I may have I read somewhere that producer Madlib’s family had a South African struggle connection. Whether it is true or not – Madlib’s uncle is the trumpeter Jon Faddis, who I think had connections to South African musicians – one can’t help thinking it might the case if you listen to his release, “Madlib Medicine Show No. 3: Beat Konducta in Africa” (link updated). The album samples enough obscure musical and sound references of the struggle for South African freedom that only some locals from there (those who don’t have amnesia), book-taught historians or those who participated in that struggle, may recognize them.

I am talking about the snippets sampled from broadcasts of the ANC’s Radio Freedom, an underground radio station that broadcast from Lusaka, Zambia, to the South African masses via shortwave radio. You can hear the Radio Freedom presenter’s droll greeting (“You are now tuned to the voice of the African National Congress … Radio Freedom, your voice of liberation”) on repeat.

Madlib is more than interested in South Africa or the ANC as influences. He is a Pan-Africanist. There are audio from tourist promo reels and sound clips of interviews with musicians from elsewhere on the continent. All at a frenetic pace. Most songs clock in at lest than 2 minutes. The PR from the label, Stones Throw, describes the album as based on the “… obscure vinyl gems from the afro-beat, funk, psych-rock, garage-rock & soul movements of African countries as diverse as Zambia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Botswana and Ivory Coast.”  The Beat Konducta is a one-release-a-month series of albums from Madlib to be released this year. That’s 12 albums. 1970s music. This is the period in which Portuguese colonies secured their freedom (Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau) and countries like Nigeria is in a celebratory, pan-African mood (think Afrobeat, FESTAC) and flush with oil revenue, but also an era in which the white minority regimes of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and South Africa and South Africa’s colony, South West Africa (Namibia), still tried to hold off liberation movements. Which is why Radio Freedom.

The reality is some of the records have already been released before now. Volume O, “Earth Sounds,” is often categorized as a “prequel” and came out in 2002. That’s eight years ago. Not one month ago. The actual songs on Volume O was recorded in the mid-1990s. Volume 1 and 2 is one release and is titled “Movie Scenes.” It came out in 2006. (It’s not from actual movies, but movies that exist in Madlib’s head.)  “Vol. 3-4: Beat Konducta in India,” which came out in 2007, anticipates the present album. It samples fragments of music from Bollywood films. Until now it was my favorite in the series. Last year saw “Vol. 5-6: A Tribute to… (Dil Cosby and Dil Withers Suite).” It is really a tribute to producer J Dilla, who died of an auto-immune disease.

Which is where we are now. It is impossible to go through all the resource material sampled for this record. Anything from reggae (U-Roy) to Nigerian percussionist, Solomon Ilori, who performed with American jazz musicians in the 1950s on the opening track “Motherland,” to Zamrock (Zambian rock) band, Witch, on “Raw Introduction to Afreaka.” I could go on.

But back to the struggle for South African freedom.  Later, Madlib samples Oliver Tambo declaring 1984 as “The Year of the Woman” on his track “The Struggle to Unite (One Africa).” For that, I rest my case, comrade chair.  I hereby nominate qabane Madlib for the Order of Ikhamanga.
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