Artist description If we look at the history of modern music we see early innovations of what later came to be known as Blues, Jazz, Rock, Soul, Hip Hop, etc., all leading back to the expressions of a people through sound, African derived rhythms, and the available technologies they had at thier disposal. If we look at the usage of modern media sound tools to fuse root elements and future sounds, we might very well be suggesting a possible future. In the early seventies, reggae studio producers like King Tubby, Prince Jammy and Lee “Scratch” Perry, began experimenting with electronic anologue sound devices. They began using the devices in ways they weren’t initially intended to be used. Because of their experimentation, they created new and innovative ways to make and record sounds. This ultimately led to the creation “Dub” music, whch some believe to be some of the first recognized electronic music. A little later on as technology developed, the synthesizer was created and artists like Herbie Hancock, George Clinton and others also made use of the available technological innovations to further thier musical ideas. What these artists had done was take the technology available to them, and released its hidden potential to facilitate and translate thier musical and rhythmic energies into something people could recognize. Though, this was not the first time this had occured. In the early part of the 21st century, black music artists like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, King Oliver, and various others, took hold of the available music technologies of thier time and began deconstructing previously contrived notions of how these instruments were to be used. Soon, instruments like the Guitar were suddenly being liberated from thier prior constrictive context and were used in ways never before seen or heard. It was this ability to release the full potential or “telekey” of available technologies, and the fusion of these tools with the inherited traditions and concepts of complicated poly-rhythm, syncopation, and call and response, which led to the birth of Blues, Jazz, Rock, Funk, Soul Hip Hop, and for the most part, the foundations of all modern music. Most recently we see the latest innovations in underground music headed by Techno and break beat movments such as Jungle, Broken Beat, Nu Jazz, etc. We see, not only the progress of the technology but a parrallel development of the music as we see new ways of engineering break beats as they become more and more complicated yet still based on the most ancient concepts of African derived rythm. It is the ability of the artist to fuse new technology with the inherited ability of complicated rhythm making and other music elemets that make these new musics possible. This issue of music, electronic music and its relation to notions of the future, has been of particular interest to director John Akomfrah(“7 songs of Malcom X” and “The Last Angel of History). In his documentary “The Last Angel of History” he poses interesting questions as to the future of music, the rate of the growth of technology and how modern music makers utilize such technology. In interviews with various pioneers of break beat and electronic music, possible answers are offered to the discussion at hand. We begin to see a rise in rhetoric concerning the African Diaspora and its relation to music, technology and the future. “The connection between the architects of Afro-Futurism; Sun Ra, Lee Perry George Clinton, and the Techno and Jungle movements later on in the 80’s and 90’s, is that they hold nothing in common with the common idea of black music, which was that it belonged to the streets or to the stage. They are neither live musics nor are they musics that exist out in the urban. They are studio musics. They are impossible imaginary musics, and yet because they are imaginary they are even more powerful because they suggest a future, they dont rely on the past, they imagine a future”. (Kodwo Eshun; “The Last Angel of History” 1997’)

Music Style forward thinking innovation drawing from influences of jazz, soul, break beats, and afro-futurism

Musical Influences Jazz and breaks

Similar Artists none

Artist History standing on the shoulders of my ancestors before me, i move forward into a new era.

Group Members BRT

Location Philadelphia, PA - USA

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