011! Music Digest: Breakneck Dembow, Congolese Punk and Martinican Shatta
A missive from NYC summer
My friend and writer John Chiaverina has a recurring feature on his Substack, John’s Music Blog, called Public Listening, where he documents and talks about the music played in public commercial spaces. Over the past year or so, he’s reported from the frontlines of Dunkin Donuts, Guitar Center, and Chili’s. It’s fascinating and hilarious; a recent favourite was from Coney Island’s Hot Dog Eating Contest where he dissects the soundtrack to MLE (Major League Eating).
I admit I wouldn’t know quite how ubiquitous some songs were if I didn’t shop in the city from time to time, or get a cab, or wait in line for the Starbucks toilet, and just absorb by osmosis. I’ve never actually gone to Spotify to listen to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please”, but I have probably heard it at least fifty times now.
As I look around at what’s going on in the world of music this summer, I see amapiano has reached Albania, a group of 12-year-old Irish kids have a viral DnB hit on TikTok and Fred Again is selling out 70,000 capacity arenas. Central Cee has a collab with Asake, K-Pop acts have been looking to electro for their latest US nostalgia inspiration, and Megan Thee Stallion released a chopped-and-screwed version of her album. But most of this hasn’t shown up in my day-to-day life.
It’s interesting to see the gulf in between what is put upon us by the playlists that be, and what is actually being played by people in the city. In New York, public listening in the summer is also the street parties, the park cookouts, the bodega jams and the passing cars with the windows rolled down. Every year brings its own hits; last year you couldn’t escape hearing Jey One “Onana” at every turn.
Dominican dembow is like a (welcome) background hum during the summer here. So far the song I’ve heard the most has probably been Lomiiel’s “Hay Lupita”. It’s 1 minute and 45 seconds of minimalist fun - with only a cowbell, a shaker, a bassline, and the vocal:
Last week I heard this song by Papera & El Cherry Scom and I couldn’t Shazam it quickly enough. El Cherry Scom featured on one of the biggest Dominican songs of recent years, and perhaps its biggest crossover hit to date, “La Mama de la Mama” with El Alfa. It’s not unusual for dembow (as the speedier sister of reggaeton) to push 130bpm, but I was taken aback by how fast this is, clocking in at over 160bpm. The “barum” hook acts like the dembow beat here, but we’re going at merengue pace:
Since then I’ve been binging at the all-you-can-eat buffet of YouTube. In these newer dembow tracks, the traditional kick-snare backbone seems to no longer be the star of the show. The bass is coming through so fiercely and loudly in the mix that it’s almost a featured artist, and the vocals are used like a percussive instrument:
Donaty is emerging as a new star of the DR, with a collab hit with Jey One under his belt. The vocal control (and vocal layering) on this track is outrageous, and just pure fun. Good luck singing along.
Dominican dembow is generally sidelined by the traditional latin music industry, but still has a large reach and influence. French-Martinican artist Meryl - who I first heard of via the Martinican genre of Shatta (which shares the same DNA as dancehall, but emerged only around a decade ago) - just released this dembow collab with some Dominican acts:
Lately I’ve been served a lot of Shatta videos on TikTok, and I’ve been hearing it in the club too. It’s a genre that’s definitely speaking to a large Francophone audience, but also one that’s filling the spot that dancehall used to occupy: being dance-focussed. Also, aside from the producers (like Natoxie, DJ Chinwax), the genre’s main stars so far seem to be women (Maureen, Shannon).
This summer doesn’t really seem to have delivered on an obvious Jamaican crossover hit, despite (or because of?) the fact that there are many acts signed to majors right now. DJ Mac has had a great run, since “Drift” last year, and now “Lumbah” with Valiant, and probably the biggest tune (and riddim) of the last few months: “Haad (Fiesta)” with Armanii and Crash Dummy. The riddim is built on R Kelly’s “Fiesta” - I guess he’s not cancelled in Jamaica? Apparently, though, profits from his music will be going towards his victims’ fees and and restitution.
In this newsletter I try for the most part to cover stuff that, although it may sometimes be popular, is not really getting much press attention for one reason or another. This particular band have been covered by Western press, but I still want to share it since it really caught me and is under the radar. KOKOKO! are a Congolese experimental band working with Transgressive (a label and management company whose roster includes Beverly Glenn Copeland, Damon Albarn, Flume, and the forthcoming posthumous SOPHIE record). It’s some nice antimatter for the Taylor Swift era - DIY, lo-fi production with some pretty political lyrical content. It has a driving post-punk feel, the rawness of something like ESG (where you feel like the person playing the bass is in the room with you), and a punk, collage aesthetic.
A few days ago I read an article decrying the lack of British voices in the number one spot in the UK charts. It’s been over six months since a Brit had a UK number one, and even then, that spot was taken by Wham with a re-release of “Last Christmas”. I didn’t agree with one of their main theories, which is that British music is too “melancholic, incapable of the relentless optimism on which America runs.” Firstly, seems embarrassing that this person has clearly never heard a Billie Eilish or Olivia Rodrigo track in their life? Or, outside of the main issues with today’s industry, to not consider that perhaps these acts might be facing problems of infrastructure, funding and support that nurture young British talent.
Maybe it’s time to divest from the charts as an indication of culture-at-large, but there was a similar sentiment in Elijah’s piece for The Guardian about BBC 1Xtra, and their lack of priority support for homegrown Black British talent. Looking across the pond to France, where they have very stringent rules about playing homegrown music in an effort to protect their language (35% of radio play must be French music), their charts are almost exclusively occupied by French artists. Both of those situations have their issues - it’s probably not a utopia to have only your country’s music in the charts - but it’s interesting to see both sides of the coin.
Even if the last big-ish pop star to emerge from the UK might be Dua Lipa, there’s an astonishing amount of good underground music to be heard. The niches are niching, and I think that’s one of the UK’s main strengths - not it’s pop output. There’s the promising Jim Legxacy, whose latest single is a heartbreaking song about the death of his teen sister, rapper Tay Jordan, whose “2089” can sit next to Casisdead’s “Pat Earrings” for stellar throwback UK jams, leftfield grime act Jawnino’s new album, the new record from Dean Blunt affiliate Joanne Robertson, the latest single from Kode9, Clara La San’s album, the new single from Tyson...
And lastly, some random things I’ve enjoyed recently:
The 3-part HBO series about the rise and fall of legendary Memphis soul label, Stax: Soulsville USA.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” video.
This piece “exploring the cultural impact of Boyz n the Hood and its iconic title graphics”.
This Guardian long read on the last standing court reporters in the UK.
This other Guardian piece about the loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player.
Video artist Bill Viola passed away this week, and so i’ve been revisiting some of his incredible work.
My pal Mary HK Choi’s moving piece in The Cut about her late-in-life autism diagnosis.
Seeing Lil Wayne supporting Ostapenko at Wimbledon, and Flavor Flav supporting the US women’s water polo team.
My pal Samuel Reinhard’s beautiful “slow-moving piano work” For Piano and Shō.