Along with their Dungeon Family siblings Outkast, Goodie Mob represented a high point for socially aware, soulful and street savvy 90s rap. At least until a “ghetto laser tag” related mishap caused member Cee-Lo to exit the group and pursue a lucrative career in recording buzzworthy car commercial music and hanging out with Carlos Santana.

Almost ten years later, the Atlanta quartet is back together and the reunion tour hits Langdon venue The Scene this Saturday. Plus, if the grown man Southern rap quotient wasn’t high enough already, Houston legend and DC’s favorite rapper Scarface is also on the bill as a “very special guest.” Get up, get out and get tickets.

Western pop music, says producer Johan Karlberg, “wouldn’t be the same if we weren’t influenced by African or Middle Eastern music. But if you argue too much about these things, you’re thinking too hard and not listening.”

Karlberg is Swedish, Etienne Tron (his partner in the production duo Radioclit) is French, singer Esau Mwamwaya is Malawian, and all three live in London and work together as the Very Best. On a buzz-generating mixtape last year, the trio collaborated with indie rockers who draw from African pop styles like highlife and soukous (Vampire Weekend and the Ruby Suns) and a pair of alt-minded rappers with world-spanning tastes (M.I.A. and Santigold). Mwamwaya sang in at least four languages. And Radioclit took samples from as diverse sources as Architecture in Helsinki, Hans Zimmer, Cannibal Ox, and the Free Willy theme song.

So the Very Best—which performs tonight at DC9 with Javelin—has heard plenty of arguments about globalization and appropriation and authenticity, and could probably debate them all day. But the more you intellectualize music, Karlberg says, the more meaningless it can become. Life’s too short not to dance.

And not just dance, but smile.

“The Very Best is our sunshine project,” Karlberg, 27, says. “Esau came along at a time when we were a little fed up with darker music and with club music. I’m really happy about it because if you bring something positive to music, people will get that—that’s a really good thing to be able to do with music.”

As Radioclit, Karlberg and Tron make what they call “ghetto-pop,” a gloomy, trance-y blend of U.K grime, American hip-hop (they seem especially taken by Dirty South), and whatever African dance style has their attention at the moment. For a recent mix, Karlberg said, he and Tron explored the Ivorian Coupé-Décalé style.

The new Very Best album, Warm Heart of Africa, is as eclectic as Radioclit but far more upbeat. And unlike their concoctions as Radioclit, Karlberg and Tron’s Very Best beats don’t brood in the foreground, instead allowing room for Mwamwaya’s exuberant, space-filling vocals. ”Esau’s almost like a big instrument,” Karlberg says. “So we held back on the production, keeping it really minimal, and he brought out the best out of it.”

“The only thing we didn’t want to do was make a straight African album,” Karlberg says, even though “there’s obviously African music in some of the tracks more than others.” “Nsokoto,” notably, simulates thumb pianos and has a call-and-response chorus, while the title track, featuring Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, samples the Nigerian musician Victor Uwaifo’s sunny 1966 hit “Guitar Boy and Mamiwater.” Elsewhere on Warm Heart of Africa, there are bottom notes of Caribbean music, synth pop, jungle, and grime, among other styles. The album shares its title with a slogan from a Malawian tourism campaign, but its sound is hardly continent-bound.

The Very Best came together in 2006, not long after Tron walked into the second-hand shop Mwamwaya owned, which happened to sit on the same East London street as Radioclit’s studio. When Karlberg and Tron heard that Mwamwaya had played percussion in a band in Malawi, they invited him to collaborate—and quickly discovered his talents as a vocalist. They recorded the song “Chalo” that day.

For the next two years, “Esau would come in as often as he could, and normally he’d pick up a few beats, write at home, come in and record the song,” Karlberg says. “Most of the tracks were done in a day or two, tops. We had tracks we worked on for several weeks, but usually scrapped them because we felt they were overworked.”

Just as listeners shouldn’t always think too hard about music, Karlberg says, neither should producers. “A lot of the time I work on music, the best things happen very quickly and intuitively,” he says. “A lot of people say ‘If something doesn’t work in an hour, it doesn’t work.’”

