She was born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles in 1938, but her early managers figured Jamesetta would have more allure as Etta James. Though she was anointed the “Matriarch of the Blues”, her honest, expressive vocal style lent itself to various genres, such as rhythm & blues, pop and jazz, and earned her multiple Grammy awards. She opened for the Rolling Stones on several occasions, and was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame.

But Ms James didn’t much care for labels. In “Rage to Survive: the Etta James Story”, an autobiography written with David Ritz, she explained that she resented being classified as a blues singer:

Sure, I can sing the blues all night long. I love the blues. I honor the form. But another part of me knows I can sing country and western just as soulfully. Not to mention hard rock. I hate restrictions. The survivor part of me, though, said take the money. And I did.

Plenty of ink has already been spilt over Ms James’s various ups and downs, professionally and personally, her battles with drug addiction, her fearlessness and unfettered persona. In a 1978 interview with NME she even aligned herself with that era’s punks and rock musicians:

“I was originally like a punker, know what I mean, like the punks are today, I’d spit in a minute. And I notice Mick [Jagger] does that same facial expression that I see, so then I sit in the dressing room and I think it’s really weird how these guys have gotten over.”

That fiery spirit reared its head in early 2009, when Ms James derided Beyoncé for her rendition of “At Last” at Barack Obama’s inauguration ball (despite applauding her version of the song on the “Dream Girls” film soundtrack). “I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song—she’s going to get her ass whupped.”

For a 70-year-old woman to still have some heckling in her indicates a rather clear rage to survive, one that accompanied her until her last days at the Riverside Community Hospital in California, where she died on January 20th, aged 73. (In tribute, Beyoncé referred to Ms James on her own official website as “one of the greatest vocalists of our time. I am so fortunate to have met such a queen.”) The Reverend Al Sharpton is expected to preside over Ms James’s funeral this weekend. Others still will dance to her music, nice and slow if they are lucky.

This story originally appeared at THE ECONOMIST.

photo by blogowitz

Africa Unsigned is an Amsterdam-based start-up music label founded by Pim Betist that promotes African artists. Under Mr Betist’s watch, Africa Unsigned has invested €525,000 (about $725,000) in helping more than 40 artists and bands tour and release albums that represent what they deem the “new African sound,” such as Kenya’s acoustic vocal group Sauti Sol. “I like to call them the East African Boyz II Men,” Mr Betist says.

“The music industry is broken, and we have to fix it,” Mr Betist said. He is confident that can be done. Africa Unsigned relies heavily on a fan-funding platform similar to the one employed by Mr Betist’s previous effort Sellaband.com, which eventually went bankrupt but has since re-launched.

Mr Betist is not the only taste-maker focusing his efforts on Africa. After promoting successful, Grammy award-winning American hip hop and soul artists like The Roots and Erykah Badu for more than a decade, the Brooklyn-based online hip-hop community OkayPlayer now has a sister site called OkayAfrica that promotes African musicians in similar genres. Unlike Africa Unsigned, OkayAfrica is not a standard record label, but it has committed $500,000 to developing an online platform for such artists as Seun and Femi Kuti, K’naan, Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew, and Afrikan Boy.

“We’re looking to break the mold of ‘world music’ and highlight those on the continent really pushing the boundaries and innovating with cutting edge music,” said Ginny Suss, OkayAfrica’s site manager. “Forward-thinking stuff that fuses hip hop, electronic music, and reggae with more traditional sounds.”

Sales fluctuate. K’Naan, for example, sold 70,000 albums in 2009 but dropped to 44,000 in 2010. But his digital album sales rocketed from 233,000 in 2009 to 485,000 in 2010.

A 2010 UN report claims that demand for music and other “creative industry” products has remained stable during the global recession, and global exports of creative goods and services, e.g. music, more than doubled between 2002 and 2008. The report concluded that for developing countries, creative industries could prove to be “one of the most dynamic sectors of world commerce.” Africa is mentioned throughout the report, as is the Creative Africa initiative, a long-term strategy to help the continent benefit economically from its creative talents and cultural heritage.

