2017

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings' final studio album, Soul of a Woman is a lush, orchestral masterpiece. A true testament to the life and career of Daptone's fearless leader and one of the world's greatest performers. Though we'll never again see her electric form shimmy across the stage, Sharon Jones continues to give us her soul and her music. She died nearly a year ago, but only now can we hear her final creation. Soul of a Woman captures a singer and a band at the peak of their power. Cutting one last time to eight-track tape at Daptone’s House of Soul studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the band endeavored to create a record that stretches the limits of their soulful sound in all directions, giving us both their rawest and most sophisticated recordings to date. A final statement by one of the most influential rhythm and blues voices of the 21st century.- All new songs recorded in 2015 and 2016.- "Call on God" written and composed by Sharon Jones.- Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were nominated for a Grammy for their previous full length, Give the People What They Want (2014).- The Emmy-nominated documentary Miss Sharon Jones!, directed by Academy Award-winning director Barbara Kopple, is currently streaming globally on Netflix.- Standard LP is black vinyl w/ download code.

Cultures of Soul is back! This time it's with a new set of 12"s - the Carib Boogie Synth series. Featuring the iciest synths, the slickest basslines, and other '80s-sounding vibes from the Caribbean islands, all of the tracks are fully licensed. First up in the series is the killer Junior Byron track "Trying To Hold On," written and produced by Wild Fire's Oliver Chapman and originally released on the Wild Fire label back in 1985. The A-side includes the original mix as well as the Version. On the B-side we've got the epic "Megamix." The track was reworked by Gerd Janson, who created the mix old-school style with two copies of the record, a mixer, and an EFX box. Adding the final touches to this track is mixing and mastering engineer LOPAZZ, who mastered many of the best techno tracks in the Get Physical catalog and released the seminal dance-classic "I Need Ya" on Output.

Reginald Omas Mamode IV follows last year’s self-titled debut album with "Children Of Nu".The 20 track album draws influence from the world around us, everyday life. As we witness rising poverty, global events, political and ethnic divisions - these factors prompt some of Reginald’s themes and call for humanity to recognise we are all interconnected. “We are all related. We're all brothers and sisters with common ancestry, common history and a common origin regardless of race, geographic location or belief systems. Love and compassion are universal feelings/practices we all should embrace and apply to all aspects of our lives, our interactions and our relationships, regardless of the kinship”.Reginald Omas Mamode IV ‘Children Of Nu’ encompasses Reginald’s musical and sonic influences - Afro Roots music through to jazz and soul. It draws from Africa as much as the west, an attempt to make a record that can exist in many contexts, the present, the future and past. Recorded with freedom - most tracks remain from the first take - the process of creating ‘Children Of Nu’ was an open ended development from a natural, intuitive, starting point. Made with minimal thought of how tracks would end up, the music was led through the creative process. Born of a moment, each track is an attempt to capture that instance, mood, feeling or subject.Last year’s self-titled debut album was warmly received, collecting critical success including Mojo (“A brand-new-retro delight”), Mixmag (“Peckham beat brilliance”), Record Collector (“Equal parts D’Angelo to J Dilla”), The Wire (“Soul music turned all the way inward”) and a Bandcamp Album of the Day (“Breathing lifeforms that are equally steeped in hip-hop, funk, soul and jazz”). It was also nominated for ‘Album of the Year’ at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards 2017. Along with Mo Kolours, Jeen Bassa, Henry Wu, Al Dobson Jr and Tenderlonious, he’s helped forge in the 22a co-operative that The FADER calls “a kaleidoscopic patchwork of hip-hop, house, and groove investigations bound by one thread: a timeless belief in rhythm as a universal language”.

With "The Invisible Man: An Orchestral Tribute to Dr. Dre" multi-instrumentalist and producer Sly5thAve releases one of his most accomplished works to date. The album comes from a place of collaboration and pioneers an openness to improvisation and experimentation, resulting in a collection of visionary jazz cross-over tributes to Dr. Dre's work. A significant marker of the collaborative process can be heard in the many link-ups and vocal features which hit home throughout the record, from Will “Quantic” Holland (‘The Edge’) and Marc de Clive-Lowe (‘Drelude for Woo’) to Jimetta Rose (‘Let Me Ride’) and Melissa McMillan (‘I’d Rather Be With You’), each significantly contributing to the album’s rhythmic and melodic flair.Honing many of his chops through former projects and on the road as a session musician, Sly5thAve has also worked as a collaborator and session musician with such legendary and established artists such as, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monáe and Quantic.

