The Shambhala Journals - #3 in which my love of Hip-Hop is, quite surprisingly, tempered by an electro-soul DJ.

I don't prepare properly for much in my life. Things move around me in an unpredictable blur and usually I'm more than content to move in whichever direction the wind decides to go. However, the exception to this rule is with live music. I like to be prepared when entering a new live setting. Whether it's researching an opener I've never heard of or scanning through festival guides and cherry picking some names that haven't before crossed my radar. (Though I suppose in this case it's sonar.) With this in mind, I asked my good buddy and Guide to the Cosmos, Hingle McCringleberry, to give me some new music to investigate. Much of what he gave me just sort of bounced off of my ears but there was one album that caught my attention, Mad Liberation  by Detroit's newly reigning funk-soul brother, GRiZ. The album blasted my ear-pussy with its unrelenting soul and grooviness. All I want in this new music I'm learning about is FUNKY BASS and this motherfucker delivered it to me in spades. Don't believe me? Fuck you. Listen for yourself.    

Full Mad Liberation Album Download Available at: http://www.mynameisgriz.com Mad Liberation is a collection of songs that I have been working on for the past year that ranged from mostly original compositions to varied sample work (retro vinyl recordings and new all original recordings); digital synthesis that took me weeks to master; to live instrumentation tediously and soulfully recorded by myself and some of my very good friends.

The main problem came when I was looking at the schedule for Shambhala's final night. GRiZ was to play at the EXACT same time as pretty legendary indie rappers People Under the Stairs. This wasn't going to do. I am a Hip-Hop guy to my core and one of the big reasons I agreed to come on the journey to Shams was that there's always a fairly big Hip-Hop headliner. I would have to sacrifice the only DJ I knew anything about because, well, fuck, I couldn't be missing People Under the Stairs.

So, after Hingle and another member of the crew met me at Five Alarm Funk (A story for another day!) a compromise was made - I would go with them to watch the first half of GRiZ's set and they would come with me to watch the final half of People Under the Stairs' set. Seemed fair. Well friends, let me tell you...we never did make it to People Under the Stairs. GRiZ delivered even more than Mad Liberation  promised. I was captivated watching him bounce around behind his equipment and by the time he jumped out from behind the gear with his saxophone in hand, I was in love. The fun(k) was infectious. GRiZ, unlike some of the people I saw spinning and sampling through the weekend. was a wholly engaging personality, incapable of letting the grooves go by passively.

I can't speak for what People Under the Stairs did that Sunday night at Shambhala, I wasn't there. But from what the rest of our crew told us, we had made the right choice by staying to watch GRiZ's set in its entirety. (It's still tied in my head with Wick-It the Instigator, but that might have as much to do with Wick-It being a gangsta-ass motherfucker as with the music.) It was the unexpected musical detour of the weekend and I don't regret it one bit.

And that, dear readers, is the story of how electro-funk defeated my love of Hip-Hop, even if only for one night. Only at Shambhala. 

The Shambhala Journals - #1 in which I admit I'm wrong about some key things.

Anyone who’s talked to me for an extended period of time about sports knows that I hate the Seattle Seahawks. I’ll take every opportunity I can to bash them into the ground. But really, I don’t actually hate the Seahawks. I actually just love hating things my good friends claim are great. It’s fun to antagonize people you love. Really, why else do you have friends other than to let out some of the nastiness that gets bent up inside you? There’s nothing malicious about it, just some fun.

My relationship with electronic music has developed in much the same way as one of my best friends in the whole wide world has constantly tried to get me into the genre. It’s fun to resist, fun to push back. It came to the point where my friend was playing me remixes of classics like the Beatles, Marvin Gaye and such just because he knew he’d be able to get a reaction out of me and I was more than willing to oblige with the obligatory, “This is fucking stupid! Why fuck with classics?! Just let me listen to the motherfucking song!” But really, I was wrong. The whole time, I was wrong.

I’m a Hip-Hop guy. It’s been the main staple of my listening diet since I was 9 or 10 years old and got my hands on 36 Chambers and Black Sunday. So, really, just with that information alone my stance on remixes in electronic music is completely stupid. Hip-Hop was, and mostly remains, built on sampling. This is nothing more than a new generation of music obsessives (Something I can wholly identify with) paying tribute to the things that inspired them on their artistic path. It’s really no different than my roommate and I sitting in our living room playing Tom Petty songs on our guitar, except that they’ve created something new that harkens back to something already established as great.

