Patrick Sisson - Writer, Journalist, Cultural Documentarian, Music Lover

PATRICK SISSON

Buzz Builder Triple-threat singer-songwriter-carpenter Joe Pug infuses folk music with new energy

Interview
Chicago Magazine
August 2009
Link

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He hasn’t swung a hammer since last summer, but Joe Pug, a carpenter turned folk rocker, still gets philosophical about construction. “There are traditional ways, and there are shortcuts,” says Pug. “But the good guys learn a new way with every job. You have to do the same thing with songs.”

Reviewers have compared the 25-year-old Chicagoan to Bob Dylan for his earthy, politically conscious lyrics and rich, slightly weathered delivery. This summer he’ll play Lollapalooza (August 8th at 3 p.m.) and open for Steve Earle, events that are sure to help boost his profile. But it’s equally impressive how Pug (born Joe Pugliese) arrived at this point. He’s toured constantly and self-released music with a slightly old-fashioned twist—e-mail nationofheat@gmail.com with your street address and a promotional CD will soon arrive in the mail. He’s done it all without the support of a label. “What they’re asking for is worth a lot more than they’re offering,” he says.

It not only sounds like one of his lyrics—“The more I buy, the more I’m bought / And the more I’m bought, the less I cost” from “Hymn #101”—but also speaks to Pug’s determination. Feeling disenchanted while studying to be a playwright at the University of North Carolina, he left during his senior year and moved to Chicago. While framing and building walls, Pug decided to pick up the guitar again, a talent he hadn’t pursued since high school. A friend persuaded him to record and sneaked him into Chicago’s Rax Trax Recording studio in between other bands’ sessions. His first release, 2008’s EP Nation of Heat, grew out of ideas he developed while writing a play about two guys building an addition to a house.

Pug spends his downtime in Logan Square, and his upcoming and as-yet-untitled album, due out this fall, might include character sketches drawn from time spent in his favorite neighborhood haunts, Ta-queria Moran and the Cozy Corner Diner. It’s fitting, the Dylanesque way he writes ballads about real people he observes. “There’s a core group of people who respond to sincerity,” he says. “That’s who I write for.”

Expert Ears: Four Musical Insiders Handicap the Summer Music Calendar

Article
Chicago Magazine
July 2009
Link

In summer, festival season reaches a fever pitch. To help us navigate the scene, we drafted four insiders—working musicians who see more than their fair share of shows—and asked them to handicap the summer music calendar. Here, their recommendations

[ * RECOMMENDS ** PICK OF THE SEASON ]

MIKE REED
This composer, drummer, and music presenter will help organize dozens of concerts this year, including the Pitchfork Music Festival.
CATCH HIM: One of Reed’s jazz ensembles, People, Places & Things, plays at the Museum of Contemporary Art (220 E. Chicago Ave.; mcachicago.org) on Aug. 4th and the Hideout on Aug. 5th.
* The World Music Festival (Sept. 19-25, cityofchicago.org/worldmusic). “It’s all over the city and presents a different take on pop and traditional music. I’m also looking forward to seeing the Flaming Lips at Pitchfork” (July 17-19, pitchforkmusicfestival.com).
** The Hideout Block Party (no date at presstime; hideoutchicago.com). “It’s pretty down-home—the same vibe as the venue during the year.”

LISA KAPLAN
She’s the pianist for Eighth Blackbird, a contemporary classical sextet in residence at the University of Chicago and the University of Richmond.
CATCH HER: Eighth Blackbird plays the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival June 16-17 and 19-21 at various cities in Michigan.
*Andrew Bird at Lollapalooza (Aug. 7-9, Grant Park, lollapalooza.com). “I think he’s very creative and talented.” Also: her friend Jonathan Biss, a classical pianist, at Ravinia (Aug. 6, ravinia.org). “He’s an amazing classical interpreter and is doing pieces by Haydn and Kurtag.”
** The classical music series at Grant Park (through mid-August, grantparkmusicfestival.com). “It is more diverse and interesting than Ravinia. They’re having the premiere of Plans by Michael Torke (June 19-20) and works by a lot of U.S. composers.”

