In our current #hashtag fueled media landscape, it is fairly hard for an up-and-coming artist to emerge outside of predetermined genre, social, or sonic signifiers. However, as an artist develops, sometimes they manage to chip away at the walls the media traps them in. With each project they are able to reinvent their aesthetic, while their work remains true to their identity as a creative person. We call these artists stars. In Toronto-based singer-songwriter Kae Sun’s case we would have to call him a Black Star. His latest album Afriyie is a surprising and fresh addition to the global African media landscape. Tracks like “Lead Loaded Letters” stand out with their mix of heavy electronics over clunky blues guitar riffs, signaling an ability to rise above neatly laid out categories. With Afriyie, Kae Sun has managed to emerge as one of the most promising singer-songwriters in the international scene. Like many young Canadians today, Kae Sun’s story is one of global migration. He moved from Ghana as a youth to attend university in Ontario. It was here he started pursuing music professionally, however his path to becoming a professional musician started much earlier during his childhood in Ghana. These various life experiences come through on his first full length album Lion on a Leash. The album was mostly performed by a live band with some electronic production subtly infused, we hear a distinctly rock-leaning sound with some influence of Afrobeat, reggae, and hip-hop. An EP released two years ago called Outside the Barcode was a collection of beautifully written tunes performed on acoustic guitar and sung by Kae Sun. His emotion and sincerity as a performer really shine through on this effort. Several of the songs on that EP appear in new re-imagined form on Afriyie, allowing us, the outside observers, to see the development of his boundary pushing sound, reflecting an artistic growth and an increased access to production resources. The question of what counts as African music is becoming more irrelevant as the rest of the globally networked world becomes more familiar. Afriyie is Ghanaian in a way that is only starting to become prevalent in our contemporary moment. It is representative of a national identity, more like the color of a passport, rather than ancestral tradition or cultural representation. It is place and time specific, and doesn’t seem weighed down by a need to play identity politics. It represents the place where the artist is at, as a culmination of life experiences, rather than a romantic obsession, or longing for the past. This is notable for an artist who has moved recently from one country in the global south, to another in the north. Kae Sun’s absorption of influences from his adopted home is clear to me throughout the album. I hear echoes of a historically strong Torontonian electronic sound, as well as connections to other hip-hop tinged Black Canadian songwriters such as K’naan and K-os. An ability to connect with and reflect on his immediate surroundings is reflected in his artistic choices. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJK7u7Opo3U After seeing the above video in which Kae Sun covers Citizen Cope’s “Lifeline,” I was pleasantly surprised to see an immigrant artist take up the cause of local social issues. In this case, it was the eviction of a community from government subsidized housing to make way for private developers. I wanted to take an opportunity to chat with Kae Sun to tease out where he sees that his lines of influence lie... I’m surprised at how different Afriyie is from Lion on a Leash sonically, how did you arrive at the current more electronic leaning sound via an all acoustic demo EP in Outside the Barcode? Kae Sun: It was always the plan to try to do more with ambient sounds and programmed parts, and you can hear it in some of the songs on Lion but you need more time and space to do that and I had a smaller budget. The EP is an exception in a way because I did that out of an urgency I was feeling with those particular  songs but as far as full-length albums go I always wanted to do something a bit more conceptual so this happened at the right time. What were your musical influences before you started making records? What are you listening to now? I feel like my influences shifted over the period it took to complete the record but my earliest trigger was a singer from Montreal Arianne Moffat. I found it interesting how she incorporated electronic sounds and textures into her very melodic songs and then later I was going to these rocksteady and reggae nights and really got put on to some classics. Also when I was making trips to Ghana, Femi’s Day by Day was my soundtrack. These days I try to listen to anything that grabs my attention. Your album titles intrigue me quite a bit, especially Outside the Barcode and Afriyie. Do you want to give some background to these names, and why you chose them? Writer/Activist Arundathi Roy used the term “living outside the barcode” in reference to people in India who essentially live off the grid as a consequence of their poverty. It’s an interesting thing. It’s almost like poverty has shielded them from being exploited as a consumer base although they’re exploited in more horrible ways. I found this interesting because driving through Accra I got the same vibe in certain communities, things I didn’t notice when I was growing up. So that’s where that title comes from. Afriyie is more personal, it’s my middle name, named after my grandfather. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/88007039" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] “Dzorwulu Junction” stands out on Afriyie. And while Kanye West claims to be a black new wave artist with his recent album, I would say that this song was more explicitly so. This style is also a reference I’ve heard in people like Spoek Mathambo who are flirting with Afro-futurism. Do you see your self as sonically connected to either of these artists? Perhaps, but I think there’s more to it. Some artists are good at creating a conceptual context for their work and by so doing expand and/or challenge our understanding of what is possible with music, I think of Miles Davis, Prince, David Bowie, Dylan, Andre 3000, Kanye, M.I.A. I think  it’s in the breadth of the work and continuously evolving or trying to move things forward. I’m definitely partial to that approach to making music and drawing from a wide range of ideas and influences to transcend genre, transcend medium even into literature, poetry, visual art, philosophy and so on. That’s really what I’m going for. A lot of the time I find being labelled “musician” can be restricting. What about thematically? How does your own liberationist content fit into a contemporary conversations about African liberation, Afro-futurism, New Slaves, etc? I find it hard to look at what I’m doing from that angle, it wouldn’t work well for me. What I know is that the intent for me is always spiritual. Creative expression is my spiritual practice, that’s my worship so to speak, every idea I have regarding liberation comes from the fact that I believe God’s creative expression is love. Freedom and justice come from that love and in so far as that is not the current condition for humans artists will either create to release that tension or create to escape it. Check out the rest of the interview on MTV Iggy.