The Very Best performs with Javelin at DC9 tonight at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $10. Photo courtesy of the Very Best’s MySpace page.

Tabi Bonney performs at Fat Baby last night in New York City.

The thing about CMJ is, not all of it’s CMJ. There are the unoffocial day parties—free, sometimes invite-only events sponsored by record labels, PR firms, and media. There are the more exclusive parties at night. And there are the shows that, although not nominally part of the five-day conference and music festival, go on anyway, right in the middle of it all.

Take Casper Bangs‘ show last night at Pianos, which was sponsored by the weekly concert series Cross-Polination and was not part of the official CMJ roster. Nevertheless, the band—the project of Rob Pierangeli, who used to play in the Hard Tomorrows—played to a nearly full room.

Pierangeli paid $45 when he applied to play at this year’s CMJ, but his band was turned down. “Sorry to be frank, but I don’t see if the music has that much to do with who gets in,” he told me today. “So if you want to play, you have to know someone. Everyone knows that though. That’s not new information.”

The problem, he said, is that bands have to apply to CMJ through a service called Sonicbids, which was conceived as a digital middle man between bands and show promoters. The CMJ application comes with a fee but is free for Sonicbids members, who pay around $70 a year.

Pierangeli doesn’t like that arrangement, and he’s not the only one (here’s Sonicbids’ response to the controversy over its submissions method and pricing). ”Maybe a lot of artists are out there getting gigs and finding Sonicbids is a strong tool to advance their careers,” Pierangeli said. “But not me. I’m just one experience, but it seems kind of like bullshit to me.”

He said he doesn’t want blow money an event whose impact seems to have diminished. Because of how technology and the economy have changed the recording industry, ”perhaps there’s less incentive for the industry to really to come in [for CMJ],” Pierangeli said. “West Coast people don’t come out. They’re probably like, ‘we’ll wait for South by Southwest or something. We’ll go to that instead.’ So what the fuck are we doing coming up here? People just play it so they can say that they played it.”

Still, he does see advantages to the festival. “I think the value is just connecting with new people and connecting with old people. In terms of maybe what CMJ what it once was, and bands getting signed and discovered, it’s not like that anymore.”

Which is why, following the release of a 7-inch and an EP next month (you can hear the latter here), Casper Bangs will begin releasing singles frequently and for free. Pierangeli said he hopes to begin that project in December. Not that he doesn’t love albums or lacks enough material to fill one. But, he said, “people just want songs right now. They don’t want to commit.”

–

Some shots of other District artists who performed last night during CMJ:

Deleted Scenes at Cameo Gallery:

True Womanhood (full disclosure: I’m friends with the band) at Cameo Gallery:

Tabi Bonney at Fat Baby. Niki Jean, from Bonney’s pop group the Crybabies, joined him for a song:

Surf City, from New Zealand, at Cake Shop:

We at Arts Desk have mentioned before that the DMV’s own Wale is maybe probably kind of dating Beyonce’s little sister Solange. Now, the gossip site Mediatakeout.com, (say what you want about ‘em, but they very often get these things right) is reporting that Solange and Wale are house-hunting in Brooklyn. Or at least that Solange is house-hunting and Wale is tagging along. Or he’s been spotted in the general area of her house hunt or something. Whatever—the couple has been seen together in Brooklyn and apparently some kind of real estate is involved, and it sounds like things between them are getting serious.

This is a very troubling turn of events.

Solange is a nice enough woman, and we’re sure Wale would feel at home in Brooklyn, a borough awash in tight jeans and nerd raps. But as he gets closer to Solange, it’s almost inevitable that he’ll become chummy with Jay-Z and, as many young rappers on the cusp of stardom know, that is not the move.

So, Wale, if you’re reading this, here are a few reasons why you should stay far, far away from one Shawn Carter. (Hanging out with Bun B is still perfectly acceptable, though).

• You don’t want to become the next Memph Bleek

Yes, your album Attention Deficit is finally coming out on Nov. 10 and everyone is very excited about it! Right now. But we were also excited about Memphis Bleek’s debut album Coming of Age. For some reason, being associated with Jay-Z is deadly for up-and-coming rappers.  So much as brush up against Jay at a club and you can kiss your rap aspirations goodbye.  And it’s even worse if Jay actually decides to have a hand in your career development. Remember Diamonds in Da Rough? Peedi Peedi? Amil? Yeah, neither do we.

