I want to introduce you guys to more of our friends on this tour, ie today: DJ AYRES from THE RUB and BLU JEMZ, who played with us in Tampa, Minneapolis, Indiana, Kansas City and Cleveland.

AYRES’ little speech before we got on stage was (and pardon me if I don’t quote verbatim):

“Do you like Europe? (yeah! kind of) Straight from the second best continent on earth (?), home of soccer, rugby, cricket and field darts (??), originator of Australian-ruled football (???), which of you Clevelanders ever heard of Carte Blanche? (undescript crowd mumble) Well, they couldn’t be here tonight so here are RITON and DJ MEHDI instead! Anybody here like comedy DJ-ing?!”

BLU JEMZ’s speech was more ’straight to the point’ as he only said: “2 EXPRESS, NO LOCAL STOPS, IT’S TIME TO GET FAT AND COLLECT MY PROPS”. Go figure.

I want to thank them guys for being the funniest mo’fuckas in America and for showing us the best time in the Midwest, home of Dolly, Megan, Hillary and a couple of Jennifers. These colours don’t run, baby! USA! USA!

M.

These guys,

You already know we love them.

They’re tag-teaming now, as THE KRAYS. Their new EP is about to drop on ABRACADA records.
I had much fun remixing their ‘Ready When You Are’ song, featuring EBONY BONES.
Preview it HERE right now—

M.

PS: If you’re in London this weekend, you should also know that BRODI, RITON and I are playing FABRIC on friday, as well as The Midnight Juggernaughts, Jamaica, Sound Pellegrino Thermal Team, and many others. I wouldn’t miss it if I was you, I know I won’t—

BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS by Mr Flash out now on Ed Banger.

Thank HIM later,

Mehdi.

If you’re a regular hang-out here on Coolcats, you must know about the nice blokes of STAYGOLD.
Been working on a few songs with them peeps, as well as remixing their ‘JUSTIFY’ track for Red Black And Blue.
Here is their first official single, LIVE ON SWEDISH TV, featuring the ever nice ROBYN and Naeem from SPANK ROCK.

I love this song, my bet is you gonna hear a lot of STAYGOLD in the near future. Mark my words—

M.

Getting my House Music on, working on the RITON/MEHDI tracks of CARTE BLANCHE, stumbled upon this super cool video courtesy of Tokyo cool cat and number one DJ DARUMA from the DEX PISTOLS.

House Music all night long!

M.

—

—

FEADZ is my cousin, my label mate, an inspiring music-maker, and one of the best DJ’s in the whole wide world.

In other words, I love him.

Mehdi.

See FEADZ with the whole Ed Rec crew this friday in NYC, at the official Bday after-party at WEBSTER HALL.

Peeps over at CYBERAXIS wrote this fine portrait of my good friend and old bandmate KERY JAMES, allow me to copy and paste—

Kery James The Enunciator
Portrait of a hip-hop legend in the making.

He creates more drama with a single camera and and off-stage mike than a B-movie shoot-up in monochromatic shade.  With the ease of an orator channeling a fire he has made peace with – Kery James lays into the sluggish beat of a track, marking his lyrical accents with the precision of a trained pugilist. The camera zooms in to frame a face straight out of our mythical past.  He is Hounsou Djimon with the muscularity displayed in Janet Jackson’s “Love Will Never Do Without You”;  or  Shabba Ranks with sinewy hip-hop style. “Tight Grip”. Like Djimon and Shabba Ranks, James’ facial template is out of Liebovitz tribal scrap book.