Earlier this year Wired Magazine described an “entrepreneurial boom” in Africa full of “vast new tech opportunity.” Aware of this, Africa Unsigned makes their music available through mobile phones, whose availabilty and use have soared throughout Africa since the late 1990s.

Last March, at a “Marketing 21st Century Music in Africa” discussion panel at the annual South By Southwest festival (SXSW) in Texas, Ngozi Odita, who lives in New York and describes herself as a curator of comtemporary African culture, argued that music and culture is Africa’s strongest export. As evidence, she cites Kanye West, the award winning hip-hop artist and producer who earlier this year signed Nigerian musicians D’Banj and Don Jazzy to G.O.O.D music, the record label and artist management firm he founded in 2004. Artists on African record labels such as Storm 360 regularly tour Africa and overseas.

Ms Odita, originally from Nigeria, runs the media site Society HAE, a hub for contemporary African culture and music. This summer she organised “Live From the Continent,” an event at the Lincoln Center at which African artists such as South Africa’s Spoek Mathambo performed. She is producing a music showcase of 12 African music acts this spring at SXSW.

“In the 90s, they always said there was a brain drain in Africa. People got their education, and then left the country. Now, people believe they can be successful in their own countries,” she argues. “It’s indicative of the opportunities now available on the continent, and the direction the country is moving in. People have their own vision. There’s been a changing of the guard. Artists are making music, but are conscious of what their role is, wanting Africa to be different than the Africa they have known.”

The full story is at the ECONOMIST

Photo: Nick Klaus

The do-it-yourself tradition of punk-rock fliers are just part of his new book, “Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation”, published by the University of Mississippi Press. The book covers punk’s cultural crossover into graffiti and skateboarding, and includes insight into queer, female and Hispanic punk scenes.

To promote the book, Mr Ensminger organised a travelling exhibition of punk-rock gig posters and fliers. The wall-sized collage, assembled recently at Rough Trade East in London, embodies a mostly American, anti-authoritarian sensibility from the 1980s. (The fliers include calls to “Rock Against Reagan” and vote for
“[Jello] Biafra For Mayor”.)

Mr Ensminger plays with The Biscuit Bombs and No Love Less, and founded the punk zine Left Of The Dial. He teaches folklore, composition, and humanities at Lee College in Baytown, Texas, and he runs websites that archive the history of female punks and black punks, and punk scenes in Florida, Texas, California, New York City and America’s midwest.

What makes a book about ‘80s punk rock timely and relevant in 2011?

As the world leans more heavily towards digitised forms and virtual representations, the book highlights handmade, do-it-yourself, vernacular and deeply democratic works on paper. As the old economy of paper products and industry gives way to the information economy and social-media platforms, fliers posted on light poles seem so “last century”. Google has digitised innumerable books; I have digitised well over 1,500 gig fliers.

What makes concert fliers from punk shows so significant?

Fliers were microcosms that speak indelibly about the economics of the underground. From cut-n-paste guerrilla style to utilitarian blandness, [they capture the] psycho-geography of scenes, the location of the clubs, and the fuzzy ideologies of the community in handwritten rants and graphic fare.

Why do you collect them?

Documenting the fliers means preserving the works on paper of myriad anonymous artists meant to be short-lived. It also means using the fliers to document the participation of women, people of colour, and gays and lesbians in the multicultural punk sphere. I curate a whole blog dedicated to the work of Randy “Biscuit” Turner, a rare “out” gay punk-funk pioneer who made well over 100 gig fliers for his band the Big Boys without utilising typewriters or computers. He relied entirely on inky illustration, cut and paste, collage, mixed media and the rigors of copy machines. Black people didn’t immerse in punk? Think again. I have over 250 fliers of bands playing gigs with black members, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

What does the newer Muslim punk scene have in common with the ‘80s punk discussed in your book? What’s different?

