gwoka here and there. It seems prejudicial to start this article with a simple definition of gwoka, since the development of this definition is one of the purposes of Gabali's book. So for now, let's just say that gwoka is a culture of percussive music, song and dance, practised in Guadeloupe.

Gwoka as Struggle

Diadyéé is partly a description of the elements of gwoka - the instruments, the protagonists, the rhythmic forms, the occasions on which it takes place. But beyond this it is principally a polemic. Gabali presents a history of gwoka as struggle, and places his work within this struggle. From the outset, he describes gwoka as a music with a purpose:

[This book] is written for my compatriots, male and female, who carry gwoka in their hearts and in their legs. The same people who are treated as "vyé nèg". Those whose names are illuminated nowhere, but who represent the school which I drew on for the contents of this book. It was conceived with the intent of helping our music achieve its mission, without diversion, in the same direction as the people's struggle [6].

The struggle is that of Guadeloupian identity. In Gabali's thesis, both the word and the phenomenon of gwoka derive originally from Africa, but its characteristics were melded in the crucible of Guadeloupe. In its original form, gwoka was practised by rebel slaves, those who "opened the path of liberty" for the black population. As such, it is a cultural expression which the colonial power, France, has tried to eradicate - firstly by prohibition, and then by assimilation. Gabali admits that the anti-gwoka contingent have been pretty successful. But despite the depredations it has suffered, gwoka clings on and bounces back, like a fighting cock come back from the dead (Zonbi kòk djenm). Its mission is to leave the abyss into which it has fallen and regain its rightful place at the centre of Guadeloupian culture.

Gwoka and Language

Gabali demands recognition for the essential separateness of Guadeloupe's culture, the distinction between it and that of its colonial masters. In his introduction, he addresses gwoka personified, and apologises to it for writing about it in French rather than Creole. He excuses himself by saying that the day of a purely Guadeloupian literature has not yet dawned, although he hopes it will not be far off. (It is noticeable that in the second edition of the work his name appears defrenchified, as Joslen rather than Jocelyn.)

This theme of language - of etymology, terminology, proverb and metaphor - is one of the central strands of Diadyéé. Creole, Gabali argues, is a separate language, not a dialect of French. Hence, the word "gwoka" does not come, as often stated, from "gros ka" or "gros quart" - a French term for the big drum - but from n'goka, a word of central African origin.

(A "ka". Source: lameca.org)

To build his case that gwoka is one of the - or rather, the essential and defining element of the culture of Guadeloupe, Gabali examines how terms drawn from gwoka have made their way into language in general. Creole is a highly imagistic language, and many common images and proverbs are drawn from the culture of gwoka. The "tanbou a de bonda" - a drum with skin covering each end - is a common metaphor for a person whose changeable attitudes mean that he cannot be trusted; the proverb "tanbou o lwen ni bon son" ("The drum heard from afar sounds good") means that absent people are generally well spoken of; "gwo bonda a pa tanbou" ("a big bum is not a drum") means that appearances can be deceptive.

Gabali takes a frankly nationalistic view of his subject matter. Guadeloupe is not the Antilles; books which present it in that light make misguided generalisations [182]. Other musical forms popular in Guadeloupe - quadrille or the more recently developed zouk - are foreign imports. Gwoka is the only truly Guadeloupian music. As such, it plays a unique role in Guadeloupe's destiny as well as its history. Gabali enumerates four principal aspects of gwoka which connect it to Guadeloupe's history and culture. It is a weapon, a means by which coded messages were transmitted by rebelling slaves, as well as a stimulus to assist them in combat; it accompanies labour; it accompanies important moments in the calendar such as Christmas, carnival, baptisms, marriages and deaths, "moments of joy and sadness"; and it encourages the expression, through musical dialogue, of a desire for liberty [98-101, 164-5].

Gwoka v. Télé

It should be no surprise, then, that the authorities made a concerted and to a large extent successful attempt to stamp out or at least neutralize the forces of gwoka. For a long time, elements of it were regarded as "indecent"; and in common with other more recent prohibitions of musical practices, the gathering together of its adherents was viewed as a threat. The prohibition of the kalennda, a dance which Gabali includes among the ancient rhythms of gwoka, was discussed by Jean-Baptiste Labat in his Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amérique (Vol. 2, The Hague: P. Husson, 1724, p.53):

Laws have been made in the islands to prevent kalenndas, not only because of the indecent and completely lascivious postures which are involved, but also in order to prevent overly large gatherings of blacks who, finding themselves uplifted in joy and most often intoxicated, turn to revolt, uprisings or thieving parties. But despite these laws and all our precautions, it is almost impossible to prevent them, because of all their activities it is the one which they enjoy the most.

