Big Audio Dynamite were an English band, formed in London in 1984 by Mick Jones, former lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the Clash. The band mixed various musical styles, incorporating elements of punk rock, dance music, hip hop, reggae, and funk. After releasing a number of well-received studio albums and touring extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Big Audio Dynamite broke up in 1997. In 2011, the band embarked on a reunion tour.
The South African music scene includes both popular (jive) and folk forms like Zulu isicathamiya singing and harmonic mbaqanga. Other popular genres are Marabi, Kwaito, house music, Isicathamiya, Gqom, rock music, hip hop and Amapiano.
NuL is a South African band formed in 1998 by Adriaan Pelzer and Simon Kruger, operating as NuL since 2004. NuL creates Afrikaans EBM/Industrial music, and propagates the free distribution of their music. Apart from conventional CD sales, they distribute all of their music freely on the internet, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs license. The music is seeded directly from their website. They also encourage fans on their website to pirate their CD by making the CD artwork of their first CD available as free downloads.
1200 Techniques are an Australian hip hop group formed in 1997 in Melbourne, Australia, consisting of DJ Peril as producer, percussionist, DJ; N'fa Forster-Jones as lead vocalist and Kemstar as lead guitarist. Whilst primarily being in the genre of hip hip, they drew influences from other genres including rock, funk, soul, electro, drum and bass, electro jazz and breakbeat. They released their debut studio album, Choose One, in March 2002.
The Shamen were a Scottish psychedelic band, formed in 1985 in Aberdeen, who became a chart-topping British electronic dance music act by the early 1990s. The founding members were Colin Angus, Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie. Peter Stephenson joined shortly after to take over on keyboards from Angus. Several other people were later in the band. Angus then teamed up with Will Sinnott, and together they found credibility as pioneers of rock/dance crossover. When rapper Mr. C joined, the band moved on to international commercial success with "Ebeneezer Goode" and their 1992 Boss Drum album.
Old Skull was an American punk rock novelty band that formed in Madison, Wisconsin in the late 1980s. The band was started by ten-year-old J.P. (Jean-Paul) Toulon and his nine-year-old brother, Jamie Toulon, with encouragement from their father Vern Toulon, a longtime member of the Madison punk scene who had spent time in New York City, where he was a guitarist for the industrial band Missing Foundation.
Battery 9, an industrial music project from Johannesburg, South Africa, is the brainchild of Paul Riekert, who writes, plays and records the music in a mixture of English and Afrikaans. The band name is sometimes written, without a space, as Battery9.
Hip hop production is the creation of hip hop music in a recording studio. While the term encompasses all aspects of hip hop music creation, including recording the rapping of an MC, a turntablist or DJ providing a beat, playing samples and "scratching" using record players and the creation of a rhythmic backing track, using a drum machine or sequencer, it is most commonly used to refer to recording the instrumental, non-lyrical and non-vocal aspects of hip hop.
"Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja" is a song by Welsh rock band Lostprophets. The song was released in 2001 as the first single from the band's debut studio album, The Fake Sound of Progress. It was the only charting single on the Billboard charts from the album, and was still on the band's tour setlist until they broke up in 2013.
Lark are a South African glitch electronica band from Cape Town. Formed in 2003, the group consists of Inge Beckmann (vocals), Paul Ressel, Simon "Fuzzy" Ratcliffe, and Sean Ou Tim. They are often cited as "groundbreaking musicians", who were the key contributors to establishing experimental and intelligent dance music in South Africa. Their name has become synonymous with musical experimentalism, and are one of the country's best loved acts. Lark has released 3 studio albums, and won a SAMA for their debut album, Razbliuto!. Their music videos have been consistently met with admiration for their technically ability, and have received two MK Awards.
Birth Through Knowledge were a Canadian rap rock band best known for their 1998 single "Peppyrock." Core members of the group were DJs Stone Groove and Lo-Ki.
Pedicab is a Filipino electronic rock group based in Manila formed in 2004.
Ashton Nyte is a South African-born singer, songwriter, producer, composer, author, actor, and frontman of the gothic rock band The Awakening. Nyte has released seven solo albums, in addition to eleven albums as The Awakening and several other projects and collaborations. He is considered to be a pioneer of alternative music in South Africa, and has been described as "something of a musical genius" for his typical method of composing, playing and recording each instrument himself on most of his releases. Nyte is widely known in South Africa for his chart-topping cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" and several other top singles. His signature style combines baritone vocals, garnering comparisons to David Bowie and Johnny Cash, with instrumentation that ranges from lyric-driven acoustic folk, to alternative rock, to post-punk and electronic music, as well as a penchant for the theatrical. Nyte has been based in the US since 2009.
The Slew is a multinational rock-influenced electronic music project consisting of Canadian turntablist Kid Koala, American producer Dynomite D, and Australian rock musicians Chris Ross and Myles Heskett, formerly of the band Wolfmother.
The xx are an English indie rock band from Wandsworth, London, formed in 2005. The band consists of Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim, Jamie Smith, also known as Jamie xx, and formerly Baria Qureshi. They are known for their distinct and minimalist sound that blends indie rock, indie electronic, indie pop, dream pop and electro-rock and the dual vocalist setup of both Madley Croft and Sim. Their music employs soft, echoed guitar, prominent bass, light electronic beats and ambient soundscape backgrounds.
Dear God, I Hate Myself is the seventh studio album by American indie rock band Xiu Xiu released on February 23, 2010. This is their first album since the departure of Caralee McElroy. The album features new member Angela Seo on piano, synthesizer and drum programming, with production by frontman Jamie Stewart and Deerhoof's Greg Saunier. This album marked a departure from the more analogue styles of Women as Lovers and The Air Force, and shifted stylistic choices to a more chiptune style, utilizing the Nintendo DS' KORG DS-10 software to program drum and synthesizer tracks.
Brasse Vannie Kaap (BVK) was a hip-hop group from the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. They rapped predominantly in the Cape Flats dialect of Afrikaans. The original line-up included Deon Daniels (Boeta-D), Roger Heunis (Hamma), Ashley Titus and Enver Pietersen. Bboys Cheeze, Baby-L and Levi joined the group soon after they started to perform live.
"Shotgun" is a song by American nu metal band Limp Bizkit from their fifth studio album, Gold Cobra (2011). Notable for showcasing the guitar playing of Wes Borland and production by DJ Lethal. Written by Fred Durst, Borland, DJ Lethal, John Otto and Sam Rivers, the song describes sitting at home brandishing a shotgun.
Spoegwolf is an Afrikaans rock band from Paarl, South Africa, founded in 2012. The group consists of Moskou du Toit Chris von Wielligh, Albert van der Merwe, and Danie du Toit.
