Back from Cornwall today but still on holidays. The blog, though, carries on and the music shall never stop.
Kicking off our weekly rendezvous with our beautiful and practical mp3 player, we have Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz with a powerful Latin number, "Agúzate". Mind-blowing.
We continue in the same Latin vibe and now we have Telmary featuring both Kumar and William Vivanco from my homeland. I love the visuals in "Ves", taken from Telmary's debut "A Diario" and reviewed on this blog last year. Hip-hop with a Cuban attitude. Love it!
Like spiders scurrying away from a bag that's just been opened. That's the recurring image that always pops into my head whenever I see Aziza Mustafa Zadeh's fingers working the blacks and whites. She is a regular on this blog and may she continue to be. "Heartbeat" is part of my mp3's DNA and has already been uploaded a couple of times in this space. And it will continue to be. Energetic.
And last, but not least, Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit". Because occasionally some people forget, so we have to remind them.
Next Post: "While My MP3 Gently Plays", to be published on Sunday 4th September at 10am (GMT)
I have a confession to make. Nothing drives me wilder than the smell of peppers being roasted or baked. The only other aroma that comes close to it is onions and garlic skating on sizzling oil on a frying pan. Which is why when I came across the recipe below in the July issue of the Observer Food Monthly I knew I had to share it with you, dear fellow bloggers and readers.
I'm aware that summer is gone and autumn is poking its sleepy face through my bedroom window already but this side dish or light lunch works with any season, like most of Nigel Slater's recipes, as I've found out over the years.
Baked peppers with a summer sauce
Serves 2-4 as a side dish (or light lunch, believe me)
large peppers 4olive oil For the basil dressing: basil leaves, a couple of good handfuls oregano leaves, a small handful mint leaves, a small handful garlic 1 plump clove, peeled extra-virgin olive oil about 150ml
Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Cut the peppers in half, tug out the seeds and cores and lay cut-side up in a baking tin. Trickle a little olive oil over them then bake until the skins have blackened. Remove from the oven and cover with a tea towel or clingfilm. (The steam this creates will make it easier to remove the skins of the pepper.)
Put the basil leaves into a blender or food processor together with the oregano and mint, the peeled clove of garlic and the olive oil. Add a good pinch of sea salt and mix till almost smooth. Peel the skins of the peppers and put them on a plate. Trickle the herb sauce around them and serve warm.
The music to go with this recipe is full of unbridled hedonism. The reason is simple: Nigel is one of the few food writers (I can't think of any others, and Nigella 'tries' too much for my liking) who makes the phrase 'plump clove' sound both sensuous and naughty without meaning to.
Hence my first musical choice. This tune is sick. The DJ and keyboard player sound houseish, the singer and backing vocalists are pure soul, the brass section, THE BRASS SECTION! yeeeesss! is jazzy and the guitar, drums and bass combine for a slow-burning reggae sound. This is the sickest melody - 'sick' as in 'good', by the way - I've come across in a loooooooooooong time. If this song carried a label it would read: 'No artificial flavours or colourants, just raw ingredients'. Fat Freddy's Drop for you, ladies and gentleman.
Telmary is a Cuban rapper who has a very strong side (she needs it badly in such a male-dominated medium) as well as a softer one as the clip below demonstrates. I reviewed her CD, 'A Diario', here last year and everytime I listen to it I never cease to be amazed at the wild array of melodies her record contains. Whenever I hear this tune or watch this video I think of that olive oil sliding down the sides of those peppers as they are getting baked. Indulgent.
It's a pity that Macy Gray's subsequent records haven't achieved the same success as her debut album 'On How Life Is'. But this track from her sophomore effort, 'The Id', is as tasty as that plump, juicy garlic clove Nigel mentions in his recipe. Consume carefully. Have a brilliant weekend. Ta.
