Tomorrow night, Afrique Sessions continues at Sutra. I’ll be playing again, with a special invited guest performing from Paris, Maimouna Coulibaly. Maimouna wrote, directed, starred in, and choreographed the play I was a part of a couple years ago in San Francisco. She’s back in the states to perform her latest play, and teach dance workshops for a few months again in the Bay Area.

Make sure not to miss this one night New York appearance!

I’m putting this up on youtube, and waiting for it to get taken down…

My African in New York EP (part 2 of this series) will be coming out in August!

I have to say I am very excited that it is time for me to put this up:

Banana Clipz Preview Mega-Mini Mix

I’ve been waiting to do this style of mix for years. The influence from all those Dancehall mixes I absorbed as a youth have been smashed into this 8 minute laser extravaganza. I know that I am probably just as guilty of this as the next person, but I beg you: after downloading this mix, pleeease do not listen on your laptop. Wait until you can experience these tunes on proper speakers with some sort of bass. This music is meant for that.

I met Gavin, aka Oro 11 in early 2008 and we started working on sketches of beats at his house by Lake Merritt. In three years time we have visited up and down the California coast playing gigs, making friends, and collaborating with some great artists, several of who are appearing on this project. This project is in some way the result of all those fun times (and late nights.)

Now that I’m in New York, and these tracks are finally being released unto the world, my nostalgia for the time I spent in the Bay makes them all the more meaningful. I hope you enjoy this preview as much as I enjoyed making it. The final product will be here soon!

Cover Artwork by Lupo Avanti (my roomate!)

In collaboration with the HOMIEZ at Dutty Artz, I am releasing my first collection of remixes as African By The Bay.  The crew did such a nice job of putting this page together I’ll let them take over:

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Dutty Artz is proud to present The African By The Bay EP, an exclusive collection of irresistible remixes from San Francisco/Bay Area producer Chief Boima. The EP is available for free download, and features a healthy dose of Afro dance remixes and instrumental reworkings of songs by Birdman (”Money To Blow” feat. Drake and Lil Wayne), Akon (”Right Now”), The Jacka (”Glamorous Lifestyle” feat. Andre Nickatina), Fabo & T-Pain (”Own Step”)

African By The Bay EP is a potent batch of new stateside rap tunes given the remix treatment by Boima, our favorite African-American (in the Obama sense) producer, whose trail-blazing approach weds percussive patterns from sounds like Ivorian Coupe Decale and Senegalese Mbalax. (Not to mention Angolan Kuduro, Nigerian Club, and South African Kwaito, and his Sierra Leonean Highlife and Palm-Wine refix of Cold Flamez “Miss Me, Kiss Me”.)

African By The Bay (62 megabyte ZIP file), feel free to to download and re-post on your site.

01 Chief Boima – Shake Them Dreads
02 The Jacka – Glamorous Lifestyle feat. Andre Nickatina (Chief Boima Remix)
03 Sean Garrett – Smooches feat. Young Joc (Chief Boima Remix)
04 Birdman – Money To Blow feat. Drake and Lil Wayne (Chief Boima Remix)
05 Akon – Right Now (Nananana) (Chief Boima Mbalax Decale Remix)
06 YV – Own Step feat. T-Pain & Fabo (Chief Boima Remix)
07 Cold Flamez – Miss Me, Kiss Me (Chief Boima Remix)

File Under: Afrobeat, Hip-Hop, Dance & Electronic
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Chief Boima is a DJ, Musician, and Beat Composer on a mission to rep Africa like the World Cup in 2010. Boima is resident DJ at the Bay Area’s number one international club Baobab Village, where he regularly takes San Francisco’s residents around the world with global urban club sounds. Of mixed American and Sierra Leonean Heritage, Chief Boima blends the Hip Hop and Electronic Dance styles he absorbed as a youth growing up in the U.S. Midwest with the Afro Pop lineage passed down from his family.

Very very exciting tings a gwan at the Baobab Village!  Soum Bill, the founder of Les Garagistes, is recording his new album in New York and will be making a stop by San Francisco for a one time performance.  We are so lucky to be able to have him perform here in the Bay Area.  I will be djing alongside the great DJ Polo of Reggae Gold SF, and the other Baobab resident DJ’s.   Come get your Zouglou and Coupe Decale first hand in the mission next Friday December 4th!

Speaking of Ivory Coast, I’m already getting World Cup 2010 fever, and apparently Les Elephants and the Black Stars are both in the possible running for a world cup final appearance.  Time to get my Drogba jersey (sorry Chelsea haters!)  Here is one of my favorite songs from the Ivory Coast:

Coupe Decale at Baobab Village in San Francisco will be this Saturday.  The special guest will be DJ Eddie Stats, writer for Fader Magazine and regular contributor through his Ghetto Palms blog.  He puts out a great mix every week of music from all over the world.  I’m more than excited to have him come contribute some sounds live!

This weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I will be playing a supporting role in Hééé Mariamou, a play/dance performance written by, directed, and starring Maimouna Coulibaly, Malian dancer/actor from Paris.  It will be at the Dance Mission Theater on the corner of 24th and Mission in San Francisco.  There will be lot’s Coupe Decale, Kuduro, Dancehall, Zouk, dancing, singing, and more French Urban sounds, as well as music by Malian legends such as Salif Keita, Oumou Sangare.  The dancing is amazing, and the energy is really live.  She also deals with many issues of African immigrant identity and growing up with a diverse cultural background, ideas that are shared with threads in my own thoughts/work.

Check the video trailer from my previous post, and an excerpt from this article that appeared in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle.

“My little sister, she’s 20 years old now,” Coulibaly says, “and I know that she’s not really sure of what she is exactly (African, French or Afro-French).”

Through “Mariamou,” Coulibaly says she’s hoping to shed some light on the conflicts she and others face. Her performance mixes a play with African urban dance forms, like N’Dombolo (Congo), and other styles of dance, including modern ballet and street jazz.

The piece is Coulibaly’s way of taking the best of both worlds after years of trying to make everybody happy.

“Now,” she says. “I choose to take only the positive things in each culture.”

Perhaps I need a late pass on this one, but I’m loving this sub genre of techno that the kids are calling Minimal. I always troll the DJ download site Discobelle to try and learn about dance mindedness in other parts of the world. Lately I, like others, have been turned off by the sameyness that has been coming out of what has been dubbed the “blog house” scene, and have generally been skipping a lot of the posts up there. Producers are using the same beat patterns, same synth sounds, same vocal samples, which to me always just seem a little too agressive, and not in the orignal Baltimore/Baile Funk kind of way, which I do really enjoy. But, with any style of music if you dig deep enough, you can find gems.

What has got me flipped is a mix by DJ downtown, which I have listened to 5 or 6 times the last couple of days already. There was a mix by Marflix posted on Cyan Wait blogspot a while back that was on repeat during my BART commute for awhile as well. Maybe it’s my German side coming out. Or maybe influence from my days in Midwest record shops absorbing the Techno vibes through the dusty vinyl.

I’m still trying to pinpoint why this music hits me so. A lot of the productions I’ve heard from similar songs perhaps sound too European, too mentally aggressive, too, “I’m gonna come conquer you and take your land and resources.” But this one is laid back, the synths aren’t harsh, they bounce along in familiar African Diasporic rhythms whether intentional or not. Sometimes the arpeggiator sounds like a Louie Armstrong solo, weaving between the bass and drums, making you create rhythmic patterns in your head that aren’t really there. To me, the beauty in Minimalism is in the implication of what is absent. It leaves room for individual interpretation (especially in dance style.)

It seems I’m not the only one having a week of discovery. The generally funny Dr. Prancehall, one of my favorite music writers has reviewed Coupe Decale for the Guardian. In it he expresses some dissatisfaction with the music calling it out of date, and perhaps implying that it was actually too African. I’ve heard similar criticism from another of my favorite writer DJ’s, Dr. Stats, and also from my brother, who when he was a travel agent said that the number one complaint tourists to Jamaica had, was dealing with Jamaicans. Initially I react negatively to these sorts of criticisms, but now I’m welcoming them. A friend told me recently that I “have Africa on the brain… next time I come visit you your going to be in the African bush somewhere in a village telling people to not wear Western clothes.”

I’m not completely traditional minded, I actually think of myself as a modern forward thinking progressive. I believe in mixing the roots with the technological advance. So as evidence of my kind of past/future minded thinking, I would like to link to some tracks I did, which are now available for download at WFMU, (shout to Dylan and Rupture.) They have featured me in their free music archive in a profile about wha gwan in SF bay area. Check the track Techno Rumba, a sign of my African-German roots.

And here is a video of someone practicing a minimal set I found an the tube:

Kuduromatic put up a song with rhythms, melodies, and vocal stylings that sound to me like Angolans being influenced by West African Hiplife, Coupe Decale or Zouglou. Perhaps it’s a nod to Congolese Soukous, the name Langa Langa recalling my favorite Soukous group Zaiko Langa Langa.

DJ Papi Chulo and Alidjuma-Langa Langa

Maybe I’m wrong about that, and this is purely Angolan, but I picture in my head someone in Angola listening at a distance to a song from a place they’ve never been and being influenced enough to try to replicate that with their own musical dialect. It excites me to think that the rhythms and understanding would come naturally in this trans-national musical conversation.

I grew up within earshot of mid-nineties Chicago, Dance Mania’s heyday. I didn’t know what the songs were that made their way into radio DJ sets and middle school dance parties alongside songs from Luke, Tag Team, or perhaps Quad City DJ’s. I more remember the sex education I received from watching my schoolmates dance. I fondly recall one “hip hop” party where the kids were freaking to Underworld.

At family parties I danced to music from far away places like Trinidad, The Congo and Cameroon.

Kuduro, for me, mixes the family party rhythm, with the middle school party attitude. A message of understanding from Africa.

A friend told me the other day, “your ancestors are talking to you.”

Maybe they’re just mediating the conversations I have with other people.

Rubens: Woman of Apocalypse

People say that 2012 will be a year of transformation. Scientists are trying to create Black Holes to answer some questions about where we come from that have the potential to send us back there. We’ve created monster hurricanes that have shown the worst in our own humanity and our leaders’. Ivorians made a song and dance about Bird Flu. Everyone seems to be scared of Sarah Palin.

The end of the world has been our minds since we got on it. These guys made a song, and I remixed it:

Go Ballistic (Chief Boima Ivorian Bird Flu Epidemic Remix)-Ghislain Poirier feat. MC Zulu