130bpm, 4-to-the-floor, afrobeat, dem bow riddim and R&B…

…make up UK Funky, in a nutshell. Well, it’s actually much deeper than that. I really don’t wanna get it wrong or tick the professionals and experts off. It’s this sexy, not at all misogynistic, tasteful, and yet so raw and tribal house type of music with almost live-sounding drum patterns.

UK Funky is like a bowl of delicious, ethnic, colourful, tossed salad of UK Garage, Tribal house, Soca, electro house with chunks of goodness like soul or R&B-style vocals on top, dressed with Latin or African percussions in the dem bow riddim (dancehall ting), served at a groove-friendly 130-135 beats per minute tempo.

There are heaps and heaps of amazing UK Funky producers out there, but today I’m scribbling about the 23-year-old Ossie from East London. He used to make Hip Hop and R&B with his friends since he was 11 until House took over and he started fusing them all like a boss chef. Anyway, Ossie’s ish is bomb. It’s deep, it’s modest, soul, natural.. Take a bite.

His newest creation, “Love Crazy” is released on July 9 from 2020 Midnight Visions.

 

Some more tracks from his Set The Tone EP (released by Hyperdub - prestiiiiige!!!).

Ossie – Set the Tone

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Ossie – The Power of Love

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Ossie – Moves

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Redlight.. House, Bass and Beyond

Redlight, (Hugh James Pescod) another Bristol OG/record producer/DJ/re-mixer/composer with never too many other aliases such as Clipz, Animal Youth Club, Conqueror – whose fans and followers incude Skream, Toddla T, Jack Beats, A-Trak, Mark Ronson, Zinc and Annie Mac – is about to drop another party tune of the summer, “Lost in Your Love”, due for release on August 5. This one is probably more dedicated to the mainstream end of House than to his usual UK Funky/Grime/Dancehall/Garage die-hard fans. Very lyrical, very dance floor friendly, got dat build-up and dat drop.. I’m not hating though, Redlight is a badman, can’t fuck with Redlight. Check out the official teaser video for the track.

 

Here’s a Redlight hit from a couple of years ago, “MDMA”. You might’ve heard the one which featured Ms. Dynamite, “What You Talking About!?”. I still lose my shit and have so much fun dancing to that. And another release from 2011 if you’re interested.

Redlight – MDMA (original mix)

Redlight – Source 16

Again, all thanks to William J for showing me Redlight.

A BrEaCh of All Norms

 

Bristolian (oh yeah, so Bristol is the OG hood of excellent underground music) BrEaCh is a man of many talents. Trained as a classical cellist and vocalist since the age of 10, he had always been influenced by soul, jazz, house and the street music – hip hop. He was baptized into Church of G-Funk when “Straight Outta Compton” by N.W.A. blessed all the hoods in the world (if you were born in or before the 90′s, you know you had to claim your gangsta rights listening to that shit. Rrrruuuthlessssss!!!!). His musical career started as Ben Westbeech in 2006, as a vocalist and producer and he has since collaborated with many dons of the drum&bass genre, including DJ Marky, Nu:Tone, and DJ Die. Westbeech’s probably most well known track “Get Closer“, in which he sampled the soul/funk singer, keyboardist Linda Williams’ “Elevate Our Minds“, is a classic example of his inspiration.

Last summer he came out with THE tune of the season, so playful, so soulful, almost acid jazz – “Something for the Weekend”, and his remix of the said track with a banger drumline.

This very summer he launches a new record label, Naked Naked with the release of his carefully composed track “You Won’t Find Love Again”. Does it sound like a typical house track to you? It might, but if you notice, there is actually nothing wrong with it. None of that tacky shit. Velvet subkick and that garagey hi hat with the twinkling synth and classy bits of vocals.

Sorry, no freebies on this one, cause I want you to support him. Or just find your own free download links. Haha.

All in all, this man’s basically a go-getter and his outputs influenced by a diverse spectrum (“Fuck the Police..” to Mozart’s Sonata) of music will exceed all norms and expectations.

If you’re down with the “healthy dose of bass” and a little moody vibesss like that of Claude Von Stroke’s dirtybird Records, you’ve got to peep BrEaCh’s set on Boiler Room. He’s an excellent DJ.

Finally, I just wanna thank my boyo William J for introducing me to BrEaCh and a bajillion other artists. He practically brought me the joy of appreciating old and new house, because I never really liked house before. More on the bajillion other artists later though.

…Show goes on.

Derek Vincent Smith, better known as Pretty Lights is a regular to many of our favourite American raves – Bonnaroo, Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival, Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Camp Bisco, The Electric Zoo..

His sounds are very distinct, you can feel the glitchy synth on your skin and the analogue sub kick hit you in the heart and you know you wanna nod your head to the hip hop beats, sway your body to the vintage melody, and hum along the soulful vocal samples.

He dropped out of University of Colorado at Boulder in his freshman year to focus on his music. Sometimes you give it all, forget tomorrow and see where today takes you. Other times you take a breather, check your stance. Either way, you go on.

Pretty Lights and his girlfriend/creative director Krystle Blackburn came out with this beautiful visual for his new single “We Must Go On” released Jan 26th, by personally collecting footage over the last year.
Sit back and enjoy a puff or two on this one guys.

Generous dude gives out his music for free on his website if ya didn’t know!
http://prettylightsmusic.com/

China de Grooves

Shanghai’s underground bass, down-tempo, raggae, trip-hop queen, Cha Cha has recently attended the Red Bull Music Academy 2011. Her side project AM444 with the Shanghai-based Dutch producer Jay.Soul, is one not to underestimate. Her smooth, moody vocals over Jay.Soul’s lingering melodies are sure to satisfy your needs for a breather.

Here’s an insight into “Dope Chinese music” Cha Cha has introduced on the Red Bull Music Academy website. http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/cha-cha-chinese-countdown

My favourite is #5. Hip Hop is not dead!

 

Don’t forget to check out AM444. There will be another blog entry for these guys…  Their tracks all linger… You’ve been warned.