seen.´s non-hippie reggae and dancehall blog

Good news from London town: Big Dada, the label that used to be one of my favourites for a while but then somehow managed to sign a bag of crap while screwing up things for wicked acts like Lotek HiFi, just announced that Roots Manuva´s new full-length album will hit the markets in late summer:

The title isn’t finalised as yet, but what is certain is that Rodney’s reached new heights with the music. Light and dark, vulnerable and wise by turns, the album draws together cruffy anthems, club-shuddering basslines, slime and reason and introspective insight in trademark fashion. Like all Roots Manuva full lengths, it’s an album in the truest sense of the word; a coherent body of work that provides a window - fuck it, a door - into the world of Rodney Smith.

Looking forward to step through that door - even though the last album “Awfully Deep” suggested that it might be kind of dark in there.

I´m a huge fan of well-done information graphics. This is a pretty slick one I found on Ross Sheill´s Jamaica Observations blog (which he got from the NYT). It shows

how different neighbourhoods [of NYC] reach out to the rest of the world via the AT&T telephone network

and thereby reflects which ethnical groups dominate the various quarters.

Thus on Nov. 1, 2007, Kingston (Jamaica) accounted for about ten percent of all calls out of Brooklyn. Together, Kingston, Santo Domingo and Haiti (no city specified) account for 17 percent of all calls out of Brooklyn. In the Bronx there is a symmetry between incoming and outgoing calls. Kingston and Santo Domingo accounted for 30 percent of all calls out of the Bronx.

And where are my Germans at? As far as I can tell from the map, there´s a couple of Bavarians hanging around in BK and Manhattan.

It will be two more when Don Everest and his brother will hit the ground tomorrow. More from them soon as they´re supposed to regularly send on some pics from e.g. the Mavado ls. Serani and Bugle show at C Pac on March 14th.

All the US guys following this blog will probably know this one already.

I just heard it for the first time on Gabriel Heatwave´s (also check his current Blogariddims mix “Roots, Reality & Culture”) blog - and it´s massive. I´m talking about Jay-Z jumping on Mavado´s version of Baby G´s “The Mission” riddim. Click.
Brooklyn, put your lighters up!

Mischke´s, a four-headed collective from Berlin, Germany, came to celebrate

the party they always searched for in vain: Trancehall galore, Reggaeton striking Housebeats, Soca uniting with Rave, Oldschool 3.0 and everything you can’t even imagine in your wildest dreams.

You can get a good impression of what that means for Tim Turbo, Majo Mischke, Mashupmeister and S. Mischke by visiting their Myspace, their blog or check their bada** “Prelude: Präludium” webmix (zShare - tracklist).

If you like what you hear: don´t miss their night in Berlin´s 103 club on April 5th.

Come and bring your friends, your crew and your whole block.
Boobs out! Tune!

Issue number two of Woofah magazine is about to drop soon and it looks like it´s going to be even better than the almost perfect kick-off issue. How come? #02 will have “a proper spine binding” and a full-colour cover. Tons of interesting content guaranteed as well, of course.

Best thing: it will be available in the seen. boutique next to the also great “Shook” mag which we already have on stock.