Tag Archives: highlife

6/7 Nov > Rebel Up! weekender with Baba Commandant & the Mandingo Band (Burkina Faso) @ Vooruit, Gent + Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels!

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this weekend a special double concert of Baba Commandant & the Mandingo Band in Belgium; Gent & Brussels! Rebel Up! helps to organise these nights, and will DJ before/after both shows. fun!

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On friday 6 Nov @ De Vooruit in Gent, a sweet lineup with Baba Commandant and also Alsarah & The Nubatones

Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band
are a contemporary group from Burkina Faso. Coming from Bobo-Dioulasso, the group is steeped in the Mandingue musical traditions of their ancestral legacy. The enigmatic lead singer Baba Commandant (Mamadou Sanou) is an original and eccentric character who is well respected in the Burkinabé musical community. A sort of punk Faso Dan Fani activist for traditional Mandingo music, Baba continues to redefine the boundaries between traditional and modern. In 1981, he joined the Koule Dafourou troupe as a dancer. Later, he embarked on his current musical direction as a singer first in Dounia and then in the Afromandingo Band. His current band — when he’s not playing with the now-famous Burkinabé musician Victor Démé — is the Mandingo Band. At present, he is a practitioner of the Afrobeat style, drawing inspiration from the golden era of Nigerian music. Fela Kuti/Africa 70 and King Sunny Adé are big influences, as is the legendary Malian growler Moussa Doumbia. Baba plays the ngoni, the instrument of the Donso (the traditional hunters in this region of Burkina Faso and Mali). His audience comprises multiple generations and strata of Burkinabé society; he accordingly adapts his repertoire to his surroundings, which range from cabaret Sundays in Bobo-Dioulasso to the sound systems of Ouagadougou and are a formidable force steeped in Ouagadougou’s DIY underground musical culture. Juguya is their sound.

Listen to Baba here! >

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Alsarah & The Nubatones
Born in Sudan, Alsarah is a singer, songwriter and ethnomusicologist. She grew up in the capital Khartoum and Taez (Yemen) but since 1994 has called New York her home. The Guardian lauded her as“the new star of Nubian pop”. Together with her band the Nubatones she explores her love for Northern-African and Arabic music from the 60 ‘s & 70’s. Get ready for a heavy taste of eastern instruments, profound melancholic vocals and pentatonic arrangements.

Full info + presale tickets > FB event or Vooruit website.

Then the day after, saturday 7 Nov in Brussels @ Les Ateliers Claus, Baba Commandant will play after Moroccan band Lahcen Akil & the Chaabi Brothers (we saw them in Amsterdam a few weeks back, in one word > mesmerizing!)

lahcen akil

Lahcen Akil and the Chaabi Brothers
Lahcen was born in 1969 in the village of Tamlalte in the Moroccan High Atlas. Influenced by acoustic music and traditional songs, he started music very young. As songwriter, he performed his songs about the beauty of the region. He interprets his songs on a lothar that he made himself, with a wooden handle, a palm soundboard and goatskin. He is regularly accompanied by his brother on percussion.

dj’s Rebel Up! & Hisham Mayet (Sublime Frequencies)
dj & filmmaker Hisham Mayet joins us for a ping pong dj set afterparty, expect african beauties, rough folklore, guitar rock and global pop tunes from this true collector of musical gems!

Full info + presale tickets > FB event here or LAC website

Sat 13 June > Rebel Up! SebCat @ Out Loud night, Beursschouwburg, Bxl w/ Orchestre Du Mont-Plaisant (UK/FR) &Mocambo (BR/BE)

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Hello Brussels!

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This saturday a sweet night at Beursschouwburg together with kunstencenter De Vooruit from Ghent as part of the yearly Out Loud festival.
British afropunk-poppers Zun Zun Egui sadly had to cancel their show, but Rebel Up! helped arranging some fine replacements for them, 2 bands even, yay!

We´re proud to present French-British outfit Orchestre Du Mont-Plaisant and local Brussels & Ghent afro-heroes Mocambo to fill this night with their special global sounds.