This summer I’ve been hired as a freelancer for Iggy, MTV’s global music website. The site is aimed at young people to introduce them to the idea that pop music is a global phenomenon (if today’s tech savvy youth already didn’t know.) I get paid by Viacom every time I put something up there, but it’s a pretty quick moving stream of content, and posts tend to disappear rather quickly. I thought it would be good to run each one of my posts as a series over here on Africa is a Country.

This past Spring I wrote an article for the Red Bull Music Academy about the music and nightlife communities clustered around African neighborhoods in New York. A key motivation behind writing that article was to bring some visibility to the many diverse communities of African immigrants within the city that aren't always visible to the average New Yorker. It never fails to surprise me that when I take a trip uptown or to my favorite African eatery, I come across an advertisement for an African event or concert by a famous African artist plastered on the walls that never received mention in the big New York entertainment publications, African or otherwise. I used the opportunity to write the article to do a general overview of the city, but since space wouldn't allow me to go into too much detail about specific neighborhoods in that single article, I wanted to write a few blog posts to highlight some of the individuals I met while researching and shooting photographs for the story. Since today, July 26th, is Liberia's Independence day, there's no better place to start than Staten Island. Staten Island is the borough least known by the general population of New York. Tourists take advantage of the free ferry to catch glimpses of downtown Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, but rarely venture past the port. However Staten Island, home to an amazingly diverse array of people from Mexico to Sri Lanka to Russia, is interesting enough on its own. West Africans, especially Liberians, make up a significant population of this diverse community. Staten Island's Park Hill neighborhood is popularly known as Little Liberia, and the story of this amazing mini-Monrovia has been chronicled by several very talented people throughout the years. As someone who is familiar with the contemporary Liberian music industry, and interested in local music scenes in general, I was keen to find out what music was being made there, and what connections Staten Island musicians have back to home. One surprising thing that I found is that Staten Island is an essential underground tour stop for African entertainers in New York. Sierra Leonean artists like Shady Baby have performed there, as well as Ghanian actors, and Liberian artists from around the United States. YOK 7, a rapper I met and hung out with in Freetown will be performing there this August 11th. Park Hill, the neighborhood that happens to have been the birthplace of the Wu Tang Clan, is also the home of a collection of Liberian rappers such as the 23 year-old Trigg. http://youtu.be/HUdhskxgZw8 I was introduced to Liberian rappers on Staten Island after Glenna Gordon put me in touch with Musa, a photographer and music producer who lives in Park Hill. The day I ventured out to meet Musa, he took me up on the roof of the Park Hill building complex where he was doing a photo shoot with a couple of local groups (not the below video, but similar). http://youtu.be/EgtrdmhLmVY I have to admit I was a little disappointed, because music they shared with me seemed to have very little of the specifically Liberian identity I had come to know and was excited about in the Hipco and Gbema I knew from Monrovia. But this reaction, a common judgement aimed at immigrant youth of all backgrounds, would be reconciled after my next visit (and after a little philosophical self-reckoning). On the day I brought the Red Bull photographer to Staten Island, Musa introduced us to Trigg. The young rapper posed for pictures around the neighborhood as he traded a mix