Shamon Cassette

Mail & Guardian

Music
Mixtape: Rapper Shamon Cassette hops on the 'Voodoo Bus'
07 AUG 2014 00:00 STEFANIE JASON


M&G readers can get a fresh taste of the insane journey of the "rapper-haberdasher", who has just released a mixtape exclusively for the publication.
Download Shamon Cassette's latest 'Voodoo Bus'. (Madelene Cronje, M&G)
“I call myself a ‘rapper-haberdasher’,” quips the loud-print-wearing, big-bearded Shamon Cassette.

It’s clear that the Brooklyn-based fashion designer and musician is part of today’s slash generation, who wear their titles like notches in their belts.

He fought in Iraq after 9/11 and I ask if “war veteran” could also be another slash title. But he says he’s “regretful of the reason we [the US] went in the war”, so “rapper-haberdasher” is what it is.

We sit down for coffee in Illovo two weeks after meeting at Johannesburg’s Maboneng precinct, which led us to a conversation on global gentrification.

“Spike Lee’s stepping in to protect and serve Brooklyn. And I’m down to protect and serve too.”

The Fashion Institute of Technology graduate laughs softy, recalling the filmmaker’s outburst over Williamsburg hipsters and the whitewashing of his New York borough.



But Cassette is a long way from Brooklyn, in South Africa recording with the Cape Town-based producer DPlanet and Red Bull Studios. The “fashion rapper”, as he sometimes refers to himself, is also in the country collaborating with fashionistas and pushing his brand VGRNTNYC.

He released a record with musician Spoek Mathambo in 2013, titled Wave Crusher, and says he feels comfortable coming back to South Africa – the country where “he has got his foot in the door”, he says.

‘Destroying and rebuilding’
Despite his sometimes smooth, head-bopping sound and rap styles reminiscent of 1990s rap groups like KMD and A Tribe Called Quest, Cassette says his alias represents the “breaking away from the past. Destroying and rebuilding”.

Regardless of the reason for his sobriquet, Cassette’s musical past and lineage is something he holds on to dearly and tells me about proudly.

“I was born into music. My uncle is Chill EB … I started off with being in the studio with him, just learning and seeing what he was doing,” he says about his renowned rapping relative.


Cassette says he looks at history for music inspiration. “Making nostalgic music really inspires me … Afrodellic [sic] sounds from the 1970s and 1980s. Stuff from the 1990s, like snap, crackle and pop speaker sound, and the analogue, warm-speaker texture.”

And making nostalgic music is exactly what the rapper has created for Mail & Guardian readers, with his latest offering, Voodoo Bus, which was inspired by a bus trip to New Orleans last year, and was produced by Seprock.

I am catching up with the genre-twisting, analogue-watch sporting Cassette before he jets back to the US and he digs into his past to share stories of his nomadic life.

Q & A

Do you mind sharing your history?
Well, I was born in North Carolina. My mom was a soldier so we moved around to a lot of different spots – from Atlanta, to Japan, then to Texas and Germany. It was just a crazy journey.

You have got an interesting name. Where does it come from?
My name comes from breaking away from the past. Destroying and rebuilding. The name is based on the idea of destroying anything that you don’t like from you past or agree with.

And your other name?
It doesn’t even matter to me. It’s gone.”

Where’s your home?
The world is my home.

What about Brooklyn? Do you feel at home there?
Very much so. I feel so at home in Brooklyn I don’t really let the gentrification thing bother me. I mean the gentrification thing really makes me irate but everyone has their own ways of dealing with it. I think it’s important to stay informed about it and lend a hand in any type of movements aimed at quelling the gentrification. Because Brooklyn is a historical place that people want to preserve.

Can you tell me about your war experience in Iraq?
Not really because the experience is on an upcoming music project, called Wardrobe, which is coming out in the next few months. The name “Wardrobe” has a double meaning: the war I was in and the style element to my life.

Has being in the war made you less patriotic? In Cardboard Castles on Wave Crusher you question patriotism, rapping “war heroes don’t even get a memorial … they should get more cake than pro athletes.”
“Completely, I feel like being a veteran in the US is appreciated in some military towns but, in New York City, people ask: “Yo, what is a veteran?” or they ask: “A veteran of what?” It blows my mind.Veterans shouldn’t really be on the street asking for stuff. They don’t get the recognition that they deserve.

