Music Monday - Wriggly Scott
© Jalal Abuthina
For this week's Music Monday, I'd like to introduce you to one of Dubai's leading DJ and producers Wriggly Scott aka DJ Solo. He moved to Dubai in 2004 and over the years he's built a name for himself as one of the few original DJs in town.
Earlier this year he released ‘Who Is Wriggly Scott?’, a collection of eight produced tracks featuring MCs from the Middle East and further afield such as J-Live, Orifice Vulgatron (what a name!) and The Narcicyst. "On the EP, Scott attempts to bridge the cultural gap between his own upbringing with hip hop in the UK and his personal experience formed living in the Middle East for over seven years." (via Wriggly Scott's site)
A few weeks ago he released a new video for a track called 'Hierarchy/Anarchy', a dark song with an equally dark video made up mostly of stock footage and YouTube videos.
The track was really driven by the vocal sample which is from a 60s Garage band. The vocal can have many interpretations but it made me imagine a creator (whoever or whatever that is) essentially saying "I won't hurt you, but instead allow you to hurt yourselves and learn from that." I was then intrigued by the idea that potentially thousands of years from now, alien beings attemptng to piece together our history would go through surviving audio and video material - only to find that we had wasted everything due to greed and selfish desires. We actually hint at this idea in the video for track - playing things backwards as if it's being rewound and viewed.
[via an interview with Satellite Voices, you can read the full interview here]
Hierarchy/Anarchy
Here are a couple of tracks and mixes by Wriggley Scott, hope you enjoy them. If you like what you hear, visit Wriggly Scott's site to hear and download his music.
Cattle Fodder
As a response to the mainstream monopolizing of the music industry, Scott presents a metaphorical comparison between the everyday consumer and force-fed cattle. The track samples a scene from the classic film “Spartacus” and once again couples it with electronic bass and heavy percussion.
Twilight Empires
A politically inspired track featuring the U.A.E-based MC Jibberish. Inspired by the recent Arab Spring, the track shines a light on the various social and political happenings in the region over the past year.
“The whole thing is written from the perspective of someone in the Middle East watching all the turmoil in the region on the news, and the extrapolations from that experience. While not all of us live in Middle Eastern countries that are unstable, we all share an understanding, and can relate to the paranoia, oppression, cynicism, weariness and plain dissatisfaction with the ruling class in these parts” says MC Jibberish.