I went see one of my favorite producers, Domu, at the Raw Fusion Loft Party this past weekend, and had the good fortune of running into Ernesto Vigo and Probe dms, the Harlemite bruk gurus who hosted the brilliant Elevations Harlem broken beat radio show on WHCR in Harlem when I first got to New York.

That show went off the air a while back, and it has been sorely missed. The last time I saw Ernesto, he assured me that they had something special and new in the works, and that, despite taking a hiatus to attend to life, love and happiness, he and Probe were definitely still putting in work for New York’s broken beat scene.

So, when I saw them at the Domu party, I was ecstatic to get my paws on handbills promoting a party to celebrate the rebirth of Elevations.

If you didn’t get the chance to check out the original Elevations when it was on FM radio, you missed out on some serious heat. Ernesto and Probe, both deep and focused with their music knowledge, always had the latest and greatest bruk tunes on rotation. With their deep connections to artists across the pond and in the boroughs, they carried the torch in New York for the forward-focused, progressive, and soulful sounds of the broken beat scene.

And now, they’re back. I’m geeked. They’ve teamed up with Brett from Boundless to raise Elevations from the dead, launching a new website, elevationsradio.com, and a weekly podcast. They unleashed the first episode last week. You can check it here:

[audio:http://www.dmscountry.com/elevationspodcasts/elepodcast1.mp3|titles=Elevations Radio Excursion 001]

¬ DOWNLOAD IT FROM ELEVATIONSRADIO.COM

As usual, it’s a mix of classic and new bruk tunes with a bunch of exclusive and unreleased gems, including a dope new cut called “Ghost” from Probe’s upcoming album Life is a Movie.

Here’s the playlist:

1. These Things Will Pass – Kaidi Tatham (Freedom School)
2. Believe In Something feat. Heidi Vogel – Grey Matter (Unique Uncut)
3. **M.J. Tribute: Do You Remember The Time (Aroop Roy’s Brukup) – Harry Coade vs. Michael Jackson (CDR)
4. Jump Up feat. Lindah E and Koder- Jason Eli (Groovadelica)
5. More Ways Than One – Altered Natives (Eye 4 Eye)
6. Lose It – 2000Black (Third Ear)
7. Calling Out (Maddslinky Remix) – Mr. J (Askew Recordings)
8. Ghost – Probe dms (DMS CDR)
9. Untitled – Arch Typ (CDR)
10. Hope – Fujimoto Tetsuro (Unique Uncut)
11. Spoiled Edit- Daz-I-Kue feat. Bembe Segue and Colonel Red (Ben E. King) – Ubiquity
12. Fire – Jonny Miller (Jus Listen)
13. The Galactica Suite (Domu Remix) – Simon Grey/Domu vs Papa (Papa)
14. Bamboo – Yellowtail (CDR)

If you’re in the New York area, you should stop by and support their pre-launch party in Brooklyn tomorrow. Ernesto and Probe will be on the decks alongside Yellowtail and DJ Zhill of Bagpak, one of my favorite online music stores. Here’s the info:

ELEVATIONS RADIO pre-LAUNCH PARTY
Thursday, October 15, 2009
8pm-1am
NO COVER
Moe’s
80 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY

¬ facebook event page

It’s officially fall, and we’re falling behind schedule as usual. But, we’ve got some great selections from Empanadamn and DJ Lil Tiger to atone for the delays. Got some big projects in the works from now through the end of the year, so stay tuned. For now, Happy Belated Welfare.

(Click the song names to take you to the off-site sharing pages where you can download the tunes. For detailed instructions on how to navigate the sharing sites where we host our files, we’ve got instructions at the end of this post)

empanadamn | Awwwdamn, it’s autumn / Fawk, it’s fall.

Coldcut “Autumn Leaves” (Feat. Janis Alexander)
A joint to reverse jump-start the season to a slowing slumber. This track is by one of London’s most relevant & long-standing producer / DJ duo known as Coldcut.

Goldie “State Of Mind”
The only non-jungle, smoothed out joint on Goldie’s classic release Timeless.

Change “Searching” (Feat. Luther Vandross)
Breakthrough song for Luther’s R&B solo career that for which he’s recognized today.

Raekwon “Broken Safety” (Feat. Jadakiss & Styles P)
My favorite cut off of OB4CLP2. Gruuufffff!!!

X-Ecutioners “Raida’s Theme”
Roc Raida, Rest In Peace. If you’re in NYC, please come through and celebrate the legacy of Grand Master Roc Raida on Thursday, October 22nd at B.B. King’s presented by Tableturns. The line-up features all your turntable greats such as the X-Men / X-Executioners, The World Famous Beat Junkies, The Allies, 5th Platoon and more. Proceeds going to Roc’s family.

