DELTRON 3030
Etats-Unis | LIVE
Formation culte du hip hop US, Deltron 3030 réunit trois de ses légendes: Dan the Automator, Del the Funky Homosapien et Kid Koala. Le premier est producteur, le deuxième rappeur et le troisième DJ : la sainte trinité rap est ainsi réunie dans un projet ambitieux, au concept très Science-Fiction. 10 ans après leur 1er album il reviennent avec son successeur et une tournée très attendue car tous trois sont réputés pour leurs prestations scéniques.
English below
Deltron 3030 is composed of a trinity of alt-rap all-stars: Master lyricist Del The Funky Homosapien, virtuoso turntablist DJ Kid Koala and superproducer Dan “The Automator” Nakamura. Individually, they stand at the top of their respective musical disciplines; together, on the eponymous Deltron 3030, they warped space, bent time, transcended genre and blew minds, creating an album that still stands today as one of the most important records in the annals of underground hiphop.
Critics called it a masterpiece — both timely and avant-garde: “Exactly what you might expect from such a teaming: a wildly imaginative, unabashedly geeky concept album,” said AllMusic.com. “It’s not only one of the best albums in either of their catalogs, but one of the best to come out of the new underground, period.” Pitchfork called Nakamura the “poet laureate of creepy, oppressive beats,” describing the album as an “exciting” reimagining of “the future from the bottom up” that reveals Del as a “surprisingly acute social critic.”
Now, over a decade later, they’re finally releasing the long-awaited followup to their debut — an album titled « Deltron 3030: Event II ».
“This record took 13 years, and the whole time fans are telling us we better come out with Deltron right now — quit teasing me,” says Del. “Well, this is beyond a regular album. We’re bringing it all together here, and the fans, the critics, they all going to be surprised by what we got. You’ll see. When it comes out, if you got the money, you’re going to wanna go buy it.”
Or, as Nakamura puts it: “There isn’t another record that’s like this — it’s different from anything else I’ve done and anything else that’s out there. This is going to sound incredibly pompous, but to me, this is the greatest rap record of all time.”
Aero
It doesn’t take much to fall in love with Aero Manyelo’s music. Just ask global DJ juggernauts, Dixon and Damian Lazarus who dropped his track “Mooki” during a Day Zero set in Mexico early in January.
Dial back a decade and it was Manyelo’s “Mexican Girl” that caught the attention of South African music industry heavyweight, Oskido. He quickly added the track to his Oskido’s Church Grooves 7 compilation, helping secure the song the number one spot on Yfm’s Hot 9@9 chart, and some heavy rotation on the radio station.
“Mexican Girl” wasn’t the artist and DJ’s first original track. Manyelo had started producing his own material after getting his first PC, and continued to create while studying Sound Engineering at the Soul Candi Music Institute, which had offered him a bursary in 2007. A year later, in 2008, he began working at BlackwHole Entertainment which released his first vinyl (EP, LP), « Herbal Island ». While at the South Africa house music specialist, he worked on the « On Another Level Remixes » release, giving Manyelo a chance to showcase his work (both within South African and outside its borders) during the album’s promotional period.
Over the past decade, Manyelo’s career has been rapidly gaining momentum on the back of a string of releases – the four-track EP « Home » (Sound Pellegrino, 2013) and the albums « Kasi Vibes » (Out Here Records, 2013), « Herbs Abroad » (Akwaaba Music, 2014) and « Dictionary of Herbs » (Herbel3Records, 2014). His considerable remix skills have also been in demand, showing up on Amadou & Mariam’s “Ce N’est Pas Bon”, Maelstrom’s “USSR” and Jupiter & Okwess International’s “Margarita”, while his original tracks have been included in several high-profile international compilations, including Idris Elba Presents mi Mandela. Manyelo’s fantastic “Aero Mathata” opens the acclaimed compilation and is fronted by veteran singers The Mahotella Queens.
Born in Zebediela, Limpopo in 1987, and growing up in the Johannesburg township of Ivory Park, Manyelo was influenced by his father’s love of jazz – and his music has a depth that distinguishes it from South Africa’s plethora of house music.
‘Township Electro’ is how Manyelo describes his sound – and 2017 sees him ready to take it to increasing numbers of fans around the globe and at home. The Dixon + Lazarus favourite, “Mooki” is the opening track on the Africa Gets Physical compilation, set to be released by Berlin-based electronic music label, Get Physical on March 3rd 2017. The track’s percussive groove, chanted vocals and deployment of found sounds (a croaking frog among them) combine to create a distinctive and memorable sound that has all the makings of one of the year’s best tracks.