IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR: FREEDOM FAMILY

Academy Records and Frank from Voodoo Funk are back with another heavy slab o' West African Funk. Freedom Family hailed from Ghana, where they spent a number of years as the backing band for Geraldo Pino. The time they spent backing Pino shines through, as the group is super tight. Guitar, funky drums and Hammond organ dominate the record - it's Street tough Afro Funk all the way. Record includes a cool booklet with notes by notes by singer Albert Jones. Also come with download card.

'Lil taste? Sure.... Dig it!

BUY IT HERE

NEW CURUMIN ON WAX!

The new Curumin album (his third) entitled 'Arrocha' will be released by Vinyl Land on April 18th. A limited run of 500 copies are available for pre-order now: BUY IT NOW! In the meantime, check out a cut from the record.... LISTEN

SONIC DIASPORA + COUP D'ETAT RISING

Invite the familia!

Chicago Nu Latin DJ ITZI NALLAH and Afrobeat specialist AFROQBANO of the Peoples DJs Collective team up with ITCH13 of Gramaphone Records to bring one of Chicago’s hottest African underground dance parties to it’s rightful place - the Shrine in Chicago.

The Shrine, a bumpin' African-inspired club-lounge combo in the South Loop, may be known for it’s high-caliber Hip hop nights, but its Coup d’Etat room, where SONIC DIASPORA will be Friday, January 13, is the perfect venue where Fela Kuti will proudly look on as Chicagoans desegregate the dance floor with tunes from Mali & Ghana to Nigeria & the Cape of Good Hope.

We all know Chicago is home to House Music, but have we connected with its home in Africa? Chitown, have you heard or been looking for the best in Kuduro, Kwaito, Soukous, Afrobeat, AfroLatin House, Nu Dancehall & Global Bass?

According to the Zhaoist Manifesto by way of Berlin’s Zhao, “if one traces the history of 20th Century North American pop and dance music, a crude and very abbreviated but basically sound genealogy describes a line going back to Disco, to Soul, to Funk, to Motown, to Gospel, to Blues, to Jazz, to work songs of the slaves, and indeed, to Africa.”

This isn’t your normal world music party.

Sonic Diaspora DJs & hosts Tifflove & the Wolfpack promise to groove you to high-energy classic & urban music of Africa and the Diaspora and indeed to invoke the magic of the original drum and the boom of a bangin’ sound system for your booty-shaking enlightenment.

This party will also be the Chicago release for our guy Brotha Onaci's OkayAfrica.com Sonic Diaspora Mixtape- have a listen! He'll be guesting with us in upcoming months.

//http://www.okayafrica.com/2011/11/29/africa-in-your-earbuds-7-brotha-onaci/

Save the night. Every 2nd Friday.

//SONIC Diaspora @ Coup d'Etat (next to The Shrine)
2109 S. Wabash, Chicago IL
No Cover, 21+, Space is Accessible
Red Line at Cermak/Chinatown
$6 Drink Specials
Mention SONIC DIASPORA at the door

//JEWELRY BY:
Roots of Life Designs

//PHOTOGRAPHY BY:
theCrapper.net

//SPONSORED BY:
www.Haveplentymusic.com (NAMIBIA)
www.ThisIsAfrica.me (EUROPE, AFRICA)
www.Gozamos.com (CHICAGO)
www.facebook.com/PeoplesDJs (CHICAGO)

Ilé - WINTER BLESSINGS - w/ DJ Ron Trent ~ FRI DEC 2

Ron Trent returns with another edition of Ilé on Friday, December 2!!! This is the party strictly for the dancers. Follow the drums from the past and into the future....!

****

We come together and collectively celebrate love, passion and dance through music. Afrobeat is the center, but we rebel in diversified rhythms and melodies - no genres necessary!

Winters Blessings as we refresh for the New Year!
ILÉ brings you another installment of music and praise.

Your offering is your energy!! Get involved!!

Hosted by: Boogie, Gus, Kristen, Sean & Christopher
Sound design by: Mark Bell

Dig the new promo video for this month's offering...