• He will outshine you

You could go from D.C.’s  “hip-hop break-out star” to “brother-in-law of Jay-Z and Beyonce” in the blink of an eye, and no one wants that to happen. No matter how dope you are or how great your debut album turns out to be (fingers-crossed), Jay-Z’s star power will extinguish yours. If you befriend him, you are totally on your way to being listed as an “unidentified friend of Jay-Z” in some candid picture in Us Weekly.

• If you mess over Solange, you could be the next victim on that Summer Jam stage

Jay-Z is known for calling people out during Hot 97’s annual Summer Jam concert, and if you don’t treat his wife’s sister right, I imagine he’d make it his business to similarly humiliate you. If there are any unflattering pictures from your past, hide them NOW.

• He’s going to make you an outlet for his umlaut fetish

Jay-Z loves a good piece of unnecessary punctuation—see the umlauts over the “y” in his name on the cover of the CD single for “Dead Presidents.” Wale, you have managed to teach an entire nation—an entire planet!—of hip-hop lovers to pronounce your name without resorting to so much as an accent, but there’s a chance Jay-Z could convince you to use one. Don’t do it.

Middle Distance Runner performs at the CMJ Music Marathon in 2008.

Every CMJ has its success story—the unknown act who, thanks to buzz and grit and talent and luck , tickles the right trigger of the wayfaring label rep or taste-maker who, for whatever reason, has decided to see it. But most of the thousand-plus little-known bands and artists who descend on New York City each fall for the College Music Journal Music Marathon don’t walk away with freshly inked contracts or top-tier management. Their game is more incremental: A write-up here, a handshake there. So whether they’re dampening expectations or they mean it, it’s probably unsurprising that most of the D.C. bands performing during this year’s CMJ say their primary goal is just to “have fun.”

“These things are kind of a madhouse, and there’s a lot of talk of ‘there’s gonna be a lot of industry people,’” says Matt Dowling, whose band Deleted Scenes has two CMJ gigs and a meeting with a marketing firm. ”I don’t mean to be a cynic, but we’ve been playing for long enough and pined over certain goals to realize that the bottom line is to have fun. If the industry happens to like it, then great.”

John Thornley, of U.S. Royalty, is equally cautious: “I don’t think we’re going to go there and get a record, and I mean, it may happen. The goal is just to go there and play a show and get a lot of people.” But he also sees less tangible benefits. “If you meet a band at a party, and you like their music and they like yours, it’s that much more easy to work with them.”

At least a dozen bands and artists from the District will play gigs during this year’s CMJ, which starts tomorrow night and runs through Saturday, and includes about 75 different venues across New York City (there are also panel discussions and a film festival). Some acts already have recording contracts, others don’t, and all of them—once you get past their shared enthusiasm for merriment—have different goals.

For Middle Distance Runner, which already has a record label, management, and a promotions firm, CMJ is all about exposure. “To get our name out there in people’s minds more, it makes it easier to do our job,” says Stephen Kilroy, the group’s frontman. His band has played at CMJ during each of the last three years. “Our manager would have an easier time dealing with other bands’ managers if we’re more well-known and well-thought-of. So we’re going to go up there and try not to embarrass ourselves.”

Rapper Tabi Bonney said he doesn’t really know what the festival is, but that he’s happy to perform there all the same. “This is my first time ever going to CMJ,” he says. “I’d kinda heard about it, but my booking agency just set it up for me.”

CMJ Network, which publishes a college-radio top-30 list and a magazine, started the festival in 1980 as a way to expose underground artists to the recording industry. These days, well-known independent acts—like Hercules & Love Affair and Saul Williams—headline many of the bills. The bands encompass dozens of genres, and nearly as many nationalities. And while the industry presence (major labels and indies, managers, agents, PR firms, and lawyers) is substantial, for unsigned bands the rewards seem diminished, partially because of the ailing record industry, increasingly because of the down economy—this even as interest in independent music has ballooned in recent years and CMJ has grown. The 2009 festival had 10 percent more applicants than the previous year, Robert Haber, the founder and chief executive of CMJ Network, told Newsday this week.

