Radio LBB: Roots Vol.36

​​Now into its seventh year and the 36th edition. For the uninitiated, the Roots playlist showcases an eclectic range of music from across the globe of unfamiliar, forgotten, or recently discovered, to the most upfront sounds of now, all with the common theme of being rooted in Africa.

Some of the highlights this time round include:

Elmi Original - Waaberi

Coming in hot with something fresh! Elmi Original is a London-based producer and multi-instrumentalist who’s been making a name for himself for his sample-based productions, flipping samples from Somali music into frenzied rhythms for the dance floor. Drawing from Afrobeat, Amapiano, Afrohouse, RnB and Hip Hop, his most recent single, Waaberi, chops and screws a chorus vocal and highlife trumpets, reworking them into a groovy peak time house banger with an insanely catchy hook. This hits with the best of the genre - think tracks like Daphni’s Ne Noya, Henrik Schwartz’s flip of Ebo Taylor & Pat Thomas, even Mory Kante’s Yeke Yeke.

Johnny Clarke - None Shall Escape The Judgement

From the contemporary to the classic. Johnny Clarke remains criminally underrated on this side of the Atlantic, but for a time he was one of the best loved reggae vocalists in Jamaica. His spectacular career spanned decades and saw him working with some of the greatest talents the island has produced, beginning in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s when he worked with the legendary producer Bunny Lee and his band The Aggrovators, to the ‘80s and ‘90s when he caught the wave of digital dancehall, working with another pioneering producer, Mad Professor. None Shall Escape Judgement is one of his best, recorded with Lee and The Aggrovators at King Tubby’s and released in 1975, it’s a perfectly formed bit of uptempo spiritual roots reggae - energetic but relaxed, sweet and a little wistful.

Pat Thomas & Marijata - My Love Will Shine

Pat Thomas is perhaps best known for his work with the titan of highlife, Ebo Taylor, but he’s had a storied career in his own right and fronted a number of incredible records, included this one with Marijata, a Ghanaian band made up of three members – Kofi 'Electric' Addison on drums, Bob Fischlan on organ and Nat Osmanu on guitar. After playing with the Broadway Dance Band, in 1969, the Uhuru Dance Band, and Ebo Taylor’s Blue Monks, Thomas formed Sweet Beans in 1973, before they split and reformed as Marijata. Releasing two albums, including this one, Pat Thomas Introduces Marijata, released in 1976. My Love Will Shine perfectly captures the feel of the album, fusing a jubilant pop sensibility with an incredibly progressive Black Atlantic fusion approach to genre, melding highlife and afrobeat with psychedelic rock guitars and ska rhythms.

Pastor T.L Barrett - He Rose (From The Grave)

Pastor T.L. Barrett is a fascinating character who lingered in obscurity for years, before being amplified to popular ears by the incredible digging and sampling work of one Kanye West. Born in the South Side of Chicago, Barrett left for Queens, New York where he developed a passion for music, eventually bringing this back to Chicago where he became a preacher at Mt Zion Church, composing, arranging and recording traditionals with the church choir and setting up Mt Zion Records to release them, and interacting closely with the local Afro-centric movement, which included Earth Wind & Fire’s Maurice White and Philip Bailey, Donny Hathaway, and Sun Ra collaborator Phil Cohran. He Rose (From The Grave) is pure, ecstatic gospel power, the choir bellowing in full force, while the Pastor ad libs and vocalises to heaven, set to an almighty soul groove.

Ghisly Brown - Let’s Talk About It

Now this is a groove! Ghisly Brown’s French boogie classic, Let’s Talk About It, was released in 1981, issued by Disques Sedim, a Parisian label focused on African music. Born Geneviève Brun, little is known of the French Cameroonian singer, apart from a handful of records spanning across the 80s under the aliases, Ghisly Brown, Jeslyna, and Jess Lee, and a single recorded with Jean-François Ondoa’s Generation II. Let’s Talk About It comes from the only Ghisly Brown solo album, 1981’s Come To Me. Arranged by the Cameroonian composer Mbida Jim Douglas, the sound is a complex and heady blend of organic instrumentation and synthetic sheen, bombastic bass guitar and spiky funk guitar tied tightly together with the big reverbs, splashy delays and lush synth pads of early '80s production.

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Seoul Music

If you don’t know Yellow Magic Orchestra, get to know. The Japanese band, though hugely underappreciated by comparison, rival the likes of Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle, and Cabaret Voltaire in their pioneering of electronic music, towards the end of the 70s and early 80s. Retrospectively, YMO sounds something like a supergroup, formed in Tokyo by three musicians who would go on to be titans in their own solo careers: Ryuichi Sakamoto, on keyboards and vocals, would go on to become a storied composer of ambient music and film scores, while the prolific producer Haruomi Hosono can be find in the credits of almost any great Japanese record from the '80s, from ambient, experimental synth music, to city pop, and drummer Yukihiro Takahashi set a constant release schedule that lasted til his death last year. Seoul Music is an incredible bit of techno-pop, released on the 1981 album Technodelic. It combines a pop sensibility with traditional Japanese percussion sounds, and a big slanging drum machine chug.

These are just some of the highlights in what I hope is an enjoyable musical journey that spans across continents, generations and genres…

A huge thanks go out to labels such as Now Again, Light In The Attic, Numero Uno and Luv N’ Haight, Analog Africa, Music From Memory, Africa Seven, Far Out Recordings, Strut, Mr Bongo and Soundway, who continue to unearth some of the most unique and amazing music that may have otherwise never seen the light of day.