Will I ever tire of Big K.R.I.T‘s car references? Probably not, even though the 4Eva N A Day mixtape referenced riding clean and being country over a thousand times (*perhaps a vague approximation on my part). I just don’t care, because he is one the best things to happen to rap music in years, despite the hype emanating from those who prefer fashion and drug references he tends to avoid.

I find this video particularly interesting because the video for Boobie Miles was, for want of a better term, dry, and I Got This pretty unconvincing. K.R.I.T. doesn’t sit comfortably in any current camp of music artistically, or at least not without the Dungeon Family putting forth much of note despite Big Boi’s support. If anyone was capable of music of Stankonia or Soulfood quality for 2012 it’s this guy. (No pressure). Sometimes it feels as though he is trying to cover all bases, or at least that’s what I told myself about much of the “Last King 2 (God’s Machine)” mixtape, but with this video hints at an ability to create his own lane [insert hilarious car refs here]. If you still haven’t checked this guy out, please download the Return Of 4Eva as a warm up to his debut album ”Live From The Underground”, which comes out on 5th June 2012.

Buy tickets for Big K.R.I.T. live at XOYO, London 23rd August 2012

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Blackpool has never looked so beautiful. I skipped this back in April because I wasn’t too sure about Karima‘s first album “The Author” back in 2009. Sometimes it’s tempting to jump a little early as a songwriter, and when you have a big voice to push it further than it needs to go. This however, is stunning on both fronts. I hope the album, coming out in August, is as perfectly pitched as this first single.

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What do Tupac’s hologram, Grace Jones and Eska have in common? They’re the three things that kept me awake after Eska’s live performance at The Queen Elizabeth Hall on 7th May.

Before I say anything else, please only watch the video above up until the performance ends at 7.41 mins. It’s taken from a funding showcase where a first draft of the show was essentially pitched in order to be developed further. There is a certain way things are done in the world of fundraising, so it was necessary for Eska and her collaborators to politely discuss their plans and ideas for the work. In the real world she would have gotten up at the end and said “after that performance do you need any more proof this show will be amazing?? No, thought not. Pow!”, slammed the piano shut and sashayed off stage. Struan and Simon would have walked on with two large leather briefcases and whispered “you heard her, now make it rain”, whereupon the funders would have sprayed them with £50s. Well, at least that’s how it would work if someone died and left me in charge of the Arts Council.

So back to Tupac’s hologram. What the version in the video above lacked was the amazing 80 piece Goldsmith’s Vocal Ensemble in attendance at the QEH. “Vocal Ensemble” sounds like a fancy way of saying “choir”, however the word choir for many of us evokes freezing cold school halls at lunch time, droning along (what’s a harmony?), wishing Whoopie Goldberg would burst in dressed as a nun and  sort it out. Or something. In fact GVE is much like my childhood fantasy version of a choir, but with added choreography, acting, really interesting songs and vocal arrangements, and Tom Herbert from The Invisible. Vocal Ensemble it is then. The overwhelming response at the end of the show (through stifled sobs) was “OMG Eska should always have a choir, why doesn’t she?!” from very enthusiastic people who have clearly not thought through the logistics of taking 80+ people anywhere. Do you see where I’m going with the hologram yet? 80 power cables rather than 80 people – make it rain Arts Council, make it rain.

Being an icon in the making must be a terrible burden. You can’t just show up to performances in a nice dress with a backing track and a line check, hoping for the best. You have a legacy to create and protect, and whilst Eska is a lovely person, she has done more than her fair share of paying dues. The atmosphere before the show began was buzzing, electric and hungry – hundreds of die hard fans praying that Eska was finally about to step on to the big stage her star deserves. I looked around and did the head count before the lights went down, not a spare seat, and a good percentage of the audience were well known musicians. There was also a woman who had the audacity to dress up like Grace Jones just because she looked like her. (Turns out it was Grace Jones, and yes I am going for an eye test). Perhaps icons recognise each other.

