MJFELA.COM - BLOG

MJFELA vs. The AfroBeatles: Say Say Say

Monday, January 10, 2011 10:50:00 -700

Rich Medina, The Marksmen, AfroStreet Records and MJFELA.COM present:

the prequel to The King Meets The President in Africa:

The AfroBeatles: FELA meets the Boys from Liverpool (The Black & White Album)

If Michael Jackson is The King of Pop, and Fela Kuti is The King of Afrobeat, then the Beatles are of course, the Kings of Rock & Roll. Dominating the music industry as a band, composers, performers and activists, The Beatles are icons of Rock & Roll, known as the best band ever. AfroStreet once again takes a bold move into remix/mashup territory bringing masters of entirely unrelated genres together in an epic blend just in time for the worldwide HD broadcast of FELA! Live from The National Theatre in London on January 13th. Check out this MJFELA vs AfroBeatles mix of "Say, Say, Say" and then experience The AfroBeatles: FELA meets the Boys from Liverpool at AfroBeatles.com | @afrobeatles

MJFELA vs. The AfroBeatles: Say Say Say

FELA! Live from The National Theatre in London

Fel! Orginal Cast Recording -

Saturday, October 09, 2010 17:20:00 -700

Journalist Selwyn Seyfu Hinds Examines The Mashup, part 2

Friday, June 18, 2010 8:55:43 -700

Journalist Selwyn Seyfu Hinds Examines The Mashup, part 2

Another great one passed on last year, though the word resistance was hardly bandied about in his obits. Michael Joseph Jackson was called a lot of things over the course of his career and in the wake of his death. Resistance fighter was not one of them. But as with all things Jackson, the equation is not as clear-cut as it first appears. For many folk, there are two Michael Jacksons—pre-and post-Thriller. And both incarnations fit into our narrative of struggle and success. Pre-Thriller Mike sits in the memory as unabashedly black, he of the full lips and nose, and Motown lineage. And while that Mike certainly wasn’t Marvin Gaye wondering what’s going on, much less lobbing the cries for justice of a Marley or a Kuti, his artistic heights in a society inimical to the very notion of black excellence, and his success in crafting a musical common-denominator in factionalized America can’t be said to have had no place in the struggle. Post-Thriller Mike, he of the thinner features, lighter skin, and tabloid attention, sits more uneasily in the memory. For this Mike, energy for resistance/struggle was often directed in the global/humanist realm, with a particular emphasis on children. He damn near created the mode of concerned international celebrity now exhibited by the Bonos, Jolies, and Madonnas of the world. But Mike certainly had his black-fist-in- the-sky moment, too.

Recall 2002: Jackson banded with Al Sharpton to lobby against exploitative practices of the music industry and the way it impacted black artists. Yes, it may have been personally motivated by his own frustrations with his label Sony. Yes, the cynical would say it was easy for him to rage against the machine then, when he’d stopped selling records and had already been caricatured by the strange behavior and scandal that ruled his later years. But there was something in the face, eyes, and voice of a Mike Jackson, standing outside of Virgin Music, shaking his proverbial and literal fist at the one he’d named tormentor that Fela Kuti would understand. Besides, anyone who helped masterminded “We Are The World,”—that celebrity anthem which raised $63M to combat famine in Africa—has earned the right to petition for a perpetual seat at the table for heroes of the struggle—at least the artistic ones.

Selwyn Seyfu Hinds

Michael Jackson speaks about Africa

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 4:25:42 -700

Excerpted from 1992 Robert Johnson interview for EBONY/JET

MICHAEL SPEAKS

EBONY/JET: Do you have any special feeling about this return to the continent of Africa?

JACKSON: For me, its like the "dawn of civilization." Its the first place where society existed. It's seen a lot of love. I guess there's that connection because it is the root of all rhythm. Everything. Its home.

EBONY/JET: You visited Africa in 1974. Can you compare and contrast the two visits?

JACKSON: I'm more aware of things this time: the people and how they live and their government. But for me, I'm more aware of the rhythms and the music and the people. Thats what I'm really noticing more than any thing. The rhythms are incredible. You can tell especially the way the children move. Even the little babies, when they hear the drums, they start to move. The rhythm, the way it affects their soul and they start to move. The same thing that Blacks have in America...

EBONY/JET: How does it feel to be a real king?

JACKSON: I never try to think hard about it because I don't want it to go to my head. But, its a great honor ....

click here for full article...

Journalist Selwyn Seyfu Hinds Examines The Mashup, part 1

Monday, June 14, 2010 8:56:22 -700

Journalist Selwyn Seyfu Hinds Examines The Mashup, part 1

The entire city of Lagos, Nigeria breathes like one giant organism. Inhale. Frenzied motion does not so much cease as pull back. Like the innumerable vehicular antibodies that speed along Lagos's asphalt arteries, only to slam to unpredictable halts driven by nary a stop sign or traffic light. Exhale. Hucksters of all types—young, old, armless, legless—swarm the stuck vehicles, creating an instant market. Goods are swiftly offered: phone cards, sexual favors, foodstuff. The bargaining comes fast, at least until the city draws its next breath; sucking hucksters away, then propelling vehicles off along its arteries again. Inhale. Exhale. Stop. Go—at hyperventilating pace. Such is the exhausting, inexorable rhythm of this living city. Save, perhaps, for one place in an area called Ikeja. Here, the sun blinks through Lagos’s near-permanent grey sky to gaze upon a sand-colored building with a portentous name—The New Afrika Shrine. It is not the same Shrine made famous by afrobeat king Fela Ransmoe Kuti. That place is long gone, destroyed in 1977 by the soldiers of Fela’s nemesis, the Nigerian government, the longtime target of his musical broadsides against the forces of oppression and structural iniquities. This new Shrine is its spiritual and musical inheritor. Within these walls, one finds respite from the frenzied stop/go pace of the city. On any given night, especially when Fela’s son Femi Kuti is home from tour, the new Shrine comes alive with the sounds of afrobeat, and Lagos's hectic stop/go drowns in a steady pool of rhythm, melody, and spirit. All around the building, images of Great Ones look down with still approval—in stark contrast to the living, dynamic bodies in motion. On one wall sits Fela himself, of course. Nearby one finds MLK, Malcolm X and sundry others. All of them great. All passed on. All champions of resistance. All powerful advocates for the human and political rights of African and African-descended peoples.