The African beat's always been essential to Brazil's music. But now the new generation of musicians, singers and rappers are tweaking the basics of Fela's funk to fit with samba swing, bossa tempo and nordestino nous.John Armstrong's new compilation Afrobeat Brasil features 14 blazing tracks from 2011 to 2017 that nod towards Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali and beyond – with feet firmly in Brazil. For the first time outside Brazil, a careful selection of modern Afrobeat- inspired tunes from across several Brazilian genres, taking in cutting-edge players from Rio, São Paulo, Salvador, Porto Alegre –and even Paris. No slavish Fela Kuti copycats these, but rather Afrobeat and other specific African tempos and rhythms used as a blueprint, a buildingblock for new directions in Brazilian music.

Habibi Funk: An eclectic mix of music from the Arab world.Habibi Funk is dedicated to re-releasing a style of music that historically never existed as a musical genre. We use the term to describe a certain sound that we like from the countries of the Arab world. The songs we chose were created in places quite far from another and under very different circumstances. Some were written and recorded during war times, others in exile. Despite the differences we think there is a musical connection between them. Essentially, we are interested in the musical endeavors, in which artists from the Arab world mixed local and regional influences with musical interests that came from outside of the region. Even though the name suggests it’s all about funk music, our focus is more than just that. Often these influences might be inspired from Western popular music such as soul, pop and rock but it’s not limited to that either. Some of our favorite records are best described as Arabic zouk (a genre originating from the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe) like Mallek Mohamed’s music, Algerian coladera (a popular musical style from the Cape Verdean islands) or Lebanese AOR, which means the process of musical influences displayed on this compilation was much more versatile than just taking Western music as a blueprint and translating it with a local accent. The compilation features 15 different artists. Some you might already know thru Habibi Funk’s releases like Fadoul, Ahmed Malek, Dalton or Al Massrieen, while others are meant as an introduction to artists like Kamal Keila, Sharhabeel Ahmed, Attarazat Addahabia & Mallek Mohamed who will all release full length albums on Habibi Funk in 2018.In todays world there are still many stereotypical conceptions to be found when it comes to the Arab world. Contrary to what a lot of Western narratives and media suggest, the Arab world we got to know through extensive traveling in several countries of North Africa and the Middle East, is a very versatile terrain. A place full of different stories, ideas and beliefs. And we hope that the music we release helps as a tiny, tiny piece of a larger puzzle to establish a diverse, more nuanced yet adequate idea of how musically vibrant this very diverse region once has been and also still is. At the same time we do not want anyone to misunderstand this compilation as a selection of songs to represent Arabic musical history of the 1970s and 1980s. This compilation is nothing more than a very personal curation of songs we like and in no way reflects on what has been popular in a general sense.All tracks on this compilation are directly licensed from the artist or, in the case of artists who are sadly no longer alive, from the artist’s family. There are three exceptions: Hamid Al Shaeri’s track was licensed from SLAM! and the tracks from Belbao and Attarazat Addahabia were both licensed from Boussiphone. As a European label dealing with non-western artists we try to be aware of the responsibilities that derive within the making, seen from a post-colonial point of view by demanding ourselves not to reproduce exploitative economic patterns. We split all of the profits from our releases equally with the artists without deducting any costs that are not directly related to the release .Our agreements are license deals with limited terms after which the rights fall back to the artist or the artist’s families. We think it is important in today's reissue market, where too many shady business transactions happen, to be transparent about our licensing policies.

Zackey Force Funk deserves (and receives) a lot of respect. If he’s not robbing banks with baseball bats and roaming the streets for fat cats to hustle, you can usually find him leaning over the turntables of a dirty dirty late-night discotheque. Take off your kevlar, put down those batons – Zackey Force Funk comes in peace! This time... This eighteen track album compiles early demos and rarities originally included in DJ KUTMAH’s “This Is The Force Funk Sound” [HNR03] megamix created in Summer 2009. Each song has been digitally remastered for the special release of “THIS IS MY FORCE FUNK SOUND” [HNR73]. Available on limited-edition 12” picture disc in a shrinkwrapped full color cardboard jacket (not screenprinted). DONT FAKE THE FUNK!-Limited edition picture disc LP housed in full color jacket-This 18 track album compiles early demos and rarities originally included in DJ KUTMAH’s “This Is The Force Funk Sound” megamix created in Summer 2009-Each song has been digitally remastered for the special release

A Cat Called Fritz is back on another journey through space and sound. His sample-based trademark productions, using crispy samples and heavy drums, again lay the foundation for an allstar cast of feature guests on the mic including like-minded cats like Sach of The Nonce, Audessey, Glad2Mecha, Black Josh, Pete Flux, Pseudo Slang and others.