Alternative, live in-the-studio version of “Major Heavy,”
from the Shafiq En’ A-Free-Ka album,
provided, w/ notes, by Sonny Coates below…

THIS is the official (as far as I’m concerned) version of this song I did on Shafiq’s record called “majorheavy”…(w/ liner notes)… you’ll hear the difference, if you’ve heard Shafiq’s record.

…we had long been debating on what the most effective way to record [major heavy] was. I think orginally Shafiq was going for an electro-fusion thing– I think, he said..” Hendrix produced by Sly and Sgt. Pepper’s Band” or whatever. My thing was that we should go in a studio and just cut the song LIVE and not copy someone else’s sound- have our own vibe because- if you’re truly trying to get that deep of a feeling- you have to assume the risk of a live recording…there’s no way around it…anything else would just be a simulation. I think we ought to record everything live from now on- but… that’s another story.

Anyway, he put out the version that he had produced on his solo record and, to me, it seemed flat and the vocals were obscured and I feel like he only got the minimal amount of feeling out that production so quite naturally, I kept pressing him to at LEAST re-record the song as an alternate version.

I guess he couldn’t take anymore of my constant appeals because we finally got together and recorded one nite in Silverlake… in the crowded basement storage space surrounded by bags of clothes and bins and who knows what else (this was about a year ago). =The result is waaay more organic. We recorded the music relying on EACH OTHER to keep time so it BREATHES– it’s communal and you sense it immediately—(( no fucking click tracks keeping the music boxed in unnaturally))) and it was recorded in one take- we didn’t even rehearse. Om’mas Keith, Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner, and Shafiq sang the background after we laid the basic track. A couple weeks later I added the lead vocal and then had my friend Ishmael overdub rhodes and synthesizers.

It sounds to me like a sketch from The Electric Company, but modern…..it’s trippy..especially @ the end –///enjoy_

mjrhe∆vy !!!!!!!!!!!!_!
(O. Coates/ S. Husayn)
produced by Sonny Coates

personnel:
Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner: bass/ whistle/ bckground vocals
Sonny Coates: guitar/ lead vocal
Shafiq Husayn: percussion/ bckground vocals
Wow Jones: fender rhodes, synthesizers
Om’mas Keith: drums/ bckground vocals

recorded & mixed by KenBts./Sonny Coates

“Major Heavy”
(O. Coates/S. Husayn)

mjrheavy for people today
we don’t love nobody that’s what’s wrong today
it may sound crazy for people to say
we gon mess around and blow it all away

mjrheavy for people today
we don’t love nobody that’s what’s wrong today
it may sound crazy for people to say
we gon mess around and blow it all away

Keeping things moving, here’s an exclusive preview of the highly anticipated solo album from SA-RA Creative Partner, Shafiq Husayn. The album, entitled Shafiq En A Free Ka (“ka” meaning “mind” or “life force” in Egyptian), is the embodiment of just that – Shafiq in a free state of mind, exploring and defining through future-afrocentric sounds and fuzzy melodies. Along for the ride are a team of musicians, writers, arrangers and guest vocalists including Bilal, Om’mas Keith, Count Bass D, Sonny Coates, & many more – all with Shafiq still holding down the helm.

For a quick glimpse into A Free Ka, I’ve got the first two leaks for you today. First up is “Lil Girl,” which features Fresh Selects family member, Fatima, providing a melancholy lament over a nicely chopped vocal sample, familiar bassline and a shuffling beat. To go along with that, we have “Nirvana,” featuring another member of the FS fam, Noni Limar, alongside two of her sisters in arms, Nia Andrews and Rozzi Daime – all coming together over a layered, throbbing slab of latin-flavored bump.

Also included, after the jump, is an older video of Shafiq in the studio with Sonny Coates, working on what would become “He Say, She Say” from the latest SA-RA album.

You can download “Lil Girl” and hear a full-length stream of “Nirvana” below. Be on the look out for much more on and from the album, including a “Nirvana” remix from Mark de Clive-Lowe, before it drops this October, courtesy of Plug Research. Also, credit due to the RBMA for first debuting a stream of “Lil Girl.”

Shafiq Husayn “Nirvana”
(feat. Nia Andrews, Noni Limar & Rozzi Daime)

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