Earlier this summer budding Brazilian diva CéU released her critically-acclaimed sophomore set, Vagarosa.
One of this summer's scorchers, the album delved deeper into her
signature blend of reggae, Brazilian pop, indie rock and post-paulista electronica.
But we weren't surprised that Vagarosa made good on the
promise of CéU's self-titled 2005 debut (not released in the U.S. until
2007). We've been fans of this talented songer-songwriter right out of the gate.
Recently Nat Geo Music invited her to come by our studio and record a little somethig for their Geo Sessions series.
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus", from the 2009 World Science Festival, June 12, 2009.
You kind of have to see it to get it. That is to get how people make great music out of objects like matches, basketballs and toilet plungers. The Colombian experimental percussion group is as much theater as anything, but their also highly trained talented and creative musicians.
You'd be forgiven for confusing Tekeye with STOMP the Anglo-american international sensation. Tekeye's leader, Tupac Mantilla, was heavily influenced by STOMP - even saw the show three times. But Tekeye's philosophy, rhythms and origin are all its own.
Tupac Mantilla was born 31 years ago in Bogota, Colombia along with expectations that he would carry on a family tradition of excellence in classical and traditional music. His grandfather, uncle and father had been a prominent composer, conductor and clarinetist respectively. Mantilla started piano at age 4 and entered the National Conservatory of Colombia 3 three years later. It was not a childish childhood. MANTILLA: "I can't say that I really liked the piano, but I was in the best possible sense kind of forced to do it. I spent a lot of years, you know, running from the high school right to the Conservatory to make the lessons and everything right on time and then leave and go back home at PM and do my homework - it was a really busy life as a kid. Of course my mom wanted me to be the best pianist ever."
Until one day in his mid teens, Mantilla made a discovery. He and his brother and cousin decided to start a rock band and his cousin traded some roller skates for a drum set.
MANTILLA: "I saw it and I felt something different. It was like, 'That's a nice instrument, I like it, It's cool.' And my cousin was trying to play, but he really didn't know much. Neither did I. I was like, 'OK'. But I sat down and I don't know why or how I was able to play a beat. And we all were pretty surprised. Even myself. I was kind of like, 'What?' And I'd never done that before, ever."
Mantilla convinced his cousin to be the band's singer even though he had a terrible voice so that Mantilla himself could play the drums.
MANTILLA: "And after that I started playing with everything. Like literally everything around. We had these pillows in the house that were destroyed after a week. I bought myself a couple of drum sticks and since I didn't have a drum set, I started playing, you know, around my house which is the typical kid that loves the drums. And my parents of course were really mad at me. The way to solve all the damage was by just giving me a drum set for my birthday when I was 15."
But in Colombia at that time the path for those wanting to study percussion was narrow. There were a lot of people like Mantilla interested in learning rock and roll or jazz drums, but with no one to teach them, he says, so after high school he enrolled in a university classical training program. MANTILLA: "So we started studying snare drum, timpani, cymbal, marimba, vibraphone, which was really cool, but that wasn't quite what I wanted, so that made me kind of start exploring a lot with percussion, you know and rhythm, especially rhythm. Everything that sounded and had a rhythm in it - I was into it - you know and I was walking on the street and listening to the cars and saying, 'hey you know that car - check that out, that car just made that noise, that's nice and then, you know, this person is walking... I started becoming really aware of my environment".
And then there was that casual encounter.
MANTILLA: "It's funny because someone showed me showed me a little trick with a tin can and I loved it. So I learned it and I started to show it to people. I showed it to my friends, my peers, and they loved it, they learned it. The next lesson I came up with a little trick that I wrote with a rhythm based on a traditional Colombian rhythm. We put it together. It just kept developing."
"My friends started telling me,'Why don't you do a group. Why don't you do something else and it to the next level.' And I decided to do it. So I started to talk to people at the University. I had a lot of percussion friends who were into it. So we just got together and I started to compose music for them based on things like little objects, like small objects, like a tin can or a basketball."
This was the nineties. STOMP had recently come out in England and crossed the Atlantic. Mantilla loved it. And before calling the band Tekeye, he called it 'the Percussion Group based on the STOMP Idea'. Still, Mantilla insists that Tekeye is rhythmically distinct from its Anglo American predecessor.
