The first boombox of the year!
We had just stepped off stage at the Boulder Theatre when the headliners of the evening, CunninLynguists, entered the backstage room – repeating their disgusted but joyful mantra of this tour. We were soaked in sweat from the gig, only dressed in our birthday suits. As in so many other contexts we’ve put ourselves, through the years, we were the odd ones on this five week US tour togethter with Tunji, Budo & Grieves and the CunninLynguists. We weren’t cool, fresh or even weed advocates. We were the naïve hippies, a bit too concerned with world politricks – and too shameless to cover our nakedness.
The expectations were low when we did our set each night, and we loved it. We loved stumbling on stage to almost no noise, seeing the peoples’ surprised faces when we introduced ourselves as Swedes – and then commenced to rap their asses off. Nobody thought rap like that could come from Sweden. Sweden’s known for hockey players, cheese (even though that’s Switzerland), nudity(?) and international solidarity. To some it might be known for being modern, liberated, neutral and peaceful.
The Naked Swedes mantra lived on in our collective memory through years of more shows, and getting undressed in more awkward places at the wrong times. When we started recording this album it was the working title from early on. The idea was however, never to talk about being naked and natural and free in a purely physical sense. Instead we wanted to examine our self image, and the image of Swedes internationally. If we have a reputation of being peaceful, neutral and of representing international solidarity – how can that be true at the same time as Sweden is the second largest arms dealer per capita in the world? How can we be liberated and modern if we never really dealt with our history of race biology, slave trading and oppression of minorities? And how can we change the fact that this is still affecting Swedish politics today through racism, discrimination, ideas of white supremacy and a neo colonial, destructive war industry? We think the way forward is to be courageous enough to be truthful and naked in all our short comings and ugliness. We must dare to face our history, no matter how dark, to be able to build a brighter future.
“We must dare to face our history, no matter how dark, to be able to build a brighter future.”
Embee takes a step into new unexplored musical fields, taking off in Golden Era Boom bap and the always notable Looptroop-soundscape while diving thru uplifting 60’s Soul, catchy club-bangers and atmospheric tracks, coated in deep shimmering sound layers with echoes from jazz and funk. All filtered thru modern bass heavy electronic music with lots of low end theories.
THE CONCERT IS SOLD OUT
Line-up:
20:00 doors open
20:00 – 21:30 1210 Symphony (DJs Chocolatic & Diskotek)
21:30 – 23:00 Looptroop Rockers
23:00 – ???? 1210 Symphony (DJs Chocolatic & Diskotek)
