Mausiki Scales - WestWest Africa (2020)
BAND/ARTIST: Mausiki Scales
- Title: WestWest Africa
- Year Of Release: 2020
- Label: Tippin' da Scales Music
- Genre: afrobeat, funk, jazz, fusion, new orleans blues
- Quality: FLAC lossless
- Total Time: 80 min
- Total Size: 502 MB
- WebSite: Album Preview
Mausiki Scales’ creative and fearlessly explorative work tills new soil in the vast gardens of 21st-century jazz. Delivering a fresh project that seeks to give voice to those who have historically been voiceless, Scales draws inspiration from legendary musician and anti-apartheid activist Hugh Masekela. The renowned South African trumpeter addressed a crowd during Atlanta’s 2008 National Black Arts Festival using the term West-West Africa (WWA) to describe the concert atmosphere as it transformed into an artist/audience co-created “ritual space.” Masekela’s usage of the phrase signified a shared cultural zone functioning as a bridge connecting Africa and the Diaspora. According to Scales, the WWA concept eloquently captured the mood at that moment and seeded itself within him.
The seed implanted in Scales has since flowered into WESTWEST AFRICA, a Diasporic creation story told through music. This album is an ode to the inventive spirit of America’s early West African forebearers who endured the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Those ancestors who survived the harrowing middle passage and landed on the Atlantic Ocean’s western shores managed to forge spaces that their progeny have used to navigate life in a strange land, that enabled them to endure, and that fundamentally shaped the Black Ethos. According to African American studies scholar and arts critic Michael Simanga, Scales’ music deeply connects to the “African spirit and the centuries-old exchange of experiences between African people in the Diaspora.” Simanga’s commentary reflects the underlying reality that Scales infuses his work with a lifelong devotion to the study of Black history and culture.
Scales’ engagement with scholarly literature heavily influences his music. He guides listeners on excursions through Malian musical modes. He pays lyrical tribute to primordial African mother deities and offers songs that recognize the sanctity of what activist-artist Amiri Baraka termed “Blues People.” In “Ethiopia Manifest,” Scales references the Biblical passage that supporters of back-to-Africa advocate Marcus Garvey frequently quoted because they believed it prophesied their resurgence and return to their ancestral homeland. WWA beautifully renders the scripture, Psalms 68:31, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hand unto God,” in both English and Amharic.
WESTWEST AFRICA is also a praise song for the late historian, Sterling Stuckey. Stuckey’s philosophies on the influence of African culture in identity formation among enslaved people of African descent inform Scales’ musical expression. Stuckey’s legacy bears fruit in WWA as the compositions travel a circular path through various musical genres and global regions. Via Afrobeat, Funk, jazz-fusion, spoken word, and New Orleans Blues from Guinea to Atlanta and back, Scales takes listeners on a virtual “ring shout.” Like Stuckey’s work, Scales’ musical tour circuits the Atlantic World. In essence, Scales’ expeditions allow him to deliver listeners a musical harvest in the form of an African/Diasporic sonic history.
Tracklist:
1.01 - Mausiki Scales - The Solution (7:32)
1.02 - Mausiki Scales - Kaleidoscopic Universe (4:40)
1.03 - Mausiki Scales - First Nanas (5:16)
1.04 - Mausiki Scales - Where the Sun Comes Up (6:03)
1.05 - Mausiki Scales - Amplify (4:47)
1.06 - Mausiki Scales - Let the Drum Remind You (4:07)
1.07 - Mausiki Scales - Pass Tradition (6:21)
1.08 - Mausiki Scales - Serenity (4:58)
1.09 - Mausiki Scales - Bantu Beetle (7:41)
1.10 - Mausiki Scales - Mesmerized (4:18)
1.11 - Mausiki Scales - Ethiopia Manifest (5:47)
1.12 - Mausiki Scales - Brother Sister (5:04)
1.13 - Mausiki Scales - Funk Like This (6:43)
1.14 - Mausiki Scales - Mesmerized (Kai Alcé Remix) (5:51)
The seed implanted in Scales has since flowered into WESTWEST AFRICA, a Diasporic creation story told through music. This album is an ode to the inventive spirit of America’s early West African forebearers who endured the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Those ancestors who survived the harrowing middle passage and landed on the Atlantic Ocean’s western shores managed to forge spaces that their progeny have used to navigate life in a strange land, that enabled them to endure, and that fundamentally shaped the Black Ethos. According to African American studies scholar and arts critic Michael Simanga, Scales’ music deeply connects to the “African spirit and the centuries-old exchange of experiences between African people in the Diaspora.” Simanga’s commentary reflects the underlying reality that Scales infuses his work with a lifelong devotion to the study of Black history and culture.
Scales’ engagement with scholarly literature heavily influences his music. He guides listeners on excursions through Malian musical modes. He pays lyrical tribute to primordial African mother deities and offers songs that recognize the sanctity of what activist-artist Amiri Baraka termed “Blues People.” In “Ethiopia Manifest,” Scales references the Biblical passage that supporters of back-to-Africa advocate Marcus Garvey frequently quoted because they believed it prophesied their resurgence and return to their ancestral homeland. WWA beautifully renders the scripture, Psalms 68:31, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hand unto God,” in both English and Amharic.
WESTWEST AFRICA is also a praise song for the late historian, Sterling Stuckey. Stuckey’s philosophies on the influence of African culture in identity formation among enslaved people of African descent inform Scales’ musical expression. Stuckey’s legacy bears fruit in WWA as the compositions travel a circular path through various musical genres and global regions. Via Afrobeat, Funk, jazz-fusion, spoken word, and New Orleans Blues from Guinea to Atlanta and back, Scales takes listeners on a virtual “ring shout.” Like Stuckey’s work, Scales’ musical tour circuits the Atlantic World. In essence, Scales’ expeditions allow him to deliver listeners a musical harvest in the form of an African/Diasporic sonic history.
Tracklist:
1.01 - Mausiki Scales - The Solution (7:32)
1.02 - Mausiki Scales - Kaleidoscopic Universe (4:40)
1.03 - Mausiki Scales - First Nanas (5:16)
1.04 - Mausiki Scales - Where the Sun Comes Up (6:03)
1.05 - Mausiki Scales - Amplify (4:47)
1.06 - Mausiki Scales - Let the Drum Remind You (4:07)
1.07 - Mausiki Scales - Pass Tradition (6:21)
1.08 - Mausiki Scales - Serenity (4:58)
1.09 - Mausiki Scales - Bantu Beetle (7:41)
1.10 - Mausiki Scales - Mesmerized (4:18)
1.11 - Mausiki Scales - Ethiopia Manifest (5:47)
1.12 - Mausiki Scales - Brother Sister (5:04)
1.13 - Mausiki Scales - Funk Like This (6:43)
1.14 - Mausiki Scales - Mesmerized (Kai Alcé Remix) (5:51)
Year 2020 | Jazz | Blues | Funk | World | FLAC / APE
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