NATHANIEL BRADDOCK
He’s the guitar player for the Chicago-based Afro-pop band Occidental Brothers Dance Band International.
CATCH HIM: Occidental Brothers Dance Band International plays the Taste of River North (Kingsbury Street, between Ontario and Erie streets) on July 18th.
* Two neighborhood festivals: the Clark Street Festival (July 26, Clark Street from Morse Avenue to Estes Avenue, rogerspark.com) in Rogers Park and the Folk & Roots Festival organized by the Old Town School of Folk Music (July 11-12, Welles Park, chicagofolkandroots.org). “It’s a crossroads of traditional American music and world music that brings in top-notch musicians and focuses on putting music making in everyone’s hand, which is the vibe of the school.”
** The African Festival of the Arts (Sept. 4-7, africanfestivalchicago.com) in Washington Park. “You can see highflying African guitar groups, hip-hop, even old-school soul.”

SEAN MOELLER
He’s the founder of Daytrotter.com, a website that posts free sets recorded by touring indie bands in a studio in Rock Island.
* The Avett Brothers (June 28, House of Blues, theavettbrothers.com). “They’re one of my favorites now. I’ve never actually seen them ‘live’ live, but we did a session with them at Big Orange Studios (in Austin, Texas) that was pretty spectacular. They’re fiery and so dynamic for just a couple guys without a dedicated drummer. Seeing Billy Joel and Elton John at Wrigley would be cool (July 21, Wrigley Field, livenation.com), but I’m not sure how a show at Wrigley would work. And Booker T. playing the Taste of Chicago (July 4, Petrillo Music Shell, tasteofchicago.us) should be great. I saw him sitting in with the Roots on Late Night for a few nights and that was pretty cool.”
** The Hideout Block Par

Franz Ferdinand: Blood

Music Review
Pitchfork
June 2009
Link
6.4

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Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos’ vocals are often wry snapshots of hedonistic nights spent with mysterious, mercurial women. It’s an example, perhaps, of a globetrotting pop star singing about what he knows (his food writing doesn’t translate into three-minute singles quite as well). But the band isn’t nearly as risky, uninhibited, and freewheeling when it comes to its own music. The group’s sophomore album sounded like a heavyweight repressing from the same post-punk revival mold used to make its debut, and the recent Tonight came off as a tease, flirting with synthesizers and a few new directions, not to mention a rotating cast of producers. Though, to its credit, the band endured numerous false starts in an attempt to get it right– the making-of saga even boasts a human bone-as-percussion studio story– Tonight hinted at opportunity without fully seizing it.

Blood, an album-length dub version of Tonight, arrives as an experimental spin on the band’s music at a time when they’re already toying with their formula. Though it was previously included as part of a deluxe box set and released in limited quantities for Record Store Day, Blood isn’t merely a collectible or curiosity. Described as “Franz through Dan’s filter”– a reference to producer Dan Carey, the former Mad Professor apprentice who was the last person to fill the producer’s chair during the making of Tonight— it’s filled with relaxed recalibrations of the source material. While groups like Easy Star have made a cottage industry out of recording new dub covers, Blood goes the traditional route by rearranging and remixing elements of the original music.

Carey may have spent time recently working with Lily Allen and Kylie, but he hasn’t lost his feel for reggae. “Feel the Envy”, which unspools the slippery bass line and bubbling synths of “Send Him Away” and submerges the song in reverberations, and “Feeling Kind of Anxious”, where Kapranos’ words cycle and careen off the walls of an echo chamber, are prime examples. “Backwards on My Face”, a slack remix of “Twilight Omens”, wallows in a low groove, springy but crisp snare beats, and vocoded croaks that used to be Kapranos’ lyrics. Many of the album’s best moments recast parts of the original songs in ways that underline their melodic strength, especially the bass lines of Bob Hardy. “Katherine Hit Me”, a reworking of “No You Girls”, glides by on the original track’s tight, funky bass line, a solid frame that stands up to the shift towards a half-time tempo and meandering effects. Carey’s work calls to mind Echo Dek, Adrian Sherwood’s deft reworking of the master tapes of Primal Scream’s Vanishing Point, including the slightly darker, paranoid bent. Despite the album’s anxiety-prone songs titles, Franz sound relaxed and just as cocksure on these remixes, rarely forced.

