Here is an article on the
Tropical London scene which was in the German news papper Taz recently. It includes A.J. Holmes, Radioclit, Esau Mwamwaya, M.I.A., Soul Jazz, Honest Jons...etc!
And below is a very dodgy English translation from google!!!!
love A.J. xxx
Hybrid never go: "Tropical" is currently avancierteste genre, from the British capital from the Pop world just thrilled.
Article by UH-YOUNG KIM
Indischstämmig and reggae Jamaican virus infected neighbourhood in Britain: Swami. Promo
On the banks of the Thames is the shape of a black youth with a weapon in the attack. Anyone who is currently on the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Gallery of Modern Art walk, it has targeted. The huge photography, the Paris Street Art JR artists in the 35-metre-high brick facade of the London Museum plakatiert. But ..r examination turns out to the weapon as a video camera. The first impression is looming as an inversion of the racist regime's monitoring viewer back. From the Tate to the tube through cultural interfaces the British metropolis and extend further into the vibrant district of London multicultural into it.
Just outside, in the east of London, on the street market of Hackney push hundreds of people through the dusty paths. A Ghanaian traders sold cereal and tuber crops, also offers a Vietnamese couple a hotchpotch of electronics goods, and the Turkish butchers praises the freshly slaughtered lamb. In the Babylonian language tangle almost forget that in London, just a few bus from the hectic bustle of the shopping miles away. Everything here is a passage from difference, in the air is a sharp smell, the drizzle could equally well be a verirrter Minimonsun.
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"Tropical" Alexander Holmes called the atmosphere and enjoy the small coexistence on the Ridley Market. A few months ago, the British musician and is to leave Berlin after five years in Wedding back in his home district returned. Hackney has just announced, the rents are still relatively cheap. Labour at the end, the new conservative mayor Boris Johnson, Russian billionaires or 2012 Olympics? You get here with some of the major projects and the Machtgebaren in the center. The district has its own rhythm - and its own problems. Contrary to the headlines however Holmes finds that the area has become a little safer, gentrification is to thank. And the zugezogenen artists, musicians and students know the scope to appreciate. As so often fall to the reactionary tendencies in the policy with a heyday in the subcultural edges. And currently brodelt it in the laboratory London.
"Tropical" Holmes, the new "London Sumtin", which is not yet quite described London music scene, to which he belongs. At least, the most obvious Tropical genre label, MySpace offers to the urban mix of World Music, sound system culture and club tracks to nominate - and MySpace shapes the perception of music now, after all, more than any other medium. Since the success of the Indo-British singer MIA go from this scene loose impetus for an exciting pop culture, which in recent years incestuous post-Something of refinements and stiff white guys. From now down to pre-empt the many-permeable and dynamics of the global Pop music - more than Bruce Lee Peter Gabriel. The American Tropicalists have applied for the New York DJ Rupture and a diplo and gathered with their first spawned female star Santogold. From Berlin from attacking the Sick Girls and DJ Daniel Haakmann the Dance Music from the favelas of Brazil and other ghettos below the equator. And the first pieces of technology with traditional African Griots dive from Paris.
But from London this movement is the most momentum, and now the club scene. The producer and DJ team Radioclit, consisting of the Frenchman Etienne Tron and the Swede Johan Karlberg, is the flagship of the tropical London. Your party series "Secousse" in the Notting Hill Arts Club brings Hipster with parts of the African communities. The room is decorated in deep green, jungle sounds open the fresh mix of Angolan Kuduro, Brazilian Baile Funk, Coupe Décalé from the Ivory Coast and savage house-game species. It accompanies the singer Esau Mwamwaya from Malawi at the DJ console, as if he is on the summit of Kilimanjaro would be. For him Radioclit have just produced a whole album. Some say he is as Youssou NDour and can to the African Phil Collins.
It is the modest Alexander Holmes, although he has a noble title, with: "The King of the New Electric Hi-Life". This marked AJ Holmes for possession of even invented hybrid of electronic Lo-fi pop and westafrikanischem High-Life. Grew up as a white Briton in the African-influenced part Ostlondons. Here he learned the guitar in the country style of Sierra Leone to play. Hence, High-Life Music is nothing very exotic for him. If anything Holmes is even a little exotic in the Ghanaian restaurant on the outskirts of the market.
The reverse colonization by Caribbean immigrants and their music has just the Soul Jazz label on the compilation "An England Story" documented. The album will be opened by YT, say, Whitey, a white reggae singer. The latest chapter in the history of England post, also from a re-reversal in the skin colors blur. Quite obviously are also Holmes and Radioclit African music cultures, because it is their life. Similarly, ease of use Dubstep producer Shackleton traces arabesker folk music in its apocalyptic Subbass percussive tracks. Among his role models he counts the Turkish Sazspieler Erkan Ogur and the Pakistani world star Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. And the Afro-British Dubstepper Benga does not have Indian ancestors, so his tabla Excuse convincing.
Goods draft transcultural music in the nineties, community-shaped thoughts, it is now no more ethnic authenticity. Multi-ethnicity has long been a normal and essential part of British society. Freed of national encoded liabilities, the new sounds of London also miefige stereotypes from Patchoulidüften and Bongo drums behind it, to the unfortunate term World Music depend. Since its invention - in London, incidentally - mix and the genre exotisiert various local styles. Since Tropical but sounds the same as hip and trandy 1000€ sneaker models.
Such births can style of Alan Scholefield Honest Jons only tired smile. For decades devoted to his institution from record store and label on the Portobello Road immigrants cultures. Behind the counter are the latest label compilations strung: the remix compilation "Shake Lagos, on the House heroes such as Carl Craig pieces of Afrobeat icon Tony Allen finished, and" Living is hard, "a historic collection of West African music from England 1927 to 1929.
Africa is the fixed star of Tropical, but also the Caribbean and India are still very present in the musical landscape of London. This embodies the Popduo Mattafix the two poles of the colonial heritage: India and the West Indies, the Caribbean islands, of which Columbus thought they were on the other side of the world. The singer Marlon Roudette comes from the Grenadines, his partner and producer Preetesh Hirji is a Londoner of Indian descent. The urban anthem "Big City Life" Mattafix made three years ago across Europe and the multicultural pop stars of England. With the Bhangra scene or the Asian Dub Foundation associate him most, but the skin color, says Hirji. However, in their new single "Things Have Changed 'next major hip-hop beats, pressing reggae bass and Calypso elements wonderfully elegiac Bollywood strings are used.
On the other hand, feels Diamond Duggal by the group Swami still deep in the Indian community rooted. Sun told the Indo-British DJ and producer with pride of how the Indian immigrants in England hochgearbeitet. Today Polish workers perform poorly paid jobs. Also Duggal is a product of the hybrid England: As an adolescent, he was arrested in Birmingham, Reggae virus from the infected Jamaican neighbourhood. With his cousin Apache Indian, he invented the Indo-Caribbean mixed genre Bhangramuffin. Meanwhile, he Popgrößen as Shania Twain and Erasure produced. The name stands for his band "So Who Am I". Identity issues are in clash of styles brought to dance: Bhangra from Punjab applies to the reduction of power plant, Bronx-hip-hop to drum and bass from Brixton. Duggal dreams of an identity, all represented by the best of every culture takes. And nowhere is this utopia just as tangible as in London.
On 22 June Mattafix the bands play, Swami, Oi Va Voi, Ska Cubano and the Soul Jazz Sound System at Broadcasting House Europe Summer Days festival in Cologne, dancing fountains. The slogan reads: "London Crossing"