DJ not-I Styles

Global Groove, World Funk, Full-spectrum Hip-Hop

In the 21st century, with the blurring of both stylistic and geographical boundaries through the ease of electronic communication, the categorization of music according to genre becomes increasingly obsolete and misleading. As i've always been interested in the traversal and transgression of such boundaries, much of the material i drop in my sets defies it. Nevertheless, a short account of style is in order here, and a few generic terms and proper names might help to better describe my sound than the oft-misused 'eclectic' catchall.

World Music

As with most genre titles, the term "World Music" was invented by record shops and labels. It was first used to file international music that didn't fit into other categories, such as African and Latin. Despite it's initial awkwardness, the name stuck, and displaced the rather condescending "ethnic" tag. As the genre itself grew into a huge musical movement with ever-increasing trans-national and cross-genre collaborations, "World Music" came to mean almost anything with a local or regional twist and international appeal. This all-inclusiveness can be daunting, but it's precisely why i like the term. Any given not-I set revolves around World Music, i.e. music from around the world, and mixes from the following three categories according to context, intention and flow.

Global Groove, World Funk, and Full-spectrum Hip-Hop

Global Groove is how i describe a tasty stir-fry of spicy sounds from various continents and traditions, such as West African jazz, Middle European lounge, or East Asian trip-hop. Its guiding principle is down-tempo flavor, both acoustic and electronic, resulting from a choice of diverse ingredients that blend rather than clash. A Global Groove set is unobtrusive, yet inviting, relaxed, yet engaging, making it suitable for an evening at a café, as a warm-up to World Funk, or, in its chilled form, as background head-food for an afternoon at an art gallery or bookshop. An example of this culinary metaphor in action is my demo CD, The Sonic Wok.

World Funk is fully functional: it's about shaking your ass to non-brainless beats, but it's mainly about shaking your ass. It's dance music whose only prejudice is quality. Bumping booty-bombs from Latin groove to Afrobeat, from old-school U.S. funk to Bollywood breaks, from electro-soul bootlegs to hip-hop mashes, a World Funk set can be booming, bass-heavy, hot and sweaty, and then, at turns, choice-chilled. Its ruling factor is audience participation and whatever gets you moving and keeps you bouncing is fair game, as long as it doesn't fall into too much cheapness or monotony. World Funk is soaked in syncopation, which precludes most House music, but that doesn't mean i won't drop a few four-on-the-floor bombs if the time and place is right. As the title of my demo CD proclaims, World Funk is an Unabashed Dance!

Full-Spectrum Hip-Hop means keeping it real, as opposed to keep-it-realism, i.e. manifesting authentic expression, true to self, time and place. Loyal to the original theorems of beats-and-rhyme-science Full-Spectrum Hip-Hop abuses technology to bust up breakbeat paradigms and speaks to a worldwide community of like minds. A Full-Spectrum set is cerebral combat with bass for your belly to boot. It tactically mixes, matches and mashes in a full-scale assault on preconceptions about 'rap music.' Venturing far from the current commercial norm, i consider anything with a beat and a rap to be fair game, from old-school joints to broken beats and UK grime, from African raps to Japanese chants. I like mash-ups a lot, especially if they challenge expectations. And if they don't exist yet, they can be made. ('Old school, new school, no school rules!' -Nas)
A not-I Full-Spectrum Hip-Hop mix CD is on the way. Be prepared!