When it comes to cross-cultural musical experimentation, there is simply nomore active arena than that of “World Music 2.0” in which the scholars are urban dancefloor guerrillas. Sounds, rhythms, technology and cultural heritage are digitally garburated and come out, in the words of WM 2.0 authority “Wayne & Wax” Marshall, as nu-whirled music.
WM 2.0 offers both inspired and banal sounds as radical innovations collide with pop convention. This culture jam isn’t meant to be permanent; its components come together and apart for one night only. In many ways WM 2.0 fulfills the promise of new music – additive, aleatoric sounds, true cultural fusion, the questioning of distinctions between high and low art.
At the same time, this is club culture as inspired by legendary clubs of yesteryear like the Paradise Garage and the Twilight Zone: a communal celebration of the possibilities of multiculturalism where all walks of life are welcome.
Chief Boima and Valeo have made their careers not as pith helmeted observers of this scene, but by giving venues and voice to musical individuals and collectives the world over who eschew the intrusion of Western record companies so characteristic of the original World Music marketing impulse.
Producer, blogger & DJ Chief Boima is a partner of DJ/Rupture in NYC’s Dutty Artz crew. He has worked with the Sierra Leone Refugee Allstars, Jahdan Blakkamoore, Los Rakas and many more. His own releases include African By The Bay (2009) and Techno Rumba (2010).
DJ Valeo (aka Guillaume Decouflet) is a mainstay of Montreal’s Masala radio show on CISM-FM. As a DJ he co-founded Montreal’s infamous Bridge Burner parties. He’s now based in Toronto working as an artist manager (Poirier, A Tribe Called Red, Boogat, Bonjay), and is the driving force behind Masalacism’s label and external activities.
Opening up the spot is Daniel Vila who runs the secret nightclub/art space, Double Double Land, in Kensington Market. He also put on the Extermination Music Night and Against Life series in abandoned spaces across Toronto. He DJs with Rob Gordon at DDL’s monthly dance party, Wack Magic.
More info: 416-204-1080 • www.musicgallery.org
