whats happened to house?

[badman]

is it just me, or is liverpool getting obsessed with finding the most obscure names and titles for genres for their nights? afrobeat? kwaiti? what the hell is this crap? what happened to just having good old fashioned tech house to actually dance to? just my opinion, but i think everythings swimming too far up its own arse and the scenes losing momentum. cant we just have the likes of nathan coles, craig richards house music anymore? maybe ive lost touch with everything, but very little appeals to me anymore...discussssss

[outlar]

you probably saw the kwaito and afrobeat genres used to describe the music at the Lake of Stars parties. Lake of Stars is about promoting and embracing african music and culture.

There does seem to be a lack of good house music nights at the moment but I'd rather see more afro/bossa/kwaito/samba/world music than even more breaks and electro house.

[richchibuku]

Chibuku does not book kwaito or congalese rhumba for that matter. Thats strictly a LOS vibe.

However i have booked 2 HOUSE and TECHNO dons for chibuku main rooms sets which will silence the heads that have been asking chibuku to return to its house roots for some time.

[BillAlcatraz]

what happened to just having good old fashioned tech house:? isnt tech house a crap term thats popped up in the last couple of years anyway which makes your point invalid

in order for things to move forward people will have to do something different sometimes.

[BillAlcatraz]

just my opinion, but i think everythings swimming too far up its own arse and the scenes losing momentum.

you're dead wrong
people are being exposed to better, more diverse music which can only be a good thing for the scene.

[outlar]

I had a very long weekend touring the clubs in london the other week with soulizm (going back this weekend) and it does seem like the good house music is generally getting ignored by much of the crowds. We saw David Duriez and A Guy Called Gerald play amazing sets to empty rooms at the egg while the rest of the crowd worshipped the residents playing generic electro and (at times) prog/trance. It's good at least that clubs do get some quality guests in, it's just a shame so many clubbers are (to quote kerri) "lost in the oblivion" :P

Scott and Theo at last months Chibuku is easily a house highlight of the year. I'm certainly looking forward to Ame (and the rest) too. Keep up the good house/techno bookings!

Back again to the world music, it's all good stuff. I'm really enjoying what Nick the Greek is doing at Dragon bar too. Thats all good, we need more good! We just need less of the bad :lol:

[BillAlcatraz]

death to electro house!
thats the main issue here!

[generaljimmy]

death to electro house!

i think this should be death to 'bad' electro house. Unfortuantely the popularity of the genre has meant that there are some pretty dire forms of the music around, but there's plenty of good stuff out there. a lot of what 2020 soundystem churn out falls under the 'electro house' banner, and you could also label some of the orgasmic ital influeneced stuff on clone and bear from the likes of alden tyrell and lindstrom in the same banner. none of this is shit music

you wouldn't want to banish all house that sounds funky on account of the poor standards of certain facets of funky house, lumping kerri chandler and quentin harris with the likes of bodyrockers and united nations? and get rid of techno because 2 unlimited coined it in one of their hits? genre terms are a nessecary evil in order for people to get a drift of what people are describing without the usage of audio, and we need to be less lazy in our dismissiveness of any genre.

[phattannedphil]

Kwaito is nothing to do with House... Its a traditional form of african music that has influenced key house music producers... Its better then Tech House...

TECH HOUSE IS SHIT!!!

discuss

[Will - chibuku]

Badman - Kwaito is South African house music.

[mooney]

I would describe some of Trentmollers remix productions (along with John DAhlback too) as having an electro vibe. And, as seen as their music could fall into the "house" genre, then that style of music must be "electro house". Their productions are really good and so, as GeneraJimmy says, you cant dismiss all forms of a genre, even if quite a lot of it is turdish McGurdish.

[phattannedphil]

Kwaito: much more than music
Simone Swink

7 January 2003

You can read Source magazine all you want for information on the newest hip hop beats, but the next big thing may be sneaking up behind you from South Africa. As the post-apartheid fog clears, South African youth culture is finding its own voice in a style of music known as kwaito and spawning a new (and profitable) industry.

Art imitates life
Summarising the state of the kwaito industry is like trying to condense the history of American hip hop music into a few pages. Some broad brushstrokes will serve as an introduction, but to fully appreciate kwaito, you’ve got to hear it for yourself.

Like hip hop in the United States, kwaito is not just music. It is an expression and a validation of a way of life - the way South Africans dress, talk and dance. It is a street style as lifestyle, where the music reflects life in the townships, much the same way hip hop mimics life in the American ghetto.