The music that night was beyond my descriptive abilities. Flawless is an over used word but there were none. It was beautiful, classy, and emotional in the extreme. There were so many occasions I was totally overwhelmed I couldn’t pick one, all I can say is that I was very grateful to be there. A teary-eyed Mara Caryle clasped my arm on the way out, asked if I was OK and suggested we set up a support group for “survivors of Eska at the QEH”. I think perhaps we might be better off setting up a group for those who weren’t there that night. If you are one of those people, I strongly suggest  you add “seeing Eska’s English Skies Song Cycle live” to your bucket list.

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Last week I stumbled across (OK obsessively hunted down) a grainy VHS rip of “The Rise of Neneh Cherry” (link to pt.1-3). Visually it could have been 2010, a beautiful young mixed race woman walking down the street in a pair of Nike Delta Force Highs, a  skin-tight black lycra dress you would be forgiven for assuming came from American Apparel, and huge *gold* Ridley Road Market special door knocker earrings. Almost 20 years later Neneh Cherry’s signature look became more of a uniform than a blue print in East London, but it’s perhaps  not so much what she was wearing as much as what she was doing whilst wearing it that lead to her status as team mascot for my generation. If you don’t read the rest of this article please watch part 3 of the “documentary” to see Neneh recording vocals and shadow boxing whilst heavily pregnant, then handling her biz on an 80s brick mobile in the car and doing the running man with a newborn strapped to her chest. Talk about a role model.

The 1988 hit Buffalo Stance (where has the time gone??!) will probably always be Cherry’s best known track, and from what I can see online (yes, more stalking) she’s still really proud of it, however I wonder if it may have partially obscured who she really was as an artist at that point. The daughter of jazz musician Don Cherry, the young Neneh had already lived in Sweden, New York and London, dropped out of school age 14, been in post punk and dub bands, and was itching to work with Ornette Coleman to “push herself musically”. She must have scared the life out of label execs at the height of the Kylie/ Bros/ Bananarama Smash Hits late 80s. I was very young back then so it’s unlikely I thought of Neneh as a trailblazer, a pioneer or a renegade, but I can distinctly remember thinking she was somehow different to the other pop stars – and that I wanted to be her.

More music followed in the 90s, and plenty of collaborations unbefitting a beautiful brown girl who’s meant to be jumping up and down in cycling shorts on Top of The Pops. Pregnant. With some weird dancing cowboy clown people. And a cameraman on stage… sorry, I digress. To pick a few from the enormous list, Neneh went on to work with Gang Starr, Michael Stipe (REM), Geoff Barrow (Portishead), Bernard Butler (Suede), Tricky, Pulp, Gorillaz, Groove Armada and a Grammy nominated song with Youssou N’Dour “7 Seconds” (her second Grammy nom, she lost best new artist to fraudulent front act Milli Vanilli in 1990, which must have been galling). Today she would probably have been signed to XL, curating the Meltdown Festival and with a pedigree like that be in some sense on par with Damon Albarn (for better or worse). Yet when you bring up the name Neneh Cherry today most people still say “ahh, I loved Buffalo Stance!”.

Which brings us on to today, and a brand new collaboration with  Swedish jazz trio The Thing, covering music by Suicide, Martina Topley-Bird, Mats Gustaffson, The Stooges, MF Doom, Ornette Coleman and of course Don Cherry (the group took their name The Thing from the title of a Don Cherry song). In 2012 covering a track outside of your usual musical sphere is an affordable and pretty standard marketing tool (a collaboration is even better), but it is pretty much mandatory for the current generation of young black women terrified of being labelled as “soul” (which for some in the music press is apparently a black hole of boring from which ye shall never escape). Actually to be on the safe side you’d better get some tattoos, shave at least part of your head and say you’re really in to minimal techno and K-pop for good measure.

So Neneh Cherry’s return as a veteran experimental pop star may not be greeted with full recognition for all of the doors her Nike high tops helped kick down, but the after effects have contributed to a rich and diverse musical community awaiting her return as a beloved and respected monarch.

Neneh Cherry & The Thing “The Cherry Thing” will be released on 18th June 2012. 

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This happens to me all the time.