—————

dj lil tiger | fall back, summer

Brigadier Jerry – Jamaica Jamaica
After seeing Briggy himself perform this with the legendary King Stur Gav at this event this past weekend, I haven’t been able to stop listening to this tune. I hope you have the same problem. You’re welcome (and also, your welcmoe). Foundation stays winning. Bonus: Here’s a clip of The General doing his thing back in 1986.

Umi Marcano – In Front of Me
Nice mid-tempo soca number from Trinidad’s Umi Marcano.

Mr. V vs. Elvis Crespo – Suave Drink Down (J-Boogie RMX)
J-Boogie mashes Mr. V’s major “Put Your Drink Down” with the Elvis Crespo merengue classic. This is a floor smasher, for real. From the latest batch of Leftism edits unleashed by J-Boogie and Sake One

Dip-N-Steam – Do The Hustle (Vx)
Dope Hip-Hop from Atlanta’s Dip-N-Steam, with Daz-I-Kue working his percussive magic on the boards.

(This is an AIFF file, which means it’s in full CD quality. You can convert it to mp3 in iTunes or something similar after you download it, if that’s what you prefer. Click on the down arrow on the right, or click on the red-linked song title above to download.)

Clyde & Capitol A – Serve It Up ( Galaxy Group Remix )
A bruk classic: In Capitol A‘s words:

a nice AFRO BRUK version ( for those that know about the ORIGINAL I did with CLYDE on MANTIS RECORDS , IT WAS A BIG TUNE ) ……….. this rerub still gets the dance rockin’ so cop it if you missed out on it DJ’S ………

(This is an AIFF file, which means it’s in full CD quality. You can convert it to mp3 in iTunes or something similar after you download it, if that’s what you prefer. Click on the down arrow on the right, or click on the red-linked song title above to download.)

—————

Don’t forget to check out our Welfare archives.

—————

** INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING **
We host all our Welfare downloads off-site, so what you need to do to download them is to click on the song name in the post, and then look for a download link on the page that that takes you to.

We mostly use divShare, so for divShare follow these steps to download the songs:

– Click on the name of the song. That will take you to a divShare page.

– On the divShare page, look for the black circle with an arrow pointing down. Below that arrow is a link that says “Download original”. Click that link and after a few seconds, the download should start automatically.

That should do it.

If the file is hosted on some other site besides divShare (like ZShare or MediaFire or something) then just look for a link on that site’s page that says download. When you click on the download link, it will probably do something similar to divShare and make you wait a handful of seconds before it starts the download (or offers a specific link to the download).

Hit us up in the comments if you need further instruction. We’re here to help. Thanks.

As a former radio dude, this one really gets me. Anybody who has ever done anything radio-related in Hip-Hop owes something to this dude. Actually, anybody who loves Hip-Hop owes something to this dude, period.

Mr. Magic, Disc Jockey for Early Hip-Hop, Dies at 53
{ New York Times obit ]

Rest in peace, Mr. Magic. Rest in peace.

Shouts to DBDR for bringing this to my attention.

The folks at Grand Crew have posted a video of De La Soul‘s entire performance on their 20 Feet High and Rising tour stop at Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris earlier this month. The tour celebrates the 20th anniversary of the release of their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising. Catch a snippet of the performance here:

Watch the THE FULL 76-MINUTE PERFORMANCE at the Grand Crew site. They got the full track list up and erethang.

This year is just much too much.

Another legend gone. R.I.P., Roc Raida.

Here’s part of Roc Raida’s bio, excerpted from his myspace page:

Roc Raida began his DJ career in the early eighties at the age of ten. Surrounded by such inspirations as his father, a member of the Sugar Hill Records act Mean Machine and hip hop impresario Grandmaster Flash, Raida cultivated his interest into an absolute passion. Now, Roc Raida is considered among the best of the contemporary DJ’s and has brought the art of Turntablism and Party rocking to a fresh new level.

In the late eighties Raida gained prominence as a member of the New York-based crew the X-Men who, for obvious of copyright reasons, later became known as the X-Ecutioners. Champions of furthering the turntablist movement, the X-Ecutioners made their reputation by utilizing the techniques of beat-juggling; the manual alteration between individual kick and snare sounds to create original drum patterns in real time. This practice has been an inspiration and a force in Roc Raida’s style.

In the beginning defeat was commonplace, as battles were mainly popularity contests. The more contests he entered the more the competition began to appreciate his style and determination. Pushing his limits and raising the standard with which DMC’s are judged, Raida began to get noticed. His impressive finishes in some of the premier DJ battles; first place in the 1991 “As One”; second place in the “Superman Battle”; and second place in the 1992 DMC US Finals were just the beginning. In 1995 Raida, was crowned the DMC World Champion in front of a massive London audience.