The role of college radio seems particularly anachronistic. “Ten years ago or even longer, college radio had a bigger impact,” says Mike Mori, an agent in New York who represents fairly successful acts like Noisettes, Ra Ra Riot, Dalek and The Antlers. ”It’s still a factor. It’s a piece of the puzzle but it’s a lot less important.”

But, Mori says, “any of these festivals”—like South by Southwest in Austin—”are great for music because they give small bands an outlet.”

That’s how Evan Brody sees it. Along with three other musicians with whom he attended George Washington University, Brody runs D.C.’s Underwater Peoples Records. Most of the bands that have released music through the DIY label are based in New Jersey, and several of them—like Real Estate, Ducktails, and Air Waves—have become blogosphere favorites in recent months.

So, Brody says, the label set down some goals for the three showcases (one official, two un-) that it’s hosting during CMJ: “No. 1 is have a good time. No. 2 is chill really hard. No. 3 is meet new people. I love meeting new people. And No. 4 is just making sure that everything is going smoothly.”

John Davis, who has performed at CMJ several times with Q & Not U and Georgie James, says young bands shouldn’t worry too much about the industry aspect of the festival. “You just need to make sure that something about what you’re doing is good (even if it’s form over function) and people will come to you,” he wrote in an e-mail. “That’s not to say that reaching out to people is bad or pointless—it definitely isn’t.  But I feel that you don’t want to spend too much time on that stuff when working on your music is always what really gets you someplace.”

As for Davis’ new band, Title Tracks, he wrote, “our schedule is drive up, play, get back in the car, drive home. Literally. We’ll be home later that night.”

Photo courtesy of Middle Distance Runner’s MySpace page.

Experimental hip-hoppers Anti-Pop Consortium were at their incomprehensible best at Rock & Roll Hotel this Saturday, performing a set heavy on tunes from their recent reunion album, Fluorescent Black. It was a welcome return to form for a group that has seen its individual members involved in a huge number of side projects after APC’s breakup in 2002, none of which were as satisfying as APC itself.

More photos after the jump and at the full gallery.

Openers Pants Velour, who put on a fun set but whose party-ready hip-hop was an odd fit for this bill:

Full gallery here.

Ben Westhoff reviews Lil Boosie’s Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz and finds it to be less than bad ass.

Aaron Leitko talks to singer/songwriter Aaron Thompson about “Vals,” which captures the Nordic calm of Ikea in song.

It’s so filthy that many of Ghostface’s lines are indistinguishable from the dialogue spoken by some of today’s finest porn stars. In fact, if porn actors ever start rhyming, Ghost is in trouble.

To really nail (haha—nail!) the point, here’s a little quiz:  Below are four XXX-rated phrases—you decide whether they are quotes from Ghost’s “Stapleton Sex” or a porno flick. Think you can tell the difference between the words of Ironman and Lex Steele? It’s harder than you think.

Questions and answers after the jump:

1. “From behind I’m a mastermind”

2. “I’m ’bout to get balls deep!”

3. “Your pussy’s the bomb”

4. “Uuuuuh, uuuuh, UHHHH!”

Answer key:

1. That’s Ghost

2. That’s  international porn star Wesley Pipes

3. That’s Ghost, but it’s almost certain that someone has uttered that exact phrase in an adult film before, so pretty much any answer here is acceptable.

4.  Trick question—that grunting sound can be heard both on Ghost’s album and in porno—actually, in every porno.

Yesterday I received a preview copy of The Tao of Wu, a “spiritual memoir” in which Wu-Tang Clan producer RZA offers up pearls of wisdom. Actually, since we’re talking about an icon of ‘90s hip-hop here, I should probably say he is dropping gem or blessing us with jewelz or some such thing.

The press materials call the book a “nonfiction Siddhartha for the hip-hop generation.”  And if Siddhartha had been into kung-fu flicks and the Five Percent Nation and his trusty companion Govinda had been a small-time weed dealer, that comparison would be spot on.

