.:: BLACKNBLING ::.: A Suite For Ma Dukes...

Presents:
T I M E L E S S
THE COMPOSER/ARRANGER SERIES:II OF IV

“Timeless” is an homage to the arranger/composers that have influenced hip-hop
in the most literal and profound ways. Hear what happens when these two worlds come together.

"A Suite for Ma Dukes"
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson & Carlos Niño w/ a 40 piece orchestra
+Special Guests TBA

Opening DJ sets by
HOUSE SHOES (www. myspace. com/djhouseshoes)
J. ROCC (www. myspace. com/funkypresident

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
7-11pm / All Ages / $22. 50
*Presale Tickets Available @ TICKETMASTER. COM and The Luckman Box Office +1 323 343 6600
(Please keep in mind that this is an assigned seating event - in order to sit together
you MUST purchase your tickets together - to view seating chart please click HERE)

Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex
Cal State University Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive. Los Angeles. 90032

*for more info please visit:
www. vtechphones. com/timeless

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Dig Deeper...

A SUITE FOR MA DUKES
by Carlos Niño and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Carlos Nino and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, have been working together on a wide variety of projects for several years now. They produced albums for Build An Ark (Kindred Spirits,) Mia Doi Todd (City Zen,) Grace Woodroofe (for Executive Producer Heath Ledger,) Ariana Delawari (alongside David Lynch,) as well as a duet album entitled Carlos Nino & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Fill the Heart Shaped Cup (Alpha Pup,) .

They have been a virtual production powerhouse.

The colloboration started when Nino hired Atwood-Ferguson's string quartet, Supernova, to perform on the record Dwight Trible & The Life Force Trio Love is the Answer (Ninja Tune) in 2004. On that same Dwight Tribble album project, Nino first met, and befriend, and then licensed a track from one of his heroes, James "Jay Dee/J Dilla" Yancey*. The song Antiquity came from these sessions - it is a stand out from Dilla’s vast and distinct catalog. Tribble brings his unique jazz vocal stylings to Dilla’s jazz influenced hiphop. A circle had been completed somehow.

Fast forward two years - in February, 2007, several days after his 32nd birthday, Dilla passed away due to Lupus related complications. After his untimely death, Nino and Atwood-Ferguson chose to pay tribute to Dilla by continuing the musical conversation that he had started. But now in the contemporary chamber music style that Atwood-Ferguson had been developing. On, what would have been, Dilla's 33rd birthday, February 7, 2007, Nino & Atwood-Ferguson sent their strings, brass and reeds only version of Common's "Nag Champa (Afrodisiac for the World,)" to DJs, producers and fans, for free, via the internet. It caused a big stir amongst fans and first time listeners alike. Hiphop had never been given the Chamber music treatment before and in such a reverential and rhythmic way and there is no drums. They had written the entire piece to accompany the record. Dilla was still in the track not by his presence but by his absence.

At the end of 08 they put the finishing touches on the first official release of this music - a four track EP entitled Suite for Ma Dukes which will be released by Mochilla in April of 09. It is hiphop as you never thought in a way you have never heard.

Four tracks cover Dilla magic. From Antiquity to Nag Champa, from Tribe Called Quest’s (Dilla produced) Find a Way to the Slum Village’s Fall in Love the harmonic and melodic beauty of Dilla’s music is liberated.

Early in 09 the project received the official blessing of Ma Dukes herself and part of the proceeds from the record will go to Dilla’s heirs.

No matter how many live performances and recording sessions Atwood-Ferguson books and no matter how much Nino is creatively up to, they find time to connect in the essence of Dilla. It is there that they celebrate Maurice Ravel, Bernard Herman, Charles Stepney, James Brown, The Bomb Squad and so many others, all at once!

J Dilla

Frequently and rightly placed in the same context as DJ Premier, Pete Rock and Kanye West, Jay Dee built and sustained a high standing as a producer's producer, while maintaining a low profile. When Pharrell Williams appeared on BET's 106 & Park in 2004, he declared that Jay Dee was his favorite producer and told the stumped crowd that it had probably never heard of the man. At the time, Jay Dee had been active for well over a decade and had netted enough beats -- including the Pharcyde's "Runnin'," De La Soul's "Stakes Is High," Common's "The Light," and several others with production teams the Ummah and the Soulquarians – to be considered an all-time great.

In 1996 alone, Jay Dee worked with Busta Rhymes, De La Soul and the Pharcyde, all the while playing a major role in the Ummah with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Before long, hardcore hip-hop fans began to know Dilla for his steady wobble, which was unfailingly musical and rich in details – shuffling high-hats, oddly placed handclaps and spacious drum loops with drastically reshaped samples of tracks both obscure and obvious. Through the remainder of the 1990s, Dilla quietly racked up more output, including Janet Jackson's "Got 'til It's Gone" (for which he did not receive credit), additional tracks for the Pharcyde and collaborative work with Q-Tip on all of 1999's Amplified. As a core member of the Soulquarians, with James Poyser and the Roots' Ahmir "?eustlove" Thompson, Dilla worked on Common's Like Water for Chocolate, D'Angelo's Voodoo, Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun and Talib Kweli's Quality.

Through 2005, he continued to work with past associates. Excited by a Madlib mixtape, Dilla forged an alliance with his admirer for 2003's Champion Sound, released under the name Jaylib. It was around this time that Dilla’s health took a sharp decline. For more than two years, he had to use a dialysis machine and, ultimately, had to perform in a wheelchair, He was still able to tour in Europe during late 2005, and Donuts, an album of instrumentals completed during one of his extended hospital stays, was released on Feb. 7, his 32nd birthday. Three days later, while staying at his Los Angeles home with his mother, he passed away, a victim of cardiac arrest.

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*Presale Tickets Available @ TICKETMASTER. COM and The Luckman Box Office +1 323 343 6600

Suite for Ma Dukes - EP NOW ON iTUNES!