photo(c) Jean SaintJean

Greg de Villanova is a multi-talented french/brazilian character! Fellow digger, heavy collector, tropical DJ, music historian as well as music consultant! But he’s also a label owner at Oriki Music, where he (re)releases the music he loves! Let’s share this wise guy’s opinions on the LP market!

When did you start digging records?
Around 1987-88, digging for rap records when those were badly distributed in Paris.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
Jazz funk and funk classics, first record ever was Herbie Hancock’s ‘Manchild’. I still buy and listen to 70’s classics, those are the real deal, not the super obscure stuff I’ve been collecting for the past 20 years.

Do you have a particular style or favorite period?
60’s hard soul and early 70’s deep funk.

Are you still digging’, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
I dig on a regular basis but not in stores, try to link up with private owners, collectors, buy cheap and in large quantities.

What was your first release on Oriki ?
Orchestre Baobab’s ‘A night at Club Baobab’.

Orchestra Baobab
Souleymane

What could be your editorial/esthetic line?
Afro ! Oriki has 6 African music releases and 2 Afro Brazilians.

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Modernity and beauty are universal.

What is the Oriki LP you are prouder?
Baobab’s : it’s our biggest sales and media hit (about 15.000 copies sold) and it’s surely one of the most consistent African bands of the 70’s, ultimate work .

Did you have any references labels when you started ?
Not at all, I always do my stuff with the heart and don’t buy or listen to reissues. I also barely know what’s being done by other labels.

Do you think the adventures of diggers have changed over time? Do you keep going to the field?
I don’t really know what you mean with the first question, my work as a digger remains the same, go to the field, hunt intensely, discover new stuff, keep eyes and ears wide opened, never give up even if it’s the 10th mistaken lead I’m following.

Your first references were on the West African zone. Is it still easy today to find rare, unedited records?
There is more to do than done, always… Question is how relevant some reissues would be.

Moussa Doumbia
Femme d’aujourdhui

And how do you negotiate with the right owners?
Patiently!

You have released some Brazilian records, and you are known as a great connoisseur of this country. Why not more reissues?
Most of the relevant stuff is owned by majors which don’t allow licensing.

Could we dream to listen on LP the fantastic Obaluayê!?
All dreams are possible, but I won’t do it, worked on that on cd 15 years ago, changing the format is not really challenging, and I need the project to be so to get interested in doing it.

Can you introduce us to the new Ivorian selection? Its particularity, its difference compared to all the others that come out on the market?

I’d say it’s more interesting than most stuff out there for three reasons.
1-It’s super obscure, ultra hard to get and extremely expensive stuff which you can spend years looking for. Most collectors have a very vague notion of how rarer this or that African record is compared to another, the Société Ivoirienne du Disque funky catalogue is simply the ultimate when it comes to French speaking Africa.
2-It’s a coherent compilation focusing on a single label, and more particularly on what could be spotted as a collection within the label, even though it’s never been marketed as such by the producer. Most tracks have the same funk and fusionny, African American music influenced sound, a lot has the same sidemen and / or arrangers.
3-Finally, a lot of the music has that raw and deep funk vibe, completely unique in French speaking Africa, when it was much more common in English speaking Ghana and Nigeria. The compilation focuses, with a few exceptions, on what I consider to be the ultimate in terms of solid deep funk and jazz funk coming out of Ivory Coast.

De Frank Jr
Ayee Menko

Why such a long silence before this come-back ?
Well, the label is my own little dancer, I don’t make profits out of it, which means I need spare time to work on it. I lacked that spare time. Also, when the first releases came out years ago, most didn’t sell enough to cover expenses (I used to buy advertising space in magazines and pay for a press attaché). What customers wanted was the funky stuff and I didn’t specifically focus on that because I thought there was much more interesting stuff to be reissued. Even if this new compilation rocks, most artists included within it have quite anecdotical carriers. Our first reissues focused on heavy weights of modern African music, but I guess Western ears were not ready to leave their funkocentric approach and listen to modern African music for what it is and not for how much it’s been influenced by James Brown or Fela Kuti.