BOBBITO @ COUP D'ETAT - FRI OCT 18

The one and only Cucumber Slice, Cool Bob Love er, BOBBITO takes over the decks this Friday. A NYC icon, the man is a legend in the game. His long running radio show with Stretch Armstrong is enough to put him in the Hip Hop hall of fame, but that is only a bit of his bio. DJ, singer, producer, semi-pro basketball player, writer, editor, photographer, sneaker designer, you name it - Bob does it. But Bobbito on the decks, is what he does best. Get ready to take a trip....
Man has deeeeeeeeeeep crates. Can't hardly wait.

Friday, Nov 18, 9pm. With The Voodoo Killer DJ NewLife

NOUVEAU AFRO - LES FRERES SMITH

A massive Afro Funk combo from the contemporary Paris scene – stepping out here on a wicked debut LP! Paris has certainly been home to some great Afro-styled groups over the years – and Les Freres Smith can definitely count themselves among the best – as they play here with a rock-solid set of rhythms that really take us back to 70s Lagos, but also inflect things with a nice dose of Ethiopian influences as well! The horns are especially great – and the Smith Brothers play some killer tenor, alto, and baritone that really stands out from other groups of this nature – blowing with a hell of a lot of feeling, and hitting these wild raspy notes that really deepen the sound of the whole set. There's only a bit of vocals – on two of the tunes – and Tony Allen guests on one track too.

NEED A TASTE?

OUI OUI!

Lifted from Dustygroove

Felabration 3 @ The Shrine with DJ Ron Trent

The Shrine is once again hosting FELABRATION! The party, a celebration of the life and music of Fela Kuti, will feature Chicago's very own Ron Trent on the decks.

RSVP now via www.THESHRINECHICAGO.com

HYPNOTIC BRASS: BULLETPROOF BRASS! LIVE: THUR AUG 25

Can't hardly wait! Going to be a mind blowing show. The Chicago Return of Hypnotic Brass. Let's hope that the eldest member of the family, Phil Cohran, takes the stage with his sons. You can draw a straight line from Sun Ra and members Earth Wind and Fire, alongside Cohran, to the Hypnotic Brass both literally and biologically, as well as spiritually. They are completing work on a new album with Flea and Tony Allen among others. They have been touring and recording all over the world since leaving Chicago nearly five years ago.

BUY TICKETS NOW: CLICK HERE

Bulletproof Brass in the NYC subway...



Check out Phil Cohran in 1968 - with electric kalimba that EWF picked up on

STONEFACE & LIFE EVERLASTING (on 45!)

Rare Afro psych funk from Nigeria – the one-and-only single ever cut by Stoneface & Life Everlasting as a group, even though the members are largely made up of Nigerian scene veterans – an incredible 45! "Love Is Free" is totally killer. It's got some raw electric guitar and funky percussion, blending Afro Funk and global psychedelia in a way that's really not a whole lot like anything we've heard before. The electric guitar helps kick this one into the stratosphere, and the gritty vocals are great, too. "Agawalam Mba" on the flip might be even more amazing, with this rumbing funky bottom end that serves an insistent guitar groove – but the growly lead and group shout backup vocals drive it just as heavily. Amazing stuff – one of the greatest records yet reintroduced via Academy & Voodoo Funk – even if it is just a 45! (Limited to 1000 copies. Bound to disappear quickly, too. . . don't sleep on this one!)

Lifted from DUSTYGROOVE

CHOCQUIBTOWN @ THE SHRINE! THURSDAY, JULY 7

Chocquibtown are coming to The Shrine! The Hip Hop/Afro/Salsa/ Roots crew from Colombia will bring the fuego! With DJs David Chavez and Leo Suarez.

ON SALE NOW! CLICK HERE TO BUY

Nigeria 70 Vol 3 – Sweet Times

Sweet Times, indeed – Strut Records returns for another truly great volume in their Nigeria 70 series – this one covering the highlife, juju and Afro Funk music of Lagos in the 1970s – stellar material that has never been issued outside of Nigeria before now! There's a pretty diverse cross section of the sounds coming from the region at the time – from upbeat funky Afro Soul to psyche-infused guitar and percussion jams, jazzier instrumentation and impassioned vocals – most crucially, fusions of jazz, funk, soul, juju and highlife. Wonderful, wonderful material that stands proudly with the other great entries in the series.