of African-American vernacular and Liberian English with passers by. We could tell that he was well regarded in the community, and the familiarity of everyone around almost gave the very concrete jungle-like complex the feel of a rural town. We talked with Trigg and Musa a lot about the shape of the local industry and their connections back home. After getting further insight on the dynamics of the local scene, I couldn't help but notice some interesting parallels in the local politics of both Staten Island and Monrovia. I listened while Trigg commented on the lack of respect Park Hill rappers get in their own community, and about how rappers from Philadelphia would come in and get preferential bookings at community shows. This is a phenomenon I would hear about regularly in Liberia in regards to artists from outside the country. We topped off our visit with a lunch of palm butter soup courtesy of Trigg's mother. While we ate, we sat and listened to a generation of Liberian youth raised in America, politic in Liberian English about life in Staten Island. I couldn't help but marvel at the dual nature of the immigrant experience. Many of them longed to visit home, a place many of them left as babies, but were very much engaged in a contemporary Liberian society that exists on this side of the ocean. This Liberian society is intimately intertwined with African-American culture - underscored by Liberia's complicated history with the United States. At any given moment you can hear a group of Liberian youth comment in Liberian English on everything from French Montana to Trayvon Martin. I don't want to romanticize Park Hill too much, it isn't a neighborhood without its problems. However, it really is the perfect place to escape to when longing for a little taste of Liberia and New York. I'm sure today there will be quite a party going on. To get deeper sense of the Park Hill neighborhood, I recommend picking up Jonny Steinberg's book Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York City. Also, check out more of Glenna Gordon's extensive work photographing life in Staten Island.

You may have noticed a new logo lurking around Africa is a Country headquarters. When Sean put out the call for a design upgrade last year, I immediately thought of Diego Guttierez, an amazing graphic designer I’ve had the luck to work closely with in recent months. I met Diego a couple years ago when he was hanging with the Mex and the City folks. At the end of last year he signed on as the Art Director for Dutty Artz, the artist collective I belong to in Brooklyn, and has done an amazing job upgrading our visual identity. Now he’s agreed to help do the same for Africa is a Country. Check out the rest of his work here: http://talacha.net

Africa is a Country has been a fan of Ghanaian-Swiss audio experimentalist Oy's live performances for a while. Tom's posting of Hallelujah was my own introduction to her strange but mesmerizing audio-visual creations: http://youtu.be/n36CvQCvzJE A host of other and new exciting tunes will soon be released in recorded form and available to the world. From a music producer's perspective, I get really excited to hear how such captivating performances are manifested on record. The process of translating a song from the studio to the stage and vice versa is an art in itself, one that not all musicians can do well. Oy's sophomore album, Kokokyinaka, is a highly enjoyable journey that inventively incorporates field recordings into digital production techniques. The label's press release gives insight into the album's creative process:

The wildly vibrant sample base includes a parachute, fufu pounding, fireworks, and a shoe. Along with all of the animated stories it was mostly collected on trips to Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and during a residency in South Africa. The actual writing and the production for the record took place at studios located in Berlin under the guidance of talented drummer, producer, and co-writer Lleluja-Ha.

