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Stockholm club and concert guide: August 21 – 25

Stockholm club and concert tips from Kalendarium (Click links for more information)

Published: 21 August 2008 16:47 CEST

The free Pop Dakar festival is taking a break for a year but the question is whether its replacement Dance Dakar may not be a tad more fun. The best up and coming electronic music artists meet on the grass outside Gula Villan before the autumn darkness descends.

Club fox Gustav Gelin is reviving his old idea of making Mondays a bit more fun. Joined at the DJ booth by his good friends, Gelin rings in the new wage packet with everything from the latest indie-electro mixes to old new wave, synth pop, shoegaze and west coast pop. Knast is the best living room this autumn.

Who said the summer was already over? Holiday are hosting a cracking party this evening. Appearing live are Ultracity, whose repertoire includes Jens Lekman remixes, while Hugo Capablanca and Ingrid from Berlin will make the marble terrace shake.

Bruno popaganda

Following the pop quizzes and Pacemaker DJ sessions of the Popaganda days at H&M in Brunogallerian, five unfeasibly talented DJ kids are getting ready to play Ljunggrens by night. It promises to be a phenomenal party. Risky Bizniz, Lisa Ambjörn, Filip Heim and Willem Demmers will be keeping things eclectic, electric and well-mixed.

Don’t Blame The Youth are playing Pleasant again. Mell-B is back, so there’s bound to be lots of hard electro and French stuff, as well as metallic and edgy fare from Baltimore. The line-up is simply magnificent: Vem’Detta, Tripple T, Mell-B and Lenny Drama.

Barcelona party

LSB – Peter Herbert and BabyG—bring the best electronic dance music from London and Barcelona for night out at Berns organized by 24:hours. Andreas, Tooli, Kimkong and the others have done it again! Expect a great party.

<a href="http://www.kalendarium.se/?konst=&action=sh&mn=klubb&id=13330&kategori=klubb&spliced=2008-08-29"Mega premiere

Autumn is beginning to make its presence felt. Tonight sees the premiere of Curtis and Patti’s new club CPMD in the basement at Morfar Ginko.

Meet the Spanish rapper bringing flamenco and bossa nova into hip-hop

Spanish rapper Anton Alvarez known as 'C. Tangana' poses in Madrid on April 29, 2021. Photo: Javier Soriano/AFP

The 30-year-old has emerged as one of the world’s biggest Spanish-language stars since his third album “El Madrileno” — the Madrilenian — came out in February. That ranks him alongside his superstar ex-girlfriend Rosalia, the Grammy-winning Catalan singer with whom he has co-written several hits.

C. Tangana, whose real name is Anton Alvarez Alfaro, has come a long way since a decade ago when he became known as a voice of disillusioned Spanish youth in the wake of the financial crisis.These days his rap is infused with everything from reggaeton and rumba to deeply traditional styles from Spain and Latin America, with a voice often digitised by autotune.

“It’s incredible that just when my music is at its most popular is exactly when I’m doing something a bit more complex, more experimental and less
trendy,” he told AFP in an interview.

And he is unashamed to be appealing to a wider audience than previously: his dream is now to make music “that a young person can enjoy in a club or someone older can enjoy at home while cooking”.

‘People are tired’

The rapper, who sports a severe semi-shaved haircut and a pencil moustache, has worked with Spanish flamenco greats including Nino De Elche, Antonio Carmona, Kiko Veneno, La Hungara and the Gipsy Kings.

In April he brought some of them together for a performance on NPR’s popular “Tiny Desk Concert” series, which has already drawn nearly six million
views on YouTube.

Shifting away from trap, one of rap’s most popular sub-genres, and venturing into a more traditional repertoire was a dangerous move — especially for someone with a young fanbase to whom rumba, bossa nova and bolero sound old-fashioned.

“I think people are tired. They’ve had enough of the predominant aesthetic values that have previously defined pop and urban music,” he said.

Parts of his latest album were recorded in Latin America with Cuban guitarist Eliades Ochoa of Buena Vista Social Club, Uruguayan
singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler, Mexican folk artist Ed Maverick and Brazil’s Toquinho, one of the bossa nova greats.

“What struck me most everywhere I went was the sense of tradition and the way people experienced the most popular music, and I don’t mean pop,” he said.

A new direction

C. Tangana started out in 2006 rapping under the name Crema. When the global economic crisis swept Spain a few years later, hard-hitting trap was
the perfect way to voice the angst of his generation. But after more than a decade of rapping, things changed.

“When I was heading for my 30s, I hit this crisis, I was a bit fed up with what I was doing… and decided to give voice to all these influences that I
never dared express as a rapper,” he said.

The shift began in 2018 with “Un veneno” (“A poison”) which came out a year after his big hit “Mala mujer” (“Bad woman”).

And there was a return to the sounds of his childhood when he used to listen to Spanish folk songs at home, raised by a mother who worked in
education and a journalist father who liked to play the guitar. The Latin American influences came later.

“It started when I was a teenager with reggaeton and with bachata which were played in the first clubs I went to, which were mostly Latin,” he said.

Studying philosophy at the time, he wrote his first raps between stints working in call centres or fast-food restaurants.

As to what comes next, he doesn’t know. But one thing he hopes to do is collaborate with Natalia Lafourcade, a Mexican singer who dabbles in folk, rock and pop — another jack of all musical trades.

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