(Page from Labat's 1724 account. Source: Gallicia digital library.)

There was a political utility to stifling these activities, and, as time went by, stifled they became. Gabali notes that once, léwòz gatherings - musical get-togethers marking the end of the working week - were held more or less every Saturday in numerous locations; they are now much rarer, replaced by the convenient passivity of television and the dislike of neighbourly noise which it fosters:

He who has the courage and the honesty to make a proper analysis of the situation in Guadeloupe will find nothing astonishing in this. He will understand perfectly well that the léwòz became rarer and rarer from the moment that the French government imposed on the people of Guadeloupe other forms of amusement, which not only distanced them from gwoka, but forced them into passivity, lulling to sleep their their creative spirit.

These other amusements are, firstly, the Saturday night dances, night clubs, zouk and "touféyenyen" which are based on foreign musical forms such as cadence rampa and disco; places where women are fundamentally disrespected and treated simply as objects of pleasure.

Secondly, there is television. The advertisements which instil in us the illusion of a totally superficial "well-being", and the spoon-fed mentality which has been taught to us by Assimilation, have turned us into teleguided beings, almost robots. Like robots, when the evening comes, instead of partaking in our Guadeloupian habits of visiting friends, getting together with family, telling stories and jokes under the moon and holding "léwòz", we settle down in front of our TVs in order to watch the goings-on of foreigners and events which often have nothing to do with our daily lives.

This dramatic fact not only results in us losing our personality but - much more seriously - it turns us against one another. For if, while watching a programme, some neighbours dare to affirm their Guadeloupian identity by making a bit of noise on their "ka" [drum], we quickly lay into them and demand that they shut up before we call the representatives of "order" [39-40].

The prevailing attitude to gwoka among those who ought to be practising it is therefore one of the problems:

In order not to betray the fundamental role of our music, each person must consider the léwòz as a means of cultural resistance, not just a fashionable means of release...[40]

Commercialization

After initial attempts at outright bans, the authorities changed their strategy to one of enfeebling gwoka through assimilation and commercialization. This, Gabali notes, has a parallel in the slave business more generally:

Because of the numerous revolts carried out by the Guadeloupian "Nèg mawon" [rebel slaves], the sugar economy found itself very seriously menaced. To make up for this, the colonisers and their allies were compelled to change the system: from the slave system, we passed to the salary system [91].

To illustrate the effect of this commercialization, Gabali turns to carnival, in a long denunciation which deserves to be quoted in full:

A high-level study of carnival in Guadeloupe could show us how, in this field also, the colonial authorities undertook a vast reprocessing effort, with the intention of suppressing the revolutionary content of this popular festival for the benefit of commercial enterprise.

The primary characteristic of carnival had always been the deep desire for total liberation. For our grandparents, slaves who daily suffered the atrocities of the overseer's whip and the work he imposed, it was an ideal opportunity for total release. Physical release, with various dances, multifarious gestures, repeated and extraordinary cries, jumps and dance steps accomplished balancing on a sort of pole carried in the air by porters, and finally the use of innumerable colours in the costumes. Spiritual release, characterised by the desire to prove themselves superior to the overseer - superior because they could imitate him, hence the use of the whip which could be turned against the overseer himself, and because they mocked him, hence the derisory chants and exhibition of his physical defects through masks and "bwabwa" [stilt men].

The revolutionary character of carnival was equally clear in the sudden and massive invasion of public spaces by the "Nèg mawon", sometimes armed. This provoked total panic. Hence the idea of the great fear experienced today at the sight of the dreaded "Mas a Kongo". This revolutionary aspect was further reinforced by the presence in all the streets of immense crowds which came to demonstrate, through entertainment, their profound desire to break the chains of all sorts by which they were bound in their everyday life.

This whole moving mass, composed of all categories of individuals (young, old, men, women and children) - for carnival is for everyone - this crazy mass could not but frighten, in the first place, the overseers, and later, the wealthy (for the former have merely changed their "masks" today). So, they decided to attack this popular festival in one way or another.

From that moment, the government had the idea of reprocessing carnival by organising it in its own manner. As a result, we witnessed the birth of carnival committees in almost all regions, and especially in towns, which imposed organization on this festival: an organization corresponding neither to the aspirations, nor the realities, nor the financial possibilities of the general population.

