Live Concert Photography: Mad Satta with Quincy Vidal and All Natural at DROM 7/2/15

Live Concert Photography: Mad Satta with All Natural

DROM

July 2, 2015

This summer has been an extremely busy one in the world of JOVM — and as you can imagine, I’m still busily attempting to catch up with a ton of live show coverage over the past few months. Now, last month, I was at DROM to catch the New York based octet, Mad Satta, who were celebrating the official release of their Break Me Free EP, which was released at the end of June. The eight members of Mad Satta have developed a reputation for a sound that they’ve dubbed “future soul” which consists of bright blasts of horn, sinuous bass lines, angular, Nile Rodgers-like guitar chords, shimmering synths and electronic drums paired with vocalist Joanna Teters’ effortlessly soulful vocals. The EP’s first single — and EP title track — “Break Me Free” bears an uncanny resemblance to some of Escort’s most recent singles as “Break Me Free” channels late 70s-early 80s disco, early 80s New Wave and R&B. (In fact, if you’ve been frequenting JOVM for a bit, you might remember that I wrote about the official video for the song just a few months ago.)

Opening for the night was a local hip-hop act, Quincy Vidal backed by the members of local sextet All Natural. Quincy Vidal can trace their origins to when Le’Asha Julius and CE met in the Acting Conservatory at SUNY Purchase College back in 2009. And with the release of their debut effort, The Cookin’ In Brooklyn, the duo had developed a reputation for a sound that’s been compared by some to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, OutKast, Fugees, and Digable Planets. They’ve released two other efforts, Sentimental Moods in 2002, which was reportedly inspired by their experiences moving back to Brooklyn after graduation, and the Utopia| LDZ double album, which had the band collaborating with a number of their fellow SUNY Purchase musicians. The duo teamed up with All Natural, a local sextet formed back in 2011 by its founding members, David Frazier, Jr. (drums), Dominic Missana (bassist), EFlat (vocals) and Rich Kulture (emcee), the quartet eventually expanded to a sextet when multi-instrumentalist Kevin Jacobi and Paul Wilson (production/keyboards) were recruited to further flesh out the band’s sound. With their lineup complete, the group has quickly developed a reputation across NYC’s underground hip-hop scene as they’ve played at Rough Trade, Black Bear Bar, SOB’s and The Bowery Electric — and they’ve shared stages with a number of other artists including Gabriel Garzon-Montano (who I saw open for Meshell Ndegeocello and Roy Hargrove at SummerStage), Divine ScienZe, Fresh Daily, Kool and Kass, The IlluZion, Cypher League and others.