house music

Theo Parrish, his band and dancers – Teddy’s Get Down 2014 live show

THEO PARRISH

Theo Parrish is a musician and selector based in Detroit, Michigan, often described as a ‘techno/house’ artist. He was born in Washington D.C. in 1972.

Theo Parrish DJ

Theo Parrish musical influences

He grew up in Chicago, Illinois listening to jazz musicians like Miles Davis, Nina Simone, and George Gershwin.

THEO PARRISH MUSIC BACKGROUND

Theo Parris begins spinning and producing tracks in 1986, at the age of thirteen…

After graduating from the Academy for the Arts, he received a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1994, he received a BA’s Degree of Fine Arts from KCAI with a concentration in Sound Sculpture, a form of orchestration using:

live instruments,
looped recordings,
the human voice,
and numerous other sound generating devices.

MUSIC STYLE

Theo Parrish can fuse the rhythmic, disco-based pulse of Chicago house with the modernist soul of Detroit techno, while at the same time pointing to a lineage in black music that runs directly from Sun Ra to Sound Signature.

You may also want to read this two paged Irish Times interview with T heo Parrish.

LIVE PERFORMANCE RECORDINGS

Theo Parrish gave a live performance in Dublin on Thursday 19th July 2014 with a full band and dancers for the first time in 10 years!

Check out below the slideshow, videos and mixed tape taken of this live event.

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Africa Day Festival 2014 (Dublin) & after-festival party at Voodoo Lounge

This is going to be a nice souvenir from the Africa Day event, which took place on Sunday 25th May 2014 at Farmleigh Estate, Phoenix Park, Dublin and its after-party at Voodoo Lounge, 39-40 Arran Quay, Dublin 7. If you didn’t attend, you now have the chance to catch up with them.

In fairness with you, due to the rainy weather conditions, I have filmed a lot more the after-party indoor event than the outdoor festival. Nonetheless, you can still check their website www.africaday.ie to see what kind of entertainment and exhibitions were there.

You will find below few pictures I took at the festival and a map showing you all the different activities as well as the line-up schedule.

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Now, please enjoy the only video I took at the outdoor festival event from Benzor hip hop singer in collaboration with No Long Tingz Music Group, at Atilogwu stage:

As for the after-party, I filmed DJs Marv and Spaqz playing various tunes ranging from rn’b, old and new school hip hop, soca, reggae, afrobeat, etc…There are four videos that you can find on my Youtube Channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/emelinej1/videos

Finally, please share with us any pictures, videos, or impressions of these events! Did you enjoy them? What was the best act(s) in your opinion?

Kwaito (South African House): its music evolution, exportation and the dance

For those of you who never heard of Kwaito music, I let you catch up on this by reading my previous article at the following link:

http://wp.me/pXgap-fR

To understand the origin of Kwaito, please check this article out:

http://africanmusicdance.wikia.com/wiki/Kwaito

Today, I will introduce you to the Kwaito music industry through a very good documentary filmed by Eric Sell a.k.a EES (also: eesy-ees/EeS/EeS, “Easy Eric Sell”) a Namibian German Kwaito artist and rapper. He travels between South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Germany to demonstrate the music evolution and its exportation. Any of his German explanations will be subtitled in English, but most part of this reportage is in English. Now, enough talking from me, check out the youtube film below:

Since you know now more about what Kwaito music is, you may want to see how the Kwaito dance looks like and try out few basic steps. The two first video below will showcase a TV dance show and a dance performance and the last one is a dance tutorial from EES (Eric Sell). What are your thoughts in this music and dance style? Do you think it has potential to become a worldwide phenomenon?

To listen to and watch Kwaito music mix and dance, check out this link full of videos:

http://www.mashpedia.com/Kwaito

South Africa – Hip Hop artists

Ever wondered how South African Hip Hop music could sound like? If you have never been to South Africa, this will give a delightful musical trip!

I have discovered some really cool hip hop artists true to their origins, who have mixed the hip hop music with the fascinating local sounds like Kwaito ( a variant of house music featuring the use of African sounds and samples. Typically at a slower tempo range than other styles of house music, Kwaito often contains catchy melodic and percussive loop samples, deep bass lines, and vocals) or Zulu (guitar picking folklore music style influenced by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century).

For more information on Kwaito, check out this article:

http://thisisafrica.me/lifestyle/real-roots-kwaito-south-african-house-music/

I hope you will enjoy as much I did to listen to Terror MC, Pro Kid, Mzekezeke and Zulu boy.

If you want to know a bit more about these artists, check out their biographies here and find few videos below these links:

http://www.myspace.com/theterrormc

https://www.last.fm/music/PROKID

http://kwaitomusic.co.za/artists/mzekezeke/

http://www.djsproduction.co.za/zulu-boy/