In less than two years, Habibi Funk stood out among the many specialized labels in reissues, publishing some unknown but fabulous pearls. Both Ahmed Malek and Fadoul LP’s have become classics in any collection. It is time to tell the story of the mind behind all this work: the Berliner DJ Jannis Stüerz.

When did you start digging records?
Well I guess it depends where you draw the line between « digging » and just buying records. Either way when I was 15 I did a 3 weeks school internship at a Cologne based record store called Groove Attack. I guess this was the key moment for me to get into buying vinyl records. In my early 20’s I used to travel a lot and even back then I always had an interest in exploring the 1970’s music scene of the countries I travelled to, be it India, Indonesia or Thailand. I guess my digging focus was always pretty international.

What LP’s did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
The first vinyl album I ever bought was ‘Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Blackstar’. I haven’t listened to it for a while but I’m sure I would still like it. Kinda classic album.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
No, not really. My taste is pretty versatile so I can’t really single out a style and/or period. I like 1960’s-1980’s stuff but at the same time I listen to a broad selection of contemporary stuff. I can easily go from some obscure arabic funk to Kaytranada within 5 minutes.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
More then ever I would say, but pretty much only in North Africa and the Middle East. I’m pretty focused on Arabic music these days which I don’t really find in Europe with the expiation of Paris maybe. At the same time this is what I’m trying to focus on when it comes to buying records with the expiation of a new release here and there that I like.

What was your first release on Habibi Records?
Dalton. It’s a Tunisian band that played a mixture of soul and funk and unfortunately only released one 7”. The A-side is a kind of funky Arabic language sung track while the flip side is an english lyrics modern soul kinda track. Both very different but equally great. One of the nicest 45’s ever from the region for my taste. The first reissue we started working on was the Fadoul LP but finding the family took really quite a bit while finding the band leader of Dalton took literally 5 minutes as I managed to find him thru his name being added to the Facebook search.

Soul Brother by Dalton

Why did you choose this name: Habibi Records?
After I started buying Arabic records around 3 years ago I put some of the music together in mixes. At some point blogs started to pick it up and a dutch blog called moovmt.com used this term. We liked it and thought it was kinda catchy and used it in press releases and whatnot. Back then there was not a label but a lot of people seemed to relate to it so we just ended up using it when we started the label.

What could be your editorial/esthetic line?
Well Habibi Funk is an artificial genre that historically never existed but at the same time it’s what our editorial decisions are based upon. Basically we’re looking for Arabic music that fused local influences with other influences coming from abroad, be it Funk, Jazz, Coladera or old school Hip Hop. In the end it’s the same formula we have been using for Jakarta Records since 10 years. We release the music we like. Sounds cheesy but it’s pretty much what all our editorial decisions are based upon.

Did you have any references labels for reissues?
Hmm, I guess we like the labels in that field that everyone liked. Analog Africa, Awesome Tapes From Africa, Numero Group…… But we didn’t really look at either one of them as a blueprint for our label. We are new to doing reissues but we took a lot of the experiences we made by running Jakarta Records. One thing that was important to us was to give as much context as possible with each release. Liner notes, photos, whatever we can find and what makes sense, something that most of the aforementioned labels are really good at too.

How do you work with Jakarta? How could it helps you for these projects, pretty much obscure?
The fact that we run Jakarta since 10 years helps a lot. We know where to manufacture, we know how distribution works, we already got PR contacts. It basically means we already have a set up we can work with and that has been working for some years now. I can imagine starting a reissue label from scratch and having to learn all of these things while doing all of the research needed for reissues is quite a challenging task.

Bringing much editorial care information for each project, is it one way to stand out from a lot of reissues? And how much time is needed to prepare each record?
I think a lot of label do a great job at this too. Basically we want to create products that we could also like to buy as a consumer and additional content that goes beyond the music is a key essential. Obviously this requires quite some work. Putting out a Habibi Funk record definitively takes a lot longer then a Jakarta release, the key aspect most of the time though is how long it takes us to find the artist behind the music. But obviously it doesn’t stop there. Finding some photos for the Fadoul reissue took us like 6 month too but this was an extreme case, often it all becomes more easy once we manage to find the artist.