In this way, carnival became the "object" of a minority and simultaneously a commercial enterprise: its hallmarks became excessive expenditure on costumes which often portray foreign realities such as leopards, women of Alsace, cowboys, supermen etc., an inundation of branding and publicity for large companies, and the election of queens in which the body of the "woman-object" can cash in millions.

What, finally, was the most striking result of this reprocessing? A profound lack of interest on the part of the vast majority of people, who became not organizers, but spectators. They were well aware that carnival had lost all its initial natural characteristics [58-61].

Tradition and Evolution

In Gabali's assessment of the contemporary state of gwoka, the spectre of commercialization hovers prominently. Present-day gwoka, he writes, manifests itself in four aspects: "folklore", buskers, the new wave of "gwoka moden" and (the only aspect for which he has genuine admiration) the work of youth clubs which have tried to reignite the study of gwoka in its totality and according to its essential characteristics.

Folklore groups are particularly to be despised. They perform gwoka without any real knowledge of it; their performance is a stereotypical imitation, lacking the very freedom which - we will recall - is one of the essential hallmarks of gwoka. They perform in hotels and restaurants and at ceremonies which, in an ironic twist and contrary to gwoka's history of struggle and liberation, are now aimed at welcoming visiting politicians rather than expelling them. As a result they disseminate a false picture of life in Guadeloupe: "pretty girls with artificial smiles" who propagate the falsehood that Guadeloupe is "a happy and problem-free place". Folklore gwoka is a commercial proposition: "conceived with the aim of denaturing gwoka, and turning it into a seductive means of accruing significant financial benefits" [167].

Buskers, too, come in for some sharp criticism: not in themselves ("spontaneous gwoka in the streets is not necessarily a bad thing...") but because they do not respect the norms of gwoka performance. They play badly. They mix gwoka with music of other sorts. And they, too, have abandoned themselves to commerce. "It is truly deplorable to see the players coming around, hat in hand, at the end of each piece [169]."

In contrast to these degenerate forms of gwoka, the author has some grudging praise for the new wave of "gwoka moden". Modern gwoka introduces a flute, a guitar, or other instruments, while respecting gwoka's fundamentals. Music, Gabali agrees, should not remain frozen; it evolves, just as the country's economic and political situation evolves. But is it evolving in the right way, with the right aim? Guadeloupe's current malady, in which its culture is "ridiculed and buried for the benefit of French culture", demands urgent remedies. Guadeloupe needs actually to relearn what gwoka is, because currently it is surrounded by a miasma of false friends and true enemies. The problem, as Gabali perceives it, is that the creation of a "modern" gwoka presupposes that the original form becomes "traditional". And he resists the idea that gwoka is a tradition, or should be considered traditional. Instead, it is a living - if weakened - force:

It is the only music of our people, born out of moments of resistance against the slavers. It must therefore continue to play the same role, given that our country is living under a modern, camouflaged slavery, and is still in the midst of the fight for its political, economic and cultural freedom [167].

To portray gwoka as a tradition is to betray it:

Gwoka as described in this work has not yet escaped from the abyss which has consumed it. It has not yet even been capable of being practised by the majority of Guadeloupians, and yet we are already treating it as 'traditional'. ... A tradition is an element of culture which belongs to the past, which has been replaced by the new, the modern. ... Gwoka cannot be traditional before it has even been lived, before it has had the opportunity of being fully affirmed. It is not, and should not be, a tradition. It is as young as our nation [173-4].

Two useful links
Lameca's gwoka resources (in English)
Kamaniok's gwoka page (in French)

FADE 2 presents RIDDIM SHACK

Riddim Shack brings together different styles of club and sound system music from Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere. It's a party mix, starting at about 110 bpm and finishing off at almost 160, and it's done on Ableton Live. Some of the tunes are recent hits (such as Sarkodie's You Go Kill Me and the Stylo G relick of D'Banj's Oliver Twist), while others came out a few years ago now. It blends a bunch of different rhythms: Zouglou (originating from Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire), Azonto (from Ghana), Bouyon (roughly speaking, Dominica's take on soca) alongside productions from London and Kingston JA, and of course Montreal's Poirier, whose digital carnival is represented here by tunes with Cape Town's EJ Von Lyrik and Panama's MC Zulu.

FADE 2 presents RIDDIM SHACK by Musik_Line on Mixcloud

(Download here.)