Do you regret fighting in the war?
I’m not regretful at all but I’m regretful of the reason we went in the war.

When I see you and hear your music, I’m reminded of the Kool Keiths and Taz Arnolds of this music world. Can you tell me about your influences?
It comes from the Afrodellic stuff from the 1970s and 1980s … while I’m influenced by the styling from actor Mr T and classic black films like Coming to America.

How would you describe your sound?
The music I make is fashion rap. Fashion rap is basically pulling out mad styles from your mental closet and adorning your temple, which is your body, with it. Boom! My music is very textual and it’s moody. It’s not just one genre.”


Thank you for the tape. How did Voodoo Bus come to be?
Voodoo Bus was recorded in New Orleans. It was inspired in many ways by the events that took place around April of this year. The ride there, on the bus, was insanity. Voodoozella Bus Ride from Hell is 1 000% a true story, as is 99% of the tape.

What projects are you working on?
Working at the Red Bull Studio [in Cape Town] on a project called A Beautiful Disaster with producer D Planet. It’s dark and dub sounding. It’s like the darker back side of my mind; it’s definitely there …

I’m also working on a collaborative project called MCM Paperbags with [rapper] Like from the group PacDiv. I have Wardrobe that’s coming soon. Then I’m doing some hip-house records in the UK [United Kingdom].”

Tell me more about your film solo album Cerebral Vortex and your sophomore project No Sleep till Brooklyn?
I made Cerebral Vortex off seven days of no sleep. This was seven years ago. I was still in the army at that time. Hypnotic beats and just raps.

No Sleep till Brooklyn is a tape, and Keep Following is the single, which was created into a theatre production called Keep Following. It’s a theatre production put together by a fringe theatre collective called Tremor Collective throughout New York and London.

The piece is basically a time-travelling piece. I was stuck in Berlin trying to get back to Brooklyn because there was an air traffic control strike. So for five days I would try to fly out, to no luck.

Drummer-producer Questlove says “hip-hop is inseparable from black America and black Americans, who are either creators, or consumers, or subject matter, or sometimes all three.” What kind of a legacy do you think you’ll leave behind for black children in the US, especially if you travel around so much?
Me travelling around just inspires the kids. When I’m back in Brooklyn, they always come through to me and ask me to tell about my travels.

My whole movement is igniting these kids to get out into the world and become the person that they can be. I feel that, if you don’t travel, you’re cutting off your potential as a human. There’s kids that don’t even get to leave their borough, let alone the city or the state.

Download Voodoo Bus here - MAIL & GUARDIAN

WAVE CRUSHER
Shamon Cassette,Spoek

Reviewed by Jesse Brent

avatars-000058276622-e5so8w-t500x500
COUNTRY
SOUTH AFRICA
UNITED STATES
GENRE
ELECTRO
HIP-HOP
RELEASED ON
OCTOBER 25, 2013
To start from the top- the Wave Crusher mixtape (or album, or “mini-album”- does it even MATTER anymore?) is available for free download on Spoek’s website, and you should go and download it. Now. Wave Crusher is a product of the friendship and musical alliance that has developed between between Spoek (formerly Spoek Mathambo) and Shamon Cassette. The two met through a mutual appreciation for each other’s music back in 2007, and after a few one-off collaborations, they decided to get serious and create a full project together. They centered their activity in Spoek’s apartment in Malmo, Sweden. The experience seems to have been intense- in an an interview with Dazed Digital, Spoek described it as the “maddest music bootcamp.” The results take inspiration from across the spectrum, mixing the avant-collage aesthetic of golden era hip-hop groups like Public Enemy with indy rock classic and modern and the kind of mind-expanding alt-rap that includes everything from Shabazz’s Palaces’ cold-eyed odes to space to the genre- and gender-bending style of rappers like Mykki Blanco. Taken as a whole, Spoek describes the mix as “a love letter to the adventurous spirit” of hip-hop, a spirit that includes both the electronics of the cutting edge and the wild style of the distant past.