Throughout the course of the album we accompany her through her explorations of African cultural intricacies from the perspective of a half-in half-out Afro-European. This makes it easy for comparisons to mixed Afro-European vocalists like Nneka or Anbuley to pop in my head. But, Joy's album stands apart because instead of straight ahead pop, dance, Hip-Hop or soul album, this project feels like a personal journey that is just as experimental culturally as it is technically. http://youtu.be/r4S6Z-9qR6U For more on Joy, check out an interview with her on OkayAfrica, and this teaser for her latest video: http://vimeo.com/62645660  

This Saturday I'll be djing between acts at The Apollo Theater's Africa Now! Concert. Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with the Apollo's director about the different African crowds in New York (last year they had Tiken Jah Fakoly to an enthusiastic crowd of Francophone African Harlemites), got a tour of the building, rubbed the tree of hope, and stood on the stage where every American black performer of significance in the last 100 years has stood. Besides the fact of my inclusion in the symbolic welcoming of a new generation of Africans into the folds of Black American history, touching the log (while the Apollo stagehand watched me unamused) is really all I needed. Here's all the info:

Apollo and WMI Present AFRICA NOW! Saturday, March 16 at 8 p.m.

Africa Now! is a weekend festival spotlighting today’s African music scene. The festival centers around a blowout concert event on the legendary Apollo stage. Featuring a line-up of artists who have drawn upon their roots for inspiration and transplanted them into the global music landscape, Africa Now! is a must see event. Blitz the Ambassador, Freshlyground, Lokua Kanza, and Nneka are scheduled to perform on this special night.

Hosted by celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson.

Presented in partnership with World Music Institute.

Tickets: $30, $40, $55 In person at the Apollo Theater Box Office By phone call Ticketmaster (800) 745-3000 Online at Ticketmaster.com

* Cross-posted at Dutty Artz.

