Hip Deep is Afropop's media project dedicated to the idea that music is a key to understanding everything. Get hip deep into programs on how the music formed and informed cultures in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas, plus companion interviews, features, discographies and more.
Banning's 2009 Concert Blog: David Rudder, Vieux Farka Toure
style="font-weight: bold;">David Rudder at Celebrate Brooklyn June 19, 2009
Trinidadian calypso star David Rudder featured in some of Afropop Worldwide’s earliest broadcasts, going back 20 years. In fact, roughly that long ago, Afropop was lucky enough to record Rudder with the classic calypso band Charlie’s Roots at S.O.B.s in New York City. So the first thing to say about seeing Rudder again after (in my case) more than ten years, is that they guy doesn’t seem a day older. And he sings with the same glib, improvising tongue, and raspy soul punch and croon that made him a calypso icon in the first place. Living mostly in Toronto these days, Rudder continues to create new music, but as was evident in his well attended free show at Celebrate Brooklyn, his fans still hanker for his hits, especially his ode to one of Trinidad’s greatest steel pan builders, “The Hammer.”
Well into Rudder’s 90-minute set, he needed only utter the first word of that song, “Somewhere…” before the crowd began roaring out the rest. Rudder milked the moment, first riffing on the melody to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” with retrofitted lyrics, then leading the crowd through a slow, a capella read of his own song, before firing up the band for a full-on performance. In all, the exercise lasted some thirty minutes or more, making “The Hammer” feel less like a song and more like a shared cultural ritual. Not bad for a quarter-century-old hit. Among other favorites was his 1980s lament “Haiti,” as sweet and moving today as it was when he wrote it in the aftermath of a terrible hurricane. Since then, all manner of hurricanes have continued to pummel Haiti, and sadly, the song also remains pointedly relevant.
The weather held off at Celebrate Brooklyn—rare this rain-soaked week—and a big crowd had gathered by the time Rudder took the stage. In the early part of the set, Rudder’s Trinidad boosting verged on a come-on from the island’s tourist bureau; clearly the man loves his home. Many of the songs began with slow, R&B like sections during which Rudder talked and crooned, telling stories, engaging the audience, showing off his magnificent voice and building up expectations so that when his band lit into a real calypso groove, the release was quite ecstatic. The band (guitar, keys, bass, drums and brass) sounded sensational, tight and swinging—just enough to let Rudder’s magnificent voice soar, song after song.
Rudder is the essence of “soul-calypso,” the term that got shortened to soca. But these days his music plays as a burnished, classy remembrance of a time before Trinidad’s national music succumbed to the relentless booming of machine beat-box rhythm. After the show, he mingled with fans and friends, and got into a riff about Somali pirates and Caribbean pirates, cracking jokes and spinning tales like the ace calypsonian he is. Seems like he’s got a song there. Watch out for Rudder’s take on the pirates of the Carribbean…
Vieux Farka Toure Highline Ballroom, June 20, 2009
Vieux Farka Toure was a magnificent guitarist right out of the gate. His 2006 debut CD established that beyond any doubt. He is also coming along very nicely as a singer. Although he protests he is a guitarist first and a singer very secondarily, the vocals on his new release Fondo are keening and strong and pierce to the heart. What was evident in his return to the Highline Ballroom in New York is that young Toure is becoming quite a confident showman as well.
It starts with his moves. His whole body dances with his guitar, bending and twisting as he grimaces, stares, tosses his head back, and every so often, flashes a million-dollar smile distinctly reminiscent of his father’s. It will probably be a long time before we can talk about Vieux without referencing his father, the late Ali Farka Toure. But he seems fine with that. He is establishing himself as a distinct artist, one far more willing than his father to rock out, for example. Vieux opened his summer US tour at the Bonaroo Festival, where he wowed an enormous crowd of rock fans. His sound really works for rockers because the guitar work is so unbridled and dynamic. He does not pander to this audience. Everything he plays is rooted in Malian folklore, even his forays into reggae.
Vieux’s band now mostly consists of young Malian players, though his American drummer drives hard and helps deliver that subtle rock edge that sets this act apart. Opening for the show was a far more explicitly African “rock” band, BLK JKS from Soweto, South Africa.
Their set was brazenly experimental in its aesthetics and grooves, but near the end of Vieux’s set, the South Africans came on stage to sing, and even jam guitar with Vieux and his band. The meeting was sincerely felt on both sides and quite fascinating to watch as the musicians come from very different physical and artistic universes. Both of these groups seek acceptance in Indie rock circles. With performances like this going on, they may well get it.