Rap in Cuba has come a long way since the hazy days of the early 90s. In 1991 salsa was the dominating musical force on the island with rock, almost covertly, following very closely behind. There was, however, a gap for those young people who did not fall for either genre. That is why the Panamerican Games in the summer of that year provided the perfect backdrop against which Cuban rap developed. All of a sudden the Cuban youth witnessed a contingent of US journalists, athletes and independent travellers, many of them black and many of them in powerful positions, wearing the latest hip-hop fashion and swaggering around Havana. And to cap it all the first images of Vanilla Ice, Mc Hammer and Bobby Brown beamed from our television screens and acted as a catalyst for many a future MC to pick up his/her mic. Rap had finally landed. Overnight groups sprang up here and there. Amenaza and Primera Base were the more popular ones. In fact I remember going to the Alamar amphitheatre to see the first ever Rap Festival in Havana circa '92 or '93. But despite their energy and vigour, the first Cuban rap outfits were mere rip-offs of their American counterparts, copycats of more successful groups like NWA and Public Enemy. The watershed arrived in 1999 with the release of Orishas's debut album 'A Lo Cubano' (Cuban Style). Orishas was a Paris-based quartet (nowadays they are a trio) that blended the standard hip-hop MCing with traditional Cuban music. This record was heavy in production and arrangements and solid in vocal delivery. I would not be exaggerating if I said that it put Cuban rap on the map as well as paving the way for future artists.
And one of those artists is Telmy Telma, or Telmary, her stage moniker. Here's a singer who claims to rap 24 hours a day (the clip has English subtitles, by the way) and on the evidence of her debut album, 'A Diario', you could be forgiven for thinking that she may actually mean it. 'A Diario' is a record that from the hilarious cover reading 'Parental Advisory: Cuban Content' to the guests' list takes the listener through an amazing musical journey.
Even the Intro(Rezo/Prayer), usually a fifteen-second self-indulgent exercise that barely deserves a footnote in the credits of any record, is a powerful prescient tool in this album that announces the arrival of a real artist.
'Fiesta' ('Party'), finds Telmary duetting with Athanai, one of the most famous Cuban musicians nowadays,(and to think that he and I went to college together and that his song 'Séptimo Cielo/Seventh Heaven' was performed for the first time in faraway countryside Pinar del Rio instead of urban Radio Ciudad de la Habana where it premiered shortly after) and the result is a feelgood track that could well fill up the floors of many a party this summer.
"Que Equivoca'o" ('You're So Wrong') deals with an errant, alcoholic partner and his pathetic excuses whilst trying to make up for his errors. 'Marilu' is dedicated to Telmary's mother and it boasts a guest slot by none other than Mayito, the singer from the salsa band Los Van Van, besides sampling the original 'Marilu', a composition by the same salsa troupe. 'Sueño Brujo' ('Enchanting Dream') has another famous contributor guesting on it, Marina 'la Canillas' from Ojos de Brujo and that's the clip you'll be able to watch below. 'Wondering (Sly)' has the ever hard-working Yusa duetting with Telmary. Yusa has been a regular feature on this blog for a long time now and it is also her skillful fingers playing the bass guitar that we see in the clip below. 'Spiritual Sin Egoísmo' ('Selfless Spiritual')is probably my favourite track from the whole album, difficult statement to make when this is a groundbreaking record full of top tunes. This song starts as a 30s or 40s jazz tune, it changes dramatically and ferociously halfway through and it finishes with an operatic voice ghosting in in the background whilst both Telmary and guest singer Kumar let rip in rapid-fire funk-jam style.
If you are looking for a sound to your summer, those sweaty and damp nights when there's hardly any breeze and humidity hits the 90%, this is your record. Whether it is a slow, sultry number you're lusting after, or a fast, uptempo one, this record's got all the ingredients you need for a summer holiday, preferably playing on your car stereo en route to somewhere nice and fresh. Southern Spain anyone?
Next Post: Song for a Spring Sunday Morning to be published on Sunday 24th May at 10am GMT Copyright 2009
Back from Cornwall today but still on holidays. The blog, though, carries on and the music shall never stop.
