This weekend Berlin holds it’s great festival “Karneval der Kulturen“, a showcase of different cultures living in Berlin.

As in the past years many Soca parties are going down around the KdK:

Friday 17.05.
Soca at the beach (Badeschiff)
A swiming pool floating in the river plus a huge beach bar. Soca music all day by international DJs like Martin Jay, DJ Tate, GC Sound and SWS/Hi-Towa including Faluma’s Marflix.

Carnival Jump-up hosted by Socatwins with special guest: Peter Ram and international DJs.

Saturday 18.05.
Soca family BBQ lime (Astra)
Starting in the afternoon.. hangout and lime with Soca music playing, costume pickup and Faluma crew’s CD stall.

Carnival Glow (Astra)
The main Soca event this weekend with Scrappy & Tropical Storm Band, Kes from Trinidad and more!

Sunday 19.05.
Great procession with 77 cultural groups and music truck. Check out the Soca truck by Yard/Escobar.

Caribbean Invasion (Yaam)
Official KdK after-party at the Yaam, a very unique hangout and club for Africans and Reggae heads. Live: Stylo G (UK), X-Caliber (Trinidad).

Here it is: Tobago-born London resident Reggae singer & producer Franz Job’s highly anticipated second full length album!

iTunes | junodownload | amazon.com | amazon.de

The new album is a landmark again, as Franz has now lived in London for the same time span of which he lived in Tobago: 17 years. So the “Eclectic Country Boy” from Charlotteville became a real urbanite. Therefore his new album is titled “I Love London” and charters his all round sentiment about the British capital. The songs capture both the patience and strength it took to hold on strong from so far away from home. And about the love songs Franz says: “they are simply my prayer”.

Highlights include the calls for non-violence and equality in “Brother Brother (Drop Your Guns)” and “It’s Enough” – as well as the skanking and rocking “Wrapped Up in Jehova” with its catchy oooh’s.
In Franz Job’s songs the influences of Jamaican Roots Reggae are skillfully combined with the elaborate lyrical tradition of Calypso from Trinidad & Tobago. The result is an album filled with intriguing melodies and lyrics with a message. All tracks on this album are not only sung, but also written and produced by Franz Job himself.

Release date: 04/12
on Bacchanalism/Faluma

Tracklist:
1. Leave Babylon
2. It’s Enough
3. I’m a Country Boy
4. Wrapped up in Jehova
5. Gimme Love
6. Heaven Is Where You Came From
7. I’m in Love with You
8. Call Me (Remix)
9. A Million Miles Away
10. Brother Brother (Drop Your Guns)

Franz Job facebook page

Faluma proudly presents a massive remix package of the Cropover hits “Go!!” and “This is the one”.
The Bajan Soca singer Anderson Armstrong, better known as Blood, joined the Faluma family many years ago. Since then Faluma released and distributed 6 albums and 7 compilations in the digital world.

While most Soca songs live only for the Carnival season mainly recognized locally or within the Caribbean diaspora, Faluma’s mission was to bring it to a wider audience by making it internationally available. Beside the Caribbean focus Faluma is also well connected to the worldwide Tropical / Global Bass scene, so it was only a small step to mashup those two music cultures. One deeply rooted in the local Carnival festivals, the other global with the approach to mashup local genres from different continents and put it in an international club setting.

Blood, who got his artist name by the legendary Mighty Gabby who couldn’t remember his long name and just called him “Young Blood”, was the lead singer and guitar player at the band Square One (together with the internationally known Alison Hinds). During that period Andy has toured extensively throughout the Caribbean, North and South America and Europe. Another touring achievement for both Blood and the band has been their historic tour to South Africa to perform for World Cup Cricket in 2003.
Today he’s releasing an annual Cropover Compilation and he’s rocking as singer of the band Soka Kartel.

Blood facebook page

Pre-order “Go!! / This Is The One Remix EP” at Juno / iTunes / amazon.com

Cover artwork by 263art.

The Remixers

So Shifty

The infamous Hamburg, Germany based production and DJ duo known as So Shifty is a truly surprising team. Surprising because every song and every remix they do is always so amazing and high standard, no matter if Cumbia or Electro or anything else. For our remix project they managed to make a 100% energy loaded Carnival track even more energy loaded plus adding some serious club bass frequencies.
So Shifty on soundcloud

Poirier

Montreal’s Bassmaster Poirier was one of the first producers who put tropical riddims and urban electro into a new minimalistic and percussive context. His hi-tempo Soca Bass tracks with artists like Mr Slaughter (Trinidad) made him the first guy to ask for a Soca Remix. Releases on Ninja Tune, Mixpak and Man Recordings.

Poirier soundcloud

Max Le Daron

The versatile producer and promoter from Brussels Max Le Daron making a lot of noise for more than 3 years with many productions and remixes on labels like Man Recordings, Akwaaba Music, Booty Call and LowUp.
Max Le Daron soundcloud / facebook

Pushking Noize

Pushking Noize, a DJ, producer and party promoter from Zurich, Switzerland, started as hiphop MC. After many hit “Electro-Rap” productions he is focusing now on Tropical Club vibes.
Pushking Noize soundcloud / website

Murlo

Murlo from the East Midlands, UK, now residing in London, already made his name with Soca and Dancehall remixes inna UK Bass style. Recent releases on LowUp Records and Mixpack.