The collaboration also serves as a bridge between the alternate cosmopolitan cultures of South Africa and Brooklyn. Spoek, born Nthato Mokgata, grew up in Johannesburg and began rapping at the tender age of ten. However, he is probably best known for the futuristic fusion of rock and electronica he displayed on albums such as Father Creeper and this year’s Escape from 85. Shamon Cassette brings his own very distinctive perspective to the project. He served in the military during the Iraq War, and now splits his time as both a rapper and designer based in Brooklyn. Far from clashing, these two perspectives seem to fit naturally together. As reflected by the cartoonish cover art, which features Spoek and Shamon surfing on pizzas while wielding lightsabers, the music on Wave Crusher is the work of two friends having a whole lot of fun together.

Yet despite this seemingly carefree aesthetic, Wave Crusher contains more depth than might be apparent on first listen. Take the immediate standout, “My Mind Is In The Clouds.” The song is a remix of the classic Pixies’ song, “Where Is My Mind,” edited by the popular electronic DJ, Bassnectar. While immediate attention goes to Spoek’s excellent and surprising choice for a song to rap over, the lyrics deserve notice as well. Beginning with Spoek’s line, “Losing my faith while melting my face,” the song goes on to reflect on Shamon’s experience as a veteran, tackling the issues of PTSD, alcoholism and drug addiction.



While musically the album sounds closest to Spoek’s Sup Pop labelmate and fellow avant-hip-hop act Shabazz Palaces (who remixed his track “Put Some Red On It” last year), the old school hip-hop influence shines through lyrically on “Go On Dance,” which quotes from Native Tongues affiliate Black Sheep: “Similak child, driving me wild.”

The album functions as a sort of pastiche or collage of the duo’s eclectic music taste. Next, they turn to the New Zealand psych-rock group Unknown Mortal Orchestra, using two tracks off their last album for the very literally trippy track, “Bicycle.” The song concludes with a spoken word section including the line, “I was tripping, man.”



Furthering their political focus, “Cardboard Castle” features a laid-back electro-funk groove laced with fiery politcal lyrics, as Shamon raps about jails as “the new slave systems.” Spoek also expresses his cultural roots on the track, rapping in the South African language, Ndebele.

Another highlight, “The Atom Strikes,” begins with a sample from reggae icon Peter Tosh’s “No Nuclear War.” It leads into a commentary on our culture of dependence on drugs: both for children, who are over-prescribed psychiatric pills, and adults, who develop addictions to the party drugs that give them superficial release from the emptiness of their lives. While that might sound like a downer, the song’s backing track is the sugarcoated electropop anthem, “Nuclear Season” by Charli XCX.



Taken as a whole, the album sounds powerfully like the future, reflecting both the consistent dread and terror that have defined our time, and the Internet age’s still up-for-grabs utopian promise. South Africa meets Brooklyn, surviving the pain and getting some Jedi pizza? What could be better than that? - AFRO POP

OCTOBER 15, 2013
CREATE BLUEPRINT Q + A | ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: SHAMON CASSETTE
We recently caught up with one of our new clients, Shamon Cassette, on a trip to Costa Rica. Cassette is a multifaceted creative whose talents span from music to fashion design and just about everything in between. In addition to just releasing a dynamic, beautifully designed new mixtape entitled NSTBK, he’s also been included on the Red Hot + Fela compilation in tribute to late, great artist Fela Kuti, along with recording artists such as My Morning Jacket, Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes and more. Proceeds from the album go to raise AIDS awareness, the disease the Kuti succumbed to. We chatted about his vision for NSTBK and his involvement in the Kuti compilation as well as upcoming projects.

Blueprint: What was your vision behind NSTBK?

Shamon Cassette: The vision was to create a body of work that removes the listener from the present time and places them in the drivers seat of a red Delorian in Brooklyn during the summer of 1993.

shamon3

Blueprint: You haven’t released a solo album for quite awhile, what inspired you to release a new album now?

Shamon Cassette: #NSTBK is actually my first Solo Album since disbanding from @vertualvertigo. Its long been a vision to release my first solo album direct to tape.

Blueprint: We loved the cassette and the design elements that went along with it. Who did you collaborate with on the album art?

Shamon Cassette: It’s a pal of mine in Berlin named Julio. He has an international art brand called @44flavours. We’ve worked on a few projects together over the past years. Namely, all of the Robot Koch collab records.



Blueprint: You were recently included on the Red Hot + Fela compilation. How did you get involved?

Shamon Cassette: I was in South Africa last year about this time working in the studio w/ @SpoekMathambo when Seun Kuti (Son of Fela) put in the request. It was basically a right time/right place type of scenario.

