Congo Natty/Blackstar/Ras Project/Rebel MC/etc

The Congo Natty tunes were big on radio and big at raves and, I'd guess, sold a lot of copies (I lived in London through that period) but I guess because he didn't dj and there weren't Congo Natty pa's he was shunted off to the side of the scene. Plus I guess there's the fact that he never really went at the whole 'music of the future' side of things and just kept on making unapologetically jump-up ragga jungle.

I had a Congo Natty comp ("Tribute to Haile Selassie" I think) in my hands a few years ago but at the time I didn't want to shell out for an import. Been kicking myself ever since, though I always managed to find a good supply of white labels on trips to Toronto. The Ragga thing stayed pretty strong there.

I think Pearsall's comment on it not being 'future music' is pretty much on the mark. Some tracks (EG: Zion 1) are barely produced (IE: It's roughly sewn - kind of urgent that way. And it's very 'dry' from a processing perspective - barely any reverb even, as if room-acoustics are meant to do all the work), let alone all shiney aerodynamic. I actually love that about those tracks but I can see how it seemed kind of anachronistic by the mid/late-90s.

I'd love to see a retrospective compilation. It could easily span 3 discs.

Congo Natty is THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER MADE.

Nothing else in jungle, drum'n'bass or ragga jungle can touch him.

He is the Don.

His "Your Love" tune with Michael Prophet is quite literally the best record ever made.

Some absolute killers:
African Herbsman; Police in Helicopter; champion dj; bingy man; jah set it; Code Red, of course...

Congo Natty's just the ultimate.

Explore: http://www.cosmicbreaks.com/natty/congonatty.html

i really love the version of black uhuru's one love, the bass that swings up and down in the heaviest way is sorted.
they are donnage for sure.

Word Sound Power - amazing LP. A very very important man. Agree wiv it all - the Zion stuff, code red yeah, but right from Black Meaning Good - unstoppable. Thanks for bringing it up!

"Emperor Selassie I" with Bounty Hunter (RAS 12) is a long-time fav - nice chatting with dive-bombing bass.

Zion 7 too. I forget what it's actually called. It's the one that samples Burning Spear's "Jah No Dead" and a super low-pitched lion's roar. Amazing.

http://congonatty.jungli.st/

2stepfan said:

Congo Natty is THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER MADE.

Click to expand...

IS IT FUCK.

Congo Natty is THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER MADE.

this is hyperbole, not meant to be taken literally. although it's not far from the truth.

IS IT FUCK.

this is rude, bad tempered and humourless.

Yup for sure, Congo Natty is outside of the cannon for DnB folks, I think too for the reason Pearsall mentioned (I wasn't there either...).

What's funny in a way was that to ME, it WAS the ragga Cannon. I started spinning DnB in 97-98. I knew of Original Nuttah et. all's existance, but the only thing you could walk into Breakbeat Science at the time and get that was ragga was all the CN/Zion/Ras stuff. BBS employees (with the exception of Cassien) all turned up their noses at it, again because the DnB world had moved on at that point, but for me it was the only thing I could get when I started spinning.

The thing too about all that stuff that doesn't often get mentioned is that it's the only thing in the DnB world that approaches the idea of Versioning from dancehall. All those records (well, the ones from say 95 onwards) are the same drum sounds (that flat snare), the same breaks, same basslines, and definitely the same samples, vocal ("Rasta" "We goinna England Now" "Soldja") and otherwise (the Stalag horns, the little electricity SFX). Sure, lots of dnb sounds the same/uses the same idea, but all those records were PURPOSEFULLY drawing on the same samples/sounds.

Which made them great, and to young(er) Kameleon, who hadn't really taken in dancehall yet, it was wildly exciting because almost all the tunes were good, and there were just subtle changes between the records, and it was a totally new experience to DJ with.

Have to shout Zion 2 which is on Even More Shocking for it's great heavy hip-hop intro, and yes, the Michael Prophet tunes works like a charm every time.

Hey Toronto heads, didn't the entire CN posse make an appearence at one of the WEMFs? Like in 2000?

When I first started djing, I was also studying Feminist Economics. (shut up, it is so relevant to the story.) I went to Amsterdam for a conference of the International Association for Feminist Economics in 1996, and on the Friday night after the conference, also found the one jungle night there.

