Bonjour mes amis. Here we are at Week 3, and whilst I’m mindful of speaking too soon, I think I’m starting to get the hang of this. I am going to switch one thing up a little, and that’s approaching this week’s run down day by day, start to finish. To be honest I’d been hoping not to have quite as much to talk about, but that hasn’t really been the case. However as my Monday mind was largely taken up with politics, I’d rather not go there just yet. Perhaps we can fit a little bit of election chat in the middle somewhere.
Let’s start with books. I had a lovely meeting this week with Aniefiok 'Neef' Ekpoudom, a fine music, culture and community journalist from London who has written the most beautiful book about rap music called ‘Where We Come From’. I highly recommend reading it, regardless of your views on rap or the particular artists he follows, which include the South London rapper Cadet who sadly passed away whilst the book was being written, and his cousin Krept, who along with his rhyme partner Konan becomes one of UK rap’s most dominant forces during the period covered in the book.
We were chatting because he spends a significant section of the book in South Wales with former Astroid Boys’ Traxx, and Dell, who was still a 15 year old whizz kid producer we had to sneak into the clubs when I was briefly managing / mentoring them in their early days, but is now making serious waves in the dance world as Douvelle19. He also follows Luke RV from what must have been the very start of his career, and it’s been incredible to see his trajectory recently. One of my favourite parts of the book is a drive back to Luke’s hometown of Neath. Neef’s descriptions of Wales are full of such genuine respect that I wish everybody living here was able to view it through his eyes.
Elsewhere Neef explores the Birmingham rap scene, which I especially loved to read given the fact that it began just after the period where I’d left Brum for good. But honestly even if you have no connection to the people or places he writes about, you will by the end of the book.
‘Where We Come From’ is out everywhere already if you want to pick up a copy, but hopefully there should be a proper launch in Cardiff in a couple of months' time. We just need to figure out the best place for it. I’m open to any ideas but it has to be a space that feels accessible enough for all. One venue that was suggested to me earlier that day was Shift in the Capitol Centre in Cardiff. I had bumped into my friend Dr Jaspal Singh, a sociolinguist and linguistic ethnographer based in Cardiff who’s own book launch had been there. I assume this was ‘Transcultural Voices: Narrating Hip Hop Culture in Complex Delhi’ although he was also co-author of a collection of essays called ‘Global Hiphopography’ which came out last year. Both are very much on my reading list, I’m just slowly warming up my brain to be able to tackle academic writing again. It makes me feel like a five year old, having to digest each word one by one but I do very much love hearing Jaspal’s thoughts on hip hop culture, from an academic’s position with a b-boy’s passion. I will definitely have to go and check out Shift too. I can’t believe I’ve not been there yet!
By sheer chance I was going to another book launch that evening too. This one was ‘Wales: 100 Records’ by Huw Stephens. A brilliant new coffee table book which covers 100 albums either from or connected to Wales. I’ve already dived right in and listened to 6 of his picks since I bought a copy. I’ve also started collecting signatures of the artists for each release. I got a head start thanks to being sat next to Katell Keineg, who’s 1994 album ‘Ô Seasons Ô Castles’ is in the book, and Gareth Potter from Tŷ Gwydr, who’s 1991 cassette collaboration with Llwybr Llaethog is also in there. I managed to nab signatures from each of the panel members who Huw had gathered together to chat with about the book and their own esteemed histories. There was Gwenno (Y Dydd Olaf - 2014), Caryl Parry Jones from the group Bando (Shampŵ - 1982) and Don Leisure (Shaboo Strikes Back! - 2022). I could honestly have listened to them swap stories all night. I’d love to relay some but there was way too much high quality raconteuring to recount here.