Just as many of the influences on hip hop come from the streets of New York and California, kwaito is known as the musical voice of young, black, urban South Africa.

Rage, a South African lifestyles magazine, describes the sound of kwaito as “a mixture of all that 1990’s South African youth grew up on: South African disco music, hip hop, R&B, Ragga, and a heavy, heavy dose of American and British house music.”

Like many styles of house and rave music, kwaito is not performed using live instruments. Rather, the tracks are manufactured in a studio, then played as backup on stage or in clubs for the artists singing to them live.

Perhaps the best example of kwaito music can be discovered by listening to the music of Arthur Mafokate. Mafokate is one of the giants of the industry; he is a hit kwaito artist as well as a producer of newer kwaito bands.

(House) party politics
The history of kwaito music is impossible to separate from the political history of South Africa. It should come as little surprise that the emergence of kwaito coincided with the election of Nelson Mandela as the first democratically elected president of South Africa. Previously, there was little room for black artists in the mainstream South African music business.

Commercially produced music began in South Africa in 1912, and for many years industry labels were owned mainly by whites. Consequently, kwaito artists faced almost impossible odds getting signed and resorted to forming their own record companies. Many of these companies flaunted their independence too, with names like Triple 9 Records, Wicked Sounds, Ghetto Ruff and MDU Music.

From the beginning, kwaito carried with it an undercurrent of oppression. The throbbing, pulsating music was often accompanied by politically pointed lyrics that embodied the newly animated youth culture. For example, one of the earliest kwaito songs, “Kaffir”, risks mocking white South Africans’ use of derogatory names for blacks:

Boss don’t call me a kaffir. Can’t you see that I’m trying?
Can’t you see that I’m rushing around (busy)?
When I wash myself he calls me a kaffir
I don’t come from the devil
Don’t call me a kaffir
That lazy kaffir
You won’t like it if I call you baboon


Whether kwaito is a force for social change or a musical style reflecting the energy of South African youths is up to whom you ask. Kwaito group Natizea told Johannesburg magazine Hola earlier this year: “Kwaito is our way of contributing to change in this country. It is also a way to remind public opinion what the ghetto expects from change: jobs, better schools and peace on the streets.”

Power of the party people
The historical trajectory of the genre imitates the lifespan of other underground musical acts of the past. Opposing imported pop music fads, a rough and anemic kwaito emerged as a new contender, layering European house with local attitude. The addition of a slowed tempo, elevated percussion, piano riffs and African melodies - sung in one of South Africa’s many dialects including Afrikaans, English, Zulu, Sesotho and Iscamtho (street slang) - resulted in a polished kwaito that exploded in popularity. By the 1990s, kwaito was everywhere.

In a country where nearly half the population is under 21, youth culture exerts a major influence on social life. Translation: Kwaito is a profitable industry. South Africa has a population of over 40 million; 75% are black and many are living in the ghetto.

It’s these youths especially who lay claim to kwaito. Their stories spawned it, and the post-apartheid economy gave them the opportunity to produce and sell it. Today, they’re buying kwaito albums in record numbers.

Well, “record numbers” is a relative term: Selling 25,000 CDs in South Africa means an album has gone “gold,” as opposed to the 500 000 record sales it takes to go gold in the United States. Some of the heavy hitters of kwaito have sold over 100 000 records, making them major players in the South African music industry.

Yet, with almost every success comes controversy, and the same is true for kwaito. Today, purists claim that kwaito artists have begun to rest on their laurels, exploiting the easy formula that’s been the ticket to their success. They argue that the industrial house blend of kwaito that’s played increasingly today has arrested the political energy that had been so vital to the genre in its infancy. With the newest kwaito music swept into the mainstream, there’s a fear that all that’s unique to the genre will be distilled.

There’s also the fear that an infusion of gimmicky marketing will exploit kwaito’s exploration of a country beginning an era of self-rule - notably, one of the last emancipated in the post-colonial world. It’s understandable, then, that globalisation is seen as a threat rather than an ally in the construction of kwaito culture. As with any burgeoning subculture, however, there are parts that are appreciated and those that are criticised. Some claim that kwaito’s newest acts are over-sexed, absent of thoughtful lyrical content, and infused with vulgar industrialised sexual clichés in dance style, dress and melodies. They fear that kwaito’s newest records are mixed specifically for foreign appetites like the United States’, forcing the music’s roots to be ignored.

Pre-fabricated cultural branding poses a real threat to kwaito - a genre that’s always been about spontaneity. Worse, the music prepared for foreign markets paints a falsified picture of what life is really like in South Africa.