Blueprint: How has Fela Kuti inspired you and your music?

Shamon Cassette: He was one of the greatest showmen of all time. His style, finesse, energy and lyrical content were things that inspired me through out my journey and I like to remind myself of applying these things to my movement. The feeling you get from Afrobeat is uncontrollable. It’s like black post modern space crunk.

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Blueprint: You are a very collaborative artist, what would be your dream collaboration?

Shamon Cassette: My dream collaboration would be Sade, Gunplay, Andre3000 and me produced by Marly Marl.

Blueprint: You are also a fashion designer, can you tell us a little about that?

Shamon Cassette: I make Shoes and bags. Its my balance for the music. Quite meditational as well. When I need to clear my mind i hop on the sewing machine. My brand (@VGRNTNYC) is releasing pieces for the fall actually, in collaboration with my next music project.

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Blueprint: Any new projects on the horizon you can give us some hints about?

Shamon Cassette: Spoek and I have combined forces and will be releasing a series of records and visuals under @WaveCrusher. It’s a whole new movement that spans from South Africa to Brooklyn .The campaign actually starts in 2 weeks. I have new work with @robotkoch coming soon, Another really big surprise thats yet been unannounced but a hint is that its produced by @Jamerson, @Monomassive and @LikePacDiv on beats as well as raps and myself. - CREATE BLUE PRINT

Download Spoek x Shamon Cassette’s Wave Crusher Mixtape
Reactions
spoek-wave-crusher

South African genre mutant Spoek (he’s dropped the Mathambo) and his BK-based partner in crime Shamon Cassette just dropped their joint Wave Crusher mixtape. The tape, which Spoek described to Dazed Digital as “a mini-album… focussed on having fun rapping, sampl[ing] some of the most exciting new artists alongside classics with little skits in between… a rap album in the broadest sense of the term,” features the previously covered Pixies, Charlie XCX and Flume reworks as well as many more forward-thinking concoctions.
Download Spoek and Shamon Cassette’s Wave Crusher mixtape and take a look at some of its trippy accompanying artwork below. If you’re in Europe catch Spoek live at Biko in Milan [10/25], Gaite Lyriqu in Paris [10/26] and XOYO in London [11/18].


spoek-wave-crusher-2

spoek-wave-crusher-1 - OKAYAFRICA

First Look: Spoek & Shamon Cassette's Wave Crusher
Exclusive: stream the new genre-bending, sample-heavy mixtape

MUSIC FIRST LOOK 5 months ago
Text Sian Dolding


Wave Crusher artwork new version

New wave's post-apartheid genre-bender and serial Dazed favourite, Spoek Mathambo releases the first mix from his new project as a free download this Friday via his personal page. His latest offering sees him working alongside soldier-turned-Brooklyn rapper and designer, Shamon Cassette. Wavecrusher sees the musical power-couple sampling and reworking everything from Flume to The Pixies in what they describe as a “love letter to the original adventurous spirit of hip-hop”.

Ahead of Spoek's European tour we caught up with the pair during London rehearsals to talk pioneer mentalities, taking on a Pixies rework and putting the songwriter back in the driver's seat.

DD: What were the main inspirations behind this mix?

Spoek: It's not a mix at all...I look at the project as a mini-album where we focussed on having fun rapping, sampled some of the most exciting new artists alongside classics with little skits in between. It's a rap album in the broadest sense of the term.

In August, I invited Shamon to come through to my apartment in Malmo and we just turned it into the maddest music bootcamp, complete with missions to see boundary breaking acts like Mykki Blanco, Public Enemy and Wu Tang for inspiration.

I wanted to make a rap project after all the producing and singing-focussed songwriting I've been doing. A fun summer project, where I could get back to my enthusiasm for writing rap bars. I've been rapping since I was 10...and I know Shamon's been rapping for a similar amount of time, so that's about 40 years between us of being embroiled in the music and culture.

It's not a love letter to rap/hip hop as such, but more a love letter to the adventurous spirit that has always attracted me to the music...which I feel isn't explored enough. It's always been a field influenced and made up of so many styles and flavours...but greater than the sum of influences.

Shamon: The main influences I have to say are culture, pride, black surf iconography. Bridging a seamless gap between South Africa and Brooklyn using music a viable outlet of meaningful expression.