MANTILLA: "STOMP is really, like, North American back beat kind of thing. You hear that it everything they do. Even though they are really creative, that's what you hear most of the time. But we have such a variety of different rhythms and grooves. So that's probably the difference."
The band was renamed Tekeye because the made up word contains a range of sounds the group likes to generate. Although Mantilla likes to joke that it comes from a tribe from his country's upper coast. In any case the Colombianess of Tekeye, the name and the band is central to its identity.
MANTILLA: "I would say, not because I'm Colombian, but because I'm a musician, that we are probably one of the countries in the world that has more influences from different parts of the world. We are in the center. We have the Pacific coast.All the African influences came.We have the Caribbean, up in the upper coast. Then we have the plains, with Venezuela, which is a totally different music. Of course we have influences from you guys. Then we have in the Center of Colombia it's a totally different thing that came from the Andes and all the way from the South. You know a lot of things happened and a lot of things got to Colombia from different places."
Creating these rhythms using different objects has made Tekeye a huge hit in Colombia Mantilla says. This has led to success in the world of advertising.
MANTILLA: "You know we've worked with IBM doing the keyboards and then cell phones. Red Bull, technology related companies, car companies, the French company Renault, and you know with the car actually closing doors and doing stuff and moving the car and, you know, grooving to the car and everything. In ten years we've done a lot."
This has been great, Mantilla says, but it's not what Tekeye's dozen band members want to be doing. The're more interested in live shows and that's what they're trying to do more of in the states as well as Colombia. They are also hoping to expand the Tekeye foundation which teaches experimental percussion to under privileged children in Colombia and Panama.
MANTILLA: "This is just the beginning of it because right now we are doing programs to entertain them and to show them that, you know, there's a lot to learn and that a lot of, so-to-speak 'bad things' that they could be getting into could be replaced by the act of doing art and playing and exploring objects. Besides the fact of, you know, teaching them how to recycle, for example, how to find instruments anywhere."
Taking Tekeye to the next level, that is more and bigger live shows, poses a particular challenge because Mantilla is the one band member now based in the US. He came to Boston four years ago to study at the New England Conservatory and now plans to move to New York. Still, he wants American to experience the Colombian-based band. Tekeye will be in Boston in September and they're working on a global themed show for December. They're thinking big with a crew of 50, but not at the expense of the group's trademark accessibility. Tekeye is all about interacting with the audience.
MANTILLA: "I stand in front of everyone and start clapping things for people to repeat. People are suddenly smiling and they are doing it. So then by the middle of the show we just go down the stage to the actual audience and start playing with them and, you know, doing the same thing. By the end of the show after four or five times, you get to see people that get to do really nice things. And people that didn't know that they have a little rhythmic essence hidden in them - then they notice that they do have that - that it's part of them."
Though Mantilla sees having rhythm as an essential part of being human, American and Colombian audiences are quite different. That is Americans can be hard to please at first Mantilla says, but they are often blown away by unfamiliar Colombian rhythms.
MANTILLA: "We use a lot of off beats. If I play something different it's going to call your attention a little more. It's more of a Latino type of groove. People are like 'Wow I haven't heard that'. People really liked what we did last time here. So we'll see what happens next time."
Interview by Microfundo correspondent, Amy Bracken
Tekeye is coming to Boston from Columbia to perform at
the New England Conservatory in September, 2009. They need your help to get there! You can help microfinance their U.S. tour with a microloan and get repaid once the tour is complete. For more information: http://microfundo.mymondomix.com/tekeye/tour
The Stanford Social Innovation Review just posted this great article about Kiva's choice to become a non-profit. Kiva, the first online peer-to-peer microcredit marketplace, is one of the fastest-growing nonprofits in history.
Kiva's online platform allows ordinary
people to invest in small and medium enterprises in the
developing world. Users log on to the Web site
to read the personal accounts of Kiva’s carefully chosen borrowers
and then use their PayPal accounts or credit cards to lend as
little as $25 to a borrower. Users would get their money
back over the course of a year, with the option of either relending
the money or pocketing it. While the loan agreement was in place,
users would also receive frequent updates about their borrowers.
