Kung-Fu Music

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Try this one

This Hang drum music is one of the best I have heard in recent time to be honest!

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Kung-Fu Music

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This Kung Fu Music is the theme song for Wu Assassins.

I suspect there will be a music video soon.

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Kung Fu Groove
By Michael Dwyer
September 27, 2019 — 12.00pm

You can see the moment Bruce Lee cracks in Fist of Fury. When the Japanese imperialist bullyboys interrupt his kung fu master’s memorial, he holds it together for his brothers’ sake. But when the evil boss guy sidles up and slaps his cheek, goading him to respond, the inner struggle between discipline and honour is written on his trembling face.


Kamasi Washington: redefining popular perceptions of jazz.

“That movie was always very powerful for me,” says Kamasi Washington. His latest album, Heaven and Earth, opens with a funked-up version of the theme song with his own spoken-word refrain: “Our time as victims is over. We will no longer ask for justice. Instead we will take our retribution.”

“It felt like that was the sentiment of the movie,” says the saxophonist and composer who has, for the last five years or so, been busy redefining popular perceptions of jazz with albums of epic length and scope, taking film cues, soul, Afrobeat and hip-hop in stride.

“I look at [that opening track] as a call to action,” he says. “I think the time of us kind of waiting for someone, whoever that someone is, to come and fix the world for us, I don’t think we can wait any longer for that. We have to become that someone. Now.”

He’s not really talking along the racial lines that underpin Fist of Fury, or recent political rhetoric in the US. For a guy who grew up in Inglewood, South Central Los Angeles, that division is “the only reality I’ve ever known. It may seem new but it’s not. It’s being pushed out more to the public but as long as I’ve been here, it’s always been like this.”

Washington was still in short pants when gangsta rap erupted out of his neighbourhood in the mid to late 1980s. He soaked it up, naturally, but at a very specific point in his mid-teens, he had a moment of clarity that rose above the sound of the streets and called him onto a more disciplined path.

“I was in ninth grade, in this band called the Multi-School Jazz Band and we played the Playboy Jazz Festival … I’d been playing music all my life, but I hadn’t really taken on the discipline, really digging in and practising, studying music the way that you have to to be a jazz musician.”

He knew there were far more virtuosic players in the horn section so when it came time for a solo, he was gobsmacked to see the band leader pointing at him. “It was in front of, I don’t know, 20,000 people and … I didn’t sound the way I wanted to sound. It felt bad. And that was the first time I had that feeling in music.

“That was the moment I was like, ‘I’m gonna practise, every day, all day, from now on’. My mum thought something was wrong with me. I stopped going outside, hanging out. All I did was practise. So that summer really changed my trajectory, as far as music.”

He did retain his passion for martial arts, of course. His latest video, for Street Fighter Mas, is a priceless kung fu movie pastiche with west-coast hip-hop style and cameos. And a What’s In My Bag? video on YouTube reveals that come shopping time, he’s equally passionate about Fela Kuti, Curtis Mayfield, Samurai and Manga.


Washington retains a passion for martial arts.

“Yeah, I’m definitely a huge fan,” he says. “The idea of balance and devotion [in martial arts] always intrigued me; just the way it kind of reflects music.

“Musicians are a similar breed. We have this solitary life and we’re really trying to get in touch with our internal side and it produces this external thing that you can see, in one way, but the people that do it see it a different way. Like, most people see martial arts as violent but martial artists don’t see it as violent. They’re not destroying something, they’re creating something.”

The parallel with hip-hop was made clear by the adopted mythology of east-coast rap ensemble the Wu Tang Clan back in the 1990s. Not unlike Bruce Lee under imperial pressure, “hip-hop was people who felt like they didn’t have a voice [finding] a voice within the music to express their experience,” Washington says. “Sometimes that expression wasn’t necessarily the most peaceful, but neither was their experience.”

As a graduate of the University of California’s Ethnomusicology Department, Washington’s life experience has been more expansive than plenty of his peers. He played with Kenny Burrell, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Lauryn Hill, Chaka Khan, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar en route to his massively acclaimed solo arrival with The Epic in 2015.

Its double-CD format gave notice of grand conceptual intentions that only intensify with Heaven and Earth. "The Earth side of this album represents the world as I see it outwardly, the world that I am a part of,” he said on a visit to the Sydney Opera House last year. “The Heaven side … represents the world as I see it inwardly, the world that is a part of me.

“Who I am and the choices I make lie somewhere in between,” he added. To drive that point home, the CD package includes a third disc, The Choice, which entails a degree of cardboard surgery to unpack. The music itself, as suggested by another round of near-universal acclaim, manages to find a miraculous middle ground of accessibility that neither jazz nor hip-hop can take for granted. “I always look at it as a compliment,” he says of the critical perception that he represents some kind of new benchmark in jazz evolution, “but to me, as a musician, you can only really represent yourself. I hear people say I represent all this, or that … It’s just their way of saying they appreciate what I’m doing.”