Approximate tracklist:

Cecile - Step Aside
Arthur Mafokate - Oyi Oyi
Busy Signal - Jafrican Ting
Busy Signal - Bare Gal
Sarkodie ft. EL - You Go Kill Me
Aboutou Roots - La Blessure
Dolomite - African Oil
Poirier ft. Zulu - Gyal Secret Pictures
Fade 2 / Mas Ka Kle - Lese Yo Pale
Stylo G - More Ganja
KES the Band - Ah Ting
So Shifty ft. Natalie Storm and Ward 21 - Clap
Pacific - Sounkraya
Richie D - What's Going On
Petit Denis - Securite
Soum Bill - Gneze
Ruff and Reddy - Mize Re Re
First Serenade - Tough
Poirier ft. EJ Von Lyrik- Bring It On

At some point I might try to develop this into a longer write-up. That's not going to happen right now, so in the meantime curious readers can take a look at this interview with Sarkodie from a couple of months back and (for francophones) a long article by Yacouba Konaté from Cahiers d'études africaines on Zouglou.

Thanks to those who were instrumental in helping me pick up some of this stuff: Gabriel Heatwave, Leo Zhao, Hugo Mendez, Franklyn Lockhart. Big up.

Tambou!

In the absence of various articles and interviews that are still in preparation, here’s a short mix, concentrating on music from Martinique and Guadeloupe, with a few things from other places thrown in. There’s already been some mention of the Antilles round these parts: the music featured here is later than the pieces on the Tumbélé comp, and generally more percussive. Much of it is based around, or influenced by, the rhythms of gwo ka and chouval bwa. For instant education on the history and meaning of gwo ka, turn to Duke Etienne’s article in the current issue of Shook Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 7) or check out the online companion piece here. The following notes are just a brief introduction to the mix, which at some point I hope to expand.

My first meeting with Antillean music was a chance encounter with a Gratien Midonet record, his extraordinary Ven en lévé, the LP from which the track ‘Mari Rhont...’ is taken. Midonet is usually described as a poet, composer and singer. I know of four albums by him: Ven en lévé (1979), Bourg la folie (1984), Linité (undated) and Potlach (2003). Bourg la folie is apparently the music from a film of the same name, based on a novel by Roland Brival.



Midonet’s music is a fusion. Some of the other tracks in this mix are far more stripped down, especially those by Esnard Boisdur, Eugene Mona and the Akiyo ensemble. Mona, singer and flute player, died in 1991 and was commemorated in 2006 by a tribute album entitled Léritaj Mona. Dédé Saint-Prix, also a flute player, can be heard here veering towards a sort of raw zouk.

These rhythms go back to Africa. Without trying to draw any specific parallels, here are also three tracks from, or derived from, Nigeria, to counterpoint the Caribbean pieces. Agbe De O, by the Sound Millionaires, is a bit of juju-influenced funk, or funk-influenced juju, depending on how you look at it. Jeka Jose is by the percussionist Gaspar Lawal, who was active as a session musician in London in the 1960s and 70s. Shacalao, meanwhile, is a storming version of Fela Kuti’s Shakara, rerouted via Colombia.

At some point I hope to expand this sketch with a more considered account of these tracks and their context. But in the meantime, here’s the music. Tambou means drums: read about them here.



Esnard Boisdur : En Moué O
Gaspar Lawal : Jeka Jose
Sound Millionaires : Agbe De O
Gratien Midonet : Mari Rhont Ouve La Pot
Fabriano Fuzion : Sé Kon Sa
Akiyo : Akiyo La O La Kale Kon Sa
Dédé Saint-Prix : Soldat Papillon
Lizandro Meza Y Su Conjunto : Shacalao
Eugene Mona : Guerie Guerriez
Fabriano Fuzion : Kaladja Vivilo 1
Gratien Midonet : Kannaval Sakré Pou Tout’ Z’Heb’ Poussé

Download here...

(Thanks to Frank and Paulo.)

Sofrito and the Antilles

On an almost tropical May evening in Hackney, Musik Line met Hugo Mendez and asked him about his involvement with promoting the music of the French Caribbean islands: Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica and associated places. Along with the other members of the Sofrito crew – Frankie Francis, Mighty Crime Minister and MC Kwasi – Hugo has been responsible for putting on some of London’s more kicking parties of recent years, rocking east-side warehouses (as well as more overground venues such as Cargo) with rarely heard highlife, calypso, gwo ka and cadence records, as well as releasing some tasty re-edits. He is currently working on a compilation of French Caribbean music, to be released later this year on the respected Soundway label. It’s a part of the world that isn’t that well known in non-francophone countries, so I asked him to tell us a bit about its musical context and styles: about forms such as compas, gwo ka and bele, which flourish alongside more well known rhythms like calypso and beguine. I also asked him about Sofrito, their parties, their releases and his project with Soundway.