Bob by Fadoul

The Fadoul LP is in the raw funk style as the 45’s of Dalton more in a modern soul style. Do you think those musics tell a part of the history of these countries, often unknown?
A lot of the bands that catch our interest are even in their home countries nearly forgotten about. That’s definitively the case for the two you mentioned, so yes, it definitively tells a part of the musical history. Luckily quite a large percentage of our following and media coverage comes from the region so it’s nice to know that we play a little part in getting the young generation there to be interested in diggin’, old music and whatnot.

And do you think that those productions are still very «modern»?
I don’t know wether they sound very modern, I never thought of either one of them through that angle. We have another release coming up by a group from Egypt called Al-Massrieen. These guys sound really modern to me. Some of the productions have kind of a beat production feel despite the fact they’re from the late 1970’s.

It seems there’s a new trend for oriental music (think project like french Acid Arab), do you feel this trend?
Yeah. I think in general there is always a desire to listen to new stuff and this triggers people searching for sounds they’re not familiar with. At the same time a lot of the interesting musical releases of the last 50 years have gotten a fair share of attention and currently a lot of the music from the Arabic world is getting some hype be it in it’s original form or as a source for samples the way Acid Arab uses them.

By publishing this type of LP, is it a way of fighting against the post-colonial prejudices of world music?
The post colonial aspect is definitively something we’re trying to keep in mind when dealing with our releases. We’re trying to make sure to make deals with the artists and/or families that are very fair (we split all profits 50/50 after paying an advance) but it’s also relevant for our communication, e.g. we’re trying to have the posts we consider important on our social media channels in arabic too. In general I think it helps being conscious and aware of the fact that a european label dealing with Arabic musicians entails some special requirements and perceptions. That doesn’t mean that occasionally we also end up in these type of discussions. Funny enough usually people critical about what we do are white europeans, I rarely have heard something of this nature from people I meet in the region.

You are working on a second volume dedicated to Fadoul … This time, over 80’s… Still very surprising? What sounds we will have the pleasure to discover ?
We did a lot of research for Fadoul. He’s kind of a ghost. He lived in various places, changed his band set up very frequently so nobody seems to have a lot of informations. We’re always just gathering bits and pieces. But everyone seemed to agree that he didn’t make music in the 1980s until earlier this year Tony Day, a moroccan singer and friend of his mentioned him trying out rap music. Two month later an algerian collector offered us to buy a Fadoul tape from the 1980’s. Let’s say he changed his sound a lot, trying out dub and early forms of rap. Quite an astonishing find.

La Ville Part 2

An unreleased experimental tape

Ahmed Malek is a real discovery for many. How did you «meet» this composer? What touched you in his music?
Mr. Malek passed more then 10 years ago so unfortunately I did never meet him in person. At some point somehow I learned about the music and liked it instantly. It’s jazzy and funky but at the same time has this specific type of melancholia that you have in a lot of Algerian music. I asked some people about his family but nothing really came out of it. Last year in winter I played a DJ gig in Beirut and I spoke to a friend of mine about the music and she offered to ask her one friend from Algeria. A couple of weeks later she called me and it turned out that her algerian’s friends family was the neighbor of Mr. Malek’s daughter. After I told the story of finding her to his daughter she said she was certain that her father made it happen from heaven which given the odds of something like this happening sounds like a legit answer.

You work closely with his family, in fact his daughter. What was her reaction to your idea to reissue the works of his father?
She was very happy to hear someone from outside of Algeria was interested in her fathers music and she supported us a lot with everything we needed. She said she’s sure her father would have loved to see the release we did and that he would have been very happy about it.

