Experience a moment in music that is not only groovy and informative to African culture, but spiritually potent as well. The mellow and hypnotic vibrations of "Made Through Ritual" equate to a listening experience that is healing and invigorating for the human spirit. As vets of African Funk , Plunky & Oneness of Juju enrich their songs with spiritual energy. This project shows the band's maturity as songwriters while offering the outstanding fusion they are known for. Enjoy as they demonstrate the African sacred science of music through 9 songs blessed by The Motherland.
In this summer 2025 interview, Professor James Small explains that music, rhythm, and vibration are integral to African sacred science and spirituality, serving as powerful tools for communication, connection, and spiritual experience.
Here's how Prof. James Small explains the African ritual of music and its effects on the listener and practitioners:
• Tool of Sacred Science: Music is not merely culture but a tool of African sacred science, forming a fundamental part of the cultural system that should inform and instruct individuals throughout their lives.
• Communication and Connection: Music is regarded as one of the greatest communication instruments humans have ever designed. It allows one's rhythm and vibration to operate at a frequency that can find unity with another's rhythm and vibration, fostering connection and attraction.
• Infusion of Spiritual Power: African Americans infused their spiritual power and essence into everything, including music and religion like Christianity. This "blackified" or "jazzed up" approach meant taking what was received and transforming it with African essence, making it uniquely theirs.
• "African Conversation": Jazz is cited as a prime example, described as an "African conversation" held between different musicians, where each instrument, and even the vocalist, converses with each other and the audience. This collective experience is often referred to as "soul".
• Stimulating Vibration and Communion: Practices like "shouting" in the black church, though called by a Christian term, were fundamentally African dance steps. These rhythms stimulated and caused vibrations in the body, leading to a higher communion with divinity. This allowed African people to hide and manifest their African essence and spirit within the sanctuary of the church.
• Manifestation and Intent: Music, along with thought and word, carries intent. Reverend Ike's teachings on calling things into being are linked to simple African practices (like voodoo and Yoruba practices) that utilize vibration, voice, and intent to manifest desires.
• Accessing Ancestral Knowledge and Language: The right rhythm, song, vibration, and even temperature can bring ancient attitudes and languages (speaking in tongues) into being. These are said to be embedded in the cellular memory and genetics from ancestors, allowing a person to speak a language they've never consciously heard.
• Intergenerational Transmission: During Christian church initiation rituals, such as the "morning bench," families sang their own rhythms and songs over their children. This practice served as an intergenerational transmission of vibrations and rhythm patterns, creating an environment where individuals could experience a "possession" or "catching the Holy Ghost," which Small identifies as an African practice.
• Healing and Optimization: Music and specific herbs can influence one's vibration and rhythm to operate at an optimal level, preventing others from tampering with one's energy and causing harm.
"The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon over the course of the Pandemic, and was a chance to give their creative friends the ability to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted for release on the label.
The music had to be great and able to be presented as a stand alone album – like the best “Music Library” releases of the past, on labels like Italy’s Sermi, Germany’s Bruton, France’s MP2000 and the UK’s DeWolfe. And, like those albums, it had to work as easy, one-stop clearance for background cues in film and television production and, as producers have been indulging since the 1990s, for sampling.
The series contains 12 releases by DJ Muggs, Karriem Riggins, J-Zone, the Heliocentrics’ Malcolm Catto and Jake Ferguson, JJ Whitefield of Karl Hector/Whitefield Brothers/Poets of Rhythm, Motif Alumni and Music Research Library, Mario Luciano of Polyphonic Music Library, Henkel, Gabriel Rowland of Los Yesterdays, Dan Hastie and Terin Ector of Orgone, Dan Ubick and Joe Harrison
The albums will be released on the Madlib Invazion Bandcamp on the first Friday of each month over the course of one year. Listen, ponder, repeat." - Madlib Invazion
Personnel:
Drums: Jakob Thu, Sam Davids, Igor Zhukovsky
Bass: Karl Hector
Keyboards: Essatu Baraki
Saxophone, Flute: Wolfi Schlick
Vibraphone: Getachew Atya
Guitar, Sitar, Bamboo Flute, Synth: JJ Whitefield
Viola, Violin, String Arrangements: Thomas Lea
Let the joy, spirit and heritage of Africa bless your soul in the sounds of Miriam Makeba. This one from 1970 happens to be one of the funkiest and soulful of her catalog, and carries a tone that's similar to David Axelrod productions. Although he wouldn't work with Makeba 'til '74 as a string arranger on "A Promise", this album carries the funky fusion and emotion that David is known for. Put that distinct sound together with joyful African musical influences and you get the beautiful journey that is "Keep Me In Mind".
Enjoy the album and head over to Bandcamp or Spotify to stream more of Miriam's albums.
With their 2016 release of Bandcamp album streams, PMG Austria provides an extensive look into how The Motherland got down during the 1970's as various bands fused traditional African musical influences with various style of Funk which was becoming popular in America at the time.
For more gems in the PMG label, visit their catalog here at Juno Records
Feel the pinch of the death nerve as UK band The Sorcerers merge the upbeat Funk and mysterious elements of Ethio-Jazz with the drama, thrill and suspense of European soundtracks from the 70's. The Sorcerer takes World music down a dark path as a group of musicians draw from Africa's ethnic roots of musical expression for a new and exciting sound.
Formed by guitarist Pete Williams and bassist Neil Innes and featuring Drummer Joost Hendrickx, Pianist Johnny Richards & multiple-instrumentalist Richard Ormrod. The band was conceived after writing and producing some Ethio inspired music intended for release as a 7" single. The music garnered such a popular response that they developed the sound further before recording the debut album.
South Africa's celebrated multi-platinum selling guitarist, pianist, composer and producer Don Laka launches his most exciting musical project to date with the joyful "Afro Chopin". In Laka's inimitable Kwaii Jazz style he fuses South African Jazz and the chord structures and rhythms of Marabi and Kwela music with Chopin’s most inspiring compositions.
For the launch of his new project, Afro Chopin, Don Laka explains the concept and history of Kwaai Jazz and how it developed.
Sparked by shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri, singer Carleen Anderson and keyboardist producer Ahmed Sirour each express feelings of mourning, reflection and social consciousness through music. "Grains of Dust" composed, written and sung by Carleen for the Welsh National Opera is a powerful voice of hope and frredom which is driven by inspiring and uplifting African music, featuring the percussive instruments by Crispin Luke Robinson.
Ahmed Sirour's somber mood on "BLACK REQUIEM (Cristo Redentor)" borrows inspiration from the late/great Donald Byrd's Jazz classic "Cristo Redentor" (from 1963). This new subtle rendition is a great fit to project many feelings which he and others have inside as they reflect upon the past and present social problems of America.
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