- Start by telling me a bit about Sofrito, as a label and as promoters.

We're not trying to make it a world music listening thing, it's meant to be more a club / party thing. We think that the music is brilliant to dance to and it creates an atmosphere in a club unlike any other music. So even if it's quite cheesy, if you play a great old calypso record, people who have never heard that music or anything like it before can immediately identify with it and dance to it. Whereas if you get involved with the old music scenes, the rare music scenes like funk or soul or jazz, it tends to disappear up its own arsehole. People are trying to out-rare each other.

- Same in reggae!

Well at least the thing with reggae is it's all got big bass, it's fat ... but this stuff, it's irrelevant whether you know it or not, we're not trying to make it obscure, we're trying to make it accessible by playing really fun music. A lot of the musicians that have played at our parties, who are in bands that play funk or jazz or afro stuff, they're also into awkward, weird music – not to denigrate it, but they love Sun Ra, odd music - stuff not naturally intended for dancing. The point of the parties is to play stuff that's happy, it's not deep, introspective, weird, it's music to make you smile and dance and if it doesn't do that we don't play it. We might have a few records that are may be rare or interesting in some way but if you can't dance to them it's irrelevant. Luckily we've never had a trainspotty crowd come down to our nights and it's always been a good percentage of women to men. Something like dubstep, which is interesting, very well produced, my experience of going to a dubstep night is it's 95% geezers, stoned, in caps, staring at the DJ and not dancing. The music might be great but that's not my kind of party. I’d rather go somewhere where people are naturally smiling. Calypso, Latin, highlife, beguine, compas, it's not serious music. You can take it seriously in that you're really into it, but you can't be really serious and moody about compas because that's not the point. It's carnival music. So the atmosphere is only really made by everyone involved, not just everyone standing looking at a performance. It's a much more collective thing.

- How long have you been running parties in London for?

Only three years. The first party we did was at Passing Clouds [in Dalston], and it was too busy. The next party was at this warehouse in Whitechapel, which was far too busy, it was a bit bigger than Passing Clouds but it was very narrow. That was a wicked party. But unfortunately the people that ran that place had just started it the week before and we managed to shut them down. The party was so big that they could never do anything there again. Then we did it at the Old Boys Hall [in Dalston], we did three or four there, then again at Passing Clouds, we did one up in Stoke Newington somewhere, then the Empowering Church came along, which is really good, that's been the best venue so far. The Old Boys Hall was probably the best parties that we did but again it was too dangerous, too many people, there's only one exit.

- You generally have some live stuff as well as DJs.

We did put together a band, the Sofrito All Stars, for a while, which was great. We had some of the guys from Heliocentrics and some really great horn players and a guy called Alfred Bannerman, a Ghanaian guitarist who used to be in a band called Boombaya in the 70s, then in Osibisa. But it was too difficult to have a ten piece band. All of them had more financially viable things to be doing and it was very difficult to hold together a band like that for the odd gig. We did a few gigs with them and it was great, we'd love to do something again in the future. We did a kind of Latin thing with some of the same guys and some different people last year which went really well too. It's just a question of getting time to rehearse.




- The parties came before the releases?

The label was our effort to get people who were more into their house or dance music to listen to something slightly different. The releases are more on the kind of dance / disco tip. We cut an edit of the first track we did, using it as a dubplate to play out, and percussionists or horn players would play over the top. And then we cut a version of that. We took loops, built it up from the bottom again. The other track on the first 12” is a more recent thing, from Ivory Coast, that's an edit as well, a kind of mystery track. So far there's the two 12s, a remix for Far Out Records which is a Brazilian thing by Sabrina Malheiros, more straight forward and dancey, and then we've done a remix for the Akoya Afrobeat Band from New York, which is coming out soon. They gave us the whole session on DVD, about twelve hours of music for one song. We did a highlife version, got some people to play extra bits and completely changed the rhythm around, trying to take people away from the idea that African music is just Afrobeat. Afrobeat is amazing but actually for me, on the dancefloor, it's not the best African music. Highlife is as interesting, rumba is as interesting, there's a lot of music from Africa that is as interesting as Afrobeat, so we were trying to take it and give it a bit more of a bump. Ideally we’d like to be putting out new music. One of the reasons we wanted to start the label was simply to put out the kind of records that you might play in Cargo rather than a warehouse party, a bit more commercial. That seems to work because people pick up on the fact that it’s not big or clever, it’s something you can play out which has got a slightly different style. It’s the kind of thing you can stick in your bag and play.

