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Now Things: Talking Grime and Bashment with Wiley
February 23, 2012
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Words by Marvin Sparks—
Wiley is often called the Godfather of the UK’s vibrant grime scene. Having burst on the scene as a member of garage crew Pay As U Go Cartel, the prolific MC has been considered among the best UK wordsmiths for over ten years. He’s been involved in countless pivotal moments in underground music history, discovered and nurtured more artists than your average A&R, sparked the recent wave of grime MC’s scoring hits with electro-pop fused singles, and is generally an all-around legend. That said, Evolve or Be Extinct is an apt title for his eighth full-length release. The Bow E3, London-raised MC explores various styles, fusing grime, electro, hip hop, dancehall and just general Wiley productions you can’t call anything (is the Wiley-coined term “Eski” still available?).
LargeUp TV: Now Things with Acmatic
February 1, 2012
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Words by Jesse Serwer:::Video and Photo by Martei Korley—
I first became aware of Acmatic through their video for “The Power,” and was equally intrigued by the song’s dark, synth-pop sound and the video’s distinctive visuals, featuring a disaffected teen with a cape and paper plate for a face. This was a band with an aesthetic unlike anything I’d seen from out of Jamaica. Something new and fresh was happening musically in the land of reggae and dancehall that people from elsewhere would never expect to hear from JA. As I learned more about the group, I found that they weren’t a Jamaican new-wave band, like I’d thought after hearing “The Power,” but a chameleon-like entity of indeterminate size (We’re still not exactly sure how many members there are) that started out as an underground hip-hop group. When a second, equally impressive video, for the anthemic punk song “Silver Nimbus,” emerged last summer, it only added to the intrigue.
Now Things: A Q+A with Watch the Throne Producer Sham “Sak Pase” Joseph
January 27, 2012
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Words by Jesse Serwer—
Haitian-American producer Shama (Sham) Joseph first landed on our radar with his production for Rihanna’s “Man Down.” The reggae-flavored hit (now officially a touchstone) brought RiRi back to her Caribbean roots but also grabbed our attention with the opening tag, “Sak Pase!”— “What’s happening” in Kreyòl. Building on the momentum of “Man Down,” Sham placed “Who Gon Stop Me” and “Made it in America,” two of the best tracks on Kanye West and Jay-Z’s blockbuster Watch the Throne album. Apparently, he was just getting warmed up, though, as a partial list of the artists he’s working with currently reads like a list of hip-hop, R&B and dancehall’s biggest hitmakers of the last 10 years: Sean Paul, T.I., Keyshia Cole, Usher, Ciara, Busta Rhymes, Chris Brown, Mavado. So whether you’ve got Haitian friends or not, get used to hearing “Sak Pase!” a whole hell of a lot. We recently spoke with the Fort Lauderdale, Florida native over the phone from his current homebase in Atlanta.
Now Things: Exclusive Aloe Blacc Interview
June 8, 2011
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Words by Eddie STATS Houghton, Photos by Fubz
When we conceived of the idea for our Now Things series focusing on cutting-edge artists across all genre boundaries who happen to have roots in the Caribbean, Aloe Blacc was the artist we had in mind. In the time since we first got hyped about his eclectic catalog of soul, rap and salsa, he has gone on quite a rampage of world domination, performing on Jimmy Fallon, taking a Gold record in France and storming the UK charts with his HBO-placed single “I Need A Dollar” (currently at #3). Although much of the buzz has been about that particular song, Aloe’s versatility as a writer and performer gets clearer and clearer, whether he’s singing about Panama on “Patria Mia” (below), translating John Legend into Spanish or putting down his own reggae cover onstage in Germany. In the midst of that whirlwind, and right before he was set to bring his long-running, Sunday afternoon Los Angeles party The Do-Over to Puerto Rico, Aloe spent the better part of a mellow, thoughtful afternoon to sit in the sun with us at Habana Outpost in Brooklyn and go deep on his Panamanian roots, his Stones Throw LP Good Things and all the unwritten chapters of the book called Aloe Blacc.