While the songs are well-constructed, Blood is intriguing to a certain point but lacking the jolt necessary to transcend the concept. Perhaps that’s putting unfair expectation on what is a well-executed one-off exercise, but some tracks feel a bit winded-down as opposed to re-imagined. For every channel-shifting echo effect on the album, there are moments, like the pulsating synths on “Die on the Floor” or stretches where Kapranos’ vocals are looped, that call to mind standard dance remixes, standard being the key word. It’s arguable how “dub” a few of these tracks are– much like Tonight, they don’t fully commit. Franz’s music is usually as crisp and tight as its constructivist cover art, and though reformatted, stretched out, and slowed down on Blood, it still maintains a strong pulse. Hopefully this playful detour leads to more easygoing experimentation when Franz Ferdinand start cracking skulls together for the next full length.

Rodriguez: Coming From Reality

Music Review
Pitchfork
May 2009
Link
6.1

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“I’ve played every kind of gig there is to play now,” intones Sixto Rodriguez on the track “A Most Disgusting Song”. “I’ve played faggot bars, hooker bars, motorcycle funerals… in opera houses, concert halls, halfway houses.” Not sure where opening up for Animal Collective in Chicago this past January ranks on that list, but it’s a safe bet his booking agent has a bit more pull these days. The once-obscure Detroit singer-songwriter is enjoying a reissue-fueled second chapter in his career– third, if you count his cult status in Australia and South Africa– and is finally receiving critical reception a few decades after the fact. Not bad for someone once billed under the silly pseudonym Rod Riguez because a producer/label owner “didn’t want to take a chance” that his artist would be pigeonholed by the public.

A big part of his appeal is his urban poet-style social observations, frank lyrics laid bluntly over folk-rock strumming, funky riffs, and intriguing instrumentation. Coming From Reality, originally released in 1971 and the follow-up to Cold Fact, loses some of the grittiness and directness of his debut, never striking the same balance of eclectic arrangements, reverb-heavy vocals and flourishes achieved while working with the production team of Detroit vets Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore. Washed out a bit by soft, sometimes airy strings and lacking a killer single like the drug dealer-themed “Sugar Man”, it doesn’t hit quite as hard. But it’s a decent addition to the singer’s relatively scant output.

Recorded in London with producer Steve Rowland, a former Hollywood actor who would later discover and sign the Cure, Coming From Reality suffered from the change in studio and scenery. Opener “Climb Up on My Music” is a mellow, organ-heavy Steppenwolf/Santana jam with a screaming guitar riff and “Halfway Up the Stairs” exudes a sweet, cheesy 70s soft rock vibe. Rodriguez still delivers some pointed observations on tracks like “Street Boy”, one of a trio of solid bonus cuts recorded in 1972-1973 with Coffey and Theodore, and “A Most Disgusting Song”, a droll, overly long country-tinged narration told from the vantage point of a dive bar. But they’re thinned out by songs like “It Started Out So Nice”, a string-laden tale filled with some obscure myth-like references, and “Heikki’s Suburbia Bus Tour”, a rip on suburban life with an awkward chorus and a tired dig on lawn care. On the plaintive “I Think of You”, his voice leans too much towards James Taylor softness, and lyrics like “Baby I ain’t joking/ And it’s not what I’m smoking/ But I really think you’re nice” from “Silver Words?” which sounds like a tired Seth Rogen come-on, are a bit weak. When Rodriguez’s pastiche of styles coalesces, the music occupies an interesting niche at the crossroads of late-60s/early-70s music. But the second trip to the archives is a case of diminishing returns.

