JUNE 2024 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the June 2024 issue – OUT NOW!
JORDAN RAKEI
When Jordan Rakei was 11 years old, he was gifted a keyboard from a neighbour. After spending months on end mucking around on it, he set himself the goal of learning how to play properly. It was once he got hold of a Stevie Wonder song sheet that his determination truly made a solid bond with his ambition and he didn’t look back.
This formative period in his life proved the spark for an unlikely journey as a musician; first as producer, which saw him helping out high school friends with their material, and then later on as a singer-songwriter. The nature of this early initiation into music reflects the self-sufficient and painstaking attention to detail that’s come to characterise his career. When it comes to knowing exactly what he wants from his output, Jordan’s vision has always been 20/20 – but being a self-contained artist who sings, writes and produces can sometimes make it hard to see the wood from the trees: playing all the roles in the process comes with its own risks. It’s a balancing act he’s long had to contend with and his growth has come from knowing when to let go a little and rely on others to help tell his story. On his new album, The Loop, he’s attempting to prove to the world that he’s found the sweet spot…
SANANDA MAITREYA
Famous for his mastery of pretty much any instrument that interests him, Sananda Maitreya habitually plays nearly everything you hear on his albums. He has that knack of making it all sound like a band of brothers in the studio too. What, I ask him, is his studio set-up these days down there in Milan, in northern Italy?
There’s a sudden glint in his eye as he responds with good humour:
“Are you trying to slyly ask me, Mister Working Class Hero, if I’m a property owner?”
It’s only just gone 8:30am – OK, an hour further into the day for him in Lombardy – and yet the now 62-year-old American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer is wide awake and ready for some fun. The very notion of slowing down in any way seems to be alien to his workaholic/driven artist’s nature, as we’ll find out. But it’s also nice to discover that he holds no grudges against a representative of the British music press who, after all, as a group have not always treated him well over the years…
YAADCORE
Yaadcore is the Kingston DJ who helped lay the foundations for the Reggae Revival a decade or more ago and has since made the difficult – but in his case, successful – transition into becoming an artist in his own right. In March he toured Japan for the first time and received an enthusiastic welcome in all of the eight cities that he and the Rockers Far East Band played. The tour was named Yaadcore “Reggae Land” Japan after his debut album, which Delicious Vinyl Island released in 2022.
We’ll talk more of that later, but since then he’s treated fans and listeners to the Treesonable EP [also for Delicious Vinyl] and a number of singles including Genuine, Lock The Street, shared with Kabaka Pyramid & Third World Don and Sufferation, on which he joined forces with veteran Rasta singer Fred Locks. That’s a respectful haul for someone who attracted his share of doubters when stepping from behind the record decks and taking centre stage as a singer.
JOHNNY BURGOS
“Retro-sounding and soulful always felt like the perfect vessel for the subjects I was compelled to write about and the way I like to write them. The challenge was always figuring out how to do it consistently without much training in production and resources for all of the analogue gear that helps make it authentic. I became good at faking it using digital processing and emulators, but now I have Jeremy Page in my corner who’s an incredible talent and purist for the sound.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that the soul genre has always made sense to me because of how I grew up and I think I just sought more of it out until I eventually became the artist who felt confident enough to take my own shot at it. Maybe more people are feeling this and going for it themselves.”