Muslim punks prove that punk is a convergence culture shaped by pluralism, not middle-class Anglo aspirations. They really test punk’s true dictum—to extend freedom—and push people to recognise punk as a vehicle of power that recognises no border.

You write that skateboarding in the 80s was “genuinely empowering.” Is it still?

Skateboarding is still quite restricted in many areas, a kind of fugitive act, especially as cities become much more monitored and space becomes much more contested. Skateboarders still seize pedestrian, industrial, recreational and municipal spaces to re-imagine use and topography, sport and theatrics.

Did your work collecting punk literature and art lead you to your current academic career?

Five years ago I returned as a student at the University of Oregon, under the helm of the folklore programme, where I sought a second masters degree under the guidance of Daniel Wojcik, a well-admired folklorist and former punk himself. In the 1990s he penned a book on punk’s transgressive qualities, including tattooing and piercing. During the programme I realised I had been pursuing folklore my whole life, documenting vernacular art and street art for years.

How do you explain flier culture to people unfamiliar with it?

Fliers were an essential part of the process of stirring culture from below. Fliering was not just a solo process, some lone kid stuck in the basement, using Adobe Illustrator or other programs. It was dirty and dishevelled, hands-on, faulty and frail. Plus it created a sense of lore—from The Clash wheat-pasting London in times of strife to people being chased for vandalism here in the [American] South. Plenty of discontent flows through digital avenues as well, but will it resonate like the furore and discord the Sex Pistols unleashed? Jamie Reid, who designed the album art for “Never Mind the Bollocks”, is now just another artist appropriated and remixed, and he himself borrowed plenty from earlier art movements, but that shock value is difficult to repeat.

“Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation” by David Ensminger is published by the University of Mississippi Press and is out now.

The full interview is at THE ECONOMIST and also at INTELLIGENT LIFE

Galactic has a unique sound built from eclectic influences—jazz, rap, electronica, jam-band music and bounce (a local take on hip hop)—honed over years of performing live. They have shared the stage with B.B. King and The Roots, among others, and they have recorded with a variety of other artists. “From the Corner to the Block” (2007) featured a slew of rappers and MCs including Boots Riley of The Coup and Gift of Gab from Blackalicious.

But the band remains devoted to the New Orleans music scene and often collaborates with local talent. “Ya-Ka-May” (2010), the last album, was a love letter to the city (named after a traditional New Orleans soup). “The Other Side of Midnight” is a fine follow-up, but still no match for seeing these guys in person.

Now on a world tour, the band’s guitarist, Jeff Raines, answered a few questions from the road via e-mail about the new album, the music of New Orleans and learning from other musicians.

Why did you decide to make a live album from New Orleans?

We recorded our new album for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost is that we live here and wanted to record in the most comfortable environment possible. We also wanted to have options in terms of inviting our musician friends from around town to come play. Our own studio is close by. We did our first live album at Tips exactly ten years ago so we felt like it made sense on that level as well.

From a musical or cultural standpoint, what’s changed in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina?

From a musical standpoint I don’t think all that much has changed since the storm. Certainly in the first few years there were less people playing music and going out to the clubs. These days the club scene seems pretty vibrant. There are new brass bands popping up and the bounce rap scene has been getting some national attention.

How does your new album reflect New Orleans music and culture as it is today?

I think this record reflects what Galactic has been doing recently. We have been touring with a fantastic trombone player so we are bringing a more full-bodied horn section feel. Having Cyril Neville on the show singing at that venue also strikes me as being something special to New Orleans.

How have collaborations changed your sound or approach to songwriting?

When we go into our demo-writing process the material that might lend itself to having some kind of vocal element becomes obvious. We sometimes will send the artist we are working with a few ideas and go from there.

What sets funk apart from other music genres? What makes funk “funk”?

I guess funk represents a certain feel in music that usually makes you want to get up.

