Martín Perna | |
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Born | 1975 (age 48–49) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
Education | New York University, B.A.; University of Texas-Brownsville, M.Ed., |
Occupation(s) | educator, multidisciplinary artist |
Years active | 1996- |
Known for | Founder, Antibalas, Founding Member Dap-Kings, Founder, GO! Passport, Founder Ocote Soul Sounds |
Website |
Martin Perna is an educator and multidisciplinary artist living in Berkeley, California. [1]
Perna founded the musical groups Antibalas [2] and Ocote Soul Sounds, [3] and has written for and/or recorded with TV on the Radio, Santigold, Toro y Moi, Sharon Jones, Jovanotti, Scarlett Johansson, Baaba Maal, Angelique Kidjo, David Byrne, the Whitefield Brothers, the Daktaris, No Surrender, Apsci, Architecture in Helsinki, and many other groups. [4] [5] [6]
In 2021 he received his first Grammy nomination for Best Global Music album for his co-production, arranging and performance work on the Antibalas album Fu Chronicles on Daptone Records. [7]
In 2022, he composed and performed the soundtrack for the PBS American Masters documentary "Roberta" about singer Roberta Flack, directed by Antonino D'Ambrosio [8]
He is author of the children's book BLACKOUT! about the 2003 Northeast Power blackout, published in 2006 by Magic Propaganda Mill and illustrated by New York Times best-selling illustrator Ricardo Cortés. [9]
An apprentice of earth architecture master Nader Khalili Perna also practices superadobe architecture and has created works in Michoacán, Mexico, and Austin, Texas. [10]
In 2018, in collaboration with poet Roger Reeves and members of Antibalas, he set to music works by student poets at Miami Edison High School and performed the works together with the students and members of Spam All Stars at the North Miami Beach Bandshell as part of the O Miami Poetry Festival. [11]
In 2020, he performed the music for "Fourth of July", narrated by actor/spoken word artist Daveed Diggs, and written by Safia Elhillo, Danez Smith, Lauren Whitehead, W. Kamau Bell, Angel Nafis, Idris Goodwin, Pharoahe Monch, Camonghne Felix, and Nate Marshall, inspired by Frederick Douglass's historic speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" [12]
In 2023 he collaborated with visual artist Courtney Desiree Morris on the performance art piece "Sopera de Yemaya: Bendición" as part of the "Remedios" show at C3A in Cordoba, Spain. [13] [14]
Afrobeat is a West African music genre, fusing influences from Nigerian and Ghanaian music, with American funk, jazz, and soul influences. With a focus on chanted vocals, complex intersecting rhythms, and percussion, the style was pioneered in the 1960s by Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who popularised it both within and outside Nigeria. At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most "challenging and charismatic music performers."
Antibalas is an American, Brooklyn-based afrobeat band founded in 1998 by Martín Perna. Initially inspired by Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band and Eddie Palmieri's Harlem River Drive Orchestra, the music generally follows the musical architecture and language of afrobeat and incorporates elements of jazz, funk, dub, improvised music, and traditional drumming from Cuba and West Africa.
Daptone Records is a funk and soul independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Best known as the home of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Charles Bradley, the label boasts a roster which includes Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, The Sugarman 3, and Antibalas, and runs the recording studio Daptone's House of Soul.
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap Dippin' in 2002, the first of seven studio albums. Their 2014 album Give the People What They Want was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Following Sharon Jones' death in 2016, the band released the posthumous album Soul of a Woman in 2017 and a compilation of cover songs in 2020.
Ropeadope Records is an American record label known for recordings in a variety of genres including jazz, hip hop, gospel, and electronic music. The label, now led by Louis Marks, was founded in 1999 by Andy Hurwitz in New York City and later moved to Philadelphia.
The Daktaris, whose name means "doctors" in Swahili, were a funk and Afrobeat studio project from Brooklyn. After recording the album some of its members have gone on to be part of the Dap Kings and Antibalas and features veteran Cameroonian drummer Jojo Kuo on drums, vocals, and percussion. The name of the group was inspired by the TV show Daktari, an American family drama series that aired on CBS between 1966 and 1969, a fictional Study Center for Animal Behavior in East Africa.
