Here’s a dope little documentary video from our friends over at Subatomic Sound System, promoting their latest release, a collaboration with Lee Scratch Perry: The Blackboard Jungle remixes:

Respect the foundation! 1973, Jamaica. 2009, to the world! The story of the seminal dub album Blackboard Jungle from Lee Scratch Perry and King Tubby that was the cornerstone of the dub music craze that would extend around the world.

In 2009, Vienna’s dub masters Dubblestandart called on Perry to revisit the vibes. This collaboration stretched around the globe to involve New York City’s dub scientists Subatomic Sound System & rising reggae vocal talent Jahdan Blakkamoore (of Major Lazer “Cash Flow” fame), and resulted in the first ever original dubstep tunes from Lee Scratch Perry plus a journey back into the Blackboard Jungle!

Bonus: Lee Scratch Perry – Blackboard Jungle:

Shouts to DBDR for bringing this to my attention.

The folks at Grand Crew have posted a video of De La Soul‘s entire performance on their 20 Feet High and Rising tour stop at Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris earlier this month. The tour celebrates the 20th anniversary of the release of their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising. Catch a snippet of the performance here:

Watch the THE FULL 76-MINUTE PERFORMANCE at the Grand Crew site. They got the full track list up and erethang.

Too many legends passing away this year.

I was reading up today on yesterday’s passing of Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson, half of the legendary reggae/dancehall production duo Steely and Clevie, and came across this interview with them at the Red Bull Music Academy in 2005. Thought I’d share it here:

It’s a great look into their history as musicians and producers, their many talents, and the breadth of influence they had upon music. It also digs deep into the history of Jamaican music.

Steely Johnson was winding his waist to the original dancehall boom in the early ’80s, playing with Sugar Minott and Roots Radics. But things got kinda cloudy when he linked with Clevie Brown in Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Black Ark studio. Clevie was playing with these new drummachines that had just come out, which were totally dissed by the reggae drummers. That didn’t stop them becoming the house band at King Jammy’s before they really hit their stride and literally led Kingston down the path of electronic production by the scruff of a neck. By the time they’d formed their Steely & Clevie label in ’88, they were in charge of runnings proper. Nice up!

R.I.P. Steely. You will indeed be missed.

Brokencyde – Freaxxx (Music Video) from Eat Cake Films on Vimeo.

I can’t really tell if this is someone’s serious attempt at fame, a prank or a collection of deleted scenes from a Tim & Eric sketch.

Please feel the pain that is Brokencyde – Freaxxx.

UPDATE: After checking Brokencyde’s Wikipedia page, I had to post some choice criticism. Peep the hilariousness.

Metal Edge Magazine has called Brokencyde “fucking horrendous”.[12] Thrash Magazine has called them “a mockery to the world of music”.[13] Another metal magazine, Decibel, has repeatedly made fun of the band, mentioning them in a interview with the group Big Business, and once ironically referring to then as their “favorite screamo-crunk band”. British commentator Warren Ellis calls Brokencyde’s “Freaxxx” music video “a near-perfect snapshot of everything that’s shit about this point in the culture”.[14] Says August Brown of the Los Angeles Times,“The ‘Albucrazy’-based band has done for MySpace emo what some think Soulja Boy did for hip-hop: turn their career into a kind of macro-performance art that exists so far beyond the tropes of irony and sincerity that to ask ‘are they kidding?’ is like trying to peel an onion to get to a perceived central core that, in the end, does not exist and renders all attempts to reassemble the pieces futile.”[15]

“If this is the future of rock music, we’re fucking outta here”, – wrote Kerrang! in its January 2009 What the F* is up with Screamo Crunk feature. Placing the ‘irritation factor’ mark at level “very high”, the magazine concluded – “Thanks to their tacky, lightweight and frankly rubbish sound, they’ve probably only got a shelf life of about six months”.

Somehow this video makes me wonder where Squincy Jones was during the shooting HA~!

One of my favorite soul singers, Eric Roberson, is dropping a new lp, Music Fan First soon. He’s laced the net with a web commercial for the joint and a v-blog that you can check here.

Peep the link for an opportunity to pre-order the lp and receive an autographed copy. You know what is it!

Exclusive SLUMVILLAGE VIDEO “Actin Normal” from SCRAPDIRTY on Vimeo.

R.I.P. Baatin.

Dj Spinna takes us inside the Thingamajig Lab and shows us some of his equipment and record collection (we couldn’t share all of it but you get an idea).

Title: DJ Spinna Studio Tour
Filmed and Edited by Mark Carranceja of Noisemaker Media
www.highwaterISmusic.com / www.noisemakermedia.com

One of my favorite scratch dj’s from late 90’s, Mike Relm, enters his career’s second act by incorporating video into his live set. Here he is talking to Wired magazine about the current state of djing with video.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation- A Film By DJ Shadow from DJ Shadow on Vimeo.

It’s basically just record porn without the penetration.

Yeah, I know we’re late on this one.

The legendary 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire was preceded by a three-day concert, “Zaire ’74,” featuring some of greatest musical artists of the time: James Brown, B.B. King, the Spinners, Bill Withers, the Fania All-Stars, Miriam Makeba and a variety of Zairian artists, like François “Franco” Luambo Makiadi. The heavyweight bout was immortalized by Leon Gast’s superb 1996 documentary “When We Were Kings,” and now there is a stunning new film co-produced by Mr. Gast and dedicated to the unique and, until now, oddly overlooked musical event.

Houston folks, catch Soul Power on it’s last three days this week at The Angelika downtown. Showtimes here.

Editor’s Note: NYers can catch this at Cinema Village this week. It ends Thursday. Showtimes here.