It's quite a weekend for New York's prodigal child. Hip-Hop, that burst of youthful energy that was put out into the universe 30 plus years ago is coming back home from several places at once. It's arriving at a time when Rap music, in its birthplace, confusingly straddles the realms of hyper-capitalism, political activism, youth expression, marginalized's rebellion, adult reminiscence, mainstream politics, canonization, trivialization, and institutionalization. Regardless of the strange position that the genre has taken up in the contemporary American social landscape, the spirit of youth energy that birthed the genre, as well as the need to make heard the voices of the marginalized is very much at the forefront of the form globally. On Saturday and Sunday New Yorkers will be able to get a glimpse at the practitioners of Hip-Hop in this form at two different shows.  On Saturday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn's oldest and largest performing arts venue. It features El Général (whose music we featured here and here), Amkoullel (here), Deeb, and Shadia Mansour (here) alongside Oud player Brahim Fribgane and Ngoni player Yacouba Sissoko. On Sunday, a showcase of Senegalese rappers called Dakar 2 NYC will take place at The Shrine, a smaller community bar and venue in Harlem. The showcase is part of a series put on by Nomadic Wax called Internationally Known (Africa is a Country is a co-sponsor), and features Thiat from Kuer Gui (whose video we featured here) and the group Fou Malade were two of the groups that were central to the Y’en a Marre movement (whose politics we featured here). They will be joined by Bat’hallions Blin-D and Baay Bia. Notably this event is happening in the heart of the community that hosts the largest Senegalese diaspora population outside of Europe. Now I'm not one to draw lines between what is and what isn't, but this convergence of global Hip-Hop upon the Biggie Apple in two very different contexts has got me thinking... (Warning! You now have all the information you need for the shows. If you don't like thinking, stop reading now!) In the United States, and particularly New York, Hip-Hop as a strict cultural form has aged. However, it's still a new form, and the creative processes and technique innovations that it helped mold are still on the cutting edge of music production and sonic style. But the original practitioners of Hip-Hop are getting to a point where they've either been left behind in the past or have moved on. In the U.S., the torch has been passed (sometimes not so graciously) to a second and third generation, often removed from the geography of New York City, who continue to innovate and excite audiences, but not always in the ways that the originators envisioned. I would even go so far to say that New York Hip-Hop purists have co-opted the genre so much as to not allow the legibility of actual youth rebellion within the city's own marginalized communities. This is why today I'm generally more a fan of digital music created in different regions around the world (including places like Chicago and New York) that don't necessarily carry the Hip-Hop label, but yet are produced, disseminated, and practiced very much in the spirit of New York in the 1970's. However, in some places, especially those where young people have been standing up to aging leaders, often risking life and limb just to let it know that they are there, Hip-Hop is still legible as youth rebellion (even when it's sponsored by the U.S. State Department). The more publicized cases of Tunisia, Senegal and Angola are not the only ones where youth music are taking a central role in the shaping of a vision for a new future. I've personally seen the impact that youth-fueled musical movements can have on a changing society in places as far removed from each other as Oakland and Monrovia. However, I would argue that today, more often than not Hip-Hop aesthetics are employed as a means of global legibility more than any desire to remain true to a purists' definition. It is this idea of global legibility that has allowed mainstream news publications to feature rappers at the center of political stories in Africa and the Middle East. As I listen to WNYC this morning, the celebration of youth voice on a mainstream news organization seems so unlikely when to think that Hip-Hop partly was birthed when young people felt like they weren't being spoken to by mainstream radio. But that's not really the issue here to me. My question is: what is really celebrated by mainstream institutions (sponsored by Bloomberg and Time Warner) when they are talking about and showcasing Hip-Hop? Is it the form? Is it that lyrical skill can now be recognized by middle-classed and/or middle-aged theater goers? And does this legibility of rebellion extend to an artist such as the Bay Area's Lil' B? What about Chief Keef? Or even Harlem's A$AP Rocky? Is rebellion only okay when it's safe, when it exists in far removed places where young people seem to represent the values that keep those middle class/agers safe in their social positions/homes/jobs/neighborhoods? And finally, how many people are going to the concert at BAM because they like Deeb's, or Shadia Mansour's, or El Général's, or Amkoullel's music? I, for one, sometimes worry about too much agency given to Hip-Hop as a catalyst in these movements. I see it as more of a vessel, and conscious or explicitly political Hip-Hop, the form of expression most often associated with such rebellion, isn't necessarily always the most impacting or important in a given context. Deeb himself has admitted that people in Egypt generally preferred pop music before the uprising, and only took on explicitly political music once the context of the uprising over took everyone's lives. In post-revolutionary Cairo, 7a7a and Figo probably carry more populist zeal than any conscious rapper. And, unless we see various forms of expression as vessels for the agency of a people, an audience, a movement, how else could we explain the adaptation of the (Mad Decent version of the) Harlem Shake to the North African political landscape? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmofqZjf-Bg I'm sure many of these questions will be addressed this evening at BAM as my compañero, DJ Jace Claton/Rupture, will be moderating a talk with Deeb, Shadia Mansour, El Général, and Amkoullel. The talk starts at 7pm.

I have been a little silent lately here on AIAC. I'm gonna start posting more, although perhaps in briefer form (do visit duttyartz.com to see some of what I've been up to recently). For now I leave you with the White Mandingos:

https://soundcloud.com/whitemandingos/the-ghetto-is-tryna-kill-me While tapping into an Internet ethos which is totally unserious and trivializing (the Internet has turned us all punk?), there's a maturity (introspection? sense of history?) in this that is lacking in most of the popular younger artists' output (at least in my mind), making this better than 99% of American music released today. If you disagree, meet me in the comments section.

