Tuesday, January 12 2010

Breakbeat Tuesday – Jump Into The Fire

So back in the day, when I was just a fledgling digger, I found that there’s a certain skill set that you develop in order to know what exactly you want to pull from dollar bins that might have the heat on it. You learn pretty quickly that if you’re looking for a particular sound, then grabbing any record that has dudes with afros on the cover might end up biting you in the ass (you actually would be better off grabbing that one with the freaked out hippies.) But on the strength, probably the best set of clues that you cold look for is the lineup. If there’s a certain record that you really like, see who plays bass on on, and find that guy on other records. Or keys. Or drums…

Idris Muhammad is considered by many to be one of the funkiest drummers of all time. He had a distinct way of playing, the slight lag and double-up on kicks, his knack in getting his snare to pop a certain way, and the way that he stayed in the pocket so tough. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with him being a New Orleans native and their unique Second-Line style of drumming. My dude Joy used to come down to Philly from Harlem and would bring all his pops records with him back when we thought we might just be starting a rap group. One of those albums was Idris Muhammad “Peace & Rhythm” album and from the moment I put the needle on “Brother You Know You’re Doing Wrong” Idris became that guy I would look for on the back of records. And in those days, I used to buy a lot of records, man…
Fast-forward to 2008. Me and DJ Ayres were playing at the Shambhala Music Festival out in the middle of the wilderness in British Colombia. It’s kind of like the Canadian version of Burning Man and, considering that I never really went to raves when I was younger, it was a completely new and eye-opening experience to me anyway hahah. So we were up there for 3 days, having played the first night, and then a couple nights to check it out. Saturday night we were hanging out with Smalltown Pete, Skratch Bastid and Wax Romeo, we were all psyched to see DJ Nu-Mark play a set in the “Ewok Village” – SERIOUSLY this place (which was outside) was designed just like the Ewok Village, everything built into the trees, mad walkways between these treehouses and whatnot. It all all added to the intensity and the absurdity of the weekend. Anyway, we were all feeling it and went to see Nu-Mark and kind of expected him to play some indie rap music and some funk 45s and whatnot – boy were we surprised. He absolutely leveled the place playing the most party rocking set I had heard all year. Absolutely flawless, and the one word I should use is “classy” (and on the strength if you ever get a chance to see the homie play live then do it!)

Halfway through Mark’s set he did this thing with these drum breaks and me and Bastid were bugging off of it, and we both were like “I know this but I don’t know it this schitt is so ill oh my god let’s go…” Turns out it was Rusty Bryant’s “Fire Eater” – a record that I have but haven’t listened to in years – featuring the one and only Idris Muhammad. You kind of have to have this record. A Soul/Jazz classic, the heavy break(s) comes in 9:36. Schitt is kind of mega in so many ways…

Rusty Bryant “Fire Eater” (Prestige Records, 1971)