So, I was supposed to put this up a few weeks ago when Chicken George sent it to me, but I’ve been running around like crazy, in and out of town, in and out of the country. Apologies for holding out on y’all.

Chicken George, an Austin institution whom we featured here back in May, has teamed up with Latin Funk specialists, Brownout, to create a great mix celebrating “The Legendary Latin Funk Sounds of Brownout.” The mix highlights the band’s music, past and present, including tunes from their latest release on Six Degrees Records, Aguilas and Cobras, which dropped on Tuesday:

To get a taste of what the album sounds like, I’ll let Chicken George show you the way:

DJ Chicken George has compiled a fresh mix entitled “The Legendary Latin Funk Sounds of Brownout” featuring a selection of new tracks as well as previous hits from their acclaimed debut album Homenaje. This mix pays tribute to Brownout’s impeccable unique sound of heavy Latin percussion and rhythms combined with a mighty horn section. Think FANIA Records meets The JBs with an extra added layer of “hardcore Latin Funk.”

[audio:http://buhbomp.com/audio/friends/brownoutchicken.mp3|titles=DJ Chicken George – The Legendary Funk Sounds of Brownout]
¬ DOWNLOAD CHICKEN GEORGE’S MIX HERE

The album itself is available for purchase at any of these links:
¬ Six Degrees Records | Amazon | iTunes

Brownout is one of several musical projects involving the multi-talented Adrian Quesada, who, aside from being a celebrated musician, also happens to be an incredibly cool dude. (He didn’t even hate on me when I borrowed one of his CDs back in college and took several years to get it back to him. Time, as you should already know, is not my specialty).

Since that time, Quesada and his various band mates have become a musical force, winning international acclaim performing under several combinations, including Ocote Soul Sounds, and most notably, Grupo Fantasma, who were nominated for a Grammy for their album Sonidos Gold.

Grupo Fantasma has also made a name for themselves doing shows for some guy named Prince. You might have heard of him.

I could go on and on about these dudes, but I think their own bio does them better service. Here’s an excerpt (you can read the whole thing on the Brownout myspace page) just to give you an idea:

If ever a band could boast having a complex genealogical tree, that band is Brownout. The eight-piece, Latin funk ensemble based in Austin, Texas, is both offspring and germinating seed to Grammy-nominated Grupo Fantasma. The latter in turn traces its roots to when Austin based Blue Noise Band and The Blimp, from booming border town of Laredo, Texas, converged in its conception.

Brownout may well be Grupo Fantasma’s psychedelic Latin funk little brother, an offshoot of the collective that regularly backs Prince, its latest incarnation, or even its alter ego. What they are not is the sprawling conjunto’s side project. Brownout has taken Grupo Fantasma’s funk roots and blown them up. In the process they’ve taken on a life and developed a unique sound all their own. Aguilas and Cobras, the group’s new album on Six Degrees Records, stands as testament to their one of a kind evolution.

The band member’s musical journey began as a revolt against the Mexican cumbias and Tejano music of their hometown. Opting instead to immerse themselves in the worlds of Sly Stone, James Brown, and Mandrill, they were nurtured by soulful staccato drums, deep-in-the-pocket guitar riffs, and bawdy bass lines, elements that would provide the overriding arch for their sundry musical explorations. Eventually they migrated out of the garage and flocked four hours north into Austin’s thriving music scene. Away from home they embraced their Latino heritage and as Grupo Fantasma they explored the cumbia rhythms they shunned as teenagers. …

Then came Brownout, a return to their coming of age forays into funk. Mostly instrumental, the band takes its cues from James Brown‘s J.B.’s and San Francisco’s Malo, the Seventies act fronted by Carlos Santana‘s brother Jorge, but they infuse it with their particular vibe of border music hybridity and generous brushstrokes of trippy psychedelia.

Got it? Good.

Here’s the tracklist for Chicken George‘s mix:

01. They Don’t Know
02. Cuete Interlude
03. Laredo 77
04. C 130
05. Olvidalo feat. Kino of Grupo Fantasma
06. Con el Cuete
07. Chema’s Contraband
08. Family Show
09. African Battle (Hydro’s Throwed Boom Bap Edit)
10. Ayer y Hoy
11. El Narco (Hydro’s South Texas Broken Neck Edit)
12. The Flea

Enjoy.

I’m dumb late and going solo this month. About to hop on a plane, but I wanted to take care of my people before I split town, because I love y’all so. And what better way to celebrate the afterglow of Labor Day Carnival than to be excessively late. It is in the Caribbean spirit after all. Enjoy the tunes.

(Click the song names to take you to the off-site sharing pages where you can download the tunes. For detailed instructions on how to navigate the sharing sites where we host our files, we’ve got instructions at the end of this post)

dj lil tiger | traveling man

Voicemail – Moving Forward
I haven’t been able to get this song out of my head for weeks. One of many, many great tunes on Daseca Productions‘ R6 riddim.

