Bbc John Peel Sessions (1987 + 1989)

Description

Two seminal Peel Sessions by hip-hop pioneers Llwybr Llaethog from 1987 and 1989. The last ever release on Ankst Musik. An appreciation of LLWYBR LLAETHOG by/gan Emyr Glyn Williams :- 'Let us not be romantic. When oppression is lasting it may destroy a culture completely. Culture needs a public life, the free exchange of ideas: it needs publications, exhibits, debates and open borders ( ... and some bloody great Hip Dub Reggae Hop Records XX...) (Milan Kundera) PAWB I DDEFFRO! Rwyf yn caru y LLWYBR LLAETHOG. I love LLWYBR LLAETHOG more than other Welsh language band I have known and worked with over the last forty years. They are single-handedly responsible for inserting rap, hip-hop, house, dub reggae, political cut and paste and sampling directly into the heart of a thousand-year-old Welsh language music culture. These revolutionary early tracks are culturally charged missives are as righteous as they are rhythmic can be found on the singles DULL DI-DRAIS(1986) and TOUR DE FRANCE/YO! (1987) on ANHREFN RECORDS; and start an unbroken decade long run of genre-defying and quite musically brilliant albums and singles that Chant Down Babylon! on labels such as SIDE EFFECTS,ROIR, CONCRETE, ANKST and NEUD NID DEUD. This music is politically conscious and streetwise ( think 'Y HAF JAC, GYFUNDREFN GYFALAFOL, RHYWBETH BACH YN POENI PAWB and DULL DI-DRAIS and has global resonance.) LLWYBR LLAETHOG created a narrative for themselves that was unique - a sound, a voice, a presence, an energy that turned the tables on Welsh reality at exactly the right time and place along popular music's recorded timeline. When we talk about the late eighties and the time of these Peel Sessions the band exist for me back then in opposition to the malign forces of neo-capitalistic liberal conservatism which was politically and historically on the move. LLWYBR LLAETHOG, with their music were fighting the forces that wanted to possess, dominate and silence all our individual identities - erase our wonderful differences, stamp upon and destroy our works and messages. But that couldn't happen as long as bands this vital are making music. Their existence and legacy needs to be rediscovered, revered and recovered as being one of the great Hip-Hop stories never told from the freedom years of dance music from 1984 to 1994. In Jeff Chang's definitive Hip-Hop history 'Can't Stop, Won't Stop he refers to these kinds of stories as 'Dub Histories' where the music is made by those hidden from view, dubbed out of the stories they themselves are telling - blinded visions from the new rasta poets. Here is the original article - unable to make themselves fit into anything conventional - no rules surround their music - it is about experimenting - music alive in the real world - 4/4 is the only loose rule allowed! The rest is free - theirs is a music that resists on all levels - sound, language, technique, delivery and message. On their records, and you can also catch it on the Peel Sessions - you can hear country and city, live and electronic, political truth and social change, the truth loud and clear. Albums and singles that were dragging Welsh culture into the heart of a dying record industry, only to be ignored and rejected precisely for being the perfect vehicle for dance music's original message of variety, justice, openness and joy 'If dance music culture was as open as it likes to think it is, then LLWYBR LLAETHOG would be Number One' THE CATALOGUE. But fate played its hand and the promised utopian future of independent music once more became the domain of the endless one-trick pony boys of the safe world of major labels, Label-me safe and find me in the record racks, all correct and filed under the narrowest of descriptions - safe to sell, safe to stock, safe to once again rejoin the old record bandwagon. But at the time of these sessions in 87-90 Hip Hop still hadn't leapfrogged Rap Music to become the 100% urban lifestyle choice of the whole wide world.