This Summer I publicized my love for bands featuring both girls and keyboards in a post about New York-based duo Misha. I revisited that theme more recently when I posted about Brooklyn’s all-girl keyboard band Au Revior Simone and discribed the promo-photo (which showed them from the neck down, clutching synthesizers to their bosoms) that sold me on the group. But girls with synthesizers are but one demographic for whom I get weak in the knees. Female record collectors, particularly those who qualify for “record nerd” or ” beatdigger” status are another. As are female disc jockeys. Even more rare than either of those though are women who make beats.
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Now-and-again posts show up on message boards asking the assembled netizens to list female producers and beatmakers. Invariably, the lists aren’t very long. When I brought this seeming dearth of humans who produce beats as easily as they do estrogen up to previous Blogarhythms featuree Cannonball Jane (herself a studio junkie who enjoys pushing buttons on samplers and drum machines) during a radio interview she downplayed the question, saying she rarely takes her gender into account, adding that she assumes there are a lot more ladies who love Akai and Roland gadgetry than anybody knows. Admittedly there’s at least a kernel of truth to her theory about young women toiling over banks of drum-pads just waiting for recognition, because Washington D.C.’s Muhsinah was until recently, one them.
My initial discovery of the 24-year-old, classically-trained musician via MySpace was a “holy crap, it’s a girl who makes beats” moment, followed by a few seconds marveling that she sings too, culminating in the immediate clicking of the “add friend” button. As time passed her name started popping up in more auspicious places; blogs, message boards, song-credits and album liner-notes. Then, rather suddenly, both she and M.J. Zilla (formerly of Slack Republic) about the imminent release of an official full-length LP titled day.break on Mec’s new Rock Slinger Incorporated imprint. Feeling something like a Hip-Hop-influenced take on the Rotary Connection’s psychedelic mix of Soul, Jazz, and Pop, day.break finds Muhsinah’s ethereal multi-tracked vocals scuttling through, skittering around, and soaring over a dust-coated array of cavernous drum-beats, hand-claps, and dirtily-filtered and chopped samples that would make Madlib and Dilla proud.
Though the album’s bread-and-butter is the filthily funky, head-nod-inducing production heard throughout (which is, in it’s way, as expectation-shattering as hearing Mary J. Blige singing over the “Top Billin’” drums back in ‘92), there are tracks that switch the flavor up just enough to stand out, while still fitting in perfectly. “Once Again” for example boasts a cool acoustic bassline over subtle keys that calls to mind Midnight Marauders-era A Tribe Called Quest, and is precisely how I wish a comeback single from the group would sound were it to ever happen. While “Gogh” introduces percolating electronics and an 808 drum-beat that sound fresh off a Timex Social Club/Club Nouveau record. There’s even the slightest injection of Latin-Jazz vibes on album-closer “Only and Always,” which closes the set with another of Muhsinah’s skull-snapping beats.
Listen to “Once Again”
If this album is just the dawn I can’t wait to see what the rest of the day brings from Muhsinah, and the other “girls with beats” who are sure to follow in her wake.
-El Keter