Huge fan of this series. Volume One fetches some dough on vinyl these days.... Not givin' up my copy though! Nice to see the folks from Strut are back up and running and once again bringing the goods to the headz!

Lifted from DUSTYGROOVE Buy it there!

RICH MEDINA @ THE SHRINE: FRIDAY 2.11.11

Rich Medina will bring Afro Heat to The Shrine this Friday night! Want more?! How about FREE before 11:30pm w/ RSVP



MASTER OF THE MIX

MJFELA.COM

K FRIMPONG RE-ISSUED ON WAX!

Very funky + very psychedelic Ghanian highife master K Frimpong had a couple of the hottest cuts on the Ghana Soundz complilations. His picture even graces the cover of volume 2. So the headz should be rejoicing that someone finally got around to re-issuing an entire LP. The album, from 1977, has Frimpong backed by his Cubano Fiestas, which is the same as his Vis-a-Vis group. Ill brew of highlife, funk and soul with space-y psych touches via some seriously cosmic electric keys. Totally essential. Save yourself a few hundred bucks, too. Of course the original would be nice too though....

IVORY COAST SOUL

"Massive music we've never heard before – a really heavy helping of grooves from the Ivory Coast – an African scene that's hardly been tapped by crate diggers and collectors! There's a really fresh feel to the grooves overall – not just the familiar Afro Funk modes, but a nice range of styles that moves between rootsy local numbers through some great crossover styles, through even a few of the African Disco modes that are better known from other scenes! The tracks here are all massively funky – scoured out over the course of a number of different crate-digging trips to the coast – and the package presents the music with great images of the original record covers, too – so that you can still retain some of the feel of the rarity of the work, even though the collection presents things in an easy to handle format. Definitely one for fans of Soundway and Analogue Africa titles..."

Straight from Dusty Groove

WOIMA COLLECTIVE - BACK TO THE FUTURE

The Brass unit from Germany's Poets of Rhythm bring the Ethio-funk on this recent release entitled, Tezeta. Clearly inspired by Mulatu Astatke, the band takes its cue from the golden age of Ethiopian music. Spacey organ, reeds o' plenty, snapping drums, low end bass all create some seriously snaking grooves.

Listen to some samples: KINDRED SPIRITS

AFRO BEAT AIRWAYS (GHANA & TOGO 1972-1979)

Another great release from our friend Samy Ben Redjeb, founder and musical guru of Analog Africa from Frankfurt, Germany. Samy DJ'ed here in Chicago in 2008 with the crew from Afrodesia at Sonotheque for the World Music Festival. Samy had just released the 'Africa Scream' compilation and he brought with him a crate of rare 45s from Africa and South America that I've never had seen before and proceeded to pack the dance floor.

This time he's releasing a group of ultra-rare tracks of raw West African funk from the legendary label, Essiebons Records of Accra. Being the ultimate musicologist, Samy documented this hidden aspect of African music through numerous interviews with the surviving artists still around like Ebo Taylor, Nana Ampedu (founder of the mighty African Brothers Band), Issac Yeboah (lead singer of Vis-a-Vis, one of Ghana´s most impressive bands), Gyedu-Blay Ambolley (the personification of Ghanaian Afro-funk), saxophonist Ray Allen and Chester Adams (lead singer of the Uppers International).

So strap on your seatbelt for takeoff on a musical voyage on Afro-Beat Airways toward destinations previously unknown.

BUDOS BAND LIVE IN CALIFORNIA

The Budos Band have been on a tear all summer long, playing countless shows and festivals. The band has become a mighty beast in their live shows, playing chunky afro funk, mystic Mulatu flavoured jazz spaceouts and seemingly anything else they feel like throwing in.... They blew up the spot in Chicago at least three times this summer. They just dropped their third album for Daptone tiltled 3. Where they may lack creativity in naming their albums, the band consistently expands its already rich sonic pallet. Moods and grooves, but waaay deeper than yr. typical retro funk outfit.

Filmed a couple tracks for you aural (and visual) pleasure.