In April 2005, the founders e-mailed a
description of Kiva, its mission, and the
businesspeople it currently sponsored to a
list of 300 friends. Within two days, the
organization had raised $3,500 and funded
all seven enterprises. Kiva had just become
the first online peer-to-peer microcredit
marketplace.
I find this a particularly inspiring story mainly because of the immediacy of the response. The obvious question for us at Microfundo was, 'would the Kiva microlending model work with musiicans?' In trying to answer this question it was easy to imagine young bands breaking up or having other difficulties before being able to repay any type of loan. But then we hit apon an elegant solution: Place the recordings of each artist borrower into our online music download store and use the first revenue earned from the sale of downloads to repay each lender. Lenders can help 'guarantee' their loan by inviting their friends to buy the music of
the artist they've loaned.
As a result we've just launched the first peer-to-peer microcredit marketplace for musicians on our new platform at Microfundo. Anyone can choose an artist with a microfunding campaign and lend them $25. Over the course of the next year you get your money back - plus you receive updates, and free songs and are brought into the artist's creative process. We think this could become as popular as the microlending at Kiva.
We're launching our microcredit for musicians platform with the following four artist projects:
Alex Alvear - from Ecuador - is producing a new studio recoring
Avantrio - from Argentina & Peru - is producing a new studio recording
La Otrabanda - from Venezuela - is producing a new music video
This is a modest beginning. These artists are representative of many equally talented artists from around the world. We are sending infromation about these first four projects to our mailing list of 20,000 people. Is it possible that they could follow Kiva's example and all be funded within two days...? Imagine that!
Imagine a world where everyone sings and dances and celebrates music each day...
In what feels like a labour of love, Rio producer Mauricio Pacheco
took a hand-picked collection of Angolan tracks to a select crew of
Brazilian remixers. The results are soulful and dreamy.
Sourcing
songs from the archives of the Angolan National Radio, Pacheco
unearthed some gems from the 60s and 70s, a golden age in Angolan pop
music which spanned the bitter fight towards independence in 1975. Bonga, Teta Lando, Artur Nunes and Carlos Lamartine
were part of the generation of popular songwriters who took a
pro-independence stand and became legendary touch-stones as their
country headed into a civil war which would not end until 2002.
Plugging retro African tracks into shimmering studios on the other side
of the Atlantic takes a sure hand, and Pacheco has gathered together
some of the most sought-after left-field Brazilian producers to carry
it off. In a call for a united Angola on Angolé, Teta Lando’s mournful and heartfelt vocals get a gentle lift from Pacheco’s drifting electronica and his reverb rework of Avozinho’s Mama Divva Diame is another highlight.
Kassin operates at the epicentre of the Rio avant-garde. Here, with Berna Ceppas, he puts a breezy, spacey spin on Bonga’s gorgeous lament Kapakiao. Celebrated Pernambucan innovator DJ Dolores tips breaks and metallic upbeats into the liquid guitar loops of Merengue Rebita. While on Kappopola Makongo, Moreno Veloso traces the sweet spot where Angolan semba meets samba. In this exchange, Comfusões celebrates and reroutes Angola’s rich musical past. With new kuduro king Dog Murras guesting on Chofer de Praça
this album is clearly forward facing. But with all their experimental
takes, Pacheco and Co have cut up the beats but not severed the links -
the album is shot through with a tender mood and the sense of sad
longing so at the core of Angolan song remains intact. There are deep
cultural connections between Angola and Brazil, and this album explores
that fractured story with the balanced flow of a capoeirista.
LIVE RECORDING
We will work with you to produce a live recording of one of your shows. We have relationships with a few venues who will book you as a Microfundo artist and also with sound engineers who can produce a quality recording.
Once the recording is complete it will be made available to all Microfundo fan members as an exclusive free album download as a way to promote you and your music. This method of promotion is based on two very successful models: The Greatful Dead and Techno Brega.
For years the Grateful Dead
encouraged its rabid followers to record and trade tapes of live
performances, even setting aside an area at live shows where fans could
record. (see photo above ) Fans gave their music high exposure and made
the Dead very well known and popular early on so that they were able to
sell out larger and larger venues.
In Northern Brazil there is a genre called Techno Brega which is
made from producers downloading kitchy pop and remixing it with the
original music of local bands. Then they take a master mp3 album of
this music and give it to the kids on the street who are selling lots
of music on blank CDs - letting them copy and sell the albums and
letting them keep all the money - as long as they tell everyone where
the band is playing that weekend. This has become so successful that
these bands are now touring the whole country - and before they go to
any town they send the CDs to the street first which acts as an
effective way to promote and sell out their shows. Techno Brega bands
in Brazil are some of the most successful musicians in the country
today.
Learn more about Techno Brega >>
We're following the same pathway to allowing fans to share music as a
way of promoting live events - by making live recordings and
distributing them online to tens of thousands of fans as a way to
promote and pre-sell live events.
A Microfundo Artist Collective is made up of at least 50 artists whose music has similar characteristics so that fans of one member are likely to appreciate the music of the other members. For example, if I am an avid fan of Brazilian music, I am not a fan of just one artist but I'm interested following many Brazilian musicians.
Each Microfundo Artist Collective will be given a name and will be accessible via a Microfundo Listing on Twitter. For example, here is the listing for the Collective Global Divas: http://twitter.com/Microfundo/globaldivas/members
In order to become a member of a Microfundo Artist Collective you must have an established account on both Facebook and Twitter and already have a minimum of 500 fans on Facebook or 500 followers on Twitter (or some combination between the two sites that equals 500). If you are not there yet don't worry, we can help you with your account and ramping up your fan list so that you reach the minimum 500 level fairly easily.
Because each Cooperative will have 50 artist members, and each member has at least 500 fans – the whole group has a minimum reach of 25,000 fans.
How to Broadcast to the Collective
Each week you make one group post on your twitter account. You designate the group post by adding your group name with the # sign (such as #globaldivas) at the end of your post.
Microfundo will copy your post onto the twitter and Facebook feeds of all the other group members. This means that one time each week you have the opportunity to chose something quite special to tell the whole collective about and create a special group post - followed by the trend sign #yourgroupname. Your weekly posts will reach at least 25,000 fans of the colllective.
It also means that each member will have one post per week appearing on your Twitter and Facebook feed - making you a source of information for an entire music scene. This will make your feeds more interesting, making it more likely that fans will follow you and it means that you will have a full Twitter and Facebook feed (at least 50 posts per week) and all you have to do is make one post yourself. Through this method you will have an interesting and engaging Twitter and Facebook feed for your fans - even if you regulary take some time off of posting yourself.
Note: Microfundo will need to be made an administrator to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
You are now free to do less work promoting to your online networks doing just a few posts weekly and your FB and Twitter accounts will still appear active and full.
You will be able to attract and interact with fans from the entire group (25,000 and growing) who are from many locations – allowing you to plan tours and fill live shows
Canadian born, Los Angeles based singer songwriter Marc Robillard fuses together meaningful honest lyrics, with understated heartfelt melodies to create his own unique blend of sonic artistry. With his raspy humble voice, and interestingly textured pieces, Robillard is able to connect with his listeners on a highly personal level. Amidst the sullen tones of much of his work, Robillard still seems to connect a common thread of brightness and hope within his music.
Marc's song "So Much More" was featured in Frito Lay's new television commercial for a biodegradable Sunchips bag, has stirred up a lot of positive attention from viewers across North America. After the commercial aired only once on Earth Day, Robillard along with Frito Lay and Sunchips, was bombarded with requests for the full version of the song.
Last night Alex Alvear was interviewed on WMBR's show 'What's Left?' for an hour long talk of Alex's music and his current artistfunding project with the Hector Fund. At the start of the program Alex was asked about his song "Immigrant Blues' in the context of how he had initially come to the U.S. In Alex's case he had been kidnapped by the government in Ecuador!! Fortunately he was released but this served as the catalist for his departure. Within ten days he was in Boston and began to study at Berklee College of Music. Listen to the full interview here: >> Learn more about Alex's Artistfunding campaign here: >>