Like executing a good cover song there’s an art to sampling correctly, to breathe your own unique vision into something already in existence and find that delicate balance of paying tribute and not just dick-riding. And the man who helped me see this, once and for all, was Wick-It the Instigator. By far the baddest motherfucker I saw at Shambhala, Wick-It has quickly become my entry into the world of DJs and electronic music. I’m still learning, no doubt, but I think with Wick-It I’ve found the accelerator to the learning process. The curve doesn’t seem as steep as it once did…

This mix has been on nearly verbatim since I arrived back from my journey to the Salmo Ranch where Shambhala takes place each year and if you have the same problems with electronic music that I have had this might help. (Being mangled beyond belief in the forest dancing with old and new friends to it on a giant soundsystem might also help with this as well.)

Full Length Mix: 1. Wick-it the Instigator - Feel Lit 2. LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out (Wick-it 2013 Revamp) (unreleased) 3. DJ Khaled - All I Do Is Win (Wick-it Remix) 4. Lil Jon - Put Your Hood Up (Wick-it Remix) (unreleased) 5. Reservoir Dawgs feat.

My sincere apologies to you, dear electronic music fans. I was wrong. Very, very wrong about the music you’ve been trying to push on me for years now. I’m still always going to be a live instrument guy at heart, but I think there’s more common ground for us to dance on than I previously believed.

Shad teams up with Skratch Bastid and Saukrates(!) to continue dominating Canadian Hip-Hop.

The joy I get knowing that Shad, the most consistently awesome rapper working in Canada today, has teamed up with hella cool dude Skratch Bastid cannot be overstated. Though I'm a fan of awesome beats, no doubt, I don't know shit about the art of DJing but the moment I heard the Bastid split the difference between Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" and Dead Prez' "Hip-Hop" I knew he was a pretty fucking stellar DJ. I don't remember much about the rest of that night (Except that K'naan destroyed and played the still-good version of "Wavin' Flag") but that moment always stood with me. So when he and Shad teamed up for The Spring Up EP I thought it was a one-time thing. Boy am I glad I was wrong.

"Stylin'," the first single from Shad's upcoming joint, Flying Colours, is another damned fine slice of intelligent, graceful Hip-Hop. The duo even got Canada's reigning musical Swiss Army Knife, Saukrates, for some chill vocals on the hook. If this is any indication of what's to come Flying Colours  is set to be another winner. As if there was any doubt. Check the fresh new video out and see for yourself. Don't worry, if the smile on your face gets so big it starts to hurt or your head bobs so hard you think it's going to fall off, just hit the 'pause' button and take a couple deep breaths...

Ghana's own, Blitz the Ambassador drops a new track and, obviously, I dig it.

Hey kids. One of my main inspirations these days has been Blitz the Ambassador. Both his albums, Stereotype and Native Sun , have been in the regular rotation for over a year. His rhythms and beats are inventive and, importantly, organic, as Blitz commands an actual band of musicians to give him his grooves. His rhymes are intelligent, important, and endlessly agile. If you haven't listened to Blitz before, you need to.

Blitz's new track "African in New York" more than lives up to the winning formula he's already established. Bold storytelling with Recognize those samples in there? You should. And if you don't, get learned. Seriously. (Your hints: Eddie Murphy and Hova)

Keep an eye out for Blitz's upcoming The Warm Up EP , which is apparently due out next month. Also, props to Okayafrica for keeping me up to date on this one! Respect.

 (Addendum to this post: I've been trying to get an interview with Blitz for over a year now. We've come so close twice, but haven't been able to pull it off. Hopefully I can make it happen one day. I really do love this brother's music.)

www.twitter.com/blitzambassador www.facebook.com/blitzambassador 'African In New York' chronicles the colorful immigrant life in NYC from an African perspective. From the Bootleggers on Canal street to the Dollar cab drivers to the Restaurants Uptown, everybody gets a shout out over this banging Blitz production complete with live guitars and signature horns.

Blitz blowing the lid off of the Victoria Ska Fest. Photo by me!