I am grateful though that Don Leisure talked a little about the project he’s working on for seminal Welsh label, Sain Records. I’ve kept it under my hat til now but he’s been given free reign of their back catalogue to create new music from, and anyone who has heard Andy Votel, Dom Thoms and Gruff Rhys’ ‘Welsh Rarebeat’ compilation (also in the book) knows there’s some killer sounds to be found in there. I’m really excited to hear what he comes up with, and he was just as excited to be sat on a panel with Caryl, who as well as being in Bando (nothing to do with stash houses for drill fans under the age of 25), started her career in the Welsh language folk rock group Sidan, one of the best sources for samples in Sain’s 70’s releases. Anyone who’s been following my Cymru series of playlists should be familiar with both groups, although I’m thinking I might need to update them once I’ve gone through Huw’s selections.
You can pick up a copy here.
Last week I mentioned about a collaboration that myself and DJ Jaffa are cooking up. Well here’s a taster from that project courtesy of Swansea boys Craze The Jack, Wez Cooze and T-Rev. They delivered an absolute monster version of the classic Alkaholiks track ‘Daaam!’ from 1994. T-Rev actually has my favourite verse of the year so far on this.
I love hearing Welsh rappers today on these 90s beats, but on the flipside I’m hearing some of the most forward thinking rap production coming out of Wales at the moment and it’s largely down to one man, Minas. Honestly (big claim alert), he is my favourite rap producer at the moment bar nobody. This assertion was made clear on Wednesday whilst watching Figo and PO Griff perform at Porters. Side note, if you live in Cardiff then Porters have free live music every Wednesday. We should all be there, every week. We are so lucky to have that but in the current climate we use it or lose it unfortunately.
Figo and PO Griff both have forthcoming projects produced by Minas. Both very different, but equally exciting. Figo’s is a post-industrial playground of angelic synths and tearing beats that take in influences such as grime, garage, jersey club, baile funk and reggaeton. Whilst PO Griff’s seems to be more stripped back, looking towards modern underground hip hop trends but with those undeniable Minas touches. There were a number of rewinds from Minas during the night, and rightfully so.
Not taking anything away from the rappers themselves either. PO Griff delivers a great show in his Karl Pilkington T Shirt, with a post-cloud rap flow that has a cynical psychedelic twist which could only have been cultivated in West Wales. Check out his latest single ‘Mushroom’s Grow Us’ for a taste. If you like that, then in his own words “It has no bearing on the rest of the album whatsoever.” I’m still a fan of it all though. Plus it was great to see guest spots from: Joe Dirt, who dropped one of the best hip hop albums of the year back in March; and TitanTeeth, who I’m not sure I’ve ever actually managed to catch live before.
Figo has a great energy on stage, quality lyrics that speak to the real life stress and struggles of Welsh Valley towns, and a Barry White level of bass in his voice. What’s not to love? In fact he definitely has a massive fan in Rufus Mufasa who gushed that she could write an essay on his work. Having missed her album launch party despite having a ticket, it was good to catch Rufus perform again. She has a powerful voice that tends to sit inside her own melodic rap style, but floats from soul to folk to straight up hip hop in both Welsh and English language. I thought it was a strong performance and although she committed the cardinal hip hop sin of using her phone to remember the words, her self deprecating honesty about it, and letting us know that she’d received a message from her mum about a Chesterfield sofa made it forgivable.
By far the best show I went to this week was the finale to Tomos Williams’ sensational musical exploration of Welsh history and identity, 'Cwmwl Tystion' at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. The Welsh trumpeter, composer and former jazz student at the college really had assembled an incredibly strong group for this third and final piece, that in contrast to the previous parts, was built around a power trio of: fellow Burum member Mark O’Connor on drums; French Korean virtuoso Nguyên Lê on electric guitar; and probably my favourite, Melvin Gibbs on bass guitar. He made that bass do things it definitely wasn’t designed for and his CV is exemplary as a founding member of Defunkt, former member of the Rollins Band and collaborator with Dead Prez, Caetano Veloso, Eddie Palmieri, Femi Kuti, Arto Lindsay and Bernie Worrell amongst many others. In the moments where those three were left to truly let loose the energy in the room really was turned up to 11. This was jazz with a heavy rock backbone and folk roots.
