Evan Nabavian is Irie.
God inspires rare performances. I know this from watching kids try to tear vocal chords in bar mitzvah class and also from finding myself speaking in tongues when I first heard Brrd’s “Hail Di King” – a bootleg remix of an ode to Haile Selassie I. Abrahamic religions form like Voltron.
“Hail Di King” appears on a 7” single from FaltyDL’s incipient Blueberry Recordings. Brrd (née Stew Bird) lifts the vocals from a popular 2005 reggae record by Fantan Mojah. The original isn’t very interesting with its studio polish and vanilla instrumentation. But Brrd strips away the music and backup singers, makes some strategic chops, and recalibrates the tempo to funky. His sparse basement beat throws Mojah’s voice into sharp relief and reveals its teeth. Suddenly you can feel pain and purpose in his booming cry to the heavens. You can move your feet too.
Brrd told Dummy that he’s starting the year with a six month residency in Denmark. Hopefully his surroundings cultivate more dope and weird beats in 2014. Until then, I’ll be bumping “Hail Di King” all the way to Jerusalem.
