Dub dot dash

Anika Moa, Mulatu interviews
Anika Moa interviews herself, very funny...
Shes a SERIOUS artist, you know... " I am insecure and egotistical and it has to be silent when I play or it's not the truth."
And this is her opener... " Well if I can just start by saying that my real name is Anika Moa. My mum thought of it while doing a poo on the toilet. That's what she told me but she might have been angry when she told me."


And Stinky Jim interviews the mighty Mulatu Astatke, famous Ethipopian jazz musician. Well worth a read. The new compilation of his career looks awesome. Here's a sample...

Why is Ethiojazz, and in fact most Ethio music, so different to other African forms, is it just the isolation?
“Well now with Ethiojazz it has been 40 years I have been creating it you know. Why its different, why we are different to most is we have one mode which is called Anche Hoye, which is not found in any other part of the world at all. And also we use five tones to compose our music, five tone scales.

"What I did was I use also twelve tone music, so this is five tone against twelve, that’s how Ethiojazz is. The area I’m talking about is when you have three or four cultures, trying to put them together you really have to be very careful that one doesn’t dominate another one, and you must have a feel.

"My feel is Ethiopian mode, Ethiopian scales. So what I did was, I combined with twelve tone but I have to collect my own progressions, I sort of like have to create my own voicings, so that it doesn’t really disappear the Ethiopian modes at all. So you know it’s been very interesting but hard work, but now it's very big in the world.” Read it in full here.



AND.... Leading hiphop DJ (and Rip It Up editor) Sirvere is having a record sale this weekend,  Saturday November 14th and Sunday 15th, 10am-6pm both days. He's selling Hip Hop, RnB and soul vinyl from his extensive collection - 1000's of 12"s, EPs and LPs. The address is Askew's Studio, 13 Great North Road, Grey Lynn, which is near the corner of Great North rd and Ponsonby rd.