Supamomo
Stop / What's Up

Hot Casa Records proudly presents the reissue of Disco Hi-Life, a real treasure album composed and interpreted by Afro-Soul maestro, Orlando Julius.Following up to the 12inch release (HC07 / 2009), here comes the remastered version of a real mindblower piece from 1976 including four unreleased tracks, all recorded with the best Nigerian musicians, between Ginger Baker’ Studio in Lagos and the American Star Studio in West Virginia, USA.Orlando Julius Aremu Olusanya Ekemode was born in 1943 in Ikole-Ekiti, Nigeria and can be considered as a main figure of the Afro-Soul music history. One of the first African musician to get signed on a “Major” label (Polydor), he delivered many hit single as a composer and effortlessly performed live as a tenor sax and singer. He worked and met with some of the “greatest“, such as Louis Armstrong, James Brown (for his Nigerian tour with Bootsy Collins), The Crusaders, Gil Scott Heron, or Hugh Masekela.In the middle of 1975, just after they finished the recording of The Boys Doing It’ album with Hugh Masekela, they all flew to Ghana and Lagos. It was holyday and Orlando had also plenty of time to focus on his own songs. He wrote “Disco Hi-Life” in Yoruba and “Children of the World” in English. And he immediately planned a recording session including 12 finest musicians, such as the great singer Dora Ifudu Avery, Adelaja Gboyega on keys, Kenneth Okulolo on Bass guitar, Butley Moore on drums, Fela’s collaborator Tunde William on Trumpet, and also Ade, who helped sang “Love Peace & Happiness”.Originally released by Nigerian label Jofabro in partnership with the UNICEF association for the “International year of the Child”, it was only available in few promotional quantity… here comes the very first official reissue of this dancefloor masterpiece!

Eight years deep into their existence, Paris-based Mawimbi are proud to present their debut album Bubbling. Through their own label and events, the collective have championed up and coming artists who look to fuse african music with the modern dancefloor. They’ve released records from Lya, Onipa, Afriquoi and James Stewart and brought established artists and fellow travellers to such as Auntie Flo, Africaine 808, Awesome Tapes From Africa and Esa to Paris. Now it’s time for the collective to unveil their identity as producers and musicians in their own right.“Bubbling” refers to the many ideas, encounters and projects that the collective have come into contact with over the past years. Through their events and their work as label curators and remixers (for artists such as Oumou Sangaré, Blick Bassy, Cerrone, Onipa), Mawimbi have become known as ambassadors for “afro-electro” - whatever that might mean - and their debut album buzzes with the contagious energy of the music they love. If you ask Mawimbi, Afro-electro is about global and local inspiration, from both sides of the Black Atlantic. It’s about paying tribute to the forefathers and the brothers and sisters in arms across the world. Afrobeat, highlife, South African bubblegum pop, Malian music, maloya… Bubbling seeks to connect geographically separate but spiritually similar club sounds.Hence “El Caribe” (feat. Ghetto Kumbé) is half cumbia, half Carribean dancehall, while “Ngana” (feat. Fatim Kouyaté) has some elements of dub music and “Kakraa” (feat. K.O.G) nods to disco‐infused Ghanaian productions from the 70s. Despite the influences, this is a record designed for home-listening, a nod to our present circumstances, but also a deliberate step away from dancefloor. A moment of patience and reflection as much as joy and celebration.`Above all, Bubbling is a personal record, about unexpected cross-pollinations and the collective’s individual explorations of these musical territories. Mawimbi's own history is one of coincidences and chance encounters, and so is “Bubbling”. All the collaborations were born out of the connections made over the last 8 years. A WhatsApp chat with Zambian artist Mufrika, a spontaneous studio jam with Ghetto Kumbé in a Parisian Basement: these are captured moments of real, vital connections made.Like Mawimbi itself, Bubbling is a collage of relationships and shared experiences, shaped by nascent friendships and musical encounters. It’s a truly DIY document in that sense, the sound of the last eight years of the Mawimbi adventure: free spirited, passionate, warm and generous.

New 7inch from Beatsqueeze from Kool Keith.