What is Galactic’s version of funk? How is your music unique?

We’ve been able to develop a sound over many albums and years of touring. I think a lot of that comes about through a shared history of playing shows together.

You’ve sometimes been called a “jazz jam” band. Do you embrace that or shrug it off?

We don’t pay much attention to names the media invent to try and classify what we are doing.

What’s the most recognisable way New Orleans has shaped the sound of your band?

Through the songs we’ve learned and then done our own versions of. We’ve always covered songs by local brass bands or our local musical heroes. I think learning all this music has affected us as a band.

Galactic is currently on tour. The band is at work on their next studio album, to be released next spring.

The full interview is also at INTELLIGENT LIFE.

Mr. Parker will put this ideology to the test during a July 19 performance in the Purcell Room at London’s Southbank Centre (Belvedere Road; 44-207-960-4200; southbankcentre.co.uk) during the upcoming “Great British Jazz: Six Decades of Tributes, Stories and Improv” festival, which runs through July 26 and will also feature Tomorrow’s Warriors Jazz Orchestra, a tribute to John Dankworth, and the musician Soweto Kinch.

This four-part jazz “mini-series” is just one small part of Southbank’s massive 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain, which features months of events and performances across many genres. The four jazz concerts are presented as a celebration of key moments in the evolution of jazz in Great Britain and the musicians that helped defined British jazz since the first Festival of Britain took place in 1951.

On July 23, Gary Crosby will lead the Tomorrow’s Warriors Jazz Orchestra as they debut new arrangements by the tenor and soprano saxophonist Steve Williamson, known for his albums that incorporate various American, African and Jamaican influence.

On July 25, “What The Dickens: A Tribute to John Dankworth and the Big Band,” will recount the formation of the Dankworth Seven in 1950 and perform one of the late John Dankworth’s ’60s-era suites. The band is led by Dankworth’s bass-playing son, Alec, and will include artists closely associated with Dankworth bands over the years, including Henry Lowther, Mark Nightingale, Andy Panayi, Tim Garland and Jim Hart.

Lastly, Soweto Kinch, a rapper and saxophonist whose fast, bop-style playing is truly a force to see, will perform a tribute to the alto saxophonist Joe Harriott on July 26 at Queen Elizabeth Hall. Harriott, originally from Jamaica, was a prominent Caribbean British jazz player whose career spanned bebop, free jazz, and fusions of jazz and Indian music.

The full story is at the NEW YORK TIMES

Mr Kuti took a minute out of his busy tour schedule to respond to a few questions over e-mail about Afrobeat, African politics and touring.

Your new album, “From Africa With Fury: Rise”, seems in sync with recent revolutionary events in some North African countries. Is your music a soundtrack for this revolution?

I think my music is a soundtrack for all Africa not just the revolutionaries. It’s all about keen observation of the situation of people’s lives, and you know there is not a lot more people can take.

You mentioned recently that you were thinking of starting your own political party. If you did, what would your first priority be?

No comment.

Your new album was produced by Brian Eno and John Reynolds. How have they helped shape your sound?

Brian has been a good supporter of me and my music for about two years now. I asked him in May last year if he will help with producing the album and he agreed. I had a great time producing the album with these guys in London because they opened up the sound in many ways. We all had the same idea of what we wanted it to sound like, so it was easy to get it done. But the ideas they came up with were nothing short of genius. They easily took the album up another 80%, at least.

What are you most excited about with your new album? How does it differ most from your previous work?

I am most excited about the evolution of my sound. It doesn’t change but it has become a lot more mature and confident. I think people will notice that. This album makes you feel the struggle of the black continent—even if people don’t understand the pidgin English lyrics, they can understand the passion in the songs.

What music are young people today in West Africa listening to?

Well I personally think I am not the average African youth because of my exposure to the world and my upbringing in relations to music and politics. Music in Africa is all about MTV and what is out there on the TV and radio. Real music is not given a chance.