The Birth of Afro-beat

Friday, June 04, 2010 7:37:14 -700

excerpts from "FELA - This Bitch of A Life, The Authorized Biography of Africa's Musical Genius"

I said "you see that my music. I must give it a name-o, a real African name that is catchy. I've been looking for names to give it. And I've been thinking of calling it Afro-beat"

excerpted from "FELA" This Bitch of A Life, The Authorized Biography of Africa's Musical Genius

Michael Jackson Acapella Album on Vinyl

Monday, May 31, 2010 8:06:02 -700

Michael Jackson Acapella Album on Vinyl

I saw this joint lurking on Amazon and cannot wait to get it. We've done all of the mixes on this album byhook or crook, at the moment of inspiration (which is sometimes live at a party). For that reason, we've used the best quality versions of the source tracks that we had at the moment which, in some cases is a crappy 128k version of a Michael vocal or Fela rarity. We have been re-doing joints upon finding high quality versions of either source.

This vinyl contains high-quality acapellas for 3 of the songs we touched for this project and 3 songs we still want to get at.

A1 1969 - I Want You Back A2 1972 - Ben A3 1972 - Rockin' Robin A4 1978 - Blame It On The Boogie A5 1979 - Don't Stop Till You Get Enough A6 1979 - Rock With You A7 1983 - Billie Jean A8 1983 - Mama Say, Mama Say B1 1984 - Thriller (Vincent Price Speech Sample) B2 1988 - Smooth Criminal B3 1988 - The Way You Make Me Feel B4 1991 - Black Or White B5 1996 - They Don't Care About Us B6 2001 - Rock My World

BUT WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG FOR THIS JOINT TO ARRIVE GRRR!!!! Any DJ's out there have this gem on wax???

Journalist Selwyn Seyfu Hinds Examines The Mashup, part 3

Sunday, May 30, 2010 9:17:30 -700

Journalist Selwyn Seyfu Hinds Examines The Mashup, part 3

“We Are the World” was one of the original mash-ups—a single musical tapestry that blended diverse talents, races, and styles. Twenty-five years later, we live in the age of the mash-up. From technology to music, our contemporary landscape is defined by this notion of the mash-up—the combination of two or more sources to create a new thing. But the 21st century mash-up meme extends far beyond technology and music. It undergirds our entire global existence. Look around the world: The transparent, translational, trans-national, and technological nature of modern times and the way has erased old lines, pushing narratives, peoples and ideas up against each other—whether in harmony or dissonance. Look at the President of the United States, himself a living embodiment of the 21st century mash-up, be it through his own genealogy, his bundled identity of basketball player meets law professor meets Hawaian dude meets devoted family man, the persistent American social narrative about black people that his ascension upended, or the hysterical reaction that ascension has engendered in some corners of the country. Today, the old, new, and newer thrust into one another’s faces at hypervelocity. Name the arena—local politics, regional conflicts, Wall Street versus Main, Al Qaeda versus the West, Google versus Microsoft, the music business versus its consumers—and the conclusion is clear: In our world, things come together with great breadth and immediacy, more than ever before. Sometimes the mating is successful. But as another son of Nigeria once wrote: sometimes things fall apart.

That, however, is not the case here, on this album—The King Meets the President in Africa— where Fela Ransome Kuti and Michael Joseph Jackson mash in thematic, musical and spiritual unity in ten vibrant instances, with results that deliver pure mind/body juju. At first glance that conclusion rings counterintuitive, if only because the very idea of wrenching the distinct compositions of these two masters into a singular, workable groove seems improbable —if not outright impossible. Michael is, well, Michael. And as anyone who’s ever mixed or danced to a Fela record can attest, his songs are highly organic, ever evolving, ever changing records, the complete antitheses of modern beat-machine music—not exactly prime candidates for blending. Yet, blend they do. The outcome? Mental and dance-floor dynamite. Consider Remember The Time (Roforofo Remix), which introduces Jackson’s “Remember The Time” to Fela’s “Roforofo Fight.” Jackson’s tune is an urgent reminisce to an old lover, delivered with his usual searing vocal performance atop an infectious dance groove. But with the instrumental percussive thunder of “Roforofo Fight” as a platform, it achieves an earthy afrobeat identity, particularly with the pitch-perfect use of the “Roforofo…” horn refrains over Teddy Riley’s original production. That alone suffices. But if one knows the context of Fela’s “Roforofo Fight,” a metaphor for a mud-slinging fight that leaves both participants sullied from skin to soul, then the layers deepen. In this context Jackson’s lyrics play as one side of a lover’s lament. A communiqué of regret now that cold distance has supplanted warmth and intimacy. A plea for the peace of what was. In fact, it’s easy to hear it as a heartfelt appeal from a long-suffering Nigerian people to the foreboding and abusive partner in that relationship—their own government.