I won’t write too much more about the topic since the paper itself is pretty long (and honestly I’ve done a lot to sum it up already!), but I do hope you get a chance to read it. Feel free to send me feedback!

Download the paper here:

This was a cool/fun thing to do. The homie Aaron Leaf asked me about my favorite African restaurant in Brooklyn, and then we recorded a podcast interview there about African food in New York.

I’ve taken the liberty to post the text below, but go here to hear the podcast: Food in 2 Worlds™ Podcast: Sub-Saharan Brooklyn Offers the Flavors of Africa

Shout out to all the people I’ve brought to this place to try my favorite plasas in Brooklyn!

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As more Africans settle in New York, authentic African food is increasingly becoming available. In Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvestant neighborhood, the area’s large Senegalese, Malian and Guinean populations head to the aptly named African Cuisine Restaurant to get an inexpensive taste of home.

Chief Boima, aka Boima Tucker, was born and raised in the US and is Sierra Leonean by heritage. African Cuisine Restaurant is his favorite. In fact, he moved just around the corner so he could be nearby.

“The connection to home,” he says, ”is through music and food. I don’t really speak Krio that well so growing up that, and clothes, were the things I most identified with Sierra Leone.”

“That mosque has been integral to the neighborhood…” says Boima. “It’s really become a Muslim neighborhood. You’ve got Egyptians, Yemenis, West Africans, African Americans. Everyone congregates around this area because of the efforts of that mosque.”

At the restaurant we met Aziz, a Senegalese immigrant who works in Manhattan as a cook in a French restaurant. Despite living uptown he comes to Brooklyn every week to eat at African Cuisine Restaurant.

“I come here every Sunday when I take my day off” he said.

At work Aziz will cook filet mignon and potatoes gratin but he prefers African food. His favorite dish is thieboudienne. It’s similar to the popular Nigerian dish Jollof Rice.

To get to African Cuisine Restaurant, take the C Train to Franklin and Fulton. There are various African video and music shops, grocery stores and even a Fula speakers association. If you head west on Fulton street into Fort Green/ Clinton Hill there’s a place called Buka that serves excellent Nigerian specialties.

Many nearby groceries carry both African and West Indian products. There are also a handful of Halal meat butchers and stores selling West African fashions.

Fi2W is supported by the David and Katherine Moore Family Foundation and the Ralph E. Odgen Foundation.

It’s also my birthday at midnight, so a little extra celebration will be in order!

For our final chapter of the Dutty Artz February Mixtape Mondays (check previous mixes by DJ /rupture & Sonido Martines, DJ Ushka, and DJ Ripley), my brother Geko Jones and I decided to chime in with a collaborative submission.

For several years, Geko and I have been following and rearranging the lines that connect Africa and Latin America through our musical explorations. This mix, which touches on Champeta, Semba, Ndombolo, Morna, House, Kuduro, and neo-Highlife, is our latest take on the contemporary African manifestations of Latin music.

Geko has been mixing up Afro-Colombian folk with Kuduro at his Latin music themed Que Bajo parties since its inception. Recognizing in each other an affinity for cultural mixing and boundary exploration, he and I became would quickly become close friends. Lately, I’ve noticed he’s been incorporating a wider range of contemporary sounds like Nigerian pop, Semba, and African House into his sets, adding a very interesting contemporary trans-continental feel to the party.

For me, the American influence on African music has always been at the center of my musical interests, especially styles from Latin America and the Caribbean. Congolese Soukous (Rumba) was the soundtrack of my childhood, and the unique Sierra Leonean blend of Highlife, Calypso, and Soukous played a central role in the formation of my musical identity. Add that to the fact that I’m fluent in Spanish and have always been attracted to the African elements in Latin American music, it’s no surprise that the music from actual Latin African countries like Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Equatorial  and Mozambique has come to figure centrally in my Black-Atlantic musical identity and output.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

Africa Latina Tracklist

01 Carlos Lamartine – Ene Ando Builée
02 Ali Kiba – Dushelele
03 DJ Mackboogaloo – OK Rumba-Ton
04 Africaneando – El Priki del Vacile
05 Boddhi Satva feat. Zé Pequenio & Heritier – Elengi (Main)
06 Dj Capiro & Francis Boy Feat. Sana – Icotoca
07 Filipe Narciso & Djeff – O Semba (Djeff Mix)
08 Bonga – Somos Irmaos (DJ Znobia Remix)
09 DJ N.K. feat. D.Pink – Lhe Estraga
10 Silyvi & Afrikan Roots feat. Bebucho Q kuia – Akuluwo
11 Cesária Évora – Cinturão Tem Male (Renato Xtrova Reconstruction Main Mix)
12 Don Kikas – Melaco
13 Os Bongos – Kazucuta
14 Plastikman – Spastik (NewLife’s NuSamba Mix)
15 Lura – Narina (Beatmax & Daferwa Edit)
16 Di Delas – Meus Amigos
17 DJ Lecture – She No Want Me
18 Larry Achiampong – Palm Wine
19 Wizboy feat. Slim Brown – Infinity
20 M-Kaze – Change (Situation)
21 M-Kaze – I Bin No Know
22 DJ Lecture – Good Loving
23 Olu Maintain – Nawti

The Moner Alo EP by Brooklyn Shanti will be released February 19th on Dutty Artz.