Are young people forming new Afrobeat bands in Nigeria?

No they are not. I meet a lot of young men and women who are totally inspired by Afrobeat music, but they can’t practice because of the economic and social restraint of producing real music in Africa today. Most youth go the commercial music way cos its a short-cut that is cheap and affordable. There’s no welfare in Africa so whatever you are doing has to pay the bills or the band collapses. People have to feed themselves and their families. But I know things will change and people will sacrifice well-being for the opportunity to speak for themselves. This is the new Africa as you can see in Tunisia already. People are gonna speak for themselves and Afrobeat will be their voice!

What do you enjoy most about touring?

I am looking forward the most to the screaming fans everywhere in the world.

What is it like to play with your father’s former band, Egypt 80?

Because I am almost like family with them it makes it a happy workplace. It is not a fairytale land far away; we have our differences, but we get over them easily. I think the biggest challenge was to make everyone believe in a life after Fela, and they have challenged me to keep that faith!

The message of Egypt 80 is quite unique to that of any other band. With this band it’s not just the music; the emancipation of the our continent is a major factor as well. Musically Afrobeat is interesting and people can learn a lot from that, but the Egypt 80 is also the voice of the common man in Africa and the world. Everyone can relate to some extent because we are all living the struggle.

How do you think Afrobeat has changed since your father, Fela Kuti, began playing it back in the late 1960s and early ’70s?

I think Afrobeat is growing in terms of popularity. The music itself is very powerful as well, but the major growth now is in new listeners—that’s what I believe has changed the most.

Reissued Afrobeat music from the ’70s has become more available, and the “Fela!” musical has enjoyed success in America and Britain, and it recently travelled to Lagos. In what ways do you see Afrobeat’s audience growing?

I think the play has made people understand what Fela stood for. It has taken the story of Fela to a new audience. Afrobeat is growing because everyone want to hear some real music with a message, every artist wants to be able to speak his mind. The more the people want justice and equality the bigger Afrobeat gets.

Seun Kuti’s new album, “From Africa With Fury Rise”, will be released in North America in June

The full interview is at the ECONOMIST, and INTELLIGENT LIFE.

For his latest album, super-producer Danger Mouse (AKA Brian Burton) joined forces with LA-based composer and frequent collaborator Daniele Luppi for Rome, a spaghetti western-inspired tour de force. Referencing Ennio Morricone, legendary composer of soundtracks for A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Luppi and Burton went to great lengths to keep things authentic: they hired the same Italian musicians who played on Il Maestro’s original scores, used vintage instruments and recorded on analog tape in Morricone’s onetime studio, underneath a church in central Rome.

The LP reinterprets the 60s genre as bittersweet pop, with Jack White and Norah Jones taking on sultry lead vocal duties. Luppi and Burton, whose collaborative CV includes Gnarls Barkley’s platinum-selling St. Elsewhere and the James Mercer-fronted electro-pop band Broken Bells, recently discussed Rome.

Jack White has said he drove around Nashville with a tape recorder brainstorming ideas for lyrics. Did you give him or Norah Jones much direction for the lyrics, or were they free to experiment?

Brian Burton: Doing music first and lyrics and melodies later is how I always work, but I don’t think Jack ever works that way. When I asked him to be a part of this, I knew it would be different for him, so he went driving, that was his way. The female part I wrote myself, and the part was done initially with my bad singing; I played it for Daniele and said “trust me.” And then Norah came in and sang and suddenly the whole thing came to life.

What is it about the music of 60s Italian film scores that captivates?

Brian Burton: For me, it was the melancholy nature of the music, the guitars and the psychedelic instruments. I was 18 when I first heard it. It was like a lot of different genres put together in a really amazing way, a very visual music that changed the way I looked at music in general. But having a well-versed knowledge of Italian film music is not vital or necessary to enjoy Rome. It’s like listening to the Beatles—you don’t need an in-depth knowledge of their music to enjoy it. These are just interesting songs with Jack and Norah.