You have a new project on Ahmed Malek, scheduled for December. A treasure chest opened by his daughter… Can you tell us more?
We visited Henia, one of the two daughters of Ahmed Malek, in Algeria in spring. We had already finished preparing the release and she had sent us a lot of great material but only when we meet in Algier she mentioned those big old tapes that were collecting dust and that surely nobody could use anymore. It was maybe 30-35 master tapes, mostly unreleased music. We will make at least 2 more albums from them. One will be in a similar vein as our first reissue but a bit broader when it comes to sounds and styles and to our surprise Mr. Malek played a lot with synth and early electronics. Three hours of the material was of that nature. Avantgarde electronics, ambient sounds. This album will drop in winter. It was coproduced by german producer Flako who has a passion for this type of sound and managed to break down the raw material that often felt more like ideas / jams to something that works as an album without changing the essence of the material.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LP’s, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
So far only for a beautiful lebanese release. But I’m not gonna put the name out because I wanna take another shot at it further down the line!

Ebda Mn Gded by Al Massrieen


 

Nowadays, there are many LP labels who follow this model, I mean more quality even if it’s more expensive… but in same time, there are also another «new» LP market, with major companies come-back and other labels, who prefer to sell cheaper. Is it the (re)creation of two camps for the LP?
I don’t know. I mean I understand that some releases cost more. Be it because of extensive liner notes, paste on cover, gatefold or whatever. But if a new LP costs 40 euros I just don’t get it. It kind of feels like a desperate attempt in squeezing every last euro out of the booming vinyl market. I feel like the labels that do this will be the first to stop manufacturing vinyl again once the bubble bursts.

There are more and more reissues of old LP’s, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
I think the current vinyl hype is pretty close to it’s peak. I don’t think people in general will stop buying vinyl but I don’t think the current hype with new labels, new record stores, vinyl being a lifestyle accesory will last for much longer. Right now it’s « cool » to buy records, go digging and whatnot which is really great. But as usual with trends a certain part of the people now interested in it will move on to new hobbies. At the same time I see a new generation of young people in the Arabic world getting into all of that right now. I spend a lot of time traveling in the area and I can really feel the change. Three years ago all locals vinyl collectors were old man and lately there is a new generation of young girls and guys who start getting into it which is really nice to see. On the trips this year I get messages on Facebook and I go digging with people I never met. This is something that didn’t happen when I started doing it.

What are your other next releases?
We have a couple of reissues lined up and licensed for the next year or so. The early material of the Golden Hands from Morocco, Sharhabeel Ahmed from Sudan, Al Massrieen from Egypt, two more albums at least by Ahmed Malek, another one by Fadoul, Carthago which will drop next and we’re also working on a compilation. We’re also working on a couple of other releases where we have not signed agreements yet but we definitively already have the next 10 releases planned.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
Maybe not a dream LP but the one I mentioned as the one where we got turned down is definitely high on the list ! For now I have to keep the name to myself not to bring too much attention to it. Hahaha…

Check his Top5 here

Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. This month, Frederic Thiphagne, the soul ((with Matthieu Hébrard) behind the Sao Paulo based Goma Gringa label which recently reissued the infamous Tribo Masahi LP but is also well-known for spreading the works of highly-acclaimed new acts such as Meta Meta and Thiago Franca.

When did you start digging records?
I first started buying cassettes and CDs as a kid/teenager around 1995. I was looking for French Hip Hop like IAM, NTM, Oxmo Puccino, etc… I now regret I did not buy those on vinyl from the start! Then I spent some time listening to UK Big Beat. I remember very well of those Future Sound of UK compilations, Freestylers, Lo-Fidelity All Stars, Propellerheads, Chemical Brothers, etc… I quickly got back to Hip Hop and started buying vinyl records. I guess it was in he early 2000s.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
I was buying almost exclusively Hip Hop or Hip Hop related stuff. Classic 90’s Hip Hop and Turntabilist/Electro like Quantum Projects, Ninja Tune releases, etc… I cannot really remember what was the very first LP I bought but I can remember very well of that trip I made to Amsterdam with my good friend Remy. I was doing BMX Flatland and there was a very important competition happening in Amsterdam. So we went there by bus and checked the record stores! I can still feel how exited I was when I first entered the Fat Beats shop! They had everything I was looking for! But the 2 LPs I still have and still listen to from time to time were ‘O.S.T.’ by People Under The Stairs and ‘Bombay The Hard Way’ by Dan the Automator and DJ Shadow.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
I try not to have any boundaries since I believe that every single musical style/period has great stuff to be listened to. Yet, I am currently very much into 50s and early 60s recordings, especially from the French West Indies and Brazil. I am digging a lot into 78rpm! I love them! I deeply love the way those recordings sound, the voices, the horns. It is the only music that really relaxes me at night, with a glass of wine or a fresh beer after a good day of work. Actually, It also works with Jazz and African music‚ but right now I am really into those 50’s sound!