Moner Alo translates as “the light of my heart” in Bangla, the indigenous language of Kolkata, India and Bangladesh. New York-based Bengali artist, Brooklyn Shanti, found inspiration for the song while speaking with fellow artist, Anoura, about the state of his heart. During the conversation the track Talking Drum, by Banana Clipz (Chief Boima and Oro 11), played on Anouraʼs playlist and Shanti started wrting to it. The atmospheric instrumental became a heart-felt Bangla and Spanish duet. Upon hearing Shanti and Anoura’s version, Chief Boima signed it to Brooklyn-based Dutty Artz, for worldwide release. The EP release features remixes by A.R. Rahman protégé, Ashwin “AKS” Subramanian and Austin,Texas based DJ/Producer, Sonora of the Peligrosa Crew.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day Brooklyn Shanti got the video together for the song:

While we were broadcasting, you can hear traces of Manchester City fans clashing with Ajax fans in the streets, and getting chased by riot cops on horses. Amsterdam retains its reputation as a crazy place! Check out the show here, and stream it below:

OPEN ARTI — a project by Zero and Vodafone — run for the whole month of May 2012 at La Triennale museum in Milan. Simone Bertuzzi/Palm Wine co-curated it with Andrea Lissoni, program and general info can be found on OPEN website and on older Palm Wine posts (here and here).

Chief Boima opened the dances during the first three days, playing three sets in a row from May 2nd to May 4th, sifting out three different eras of African and African diaspora music: Soukous and Highlife from the 70s and 80s on the first night, Coupe Decale, Ndombolo, African Hip Hop and Reggae from the 90s and 00s on the second, and finally Azonto, Logobi and contemporary African hip hop on the last night.

This digital release is the live recording of these three sets of approximately one hour each. Enjoy and spread it!

Go to the Palm Wine Blog to see the tracklist and accompanying videos, and click on the dropbox link above to download the whole mixes to put on them on yer iPods.

Also, I’ll be back in Milan this Thursday night! I’m playing at an art gallery, and then will be at a club later on in the night.

This is a somewhat late promo mix for my current US/Europe tour. It started out traversing the East Coast of North America with Sorie Kondi in DC, Philly, and New York. A stop over in Toronto, and then over to Europe. I’ll be in Germany and Italy this weekend!

Here is the full list of dates:

Washington DC 4/10
Philly 6/10
Toronto 12/10
New York 13/10
Thessaloniki 18/10 (Womex)
Utrecht 26/10 (Impakt Festival)
Tubingen 2/11
Milan 15/11
Koln 16/11
Dortmund 17/11

Check my events page, Twitter, or Facebook for more specifics.

Tendai Maraire of Shabazz Palaces asked me to do a promo mix for his album Chimurenga Renaissance, and here it is! I really dig the beats from Shabazz Palaces and am really inspired by Tendai’s use of the Mbira, fusing forward-thinking Hip Hop beats with a tradition rooted in Shona culture (you have to see them live!). When he gave me a call one evening about this project, I jumped at the chance to do it.

When I try to do mixes I always try to base them around a central theme or concept. This one proved a challenge for me since I don’t know as much about Southern Africa as I do West Africa. But I do know that music and a contentious politics from Mozambique to South Africa to Zimbabwe to Angola are intimately intertwined in a history of struggle against colonial rule and state-based violence. So, being an outsider to all that, all I could do was try to connect the dots across national boundaries to show how the cultures (and by extension the struggles) of Southern Africans are very much intertwined.

I dug into my record collection to find a bunch of Mbira related songs from across Southern Africa including Bonga (Angola), the Kasai All Stars (Congo), and DJ Sbu (South Africa). Of course there are plenty of Zimbabwean tracks from the likes of Thomas Mapfumo, and the mix even includes a track from an album I happened to have of Tendai’s father, Dumi Maraire! Lastly I just included some of my favorite songs, like the ones from Khaled and Yossou N’Dour, that I thought fit well with Tendai’s original productions, which he in turn remixed to amazing results! I hope you enjoy what will hopefully be the beginnings of an exciting partnership!