Very cool. The music that Frank finds is awesome. Good luck with the project.

:D Great

I like the idea bringing back the old tunes to european ears and markets. But not in the neo-colonial style Frank is doing it; as you could see in the movie he is paying almost nothing for these 7" singles or lp's = at least not the price he would get, selling this stuff again in Europe. Why does he not licence the music like Sammy from Africa Delay is doing it? This is legal music and not stealing local creative resources to benefit alone from it.

I posted this critique already on Franks/voodoofunk musicblog - and can you imagine? - it was not published by him, which really smells badly of censorship. Frank could at least post a reply and meet me in discussion.

I didn't publish your comment because I didn't feel any need to answer to your ridiculous and false statements. I simply didn't want your slander on my blog. This has nothing at all to do with censorship. What I did is called moderating which is the right the publisher of any blog has. Just like no newspaper or magazine has the obligation to publish every single misguided letter they receive.

If you feel like you have something important to say, go and set up your own platform for it. If somebody then changes or deletes your publication or parts of it, that would be censorship. I'm not sure if you understand the difference and it doesn't really matter anyway.

As a matter of fact, I am not "selling this stuff again in Europe". Are you fantasizing? Where do you get your information from? It's your hero Samy who sells African records on eBay and not me. I have so far not sold a single African record on eBay.

"As you could see in the movie he is paying almost nothing for these 7" singles or lp's". That's a flat out lie. Where in the trailer did you see me pay how much for which record?

Any African I ever bought records from will tell you that I pay a lot more than any of the dealers who frequently go to West Africa to buy up valuable records for a few bucks and then sell them for an absurd profit. I want people to sell their records to me and not to any of those various import/export merchands. I pay real money for these things.

I assume you're in Ghana, do you buy old records when you find them? How much do you pay for them? Do you tell the owners that these things are worth a lot of money on the international collectors' market? I'm sure you don't. I do this, I want people to know that these things are worth money so they stop burning them or throwing them away.

I saw you posted an unrelated comment on my blog that ended with "thanx for the music though". This means you took advantage of my work by downloading some of my mixes and here you are accusing me of being a neo-colonialist and of "stealing local creative resources to benefit alone from it". This makes you a hypocrite and paints a rather unflattering picture of your character.

What exactly do you do to share music with the rest of the world? I use the records that I bought during my 3 year long digging trip to play this music in nightclubs here in NYC for little to no money and I do a weekly radio show on the oldest non-profit radio station here in the US without any pay at all. I also have 26 hours of podcasts on my blog for free download. I love this music and I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can do whatever I want without monetary profit being an issue.

As far as licensing music goes, I already arranged the release of several tracks by Gnonnas Pedro and Gustave Bentho on BBE records without any financial compensation for myself and without even being mentioned in the liner notes. Re-issues should be about the artists and their music. Unlike other people, I don't have any interest in making a big stink about my own persona and am happy to just see the music out there again. I'm currently also working on four full length CDs/LPs for various labels. Unlike other people, I also don't go to an artist and sign one of his songs and then behind his back license another song by the same man from the sons of the owner of his former record label without the knowledge of the artist. I have copies of the contracts in question to prove this.

By the way, I accidentaly clicked on the "Like" instead of the "Share" button in an effort to copy this link, that's why my own names shows up in the stats to the left... ahh, the dangers and annoyances of the internet...

Peace out!

Frank
your favorite neo-colonialist

Frank, i hope you dont mind me idolizing you and putting links to this page and to your blog in other blogs, lots of people like funky music, not nearly enough know about your work...

Fitzhugh, of course I'm flattered and many thanx for linking to the blog, it's much appreciated!

Just bought the Poly-Rhymo Cd on Analog Africa. Looking forward to seeing this docu, deinterlaced (without the horizontal stripes) I hope...

yeah, sorry about those stripes... any idea how to get rid of them?

I'm very much looking forward to seeing this! Is it done yet? I love this kinda music.

Those stripes I think are from some conversion process. If the film is being done digitally (what isn't these days?) It should be fine. I suspect it's just the trailer had been converted and that's why it has those lines.

Getting rid of the stripes? Click on a 'deinterlace'-button somewhere when uploading or exporting a movie. While I'm at it, is the movie out yet? Can't find any info, hope you're not into some hassle with royalties et al...

Please add 1 sentence summarizing the video for the description. Are you aware of other videos on vimeo in a similar vein? Here is a link to a really awesome piece of documentary footage on Sonny Okosun, 'Power To The People': youtube.com/watch?v=Weq4v99v2Mg&feature=channel_page

BTW your interviews are touching, the video has a nice touch and good sense of ethnographic perspective. I wonder who in Africa, meaning native people, is doing the same.. Thank you for your work.