Well, the snowstorm in Boston will be shortening the length of the conference, and the performance by Debo Band has been cancelled. However, Harvard's Africa Remix Conference will be on and live today, Friday, February 8th. A lot of interesting folks will be presenting, including a keynote speech by Francis Falceto, the owner of the Ethiopiques record label. I am presenting in a panel called Producing Global Sounds, and will be talking about my experiences and practices as a 2nd-generation Sierra Leone diasporan and DJ. If you are conveniently in the Boston area you probably don't have to go to work, so stop by! For those of you who don't want to brave the weather, or don't live within reasonable distance from Cambridge, Massachusetts, follow the conference on twitter with the hashtag #AfricaRemix starting at 8:30am Boston time. The presentations are being recorded and will eventually be posted on the web, so we will share them with you in some form at a future date.

Every few years my mode of music discovery changes. I went from browsing the racks of my local corporate music chain as a teenager, to digging for hours in the back rooms of second hand record shops, to scouring obscure blogs and doing random YouTube searches. This year marked another change in my listening habits as a more social media-oriented, web-mediated exchange with friends and fellow artists from around the world, has taken over my music research routine. 

The Soundcloud platform has taken on a central role in this transformation, as it has become a sort of default platform for the promo and first-exposure distribution of music from both major label and independent artists around the world. Importantly, this has facilitated my access to music scenes in lesser-represented countries, including many African nations which have been historically plagued by a lack of distribution infrastructure, and the presence of middle-(big) man distribution politics. Since any one platform's monopoly on our mediated exchanges is dangerous, Soundcloud's taking on this role in the global music production matrix isn't absent of its crticisms. However, the platform has helped allow music fans to get a more raw, honest, and direct glimpse into individual artists' creative processes. I was a late adaptor to Soundcloud, but once the right people started uploading to the platform, it quickly took over as one of my main go-to sources for new music. So, especially for the DJ-inclined readers of Africa is a Country, here is a round up of my 10 favorite Soundclouders in 2012: [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/69684517" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] DJ Znobia - DJ Znobia has probably been my favorite producer and remixer for the last five years. I hadn't heard anything from him for a while when I suddenly noticed him putting up a constant and daily stream of new songs on Soundcloud. The diversity of Angolan producers' output is impressive. However, it's Znobia who stands out, as a Lee "Scratch" Perry-esque experimenter, innovator, and genius of the scene. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/71234793" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Akwaaba Music - Benjamin Lebrave has come into his own as a jack of all trades in the promotion of African music. The label owner, journalist and DJ is constantly traveling to get the low-down of what's happening at the current moment in various scenes. Beyond his label catalog, his many connections to producers across the continent and his constant liking and re-posts, have made him an all-star Soundclouder to follow. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/18823462" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Afropop Worldwide - Afropop Radio is archiving all of its past shows on Soundcloud. It is worth spending some time on their page and going through their back catalog, so you can catch up with classics like Siddhartha Mitter's "Hip Hop Generation in Africa" piece. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/69842426" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] DJ X-Trio - X Trio releases some really nice edits of up to the time pop tunes from around the world. A Deep House influenced production style dubbed "AfroFlava," should see this Masters of Engineering degree holder personally pushing his sound to global dance floors in no time. Notable remixes that stayed in my DJ crates throughout the year were his versions of the Brazilian pop hit Nossa (Assim Voce Me Mata) and DJ Sbu's Le Ngoma. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/68947483" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] DJ Sliink - Alongside DJ Znobia, this guy is probably the most prolific remixer, producer, and Soundcloud uploader out there. A constant stream of his own tracks and mixes is accompanied by tracks culled from his peers and contemporaries in North New Jersey. His Soundcloud page is one of the best sources for playable, downloadable dance music around. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/57744172" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Deejay Kuimba DZC - Portugal is developing a pretty amazing electronic music scene, so it's hard to choose just one of the many DJs I admire coming out of Lisbon and its surrounding areas. I don't need to say more about Deejay Kuimba of the DZC DJs other than that he does the above. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/57018945" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Zuccony - This young Florida based producer's remixes have been some of my best secret DJ weapons this year. His aggressive sound may not be for everyone, but he's probably been the producer that has most made people to run up behind me while DJing to train-spot what I'm playing. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/67220547" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Sonora - Joseph Sonora Longoria, my good friend from San Antonio, is a prolific producer who experiments with everything from Cumbia to Crunk to House. Fans of contemporary African music will really appreciate his Zouk-love approximating "Amor de..." series. He is also the producer who got me back on to Soundcloud after I missed downloading one of his remixes, and vowed to never let it happen again. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/48459620" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Jumping Back Slash -  I wasn't too familiar with this South African DJ before this year, but his regular mention on OkayAfrica has pointed me to some really nice edits. Looking forward to seeing what else he comes up with in 2013. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/61149994" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] Captain Planet - An end of the year discovery in terms of Soundclouding, but Charlie B. Wilder aka DJ Captain Planet had long been one of Brooklyn's most solid DJs/diggers/remixers alongside the likes of Sabo and Uproot Andy. His now defunct Captain's Crate blog was an early staple of my MP3 blogging days. Currently living in L.A., he has a slew of really impressive original songs as well as remixes on his Soundcloud page, referencing everything from Afrobeat to Chimurenga to Mayan Tribal Guarachero. Not on his own page, but worth the stream is his Madlib-inspired Mystery Trip Vol. 1 Mixtape.