- How many copies of the Sofrito 12”s do you press?

It varies. We don't expect to sell many, maybe 500, but we did three times that for the last 12”, and the next one, from the reactions that we've got from people that have heard it, should certainly do quite well. It's got to cross over from people who like African or Latin music to people who like house or disco, otherwise you won’t sell it. You've got to sit a very fine balance. The reason the last one went so well was that there was an edit of a Caribbean cover version of a jazz fusion track by Ralph MacDonald on it. All the jazz heads recognized the tune and bought it for that. That's something that's difficult to repeat. The next one is going to be a Caribbean / African disco thing and a really raw highlife thing, which is more what we play. Hopefully people will be more into the highlife stuff than the disco stuff at some point. Some of the African disco stuff is cool, but I guess for me what I like most is Latin and Caribbean music, calypso, beguine, Haitian stuff.

- Do you find it hard to get?

As long as you're not buying it in England it is – or was – pretty easy to get. No one valued it. Especially in France, people were still turning up shitloads of that stuff for nothing. If it hasn't got a funk track on it then no one wants it. You can go into a shop after someone that's looking for funk and they'll leave all the good stuff and take very second-rate funk records for a lot of money. Then you can go in and buy two-euro records that are great. Listening to bits and bobs on CDs, then going there and finding loads of stuff, meeting loads of people, developing your taste, you find out what you do and don't like. And then learning more about Latin music and understanding the huge exchange between the rhythms and all the different islands and countries. There are such similarities between music from the north coast of Colombia, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, it was just flying around. Change one bar of the rhythm and you've got a different style. People were covering each other’s records, and the bands were touring all around, on cruise ships. one of the most important bands in Guadeloupe and Martinique in the '60s was probably Ryco Jazz, a Congolese band. They moved to Paris in the mid-60s and then they were booked by a Congolese guy in Martinique to do a season there and ended up staying for five years. They went to Guadeloupe, did the cruise ships, and they brought Congolese rumba, which was already being sold in the French Caribbean but they caned it, they mixed it, a lot of the players in the band by then were Antillean percussionists and that's how that particular sound came about.



- Where have your own travels in that part of the world taken you?

I've been around a few islands but the main ones are Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique. Dominica's kind of different. It was French, then it was English, then it was French, then it was English again. Now it's wholly independent, it's not subsidized by anyone. The biggest investors are Venezuela, Cuba and China, so it doesn't have a whole lot to do with Europe. Guadeloupe and Martinique are obviously still part of France, colonies. There’s a huge amount of problems, and with the riots that were going on earlier this year there's some really heavy stuff going down. There's a fair amount of innate racism and most of the money is held by white old plantation families, Békés. The islands are very different in character. Guadeloupe is more rural, Martinique is more metropolitan. Martinique's a bit richer. But they're very cut off, the only airlines that really fly there are Air France or Corsair, although American Airlines flies once a week. For some reason the French don't encourage foreigners to go there, they keep it in the family. They're pretty neglected places. Compared to a lot of other Caribbean islands they're quite well off but they're more expensive than going to Paris, everything is imported. An average Guadeloupean will make ten times what someone from Dominica will make, but they're poorer because it costs so much money to do anything. The bureaucracy on the islands is stunning. If you're trying to do any work, license any music or anything like that, it's a mixture of French bureaucracy and Caribbean timekeeping, which is a stunning combination. But I've met some wonderful people in Guadeloupe, alongside some very awkward people. The first thing they ask you is "are you French?", and when you say no they're a lot nicer to you.

- So you were out there digging for tunes and looking for stuff to license for the forthcoming Soundway comp?

The first time I went there it was more just exploring, to see how the land lies. I had a few contacts but because they're small places if you go and ask one person, they'll know someone else and so on. I made most of my contacts the first time, interviewed a few people, tracked down a few people, found a bunch of tunes, came back and then a year later got it together to go over and license the tracks. The first time I went it was very vague. The second time I had a much better idea, I more or less had a track listing. I hoped I'd find loads of new stuff but I had a track listing and I think about half of the tracks I went out there with are still on the comp and the other half have been replaced by things I found out there the second time. It's going to be interesting to see what people think of the album because although it's similar to a lot of other things, it doesn't tick the funk box, it doesn't tick the Afrobeat box, it's not hip for the people that like psychy African music, it's not hip for the funky people. But it's great music and certainly through DJing now it's the stuff that gets the best reaction.

