PUNKCAST#261
Jabali Afrika
Mikey Dread
SOB's NYC
Apr 8 2003
sponsored by
WWWhatsup Online Pinstand
with thanks to SOB's and Converge Records


'the crazy africans'

Continuing their multicultural efforts our friends at Converge have hooked up with one of the hottest bands in East Africa, Kenya's Jabali Afrika. They brought them over to the US to kick off the release of the resulting CD 'Rootsganza' and pulled them a slot on a reggae bill at SOB's as the NYC show. In typical fashion the supposed headliner - Freddie McGregor with The Fully Fullwood Band - cancelled at the last minute, widening the slot by a good margin. Jabali took full advantage of this, playing for over 2 hours. Bolstered by a couple of US guests on guitar and keys, they covered the full emotional gamut, from the lamenting 'Cry Africa Cry' to a lengthy dancehall session with a guest MC to joyful drum exchanges. There were several lengthy sections in which they challenged the audience to come up and dance with them. The two clips I have pulled out are both declarative love songs.

Following up Jabali came Mikey Dread, who happens to be an old pal of the pinstand going back to even before the days when he toured with the Clash. Better Badges played no small part in popularizing his Jamaican 'Dread At The Controls' radio show in the uk, thru cassettes and rebroadcast over pirate radio. So he gave permission to shoot.. that is until he got to his hot pre-release number 'Rasta Is No Terrorist' - "Stop The Camera.." he commanded - "This one an exclusive.." - which is a shame cos it would have been the one song we would surely have webcast right away.. but here we do have his little tribute to Joe on 'Bankrobber'.

And yes i have knocked up a VCD of a portion of the Jabali set, I've knocked it down to about an hour, less a lot, but not all, of the rap and participation parts. Very watchable, and good to listen to too. Not every song is titled, yet. Converge are going to order some to hand out at CMJ, when the band are due to visit again, as I understand it. The Mikey song I will sit on for now but it may be on a comp in the future. You can get the Jabali VCD direct from the pinstand for $4 inc. mail ($5 foreign) - if interested email orders@pinstand.com with the subject=VCD2611, and I'll let you know the process, or just paypal in direct to that address,










capture captain: joly
date posted: 9/24/03
fixed 11/29/03

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