Music and Movement
I don’t care if Gnarls Barkley (Danger Mouse & Cee-Lo) are UK pop darlings, I think their album, St Elsewhere, is brilliant; a quintessentially English fusion of hiphop, trippyness, grime, pop and northern soul with irresistable hooks. Unlike the mass of US ‘urban’ music, Gnarls Barkley disdain no influence and recognise few black/white cultural boundaries, either of their own era or of their parents’ , or of their parents. Everything is grist to the mill.
I particularly love the track ‘Smiley Faces’ which has got a real 1979 northern soul all-nighter vibe to it. And is that Garry Christian, the lead singer of The Christians on vocals? Lovely.
Whilst we’re on the subject of English grime/hiphop and parental influences, do try these tracks too. (Full disclosure: number two son DJ’d , mixed and produced number one son’s vocal for a couple of these tracks, and the others are by number two son alone.) The best track is Brothers, IMO though Schiphol is very cool and atmospheric.
Feel free to download.
I may be biased, but I love my sons’ music, it has a sense of place but it’s not insular. It’s about how even the most rural areas of Britain suffer the same ills – racism, poverty, drugs, crime, immigration – as the better known and documented urban areas like Bristol or London. It’s not all cream teas and ooh-arr, where’s my tractor. I’m proud of them both and I guess playing them classic soul and jazz tracks and spouting socialism all those years paid off.
No 2 son is coming to Amsterdam in the autumn, since he graduated from art school this summer. There’s quite a burgeoning hiphop scene here, but Dutch acts lag behind the times musically – even such luminaries as The Party Squad can be massively derivative. But there is a massive market for hiphop, R&B, and drum n’ bass, and UK drum n’ bass DJ’s are highly sought after by the cognoscenti (and hip Amsterdam prides itself on being cognoscentious). There’s money to be made, certainly. It can be a very good living here for artists – but then Amsterdam has historically been an arts-friendly city.
The whole tenor of life and the city government leans towards creatives of whatever stripe. It’s Mayor Cohen’s stated aim to attract the most talented young creatives in the world to Amsterdam – indeed there are 6 film companies right across the street from us, another down the road, and a sound-engineering college right around the corner. Not only that, but MTV has been given the go-ahead to move its European HQ to less than 3/4 mile away from us, in the new cultural quarter at the old Shell Oil site on the Ij. There are certainly opportunities for the young and ambitious.
When I was that age I was married with a small child. Oh, to be young, untramelled, talented, ambitious and with an EU passport, it is indeed a wonderful thing.