Nicholas Anthony Movshon is an American bass guitarist, drummer and songwriter, best known for his considerable contributions to the New York funk and soul revival. A frequent contributor to the recorded output of Brooklyn-based labels Daptone Records and Truth & Soul, he has spent the past two decades playing with Charles Bradley, Lee Fields, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and as a member of groups including Antibalas, Menahan Street Band, and El Michels Affair. He is also a founding member of The Arcs and has toured with The Black Keys.
The Budos Band is an American instrumental band from Staten Island, New York, formed in 2005. AllMusic describes the group as a "doom rock Afro-soul big band with a '70s touch" that joins "musical universes from trippy psychedelia and Afro-funk to '70s hard rock and late-'60s soul." They have described themselves as "70's Psychedelic Instrumental Music," and "Afro-soul inspired by Ethiopian music with a soul undercurrent" and "sprinkled a little bit of sweet 60's stuff on top." One reviewer described the band as “sounding as if Quentin Tarantino was the music supervisor for a Bond film". Their more recent albums have incorporated sounds from 1970s jazz, funk, Afro-Beat, underground rock, and proto-metal. They have been signed to Daptone Records throughout their career.
Kokolo, also known as the Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra, is an American Afrobeat band from the Lower East Side of New York City, formed in 2001 by songwriter/producer Ray Lugo.
Stuart D. Bogie is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and music producer. Originally from Evanston, Illinois, Bogie became a staple in the Brooklyn music scene.
Victor Axelrod is an American musician, producer, and audio engineer from Brooklyn, New York. Since the mid-1990s, he has worked primarily in the genres of reggae, Afrobeat and soul, recording and producing under his own name and using the alias Ticklah.
Gabriel Roth, also known as Bosco Mann among other aliases, is an American record producer, musician, and co-founder of Daptone Records. He is best known as the bandleader, bass player, primary songwriter, and producer of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. A prolific recording engineer, he runs Daptone Studios in Brooklyn and Penrose Studios in Riverside, California.
The Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra is a Leeds-based afrobeat band that takes its influence from Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band amongst many others. Although their music uses Afrobeat rhythm and language, they also owe part of their sound to the space Jazz pioneers of the 1970s and the free jazz trailblazers of the 1960s. The band have been quoted as crediting James Brown and Tony Allen for having a large influence on their music.
Michael Wagner, sometimes credited as Menashe Yaakov and Don Bonus, is an American musician and producer based in Long Beach, New York. He played on many early Daptone Records releases and, with bands The Daktaris and Antibalas, helped inspire new interest in Nigerian funk and afrobeat music in America during the late nineties. After becoming a Hasidic Jew in 2004, he returned to New York and formed several bands with musicians in the local Jewish community, most notably the hardcore punk band Moshiach Oi!.
Jordan McLean is a New York City-based composer, arranger, bandleader, trumpeter, producer and educator. McLean has been active in the professional music world since 1995.
Ray Joseph Lugo is an American musician. Singing in English and Spanish, Lugo is internationally known for his prolific output and diverse solo work, as well as for leading the groups Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra, Ray Lugo & The Boogaloo Destroyers and other projects.
Fu Chronicles is the seventh studio album by American band Antibalas. Written and conceptualized by lead singer Duke Amayo. Arranged and co-produced by Antibalas founder Martin Perna and bassist/founding member Gabriel Roth, the album was recorded at the Daptone House of Soul in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the summer of 2018 and later released on February 7, 2020 on Daptone.
Retro soul, sometimes written as retro-soul, is a post-modern and contemporary popular music genre that emerged years after the golden era of soul music. In style of singing, arrangement and recording techniques, this music attempts to offer new music in the tradition of soul music from the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s. This differs from soul music, Contemporary R&B and neo soul as it is intentionally produced in a vintage recording sound and style years after the original era.
Franklin Stribling, professionally known as Binky Griptite, is an American guitarist, record producer, and radio DJ. He is best known as a founding member and guitarist of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Soul Providers, and Antibalas, among other Daptone Records-related projects. From 2017 to 2021, he hosted the weekly radio program The Boogie Down on WFUV.
(Abraham) "Duke" Amayo is a Nigerian musician, composer, singer, and former frontman of the Afrobeat band Antibalas for 23 years.