This Mala in Cuba business is too much. Can’t wait to hear the album.

This was tune of the weekend. Victoria Park loved it, especially the ladies in Spandex who’d rolled in a sound system in a Morrisons trolley.

slyestofones:

sirum.

(Source: dntty)

Some pix from this year’s truly inspiring Southport Weekender.

Southport Weekender 2012

Southport Weekender is officially my new favourite festival. I’ve always been seduced by festivals in more exotic locations, like Barcelona’s Sonar, and was never organised enough to sort out Southport in time as it sells out so fast.

But this year, the stars aligned and I found myself at Butlins in Minehead, doing the electric slide with thousands of other punters as we waited for Jill Scott to come on stage in a pavilion normally touting 2p slots, cuddly character photo shoots and soggy paninis.

Eventually Jilly from Philly sassed her way around the stage, earrings clanking and face radiant as she showered upon us her wisdoms about life and love; the kind of motivational speaker you’d actually bother listening too.

The woman I was most excited to see, however, was LA’s Patrice Rushen, who dominates my ‘cheer up, Dancer’ playlist for my daily stomp down to the Tube. The jazz pianist, vocalist opened her set at the Beat Bar with ‘Number One’, and we all loudly dah dahed along.

In fact, Patrice and her band (Ndugu Chancler, Everette Harp, Doc Powell and ‘Ready’ Freddie Washington) rolled through all my favourites including the heavily sampled ‘Forget  Me Nots’, ‘Remind Me’, the sublime ‘Settle For My Love’ and ‘Haven’t You Heard’.

I spent an awful lot of time at the Beat Bar, pushing right to the front to see Robert Glasper, another of my favourite jazz pianists. I’ve seen him live a few times now but this was the best so far; being close enough to see the intimate interplay among his stellar band – Casey Benjamin on vocoder and saxophone, Derrick Hodge on electric bass, and Mark Colenburg on drums instead of the usual Chris Dave, who happens to be my favourite drummer. Tough act to follow but Mark did the band proud as he rolled through cuts off the ‘Black Radio’ record, their cover of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, bringing down the house. Dope solo, too.

I also developed a whole new love for house music after hearing Karizma play a couple of times in the Powerhouse, and being utterly captivated by Joe Claussell’s emotional EQing back at the Beat Bar.

IG Culture and Jonny Miller put me right back in my broken beat comfort zone, however, and it felt like the old days at Coop with the Birmingham crew tearing up the dance floor. I robbed a few moves and will be in that dancing circle next year. You lot have been warned.

Freshness from Sene. Well worth checking the album.

Breakin’ Convention 2012

Breakin’ Convention is one of my highlights of the year. This three-day hip-hop dance festival, held at London’s Sadler’s Wells, celebrates the very best in breaking, popping, locking and, this year, strutting.

As always, curator Jonzi D includes a nod to the forefathers and brought the original strut man Lonnie ‘Pop Tart’ Green to London to perform with his crew PT.3000. It was great to see the pioneers in action and reminded me, on a much smaller scale, of the tribute a couple of years ago to Greg Campbellock Jr, the man who brought locking to the world.

On the other end of the spectrum was France’s Pro-Phenomenon, who seemed to have taken a shine to Chicago’s footwork, a relatively new street-dance style first performed at Breakin’ Convention last year, and characterised by insanely fast moves.

When it came to crews this year, the UK’s Unity predictably brought the house down with their crowd-pleasing brand of grimy street dance. My favourite, however, was France’s Vagabond Crew who delivered some alien b-boy business and skills that got them standing ovation.

France delivered again with Gemini, the Don Draper of flamenco-style locking, but the most spectacular solo came from Brooklyn’s Storyboard P and his hypnotic bone-defying waves set to the soundtrack of Marvin Gaye. It was like watching water, and as someone on YouTube so succinctly put it: “That shit cray.”

Fight For Your Right (Revisited) written, produced and directed by Adam Yauch. Genius. RIP, Sir.

Artist Escrif switches it up. Couldn’t resist, sorry. More here.