At the jungle night, I met a small but dedicated crew of ragga junglists, and we went to their flat for afters. A nice irish boy who lived there played his tape of a 3-turntable Mickey Finn set he'd taped off BBC and we all chilled and chatted. A small dank place, filled with expats living in Amsterdam, and me the lone American. At the beginning of the morning, he said to me "you're a dj?" and I said I was. And he got up, pulled out the Congo Natty Tribute to Haile Selassie 2-album compilation and handed it to me. "You'll use this more than I did," he said.

still one of the best gifts I ever got from anyone. Still play it all the time. Autonomic, it would have been worth it.

kidkameleon said:

The thing too about all that stuff that doesn't often get mentioned is that it's the only thing in the DnB world that approaches the idea of Versioning from dancehall. All those records (well, the ones from say 95 onwards) are the same drum sounds (that flat snare), the same breaks, same basslines, and definitely the same samples, vocal ("Rasta" "We goinna England Now" "Soldja") and otherwise (the Stalag horns, the little electricity SFX). Sure, lots of dnb sounds the same/uses the same idea, but all those records were PURPOSEFULLY drawing on the same samples/sounds.

Click to expand...

The No U-Turn guys did that as well. Pretty much all the releases from it's most fruitful period ('What's Up', everything off 'Torque', 'Guncheck', 'Mothership', 'Crystal', 'Technology' etc etc) were just re-arranged versions of their beats and bass kit.

Pearsall said:

The No U-Turn guys did that as well. Pretty much all the releases from it's most fruitful period ('What's Up', everything off 'Torque', 'Guncheck', 'Mothership', 'Crystal', 'Technology' etc etc) were just re-arranged versions of their beats and bass kit.

Click to expand...

Well. yes and no. Absolutely that's true for No U-turn from that era in terms of sound quality and it's true for The Full Cycle artists as a whole from then (and the DD stuff), and for Photek, Digital, Source, etc. My point was more that Congo Natty was actively engaged in Versioning in the Jamaican sense of the world. Nico/Trace/Ed Rush were all trying to create this particular sound that they were exploring every corner of, and because that sound was tied in with feeling of paranoia/claustraphobia etc, it's especially approriate that all there stuff closed back on itself like a Mobius strip. Sonically. It strengthens their creation. I think CN are doing the same thing for a different reason, that they, as many Jamaican producers do, derive a LOT of their pop music in general from self-reference, strengthening their scene in its entierty. Like why how true Soundclashes can only work with an incredibly knowledgeable audience.

I guess it's the difference between a bunch of signs all pointing to one place and a bunch of signs all pointing to each other. There are certain, sort of, cultural things going on beneath the music that have a subtle but notacable impact on the music itself.

I go so far as to argue that the Congo Natty crew, with their huge emphasis on BEING a crew (there, what, like 3 DJs and 7 or 8 MCs?) that's totally influenced a lot of the various cultural attributes of modern, present day Ragga Jungle crews in America, who are all super insular, soldier's-for-the-cause types. Which can be doubly strange because, in America, they're all white.

kidkameleon said:

Well. yes and no. Absolutely that's true for No U-turn from that era in terms of sound quality and it's true for The Full Cycle artists as a whole from then (and the DD stuff), and for Photek, Digital, Source, etc. My point was more that Congo Natty was actively engaged in Versioning in the Jamaican sense of the world. Nico/Trace/Ed Rush were all trying to create this particular sound that they were exploring every corner of, and because that sound was tied in with feeling of paranoia/claustraphobia etc, it's especially approriate that all there stuff closed back on itself like a Mobius strip. Sonically. It strengthens their creation. I think CN are doing the same thing for a different reason, that they, as many Jamaican producers do, derive a LOT of their pop music in general from self-reference, strengthening their scene in its entierty. Like why how true Soundclashes can only work with an incredibly knowledgeable audience.

I guess it's the difference between a bunch of signs all pointing to one place and a bunch of signs all pointing to each other. There are certain, sort of, cultural things going on beneath the music that have a subtle but notacable impact on the music itself.

I go so far as to argue that the Congo Natty crew, with their huge emphasis on BEING a crew (there, what, like 3 DJs and 7 or 8 MCs?) that's totally influenced a lot of the various cultural attributes of modern, present day Ragga Jungle crews in America, who are all super insular, soldier's-for-the-cause types. Which can be doubly strange because, in America, they're all white.

Click to expand...