- So what sort of genres are we talking about?

It's early, we're doing 65 to 72-3, so it's before zouk. It's kind of "roots of zouk" I suppose, but there's some Latin stuff. The Latin stuff has got a particular flavour, it's quite shrill in the horns but it's a really interesting way they treat the rhythm. It's got some heavily Haitian-influenced stuff, it's got beguine, which is the standard style from Martinique and Guadeloupe. It's got some calypso, some raw gwo ka, Guadeloupean drumming, and bele in Martinique which is similar thing, a set dance which is really powerful. Going to see a bele in Martinique was an astounding experience. So it's got some of that. A few Latin things, raw, quite jazzy, a couple of merengues. Merengue comes from Dominican Republic and Haiti but it was picked up massively in Angola as well and a lot of the stuff sounds Angolan, which is practically nothing to do with the French Caribbean, so it’s interesting to see how the rhythms go around. Merengue from Dominican Republic is faster and harder, Haitian meringue tends to be a bit slower, a little jazzier. The merengue now from Dominican Republic sounds like rave music, 180 bpm stuff, much more four-four, much more African. That was big back then as well but it was much more mellow. Then there’s compas, a lot of early compas-style stuff.

- I'm never quite clear what compas is rhythmically.

The best way I describe compas is ragga, "boom ba-doom, boom ba-doom", it's that beat with a slightly different twist on it, it's that bounce, that bump. It's easier to hear in the later stuff. Earlier on it's more complex, big band stuff. That beat is obviously also in Jamaica, but in a sense it doesn't have that much to do with reggae, it's a different rhythm, it's come from the whole Caribbean I guess, in the same way that zouk is a mixture of many different things.



- What's the comp called?

Tumbele. It’s a rhythm, the rhythm that Ryco Jazz gave their name to, a slow bouncy semi-Haitian semi-Congolese rhythm. We put one track Haitian track on the album, although it was recorded in Martinique. We put it on because Haitian bands were touring all the time and they were influencing the music, so it's important to have a track from a Haitian act that recorded there. But a lot of the Haitian stuff that was recorded in Martinique is really badly recorded, it's very interesting music but sometimes difficult to listen to because it's got no bass and it's really shrill, which is unfortunate because some of it's killer. The early Haitian stuff, there's a label called Ibo, and Macaya, they used to record the stuff in Haiti and press it in New York. They didn't press many copies, they might have pressed a few thousand of the early releases. I've found a few and they all tend to be knackered, but there's some amazing stuff. There’s a lot of Haitian music on 78s, really mad shit. A label called Ansonia, which I think was originally based in Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, put out loads of Haitian stuff, some of which is good, some of which isn't so good. And they were putting 78s out, a long time ago.

- Have you got any?

None of the 78s, they tend to break. The 78s I've had in my hands, the sound quality is so terrible. They're great as artifacts, but I'd rather buy the CD reissue that someone's cleaned up. You can't really use 78s for Djing. But yeah, the Haitian stuff is brilliant, and again it's a beat that's not really known over here, but when you play it people respond to it immediately. It's accessible, that's why people made it, and that's the thing with Sofrito, just trying to be really simple and play something that works.

- Is this a big eBay market now?

I wouldn't say it's a huge eBay market, there's some of it on eBay but not many people buy it. Again, the things that club/DJ people are looking for at the moment don't tend to be on those records, although there are people that are really into collecting old compas and calypso.

- So it's a good time to be buying Haitian and Antillean music?

It kind of was. It's more difficult now. But even so, when there's no sound samples, it's just stuck up on eBay ... there's a guy in Paris, he deals records, and he was playing me some really killer Guadeloupean and Haitian stuff, saying "oh, I've never found another one of these and if I did I'd sell it for this much money...". I thought, all right, well, go and look on eBay, there it is, $5, I’ll have it - that doesn't happen too often, the ebay hype is all down to how things are presented. It's good to be able to buy a few. But I've never been a mental collector, I like to have nice records of course, but I've got other things to spend my money on, I'd rather go out and have a good time. If you're collecting records and you think, "oh, this is worth 200 quid", it's only worth 200 quid if it's mint and the cover's mint, which it tends not to be, most of the time it's going to be knackered. So it's not worth 200 quid, it's worth what you paid for it, but you're happy to have it, there you go. When you start thinking about records mainly in terms of money it gets a bit dangerous because they don't really have an intrinsic value.

