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Souls Of Mischief Interview

16.SOM - SOM3

16 years since their classic hit 93 Til Infinity, we catch up with Souls Of Mischief as they drop by London for their European tour.

Souls of Mischief are the stuff of hip-hop legend. You’ve either heard them or you haven’t, there’s rarely a middle ground. Hailing from Oakland, California the four strong crew formed back in the early nineties. Tajai and A-Plus met when they were just eight at Elementary school and picked up other members Phesto and Opio during their school years, forming Souls of Mischief officially when they were in Junior High. They erupted onto the scene with the now classic, ‘93 Til Infinity’ on jive records in 1993, which catapulted them into the spotlight and now firmly holds it’s own in the Hip-Hop hall of fame…

Read the full interview here.

Image: Charlie Whatley

Add Comments posted by Hot 110 on November 16th, 2009

categories: Press

The Independent: Are today’s black youth really influenced by underground music?

ChockABlock - (Matt Benson)

Last year, journalist Dotun Adebayo had written a piece for The Sun about listening to grime/rap music for 12 hours and after he was left feeling violently angry, almost as if he could have knifed someone, I personally think he was a bit over the top, but I would soon have to question it myself. I re-visited this topic when earlier this month a young man by the name of Nathan Harris, 16, was sent down for life due to committing two murders on fellow young people. He was said to have been caught on the social networking site Facebook, boasting about what he did to his victims by putting his violent rap lyrics up on the site. The report then went on to say that Nathan was a big fan of guns and violent music, which made me ask myself; does underground music really influence the minds and actions of our black British youth?

Read the rest of this article over at The Independent: HERE

Add Comments posted by BF BLOGGERS on October 27th, 2009

categories: Music, News, Press

Meet Meleka

When it comes to Funky, I think we’re all skanked out. It’s now time for the ladies to take the spolight with their sexy and soulful bangers. In last month’s SUPER SUPER I wrote a feature about some of the first ladies of funky and how they’re going to take over the world. I also recently caught up with Meleka to find out what she’s been up to. With her debut single GO set to be released on the 26th Ocotber it seems it’s all, well…GO for her these days.

21 year-old Meleka from North West London was born to be involved in the music scene. “My dad was producer in the late 80’s early 90’s for reggae and soul artists like Janet Kay. I always had a flair for music, dancing, performing so it was kind of predetermined” she says.

Her first single Go has made a scene in the world of music videos as it involves Meleka killing her boyfriend! “Doing the video was so much fun. It was directed by Ben Jones at Davey Inc. who have also done videos for people like The Streets and Lily Allen. I was actually handcuffed in the car to add more realism because obviously if you were arrested you’d be handcuffed” says Meleka. The song itself is pretty self-explanatory, “It’s about when you’re with someone and it’s not working and out and they just have to leave, they have to go. Exactly what it’s saying is exactly what it means”. It’s impact on the clubbing scene is most evident is the way it has post heartbreak raver girls in nightclubs skankin’ out and screaming at the tops of their voices “GOOOOO HOMEEEE… I DON’T WANNA BEEEE WITH YOUUUUUUUU”. (Being one of said girls I can assure you it’s very liberating…)

Last year Meleka won Hugo Urban Rules – a music competition which allowed her to open for Estelle and which helped her find her managers and in turn enabled the single to be released on a promotional basis. The Crazy Cousinz remix was probably what made the track so successful on the club scene. “Working with Crazy Cousinz was really cool. Paleface just let me be myself and be creative,” says Meleka.

She has already recorded a number of tracks and has explored a number of different music styles. “I have some pop songs, some more soulful ones, I have one called My Life Song which has more acoustic sound. I’m currently looking for new inspiration and buying albums by people like Madonna, Kings of Leon, the Beegees, even Abba. I’m trying to get into people that the industry consider as being the best,” says Meleka. As an up and comer in the UK music scene Meleka hopes to work on an album and see how far her music can take her. “People like Chipmunk, Ironik and NDubz are all doing really well and it’s very encouraging for the up and coming people like myself.” I’m sure we can look forward to great things from Meleka.

