Artist description DJ/Technician, Conceptualist, Pop Artist, Innovator, experimentalist, Found Sound creator.

Music Style Found Sound, Trip Hop, Soul, Musique Concrete, Hip Hop, Drum n' Bass, jazz, , Experimental

Musical Influences Ninja Tune, Tar Media, DJ Shadow, Tricky, Jack Dangers

Similar Artists None

Artist History TARBABY is the owner and Founder of Tar Media Productions. Born in Barbados, he has travelled and resided globally with his Diplomatic Parents. After graduating from Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada(Home Of Surreal Fine Artist ALEX COLVILLE) with an Arts Degree, he worked for many years within the Central Business Conglomerate of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was at Mount Allison University, however, that Tarbaby was introduced to the modern art of Kandinsky, Miro, Pollock, Rousseau and Dali. Always philosophically guided by the culture of Hip-Hop, he began to understand that there could be a similarity between the minimalist structures of this unique artform and prior structures created by modern artists like Theolonius Monk, Andy Warhol and Jack Kerouac. He realised that Hip-Hop, like the "Beat" and "BeBop" movements, could depict pop culture with as much precision as Television, literature and visual art. In addition, Hip-Hop utilisied "readymade" material for deconstruction and later reconstruction ; very much like a William Burroughs book. Word!!!. THE STUDIO In 1989, armed with a broken Turntable, Mixer, Roland D-10 Keyboard, Atari 1040st computer running Cubase software, VCR Machines,Tapedecks and Drum Machines, Tarbaby began to experiment with sound and song structures. At around the same time, Coldcut and Bomb Da Bass were dissecting Hip-Hop landscapes in ways not yet achieved, in London, England. Like Afrka Bambaataa and Grand Master Flash before him, Tarbaby's use of mixing technology meant that Phil Collins could be played with Cameo, the Chipmunks, Bill Cosby and The Merrymen; all in the same track. As a result of his disillusionment with the mismanagement of Hip-Hop by capitalists forces, Tarbaby decided to create a vehicle, which he felt, could assist Canandian and International Hip-Hop's survival. Free of "Baby Boomer" politics, Tar Media could develop independently of Fascist ideaology and produce honest art(without demographic studies and market analysis involved) At the same time, however, by means of proper applications and organizational structure, Tar media could compete with the mass market giants while enforcing Hip-Hop's DIY nature. Tarbaby's function is to create Hip-Hop multimedia and art within the "simplicity" and and pure abstract strength of the Hip-Hop discipline itself. Like all artforms before it, Hip-Hop speaks in volumes through its nomenclature, Fashion, Images, technology and Laws. Philosophically speaking, Tarbaby brings a degree of sobriety to a culture which desperately needs refocus, mangement and discipline

Group Members Adrian Brathwaite

Instruments Turntables, Guitars, Samplers, accordion, Harmonica, keyboards, VCRs, Mackie Boards, congas and many electronics.

Albums One Day I'll Marry A Human, The Camomile Collection, & The upcoming "Poems"(October, 2001)

Press Reviews The Ottawa Sun Issue: Thursday October 7, 1999: Page 31- Showbiz by Joshua Ostroff Sample Tarbaby's Offerings Comin' straight outta Moncton, hip-hop academic Tarbaby is blurring a line between high-brow and pop culture with his intellectual yet inimitably funky take on sampledelica. Born Adrian Brathwaite in Barbados, Tarbaby later moved to New York before arriving in New Brunswick to attend university. Though he has been immersed in hip-hop for over two decades, it was at Mount Allison University where he began delving deeper into his own culture, going past the Grandmaster Flash era of two turntables and a microphone to examine its avant-garde origins. From the post war Dadaist "readymades" of Marcel Duchamp to the 1960s pop paintings of Andy Warhol, there is a lengthy history of deconstructing pop culture and creating new art from the pieces. An even more direct lineage connects Brathwaite's work with acclaimed artists such as mid-century musician Pierre Schaeffer( and later karlheinz Stockhaussen) who used found sounds, basically proto-sampling, to produce "musique concrete." "It's all the same mentality of tying together what's available to create art," Brathwaite explains". "The medium is just music. If you're a visual artist then you get your set of colors and paint, putting together a story through visuals. I try and put together a story through sound." To help bring hip-hop to another level, Brathwaite has assembled an "underground multimedia company" called Tar Media-showcasing label acts PRiNE, Jason and the eClecTic on Saturady at RJs for Urbanfest'99-based on the philosophy of recycling found material into "abstract electronic bebop". Many still dismiss sampling as lazy, a way of stealing the work of other people and passing it off as your own. But Brathwaite, whose debut One Day I'll Marry A Human makes music from varied devices (TV, radio, 8-track, walkie-talkie, fiddle, accordion and toys), thinks such critics need to look a little deeper. "Sampling to me is artistic. A lot of people misuse it, for instance Puff Daddy", Brarthwaite says with disdain. "If you're going to take someone's tune and just loop it and say you're artistic because you're putting different words over it, I call that karaoke. "Sampling is taking things you would never think fit together and creating something that is musical." CHART Magazine Issue: October, 1999: Page 12- Listen Up by Ryan Watson Adrian Brathwaite, a.k.a Tar baby, is a man of many talents: Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, recording studio owner/operator, entrepreneur and...stockbroker. "I worked on Bay St[Toronto's equivalent to wall Street] selling socks", he says. "My first love was music, and I was totally disgusted the whole time I was doing it. I just wanted to create a vehicle for Canadian artists." Thus Tar Media Productions was born. As a means of promoting this new venture, Brathwaite assembled One Day I'l Marry A Human, a collection of the experimental Trip-Hop he'd recorded in his studio betwen 1994-1997. To his surprise, the release began taking on a life of its own. "The title track is getting a lot of airplay on American college stations in Cincinnati, Arizona and San Francisco," says Tar Baby. "I sent the record off to these places only after they had requested it. Lately, I've been finding out that word of mouth is a very powrful tool." Human is unconventional but still beat friendly; a slow -boiling, Bristol-ized groove is the basis, overtop which collaged sounds are layered for color. The list of devices that Tar Baby manipulates includes walkie-talkies, VCRs and transistor radios, as well as the more conventional acoustic guitar, harmonica and accordion. He also samples anything he can get his hands on to enhance his compositions. "We deal from a "found Sound" point of view," he says. "The samples are used creatively in making a whole new body of work. They're not used in a way where they are looped to create a karaoke version[of the songs they're lifted from]". Hmmm...Sounds like Tar Baby's familiar with the negativland approach. "I've never actually heard one of their records," he admits. "But Mark from Negativland has written me and praised my work. My inspiration comes from Meat Beat manifesto, their use of Musique Concrete and the dada movement-it's taking ready-made naterial and creating something new". April, 2000 Beats & Rhymes VICE MAGAZINE By Fritz Le Cat ...TOP SHELF... Rap purists can skip this paragraph. I mentioned this briefly last month, but Tar Baby's "One Day I'll Marry A Human"(Tar Media/FUSION III) has to be heard. I've been rocking it continuously for the last 2 weeks; my man is making some serious beats. Same label, also pick up PRiNE, Jason's "Desh Pardesh", another superb offering. These kids are killing it!!!

Location Miramichi, New Brunswick - Canada

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