Interview: Junior Boys

Interview
Pitchfork
May 2009
Link

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When the Canadian electronic duo Junior Boys began work on the music that would become Begone Dull Care, vocalist and co-producer Jeremy Greenspan analyzed his artistic process. While scrutinizing the methodology behind the intricately crafted and occasionally icy pop music he makes with Matt Didemus, he came upon an unlikely metaphor, the cartoons of Canadian artist Norman McLaren. Combining his interest in music and animation, McLaren’s films are a dazzling blend of color and sound, both painstakingly assembled and beautifully designed. Greenspan saw something in McLaren’s approach that resonated and named the album after one of his short films. Greenspan spoke about McLaren’s influence, harnessing electricity like Neil Young, and the advantages to padding your résumé with Brian Eno references.

Pitchfork: When you were a teenager, you smooth-talked your way into a studio job. How did that happen?
Jeremy Greenspan: When I was about 16, maybe 17, I lived in Birmingham, England. My sister was going to school there. She had some friends who worked at the snack store at a studio complex. I think I’d given them the impression I was into recording and music, so they told me there was an opening for a job. We put together a really phony resume. I figured they’re never going to call my contacts to find out all the Brian Eno records I said I produced [laughs]. And luckily, at the time, I looked a lot like I do now. I basically landed myself a job in this studio that made Muzak, literally music for elevators. I was the engineer for bands who would come off the street. You have 10 hours, you need to record and mix three songs and give them a demo at the end of the day. It was the cream of the crop. We had one band, I remember, that came in and wanted to do Eagles covers. It was a highly stressful job that I wasn’t prepared for, but luckily I had this assistant who was supposed to sort of work off me. I was supposed to be his mentor, because I had all this experience.

Pitchfork: So you played along.
JG: He was dumb enough that I could say, how would you do this? How would you set up these drums? I learned the basic elements of recording from this guy.

Pitchfork: This guy must have felt really good about himself because you agreed with him 99% of the time.
JG: Exactly. He was quite good, actually. He had no business being an underling to someone like me.

Pitchfork: I remember reading that you came out with an early single with Johnny Dark, an original member of Junior Boys, around 1995. It seemed like there was a big gap between that and Last Exit.
JG: Well, we didn’t release anything [as] Junior Boys in 1995. In the 90s, Matt and I released some bad drum’n’bass songs, bad house tracks, stuff like that. I was a teenager at that point, so the period between that and starting Junior Boys was general growing up stuff. I started Junior Boys while I was at university with John. That was just pissing around. We’d post stuff on MP3.com. It was kind of like MySpace back then. It was basically through my experience in England that we got everything cooking with Junior Boys. I lived with a guy who now runs the label Hyperdub, which puts out Burial. He goes by the name Kode9. We were roommates in England, and it was through him and a lot of his connections that we were able to release stuff and get heard. The first couple of songs the Junior Boys ever did in 2001 were posted on his Hyperdub website, which at that point wasn’t a label, just a website. That’s basically how journalists heard us at first. We didn’t really plan on being a band or playing music for a living.

Pitchfork: Those are some serious dubstep credentials.
JG: Yeah, right.
Read more…

Deastro: Detroit’s Sparkplug Performer

Interview
XLR8R
April 2009
Link

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“I consider any musician a cheerleader for community,” says 23-year-old Randolph Chabot, conducting a phone interview in between bites of a chicken sandwich at a diner in Lansing, Michigan. “Music inspires people to live life to the fullest. A perfect example was a recent show in Milwaukee—I quieted everyone and said, ‘You’re not going to need anyone else other than the people in this room.’”

It may sound precious coming from anyone, but when it’s Chabot speaking, someone who wears a shirt that says “Sing With All Your Might” un-ironically, it appears doubly so. Or, at least it does until you see him passionately perform with his band—friends he’s known since childhood—as 8-bit noise and electronic melodies engulf his very earnest lyrics. He’s blessed with an ability to energize, engage, and get people on his side. (He once hit Ghostly International’s label manager with a stage prop and they still signed him.)

His new full-length, Moondagger, is immediate, full of electro-pop music caught in a playful tug of war between gratifying, squirmy rhythms and lush neon melodies. “Greens, Grays and Nordics,” a stop-start rush of clipped guitar, warm keys, and kinetic samples boils over with Chabot’s cascading, strident vocals. On the title track, Chabot’s pure, bright tone is at the eye of a storm of synths and guitars. It’s the latest in a string of albums and singles that Chabot has been pumping out for over a decade. Named after a G.I. Joe villain and inspired by Dan Deacon and the Baltimore scene’s DIY ethos, Deastro has a similar passion for firing up the crowd. “If I feel my intestines about to come out after a show, I know I did well,” he boasts.

