Sacal is a dancehall MC from the state of Paraíba, in the North East of Brazil. More specifically he’s from the city of João Pessoa, a beautiful coastal city that for some reason has a reputation for reggae and is full of reggae lovers. Ask a random young person from João Pessoa what they do at the weekend, and they will probably  reply that they sit around in beach bars listening to reggae. Sacal has been a name that has been around for a while now. He started off as a Drum and bass DJ in 1999, then started an underground rap outfit “Eu e Meus Amigos” where he was DJ and producer and has gradually moved into dancehall, but if you listen it`s dancehall with a particular northeastern Brazil flava. The programming and the production could only have come from the North East of brazil.

he has made his new promo CD available for free download, and you can find it here. If you want more, there’s loads of MP3s available at his blog.

Here’s a taster of the Sacal sound, a jegue by the way is a mule: “Gangsta Jegue”

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If you want to hear more Brazilian dancehall go to this link and you will find a 100% selection put together by Jimmy Luv.

Six year old MC Miltinho, who sang on my track “Kid Conga” and stars in the accompanying video, just released a new song: “Menino Prodigio”. It´s produced by his father, baile funk legend MC Batata. See the video here:

More tracks by MC Miltinho soon on Man Rec….

KU BO, the brainchild of Vienna´s Stereotyp, is just putting the finishing touches on his debut album. The longplayer, scheduled for a Feb 2010 release, will include ten new tracks, including vocal contributions by Joyce Muniz, Sara Workneh, Daniecell and Anbuley. In the meantime, the Ku Bo heat rises around the globe: Ku Bo tracks “Tsu Bo” and “Lefe” feat. Anbuley are featured on the upcoming “I Love Techno” compilation by Crookers, and the Fabric Live 49 Mix by Buraka Som Sistema, not to forget Untold´s Resident Advisor podcast which opened with “Uepa” feat. Joyce Muniz.

In December, Man Rec will release the Ku Bo remix EP featuring remixes by DJ Manaia, Robot Koch, Batida, Daniel Haaksman, Bert On Beats and a handful other hot remix tickets. Watch out for more Ku Bo on these pages. As a teaser, we give you a re-fix of Ku Bo´s “Turnerment”, whooop!

Ku Bo – Turnerment Refix

There´s a lot of talk about UK funky at the moment – we at Man Rec HQ absolutely love it and play out the hot London bass sound as much as we can. I however noticed that whenever there´s press or people talking about UK funky what´s always completely left out is that the trademark UK funky beat has been around for more than a decade. Originally it was known as the “Gregory Beat”, cultivated by French house don DJ Gregory. Every heard “Tropical Soundclash”, “Izabelle” (as Soha), “Porno” or his anthemic “Block Party”? If not, think again of the roots of Uk Funky and what is considered the “tropical style”.

When I recently warmed up for Diplo he was asking me after his show “Dude, what Uk Funky tune with some horns were you playing earlier?”. It was DJ Gregory´s “Block Party”, which I´ll give you as 128 kps MP3 as a taster. Buy the original tune in his res plus the other tunes by Gregory on Beatport, they´re sounding like 2009 – although they´re originally from 1999!

DJ Gregory – Block Party (Original Mix)

I´m in Tel Aviv, hanging with old friends and enjoying the late Israeli summer, with some nice 25 degrees and brillant sun outside. Whenever I return to Tel Aviv, I discover new things and music people dont seem to talk much about in Europe. The latest thing I discovered in Israel is Kutiman and his “Through You” project. I knew Kutiman as a deep funk guy releasing on Germany´s Melting Pot label, but what my mate Tomer showed me by this Israeli producer here in Tel Aviv is pretty mindblowing.. Kutiman is diggin Youtube videos of amateur singers and musicians for samples instead of dusty crates and thus parallely created a row of pretty dope funk tracks.  See the montage´d videos here: