FELA KUTI - VINYL BOX SET COMPILED BY ERYKAH BADU
Knitting
Factory Records is proud to release the next installment of the long-awaited
vinyl reissues from the FELA KUTI catalog. The inimitable Erykah Badu
personally selected the seven albums featured in this fourth box set, which
have been remastered from their original vinyl pressings. The artwork for each
album has been meticulously recreated from original album artwork, alongside
vintage vinyl label artwork. This box set includes: • 7 LPs, Yellow Fever
(1976), No Agreement (1977), JJD (1977), VIP (1979), Coffin for Head of State
(1980), Army Arrangement (1984), and Underground System (1992). • 20-page
full-color booklet featuring: seven personal essays written by Erykah Badu,
seven in-depth commentaries by veteran music journalist and Afrobeat historian,
Chris May; song lyrics; and never before published photos of Fela Kuti • 16x24”
Poster designed by Nigerian artist Lemi Ghariokwu, the creative force behind 26
of Fela Kuti‘s album covers
Saxophonist Winston 'Mankunku' Ngozi's 1968 masterpiece Yakhal'inkomo stands in the front rank of global jazz recordings. A certified jazz classic in South Africa, it has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and has never been out of print. But like so many other crucial South African jazz LPs, it was never released outside the country, and went unheard at the time by the wider world. This reissue is the first time that this truly essential jazz recording has been properly available outside South Africa. Mankunku's masterwork is one of those rare recordings whose audience saw at once that it embodied the spirit of the age. The title, 'Yakhal'inkomo', refers to the bellow made by a bull just before it is sacrificed, and the mourning cries of its fellow cattle as they see it struck down. For South African listeners, the reference was understood as a cry against the violence and brutality of the times, and an act of mourning for all those who were suffering under the barbarity of apartheid. Mankunku's horn spoke eloquently and profoundly for and to an oppressed people, and like Coltrane's A Love Supreme, the album became the musical touchstone for a generation. From today's historical vantage point, Yakhal'inkomo appears as not just an indispensable lost element of the international jazz canon, but as one of the towering cultural documents of its time. Fully licensed, and packaged with a new sleeve note by Francis Gooding and prevoiusly unpublished photographs from the Basil Breakey archive, this trail-blazing release on Jazzman allows Mankunku's classic work to gain its deserved place on the international stage.
Toronto-based songwriter, vocalist, producer, and multi-disciplinary artist Maylee Todd is best known for music that incorporates elements of disco, funk, soul, electronic, and experimental sounds. Her previous two albums Choose Your Own Adventure (2010) and Escapology (2013) brought her on tour across North America, Europe and Asia, charting worldwide, and establishing her as a breakout Canadian indie artist. Her third studio album Acts of Love sees Maylee wholly embracing technology and taking on the role of producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, recording and playing the bulk of the music in her home studio. From a sonic standpoint, the new album marks a departure from the harder-edged sounds of her previous work, boasting a more stripped down, synth-based production approach, with hypnotic beats and undeniably poppy hooks. The 17 track album covers a wide range of timely, topical and universal subject matter, including gender bias (From This Moment), addiction (One of These Days), solitude (Lonely), forgiveness (Eye To Eye), polyamory (Goat Wut U Need) and virtual reality (Virtual Life). This record is a bedroom record. I spent the winter writing and learning software, so creating can be limitless, explains the self-professed augmented reality nerd. Acts Of Love is essentially a tale of Maylee's metamorphosis, of constantly mutating and evolving musically, with the ultimate goal being to enlighten listeners on the symbiotic relationship between music, technology, performance art and human nature.
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