Murlo soundcloud / facebook

Andrès Digital

Andrès Digital from Darmstadt, Germany is author of the scene blog TropicalBass.com. Beside that he produces remixes, promotes parties and is singer of the band Radikal Sunflowers Colectivo. Andrés Digital brings down this 162bpm Power Soca Tune to a Tropical Bass banger with strong Cumbia influence.
soundcloud

Marflix

Faluma’s own Marflix, a keyboard and guitar player, producer and Soca DJ for over 15 years, founded Faluma 2003 with a DJ friend. In 2005 and 2006 he released the first Soca Riddim selection and full Soca album from Germany. Beside the monthly radioshow Riddims Tropicale his productions translate patterns from Caribbean Carnival music into a new club context.
Marflix website / facebook

Feedback

* Review on Largeup
* featured on Headliner Mag

After a break in 2012 (we released a 10 years anniversary Best-Of compilation), the Calypso Compilation is back in 2013 with new songs. Many well-known singers from Trinidad & Tobago are featured: Destra, Black Stalin, Blaxx, Lil Bitts, Denyse Plummer, Eunice Peters and many more.

Like in the past years, songs from the compilation have been received very positive during Trinidad Carnival:

Placements at Panorama 2013 Port-of-Spain, Trinidad:

#2 – Trinidad All Stars playing “Bounce and Drive – BlaxxLeon”, arranger: ‘Smooth’ Edwards
#3 – Bp Renegades playing “Shock Attack – Denyse Plummer/Edwin Pouchet/Alvin Daniell”, arranger: Duvonne Stewart
#6 – Desperadoes playing “Hammer Time – Nicole Greaves”, arranger: Robert Greenidge
#8 – NCLB Fonclaire playing “Addicted – Destra Garcia/Ken ‘Professor’ Philmore/Mark Loquan”, arranger: Ken ‘Professor’ Philmore
#8 (tie) – PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars playing “Shock Attack – Denyse Plummer/Edwin Pouchet/Alvin Daniell”, arranger: Edwin Pouchet

also placements in Medium and Small band category – see full list

This year’s compilation is a tribute to the Trinidadian javelin-thrower Keshorn Walcott, who won Gold at Olympic Games 2012, and the steel pan pioneer Bertie Marshall who invented the harmonic tuning of Steelpan notes (1956) and the Double Tenor pan.

Release date: April 2013
available worldwide – buy links soon

Tracklist and Listen

This is the video for the 2012 Kanaval – Banm Pam Ladann:

The Bookman Eksperyans album “La Revolte Des Zombies” from 2009 was released on Faluma/Bacchanalism.

Didier Awadi with Eric van Grasdorff (AfricAvenir) and Martin Stahl (Faluma)

The latest album “Ma révolution” features artists like Wyclef Jean, Doug E. Tee (PBS), Mary Ndiaye (Suede), Hyde (Canada) or Viviane et Bakhaw of the group Da Brains.
The album talks plain language about political issues like destabilization and recolonisation of Africa or the NATO-missions in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, taking a pan-african stand.

In 2011 Awadi also released his first documentary movie “Le point de vu du lion“.

More infos about the album and release date soon.

London-based Soca artist Scrappy took another title in his home country Montserrat. The monster groovy tune ‘Feting’, taken from the forthcoming album “F50″, was well received in Montserrat and has been a favorite during the carnival season.
Scrappy entered the song in the 2012/2013 Groovy Monarch Competition has won the crown, which makes it his second time winning a Soca Monarch crown in Montserrat. A few months ago Scrappy won the Soca Music Award in the “Best Soca Artist UK male” category. Scrappy is also working on new material with the UK soca band “Tropical Storm”.

The album will be internationally released on Faluma, available on all major download and streaming sites like iTunes, Spotify, Amazon or Junodownload.

Don’t miss this great chance to get some musical presents for your loved ones and yourself! We have hundreds of fantastic Soca, Pan, Calypso, Parang & Reggae CDs & vinyls available for just half the regular price now. Lots of rare & vintage albums, too.

Happy Holidays!

Hamburg’s King Kong Disko and it’s selector Finn are long-time friends of us, usually taking over our flat during Berlin Carnival with the Blue Jab tribe. Besides playing Jab on all European Carnivals he is also known as a music digger and solid expert for many genres. Now he just did the second edition of his Calypso mix series. You don’t see Calypso mixes too often, and these here are also carefully selected with artists like Lord Kitchener, Lord Creator, Roaring Lion, Mighty Panther, Elli Matt and many more.

This time we focused on releases reaching from the hilarious Kaiso storytelling of the 1950s and 60s to the proto Soca Carnival Madness of the late 70s. Most of that stuff is classical and rare Trinidadian material but we also featured a lot of great tunes from other carribean islands such as Jamaica or the Bahamas. The second half of the mix is very energetic and uptempo, containing
loads of incredible iron- and brass sections to give you a little idea of how todays carnival sound was developed over several decades.

And here goes part #1 of Calypso mi love:

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London based Soca artist Scrappy took an award at the Soca Music Awards for the Best UK Soca Artist Male. This award came with no surprise: Garvin Johnson aka Scrappy is one of the hardest working artists in Europe and already earned some royality with Soca Monarch titles in his home country Montserrat.
Congratulations from the Faluma crew!

photo credit: UKSocaScene.com

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