Newsletter #40 - March '25
Cardiff to the Caribbean. An exciting week for music.
I appreciate that so many of you stick with me as I ramble through my weekly movements. It really helps me to process things but gives me the chance to share at the same time. I’m very mindful that this week was a busy one and I’m overloaded with things I’d love to talk about. So with that in mind, I’m going to just quickly acknowledge my Great Uncle Neil’s lovely send off on Monday. I never really knew him to be honest, despite him living in Barry, but he was my Nan’s brother and my Dad’s Godfather, who used to hook him up with free tickets to watch the rugby at Cardiff Arms Park.
Neil also scuppered Dad’s plans to be a mobile DJ as a teenager, when he refused to lend him his work van to carry all the equipment. Known as NOD to his friends (Neil O’Donovan) he loved practical jokes, G&T’s and Remy Martin right up to the end at the ripe old age of 96. By all accounts it sounds as if he was healthy enough in mind and body to have carried on for longer, but after losing his wife Shirley a couple of months ago, he decided it was his time to go too.
Whist death is on my mind, sadly this week saw the passing of Angie Stone in a tragic car accident. She was travelling back to Atlanta from a performance in Alabama. As a member of The Sequence between 1979 and 1985, she became one of Hip-hop’s first stars. It’s wild to think that they were from all the way down in South Carolina but ‘Funk You Up’ became the second single on New York’s Sugar Hill Records - after ‘Rapper’s Delight' - and helped to hand the baton from funk to the new sound.
Let’s also not forget ‘Black Diamond’ and ‘Mahogany Soul’. Two of neo-soul’s definitive albums, which soundtracked many moments in my life between 1999 and the early 2000s. Very sad to see her lose her life so tragically at just 63. This of course comes under a week from losing soul legend Roberta Flack. The only light side to that was hearing Aleighica Scott pull up ‘Killing Me Softly’ on BBC Radio Wales complete with air horns.
Mostly this week I bring more positive news as it’s Carnival season in Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil and a number of other places around the world. Let’s forget the fact that I am stuck in Wales and not partying at Panama Carnival as I’d planned. I’ve still been enjoying the festive sounds and following all of the seasonal competitions in Trinidad & Tobago. I’ve also been hugely inspired by a great week for homegrown MOBO music and events back here in Cardiff, so I’ll talk a bit about that afterwards.
I’m going to do a whole separate post about Trinidad & Tobago Carnival, but I can’t not mention it here as it’s been a big part of my week. I’m a huge fan of carnivals in general and the music that fuels them, but those twin islands have a special place in my heart. The competitions that play an integral part of carnival culture there and across the Caribbean, are as important to me as sports tournaments are for most people.
I’ve enjoyed following the Ultimate Soca Champion contest, the Soca Chutney Monarch, Calpso Monarch and Extempo & Freestyle Monarch tournaments too. I’ll talk more about those once the whole season is over on Wednesday, because the big one for me is yet to come. The main Carnival day is actually on Tuesday and while most of us Brits are stuffing down pancakes, thousands of costumed carnival goers are giving it their all trying to win ‘Band of the Year’ for their particular group of masqueraders in the parade.
But the bit that really matters for me is which big soca tune the DJs from each band play during that crucial moment when their individual sections cross the judging points. This is because the track with the most plays wins the much coveted title of ‘Road March’. At the moment it’s really between two songs as to which artist takes it. My money is on the Viking himself, Bunji Garlin whose track ‘Carry It’ calls on the energy of all of those who came before him. It has a deep reverence for the cultural weight of carnival, as well as the energy to keep people moving ‘on the road’. It’s a powerful tune.
Otherwise it will almost certainly be the ‘King of Soca’ himself, Machel Montano with a huge uplifting, almost gospel like power soca song called ‘Pardy’ about working hard and playing hard.
As you can see from the start of the video where he meets the popular Prime Minister of Barbados - Mia Mottley - dressed up in his red robes, Machel just graduated from university doing a Masters in Carnival Studies. So he also has a deep appreciation for the history and he’s no stranger to Road March having won a total of 10 times so far. If he wins this year he will have more titles than Superblue who he currently ties with in 2nd most winning songs ever, and he will be the joint leader with the late great Lord Kitchener. He also gained a new accolade in the rest of the competitions this year but I’ll tell you all about that in the following post.
