waajeed’s ‘things’ reaffirms his detroit house roots
If you care at all about Detroit culture, especially it’s everlasting wing of soulful Black music, you already know that Waajeed has been ruling 2018 — and, actually, for a few years now. Though the renaissance man born Robert O’Bryant is not as well recognized as some of his contemporaries, heads know that Jeedo’s two-decades-long resume — working with everyone from J Dilla, Slum Village and Platinum Pied Pipers back in the day, to Theo Parrish, Carl Craig and Underground Resistance more recently — is enough to place him at the table of the city’s rich rhythm heritage. Yet launching his own Dirt Tech Reck label in 2013 seems to have given yet another spring to Waajeed’s step, because the records he’s been dropping since have been uniformly fire. And “Things About You,” the second single off his upcoming album, From the Dirt, continues the sparks.
What begins with a kind a heavy-handed kick-drum, a mic-checking clearing of a throat, and a nasty industrial synth, unfolds into something less obvious and more emotional when the layered vocals (all of them courtesy great young Detroit singer, Asante, who also wrote the song) come into play. That it’s a variation of the city’s Future Soul musical foundation — at once emotionally rich and technologically enormous — seems both besides the point and exactly IT. Lornezo “Zo!” Ferguson adds rhythm guitar licks, Jeedo lays down Rhodes chords, and Asante sings through variation in scales and phrasings. Yet when at the chorus, Asante’s voices become a small choir and Waajeed’s incredible string arrangement kicks in, suddenly”Things About You” becomes a disco-house classic busy being born.
Pre-order Waajeed’s new album, From the Dirt, drops on November 4th on his own Dirt Tech Reck.
celebrate worldwide resistance with afropunk mixtape #40 feat. the fever 333, young fathers, dookoom, mélissa laveaux, and more
Resistance is nothing new. We’ve been resisting against white supremacist cis-hetero patriarchy since day one. On our latest Mixtape #40 “The People Resist”, we celebrate resistance worldwide, with artists representing the US, Haiti, South Africa, France, the UK, Germany, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cameroon. This is the sound of a resistance beyond hashtags and symbolic gestures. It is the sound of liberation.
Resistance is survival, not just a hashtag. But if it’s going to be a social media call to political arms, let’s make that fucker count!
‘The People Resist’ is our motto for this year’s AFROPUNK festivals. Paris, New York, ATL, get ready! afropunkfest.com
* Artwork photo by Dennis Manuel
01. Intro
02. THE FEVER 333 – Made An America
03. Shopping – Suddenly Gone
04. NoMBe – Can’t Catch Me
05. Interlude (The People)
06. Young Fathers – Turn
07. Pleasure Venom – Seize
08. KOKOKO! – Tsongos’a
09. Rhea Blek – Teenage Dreams
10. Interlude (The People)
11. Maramza – Uwrongu (ft. Bonj Mpasa)
12. 10LEC6 – Augusta (ft. Dvno)
13. Dookoom – Bloodclart
14. Bad Wolves – Zombie
15. Interlude (The People)
16. Mélissa Laveaux – Nan Fon Bwa
video premiere: bounce to soweto-born bonj mpanza & dj maramza’s kick-ass collab
Behold the glittering electro-pop darkness of Soweto-born siren Bonj Mpanza and long-time collaborator DJ Maramza’s newest single and visual ‘UWRONGU’. A club-ready dance track that channels ballroom dance vibes and underground electronica, Bon Mpanza’s audio stylings infuse a silky ribbon of soul with smatterings of jazz and gospel. Pulling these elements tightly together like an unforgiving corset, the unstoppable duo gave birth to this seamless, chic track.
“For me the track started as a kind of soul-trap beat which needed vocals to really be complete and obviously Bonj came to mind because we had worked together and the results were on point, and because she’s a Soul Queen,” says DJ Maramza. “After the track was finished I made a disco-ish remix for my DJ sets, and it was that version that I felt would really work as the main version. So the original version is now called uWrongu (Immunity Mix) and the b-side to the single.”
BONJ – UWRONGU from Inka Kendzia on Vimeo.