The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Procrastination is me. I'm having a very hard time getting (keeping) going on things I ought to be going on, so let me write a few words about music instead. The top half is going to be electronic dance - I'll save the funky stuff for the second part. As usual the best is saved for last.

https://soundcloud.com/monstercat/tut-tut-child-dance-to-it
This tune, from a few years back, showed up on one of my Pandora stations recently. Tut Tut Child bring a hard-edged electro-dance sensibility to their "Dance To It" track. It has obvious dubstep influences and some people call it glitch hop but it doesn't have the hip-hop beats I'd expect from that. Instead, it has a get-up-and-move beat under electronic instrumentation and some fun vocal sampling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnSVCsUs9Qc
J-Trick & Aristic Raw's "Crues-Lee" is a spiritual descendent of the previous track. This is 2016's electro-dance. Dub is out and it has more trance and ambient overtones, but it's still the same basic formula - 110 BPM or so, minimal or no vocals, and raw electronic instrumentation. This track has some nice change-ups and unconventional beats but like a lot of modern tracks it clocks in very short.

https://soundcloud.com/djandreone/andreone-djampo-falcon-original-mix-1
AndreOne working with Djampo on a prog-house dance track titled "Falcon". I like the basic track but the mix feels slightly 'off' to me, somehow. Does it sound that way to anyone else?

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https://soundcloud.com/copycat-edits/beastie-boys-brass-monkey-re
The Beatie's "Brass Monkey" always had major funk influences (just listen to the horn part, fr'ex) and here Copycat does a remix that plays up some of those elements. It's an interesting take on an old 80's favorite, but the original is still hard to beat.

http://fatherfunk.bandcamp.com/track/ray-charles-the-blue-brothers-shake-your-tail-feather-father-funk-remix
One of the great things John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd did in their "Blues Brothers" incarnation was make another generation of white folk aware of the great artists and music that they'd missed out on because radio was so heavily segregated. I had heard songs like "Shake Your Tail Feather" as a child and then forgotten them until I got to love Ray Charles's performance in the movie. Here Father Funk gives a modern update to the classic, with tribute to the movie along the way, but all in their trademark electro-funk style.

https://soundcloud.com/ghettofunk/official-ghetto-funk-podcast-07-shindig-weekender-2016
This... this is happiness for me, packaging so much into 80+ minutes. It's got memories and updated sounds and new twists on old favorites. Funky as hell, hip-hopping and soulful and jazzy and seriously rocking beats. It's the promo for the UK Shindig Weekender that I wish I could attend. Failing that I'll just listen through this set again.

We'll start with the easier stuff and save the more challenging sounds for the end.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/06/the-very-best-ft-knaan-we-ok.html
"We OK" is a happy-pop tune by The Very Best (http://www.theverybestmusic.com/). The core of TVB is Esau Mwamwaya from Malawi and this song is one long shout-out to Africa in lyrics, language and rhythm. But it's also infused with modern Western pop and hip-hop sensibilities and features K'naan, himself an African (Somali) relocated to the West (Canada).

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/06/lana-del-rey-national-anthem-full-remix-pack.html#more-84715
Lana Del Rey's latest single "National Anthem" comes with a slew of remixes. All are worth listening to, though I think I like the Burns one best, giving you a variety of takes on the track. The video is also worth a watch, a very interesting play on modernizing the JFK/Jackie myth, with Lana as a modern/throwback First Lady and a black man president, along with two cute and obviously mixed-race children. The politics of this vid are as good as the music.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/07/copycat-and-the-living-is-easy.html#more-84885
Copycat has a new "easy listening" set out. It's nearly two hours long and unfortunately there aren't individual uploads for most of the tracks. They're timestamped in the blog post, though so you can do a bit of skipping about. I think my favorite is Xtrafunk vs Ram Jam – "Lazy Sunday/Black Betty". Black Betty is a classic and has been remixed and mashed-up several times but this one is (surprise) extra funky and smooth.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/07/urban-knights-under-mi-marka-sensi.html
This is one of those tunes I expect nobody but me will like, and that's OK. It's a hard-edged, slightly frantic mash-up of Dub Phizix (http://www.dubphizix.com/) a kind of weird electro-dub d&b producer with South Rakkas Crew (http://www.myspace.com/southrakkas#!) a gangsta/electro/regga/riddim duo. When I was a young adult this is sort of what I thought music would sound like in the future.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/06/mumbai-science-lotus-alex-gopher-remix.html
Mumbai Science (http://www.mumbaiscience.net/) is a UK indie electro duo (of white guys, despite the name) that is heavily techno but dabbles in things like acid-house. Here Alex Gopher (http://soundcloud.com/alexgopher) a French remixer, does a number on their tune "Lotus". It comes out very electro, somewhat frenetic, and oddly paced.

http://rcrdlbl.com/2012/06/26/stream_nas_the_don_massive_attack_remix_
Nas is one of the few currently popular rappers who manages to avoid overloading his lyrics with n*/b*/ho outbursts. He's certainly not FCC-approved, which is just fine. His raps are fast and frequently smart. So what are Massive Attack doing remixing his "The Don"? Beats me, but I like the results. Electro-wub and hip-hop aren't close neighbors all that often so it's nice to see people trying something new.