Make sure you get your hands on acopy of the single which is released on the 26th of this month.

Add Comments posted by BF BLOGGERS on October 16th, 2009

categories: Music, Press

Zigfird – Von – Underbelly

Hi all, our next gig is as near as this Friday/9th/Oct/09

Come on down to 11 Hoxton Sq on Friday evening to catch us and others, rocking out and drinking till we drop!

Check the Below flyer for details.

By the way you got to be quick if you want cheap tickets. Door price is a stupid amount!

Zigfrid

View Comments (2) posted by Boxfresh HQ on October 6th, 2009

categories: Events, Events, Music, News, News, Press

Attacca Pesante Q&A!

Attacca Pesante are the latest in the UK funky scene to make noise with their amazing new track Make It Funky, which features vocals from the one and only Shea Soul (who tore up the UK Funky Live concert earlier this month). SUPERSUPER caught up with the trio to talk, funky, funky and more funky…

Who?

Well it all started really in 2001 when we decided we wanted to produce and make music. A few years later, around 2004, we felt that we should take this whole music thing seriously, we needed a name and started looking in the dictionary and we found Attacca Pesante, which simply means ‘attack and go forth’ in Latin. We liked the meaning and thought it sounded cool and took it from there…

Inspirations?

Hans Zimmer, John Williams and the obvious one’s Timberland and Pharrell. Dizzee Rascal inspires us as he’s still independent and hitting number ones with good music. We generally get inspired by good music which is everywhere, so we look at artists such as Kanye West’s passion to make great music. That’s a big inspiration!

Funky?

When we made Make It Funky For Me, we didn’t go into the AP Nucleus (Studio), aiming to make a funky track, it only became a funky track once people started labelling the song that. Once we made it with Shea Soul (vocalist) a friend of ours sent the song to the lovely Lucy Ambache and she gave us a lot of love on Choice FM. From there, other radio stations wanted the song and the rest is, as they say history.

Notoriety?

The press could be better, funky hasn’t received mainstream success as of yet. Also I don’t think a lot of people take it seriously, which is disappointing because funky is feel good music that makes you want to shake a leg or two. There is also some good music in funky which I believe can cross over into the mainstream.

MCs & funky?

Some have created a grime feel to the scene, some have lowered the quality of music in the scene all together and some have made good songs such as Migraine Skank. Overall we think the majority of MCs should stay as hosts in the clubs, they’re good there, and we like them there. We truly believe if MCs didn’t start jumping on the funky tracks, funky could go further.

She Soul?

Shea Soul is our close friend’s sister, our friend had the tune on her phone and when it rang Shea heard it and wanted to get involved. Shea came down to the AP Nucleus (studio) and we recorded it, the beat and chorus was sexy already, but Shea was the extra spicy sauce which made the jerk chicken amazing!

UK Funky Live concert?

Yeah it was good, interesting. The colourful Shea has an amazing soulful voice and performs well live. We play instruments so it’s a shame we couldn’t be on stage playing with her…

Future projects?

Well Make It Funky is coming out on the 12th Oct and we are currently creating our new single with Bluey Robinson (people check this guy out). Can’t say much about that, but just watch out for it. We are also working on our album which will be out hopefully some time next year and have a few interesting remixes in the works, just expect good music from us. Keep it tropical!

www.myspace.com/attaccapesante

Make It Funky - out 12th October!

This also appeared over at SUPERSUPER Magazine

Add Comments posted by BF BLOGGERS on October 2nd, 2009

categories: Music, News, Press

Hot Off The Press!!

The pics from Frisco’s ‘ Eyes On You’ premiere party have finally arrived. Big up to photographer Chris Hughes.

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Add Comments posted by Boxfresh HQ on September 15th, 2009

categories: Collaborations, Events, Music, Press

Taubertal-Rocked!!! Sehr Gut!!

Guten Tag!

Yes we’re back from Germany, the valley of Taubertal and nearly back from the hangovers

Early Thursday morning TWK flew in style from City Airport (all paid for) to play our 1st open air summer festival!