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 companys come-back and other labels, who prefer to sell cheaper. Is it the (re)creation of two camps for the LP ?
Vinyl is trendy, and there are different ways of doing it. Some labels try to make money out of limited quantities, which is impossible, so all they can do is shitty pressings and bootlegs. That really sucks, they should try to get into another business to make profits. Majors have a different, but also opportunistic approach. They sell vinyl records to people who didn’t really give a shit about the format until recently, they just think it’s cool, today, don’t know how long this « coolness » will last. Then there is the passionate, hard working, accurate people doing amazing reissues, deep historical work with consistent liner notes and tracklistings. Those contribute to something bigger than us, universal knowledge and beauty.
But if you’re just into music, you don’t really give a shit about that, all you want is the sound, and from this point of view, anything is good. This discussion is mainly for the passionate professionals, most of the audience is not interested in such considerations.

Sewa Jacintho
Secret Populaire

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 idea at all, but at some point I guess this will happen. Customers into vinyl have limited funds, but I don’t have numbers as to the extent of this market. But frankly, how many thousand copies maximum of a vinyl title are pressed ? Several tens of thousands ? How many people on the planet ? It’s just a drop in the middle of the sea which the music industry is. Mp3 rules.

What are your other next releases ?
No idea yet. Right now I’m in my hammock, recovering from the hassle the last one was with all the boring crap I had to do to put the record out, sending emails, phoning, dealing with pressing, graphic design or digital distribution. If you wanna listen to good obscure stuff, you should come join me in the hammock, we’ll be able to deal with much more music within much lesser time !

What is the LP you dream of issuing/reissuing?
None. Or maybe Nicole Croisille’s debut album. Or any other hard to get French stuff that’s not interesting to grooveaholics nor anyone else. And I’ll get someone deal with the boring part. Need to get rich first though, cause this won’t sell.

http://gregdevillanova.com/mixes

Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. This month, Adamantios Kafetzis, the soul behind the much-respected Teranga Beat label which has become over the past few years the best source for undiscovered Senegalese music gems. The Athens- based digger, label and band manager talks about his singular itinerary in the music business and most astonishing discoveries.
 
 
 

When did you start digging records?
I started buying records when I was 10. Proper digging started I would say when I was around 13 years old.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
In the beginning I was listening to Heavy Metal, I sold almost all those records later & many others that I bought later as they were not my kind of music anymore.

Do you have a particular style or favorite period?
My favorite period is the ’70s, especially in Africa, it is the golden age. In the 70’s the music in Africa & Senegal in particular acquired an identity & it was this hybrid of African rhythms played with the western sound of the ’60s that was magic. For me this kind of music reached the highest level in quality globally, it is the most complete music ever produced in the history of humanity, not only in Senegal but in Mali, Guinea, Congo, Ethiopia.This is the period I am digging through also, although digging in Africa is very difficult nowadays, there are very few records left & the condition is usually not good. Actually I now really enjoy digging in Greece.

Are you still digging’, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Of course, I do not think I will ever stop digging, buying vinyl & visiting record shops. I am a junky, it is an illness. I am trying to stop it sometimes but I never succeed. There are some periods that I do it less but then I start again. You know the feeling : you are walking down town for any reason, you have a bit of money in your pocket, even €10 and you start thinking : ‘should I pass by a record shop?’, I might find a record to buy even at this price and I do not mind if I do not have the money to buy the bus ticket after, I am going to walk home. It was happening every day when I was a kid but it still happens now sometimes.

What was your first release?
My first release was the Idrissa Diop & Cheikh Tidiane Tall – Diamonoye Tiopite, those were re-cordings from the Legendary group Le Sahel from 1969-1976, including 5 unreleased tracks.

Why did you choose this name, Teranga Beat?
My aim was to export Senegalese music & culture the world over, so I wanted the label to have a Senegalese name. I think the Teranga word is something very common in Senegal & reflects the culture of the country.

What could be the editorial/esthetic line?
For me, music is something that is played live. Any music that comes from a studio & cannot be played live is inferior. That is why you have all these Mega Bands in the Western World who produced huge records in studio but cannot really play live. This music was made to make money, propaganda & nothing else.
This is why even on a record I am listening to, I always enjoy it more if it gives me this Live feeling, like Jazz records, I love live recording in a gig or a studio. The way groups were recording the last decades doesn’t say anything to me, I am listening to the sound engineer not the musicians. Music has to be expressive & emotional & the only way to be true to this is to be played Live. African records of ’50s-’80s were recorded this way, This why I like them so much, even if the sound quality is not on top. But in general all the reference recordings in the history of music were recorded live, I believe.