- Do you find when you go to Martinique and Guadeloupe that people are quite attuned to European record collectors coming over and looking for stuff?

Not really - because no one's interested in records over there, the people that would have bought records back in the day have binned them all, they've gone; and all the people that are really into their music have got the records, they don't really care what they're worth, they are never going to sell them. I've dubbed stuff off people over there. I'm more interested in having the music than the object. Of course everyone loves a cool record, but it's not the be all and end all. And people get a bit funny about records.

- Very true! And presumably for every couple of days digging you have to spend months of licensing.

Yeah.

- How do you do it?

Mostly luck! And they're small places, so if you have one contact, that person might know everyone you need to know. Or they might know someone that knows someone else that knows someone else.

- Do you run into the classic kind of problem that you have in Jamaica of disputes over copyright and ownership? Because in Jamaica famously it's all pretty messed up.

It's messed up pretty much everywhere. The law has changed since the music was made and people have a different understanding of copyright ownership in different countries.



- Give us some background on the general music scene on the islands.

If you go to Guadeloupe or Martinique, they’re split into communes, like small boroughs, a lot of them are pretty rural. Each commune has its own celebrities and bands and music. In Martinique they have a bele, a drumming thing, on different nights. It's not a big concert, it could be in a car park, by someone's house, outdoors somewhere - it's just something that you do. This stuff's being going on for hundreds of years, you see people going down there and they're not wearing their national dress for tourists, they turn up in their tracksuits. They've been running or they've been to a bar or something, and they come down, hang out for a little bit, dance, go away again. It's just a part of what's going on and it’s not really trumpeted.

- Is there a sound system thing going on there as well? Do people set up stacks of speakers and play cadence and stuff like that?

Yeah they do. Zouk, cadence, ragga's big, there's a lot of live bands playing over massive sound systems as well. Then in Dominica, there's a couple of clubs in Roseau [the capital of Dominica] where they will invite DJs over from Martinique or Guadeloupe and the rest of it is they'll have a jam in the village, string up a small set. They don't have sound systems in the way that Jamaica will have many different named sound systems, you just go down to Melvina's bar and someone will be playing some music. They'll play bouyon, soca, ragga, a bit of reggae, cadence. And in all the villages they'll have a little thing now and then, get a barbeque going, sell some beers, play some music. It's not big enough to have clashing sound systems although there's some really good DJs. The bands all tend to be local bouyon bands, which is a bit like soca but even faster, with no basslines and lots of air-raid sirens. It’s super jump-up music, it's pretty intense but it's fun. There's two main bands on the island, WCK and Triple K. WCK are slightly older, Triple K are the youngsters’ band. They always play at the Creole festival, it’s in a big park with a stage, everyone's jammed in there, there’s a small gate so it's all ringed off. I've seen Triple K play maybe five or six times and most of the time they play there's some kind of fight in the crowd. They hype it up a bit, it's kind of the badman thing and all that, it's not for me. It's good fun to dance to but it's pretty relentless.

- Are the DJs playing CD or vinyl?

It's all CD and it’s all ripped. CDs are expensive there, if you want to buy an official release it will cost maybe EC$60, about £20, but you can go to someone, they'll make you a compilation of what you want for EC$10. So people tend to do that. And limewire. People have got internet, they're downloading stuff all over the shop.

- But it's all 128 bit mp3s?

Yeah. Played in bars through a slightly knackered sound system that's had one too many rums poured on it. It's interesting.

- Any other thoughts you want to add?

Music from South America and the Caribbean and Africa works so well in a club, and if you don’t tell people exactly what it is – this slightly nebulous idea that you could call tropical music – people love it. I think it's kind of a collective thing. If you listen to the raw gwo ka stuff from the Caribbean, or Afro-Venezuelan stuff or some of the Brazilian stuff ... it's capturing a moment in time. It's not just a band that have written a load of songs, sat in a studio for ages, polished and polished and spent like seven years making their magnum opus. It’s more pragmatic than that. I've always thought that, without getting philosophical about it, the greatest art is craft. And this stuff is not people trying to make some crazy record or anything like that, they're just knocking it out and this is the sound of what they do, capturing moments. And it’s a great sound.



(Photos courtesy of Hugo Mendez.)