| Most
people, when thinking about live Reggae or
even live Dub, would visualize a band on
stage performing a concert. And fair enough,
this is often the case.
But not necessarily, as Mad Professor
proofs in this great video report from his
performance on the UK based Glad Festival in
2006. And rather than a band, he takes his
Ariwa studio on stage! Together with Karl Melody and Roots
Dawta Aisha, he gives the public some
heavyweight DUB and Consciousness as his
hands move over the controls like a mad
professor.
Almost
thirty minutes of pure niceness for the ear,
and for the eye. This concert has been
recorded by students from the Southampton
Institute for Media, who graciously uploaded
the material to the  Internet so that we
could have an almost as good of a time as
they obviously did recording this great
performance. They used several camera's, we
get many close-up's of the mixing board and
the several vocalists as well as other
interesting shots and angles.
Part one starts with Karl Melody,
introducing himself and his partner Joe
Ariwa with a heavy London accent and
suggesting to the public that they too would
introduce themselves to their neighbor. Then
the music starts and Karl Melody performs
some English toast, Ariwa style, while Joe
Ariwa mixes along. Right after that, the Mad
Professor enters stage and starts to mix a
riddim he did with (a recorded) Yabby You, in Discomix
style.
The second part opens up with Mad
Professor introducing singer Aisha, who has
recorded several albums for Ariwa. She
starts singing "Give it to the
Creator", with the well-known vocal
hook used by ambient producer "the
Orb". What follows is a vocal
duet, wherein Aisha and a recorded U Roy
voice over some heavy duty mixing by the Mad
Professor.
In the third and -unfortunately- last
part, the music goes deeper while Aisha's
goes wider up an down, showing what an
incredibly good singer she is. Singing about
Jah protection against the duppies and other
evil forces, with shots of the audience that
feels the vibe increasingly. The sound drops
out for a second, by the way. And there's a
nasty scratch, too.
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