Since you made a move to Sao Paulo, are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Yes of course! I mean, when work gives me enough time to do so!

Why did you create Goma Gringa Discos? What was your first release?
Well, the point is that when I arrived in Sao Paulo, contemporary record labels like Jazzman, Soundway, Analog Africa were absolutely not represented here. You couldn’t find any releases from those labels. So I started importing them and created Goma Gringa. I quickly met Matthieu who told me of his wish to eventually enter the business. We became partners and created the label together. Then we realized that instead of racking our brains with import red tape (It is really complicate to import goods to Brazil), we should build a record label and press records here instead of importing them. Everything stemmed from that idea! Then we quickly wanted to make our own record instead of simple replicas of what was being released in Europe. Six months later we released our first LP, the extended version of Fela Kuti’s ‘Sorrow, Tears and Blood’!

Why did you choose this name : Goma Gringa Discos?
That name appeared while I was importing records. Goma laca is the name given to the material used for 78rpm records. So the word “Goma” refers to records. And “Gringo” is the “popular” word for foreigner. The combination of both words represented not only my character but also the records I was dealing with since they were being imported. The funny thing is that “Goma” in Brazilian Portuguese can also mean “Home” : “Vem pra goma!” means “Come home”! And I was selling my records mainly from home so it was still matching! When it turned into a label, we decided to keep that name.

What could be your editorial/aesthetic line?
We opened the label with 2 editorial lines. We now have 3 which are the African music from the 60’s/70’s, the Brazilian contemporary music and reissues of Brazilian music from the 60’s and 70’s.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues/issues? For instance The Fela and Poly-Rytmo LPs?
Well, we wanted to have as a first release an African LP. Since Fela is very-well considered here it was the best starting point we could have dreamt of! Then we made the Poly-Rythmo record which is actually a compilation of Analog Africa compilations. This project is the perfect illustration of what we intended to do in Brazil; Brazilian versions of European label releases.

Could you tell us more about the story behind Tribo Massahi : how did you discover it? Who are they? Are they still alive?
From what we have found until now, only one musician is still alive, the guitarist Ruy Barbosa. Embaixador has unfortunately passed away on the 27th of December 1996. They were a band like any other I would say. I mean, they have that very specific sound to them but apart from that, they were like any other band, playing and looking for more gigs! There was a lot of urban legends around this record, like for example that they were a band of Nigerian musicians that Embaixador would have met some night and that they would had gone to a studio and spent the night there, getting high and finally recording a one take record. None of those stories are true. If you want to know the truth, the easiest way is to grab a copy!

Where do you place them within your catalogue? In the middle, between your Afro Tropism and your Brazilian moods?
Yes, It’s an Afro-Brazilian record. It links both continents. So It was a perfect start to open that Brazilian reissue series!

What is the best deal/business: to make reissues or to produce/coproduce new records?
I think that there is no best deal when you talk about an independent record label. What moves us in the very first place is the love of music and some kind of necessity to make things happen! For us at Goma Gringa, every single penny won is reinvested in the label and in new projects. Mathieu is working as a teacher and myself as a Designer/Art Director.