Orchestre Du Mont-Plaisant specialises in all global styles with a heavy psychedelic sauce. They bring together world rhythms and moody cinematic moments playing blues and dance pieces, with notable influences from Congolese Soukous, African highlife, Ethiopian jazz, cumbia, séga and a whiff of Middle-East and Turkish Psychedelia to make your head & body spin.


Mocambo will shake you up with their heavy Afro-Brazilian & urban Afrobeat rhythms. It´s the project by rapper Le Tagarel and composer Tartaruga and joined by our own Brussels artist Témé Tan and several other master musicians. Their strong sound takes you from Angola to Brasil in many colours and spheres. Get ready to rumble with this wild band!

Before, between & after global tunes from around the world by Rebel Up! SebCat

and oh yes, IT´S FREE IN!!!!!

Schedule:
22:00 Mocambo
23:00 Orchestre Du Mont-Plaisant
00:00 DJ SebCat

Info, check BSB site here or FB event.

Thu 11 Dec Rebel Up! @ Bonnefooi Bxl w/ Celeste Mariposa (PT)

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Another Rebel Up! dance night at Bonnefooi, our last one of the year.
Wanna dance?

celeste

Celeste Mariposa is a DJ duo from Lisboa. They started as techno Dj’s but the last couple of years they have become true connoisseurs of music from the ex-portuguese colonies like Angola & Cabo Verde. The last time they played at Bonnefooi it was an amazing set full of uplifting and crazy funana. Really looking forward to this one!
Check this mini mix > > > >

Celeste/Mariposa live act by Celestemariposa on Mixcloud

Your local Dj pirates Rebel Up! will surely help to make this night even more exiting!

as always, FREE IN
from 22:00 till very late…
Steenstraat 9 Rue des Pierres, 1000, BXL

FB event here, or Bonnefooi site

Sat 8 Feb > Rebel Up! Soundclash @ OCCII, A’dam w/ A.J. Holmes (of Hackney Empire, London) & Alex Figueira (Vintage Voudou)

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ahoy folks!

Another Rebel Up! Soundclash night coming up with a sweet line up of afrolicious guests.

aj holmes
East London musician A.J.Holmes is the founding member & singer of The Hackney Empire band, who play a marriage of afro-pop and soukous paired with traditional pop sensibilities as a serious warm vibe. A.J. learned to play African *palm wine* guitar music from Folo Graff who played with Sierra Leonese legend S.E. Rogie (the king of palm wine guitar music) and from that moment on he got totally sucked into African music which also resulted into co-organising the succesfull Secousse club nights of tropical madness in London together with global electronic duo Radioclit (M.I.A., The Very Best, Amadou & Mariam). On this night he will play a solo palm wine guitar set as warmup, followed by a super special set with guitar & dj decks at the same time for a unique approach of his mixed African sound. We can only say; not to be missed! Listen to his mixtape & songs of what to expect.

alex f
dj Alex Figueira, born in Venezuala with Brazilian roots, has a BIG passion for vinyl; he is the co owner of the Vintage Voudou vinyl shop in A’dam, a grand collector of vintage African and Latin vinyls, runs the Music With Soul label and plays in the bands Fumaça Preta & Conjunto Papa Upa. This passionate spinning man will sure make you bounce & swing with his special delicious selections from the tropics. and oh, it’s his birthday party!!!

Support as ever by your interlocal Rebel Up! dj’swith all kinda fruity & spicy global dance tunes.

A night with vintage & latest dance tunes from Africa, Latin America & Carribean by Rebel Up! dj’s, A.J. Holmes & Alex Figueira!

doors: 22:30
6€ in, profits go to charity!
Brazilian NGO Tiaozinho >  a sports project for children and adolescents in one of the Sao Paulo favela’s
http://www.tiaozinho.org.br/

Sat 8 Feb @ OCCII
Amstelveenseweg 134
Amsterdam Oud-Zuid

Sat 28 Dec > FREE african & global party @ Chez Gina/l Astral, BXL

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Party chez gina
FREE PARTY!

eclectic African music all night with Rebel Up! and lots of friends.
*last saturday of the year*, going out with a boom!

see FB event here.

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

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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!