If you’re  seeking a little bit of enlightenment Wu-Tang style, the book holds plenty of lessons and what RZA calls his “pillars of wisdom.” There’s actually some really touching stuff about RZA’s mother, and his time in jail, and his friendships.

But if you’re just looking for scoop on everyone’s favorite hip-hop supergroup, there’s plenty of that, too. The book is slated for an  Oct. 20 15 release, but here are a few nuggets to tide you over.

*RZA says that in 1991, Ghost was very into trying rip off a Brinks truck.

*Ghost used to call Old English “Wu juice,” and RZA used to call Ballantine Ale “Shaolin.”

*In 1989, RZA showed some of his friends Eight-Diagram and says some of them started crying because it’s so real.

*RZA used to ride the subway wearing a Big Daddy Kane-style gold cable, a book of 120 lessons, and a .38 revolver.

*If you see Method Man on the street and yell out “Shaquan!” he’ll probably turn around.

*A sampling of  RZA’s early production tools: 1982, Technics SL-6 turntable; 1985, Roland 606 drum machine; 1988, Casio sampler.

*RZA used to live in a basement below some family members of Prince Po from Organized Konfusion; Po used to come visit him and watch him make beats.

*RZA once hung out with Leonardo DiCaprio, right after Titanic came out. They smoked cuban cigars together and Leo recited some Wu-Tang lyrics.

*RZA holed up at Trump Tower while working on the Bobby Digital album; for fun, he used to hang out on the front stoop of The Plaza, drinking 40s, smoking weed, and watching the celebrities come and go.

Nu’ The Mayor is a pretty proactive rapper. Instead of just claiming to run D.C., he decided to take the title of “mayor.” When media outlets don’t cover him, he interviews himself.  And rather than merely rhyming about his financial fitness, Nu’ has pronounced himself a “dollartician” and named his latest album Now or Never: Diary of a Dollartician.

“A dollartician is someone who is focused on their money, but won’t sell out,” the rapper explains. “I’m not going to just do or say anything to make a hit.”

Nu says that sonically the new album is a mix of hard-core beats and funk that he calls ” soul-hop.”  Lyrically, it’s “a little more adult—I’ve stepped into the adult box,” he says. “The younger crowd can get into it, but it’s more for [ages] 25 and up.”

Naturally,  Nu’Man isn’t waiting around to hear what the public has to say about Now or Never: Diary of a Dollartician—he says it’s a classic.

But exactly how good is it? For a bit of context, Washington City Paper decided to ask Nu’ how his latest project stacks up against some other hip-hop albums that are about getting, making, and taking money.

1) 50 Cent, Power of the Dollar

“This was his first album, sort of the culmination of his entire life story—I approached this album the same way, even though it’s not my first album, because it’s my first album with national distribution” Nu says. “He’s on some gangsta shit, and I’m not doing that, but the vibe and the passion are the same. Even though my album is better.”

2) Ace Hood, Cash Flow

“He has some anthemic songs, but I don’t know too much about him—just what I’ve heard on the radio.”

3) Common Sense, Can I Borrow A Dollar?

“This was Common before Erykah, before the fishnet wifebeaters. This is what I want to be–just a regular nigga who can spit and ain’t on no bamma shit. But maybe there’s just an evolution[that rappers go through]—maybe five years from now I’ll have on the fishnet wifebeater.”

4) Charli Baltimore, Money

“I don’t really see a relation.”

5) Capone-N-Noreaga, Money

“I like C-N-N. I didn’t get into this too much, but the “WHAT WHAT WHAT” always got me hype.  Actually, Nore is crazy and wild like me, so maybe there are some similarities…”

6)MC Breed, Dollar

“It’s  a little similar…he’s from the Bay, and they’re all about game in the Bay, and my label is G.A.M.E. And Breed spits game, and that’s what I’m on.”

7) T.I., Paper Trail

“King of the South! I think people feel about his albums the way they feel about my albums–they’re [always] the best album that comes out that year.”

Now or Never: Diary of a Dollartician drops Tuesday, Sept. 22; album release party goes down at Ibiza on Friday, Sept. 25