This entry is about three things: 1) access to music, 2) hip hop and 3) an interesting remix of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois album.

Without access to the internet there’s almost no access to worldwide music for most people in East Africa. In Kenya, local music dealers don’t branch far from a limited selection of Kenyan gospel and Kamba, some African pop, and Congalise reggae. It’s all sold on horrible quality CDRs, with the audio quality reduced at the expense of including the music videos - colourfully costumed dancers, having a merry dance in a garden or next to a waterfall.

I’ve recently met some local rappers. Young, passionate lovers of hip hop. Talking to them, I’ve noticed what a limited selection of worldwide hip hop they’ve heard of. It’s usually just a few artists, often Tupac, sometimes Notorious B.I.G and the Wu-Tang Clan. 

So I’m putting together a little mixtape to share with some of the hip hop heads of Kisumu. A selection of hip hop that I’ve loved: Pete Rock, Roots Manuva, De La Soul, Q-Tip, Madlib, Gangstarr, Nas, Ty…. and maybe some more off the beaten track hip hop, Shabazz Palaces, Soweto Kinch, Heart Streets… oh there’s so much to choose from. Need to whittle it down and not overwhelm. And need to keep that mixtape flow.

I was listening to Grand Puba’s I Like It - deciding whether to put it into the mix, and on my exploration I found the acappella over a Sufjan Stevens track. Surprised that the two were being put together, I checked it out further. The album is Illinoize, a free remix album of Sufjan Steven’s legendary album Illinois, from Montreal producer Tor.

You can download it free here.

Take it and run

My friend Richard Watkins is a lovely gentleman who sketches out some of his thoughts onto paper. These sketches, known as Pen Paper Pause, are snippets of interesting ideas, concepts and ponderings about the world around us.

Lately he has embarked on another project, called Take it and Run. The idea is to take one of his pictures and run with it - remix it - do something new with it. And the contributions to this project have been amazing. It is such a pleasure to watch friends get creative and make stuff. 

Being a fan of anything with the word ‘remix’ in it, I was glad to join in and choose this drawing, that has the words:

I want to fall in love with someone like you.
But not you.

I carried around those words for a few weeks and for some reason I kept thinking of dating websites, which are, in some ways, quite peculiar places. In our quests for companionship, dating websites are quickly becoming a standard tool to have in the mix. Apparently, they are the largest segment of “paid content” on the web other than pornography. Right now, millions of people are sitting at a desk, shopping for love. With each click of a profile, there is a glimmer of hope. “I want to fall in love with that person…”. 

So without further ado, allow me to introduce The Soul Sampler: an ultra-compact, multi-touch audio love machine, giving you exclusive access to 15 real-life dating profiles. Not only that, it creates that atmosphere for love with a set of programmable beats, basslines, keys and effects for your remixing pleasure. 

The video below, made by my dear friend Tom, shows the making of The Soul Sampler (rrp: £2,999) and a schematic of it’s workings are presented after: