Jaak and Driemanskap featured on Chuck D’s radio show, And You Don’t Stop

Any of our regular readers will know how much I respect Chuck D. Public Enemy were a major force in bringing political, social and cultural consciousness into hip hop in the late 1980s. Their music was a massive influence in my young adult life. It was a huge honour finally meeting Chuck D in Cape Town, 24 years after I first saw Public Enemy live in London at the Hammersmith Odeon on their first UK tour. The impact of Public Enemy’s performance was so great that night that I always forget that Eric B & Rakim and LL Cool J were also on the line up.

Chuck D is now an elder statesman in the hip hop world but he’s still highly active. As well as endless tours with Public Enemy, Chuck D also hosts a radio show on New York’s WBAI and Rapstation.com called, And You Don’t Stop. One of the show segments is called Planet Earth Planet Rap (PEPR), and features hip hop from around the world. The PEPR segment is curated by Gia’na Garel aka GypSEE Mama, Amkelwa Mbekeni and Mikko Kapanen – (read more about the PEPR team here).

We were hugely honoured to have music by Jaak and Driemanskap featured alongside Zuluboy on the South African segment of Chuck D’s show last week. So honoured infact, that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to leak a track from Jaak’s forthcoming album, Galant, as an exclusive world premiere.

Click here to listen to recording of PEPR segment featuring Jaak and Driemanskap

That’s how we rrrrrrrrrroll!!

Planet Earth and Manqoba interviewed on Goodhope FM (video)

On Wednesday night Planet Earth and Manqoba were interviewed by DJ Eazy and the lovely Celeste on Ready D’s hip hop show on Goodhope FM.

Planet Earth is an elusive man and is rarely seen in front on camera, so this is rare chance to check out the man behind Driemanskap’s hits, S’phum’eGugs and I Will Make It.

Manqoba is promoting his debut EP, The Winner, and is about to take part in the The King of Street Rap Championship, hosted by KOL and Slaghuis.

Check out the interview and leave a comment…

That’s how we rrrrrrrrrroll!!

Ben Sharpa on Rhythm Incursions Podcast

Hegemony by the one Ben Sharpa features on the May 2009 edition of the Rhythm Incursion podcast. It’s packed with niceness by the likes of Roots Manuva, Busdriver, King Midas Sound, Om Unit and many many more. Check it out

That’s how we rrrrrrrrrrrroll!!

Ben Sharpa at UCT Radio

Ben and Raiko went through to UCT Radio this week to do the Mzansi Mamela show. Check it out…

Check out the full set of photos (12) on Flickr

Photos and video courtesy of DJ Raiko. We’re also testing out Audio Boo…

That’s how we rrrrrrrrrrrroll!!

Pioneer Unit Interview on FunX – MP3 Audio

As promised, check out the interview we did on the African Hip Hop Show on Dutch national broadcaster FunX…

Radio | J4, GMB & DJ 360: Dplanet & spo0ky (Pioneer Unit, Kaapstad)

View behind the scenes photos (20) on Flickr

That’s how we rrrrrrrrrrrroll!!

Pioneer Unit @ FunX, Amsterdam

On Wednesday we did an interview on Dutch national radio station FunX. The African Hip Hop Show is hosted by J4, GMB and DJ 360, so big ups to them for putting us on.

It’s amazing that national radio in Holland has an entire show dedicated to African Hip Hop, and we don’t in South Africa. Go figure.

We’ll be posting a link to the mp3 of the interview as soon as it goes live. In the mean time check out some photos…

Getting ready for the interview (click for larger image).

Dplanet on da mic (click for larger image).

DJ 360 (click for larger image).

J4 and DJ 360 on air (click for larger image).

Mustafa Maluka on air (click for larger image).

The show’s co-host GMB (click for larger image).

Mustafa Maluka, Dplanet and GMB (click for larger image).

Check out the full set of photos (20) on Flickr

That’s how we rrrrrrrrrrrroll!!

New Wordsworth & Ben Sharpa Track – World Premier Tonight on Yfm

Listen to The Bridge on Yfm tonight at 10pm. Lee is going to be playing Why by Wordsworth and Ben Sharpa for the first time anywhere in the world.

Pioneer Unit’s Ben Sharpa recorded the track with Lyricist Lounge all-star, Wordsworth, while he was down in Cape Town recently. Check out the recording session here

If you can’t get Yfm on your radio, go to their website and listen to the live feed. Click the ‘Y-ired’ link at the top of the page, then click ‘Live audio’. Sadly it only works on Windows, so Apple peeps will have to find someone with a PC.

That’s how we rrrrrrrroll!!

Exclusive track on BBC Radio 1

Mary Anne Hobbs played Statement by Ben Sharpa (featuring KONFAB) on her BBC Radio 1 Experimental show last night (well, very early this morning actually).

Mary Anne Hobbs has been compared by many to the legendary John Peel. She is one of the biggest supporters of underground electronic music and is becoming well-known as a champion of Dubstep (a hybrid of Dub, 2-Step and Techno).

Anyone who’s into any form of electronic music (including experimental Hip Hop, Grime, Glitch and pretty much anything else you can imagine) should tune into her show on BBC Radio 1 between 02:00 and 04:00 every Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning.

For people who can’t stay up that late, or people outside the UK, each show is available online for a full week after the show has aired – Ben Sharpa’s track will be online until 20th November.

It’s always an honour to be featured on her show so please go and check us out!

www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/maryannehobbs/

(Just click the ‘Listen to the show’ link under the ‘Listen again’ header.)

Mary Anne Hobbs – Photo courtesy Merlijn Hoek under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

The Unit was in full effect this weekend as Trusenz broadcast his show, ‘Ground Zero’, live from Cape Town. The show was broadcast on CKI FM, an SABC station that goes out across the Eastern Cape, on both Saturday and Sunday.

Tru was in town with his band BEE to do a couple of shows so he gave us the opportunity to talk to the people of the EC about what we’re up to in Cape Town.

I’ve only ever been to inside the SABC building in Seapoint to do interviews on GoodHope FM (as they share the building). It was interesting to go deeper into the building and see the somewhat old skool SABC studios.

On Saturday Rattex and I did an interview and we played through his tracks on Planetary Assault. Ratteezy also did a freestyle over the Go and Ask beat.

On Sunday we did it all over again, this time with Driemanskap who killed it as usual. Those boys always bring the FIRE!

Big Tru with his copy of Planetary Assault

Tru interviewing Rattex

Ratteezy busting a freestyle

Tru at the controls – Sunday’s session

Tru interviewing me

Me and Amina

And we don’t stop!… UCT Radio Promo

Another day, another radio show to promote the Planetary Assault launch party. This time DJ Eazy was nice enough to invite us on to his show on UCT Radio 104.5fm.

Sadly, I forgot to take photos so nothing to show you, but we had another great time. This time I went along with Terror MC and Oracle Flo. We also met up with a Miami-based Colombian MC by the name of Ephniko who’s in town trying to link up with heads and share in global Hip Hop culture.

Everyone got on the mic and spat a few verses. I have to give it to Ephniko though,,, he killed the freestyle.

Anyway, tomorrow is the launch party. If you’re not a confirmed guest on Facebook, get yourself over there right now and sign up!

See you at the party!