Comic Sketch
Cardboard Castle
Otto Splotch
DD: What is your Wave Crusher project all about?

Spoek: Shamon's the homie, we linked during the myspace wave in 2007...through mutual musical respect and we started making tunes. I guess the concept for Wave Crusher is both aggressive and motivated...to smash open and have fun with what's become quite a rigid rap landscape. Mind you, this is a great time for MCing and so many dope rappers have come out in the last couple of years...I love being back in that mindframe.

Shamon: We've been working together on numerous collaboration projects and singles since about 2007. After building up the catalogue we decided to officially unify on the project as Wave Crusher and really begin to focus on writing songs as opposed to kicking random raps.

Spoek: Yeah, Shamon and I have been working across the diginets for a while, then I visited him in NYC, we travelled together, worked in LA, he came through to South Africa, we've linked in Europe. We're basically good friends making music together.

DD: How do you think your sound has changed with this new project?

Spoek: For me, the sonic pallette is as forward thinking as I always love to keep it, my mind was dead-set on upping my skills as a rapper, coming back into that zone which is quite far from the two albums I've released on BBE and Sub Pop.

Shamon: We're really putting the songwriter's perspective in the driver's seat. The focus was driven toward relevant issues of the past and present, creating the perfect compromise of fashion, fun and political awareness. Its a bit more surfy, Beach House, instrumentation-driven than our previous collaborative works.

Spoek: It's still about keeping it really fun and interesting and busting different worlds open. We've always had pioneer mentalities, and this is an extension of that. Working to find interesting new spaces in a musical space that's turning 40.

DD: Tell us about the Pixies track, 'My Mind Is In The Clouds'? Have you always wanted to rework one of their tracks?

Spoek: Pixies are easily my favourite band ever and to be honest doing "Where Is My Mind" is very, very, very bait and something I wouldn't regularly do - just too obvious. But I found a dope edit by Bassnectar and found it fun to rap on. Really as simple as that.

Shamon: My take on "Mind In The Clouds" was an expression of the plights of a past mentally abusive relationship. Dealing with PTSD symptoms from the iraq war and turning to alcoholism and substance abuse to remedy - learning to live with the challenges that life presents.

Comic Sketch
Bicycle
Otto Splotch
DD: Do you have a favourite track from the album?

Spoek: "Fire & Smoke" and "Joaquina Beach" are my favourites, they're songs I built from scratch that I have the closest connection with. Also "Bicycle" is great, I've been wanting to rework Queen's "Bicycle" for a long time, did a sloppy ass job lol!

Shamon: "The Atom Strikes" is my fave track on the tape. It adresses issues about psyciatric drugs unlawfuly prescribed to the youth and party drugs that adults become dependant upon. Its a very visual record and really relevent to yesterday's society and today. Charlie XCX has the most amazing voice.

DD: Any underground acts Dazed should keep an eye out for?

Spoek: What the fuck is "underground" in 2013...who knows? But I love Gnucci, Seinabo Sey, Beatrice Eli, Aero Manyelo...hmm and Josiah Wise!

Shamon: Robbie Darko, Rat King, Ken Rebel and Wavy Spice.

Comic Sketch
The Atom Strikes
Otto Splotch
Tracklist:

1. Wave Crusher" (original Mr. Carmack Hopscotch)

2. "Joaquina Beach" (original production from Spoek)

3. "Game Extrapulation. Match Point" (original Fu*k Buttons The Red Wing)

4. "My Mind Is In The Clouds" (original Pixies Where Is My Mind)

5. "Go On Dance" (original Flume Star Eyes)

6. "Bicycle" (original Unknown Mortal Orchestra From The Sun & Queen Bicycle)

7. "Cardboard Castle" (original Inc. The Place)

8. "The Atom Strikes" (original Charli XCX Nuclear Season & Peter Tosh Nuclear War)

9. "Fire & Smoke" (original production from Halp & Acre)

Get Wave Crusher for free from this Friday.

Spoek will also headline the following European dates, which include his only London show of the year:

25th Oct – Biko, Milan

26th Oct – Gaite Lyrique, Paris

18th Nov – XOYO, London

Follow Sian Dolding on Twitter here @SianDolding - DAZED AND CONFUSED MAGAZINE