Taubertal Festival is one of Germany’s main music festivals. Its kept pretty small and hidden away in the Taubertal Valley. Overlooked by an almost untouched Bavarian village called Rothenburg. The village is all within the castle’s city walls! Its amazingly beautiful and we were staying in the hostel in the grounds of the castle! Awesome!

After landing Thursday morning we took a 2hr coach from Frankfurt airport to Rothenburg. Dumped the Kit off, got our passes, then went for lunch. Lunch never really happened, nor did tea as we discovered 1 litre beer jugs in a Bavarian beer garden!

Many jugs later we staggered home but passing the main square met some locals with guitars! They thought we were important when we said we were playing the festival! They bought us beers and asked us to play some of our music. Well we’re not going to turn that kinda offer down are we? We played until early hours, people came and went, taking photo’s, joining in etc as we made friends the kids of Rothenburg!

Next day we were playing Emergenza stage @ 5pm. Needless to say we were not in a good shape! The Germans told us Bavarian beer never gives you a hangover! They lie, they lie!!!!!

A few snoozes, several litres of water and three Red Bulls we walked on stage! A super quick plug in, line check, and off again to wait for our intro. Walter our compare and an integral member of the Emergenza team gave us a history making intro speech and the smoke machines went off! We could see a pretty sparse crowd sitting down and not really paying attention. We all thought, “oh well, hear we go” but what surprised us is the rate at which people flooded toward the stage! By our third song people were squashed against the barriers and every one in the middle was fully dancing away! Now that’s a proper festival! Girls with beads and scruffy hair dancing in the sun…..proper! A big cheer sounded as we finished and we were totally made up with that as a result

Check out the pics I’ve put together below of our trip!
Taubertal

The rest of the weekend we became members of the crowd as we watched the other bands and partied hard into the night! Every night consisted of meeting up with all the other bands in the ‘Rock Cafe’ in the center of the village! It was called rock cafe but apart from the guitar in the window its just a normal bar. Night generally turned pretty messy once we were there, but not one evening failed to turn into multi national a sing along with guitars!

All the band we met were amazing! We had such a wicked time. We’d like to say thank you to The Maccabees for being cool and spending time with us and same for all the other bands for being so cool! You know who you are! We’ll meet you all again at some point for sure! Keep in touch boys n girls!

Now for us its back to normality with our London gigs! Cant wait to get stuck in!

Next up MONTO WATER RATS (this Friday 14th Aug 2009)

We’ll update you later on that!

Cheers Peeps

Catch you soon

TWK.x

Add Comments posted by Boxfresh HQ on August 12th, 2009

categories: Competitions, Events, Events, Music, Press

Jo Fuertes-Knight on Hot 110

I get a lot of random emails these days- some people with elaborate abuse baying for my blood, some aspiring (and shit) musicians asking “yo, BRUV! can you put a link up to ma choon on ur blog yeah? fanx” and occasionally some asking if I can grace them with my well classy and not at all potty-mouth splattered writing. The guys over at Hot110 asked if I’d like to contribute before the site was launched and for me personally I just liked their quiet confidence. Even the site in progress looked slick, the guys themselves are solid hardworking brehs with fingers in lots of pies and already had connections…dare I say it…in the ’scene’ to give them a kick start.

A lot of young people are bum-rushing into internet projects thinking that anyone and their dog can start some kind of e-zine and make it work. Although the internet is a big free for all spunk fest the only thing that will give you longevity and get you noticed is quality content. Content is paramount, if you have fuckery boring content then people will just switch off. You cannot physically cover every single badman mc, graffiti artist, wannabe DJ in the country so why not cherry pick the best? With that in mind Hot110 is rapidly becoming a platform for up and coming musicians and artists a like and not a free for all for bedroom MCs, fade in fade out DJs and wankers with no creativity wanting a fashionable job. They’ve made a supah amount of progress within the short time it’s up I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes next…and I’ll be the bitch desperately hanging on to their coat-tails…

Jo Fuertes-Knight

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View Comment posted by Hot 110 on July 28th, 2009

categories: Press

Rock the “Sport’ Bar!!