Kamasi Washington, Hamer Hall, Melbourne International Arts Festival, October 8 and a Sydney Opera House, October 9.

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‘Mary Magdalene’: How FKA twigs Made Her ‘Most Complex Song Ever’
It took months for the singer, songwriter and dancer FKA twigs to perfect the title track for her critically acclaimed new album. See how she got it right in the latest episode of Diary of a Song.

Video TRANSCRIPT
0:11/6:57
The Unexpected Inspiration Behind FKA twigs’ Most Complex Song
It took months for the singer, songwriter and dancer FKA twigs to perfect “Mary Magdalene,” the title track and centerpiece to her critically acclaimed new album. This is how she got it right.
Singing: “A woman’s touch.” “Hi, twigs.” “Hi.” Singing: “A sacred geometry.” “‘Mary Magdalene’ was a bit of a pain in the ass to make.” Singing: “I know where you start, where you end, how to please, how to curse.” “I think it’s like the most complex song I’ve ever made.” “She’s the perfect person who could out me for not doing anything, because she does everything. She’s like tap dancing, on a pole, swinging swords. It’s crazy.” “What was it like the first day you guys actually sat down to work?” “She’s unlike any other artist you work with. She’ll bring a little potions and, like, readings. And she was like, do you know about Mary Magdalene?” “The original story is that she was a prostitute, and she was filled with sin. But then it came out that she had a really amazing and extensive knowledge on oils, and she was a healer, and she was in many ways what we call a doctor now. I think that that duality really excited me. That is my archetype.” “She was talking about using the story about Mary Magdalene for her music. She was very determined to go down this path.” “I’d just had some surgery. I had fibroids in my uterus. I was in a period of deep healing and rediscovering my sexuality. Mary Magdalene helped me ground myself in who I am.” “Before I knew it, we were drinking the Kool-Aid. I was believing whatever she said.” “And I think she just started singing with no beat or anything.” Singing: “A woman’s work. A woman’s prerogative.” “Cashmere, I think he laid a harmonizer behind it.” “She wanted it to sound very Gothic, but also very futuristic at the same time.” “I just thought of this melody. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ Like ‘Mary Magdalene’ actually fits into that.” Singing: “Mary Magdalene, creature of desire. Come just a little bit closer to me.” “With her, a lot of the things we used are, like, little clicks in her voice.” “Harmonies.” “Drawn-out notes that are tuned down.” “She’ll be like, it should be like, ‘Wah, wah, brrr-rum-pum-pah.’ You know, she’ll do [expletive], and you’ll just be like, whoa, and you’re just trying to program it quick enough.” Singing: “I fever for the fire. True as Mary Magdalene, creature of desire.” “I just remember really loving this song, being at Benny’s house, realizing in that session that the name of my album was ‘Magdalene.’ And then I was working in this other house in L.A. that was haunted and quite stressful, actually.” “We just spent, like, two weeks ripping the song apart, and rebuilding it, and it not really working, and then ripping it apart again, rebuilding it again and again.” “I think I broke a lot of songs in that haunted house.” “There’s so many versions, man.” “Do you have any of those early versions you could show us?” Singing: “Yes, I heard.” “Where Benny’s version was very clear and very focused, we really cluttered it.” “Was she frustrated throughout this process or was she exhilarated by it?” “Oh, no, she’s just excited. She’s like a kid — ‘I want to try that, can we do that, can we do this?’” “I love practicing stuff. How many different ways can you do a cartwheel? You know, like can you do a slow one? Can you do it on your elbows? Can you do it fast? Can you do it with no hands?” “We sat down once and she was like, I want the sound of witches burning at a pyre. And I was like, right, O.K.“ “Do you think because it was the title track and the centerpiece of the album, you were overthinking it?” “I wasn’t overthinking it, I just don’t think I was treating it with enough sensitivity in the beginning.” “Did that end up on the record anywhere?” “No.” “Then there was another stage with Nico.” “So what did Nico do to fix this song?” “A lot.” “He did a lot.” “Is it a strange thing, like you’re coming into someone else’s house and rearranging the furniture?” “It is strange. But you know, I come from dance music. And I did so many remixes. And it’s just the same thing.” “We were in Electric Lady. It was like 3 o’clock in the morning. And we went down into the big studio, and it was where Prince had recorded all this stuff. And it had a purple board. So it felt really special.” “There’s just definitely some spirits in there, speaking through.” “With ‘Mary Magdalene,’ every other session had always been, like, a full-day session of ‘O.K., no. Mute that, O.K., no. Take it out, O.K. Put that in, O.K. Let’s try a guitar,’ you know, all this stuff. Whereas the end of ‘Mary Magdalene’ was the opposite. It was complete calm, and there was just this magic kind of like 30 minutes to an hour when Nico just, like — his energy just grew in the space.” “I remember redoing the chords. Then I started feeling a bit more like that there was a direction or something.” “As soon as it had a darker feeling, that’s when it actually came to life. He just went on his computer, and he just made all these incredible stretchy sounds.” “I had coffee, and I don’t drink caffeine. So maybe I was a little crazy.” “I just had this idea that I wanted it to bounce. It’s just like the wrath of Mary.” “He found a hardness in air. And that felt truly like evoking her spirit.” “Do you dance, do you jump around when something finally hits?” “No, I don’t think I did on that, because I didn’t want to — you know when something’s happening in front of you, and you’re just like, just nobody move, everyone stay really still, no one change anything, no one even put the air con on. Everything has to stay exactly the same. It was kind of one of those moments.” Singing: “Creature of desire. Come just a little bit closer till we collide.” “Can we kill the cat?” “Nope.” “For a little while, please?” “I just don’t know if there’s a way for me to do this and be comfortable without the cat.” “Really?” “Yeah. Yeah, I’m a little shy.” “You look so good, though.”