Le Groove – Ethel/Subway Jam/Lorraine
Since I’m still vibing from the Parkway yesterday, here’s a little treat from the motherland. Le Groove is my favorite group from Aruba, and here they get down with a classic medley.

Candido – Dancin’ & Prancin’ (Original Joey Negro 12” RMX)
Speaking of classics, this is damn near spiritual.

Saafir – Light Sleeper
I’ll stay on the way-back bus for the duration of this Welfare. I revisited this slice of greatness from the Saucee Nomad recently, and you should, too.

Pitchfork – Rana
Here’s one from my high school days, when Pitchfork and Drive Like Jehu ruled my world. I still get a little emotional when I hear this tune. So many memories.

—————

Don’t forget to check out our Welfare archives.

—————

** INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING **
We host all our Welfare downloads off-site, so what you need to do to download them is to click on the song name in the post, and then look for a download link on the page that that takes you to.

We mostly use divShare, so for divShare follow these steps to download the songs:

– Click on the name of the song. That will take you to a divShare page.

– On the divShare page, look for the black circle with an arrow pointing down. Below that arrow is a link that says “Download original”. Click that link and after a few seconds, the download should start automatically.

That should do it.

If the file is hosted on some other site besides divShare (like ZShare or MediaFire or something) then just look for a link on that site’s page that says download. When you click on the download link, it will probably do something similar to divShare and make you wait a handful of seconds before it starts the download (or offers a specific link to the download).

Hit us up in the comments if you need further instruction. We’re here to help. Thanks.

Too many legends passing away this year.

I was reading up today on yesterday’s passing of Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson, half of the legendary reggae/dancehall production duo Steely and Clevie, and came across this interview with them at the Red Bull Music Academy in 2005. Thought I’d share it here:

It’s a great look into their history as musicians and producers, their many talents, and the breadth of influence they had upon music. It also digs deep into the history of Jamaican music.

Steely Johnson was winding his waist to the original dancehall boom in the early ’80s, playing with Sugar Minott and Roots Radics. But things got kinda cloudy when he linked with Clevie Brown in Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Black Ark studio. Clevie was playing with these new drummachines that had just come out, which were totally dissed by the reggae drummers. That didn’t stop them becoming the house band at King Jammy’s before they really hit their stride and literally led Kingston down the path of electronic production by the scruff of a neck. By the time they’d formed their Steely & Clevie label in ’88, they were in charge of runnings proper. Nice up!

R.I.P. Steely. You will indeed be missed.

Sailing into the sunset one last time this season.

Come join us this labor day weekend. We’re helping jump off Blue Room Group’s introduction of The Funky Brunch at littlefield. Look out for that meshing of music + food happening on Sundays.

Smooth Move is the perfect post-brunch / pre-party springboard to celebrate summer, with DJs mixing a throwback soundtrack that encompasses yacht rock, soft rock, AM gold, quiet storm cuts and everything in between. Expect food on the grill, drinks at the bar, and basking in the outdoor courtyard.

FREE! No cover.

Saturday July 25th, 3-9PM at littlefield
622 Degraw St. b/w 3rd & 4th Ave.
in The Gowanus, Brooklyn
M/R to Union (closest route)
or F/G to Carroll (12 minute walk)

*SPECIAL BONUS*
Soul Korea’s “Mellow Yellow” Mix

Yesterday, despite gloomy skies and a lingering bout of exhaustion, my gal and I made the trek from Queens to Prospect Park to celebrate with a huge chunk of Brooklyn what would have been the 51st birthday of the late, great Michael Jackson. The birthday bash / tribute was organized by Spike Lee and featured DJ Spinna (a living legend in his own right) playing five hours of MJ tunes for the masses.

And a lot of masses it was. I don’t know what the numbers ended up being, but a shitload of people turned out. Click the image below to get a panoramic view of some of the crowd that turned out:

I got there dumb late (as usual), but was still able to catch the vibe and enjoy the party. Surprisingly, there were only a handful of MJ impersonators in the crowd, but this littled dude was my favorite with the ill MJ dance steps that had the crowd in an uproar:

I was too far back to sort out everybody on stage, but I know Tracy Morgan was def in the spot and Ed Lover was the master of ceremonies (no word on whether the Ed Lover Dance also made an appearance). Of course, Sir Spike took the mic a few times as well:

They even had a cake:

It was a festive mood all around, and the crowd was def there to get down. Here’s the crowd following Ed and Spinna‘s lead getting something started:

Folks brought their boogie foots and did it up right, getting down to Michael’s “Get On the Floor”:

They kept it up right into Spinna‘s sweet little “Beat It” blend:

It was a great time all around. Brooklyn showed up strong — another reminder why I love this damn city so much.