| The cross-cultural appeal of Broken Beat beyond the African Diaspora is perhaps most evident in the musical terrain that Yellowtail negotiates. Over Dragon Stouts and Mojitos with him, it began to make sense why he’d chosen a musical form where boundaries are meant to be broken. The music’s appeal to a global crowd resonates beyond color or pop culture cult followings. Yellowtail’s multinational upbringing in Tokyo and NYC is a perfect fit. Finding his voice in the music is inescapable. After witnessing the superb mimickery of many Japanese artists in regard to Black music, he appreciates that, “There are a lot of vocalists you can work with in NY, which to me, coming from a foreign country, living in the states, is your biggest asset. You have these vocalists that people everywhere else try to imitate.” However, he’s searching for the real. After hearing a Yellowtail track that he and Probe are collaborating on, it’s clear that his unique multi-continental vibe is all over it. Other than Subs & Kiva, I met all of these explorers of sound at a party started by Andrew Edward Brown, Building Bridges, a follow-up to his parties with King Britt thrown at Apartment/NYC. Mr. Brown goes by many names – as a half of: Champion Soul; Afropsychopathz (w/ Rob Scott); Black by Birth (w/ Jaymz Nylon); and, as a solo artist under AEB. Across the board all of Brown’s peers named him as one of their most regarded colleagues on the scene in NYC. With his partner Malik, Champion Soul produced the largest multinational hits out of NYC’s Broken scene thus far including, Wha Cha Got, and more recently, Do it Right w/ Jaymz Nylon. Although external success is a goal that Brown works at diligently, his internal motivation comes from some place deep inside unfettered by material existence, “I actually love to make music. I get a high off of starting something from nothing and making a beat or drum kit and afterwards hearing what happens to it…it’s such a special feeling when you start something from your soul or your mind and then translate it into musical production.” On the commercial viability of the music, Brown and Malik have different views. Malik’s take, “It will probably remain a sub-culture in the US because the combination of sounds comes from a certain culture…out of England even though it is based on American music. It’s going to be more influential to the musicians than the masses.” On the flip side, Brown’s view, “How you sell it? Understand where it comes from. The American audience is not as stupid as people think. America has different issues than people in the UK. Music is music. If you deal with someone who has an open mind musically [i.e. and artist like Ludacris], it’s very possible it could take off, but not in the way it did in the UK.” Jaymz Nylon, a Brown collaborator, has a straightforward take on the commercial viability of the music, “If white boys make more of it, it will be really successful in America.” Nylon is a pioneer with a long discography, his own label - Nylon Recordings, and a musical style that spans multiple genres. On making music he says, “I work off of imperfection instead of trying to achieve perfection. With computers anyone can be perfect. I leave the ‘wrong’ notes in because it’s human.” Nylon may actually be living “freedom” – creatively and materially - more than any of us. Although he struggles with the emotional weight that makes a lot of artists artists, he appears to embrace it for better or worse. A world traveler in life and in his dreams, where most of his ideas comes from, Nylon’s take on the “Broken Beat” style, “It’s not a question of being into a genre of any sort. It’s just when I wake up I can’t control what comes out when I make music.” On the flip side, for DJ Subs it’s all about control. Control on the decks and of his massive obsession with Broken Beat. You can count on his mix cds combining the latest joints from home with what’s clackin’ in the streets of West London. Sited by NYC peers as one of the top DJ’s on the scene in terms of skills, Subs will even tell you, off the record, he’d blow out any London Broken Beat DJ. His love for the sound is primarily because, “It’s positive music. Right now hip-hop is some real silly sh*t. It’s a joke like Jerry Springer.” Subs’ competitive drive is reflected in his feeling about his beginning forays into production work, “My sounds gotta be different. It’s got to reflect me. It can’t just be the same thing. That doesn’t do anything for the music. A bunch of people sounding like one person, that doesn’t push the music.” Overall, there’s love and respect on many levels in this sound called “broken”. In the words of Kiva, “I have felt for a long time that each new rhythm opens up a corner of consciousness that was not activated before. So I feel like the evolution of music coincides with the evolution of the human mind. We have to keep pushing forward it we want to grow mentally as well as spiritually.” As far as I can hear, Broken is where it’s at, at least for right now. |