It took months for the singer, songwriter and dancer FKA twigs to perfect “Mary Magdalene,” the title track and centerpiece to her critically acclaimed new album. This is how she got it right.CreditCredit...Maria Jose Govea/Red Bull Content Pool

By Joe Coscarelli
Dec. 10, 2019, 5:00 a.m. ET

The singer, songwriter and producer FKA twigs, born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, is a polymath who keeps adding to her arsenal.

At 31, she has complicated her reputation as a whispery singer of sparse, deconstructed R&B songs by blowing out not only her sound but her broader creative practice: She has trained as a dancer in various underground styles (vogueing, krumping, pole work), while also working as an actor, director and even a student of wushu, a form of Chinese martial arts that can resemble sword fighting. Crucially, FKA twigs, known to collaborators for her dedication to practice and discipline, then brings all she’s learned back to her music and live performances.

The result, most recently, is “Magdalene,” her second full-length album, which was released last month and became one of the most critically acclaimed releases of the year. “In the voluptuously disorienting music she has been releasing since 2012, love has been pleasure and pain, sacrifice and self-realization, strife and comfort, public performance and private revelation,” wrote Jon Pareles in The New York Times. “Sounds materialize to destabilize the pulse, upend the harmony or just add disruptive noise; gaping silences open up, suddenly isolating her voice in midair.”

The album was named for the biblical figure Mary Magdalene, in whom FKA twigs found inspiration after undergoing surgery to remove six fibroid tumors from her uterus in late 2017. In the latest Diary of a Song episode, the singer and her fellow producers break down the intricate processes that led to writing and recording “Mary Magdalene,” the title track and centerpiece of the album. The song came together over many months in three phases, from initial bedroom sessions with the pop producers Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat, to work in a haunted house with the British electronic producer Koreless, and finally, at the storied Electric Lady Studios in New York with the experimental composer Nicolas Jaar (and possibly with Prince’s purple spirit).

FKA twigs, who is credited along with Noah Goldstein as the executive producer of the “Magdalene” album, called the title track “the most complex song I’ve ever made.” Watch the video above to see how she did it.

The NT video interview is embedded but here's Magdalene

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Antibalas Shares ‘Lai Lai’ Single
Feb 5, 20201:25 pm PSTNate Todd
Antibalas November 2019 Press


Photo by Celine Pinget

Antibalas shared the single “Lai Lai” from their forthcoming album, Fu Chronicles. The new LP arrives this Friday, February 7 via Daptone Records.

The release of Fu Chronicles sees Antibalas celebrating their 20th anniversary. The album traces the interesting intersection of kung fu and afrobeat music. Antibalas frontman Duke Amayo is a senior master of the Jow Ga Kung Fu School and Antibalas formed around his Brooklyn dojo. “Lai Lai” is the third single from Fu Chronicles and means “never” or “forever.” Check it out below:

Shoot. I wish I knew about this early because I might have reached out, but I'm already booked for the SF dates. This wasn't on my radar before.

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And to think...I put the RZA on the cover over 20 years ago...


SEP 1999

Hip-hop’s obsession with combat imagery is about more than violence
February 24, 2020 10.53am EST

Warrick Moses
Postdoctoral Fellow in Hip-Hop Studies, University College Cork

Disclosure statement
Warrick Moses receives funding from the European Research Council as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the CIPHER Hip Hop Interpellation project, hosted by University College Cork, Ireland.
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University College Cork
University College Cork provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.


