Ya’ll Keep Trying to Name Stuff, Okay?
A through line could be tied from West Africa to the Caribbean to Canada and Critics are falling over themselves to codify each scene.
We been creating music, and someone else has been right behind us naming what we create. Check your Googles, a large majority of the so-called Jazz artist hated that term, even one of the most popular of them, Miles Davis.
In the days of the Big Bands, after shows, a few members would break off and play juke joints. The band would employ a singer and the music would be upbeat. People named it Jump Blues. Also breaking away from these Big Bands, were young artist testing out playing chord progressions at breakneck speeds. People named that Bop.
Gospel singers sang secular music. People named it Soul. So on and so forth. More recently, fifteen years ago recent, Wiley changed the Garage sound up a bit — he called it Eskibeat. People called it Grime. Now people are looking for a name for the new sound coming out of the UK. Afro…this, Afro that, I think the most recent term I saw was Afro-Bashment.
But I posit that that linear view is preventing these codifiers from seeing the bigger picture. And what is that bigger picture? Silently, quietly, West Africans and those descended from there have been having an unspoken musical dialogue that’s resulted in an almost universal music. We gonna talk about it, then leave you with a little sumn at the end, alright?
This is what got my attention.
It’s no secret. I been following Grime for awhile and generally, I need my Grime to be in that 140bpm range with a decent amount of electrical bleeps and what not, something similar to, but not the same as those original Eskibeats. Grime songs that don’t sound like that, I don’t normally gravitate to.
But I do pay attention to what people are listening to. J Hus with that song “Dem Boy Paigon” didn’t go unnoticed and more recently I watched them YouTube numbers inch past the millions on Mist’s “Ain’t The Same,” just weeks after it was posted. And those songs were cool…just not Grime.
Then I saw a Tweet in the wee hours of the morning with someone talking about “a movement” has been brewing and that J Hus’ song is one among many. Again, I knew the songs so I was wondering what movement are they talking about?
The way these writers described it was this “new” music was a blend of Afrobeat, Bashment, & Rap. There was an article earlier in March of last year that said the same thing. So what. The difference was…now they had a name for it…Afro Bashment.
This was the music, according to these writers, that was more street than the music made by an artist of Fuse ODG’s calibar. But we not just gonna skip over Fuse ODG because his story and the environment that his music created is key to this so-called “new” scene; the same way that 2 Step was key to the Hard Garage that would lead to Grime.
“African Booty Scratcher!”
That was a ghetto insult that would be hurled around for most of my elementary years. It was never cool to be called African. To actually BE from Africa…whew. Skep Fuse ODG says as much:
When I was growing up it wasn’t cool to be African; the image was always this sick kid with flies round their mouth. I want to change that perception. Fuse ODG
That was part of his motivation for infusing his music with the sounds of the popular music of Ghana and Nigeria which he says he had been doing since 2011. But his music didn’t take off until after a trip to Ghana. Fuse saw the Azonto dance there and upon his return to the UK in ‘13, made it a point to introduce the dance with the aptly titled song, “Azonto.”
If you follow music from England, it was impossible to not be smacked in the face with the popularity of “Azonto” or the follow-up “Antenna” (which I still can’t stomach). But those songs were hits. And you know what hits produce — imitators, which may be a strong word, at least strong sounding.
But I use that word in the true sense of the word. Britain is full of descendants of the countries that it colonized and enslaved. The African presence is as heavy as the West Indian presence. But now the African had a champion…and a champion sound. So J Hus? He likely would have never thought to…or had the courage to infuse his music with the sounds of West Africa, were it not for the sweeping success of Fuse ODG.
I’m not going to go into all the different ways I find music. That would be sacrilege. But suffice it to say, that before Qatar investors made PSG a powerhouse with no equal in Ligue 1, I was a fan. I’m talking mid-table PSG. Before Ronaldinho wore the 21. Around the time when Anelka was returning after crashing out at Real Madrid.
By 2015 though, PSG was a team competing in the Champions League — a big deal in European Futbol — and around November I came across a video with this brother rocking this fly PSG jacket, rapping, with music similar to some of the stuff coming out of London. I added the song to one of my “World” playlists and earmarked the artist, ‘MHD.’ Gradur and Maître Gims, also made similar music, but MHD stood out to me.
Then this past summer he dropped “A Kele NTA,” a feel good song (the title translates to “My Brother Just Choose Her”) and accompanying video. The success of that song propelled his self-titled debut album MHD to Number 2 on the French charts and “A Kele NTA” had enough lasting power that it found its way into my Facebook feed..a highly informed music geek feed, but an American Facebook feed all the same…in December.
But how do all of these songs and sounds tie together?
From the Yellowman days up into the Sean Paul ones, I was a halfway regular follower of Dancehall, especially my first years of college when Shabba and Supercat reigned supreme. This is the music also dubbed Bashment.
Then shit started to change. The music became more electronic based, less bass-driven and the auto-tune invasion took over the nation of Jamaica in much the same way it swept through popular music in the US.
We went into the rise of Autotune a bit here and I also discussed how I had my Saul to Paul moment which allowed me to better appreciate the Sad Robot Music for which Kid Cudi is still the king and Travis Scott is the Prince in waiting.
Having those scales removed has made me better able to appreciate the Autotuned voice. As I mentioned about Brit artists, the same applies for modern Dancehall. Artists like Popcaan & Alkaline are impossible to escape. When we started the Sneak Attack Saturday Morning Mix back up, it was nothing to mix the modern Dancehall with an OVO artist like Partynextdoor or Roy Woods.
But seeing that Tweet made it all CLICK.
The Autotune that I had been deriding for years was a tool that artists were using from West Africa to the UK to France to Jamaica to Canada. Further, the rhythms, when they were not modeled on Atlanta Trap, tended to all lean to a sound that could fit anywhere in between Reggaeton, Soca, Afrobeats, & Garage. Despite the electronically produced music and voice altering, the West African DNA still outweighs everything.
I spent a day watching FA Cup matches, NFL Wildcard Football, and listening to music from all the above mentioned areas. Ten hours later I made a playlist and it was confirmed — you can try to name the music in England or France or wherever — it’s still going to be one thing, Black music. And when I say Black I mean the Black that I talked about in Cultural Identity as an Agent for Change . The Black that Kwame Nkrumah and Malcolm X bonded on. The Black that once sought to unite all of Africa and it’s Diaspora.
So keep on naming things. We’ll keep on creating.
Now that you’ve read through all of that, give us a listen:
