Smashbomb

"Basically, after that Ali Hussan Kuban revelation, I started searching high and low for as much of this music as I could possibly find. And then I started looking further. I started googling musicians in the Nile. For me, I found that it was only music from Nubia that had a certain thing about it. Arabic music, from further north, I love it and it's beautiful. I listen to a lot of that but it's more refined than Nubian music. That's not to say that Nubian music isn't sophisticated, but there's something a bit more direct about the Nubian stuff. A bit more punk-rock. I was looking for this music, and I found Mahmoud Fadl. There were these albums called Drummers of the Nile. It's slightly instructional in that they name a rhythm and then they play the rhythm. It's quite a journey through that whole type of music. This track 'Shofna Gamar', it's a pentatonic melody. Jimi Hendrix, the blues, R&B - a lot of stuff comes from pentatonic scales and it feels to me that these Nubian rhythms are the roots of our rhythmic appreciation. One of the big things in Melt Yourself Down was, if I take these ancient rhythms and just change the aesthetic of them so they sound modern, would it feel like modern music? It does. So I came to the conclusion that there's something in these rhythms that we really respond to and I think the same with pentatonic scales, I've always been really drawn to them. So 'Shofna Gamar' is an amazing way of making pentatonic scales feel really fresh, so joyful."

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Rat Scabies recommended Slade Alive by Slade in Music (curated)

Slade Alive by Slade

2017 | Rock

(0 Ratings)

Album Favorite

"I went to see them play at the Orchid Ballroom in Purley when they were at the height of their chart success. I always loved Noddy Holder's voice, and they weren't super musicians but Don Powell was a really clever drummer. The parts he'd play were always not what you'd expect to be going on with that song. He always found another way of doing it which was always really cool. Jimmy Lea was always such a great bass player as well, and carried the whole thing. I could take or leave Dave Hill's guitar playing, but at the same time the way Dave Hill plays guitar is very punk in a way. It's very minimalist, very Chuck Berry, with lots of Ernie-Ernie Ernie, you know. He's playing the dynamics rather than the notes. And I went to see them at the Orchid Ballroom in Purley and it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to. It was absolutely infectious. As soon as they started playing it was like you're going to have a good time whether you like it or not. I don't care if you think we're unfashionable, you're still going to enjoy it, which was what happened. And that was the tour that they made that album from. It was the same set: I remember them playing 'Born To Be Wild' and all of those tunes. It was one of those moments, and that album sounds the way I remember that gig. I'm sure there are a few overdubs on there somewhere, but I watched them play that show. Dave Hill threw glitter in my eyes. How could I not have a copy?"

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Kate Nash recommended track Dy-Na-Mi-Tee by Ms Dynamite in A Little Deeper by Ms Dynamite in Music (curated)

A Little Deeper by Ms Dynamite

2002 | Hip-hop

4.7

(3 Ratings)

Album Favorite

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Dy-Na-Mi-Tee by Ms Dynamite

(0 Ratings)

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"Fuck, I was so excited when I heard this song. I was staying up late one night - I can’t remember what radio show I was listening to, it was a radio that would play new songs - and I taped it off the radio. It was just so fucking cool, [sings “Dy-Na-Mi-Tee”]. I think that was the first song I heard where I thought ‘I could write a song.’ “After that I did my first ever performance in public. I’d done a school performance before that, but I did a performance with a garage MC who asked me to sing and I was ‘Lady K’ [laughs]. I sang in Croydon at a pub or something and I was doing the garage thing for a bit. That was the biggest music scene at that time in the UK, pirate radio was bigger than normal radio. I would go clubbing in Watford, I would grind in the clubs and I would get CDs from the DJs there who would have all new stuff. “That sort of reminds me of punk in a way, it was just kids in their bedrooms and they were running the clubs. I felt Ms. Dynamite did something really meaningful and she felt like a political artist to me. I don’t think I knew that at the time, but I think that’s why I was drawn in by her. I was looking at lyrics in a different way then too, thinking about the world a lot and wanting to help the world, maybe being political and not realising it. I wanted to write about the fucked up shit in the world."

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