You were obviously familiar with the work of the Italian sessions musicians you enlisted for the project. Did they know your material?

Brian Burton: When we were there in 2006, “Crazy” was one of the biggest songs out, but I don’t think they were in the store buying Gnarls Barkley albums or really caring about that. I was the American guy, and [Luppi] was the Italian guy living in America, and we were there making an album. We ate lunch with them every day, we got along. They asked me about girls.

Daniele Luppi: Yeah, and we talked a lot about music. I got the sense they did appreciate having two somewhat younger guys seeking out their services.

Brian Burton: We didn’t know at the time we were going to get Jack White and Norah Jones, and even if we did, I don’t know if they would have known them anyway.

Daniele Luppi: What was special was that they were playing together again with their old pals, and people that they had become friends with, and it was intimate. It was a major point for them to play together again, in the same fashion that they used to play, all together, on tape.

Brian Burton: We needed the players and the instruments to get the sound we wanted. We didn’t do it to say we did it, or to pay tribute, but to do a new album that had this as a backdrop, that would be something interesting and special or different. That’s what we wanted to do.

My full interview is at NOWNESS.

Back then, the band from Benin — formed in the late ’60s following the country’s independence from France — was busy spreading the joys of Afrobeat, a blend of soul, funk and highlife that was the sound track for newly independent West African countries.

The full story, about Afrobeat music’s resurgence, is at TIME MAGAZINE. The story also continues here after the jump

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo toured the region with their mix of Latin, rock and voodoo rhythms — their influences ranging from James Brown to Françoise Hardy — and recorded some 500 songs. Joining Nigeria’s Fela Kuti, whose politically charged lyrics made him the voice of protest across Africa, and other Afrobeat stars of the ’60s and ’70s, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo became musical icons.

But by the early 1980s, political unrest and obstacles imposed by the new Benin government were making it increasingly difficult for the band to perform. The members slowly shifted their attentions to jobs and family. “Music filled us, but it didn’t feed us,” says Ahehehinnou, who worked as a bar manager.

Now Afrobeat is getting a second wind, as record collectors, artists and fans find themselves drawn to its pure sound and political message.

Surviving members of Orchestre Poly-Rythmo went on a short but successful European tour in 2009, after British label Soundway Records and Frankfurt record company Analog Africa started reissuing the band’s classic tracks. Their first new album in 20 years, Cotonou Club, on Strut Records, will be followed soon by a tour of Europe, the U.K. and the U.S.

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo’s return is not an isolated event. Celebrated Afrobeat artists are releasing new albums and touring. Popular R&B and hip-hop artists such as Usher, Missy Elliott and Mos Def have sampled Afrobeat songs.

Fela!, the musical based on Fela Kuti, had a critically acclaimed 15-month Broadway run in 2009 and 2010; an off-Broadway version, featuring his band Egypt 80, sold out two months of shows in London this past winter and additional shows are booked for the summer. Fela Kuti’s son Seun will soon tour with Egypt 80 to promote his new album, From Africa with Fury: Rise, co-produced by studio legend Brian Eno.

For their part, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo don’t see Cotonou Club as the start of a new career, nor their tour as a one-off reunion; they simply see themselves as being at a crossroads. “This is all a big bet on us,” Ahehehinnou says. “This new album is special to us because we wanted our music to be known internationally. This is all warming our hearts.”

When asked how he compared to other musicians pursuing visual art at the time — Tony Bennett, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie — Davis added, “they paint flowers and [expletive].”

The full blog post, on an exhibition of Miles Davis’ artwork in London, is at the NEW YORK TIMES.

Photo: Compton Cassey Gallery

Several hundred people who gathered at the Southbank Centre to see Soul Rebels Brass Band were so into it the show that they boo-ed loudly when the band did not play an encore. Get the Blessing did its best to deal with an annoyingly delayed sound-check, and Led Bib just blew through their set full-on.