Members of Wu-Tang Clan at Glastonbury 2019. The group took their name from the 1983 Kung Fu film Shaolin and Wu Tang. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

On Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em, legendary New York MC Rakim proclaims: “I’m the arsenal, I got artillery, lyrics are ammo….”

Senegalese-born French rapper MC Solaar compares his mic to body armour and warns listeners about his cache of lyrical bullets halfway through La Concubine de l’Hémoglobine (The Haemoglobin Concubine): “…le mic est devenu ma tenue combat … le Solaarsenal est équipé de balles vocales …”.

Kendrick Lamar refers to himself as Kung Fu Kenny throughout the album ****, a reference to Don Cheadle’s character in the 2001 buddy cop and martial arts film Rush Hour 2 starring Jackie Chan.



As all these examples confirm, it’s a common practice for rappers to equate verbal prowess with martial skill. MCs “spit” incendiary lines. Breakdancers “battle” for supremacy on the dance floor. DJs “cut” samples to their own liking. Graffiti artists “bomb” public spaces with tags.

Critics of hip-hop music and culture denounce such imagery as encouraging actual violence. They often cite graphic examples from commercial American “gangsta rap” to make their case. Yet from the research in which I have been involved, there’s a whole other way of looking at this imagery that casts hip-hop in a very different light.

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Planet rap

Musicologist Griff Rollefson offers a different view of this tendency for hip-hop MCs to use their “words as weapons”. For members of marginalised communities, he argues, hip-hop potentially offers “a discursive and performative field in which to vent frustrations, enact fantasies, build confidence and formulate plots”. It’s a cathartic space free from threat of physical harm or retaliation from authorities.

I would argue that the metaphors of combat in global hip-hop are often concerned with messages of empowerment and social action. The seeming violence of such expressions serves as a means for practitioners to channel their dissatisfaction with adverse social conditions through creative artistry. On her 2019 track Land of Gray, for instance, South African MC Yugen Blakrok “dismembers a fascist” with her incisive “verbal blades”.



In another instance, Japanese rapper Zeebra fires off a lyrical “bullet of truth”, changing listeners’ thought patterns and “slowly directing brain cells” toward more enlightened ways of being (Saishu Heiki, 2005).

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Musical art to martial art

At a time when issues of migration, secession and isolationism dominate, an in-depth study of the impact of global forms of hip-hop marks an important change in political and cultural perspectives. As part of the CIPHER initiative, Rollfeson, the researcher Jason Ng and I are investigating hip-hop’s social importance and re-evaluating its stigmas. The aim is to shift the focus from a strictly US context to look at models from around the world.

Rollefson’s idea that hip-hop is a “martial art” is a part of this approach. Not only does it position rap within its contemporary context but it also considers the culture’s deep indebtedness to Kung Fu cinematic lore and East Asian philosophy.

Take the Wu-Tang Clan’s debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). The title references the classic martial arts movies Enter the Dragon (1973) starring Bruce Lee, and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978).

Busta Rhymes’ video for the 1997 track Dangerous, directed by Hype Williams (who made some of the period’s most well-known hip-hop videos), takes its inspiration from the 1985 classic The Last Dragon.

Ask any old-skool hip-hop head “Who is the master?” and they’ll answer, “Sho’nuff!”. This scene is played out in the music video with Rhymes taking the role of martial arts master Sho’nuff. For brown and black kids growing up in the socioeconomically repressed Bronx of the 1980s, what’s a more aspirational narrative, what’s more hip-hop, than the tale of a lone warrior acting decisively, but only when provoked?



This influence also manifests globally, but in very different ways. Irish MC Jun Tzu (his nom de guerre a nod to Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu), often highlights the continued need for unity in his hometown of Belfast after the Troubles. In the single Klik Klak – the title imitating the sound of a pistol being racked and readied to fire – the South African rapper Cream declares: “I’m Jackie Chan with a pen… I defend rappers in my clan…”

Just as martial arts principles are handed down from teacher to disciple, hip-hop MCs spread ideological “truths” through their music. Global practitioners of hip-hop in particular prioritise a resistive aesthetic – an awareness of cultural identity, personal expression and a fundamental “knowledge of self” in their work.

The notion of hip-hop as a martial art also helps to illustrate the community-oriented ethos of the culture. In the cipher, which is the name given to hip-hop performance gatherings, MCs hone their skills and “sharpen their blades” in lyrical combat. This rite of passage, where performers are called on to demonstrate their talents and be evaluated by peers, exemplifies the “each one teach one” approach that characterises much of global hip-hop.

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