It’s all the more intriguing since, until his late teens, Chabot’s musical exposure was mostly classical and Christian, along with a fair dose of electronic music. Raised in a Pentecostal family with a youth pastor for a father, he listened to a lot of Christian punk groups, Pedro the Lion, Joy Electric, and Danielson (the alternative music section of any Christian bookstore, basically). At one point he went to school to become a youth pastor, and it was during his time at North Central Bible College that a friend inspired him to get into music.

“He was saying, ‘Isn’t it crazy, you and me could try and get homeless people off the street all our lives, and maybe help like 20 people. It would be the best things we could do with our lives. But think about all the people in all the cities you’ve ever been to that aren’t being helped,’” Chabot recounts. “It inspired me to get back into music. Even at the smallest show you’ll ever play, you meet more people than you could just about any other way. It reminds me of church in a lot of ways. I don’t go to church anymore, but I love going to shows. It feels like a unique chance to gather.”

Chabot seems to be generally positive about everything, including the Motor City music scene, which he says is really starting to come into its own and could be some Motown-like model of collective music making. “It’s not there yet, but you can feel everybody wants to work together,” he says. “It’s a matter of time before everything comes into place.” It’s hard not to be drawn to that kind of confidence.

Don’t Love Thy Neighbor: Kevin Roose Interview

Interview
Playboy.com
May 2009
Link

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Brown sophomore Kevin Roose didn’t study abroad, but he definitely visited a foreign land during his semester off-campus at Virginia’s Liberty University, the school founded by preacher Jerry Falwell to train “champions for Christ.” Roose chronicles his stint as an evangelical embed in his new book, The Unlikely Disciple. Fair and revealing, the book is much like Roose himself. Admitting you attended a masturbation addiction group meeting — even for research purposes — shows a certain level of self-comfort (no pun intended). Roose spoke with Playboy.com about evangelical pick-up lines and the frontlines of “Every Man’s Battle.”

PLAYBOY.COM: Did you ever see anybody with a Playboy at Liberty?
KEVIN ROOSE: I didn’t, although I had two related experiences. I heard from a couple guys that Playboy once ranked Liberty girls the second hottest in the nation. Not sure if it’s a true statistic, but guys there like to talk about it. The other one was this group I went to, “Every Man’s Battle,” for recovering masturbation addicts that [also] doubled as a group for porn addicts. There’s a reason there are no single dorm rooms at Liberty. They want to keep everyone’s mind pure. According to Liberty, the sin isn’t masturbating, it’s lust.

PLAYBOY.COM: Are there evangelical sex symbols? I’m thinking someone like Bree from Desperate Housewives.
KEVIN ROOSE: There’s a pastor at Liberty, a young Ryan Seacrest look-a-like, who’s extremely popular. And I just came across a website called Christiannymphos.com about this movement of Christian wives who say they’re proud nymphos and love sex with their husbands. They get a little raunchy — what does the Bible say about anal sex, what does it say about toys — stuff like that. It’s controversial, but I like the thought.

PLAYBOY.COM: I like the thought, too. What does the Bible say about anal sex and toys?
KEVIN ROOSE: I don’t know… but I think it supports both — in marriage.

PLAYBOY.COM: Is there evangelical slang for hot girls?
KEVIN ROOSE: There are definitely evangelical pickup lines. If a Christian guy says, “I feel like God is leading me to kiss you,” or, “I feel like we should pray and hold hands while we do it,” that’s their way of making a move.

PLAYBOY.COM: It seems weird playing off God as some kind of omnipotent wingman.
KEVIN ROOSE: Yeah, that’s totally true.
Read more…

Various Artists: Local Customs: Downriver Revival

Music Review
Pitchfork
April 2009
Link
8.0

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Despite all the superlatives lobbed at the Numero Group’s catalog, the descriptions that really stick often come from the reissue label’s own liner notes. Along with the warm patina of age emanating from re-mastered recordings and the cracked, yellowing photographs, these narratives are prime examples of music anthropology, thick with details that amplify each song’s impact. The label exceeds its own storytelling standards with Local Customs: Downriver Revival, a collection of music recorded at Double U Sound, a rec room turned recording studio in suburban Detroit. The 24-track guided tour through Double U’s history is paired with a detailed multimedia DVD that includes a 30-minute documentary and an interactive sound vault with over 200 extra tracks, arranged by individual boxes of tape. It not only makes most bonus DVDs look like cheap wastes of plastic and time, it lets listeners virtually walk into the lost basement studio in Ecorse, Mich., and view some of the people and places that seeped into Double U’s reels of tape.

Proprietor Felton Williams, an unassuming Ford Motor Company electrician and member of the Church of the Living God, managed to piece together a truly DIY studio operation. While the self-taught electrical whiz’s longed-for hit factory never materialized, his dedication and open-door policy unwittingly turned Double U and its small stable of labels, mostly active from 1967 to 1981, into a local music time capsule.

Williams’ church connections and devotion to gospel weren’t uncommon, but the variety of sacred music he recorded stands out. Toledo, Ohio, singer and fellow congregant Shirley Ann Lee’s sweet, somber voice graces “There’s a Light”, which tests the fidelity of Felton’s setup, and “Please Accept My Prayer”, a bluesy end-of-service ode to the Lord. Mother-daughter duo the Coleman Family drop some rambling, back porch Appalachia-infected tunes and the Apostles of Music deliver a showy, funked-up version of “Wade in the Water”. Some of the most peculiar songs, including Calvin Cooke’s “What Happens to People”, incorporate Church of the Living God’s unique infatuation with the sitar and pedal steel guitar, producing an odd, wobbly twang.

Equally intriguing secular sounds, ranging from sunny vocal harmonies to funk workouts, also blasted out of Williams’ basement, like the Organics’ Hammond-flavored instrumental “Foot Stumpin'”. The true outlier of the bunch is “Running Mod”– with the Quadrophenia-appropriate chorus “You can’t catch a running mod”– by Young Generation, a cut-rate local garage band fronted by black singer Alan Crowell.

But the album is just a warm-up for the DVD’s wealth of music from artists on the CD and those that didn’t make the cut. After hearing jam sessions and alternate takes, a Shirley Ann Lee radio show, Felton Williams’ pedal steel lessons, the Mergers’ oddball organ rocker “Unworthy Americans”, and even the disorienting sounds of deteriorating tapes, it’s hard to imagine uncovering more layers to the story. The documentary includes interviews with and performances by Williams, Lee, and Cooke, who rocks the pedal steel. Footage of sunlight striking a white cross and shots of weeds cracking through the asphalt of crumbling houses make the setting almost palpable. It’s one thing to hear a tape of the young Shirley Ann Lee, but to watch her older self gently sing along to a recording of “Please Accept My Prayer” in the front seat of a parked car, and then whisper “thank you” as the shot fades to black, isn’t easily captured in words. Downriver Revival not only adds a chapter to Numero’s legacy of spotlighting the art and ambitions of forgotten artists, but it lets listeners share some of that rush of discovery.

Soul Savers

Article
Chicago Magazine
April 2009
Link

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His Comcast uniform didn’t meet the usual sartorial standards of soul crooners. But a glance at that belt buckle—the name “Renaldo” in bold brushed metal—suggested there was plenty of funk left. It was rehearsal night for the Eccentric Soul Revue, an upcoming concert focused on an obscure chapter of Chicago history, and Renaldo Domino, 59, was getting reacquainted with music he hadn’t touched in three decades. As the backing band moved through tracks like “Not Too Cool to Cry,” Domino’s hips loosened and the gears began to grind. That sweet-as-sugar tone returned. “It’s in my blood,” he said.