I'm really hoping to be back at Port of Spain for Carnival again next year but there are many other pre Lent carnivals I would love to visit. Mardi Gras in New Orleans is a big one for me, but there’s also Brazil! My choice there would be the huge Bahian Carnival in Salvador rather than the more famous one in Rio - though I’d love to do that too at some point. I first heard about the Bahian Carnival from Fernada Porta and her band over 20 years ago and I’ve wanted to go ever since, but the biggest part of making that choice would be the local group BaianaSystem, whose mind blowing instagram videos of their ‘Navio Pirata’ Bloco parties have been enticing me there for years. They also do a bloco for the carnival in São Paulo that looks just as good.
All I can do for the moment is appreciate from afar and play their latest album ‘O Mundo Dá Voltas’ as loudly as possible. The other Brazilian albums I’m loving right now are both artists who have worked with BaianaSystem and will be guests with them at Navio Pirata this year. BNegão is a vocalist with the huge rock / rap band Planet Hemp but an amazing artist in his own right. His album ‘Metamorfoses, Riddims e Afins’ is a perfectly crafted fusion of reggae, hip hop, metal, funk, baile funk, samba and various Latin American rhythms. Melly leans more towards a pop, rnb sound but if that’s your vibe then her recent remix album of tracks from last year’s ‘Amaríssima’ is also brilliant.
Closer to home and another carnival track I’m loving right now is this collaboration from Bristol’s Blackout JA and producer Ted Ganung from New York.
It’s been a busy week. So much so that when I sat in my car on Saturday night, ready to head out to The Tribe Of Vibe night in town, followed by Ruffneck Diskotek in Bristol for a much needed soca fix, I realised that what I actually needed to do was go back to bed, so I did.
However I did make it to Gareth Potter’s event just beforehand in Paradise Garden, and Don Leisure’s album launch party before that. I feel like that album also needs a whole post as it’s a groundbreaking sonic collage of classic Welsh songs from the Sain Records archive, released through the label itself. The Launch Party was an onslaught of incredible grooves from across the world, Arabic, Indian and Latin tunes from the crates of both Don Leisure and Andy Votel. I believe both Carwn Ellis and Gruff Rhys also played but I had to leave before then. Literally every tune was a banger with 95% being tracks I’d never heard before. I had to put my phone away or I’d have been on Shazam all night.
On Thursday I went to the Valley Events Awards at the Senedd. That’s our national government building for those who don’t know, so it was wild to see a bunch of young Welsh rappers and singers take over the place for the evening. I’ve got a lot of time for Lewis and Lanks, the young men that run those events. In their first year they put on 12 shows with 72 artists, and by their second year they were promoting back to back sold out events throughout South Wales. I look forward to seeing what’s next for them, although Lewis aka rapper Valley Boy Zero, announced on the night that he’s stepping away from the rap nights to focus on promoting Christian events. I wish him all the best with that next step.
After that I headed straight for Inkspot, an abandoned church in Splott that hosts the New Era youth workshops and intermittent events. They were hosting a night from Clwb Orange and I have to say that myself, Jaffa and Eric Martin were all blown away by proceedings, despite us being old enough to have fathered most of the room. We could have easily been at a night in Brooklyn if it wasn’t for the Welsh accents. There’s definitely a lovely ‘urban bohemian’ scene brewing here around neo-soul, jazz, the smoother rap artists, afrobeats, r’n’b, art and poetry.
Personal highlights were Welsh language singer Parisa Fouladi and Bristol rapper, singer and DJ - Merce Jade, but very much enjoyed solo sets from Source drummer Farai KD, and multi instrumentalist Ɛkow who played both saxophone and violin over rap, rnb and amapiano, even bringing rappers Hugo and Sage Todz - who is currently on the BBC Welsh A List with his sung r’n’b track ‘Dim Clwydd’ - up on stage to join him. The whole event was just lovely though and really inspiring to see. Shout out to Rose for making that happen.
There’s a lot more I’d love to talk about, I caught up with so many more great people this week such as Junior Disprol, Mayor and Monky, plus I saw a great gig from Jas Delorean, but this has already gone on long enough, so before I go I do have to send props to Cardiff rapper, singer and producer Nathan Misra on being Jasmine Takhar’s ‘Artist of the Week’ on BBC Asian Network. Plus Ren from Anglesey who absolutely tore down Charlie Sloth’s ‘Fire In The Booth’ delivering one of my favourites ever. I realise he’s not to everyone’s tastes, but the skill and talent on this is undeniable. Plus it’s good to hear him repping Wales a bit more on this.
If you’re in Cardiff then come and join us at It’s A Disco Thing at Paradise Garden this Saturday night! Otherwise I’ll be back in a couple of days for my Trinidad & Tobago Carnival round up.