** Available exclusively at The Pusher **Stix Records, a sub-label of Favorite Recordings, proudly presents Jazz-Funk Dub Tribute, a new project by Mato with exclusive Dub versions of some of the most famous Jazz-Funk, Soul-Jazz, Funk & Fusion tracks. After the amazing success of his Summer Madness / Maiden Voyage (2021) single, respectively covering Kool & The Gang and Herbie Hancock, Mato got deeper within the American Black Music repertoire. He worked on tracks that can be considered as serious classics of the Jazz-Funk scene. We all remember the melodies from Eddie Henderson ("Inside You"), WAR ("The World Is A Ghetto"), Weather Report ("Black Market"), Deodato ("Caravan"), Grover Washington Jr. ("Loran's Dance"), Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra ("Midnight Groove"), Herbie Hancock ("Maiden Voyage"), The Meters ("Cissy Strut") or Lonnie Liston Smith ("Visions Of A New World"). Imagine them reworked and tailored by the French dub master. Needless to say, Mato, who’s playing most instruments and synthesizers, did a fantastic job and you’ll be blown when hearing these versions. Starting his reggae production career in 2006, Thomas Blanchot (aka Mato) has released music through various projects on EDR Records, Big Singles or Makasound... In the meantime, he developed a real trademark: taking over classic French, Hip-Hop, OST, Classical or Pop songs, into roots reggae-dub new versions. Besides, since 2010, Mato has built a solid reputation thanks to his hot remixes of Hip-Hop classics on Stix Records. Last year he also released Scary Dub, which focused on scary movies' soundtracks.

J-Zen is a French producer signed on Dooinit music, his style is a mixture of heavy beats and samples crushed to the point of making them unrecognizable.He made his debut on the beatmaking scene with his first beat-tape called Breakfast, but it’s with Guilty Pleasure EP, alongside Shawn Jackson and Substantial and released in 2010, that he really revealed himself to the public.Since then, he’s collaborated with Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime on the single “God Music”, a custom-made production for the California duo, and has shared the stage with the greatest (DJ Premier, Dilated Peoples,…)His first album Managua is available now. Started between Rennes and Paris, recorded in California, Berlin, NYC, Paris, Portland, mixed in San Diego, mastered in LA and Costa Rica, this project and J-Zen have traveled a lot to finish their trip in Managua, where he stayed for a few months.

After an album made out of hip-hop extrapolations of their atypical music (Got To Get Down released in September 2016, featuring the creme of NYC MC’s Emskee (The Good People), Audessey & Oxygen (Soundsci)), the Afro Latin Vintage Orchestra returns with another hip-hop colored LP, IMPACT, featuring Paris based Chicago MC Racecar. These two parties have had the opportunity for a clever joint venture, wisely stirred during both live and studio sessions. A furiously efficient mashup of their respective talents, combining the characteristic crazed orchestration and composition skills of the ALVO, to the survitaminated flow and writing of one of the most prolific MCs on the French territory.After the success of this oldschool oriented hip-hop album, the ALVO locked up itself during months in the studio with Racecar to compose a successor to the thunderous Got To Get Down, but also to the hovering Pulsion (compared to Miles Davis’ On The Corner by Wax Poetics) released in 2015 on Ubiquity.A more orchestral approach, on which the MC takes the same furious train as the ALVO musicians, all led by the Masta Conga locomotive, once again with strength and determination but also and still with this obsession for details that characterizes the Parisian band since its beginnings in 2007. More modern tunes, but more obscure as well, such as “Schizo” opening the album on a sharp flow and a dark, stellar, music that sets the tone: the combination in between ALVO and Racecar is naturally attacking, contagious and uninhibited.Tunes “Impact” and “The Jam” further rely on the fundamentals of funk music, which are not more an issue to the shrill flow of the Chicago MC, much at ease on jazz or fusion beats. Then everything erupts with “Let’s Move” and “One To One”, on which ALVO’s craziness contaminates Racecar’s flow and reciprocally, in a furious osmosis, which results in an atypical and spontaneous jazz and hip-hop fusion.