The Eccentric Soul Revue, presented on April 4th by the local re-issue label Numero, won’t just be celebrating history. It’ll be reinventing it. The featured musicians are a mix of active performers (such as the headliner, Syl Johnson, and the Notations) programmed alongside people who haven’t played professionally in years. What they all have in common is an association with Twinight, a phantom Chicago soul label that started in 1967 and disappeared by 1972.

This reunion of artists fits Numero’s aesthetic perfectly. The label is known for its “eccentric soul” series, compilations of forgotten sounds that are lovingly assembled after exhaustive research and detective work. But the label has never done a concert. “We try to have new experiences in every record, and this is our way of doing it totally outside of the recorded realm,” said Numero’s Tom Lunt. The staff tracked down performers for the event, found a venue (the Park West), and have even assembled a memorabilia-filled slide show. Many of the artists, like Domino, feel good that people still care about their music. But for Syl Johnson, there’s a little bit of the original motivation: “I wouldn’t be singing this if it wasn’t for the women.”

Buraka Som Sistema’s Lil Jon on the music of Portugal

Interview
A.V. Club Chicago
April 2009
Link

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The raw, energetic beats of kuduro music were something of a fad in the mid- to late ’90s in Portugal, a fusion of club tracks and Angolan rhythms that produced a few one-hit wonders and then faded fast. But the members of Buraka Som Sistema—Lil Jon, Riot, Conductor, and Kalaf—were intrigued by the music and started hosting a Friday residency a few years ago in Lisbon, where they began experimenting with a new style of kuduro. DJs like Sinden, Simian Mobile Disco, and Switch discovered their tracks, and as soon as you can say RapidShare, the group became a club hit, signing a record deal with Fabric and collaborating with M.I.A. With a new album out, Black Diamond, the group will swing through Sonotheque tomorrow night as part of an international tour. But before that, Buraka’s Lil Jon (João Barbosa) spoke to Decider about public perceptions of Africa and why he hates his name.

Decider: What’s some Portuguese slang people should know for when you play in Chicago? What should they listen for and what should they yell out when you’re performing?
João Barbosa: That’s a hard one. They could say, “Move your ass,” which is mexe o rabo [pronounced mesh-e eww habu]. They can sing that synchronized with one of our songs. That would be cool.

D: Have you ever had any encounter with the other Lil Jon?
JB: No, I’m actually researching changing my name because I don’t like it. It was given to me. Then all of a sudden this whole Buraka thing started. I needed to come up with something because my name is very complicated for someone who isn’t Portuguese to say. I decided to use it for the CD, and it didn’t really make sense, so I need to change it. I think Diplo just met Lil Jon. I heard he’s working with him, so I might meet him when we’re in the States.

D: A lot of musicians have been going to Portugal lately, like Panda Bear. Is it a good setting to make music?
JB: It’s a chill place. Al Qaeda would never drop a bomb here because nothing ever happens. The damage of that would be useless to the world. It’s one of those places that moves a little slower than the rest of the world, which is annoying when you’re growing up. But if you’re already doing something cool, you need to come and relax a little bit. Lisbon and Porto are beautiful cities, and the club scene is pretty great as well. You can go on until nine in the morning and get pretty pissed. Actually, I’ve been trying to meet Panda Bear for ages. I’ve been in contact with him through MySpace. But we’re never here in Lisbon at the same time.

D: How has the revival of kuduro changed people’s attitudes toward Portugal and Africa?
JB: There’s definitely one good element about the whole thing. We’ve been to Angola a couple of times, and two of us [Kalaf and Conductor] are from Angola. And the reality is people still see the African continent as some sort of safari park. Either misery or safaris or tourism or beaches in Mozambique or some shit like that. The reality is that exists, obviously, but that’s not the whole continent. Rhythms like ours, which were born in a computer, aren’t traditional music. They’re not old men under a coconut tree playing some strange guitar with two chords. This is people on computers using the same software people use in New York to make music, and when people see something like that, I hope it opens everyone’s eyes and changes their whole judgment of the continent. They’re listening to computer-based music that comes from Africa with all these strange house and techno influences—to me, that’s important. And there’s lots of stuff coming from other countries in Africa. It’s a whole new world.

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