Vice Magazine recently ran an interview with Al Walser, the DJ who nabbed a Grammy nomination for a less than stellar performance on his song 'I Can't Live Without You,' scandalizing the mainstream Electronic Dance Music (EDM) circle. If anything, his nomination sheds light on the disoriented state of the music industry. But, I would argue that the industry's turning of (black) dance music (BDM) into a ready-made commercial genre for Las Vegas pool parties did that pretty well already anyway. If anything, with Al Walser the industry is getting what it deserves. Interesting for our purposes, in the interview he reveals himself as a proud child of mixed African-European parentage. We see this most clearly in moments when he's rubbing shoulders with some pretty big movers and shakers. On his hitting it off with President Obama, he says:

I don’t know if you know, but I happen to be from one of the smallest countries in the world, Liechtenstein. And I happen to be the first bi-racial from that country. I met Obama the first time at a fundraiser and we hit it off. He couldn’t believe I was from Liechtenstein, and you know, my mom was white and my dad is black, just like with him, and I grew up with my white family, just like him. There was a connection over being bi-racial. We hit it off. We had a really cool chat. It was great, he’s a great guy, I loved him.

And on his relationship with the Jackson family:

The first time I came to L.A., I stayed at Katherine Jackson’s house. Whenever they were in Switzerland or in Liechtenstein, they would stay at my place. Be it Jermaine, some of the kids… there’s tons of family footage, and we’re going to release it maybe one day. Originally it was my father who met Joseph Jackson in Africa, in Congo, like 20 years ago or so. And they talked about their sons and they invited us over. And Jermaine came to Lichtenstein many times, and we traveled around the world together. And because Jermaine at the time was living with his mom, at Katherine’s house, I automatically was “inside.” Michael would call in and I’d be at the table with Katherine, alone. Believe me, it was a very interesting time for me and I learned a lot. I’m forever thankful to the Jacksons.

These stories intrigued me so I did a little searching. His flickr page is filled with photos of him and various celebrities, including the following photo of him "in the Congo with government officials": It gets perhaps even a little more surreal in a video of Walser with Snoop Dogg, where he is helping the rapper collect a lifetime achievement award from a festival in Brazzaville. He's obviously connected in some pretty high places, which makes me wonder what his relationship to the Congolese government is. I also found a video for his song 'African Queen' which has many different versions, including the original below, a Euro Dance version, and a "Summer Mix" which approximates to the prevalent Afropop sound today. http://youtu.be/zcxg32qMi54 Is his aim to market himself strategically to various niche markets, with the goal of dominating awards shows worldwide? There's no question this guy's been hustling. I support his nomination 100 percent.