What could be your leitmotif for the label?
To create a nice cultural artifact that will accompany good music. I am very interested in the quality of the production, I want people to be happy and proud to have my releases in their collection. My aim is not just to release music.

Bassirou with tama player

 

Dieuf Dieul de Thies
Na Binta

How do you decide on the choice of reissues ?
Well I am not exactly doing re-issues, I release previously unreleased music. The music I like
mostly is from ’60s-’80s, it is very rare to find something new that I like. But I am interested to find & create albums with new groups; it is just that I haven’t found something that I really like until now.

How did you come across the lost tapes you have been using for your releases? Has it been difficult to clear all the rights ?
I found them in the house of the sound engineer who did all the recordings. Regarding the rights, it was not that difficult because, since they had never been released, most of the rights belonged to the musicians.

Among all the amazing music you have come across on your hunt for lost tapes, what is the most astonishing thing you have heard?
Definitely the Dieuf-Dieul de Thiès, without a doubt.

What is the major difficulty in trying to arrange tours for your bands?
Probably to convince tour agents or venues that it is worthy to spend money for those bands who are not so famous. A group like Dieuf-Dieul has 9 members so the cost for a tour is quite “high”, but on the other hand how many groups around the world can be as impressive & good as them on stage? With the appropriate promotion in my opinion they could be very successful on tour. I think the major difficulty is that venues do not want to take any risk & also they want to make as much profit as they can.

Royal Band de Thies
Hommage à Mbaye Fall

What is the specificity of the Senegalese musical scene compared to other West African countries? What have been the major influences?
First of all I think that, musically, we have to separate Mali, Guinea & Senegal from the rest of the West African countries, as those three share the musical tradition of the Mandingo Empire, so they have something in common. Then, they all have specificities. Senegal’s music is very much influenced by Afro-Cuban music mixed with the traditional rhythms of Sabar, Sawrouba, Boogaraboo & others. The influence of Afro-Cuban music was stronger in Senegal than any other country in Africa, that is probably why Senegal did not have a musical ID until the beginning of the ’70s in its popular music. The blend of Afro-Cuban & Sabar rhythm gave birth to Mbalax which became the more popular music genre & until the beginning of ’80s remained one of the most interesting music ever played on earth in my opinion. Another difference with Mali is that Senegal produced music for the clubs, whilst a big part of the music in Mali was made to be played in the Desert. In general the music from Senegal is complex & difficult, it doesn’t have elements of western music like funk & soul to make it an easy listen, this is why I like it.

There are more and more reissues of old LPs. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
Yes, I think it can happen. The only reason I think it still goes on is because there is no new good music, so people prefer to buy old stuff which is good & the reissues are giving them this opportunity. On the other hand we have many bad quality re-issues which are killing the market with their low prices & labels like mine who produce good quality LPs cannot sell at a price that reflects their real value, so we earn very little money with it, I do not know for how long we will be able to continue like this.

Will you stay into seventies/early eighties Senegalese music in the future or do you plan to dig into other parts of the world ?
No I will not stay only in Senegal, first of all I have already released 2 albums from Gambia, but I am digging in other parts of the world. For example I am already looking for the rights to release something from Ethiopia, I love also Congo’s music but I think there is a lot of stuff that has already come out from there, so I do not know if it is worth releasing more Congolese stuff. Also very soon I will release something from Greece. I am going to focus a lot in the future to release more stuff from Greece. We have a huge discography but a small percentage of it is really good. Another problem in Greece is the rights, all the discography belongs to 3 big labels and they are very difficult to deal with. But I have already found some really killer stuff, sounds that have never ever been heard outside Greece.

What are your next releases ?
Dieuf-Dieul de Thiès ‘Aw Sa Yone Vol.2’.

http://www.terangabeat.com/
 
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Guelewar
Cilss

A great gig after all, in Pikhine