Fri 5 August > Pantropical: ATA KAK (Awesome Tapes From Afrika) > Afrobot > Rebel Up’s Duckfood.

Ata Kaka

≈ ATA KAK (GH) | Awesome Tapes From Africa)
Pantropical is super thrilled to introduce the Ghanaian electronic/rap/hiplife–highlife sensation ATA KAK, the man who kick-started the whole Awesome Tapes From Africa phenomenon!
Ata Kak’s cassette “Obaa Sima” was almost completely ignored upon its release in Ghana back in 1994. But when musicologist Brian Shimkovitz stumbled upon the tape at a street stall in Cape Coast, Ghana eight years later, it formed the catalyst for his new venture, the Awesome Tapes from Africa blog. Shimkovitz wrote of Ata Kak’s music in his inaugural post: “This is it. The song is called ‘Moma Yendodo’. You may never hear anything like this elsewhere. No one I know in Ghana listens to this frenetic leftfield rap madness.” The music on the recording – a mix of highlife, Twi-language rap, funk, hip-hop and electronica – traverses a rich and varied (international) pop music landscape, while also reflecting contemporary Ghanaian music of the period. Presented with the sweaty passion of a Prince record and the lo-fi recording charm of early Chicago house music, Obaa Sima’s joyous soul and casual brilliance made the enigmatic Ata Kak an underground internet sensation and a party-starter the world over. After more than a decade of searching Brian finally tracked down the singer.
www.facebook.com/atakak.ghana/
www.awesometapes.com/ata-kak/

Pre&after party will be in the hands of R’dam homeboys:

≈ AFROBOT (nl | Salamanca Label)
Afrobot is an avid collector and versatile selector of all kinds of pantropical craziness. For this one he’ll be slaving away through his crates to dig up some (quote)  and other afrodelic tastes.
soundcloud.com/afrobot

≈ REBEL UP! DUCKFOOD (nl | Rebel Up! Soundclash)

FB event

@ WORM Rotterdam
Boomgaardsstraat 71, 3012 XA Rotterdam

Thu 24 / Fri 25 July > Rebel Up! SebCat in Espana > Valencia & Cartagena (La Mar de Musicas festival)

The next few days, Rebel Up! SebCat will be touring the eastern coast of Spain, yay!
Shoudl you be around there the next days, do come!

desfas tropical

Tomorrow night, Thu 24 July, SebCat will be playing global/tropical beats in Valencia together with Biano (member of Orxata Sound System) @ Desfas Tropical party in Juanita Club. Doors open at 23:00, Facebook event here.

cassette connection

Then on Friday 25 july, Sebcat will be playing at the big La Mar de Musicas festival in Cartagena city centre as part of Cassette Connection, which is the international cassette playing project between Awesome Tapes From Africa, DJ K-Sets & SebCat (aka Maj Tahal). After Belgium/Holland this is only our 2nd tour, so lucky Spain!

We’ll be playing at the old Moorish castle overlooking the city & harbour of Cartagena, after the shows of global bands Les Ambassadeurs, the reunited Malian 70’s band of Salif Keita, Amadou Bogayoko & Cheik Tidiane! And also La Yegros (Argentina), a great honour.  In the deep of night between 2:30 – 4:00 we will be playing a fine selection of cassettes from Africa, Middle East and Indian subcontinent.  It sounds something like this!

Cassette Connection tape mixtape by Rebel Up! on Mixcloud

Hope to see you around!

1st Rebel Up Nightshop radio show *emission 0*

Yo folks,

Our very first radio show session, “emission 0” on Radio Campus Bxl, broadcasted on 11th of january and to be repeated several times during the month. The show was actually recorded in late august and we had to wait a while before it was accepted into the Campus programme schedule. We kick off with 2 songs, followed by a label focus about the Sahel Sounds label that mostly releases current folk & electronic music from the sub Saharan region. Then we played our albums of the month, which were Hailu Mergia (on Awesome Tapes From Africa) and Grand Kallé & l’Orchestre Jazz (on Planet Ilunga), followed by a global style focus on Pandza music from the south of Mozambique, a new electronic Marrabenta Shangaan style. In the nightshop segment we interview local Afghani shop owner Raza Wasiq of the Economat shop on Av Stalingrad and he chooses 2 ‘Hazzari’ songs to play. To end, a freestyle mix of Rebel Up! sounds. download here > http://www.mediafire.com/download/mrt…

Rebel Up Nightshop #0 > Sahel Sounds label, Hailu Mergia, Grand Kalle, Pandza, Afghan Hazari folk by Rebel Up Nightshop on Mixcloud

and a great Amanar live video + interview, thanks to Toni from Radio Groovalicacion

Bamakosmos XVI – Amanar from Toni Polo // Migratory Musics on Vimeo.

