KA Records: Forward From Roots
Tags:ka records, the maat disciples, the soul agitators
So, mein Reggaejahr 2010 ist abgeschlossen. Nach dem Material von KA Records kann nichts mehr kommen, nichts mehr. „Forward From Roots“ und „Strength Of I Pharaoh“ heißen die 10inch-Platten, die klingen wie Jamaika in den 1970ern. Produziert wurde sie 2010 in Lyon, Frankreich. Mehr dazu im Interview.
Reggae ist vor 40 Jahren in eine Zeitmaschine gestiegen und nun in Frankreich gelandet. So klingen die Produktionen von KA Records und so funktioniert auch das Label. Jeder Riddim wird mit der eigenen Hausband The Soul Agitators live eingespielt.
„In the roots reggae tradition of famous backing band like The Upsetters, The Observers or even the Revolutionnaries; The Soul Agitators are composed of local musicians, too.”
Die Artists kommen ebenfalls aus Lyon, obwohl sie ebenso nach der jamaikanischen Foundation klingen wie die Riddims. Zum talentierten KA Records-Stall gehören unter anderem das großartige Duo The Maât Disciples, Sänger wie Likkle Johnson, Joe Pilgrim und Deejay George Cloonie.
Warum bei KA Records alles ist, wie es ist, erfährst du im nachfolgenden Interview. Ich habe mich sehr gefreut, dass die Label-Chefs Clement und Guillaume ähnlich kontaktfreudig sind wie ich.
KA Records im Interview
Why do you choose to make that 70s sound?
Guillaume / KA Records: We decided to produce this 70′ sound because Clement and I were addicted of this roots reggae. We love that deep and conscious music, from the lyrics about religion, Black history and justice, to the heavy drum and bass riddims. We tried to work in the same way that Jamaican studios did, recording instrumentals live, with a backing band of disciplined and talented musicians.
Our inspiration comes from Rastafari aspects and what we found in our own meditations. KA Records only make strictly roots reggae music, conscious music, to make the people think about important things, to uplift people’s mind.
How come you have such a strong connection to Egypt?
It’s true that we find a strong inspiration into the ancient Egyptian civilisation. The black pharaoh that we choose as our logo, represents Ancient Egypt culture. By culture we mean a whole social structure based on a moral code (as the respect of Maât truth and justice) very close to what Rasta developed later.
This first civilisation of all time (a black civilisation) succeeded in this way more than 4.000 years. Looking back on Ancient Egypt for us is a way of learning how to behave today and learn more about ourselves. Much of what we find in our Greco-roman culture was firstly imported from this Ancient Egypt. This logic of looking backward to go forward, we try to applicate it to reggae music today.
KA Records Crew
You work with local talents, french roots reggae artist. Most of them have English names and even sound like Jamaicans. How come? Is there a strong Jamaican community in Lyon?
As far as I know there is no real Jamaican community in Lyon. If there is, we’re not connected to it. Our choice to work with local talent is base on the idea that these guys can have talent as much as Jamaican can have. We find more logical to make them sing about their everyday life which has something to do with ours than to pay for famous Jamaicans we don’t even know properly.
Look what Prince Buster did at the time: He gave the youth men of his neighbourhood a chance because he knew they could make good tune. He did not go to the US for paying soul singers even if they were considered as stars at that time in J.A. He did his own business with his relatives and this is how it sounded truthful and genuine we believe.
The choice of singing in English in this roots reggae style is not a way of imitating Jamaican. It is just as if someone listen carefully to reggae music, he’ll find codes and flows proper to it just like jazz or blues have its own codes. That’s the spirit we try to respect and follow with our own inspiration.
What’s next on KA records?
Well, KA Records has a lot more to show! We’d like to release KA Vinyl #3 in February with new artists. We also work on an LP project for 2011. Hope we could progressively let the people know what we work on and why we do it like that!
Anyway thank you very much for the interest you find in our music. Its always a pleasure to explain what we work on!
Trackliste KA Records – Forward From Roots
- A1: The Maât Disciples – Revelation
- A2: Soul Agitators – Revelation Dub
- B1: Likkle Johnson – Let Them Be Alone
- B:2 The Soul Agitators – Together Dub
Trackliste KA Records – Strength Of I Pharaoh
- A1: Joe Pilgrim – Giving Some Praise
- A2: George Cloonie – Live Up Your Record Shop (Deejay Version)
- B1: The Maât Disciples – Strength Of I Pharao
- B2: The Soul Agitators – Dub Of I Pharaoh
Leider sind die Platten noch nicht in Deutschland zu bekommen. Du kannst sie aber über die Label-Website bestellen. Ein Aufruf an alle deutschen Plattenshops und Vertriebe: Kümmert euch bitte darum, dass dieses Material zu uns kommt. Danke.
Mehr Infos
- www.karecords.com
- KA Records bei Facebook
Weitere Artikel zum Thema:
A big Thanks to the soul Agitators, the Maat disciples. thanks to Guillame aka Willie London, Clement aka Collin Goodson.
We love that Sound. respect.
Thank you for providing the drums.
[...] Deshalb war ich unglaublich beeindruckt, als ich die Produktionen des französischen Labels KA Records gehört [...]