Axum: the new sound of Israel

Axum’s Teddy and Jackson are from the small minority of African Israelis - Teddy is one of the first Israeli-born Ethiopian Jews, while Jackson, is of mixed Yemeni-Moroccan heritage. Describing their music as “Mediterranean dancehall”, Axum seek to transcend the politics and conflicts of the region, focusing on social rather than political issues, with lyrics in Hebrew and English, plus Arabic and Amharic.

Signed to New York’s JDub Records, Axum released their self-titled debut in 2010, produced by Tel Aviv crew Soulico. They’ve got a new album in the works for summer 2011, this time with a whole bunch of producers behind them. From the sound of next single Pocket Full of Money, this has the potential to be one of 2011's most original and exciting dancehall albums.

For their spring tour of Europe, Axum were joined on the turntables by an old friend of this show – DJ Prince Of Persia, from Jerusalem. Last August, DJ Prince Of Persia was on the Friday Ripple with a set of genre-crossing Balkanbeat dub (still available for streaming-on-demand – info here); this time around, we're featuring some of his latest mixtape of new Israeli hip hop.

And there's more:

More generally, this is about to be a major season for Jewish alternative music! Before the Axum album drops, we can look forward to three other major releases from elsewhere in the world:

On May 10, Canadian klezmer-hip hop producer SoCalled drops his fifth album, Sleepover, and you can hear the title track on this week’s show. Plus, since this show was originally broadcast during Passover, we also go back to SoCalled's groundbreaking 2002 Passover album, The SoCalled Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah.

Meanwhile in Berlin, we can except to hear a lot more from Yuriy Gurzhy (co-compiler of the groundbreaking Shtetl Superstars 2006 compilation of contemporary Jewish music, and the main turntablist of Berlin's Russendisko sound system).

First off, May sees the release of the second album by Gurzhy's band RotFront. Strictly speaking, RotFront don't make Jewish music – they make Jewish-Roma-Ukrainian-Hungarian-Russian-German music, and, as the Friday Ripple has long insisted, they're one of the best bands in Europe. Catch a preview of Visa Free in this week's mix.

Getting back to more specifically Jewish music, Yuriy Gurzhy and Lemez Lovas (from British klezmer band Oi Va Voi) have unveiled their long-in-the-works band project. Called Shtetl Superstars, it picks up on many of the themes in the Gurzhy/Lovas-curated compilation album of the same name. There’s no official release date for this yet, but you can already stream a preview.

You can hear all of this stuff and much more, in one convenient place: the Radio Wave Jukebox streaming archive. Load it up, select Friday Ripple from the programme menu, and click on the show titled 22.04.2011. The full playlist looks like this:

Axum - Pocket Full of Money [Israel] (Live at Radio Wave)
Axum - Pitum Banu [Israel] (JDub)
Soulico - Put Em Up Ft. Lyrics Born & Axum [Israel] (JDub)
Axum – Knowa [Israel] (JDub)
Axum - Hadibur feat. Peled & Ortega [Israel] (JDub)
Axum - Music Desire [Israel] (JDub)
Axum - Hakashivu Na [Israel] (JDub)
DJ Prince of Persia - Israeli Hiphop mixtape 2011 excerpt [Israel]
Lukach - Brandon Walsh [Israel] (High Fiber Productions)
Ori Shochat - Mehaven Gavoa [Israel] (Soulspazm)
Socalled feat. Bless & Killa Priest - 10 Plagues [Canada/USA] (JDub)
Socalled - Sleepover (Booty Instant Replay) [Canada] (unmastered 2010 demo version)
Abraham Inc - Moskowitz Remix [Canada/USA] (Table Pounding Records)
Shtetl Superstars - Butterfly Hora [Ukraine/UK] (Essay Recordings)
Amsterdam Klezmer Band - Immigrant Song (Yuriy Gurzhy remix) [Ukraine/Netherlands] (Trikont)
RotFront – Klezmerton [Ukraine/Hungary/Germany] (Essay Recordings)
RotFront - VisaFree Promo mix [Ukraine/Hungary/Germany] (Essay Recordings)
Rus Nerwich - Thank You for the Music [South Africa]
Balkan Beat Box - Move It [Israel] (JDub)
Tomer Yousef - Little Man [Israel]
Boca - Israeli Hip Hop Airlines 1 [Israel] (self-released)
Alpha Blondy - Yitzhak Rabin [Cote d’Ivoire] (Lightyear)

Further listening

Radio Wave's Jukebox archive has 12 months' worth of Friday Ripple shows streaming on demand. If you enjoyed this show, you may also enjoy these:

6.8.2010: DJ Prince of Persia, Axum's tour DJ, has been on this show before - check out an exclusive set of Jerusalem Balkanbeat dub from his previous visit to the Czech Republic.
23.7.2010: Abraham Inc and the rebirth of klezmer. Socalled and David Krakauer talk to the Friday Ripple about klezmer funk, and about how much we all love Fred Wesley.