Rebel Up! Christmas gift! > A Christmas Special By The King of Juju cassette

Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey

Side A
Odun Keresimesi
Irinse Lojona Obey O Jona
Irin Ajo
Ile Oba To Jo

Side B
Ka So Wo Po
Oro Obi Pelu Iyawo
Oro Oko Pelu Obi
Olatunbosun Banmeke

download zip file here

 

Special holiday greetings from Rebel Up!  as we uploaded a very special vintage cassette for the Awesome Tapes From Africa blog. See the original post here or below.

 

Happy holidays y’all. My best good homie Seb from Brussels (part of the wonderful Rebel Up! outfit) blessed this xmas eve with a crucial Nigerian juju Christmas-themed tape by an Awesome Tapes From Africa favorite guy, check out his description:

 

Ho Ho Ho! Christmas, Nigerian juju style by Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey & His International Brothers: A Christmas Special By The King of Juju! Since the 50’s Ebenezer Obey had been crafting his special juju-highlife sound, which is a mix of Yoruba percussion, talking drums, electric guitars and vocals in Yoruba. Later in his life he only started playing Christian gospel music (a fate which many Nigerian musicians seems to befall from a certain age onwards) and he passed away in 2011 in Lagos university hospital at the age of 67. 

This tape was recorded sometime in the 60’s with his then-band International Brothers. It was a golden find in one of the many Nigerian stalls around London’s Brixton market last spring. Both sides are filled with heavenly sweet jangling guitars, muffled percussion, talking drums and festive Yoruba singing, with some surprise Christmas melodies played as one continuous medley in lo-fi tropical spheres. As the title already said, the chief was the self-proclaimed king of juju and we can only bow down to his legacy. Listen to these funky Christmas waves and have a great one! A special Christmas gift to you all!

 

Fri 5 Apr; Rebel Up! & Gonzo (circus) magazine curate evening w/ Konono No.1 & more @ Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam

wmmf.jpg
 

World Minimal Music Festival 3rd day promo mixtape by Rebel Up! on Mixcloud

Save the date!
This Friday 5 april, Rebel Up! and dutch underground music magazine Gonzo (circus) host a special evening together during the World Minimal Music Festival at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, with a nicely filled lineup of these international live acts & dj’s > > >.

Konono No1 (RDC)
Rough sounds from the urban jungle that is Kinshasa, capital of Congo. Konono N°1 is a family band of tribal Zombo musicians and dancers, active since the 70’s and started by pater familias Mingiedi. Taken on their first dutch tour by our friends The Ex in 2003, which resulted in the live album ‘Lubuaku’ on Terp Records,  their famed ‘Congotronics‘ album on the Crammed label dropped on western audiences like a bomb with rough resonating, electrified thumpiano’s (likembes) and pulsating rhythms by percussive elements made out of scrap iron. Expect no ethnological museum session, but sweetly distorted jungletechno with minimalist transcedental melodies and tribal rhythms that will only make you move. It’s clear that Konono N°1 is a more than worthy headliner on this WMMF evening and they will make the Muziekgebouw. rumble as never before.

Frisk Frugt (DK)
is the experimental pop project by Danish wonder composer Anders Lauge Meldgaard, who after a long trip in Western African got taken by the virus of African melodies and rhythms. In his songs, he combines electronic sounds and samples with kalimba thumb piano, guitars, balafon, drums en saxophone and mashes it together with Danish folk influences, all sung in his Danish mother tongue. His album ‘Dansktoppen møder Burkina Faso i det himmelblå rum hvor solen bor, suite’ was one of the more special albums of 2012, so not to be missed. He will play as a duo, aided by a percussionist. Maximum Afro-pop music on WMMF? Let’s make it work! For those who need to be convinced, read this.

Awesome Tapes From Africa (US)
Our good friend Brian Shimkovitz has played at Rebel Up! before and we’re happy to have him on board again. Since he ever set foot in Africa  in 2006, he has been collecting thousands of music cassettes of rare and local African styles, from Algeria to Zimbabwe and putting them all online as download on his Awesome Tapes blog to share with the whole wide world. Now also a label, he focusses on re-releasing unknown African music for new audiences. Expect a swinging dj session of African cassettes with dance tunes of folk and pop that you probably have never heard before, the lo-fi hiss of the cassette never far away.

High Wolf (FR)
Not just your average drone-act. This Frenchman is inspired by free jazz and Indian and African sounds and is a true globetrotter who mixes musical influences of his many trips into a myriad of sound. Don’t be surprised if you hear an African guitar or a tabla drum sound through the mist of repetitive, hypnotic drones that will bring your mind into another world.

