On the surface this was going to be a really weird, esoteric mixtape featuring my immense love of African drums and the strange places they are currently showing up sonically, in other words, a fairly pretentious listening experience. After starting to put together the tracklist for this, I realized that if I didn’t open up my scope to all the music I truly love, I wasn’t going to be doing justice to the full influence that various African and Caribbean music has had on music and pop culture since the black Diaspora of the 19th century spread previously unknown arts all across the globe. As technology has evolved, so has access to sounds such as dancehall, highlife, juju, and samba that previously only the most devoted of crate diggers and musicologists were able to find. I guess more than anything this mix is my dance-oriented love letter to the people who are currently taking risks from the same old dance music and slowly pushing unfamiliar sounds in a new way.

Appréciez S’il vous plaît!

Live From The Pan-African Musical Reclamation Dinner After Party by DJ Kid Lightning

If you’re looking for anything to “shuffle” to, there is a lot to choose from in this compilation. One thing I like about this album is that even though there are a lot of songs, it doesn’t get too repetitious, considering that it’s electro/techno/house. In my opinion these genres tend to get a little redundant. These DJ’s know how to change it up a bit right before one would tend to get bored, for the most part.

Butter expresses the versatility of Hudson Mohawke. There’s a splash of comedic, emotional and exciting feel to this album. Some tracks are strictly beats and others have vocals. It’s hard to put Butter into a genre, Hudson Mohawke does a thorough job at fusing R’n’B, hip-hop, house, and techno all into one.  This album is smooth, like “butter for the eardrums.”