DJ Rhythm & Hues presents a special extended set in tribute to the pantheon of Black and Afro-influenced music from across the ages, prepared for HOWL! Arts. From Billy Paul to Caiphus Semenya, Nina Simone to Steel Pulse and back, this is a mix drenched in some choice soul, hip-hop, R&B, funk, reggae and afro music, all around the #blacklivesmatter theme.
“If history lives through its retelling, then so does music. Musicians of all creeds have found solace and sanctity in the revisiting, revamping, and retelling of songs, melodies and rhythms of days past, whose themes are universal; a phenomenon all the more important given the unfortunate fact that history is wont to repeat itself.
It is with some sadness that I remark that The Roots’ cover of the African-American freedom song “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” still rings relevant today. That the reprise by iSWHAT?! of Charles Mingus’ “Fables of Faubus”, a scathing jazz riposte to Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus (who notoriously deployed the National Guard to prevent the integration of the Little Rock Nine in white schools in 1957) still speaks truth to the systematized racism, violence and oppression that insidiously pervades Western society.
That songs like Bob Marley’s anti-war treatise “War,” based on a speech made by Haile Selassie in 1963, or Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s “Sorrow, Tears and Blood,” a reference to both the 1976 Soweto Uprising and the raid on Fela’s Kalakuta Republic by the Nigerian police, still resonate with current day events, rather than as reminders of distant, harsher times.
These songs speak to legacies of slavery, colonialism, and cultural imperialism and compel us to insist that #blacklivesmatter. This mix is dedicated to the memory of Anthony Griffin and the victims of police brutality.”
— dj rhythm & hues (Parker Mah), 03/2015.
Many thanks to Stefan Cristoff.
illustration by Shirin Barghi.