oldst2

A quiet one for The Kicks last week,

We played at Belushi’s, London Bridge with a few of the other finalists from this years Emergenza festival, quite an “intimate” venue to say the least. Sports bar by day, gig venue full of students by night! Pretty good atmosphere tho, the small room means it seems pretty busy regardless of how many people are there! We made it down ther around 3pm for sound check. The sound engineer wasnt there (as usual) so to pass the time we sat watching the cricket upstairs (rock’n'Roll eh). After sinking several jars, we headed down to set up. The PA system had a very weird set up with speakers pointing in crazy directions to stop the reverb from the bare walls! Later after all the sound checks the room started to fill. Despite the PA system it did sound pretty good.

The first band was great ‘The Arts Factory’ with a very cute female singer, funky bass and indie guitar tones.

Red Shark in Vegas really stood out (as well as us obviously). Really cool indie accoustic guitars played at full volume with destortion in places, backed by some awesome drumming! Make sure you check those guys out if they’re playing near you.

The metal band after us kinda trashed the place courtesy of their five friends but by then we had safely made it to the bar! The rest is left to history, a blury one!

Friday night we headed to Camden early on for a “meeting” with the Emergenza festival organizers. They wanted to go through a few things and prep us before our show at this years Taubertal Festival in Germany, we are all really looking forward to it now. The meeting started off on a serious note, but once technical stuff was out the way it soon developed into a full on drinking session!… Doh, we never seem to control that, however good our intentions are to start with!

Work on our website has been taking place this weekend, will let you know when it’s up and running. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears pinned!

We have a couple of weeks away from live shows now, mainly to prepare ourselves for Germany. We really want to nail our performance and show everyone just how good we are. We are representing the UK afterall & don’t wanna let anyone down so its back the studio for some full on rehearsal!!

Well thats the previous week in the wintery land of the Kicks

Catch you soon people

Mucho Love
TWK
http://www.myspace.com/thewinterkicks

View Comments (2) posted by Boxfresh HQ on July 20th, 2009

categories: Events, Music, News, News, Press, Press

New mixmag with La Roux

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This month, Mixmag present one of the biggest acts of 2009, La Roux as the front cover star as well as a debut Creamfields Carnage mix CD from TIESTO.

Inside you’ll find La Roux’s exclusive on tour diary from Sonar festival, a full introduction to UK Funky as well as an interview with one of the worlds biggest DJs Tiesto.

Tiesto’s Creamfields Carnage cover CD sees the trance titan mix sixteen of the very best tunes to have filled some of the biggest clubs in the world. From Privilege in Ibiza to headlining the O2, Gui Boratto, David Tort and Gareth Emergy all feature on this big room sound CD.

Don’t miss dispatches from three days of madness in the Dance Village at this years Glastonbury plus all the features, news, reviews, club listings and informed hedonism you need to maximise your summer of raving.

Tiesto Creamfields Carnage mix CD tracklist

1.Huggy & Dean Newton – ‘Indian Summer’

2. David Tort – ‘Lost In Acid (Ausfahrt mix)

3. Nadia Ali – ‘Love Story’ (Sultan & Ned Shepard Mix)

4. Gui Borrato – ‘No Turning Back’

5. Cora Novoa – ‘Unattainable Love’

6. Audible – ‘Moments’

7. Nv and Noy – ‘Ocean Drive’

8. Mac & Mac – Solid Session’ (Superfly edit)

9. El Loco – ‘Ibiza’ ( Electro extended mix)

10. Bad Boy Bill feat Alyssa Palmer – ‘Falling Anthem (Hervé We Are A Beautiful Disaster remix)

11. Uppermost – ‘Somebody’ (Antillas Club remix)

12. Cosmic Gate feat Emma Hewitt – ‘Not Enough Times (club mix)

13. Gareth EMERY – ‘Exposure’

14. Breakfast – ‘Remember’

15. Virtual Vault – ‘Definition’

16. Richard Durand – ‘Into Something’

Add Comments posted by Boxfresh HQ on July 16th, 2009