I’m not sure it’s entirely polite to refer to a grown man as adorable, but Kwes just is – perhaps in the very British way that causes well meaning Americans to yell it in my face when I visit their country.  I can’t wait to own his EP on Monday, but in the meantime I will be heading to the Southbank on Saturday for the launch of the Kwesachu Mixtape vol. 002 launch. From what I can tell our old blogspot is one of the very last places on the internet you can still download vol. 001…

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Alice Grant of the quinoa like slow-release super group Moats and Thrones‘ voice is so addictive I will even listen to the audio from a muffled recording in a barn at last years In The Woods Festival on repeat (not sure where the mic was positioned, possibly outside the barn in a small puddle, these things happen).

In The Woods is one of the very few UK music festivals I will be going to this year, partly because I am so excited about putting on a stage and party at Soundwave Croatia everything else pales in comparison, and partly because for some reason everyone seems to think having the same line up as each other is a good idea.

The Laurel Collective who run In The Woods don’t think this is a good idea however, and so far they have announced the likes of Alt J, Kwes, and Peter and Kerry (previous line ups have included The Invisible, Lianne La Havas, Micachu and various other people I heart very much). I’m crossing my fingers a few other PMOI favourites may be in contention for the line up this year, but regardless I will be heading to the secret location in the woods (that’s a real secret location, not all this “secret” east London warehouse business). I’m hoping you need a compass and orienteering skills to find it. You should come too, especially if you have said orienteering skills.

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My friend Theo Jemison, whose beautiful work I’ve featured here often, sent over this footage of Gil Scott Heron shortly before he passed away. There’s something so intimate about the way it’s shot, it makes you feel as though you were in the room, like an invented memory, or the memories of other gigs past joining up to take you a short leap in to the El Rey that night.

Whilst obviously Gil was a performer of the very best kind – honest, warm, sincere and musically very gifted – this kind of film makes me so grateful for film makers who are there to capture those moments for posterity. I don’t know how I would describe artists like Gil to my future kids with just their music to rely on; the next generation will be so much more visual than I, and I wonder how it will translate, but to have a little of the essence of the great and important voices of history preserved in cinematic moments like these gives me hope  they will continue to live on vividly.

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Tickets on sale here

I’ve wanted to book Tawiah to perform live for years now. There was a time I would be at every live gig she played to the point it may have been a bit creepy, and then all of a sudden she got a record deal and went off to write an album. From what I hear the album is very much underway, and luckily for us Tawiah is beginning to resurface to play some new material. Szjerdene is another artist I’ve been following for years, her recent EP is a thing of beauty and I cannot wait to hear it live. Morgan Zarate is a legend in my world, so bribing him in to DJing with some Ferrero Rocher is something of a coup – Spacek was my entry point to so much music I listen to today – and his more recent work is just as excellent.

*Update* Our resident DJ Eric Lau is now able to make it! Plus the wonderful crew at United 80 will return with a pop up music shop, and Mrs Mck’s Pudding Club from Relay Tea Rooms will be providing gorgeous cakes…

There are only 50 advance tickets available at £5, so I would advise you to buy them before they jump up to £8. If you follow our new Facebook page there will be a chance to win some tickets soon.

PMOI Live at the C.A.M.P., Weds 2nd May 2012 (9pm-1am)

Live: Tawiah , Szjerdene, Morgan Zarate (DJ set)

The C.A.M.P., 70-74 City Road, EC1Y 2BJ, £5 limited advance tickets/  (£8 on the door)

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Put Me On It >> Independent Music & Culture - London based music blog. Download, watch and listen to the best independent hip hop, soul, electronic & acoustic music.

I saw this guy live last year supporting Lianne LaHavas at Servants Jazz Quarters. It was a warm up gig for her performance on Jools Hollands’ show and subsequent world domination. Usually reading an artist bio makes you groan – they’re so often swimming with unhelpful comparisons and watery chunks of irrelevant information. L.A. Salami’s is very accurate however, in that it confirmed word for word the conversation I had with my companion at the gig “this guy sounds like he could have been a rapper but fell in love with Bob Dylan instead”. Dylan may be an influence but Salami has enough interesting stories of his own to set himself apart, and I look forward to writing about whoever ends up supporting L.A. Salami before his probable future appearances on Jools Holland and the likes’ shows.

Untitled by L.A. Salami

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