Kwaito did not originally aim to show a South Africa happy in its new urbanity, especially because urban life has been exploited by foreign commerce. For these reasons, kwaito’s best moments become those that deliver a chorus of black voices opposing a legacy of bureaucracy and racism, and anticipating a new identity and mobility on its own terms.

Kwaito was touted as part of a South African renaissance, but it’s also part of a South African revolution - one that does not suffer misinterpretation lightly.

This article is republished with kind permission from mental_floss ...

[generaljimmy]

wasn't good tech house supposed to combine the swagger and groove of house with the pace of techno? plenty of good music of this variety around, but then i do remember there being a lot of shit music that didnt really do much being labelled as tech-house, so again can see why people might think its shit as a ganre. same rules as before apply though, always chaff near the wheat.

loop techno however, i bloody hated most of that!

[benben]

However i have booked 2 HOUSE and TECHNO dons for chibuku main rooms sets which will silence the heads that have been asking chibuku to return to its house roots for some time.

cant wait!

[emmma]

wasn't good tech house supposed to combine the swagger and groove of house with the pace of techno? plenty of good music of this variety around, but then i do remember there being a lot of shit music that didnt really do much being labelled as tech-house, so again can see why people might think its shit as a ganre. same rules as before apply though, always chaff near the wheat.

loop techno however, i bloody hated most of that!

it was but it, like the electro hybrid, and most of the newer subgenres seem to soon get swallowed up by the stinkin bog that is commercial dance music and the poorer forms are churned out in their droves, hence people saying its all shit.

its harder to find but its still out there, but that said ive not bought anything in the last six months to a year that was made later than 2002...

[Danny Woods]

Funny reading this as you can actually go on forever about it, as every genre has the good stuff and the tripe. That's why you have to dig for your tunes. If it's good it get's bought regardless of where it stands or what genre it is.

[badman]

sorry i should of worded everything better, i was in work and rushing cos of being late on break! by the title, i just meant whats happened to just having a good quality house night rather than feeling the need to be different by having things like rare groove, latinohouse etc etc? i AM talking about my personal tastes however. im not insinuating nothing else should be explored!!

and come on, tech house shit? would you knock stuff by gideon jackson, nathan coles, terry francis, tyrant, fabric stuff in general etc etc? i love it!! nice rolling music thats (again in my opnion) very interesting and nice to listen to.

i totally agree with death to electro house, i friggin hate the stuff, it just seems so plastic and heartless!!

[Coakley]

Speaking as someone who hasn't got a fuckin' clue what he's talking about......




YAWN!

[xAnToNiAx]

Funny reading this as you can actually go on forever about it, as every genre has the good stuff and the tripe. That's why you have to dig for your tunes. If it's good it get's bought regardless of where it stands or what genre it is.


I totally agree!!!

[BillAlcatraz]

i just meant whats happened to just having a good quality house night rather than feeling the need to be different by having things like rare groove, latinohouse etc etc?

i dont think its about feeling the need to be different
people actually like it

[Pedro]

Funny reading this as you can actually go on forever about it, as every genre has the good stuff and the tripe. That's why you have to dig for your tunes. If it's good it get's bought regardless of where it stands or what genre it is.


I totally agree!!!

The common sense stance on all of this.... Alas it also doesn't make for such an interesting arguement sometimes. :lol:

[outlar]

This is a good example of what looks like an argument but really it's just everyone has valid points to give and none of them relate to what everyone else perceives to be the subject being discussed :roll:

[generaljimmy]

or an example of when the original thread gets forgotten when sub topics get further discussion. always happens when repsones result in cans of worms.

on the iniital topic though, there is a dearth of house focused small nights in liverpool, like hustle was a couple of years ago, the ones around now tend ot veer inbetween genres. but that probably has more to do with the city's clubbers preffering a more eclectic approach to their clubbing, and is another whole massive argument we don't need to get into here right now.

inland knights are playing at alcatraz soon though, does that fit in with what you wanted to see?

[Dom Chung]

bring back la hustle i say.

[generaljimmy]

only if they get a better resident

[Dom Chung]

how about you? Playing all that trance you used to love so much.

[generaljimmy]

ha ha, we all have our dodgy past! i can remember an argument me and you had about the 'merits' of our tastes in music at bugged out about five years ago that makes me cringe on reflection. Shame it took a little longer for the message to sink in :oops:


We all come good in the end though

[Dom Chung]

ha ha! You used to love it.