He flashes white without a trace of blood but still  evokes memories of the Maroons and Mau Mau  – even when sporting a Tommy Hilfiger get-up.  Stereotype? Perhaps, but it goes deeper than that. The nervousness surrounding James’ hard core stylings and  Muslim beliefs is, rooted in a reactive subconscious and the perception  of James as a particularly potent messenger. When he intones  about “ma conviction”, the powers that be want to know what that conviction is, because all of  suddenly the medium has a message – and where hip-hop is concerned, it can be perceived as potently subversive. (The same story played itself out with hard core groups like N.W.A. et al in the U.S.A. )

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Kery James Chronology

• 1977 – Born Alix Mathurin in Les Abymes, Guadelope, West Indies, December 28, 1977.
• 1985 – Comes to France and starts to rap
• 1989 – James  begins rapping out of  the Paris suburb of Orly.  He gets noticed by MC Solaar who decides to feature him on his  1991  debut album “Qui Sème le Vent Récolte le Tempo”.
• 1990 – Kery James becomes a member of the Ideal Junior group with DJ Mehdi.
• 1992 – Idéal Junior releases the 12″ single,  “La Vie Est Brutale”  on the French dance label On the Beat.
• 1996 – The James/DJ Mehdi duo shortens its name to just Idéal J  and  release the eponymously named “Ideal J” album.
• 1998 -  The duo releases its second full album entitled “Le Combat Continue”.
• 1999 – Las Montanas, one of James’ childhood friends is shot and killed. Kery James places his career on hiatus and takes sanctuary in the Islamic faith that had been the matrix of his childhood years.
• October 2001 – Kery James comes out with the first solo album “Si c’était à refaire”. It breaks into the top five albums on the French charts. Although the album is self-titled, it marks the first time he has recorded with a major record company: Warner Brothers. The album is a personal testament, that also marks James’ turning from his more hard-core edge of the past.
• 2003 -Kery James reunites with Mafia K’1 for the album “La Cerise Sur le Ghetto”.
• 2004 – Kery records his second solo album “Ma vérité” which is released the following year.
• 2008 – James records his third album “À l’ombre du show business” which reaches number three on the French charts. By 2008, James had done a total of 54 collaborations with other artists which had started in 2001.

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If the French hip-hop exhibits the robustness, spit and polish of American hip-hop, it is because roots and origins. Latter day musical historians place the birth of French hip right about 1979, fueled by the colonial legacy of North African and Caribbean immigrants.  This is about the time that American hip-hop was enjoying its first success soon after its own birth.  The themes of racism and marginal existence in the HLM (habitation à loyer modéré) which are the French equivalent of American projects or ghettoes, basically resonated with Les Damnés de la Terre.

The rise of Kery James intersects with that of the first hip-hopper to make it big, MC Solaar, a Senegalese immigrant, who met James in 1989 and featured him on his first solo album in 1991.

Against this background, Kery James has emerged as  something of a seminal figure in his own right by virtue of his grasp of the hip-hop genre. Rapping in a language that has a surfeit of soft consonants James has excelled at forging a style that is as hard as it is articulate.  He doesn’t just trip out his rhymes, he spits them with the precision of an orator who wants you to get every vowel and consonant. And he does it with the gravity of a warden on execution day. So commanding is James’ demeanor on-camera that he often requires minimal props in his videos – holding court and cutting loose lyrics that seem to carry the weight Nostradamic  quartrains. This is what Busta Rhymes was reaching for in his turn of the turn of the century opuses but never quite seemed to pull it off.

copyright© 2009 cyberaxis.wordpress.com

Her name is AMANDINE ROMERO,
She’s always on point.

You guys don’t wanna mess with her,
She’s mean as hell.

She’s no joke,
Ask anybody in the business—

Put it this way, would  you want to upset her?
I wouldn’t.

Ask Fafi!

This is Kid Sister rapping, A-Trak executive producing, Dust La Rock graphic designing, FOOLS GOLD extravaganza— Congrats to our cousin crew on this first LP release, somebody make this Violet baby available in Europe quick!

M.

RITON is the realest DJ on the scene,

Chillin’ in his Maybach, whatever he sends out, homie he will make back.

Could you believe that? You gotta see that—

He don’t plan on going broke, put that on his Maybach,

he’s in it to win now and you can’t take that.

Get it, Sir Riton just loves his Miami gangsta music played loud,

preferably in a nice big car, with a german name on it.

M. (with a little help from the boss)