Waxing Poetic...on Funky Beats.

Issue No. 32 of WaxPoetics is um, in nutshell, nothing shameful, nothing embarrassing (...like this week's Pulp and Circumstance), and nothing short of amazing.

Featuring both Sly Stone, the father of funk, and Jimmy Cliff, the venerable island ambassador, on its double cover, the magazine has an excellent set of articles on the two geniuses of music, as well as a plethora of excellent music reviews and a sit-down with Ahmad Jamal, a genre bending pianist in the 1950s Chicago jazz scene.

And as if the entire issue couldn't get any better, there is a gush-worthy feature on Egyptian Lover and Arabian Prince, on their genre bending electronic 1980s hip hop which moved people into a dance space. WaxPoetics got into the meat with the two in an excellent interview and if I haven't already convinced you with the aforementioned, its reason enough to pick up the glossy...

...um, yesterday.

There's a really awesome Digital Playlist from the issue, which you can gobble up here.

And in honor of their brilliant new issue, I bring you my favorite bits of some of the features. Screw shame week, this is the butter, baby.

Enjoy.

[My knees go week. Jimmy Cliff does "Many Rivers to Cross". Wow. Nothing better. (My favorite version of this live has of course, been pulled from youtube for copyright claims. Lame.).]
[The Ahmad Jamal Trio, with Ahmad on piano, just straight working "Darn that Dream", 1959. Israel Crosby kills on bass, too.]
[Jimmy Cliff does "The Harder They Come". Brilliant.]
[Sly & The Family Stone do "I Want to Take You Higher" from Woodstock.]
[An interview with Sly Stone, at his home studio, circa sometime in the 1980s.]
[Egyptian Lover's "Freak-a-Holic". Brilliant to the core. Enough said.]
[Arabian Prince tells you "It's a Dope Thing". Yup.]