[generaljimmy]

i think quite a few people have their trance past hidden away actually, but yes im guilty as charged! Anyhoo the genre in its purist form has been cooler than a cucumber for a good year or so now anyway, so maybe i was just ahead of my time!

[Dom Chung]

true story.

[funk_engineer]

i don't knock any type of music, i used to be a progressive house head, thats all i would buy and all i would listen too then i got majorly bored of it and made myself sick to the back teeth of that genre i still hate the stuff!

thats why i listen to all forms of music now to keep myself interested :)

[emmma]

or an example of when the original thread gets forgotten when sub topics get further discussion. always happens when repsones result in cans of worms.

on the iniital topic though, there is a dearth of house focused small nights in liverpool, like hustle was a couple of years ago, the ones around now tend ot veer inbetween genres. but that probably has more to do with the city's clubbers preffering a more eclectic approach to their clubbing, and is another whole massive argument we don't need to get into here right now.

inland knights are playing at alcatraz soon though, does that fit in with what you wanted to see?

inlands knights have made some good tunes, good standard issue house music, but an interesting booking they are not. are they dirt cheap or something?

[BillAlcatraz]

or an example of when the original thread gets forgotten when sub topics get further discussion. always happens when repsones result in cans of worms.

on the iniital topic though, there is a dearth of house focused small nights in liverpool, like hustle was a couple of years ago, the ones around now tend ot veer inbetween genres. but that probably has more to do with the city's clubbers preffering a more eclectic approach to their clubbing, and is another whole massive argument we don't need to get into here right now.

inland knights are playing at alcatraz soon though, does that fit in with what you wanted to see?

inlands knights have made some good tunes, good standard issue house music, but an interesting booking they are not. are they dirt cheap or something?

why'd you say that?
im a big fan so i put them on.

[SteMc]

Theres been fcuk all decent in the way of house for ages :(

Long live the drums and the bass! :D :lol:

[outlar]

Inland Knights were great when they played Yo-Yo in the Annexe last year. I look forward to seeing them in a smaller/friendlier room. Also great to see you have Jimpster lined up as I missed him last time he was down this way!

[Dom Chung]

fair play, jimpster is a wicked booking for a small house night.

[philcharnock]

I think the shift to eclectic sounds in clubs is amazing! There is so much good music out there. I remember getting told off for slipping the odd disco song into house sets at the end of the nineties, it was so frustrating.

[housegrooves]

Too many people started to play and produce electro house including those that had played/produced funky house so it started to be labelled cheesy and alot of it was pretty crap SO then a new sounds came along, that Berlin minimal.

I was starting to think 'where had the good house gone' but found my faith again with the likes of Ame (great Essential mix), Cut Copy (great Fabric CD), also Switch, Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, oh and of course Dom Chung!

There is alot of good house music about, just needs a bit more searching out maybe.

[denzil]

House is a feelin !!!

By the way Inland Knights is a top booking 8)

[captainflash]

However i have booked 2 HOUSE and TECHNO dons for chibuku main rooms sets which will silence the heads that have been asking chibuku to return to its house roots for some time.

And one of these has already put it up on his MySpace page.....Nice

[rob79]

Check out some of james talks stuff

[Miss Flump]

House is a feelin !!!

And if you don't feel it, it can't be house.

One of the truest things ever said, courtesy of Carl Cox.

Or even better.....

In the beginning, there was Jack, and Jack had a groove.
And from this groove came the groove of all grooves.
And while one day viciously throwing down on his box, Jack boldy declared,
"Let there be HOUSE!"
and house music was born.
"I am, you see,
I am
the creator, and this is my house!
And, in my house there is ONLY house music.
But, I am not so selfish because once you enter my house it then becomes OUR house and OUR house music!"
And, you see, no one man owns house because house music is a universal language, spoken and understood by all.
You see, house is a feeling that no one can understand really unless you're deep into the vibe of house.
House is an uncontrollable desire to jack your body.
And, as I told you before, this is our house and our house music.
And in every house, you understand, there is a keeper.
And, in this house, the keeper is Jack.
Now some of you who might wonder,
"Who is Jack, and what is it that Jack does?"
Jack is the one who gives you the power to jack your body!
Jack is the one who gives you the power to do the snake.
Jack is the one who gives you the key to the wiggly worm.
Jack is the one who learns you how to walk your body.
Jack is the one that can bring nations and nations of all Jackers together under one house.
You may be black, you may be white; you may be Jew or Gentile. It don't make a difference in OUR House.
And this is fresh.


Word. 8)

[nikyT]

What Jack said.