Tag: Caribbean music

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Born Damone Gervais Walker in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Jamaica,the up-and-coming emcee, songwriter and dancehall artist, best known as DeeWunn can trace the origins of his music career to roughly 2006 when he had his first child while working as Medical Records Clerk at Kingston Public Hospital.  Never one to be satisfied with the mundanity of the 9-5 life, he found himself creatively bursting at the seams. Feeling as though he lacked the freedom he needed to truly required to attain his dreams, the up-and-coming Jamaican dance hall artist made a leap of faith by quitting his day job to start a music career. At one point, he was an in-house writer for GeeJam Studios, writing songs for Mystic Davis, Charly B., A-Game, Nailah Blackman, Nordia Baker, Lily Allen and others.

Dancehall act Ward 21 scooped up Walker as a songwriter and vocalist in 2010 — and while as a member of Ward 21, he spent time penning songs for labelmates like Timberlee, Natalie Storm and others. In 2013, Walker’s Kunley McCarthy-produced  “Mek It Bunx Up” featuring Marcy Chin became an unexpected smash-hit that received attention internationally from the likes of Diplo, BBC 1Xtra’s Seani B, ZJ Johnny Kool, Hot 97′s Massive B and others. Adding to a growing profile, “Mek It Bunx Up” received spins in some of the world’s hottest nightclubs.

Interestingly, in 2015 “Mek It Bunx Up” sparked a viral dance craze after Parris Goebel recorded an impromptu performance to the single alongside students from her Urban Dance Camp class, which she later uploaded to YouTube. Since Goebel’s upload, there have been a countless numbers of independently made videos from dancers all over the world — all of those videos have amassed several million views. Additionally, the track landed at #30 on the Bulgarian Top 40 Radio Charts and reached #95 on Shazam’s World Charts.

Since then, DeeWunn has released his full-length debut debut Bunx Up — The Official Street LP, toured across Europe twice and collaborated with Parris Goebel on “Dynamite,” which appeared on her full-length debut Vicious. He’s also collaborated with renowned producer TJ Records for “Tun Suh.” And earlier this year, his single Back It Up, Drop It” was featured in an ad campaign for the Samsung S10.

Building upon the momentum of “Back It Up, Drop It,” DeeWunn’s latest single is the dance floor bop “Jaw Jump,” a track centered around Walker’s rapid-fire hip-hop influenced flow, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, wobbling synths and an infectious hook. Simply put, it’s an irresistible track that will set dance floors around the world on fire.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Thievery Corporation Teams Up with Notch on a Soulful, Old School-Inspired Reggae Track

Comprised of DJ and production team Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, the internationally renowned Washington, DC-based act Thievery Corporation have developed a reputation for a globe spanning, genre-defying sound that features elements of electronica, dub, bossa nova, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical music, hip-hop, Middle Eastern music and others, and for collaborating with a diverse array of artists across a variety of genres and styles, including Rob Myers, Loulou Ghelichkhani, Natalia Clavier, Frank ‘Booty Lock’ Mitchell, Mr. Lif, Jeff Franca, Ashish Vyas and a lengthy list of others, who have contributed lyrics in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian and Hindi.

Now, as you may recall, the duo’s chart topping 2017 effort, The Temple of I & I was deeply influenced by Jamaica’s sounds and rhythms, and as a result the album may have arguably been their most reggae and dub-influenced album to date — and perhaps, their most straightforward as well. Interestingly, the duo’s latest album, Treasures from the Temple is a companion album to their 2017 album, and it features both original material and remixes from the Temple of I & I recording sessions at Geejam Studios in Port Antonio, Jamaica — with guest spots from LouLou Ghelichkhani, Mr. Lif, Sitali, Racquel Jones, Natalia Clavier and Notch.
Treasures from the Temple’s latest single “Waiting Too Long” features their long-time collaborator and American dancehall pioneer Notch, and the track is a soulful, two-step dub riddim, complete with a strutting horn arrangement, and while it sounds and feels warm and familiar, it’s a sweet love song about lovers, who have been through quite a bit, going to the club to dance, to enjoy themselves and forget about the world for a few hours — and how they’re specifically waiting for the DJ to play their song. 

The recently released video for “Waiting Too Long” consists of rare footage shot in Jamaica in the late 70s and early 80s, and it captures a night out in a Jamaican club — singles and couples swaying and dancing, some with beer bottles in hand; a DJ making adjustments on his mixer as a vocalist passionately sings; in another room, men gamble and bullshit. It’s a Friday or Saturday night with people being — well, people. All seeking a small measure of joy, a connection with someone else, an escape from the drudgery of every day life. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Swedish-born Multi-Instrumentalist and Electronic Music Artist Thornato Connects New York and Ghana In Visuals for Club-Banging New Single “Back It Up”

Thor Partridge is a Swedish-born Cypriot, whose mother encouraged his interest in music at a very young age; in fact, it was common to hear traditional Greek, African and Caribbean music in his home. As the story goes, Partridge’s family relocated to New York when he was a child, and he eventually studied classical piano, jazz guitar and bluegrass banjo. Partridge quickly showed a penchant and interest in production and remixing, when he found that he couldn’t help tinkering with classical piano arrangements. 

As an electronic music artist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, who writes, records and performs as Thornato, Partridge quickly received international attention with the release of 2016’s groundbreaking, electronic music/drum ‘n’ bass EP Things Will Change. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Partidge’s full-length album Bennu found the up-and-coming multi-instrumentalist becoming a go-to collaborator and producer, contributing to Bollywood scores, as well as playing clubs across the globe. 

Friday will mark the release of the Swedish Cypriot’s latest EP Back It Up and the EP’s latest single, title track “Back It Up,” finds the up-and-coming producer, collaborating with Ghanian vocalist  Zongo Abongo in a song that lovingly draws from the sounds of the African Diaspora as the song draws from several distinct genres and styles, including 90s Jamaican dancehall, Afro-pop, Champeta, and Dembow in a way that’s simultaneously seamless yet nostalgic, anachronistic yet incredibly post-modern — and perhaps most important of all, the song manages to be a breezy and infectious club banger with quite a bit of thump. 

Directed by Justin Conte, the video features Ghanian vocalist Zongo Abongo and dancer Soraya Lundy connecting across the Atlantic Ocean with a bright orange landline phone, essentially sharing a sensual dance between New York and Accra. 

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