Iirc, I remember reading an interview with Nico where he was talking about dub and how he consciously re-used certain elements and sounds over and over to create a total, identifiable No U-Turn sound. Could be wrong though.

I think you're right about the crew aspect. I've always found it interesting that ragga jungle has soldiered on in North America in a way it hasn't in the UK. As far as I know Congo Natty were the only British producers to keep on putting the stuff out, long long long after everyone else had moved on to other things. It is pretty odd about all the American/Canadian producers of the stuff being white, too, what do you think causes that (besides the fact that dnb is pretty white in the US)?

autonomicforthepeople said:

I'd love to see a retrospective compilation. It could easily span 3 discs.

Click to expand...

I picked up a copy of Conquering Lion's "Code Red" (94 remix b/w original) at Kim's Video a few weeks' back. Thought, naively, I had made a major find, a used record in pristine condition. Then earlier this week I happened upon a copy of same record at Virgin Union Square. So looks like this stuff is being re-issued as we speak . . . . Or at least re-pressed. Label says "CongoNatty6"

reissues

they seem to be reissuing a lot of the Congo Natty 12s -- i was in blackmarket basement on my last trip to London, looking for grime obviously, but ended up getting the Congo reissues -- Ras Project, 'walking in the air' and X project 'jah set it' -- also had Code Red but i have that, i think already

the comment re. versioning and a Jamaican approach is interesting because in this month's Wire Dub column by Steve Barker, the first thing he reviews is Blackstar 'Champion DJ/Kunte Kinte'. he's been reviewing that sort of ragga-jungle on and off for a year or so now. which is odd because at the time it was happening that sort of vintage dub fiend/nu-dub Uk steppas type obsessive would have totally turned up their nose at jungle. i guess it is sufficiently ancient and venerable now to be incorporated in the canon of rootical musics or something.

also has a record on Kickin' label in the Dub section, but it's a compilation of Lover's Rock, what looks liek a definitive introduction to the genre. i wonder if it's the same Kickin' as wishdokta, hype's early tunes etc etc.

at any road, two things i wanna buy in the Wire's Dub column is quite unusual

sideline -- weren't Kemet Crew Nation of Islam or something. somewhere i have there album, i found a bit heavy going at the time

question: did ragga-jungle turn into/resurge as jump-up, and how would the connersewers define the difference between the two?

blissblogger said:

question: did ragga-jungle turn into/resurge as jump-up, and how would the connersewers define the difference between the two?

Click to expand...

I always saw them as one and the same - ragga jungle being jump-up with ragga vocals.

aphrodite - mash up yer know
peter bouncer - junglist (dj zinc rmx)
krome + time - ganja man
and so on

a lot of the tracks classed as ragga jungle (or, at least, jungle tracks with ragga vocals / elements) were either being made, remixed or played by the leaders of what I could consider the jump up scene.

blissblogger said:

they seem to be reissuing a lot of the Congo Natty 12s -- i was in blackmarket basement on my last trip to London, looking for grime obviously, but ended up getting the Congo reissues -- Ras Project, 'walking in the air' and X project 'jah set it' -- also had Code Red but i have that, i think already

the comment re. versioning and a Jamaican approach is interesting because in this month's Wire Dub column by Steve Barker, the first thing he reviews is Blackstar 'Champion DJ/Kunte Kinte'. he's been reviewing that sort of ragga-jungle on and off for a year or so now. which is odd because at the time it was happening that sort of vintage dub fiend/nu-dub Uk steppas type obsessive would have totally turned up their nose at jungle. i guess it is sufficiently ancient and venerable now to be incorporated in the canon of rootical musics or something.

also has a record on Kickin' label in the Dub section, but it's a compilation of Lover's Rock, what looks liek a definitive introduction to the genre. i wonder if it's the same Kickin' as wishdokta, hype's early tunes etc etc.

at any road, two things i wanna buy in the Wire's Dub column is quite unusual

sideline -- weren't Kemet Crew Nation of Islam or something. somewhere i have there album, i found a bit heavy going at the time

question: did ragga-jungle turn into/resurge as jump-up, and how would the connersewers define the difference between the two?

Click to expand...

yep mark x was a muslim convert.
kemet did some unreleased project a few years ago and it had some tracks that were using malcom x speeches and that http://www.kemetmusic.com

i'm not sure but i saw a uk soul label called kemet recently, they might have branched into that.