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| "If hip hop is the boom-bap, Broken Beat is the boom clack, boom clack, boom." - Subs, Brooklyn, NY No doubt for those of us who are looking for mental stimulation beyond the comfort food of current day hip-hop and R&B or safe rock grooves, there is hope - Broken Beat. Born in the Ladbroke Grove area of West London, and fed to drum & bass heads, acid-jazz fans and rare-groove addicts, the genres core audience was born in its own hood. With rhythms built off of trans-atlantic connections including African percussion, jazz, funk, dancehall, and godfathers of future sounds, such as Donald Byrd and Fela, the Broken Beat format leaves infinite room for interpretation as long as the riddim makes your brain work right of center. Fast forward to the US. Broken Beat has been sprouting in San Diego, Philly, Puerto Rico, NYC and beyond. www.brokenbeatradio.com put out of Philly, is a friendly home for the music where newcomers can make a smooth transition into the sound. However, on the NYC street level, the sound waves are much more astrophysically rugged. Underground radio show ELEVATIONS on 90.3 fm/www.whcr.org, hosted by Ernesto and Brett, gives those in the know a taste late night, broadcasting live from Harlem, with international and local guests, such as Mark de Clive Lowe, Bembe Segue, Yellowtail and DJ Subs. Other DJs & producers such as Kiva, Champion Soul (Andrew Brown/Malik), Probe, and Jaymz Nylon are a selection of NYC’s pioneers and future sound stylists. Some are die hard broken beat aficionados, others moonlight in the hip-hop dj/production scene, and a few have developed their own hybrid sound, but all, leave the challenge of painting sound waves in new unexplored forms to their love of all things broken. My formal introduction to Broken Beat came when DJ Subs hit me off on the DL with his limited edition Raw Scrimp mix. Serendipitously, a month before I had met DJ Kiva, exchanged some artistic revelations and got hit off with his latest release Interboro Tectonics featuring singer Anthony Mills. The rotation of Raw Scrimp and Kiva’s joint provided me with intense creative inspiration. Up and coming producer Probe/Spymusic/DMS Country broke that vibe down from his Harlem studio in terms of the evolution of music, “now they are doing it with these drums that are syncopated in this certain way that’s really funky. You’re just like, ok, wait a second, you’ve never really snapped your neck like this before. It’s a whole different type of groove that you’re grooving too now. A lot of people hear it at first and they trip off of it because they can’t hear where the one is at, or just feel it.” Probe’s Harlem production site, a.k.a. the home he shares with wife/co-label owner and son, feels like a space pod where creativity loops and loops and loops. Although, Probe has worked with CL Smooth, has a J-Live B side coming out, and gained some street cred off of a bootlegged mash-up with Amerie in London, he almost surprises himself when he says, “I don’t listen to too much American stuff anymore. For the most part when I’m listening to music, and it wasn’t like this for years, I was straight up listening to regular R&B on the radio, but now that I got a hold of this whole UK scene, I can’t stop listening to it.” I had traveled uptown to talk to Probe and the Elevations radio cats, to see what was happening in Harlem on the broken tip. Whereas Probe kind of fell into the scene when someone heard his music and introduced him to a major London Broken Beat label/distributor, Ernesto and Brett have followed the music since before its birth. They both share an intense respect for the musicianship of the artists as well as a passion for getting the sounds out to the NYC underground. Brett and Ernesto emphasize that the message is in the music. Its fusion of soulful sounds with a positive message and a more complex rhythm create a musical vibe that attracts a certain type of listener. Through radio, Ernesto says his goal is to, “…expose the Harlem community, the uptown community to what I consider - also Black music. You can’t deny that the Black influence is there. It’s a Black music that’s been synthesized with electronic beats and flipped in a way that is danceable and funky.” Out in Brooklyn that black influence is alive and kickin’ in the Bermuda triangle where Bed Stuy, Bushwick and Williamsburg meet. That’s where the super astrophysicist Kiva ponders the stars and develops his own musical hybrid, Stutterstep, daily. He describes his sound as, “Taking the rhythmic structures that I learned from playing Afro-Cuban percussion and then applying it to Break Beat sound. Taking a lot of the same heavy drums and bass that you would hear in jungle or dub-step but flipping them into poly-rhythmic structure, building break beat in non 4-4 time.” In plain English via Subs, “His time stamps are bugged out! It’s some real interesting stuff to listen to.” |
| BROKEN BEAT: NYC by Diana McClure FREE Magazine Issue #6 |
| Copyright 2008 Diana McClure/All Rights Reserved |