Not to take anything away from Tomos himself of course, or the vocalists who are both very esteemed singer-songwriters in their own right, and when they harmonised it was sensational. They were Eädyth (Crawford) and Mared (Williams). I’ve used brackets to highlight the fact that in their personal careers, they release under their first names alone. Both are very much worth looking up. The reason I first found out about the project was seeing Eädyth’s name alongside British jazz luminaries Orphy Robinson, from the original Jazz Warriors collective, and Soweto Kinch, who has an interesting connection to Welsh hip hop which I will discuss another time. These three on a track about the Cardiff Race Riots of 1919 definitely piqued my interest when I saw it on Spotify. It’s from the second part of the series, and as this latest has been released yet, here it is.
I’d taken my Dad to the concert as he was staying at mine whilst canvassing for the Green Party candidate Carla Denyer in Bristol Central. Both my parents were always politically active during my life, and I often feel the guilt during any period of putting my head well and truly in the sand. In the last couple of years before he retired (or rather became an art student), Dad was a councillor in Lancaster. First with Labour in the Corbyn years, then afterwards as a Green Eco-Socialist. It was good to have his perspective on voting in my Labour stronghold. I was focussed solely on getting the Tories out so planned to vote Labour, despite having some strong apprehensions about our local MP. He pointed out that the chances of her losing this seat were next to zero so I’m looking through the other candidates now.
I’m trying to keep an eye on everything else, mostly through regular fact checking updates to be honest. as there are serious levels of hyperbole and misinformation on the campaign trail. This of course shot up even further when Farage entered the race but I try not to pay him too much attention, unless he’s being covered in milkshake, or until he becomes too dangerous to ignore.
Hopefully there won’t be any major political bombshells during Glastonbury this year. I think anyone who was there when the Brexit announcement came is still scarred by that. I’m only dropping in for the Saturday and Sunday, although I still had to go through the entire schedule when it was released this week. The FOMO is very real right now. Also some of the clashes are brutal. I was really excited to finally see Alogte Oho & His Sounds Of Joy, but can I really miss the chance to see Cyndi Lauper? It’s probably the only opportunity I’ll have to be fair. Plus Aroo Aftab has been someone I’ve wanted to see live for years, but Corrine Bailey Rae had one of my favourite albums from last year. Both are on at the same time as Francois K doing a 3 hour set at NYC Downlow too, can I really miss out on that? Of course the two sets I really can’t miss are my own. If you’re at the festival do come and join me. I’ll be at:
The Peace Stage in Shangri La on Saturday night. I’ll be playing a ‘Celtic Rap’ set of strictly Welsh, Irish and Scottish tunes before Kneecap at 1am. It’s no easy task playing tracks that people probably don’t know, on the biggest live stage at peak time in the naughty corner - but I didn’t think about any of that when I told them that’s what I wanted to play. I do love a challenge though and I might not get such an opportunity again.
Then I’ll be playing a jungle and drum n bass set further down the track at Salon Carousel in the Unfairground. This is proper ravers territory and I’m looking forward to reaching for a lot of new tunes, and some great dubplates I’ve been sent by various producers. I’ll be opening up on the Sunday from 11pm, but the whole night there is brilliant if you’ve still got energy for a heavy old skank out.
I also have to shout out all of the other Welsh artists performing at the festival this year: Bau Cat; Bethan Lloyd; Cara Hammond; Elkka; Cut Capers; Fizz; Gillie; Jamie Jones; Jonesy Wales (playing with Dub Boy and Atki 2); Kelly Lee Owens; K’Klass; Mike Dennis; Mistafire; Natty Lou; N’Famady Koutate; Skindred; The Royston Club; and Trampolene
Also Charlotte Church and Jack Jones are both at the Leftfield Stage though I’m not sure if they’re chatting or singing. I’m really enjoying the forthcoming Jack Jones single though, I don’t think I can share yet but will do when it’s released. I’m also very much looking forward to having Charlotte’s amazing educational charity for young people, ‘The Awen Project’, with us at Big Love this year.