Rebel Up! dj’s
At various moments of the evening, we will play theme sets of varied worldwide selections of ethnographical minimalistic sounds at the beginning up to contemporary global dance sounds at the end of the night. Check our downloadable WMMF mixtape above for a good taste of what you might hear…..

Timetable > > > > >

18:30 – 19:15    Minimal Music Marathon with Rebel Up! dj’s
19:15 – 19:45    Paneldiscussion hosted by Jaïr Tchong w/ Konono No1 & others.
19:45 – 20:15    High Wolf
20:15 – 20:30   Rebel Up! dj’s
20:30 – +/-22:30   Frisk Frugt + Konono no. 1
+/- 22:30 – 23:45    Awesome Tapes From Africa
23:45 – 01:00    After dark DJ set Rebel Up!

All info > festival website

Good to know; if you are under 30 years old, the concerts of Konono No1 & Frisk Frugt in the big room will only cost 10 € instead of 24 €. The rest of the programme is free to enter for all and will take place in the main bar area.
FB event here or also see the Gonzo (circus) website.

 

Cassette Connection Belgium tour 11-12 may; Antwerp, Brussels & 13 may extra set in A´dam

Helloooow,

poster design by Ness Verbeiren

On Friday the 11th o´may, the super special Cassette Connection tour kicks off in Belgium (Antwerp & Brussels) and followed by Amsterdam on Sunday with a limited set by Rebel Up! through the magical Indian tape collection of Sebcat.

Cassette Connection is a pure cassette tour with 3 specialised cassette dj`s playing their collections of colourful lo-fi tapes of (un)popular, vintage and folkloric music from different regions of the world; lo-fi folkpop, ethnic jewels & disco sounds from AFRICA – MIDDLE EAST and the INDIAN SUBCONTINENT.

Awesome Tapes from Africa (US)
After a stint in Ghana researching the local hip-hop movement, Brian Shimkovitz, a trained ethnomusicologist, has accumulated hundreds of cassette tapes of rare african music from Zimbabwe to Ethiopia to Senegal. He has been sharing his bounty through his popular blog Awesome Tapes From Africa, which he takes on the road as a DJ. His dj sets bring old and new music styles of the African continent together in one pure sound that will make you swing till you drop. Awesome Tapes From Africa is now also a label; the first release is a classic 1982 recording by Mali’s legendary diva, Nâ Hawa Doumbia
http://www.awesometapes.com/

DJ Cinnamoon (ES)
Since 2005, the DJ Cinnamoon project has been compiling the best popular music from the Middle East. For this special lo-fi meeting we will enjoy a dense audio-retrospective with original cassettes of Googoosh, Erkin Koray, Omar Souleyman, Haifa Wahbe and many other Turkish, Kurdish, Persian & Arabic extraordinary artists still unreleased for western audiences.
http://www.djcinnamoon.com/
downloadable minimix;
http://www.djcinnamoon.com/MATERIA/TEMPORAL/CC_MIDDLE_EAST_SAMPLES.mp3

Sebcat’s Maj Tahal
Brussels dj Sebcat will open up his mysterious Maj Tahal cassette grotto to unveil many musical gems from allover the Indian subcontinent. Expect a fine selection of folkloric and disco pop from different Indian states, cinema songs from beyond Bollywood, sufi synthpop from Pakistan and digital folklore from the Nepali mountains.
www.mixcloud.com/Rebel_Uppa

DATES

Fri 11 may @ Scheldapen, Antwerp > Layla Raqsa III night with Basketball (CA) and more
fingerfood, cinema and outerworldly music!
fb event; https://www.facebook.com/events/383986991622295/

Sat 12 may @ Recyclart, Brussels > Cassette Connection night with Velotronix band & dj Bongoman
the Recyclart will be transformed into a lo-fi lounge with sofa’s, outerworldly projections and tv’s with youtube video’s!
fb event; https://www.facebook.com/events/286204771468919/

Sun 13 may @ SOTU fest, OCCII, Amsterdam  > supporting US Girls (US) and Hayvanlar Alemi (TR) (without Awesome Tapes From Africa, joint set by Cinnamoon & Sebcat’s Maj Tahal)
fb event; https://www.facebook.com/events/386488968047382/

 

the Cassette Connection tour has been made possible with the support of Gonzo (circus), Recyclart and Scheldapen.

donations & radio session at Urgent.fm

ohlala, thank you all for coming out last saturday, we raised 140€ for Seed Samburu, big up!

last monday our Rebeluppalite dj SebCat did a radio session in the Radio Taxi programme at Urgent FM student radio as part of Rebel Up!/Brussels Up special with buddy dj Leblanc. We arrived 10 minutes late because of a minor car accident. Listen to it here >>>

Radio Taxi 29 August 2011 by Urgent.fm Official