QUEENS OF RAKS AND KINGS OF MAMBO

Conférence ○ Samedi 18 novembre à 18h ○ Prix libre

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"QUEENS OF RAKS AND KINGS OF MAMBO"

A story about the forgotten souls

of the Egyptian music catalog

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I N N E R V I S I O N # 1 5

With Radio Martiko Label Team

Radio Martiko was found by Fred Kramer who gathered a bunch of passionated Dj's and record collectors from Ghent, Belgium in 2012. The philosophy of Radio Martiko (which stands for 'organ grinder's monkeys' or 'ugly looking guys') was putting global vintage dance music under one banner and playing this for an audience without compromises in styles or trends.

From 2013 the party was on and they collaborated with Edo Bouman from Vintage Voudou Records Amsterdam to play 12h vinyl dj sets for 4 days in a row at the great Roskilde festival in Denmark. "We had so many records with us that people thought we were a record shop".

The monkey's hunger for vinyl is unsaturable. Apart from connecting with sellers online Fred Kramer and Mechiel Vanbelle travel on a regular basis (with or without their wives) to find old records and make part of the 'Gold Rush'. "As absolute starters in the so called 'diggers' scene, we decided not to go to Africa or Latin America in the first place. Why not booking a cheap flight to Greece, Morocco, Egypt and explore the Mediterranean? It made sense as we were playing oriental and gypsy records while every body else in Brussels was playing funk, soul and latin music. The reactions have always been very mixed :-)". It turned out that our record Mekka was in the mainly unexplored Northern part of Africa and not the West, discovering musical pearls from times that Muslims were not so concerned about Mekka.

The starting of a record label was inevitable after they were faced with the big oriental exotica crossover tune "Habibi Twist" by The Latins in 2013. It took them more than a year to license the track from Sony Music. The song was recorded in 1962 and is now still a monster tune for any dancefloor and a true bridge between musical styles with different roots. "We found it as stunning and important as Voodoo Funk". Nowadays they're meeting and dealing with many artists and record labels such as Minos EMI Greece and Sono Cairo to be able to revive forgotten music legends and old music catalogs.

➳ http://www.radiomartiko.be

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➳ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJfmEZ0Lqmc

➳ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hMWw7Fqxjs

➳ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ2jIMpnmP4

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➳ https://soundcloud.com/radio-martiko/masr-ya-gamil-beautiful-egypt

➳ https://soundcloud.com/radio-martiko/hany-mehanna-agaeb-el-rakasat-el-sabaa-the-miracles-of-the-7-dances

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