Oh and also at both Big Love and Glastonbury this year are the wonderful folk duo FFTP (Freedom For Travelling People). Maxine Venton has made Cardiff her home for a number of years so should definitely be included in the Welsh people at Glastonbury section. If you’ve not heard them before you should definitely check out their latest album.
The longer I stay back home in Wales, the more passionate I get about the incredible music scene. That’s why I’m very happy to see projects such as Power Up taking an interest in what’s happening here, and helping to support the Welsh Black Music Action Group that I’m a part of. This week they held a small day conference hosted by Horizons on their home turf at the BBC. There were motivational talks from: Basil Reynolds, a respected performance coach who has a long association with Cardiff thanks to his early days performing here with London Rhyme Syndicate; and Elijah from Butterz, who has been here a couple of times since he first started his insightful ‘Yellow Squares’ project on social media.
There was also a panel on building your brand with Lemfreck, Amahla and Guvna B, a brilliant MOBO Awards winning gospel rap artist, who I interviewed for Good Grief festival a few years back. I somehow ended up on a panel myself talking about the Welsh Black Music Action Group with: reggae singer and BBC radio and TV presenter Aleighcia Scott; Eunice Obianagha who is Head Of Diversity for UK Music, Director of Events and Special Projects for the MOBOs and the founder / director of Enspire Management; and Andrew Ogun, who as well as being a rapper is Agent for Change at Arts Council For Wales and is heading up the Power Up project for Wales.
It was a really inspiring day with some important and passionate conversations around the steps needed to try and push the whole scene forwards. I also had the opportunity to DJ at the after party in Clwb Ifor Bach, where I got to play an hour or so of Welsh rnb music before live performances from: Noah Bouchard and Minas (yet again) who played a stripped back set of earnest and emotional songs from Noah’s recent ‘Love Of My Life’ album, with just keys and vocals; MissFaithee and Ify Iwobi opted for the same set up for their soulful rnb performance; and Source went the other way with a full band set up that filled the stage. I’d not seen them before but one of their vocalists Jessika Kay had mentioned them to me in passing. Definitely a band to keep an eye on. Lovely neo-soul vibes, although I’m not sure ‘neo’ still counts after nearly 30 years.
You could tell the band had been busy telling all their mates, the room was packed out for their set. I was hoping to play some hype tunes afterwards but it was so hot that the room cleared as soon as the band finished. Being turned right down to background sounds by the engineer didn’t help either, but I’ll save that rant for another day.
On Sunday I had a gig over at Field Good Bar just outside of Bath alongside DJ Emma and DJ Bong who both played top quality house sets full of disco and soul influences. There was also The Slacksons who I’d never seen before but I loved their sound which came straight out of the early 90s with a mix of jazz funk, hip hop and indie. It was the singer’s birthday and they were pissed as farts but the banter levels were high and they still put on a great show. The crowd definitely weren’t complaining.
Annie the proprietor of the place and an all round legend has really built up a great space with a lovely vibe there. I met some old friends and made some interesting new ones. I arrived early afternoon for a Q&A session between myself and their Sunday lunch crowd (the roasts are absolutely banging by the way), which was really fun to take part in. There were plenty of good questions including “What would your funeral tune be”. For the record my last tune (which is important for a DJ) would be The Soul Rebels brass band version of ‘Sweet Dreams’. I figure if I tell enough people nobody can f**k that up. God forbid I end up with George Ezra’s ‘Green Green Grass’ or some shit. Not that I’m planning to go anywhere just yet. I’m far too busy, but I do think about death a lot. It’s hard not to when you get old enough to see friends and family regularly checking out. Plus as someone who has had suicidal ideation in the past, the idea is always very real. This is why I was freaked out on the way home. Just after I passed a police car on the motorway with their lights flashing, I got a flash of someone in front of me in the fast lane. Luckily they were just to the side but I was only inches away from them. I don’t know their reasons for being there at 11pm at night, but I thought about it a lot on the way back, and what might have happened next.
There’s a cheery note to end on. Here’s part two of my STAX classics playlist for a rather less mournful finish. Until next time, hope you all have a lovely week and don’t die.