How do you find brand new talents? On the internet? On stage? Through friends?
I guess like everyone, by being curious. But we have the chance to be surrounded by the amazing Sao Paulo music scene. The musicians are all friends and work with each other. Every single project is great and interesting! I am talking about Meta Meta (Kiko Dinucci, Juara Marcal and Thiago Franca), Rodrigo Campos, Romulo Fres, Marcelo Cabral, Gui Amabis, etc… They are all amazing musicians and singers! We sincerely feel blessed to evolve with them and release their records!

You have released records by Meta Meta and their saxophonist Thiago Franca. What do they represent within the Brazilian scene? How would you explain their success in Europe?
Well everyone calls them the new Sao Paulo Avant Garde scene. It is a bit pretentious, and I don’t think that they really like to be named like this. But that is what they actually are! I mean, a new scene, a new generation of musicians, connected to one another and producing their very own music, without copying what is happening here and there. And since they are all excellent musicians, singers, composers, etc, the result is a very unique sound, very genuine music. Their music! I mean, you cannot find the Meta Meta sound anywhere else. It is just them! And it is incredibly good, deep, beautiful and honest. They deeply are what they play. I guess that is why they are now finding success both in Brazil and in Europe.

Meta Meta trio: Kiko Dinucci, Juçara Marcal and Thiago Franca

What is the most exciting part when being given an artwork job? How do you go about it? What is your most accomplished project in that aspect?
To think of it along with the graphic production. Printing process, paper, finishing, etc… That is what excites me the most nowadays! And that is a space where I getting lot of satisfaction. I am a former photographer. I have always had one foot in music and the other in image, trying to make both meet. So all this graphic production part is a real pleasure to me! I am happy with all our projects, except maybe for Fela. It was nice but could have been better. It was our first project, no problem!
There are two things I am particularly proud of. First is to have been able to produce hard-cardboard paste-one covers here in Brazil. The first we did was Thiago Franca’s ‘Malagueta, Perus e Bacana’ LP. He really looks gorgeous and it is the first cover of that type to be produced in Brazil in 50 years! Now we even have several versions of that hard-cardboard cover!The other project is the Poly-Rythmo cover! That one was mad! 100% typographic print! Which means mounting letter by letter each word, each element of the cover using the exact same technics that were used in the 60s and 70s. We decided to do this for 2 reasons, first because I had just discovered those LetterPress techniques so I was eager to work with that and because I had as a graphic reference a Poly Rythmo 7 inch printed using that same technique. We did everything! Mounting the types, we made what we called a ‘cliché’ to print the picture and we even input the text on the back cover with Linotype! Probably the last machine still having a commercial activity in Sao Paulo… That was so great! This machine is like the very first Twitter. It produces lines of text. So, in the early 20th century, when it first appeared, it was a revolution within the newspaper world! From “line per hour” the speed moved to “line per minute”. So everything got way faster! It then allowed newspapers to have morning and evening editions. Back in those days, the New York Times had 400 of those machines! So, yes, this project was so great and so cool and the result is really quite unique!

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Well, our logo is Goma Gringa Discos “musica com sotaque” which means “Music with accent”. So I guess this is quite our leitmotif since we are looking for good music with a special foreign touch, that special accent that make it unique.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs you were trying to reissue?
Actually, we have the chance of living in Brazil, where none of those contemporary labels are available. So we do not represent any kind of competitive threat to anyone. This helped us a lot! That is basically why we were able to release the Fela or Poly-Rythmo LPs. Actually, the only negative answer we have received so far was for a record controlled by Universal who don’t license to anybody. A pity since they barely one third of the titles they control.

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
No, I don’t think so. There are more and more reissue and record labels also because there are more and more buyers. I think that there are several niches inside the niche market of vinyl records. I think It’s good and important that the music is being made available on vinyl again. And that goes from super classics to rare obscure and special records.

What are your next releases?
Many contemporary Brazilian records planned. The new Thiago Franca has just been released. Then we have Juçara Marçal’s ‘Encarnado’ and the new Rodrigo Campos planned! For the rest, you will have to stay tuned!

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
Ahaha! I will let you know when I will have signed and ready to be re-issued! I don’t know, maybe a French West Indies compilation of the early recordings done there (late 50’s/60’s). That would be really cool…

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