Altered Zones

Joystick Jay's debut is also the first release from Disco Delicious, an Australian disco blog and now vinyl singles imprint, who are releasing three remixes from the Norwegian producer. In "No Possible," Jay takes a 17 minute long Fela Kuti song, and compresses it to an under eight-minute original. While Kuti's songs typically last in excess of half an hour and are mostly instrumental, this edit splices in new vocals and a strong chorus from other jams, accentuating the original's endless groove with a different bass line and a demure guitar loop. --Dwight Pavlovic, Get Off The Coast

MP3: Fela Kuti: "No Possible (Joystick Jay Vulgar Distractions Edit)"

Knitting Factory Records just announced a massive vinyl re-issue of six classic Fela Kuti albums from the '70s and '80s, lovingly cherry-picked by DJ/producer/music journalist/Roots drummer ?uestlove and featuring painstaking recreations of the original album and vinyl label artwork. "It's the story of Hip Hop", says ?uestlove of this particular collection of Afrobeat masterpieces. "It's the story of taking nothing and turning it into something." The box set includes Everything Scatter (1975), Expensive Shit (1975), Fear Not For Man (1977), Sorrow Tears And Blood (1977), Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense (1986), and Beasts Of No Nation (1989), and is the first in a series of curated Fela box sets from the venue-affiliated imprint.

Fela Kuti Vinyl Box Set 1 is out February 1st on Knitting Factory Records