Black Market Brass and Obi Original Are Battle Ready!

 

This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 3/10/25

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW BELOW:

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It is the afternoon cruise. I’m Chad with some members of black market brass and Obi. Original. Obi and black market brass are teaming up to release a new seven inch single, and they’re celebrating at the Turf Club with a big show on Saturday March 22 where they’ll be joined by room three. Obi, welcome back to jazz 88 Yeah, yeah. I’m so happy to be back. Mitch Sigurdson, welcome back to jazz 88 from a long time ago at our old locations, right? Thank you and David Tullis,  welcome for the first time to jazz 88 Thank you very much, DavidTullis plays conga Mitch Sigurdson plays guitar, and Obi original is an iconic vocalist sounding spectacular on this new recording. So we featured Battle Ready last week as the hot local single of the week, because it is amazingly just compelling to hear this sound and to hear Obi alongside black market brass. Now, Obi, last time you were on we were celebrating Fela’sheavenly birthday, and you said that you had been a fan of black market brass for quite some time. Tell me how you went from a fan relationship to a collaboration relationship.

 

Obi Original 

Yeah. Um, it really started from my days at St John’s University, being a person of the city that wanted to be acquainted with the local music and live music, and the one band that always stood out to me was black market brass, just like at our last time when we talked about it, I’ve always been a fan of Fela, and I found like minded people in my city that were fans as well and took it to the next level. But there came a time when I met Mitch at one of my shows, and he introduced himself and said to me that he was a fan of what I’ve been doing, and I had to humble myself. I was always an introvert, and I never, like, saw the faces of black market brass at that point, until I saw Mitch, and he said, Yo, I’m with black market brass. I’m like, oh my god, I’m fanboy, you know? And it came to a space when we did, I think it was the rat, rat trap 45 show, and you guys invited me to come, and the conversation seriously came into when they asked me to come and record with them, to do some vocal stuff and things. And it really was a dream come true. You know, I think it’s very rare for an artist to fulfill their dreams that are not, per se, based off of vanity, more like collaboration with people that inspire them. So we’re here. We are.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Well, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Because the first time, I think that’s about eight bars into this song, Battle Ready. Obi, we hear your voice, which I’m familiar with now, and we hear it over black market brass. And I go, this is a collaboration, a real match made in heaven. Situation. it sounds so impassioned and authentic, but also new. It’s not like you’re playing cover music. And I actually wanted to ask Mitch, you’ve been really central to the story of black market brass for their whole time. And I was curious how you stay focused on making new material, but still being rooted in this tradition of Afrobeat and other sounds.

 

Mitch Sigurdson 

Yeah, I mean, we’ve been trying to play all angles in this kind of music. And like, you know, when we first started, it’s very kind of, we’re totally ripping off Antibalas.  And then, you know, not having a singer, we kind of decided to put more of our influences in, where then that kraut rock kind of comes in. We’re all like, you know, 6070, like hard rock fans too, and you know, all the jazz so trying to level this music up and not just be just a, you know, another new Afrobeat band just kind of ripping things off. But then with this, we kind of want to go back to the basics and be like, What could we sound like with a singer? And that just really amplified us to start writing, you know, like, how can we write with a singer now.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

David, we haven’t heard from you yet, and a lot of times, particularly in a lot of music from America, conga can be treated like, really, as an afterthought, like, Oh, should we throw a little conga in on this section? That is not the role it plays in a group like black market brass. That is not the role it plays in a lot of the music that y’all have been students of. How do you find your way in when you’re making new music and working on the conga parts of it?

 

David Tullis 

Well, first of all, on stage, we put me up front, so the sound guy looks stupid if I’m too low! A trick you can do for other percussion players. But generally, you know, in West Africa, the drums talk, and the drum rhythms usually have dances, so it should be danceable. So I try to think of the congas like any other instrument, maybe three notes instead of, you know, 12 or whatever. But. Yeah, trying to fit in the mix, trying not to step on people’s toes. It’s a bit of a challenge playing with the drum set player, because everybody wants to feel at the end of the phrase. So it’s really slotting in with everybody. And then Congas have pitches, but they’re sort of half pitches. They’re not on the keyboard so much, little micro tonal and so it can create little sub harmonies and sub melodies within the music. So I try not to step on the singer’s toes too much,

 

Mitch Sigurdson 

but to go with that, Sean, you know, a lot of our writing is rooted in, you know, drum calls and stuff like that. And some a horn head has been developed by just a couple different what do you call drum calls, or Yeah, drum phrases, yeah, poems, but yeah, you can get the rhythms and then assign them note values and hand them to a horn and watch them struggle for a little bit. Pretty much.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

it’s the afternoon cruise. I’m chatting with Obi original and black market brass a new seven inch coming out. They’re celebrating at the Turf Club on March 22 now it is an uphill battle to get black market brass together, let alone adding Obi and his schedule into the mix. How do all of y’all stay focused on the amount of emails and texts and stuff it takes to navigate to keep on making new music and new releases happen?

 

David Tullis 

Well, shout out Murphy, our drummer. He’s our de facto manager. I don’t know if he volunteered, but we volunteered. This is Moby Robinson. He takes care of a lot of logistics. It’s scheduling is a bit tough. Obi is really flexible, and he’s really excited about the project, so we’ve just kind of made it happen. If it’s just a small crew, that’s fine, especially writing. It’s hard for 10 people to write at once anyway, and so it’s helpful to break down into small groups, two, three, yeah, kind of bounce off each other.

 

Obi Original 

I mean, this is a good time to kind of share. You know, what was the website that we used to facilitate in the music? Soundtrack, yeah, Soundtrap. It’s like just someone starts something, and then you can just log on and you get into the project, and then you can add your bit. And then, yeah, because I would say in the respect of knowing the history of black market brass, and you know, a lot of the other members not being in Minneapolis, I was able to humbly be part of the experience to see how efficient it is in current day in technology, to do something like this. So now when we do look at look back at fella and think about them all being at kalakuta Republic, Soundtrap. Was that for us.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

technology is beautiful, gentlemen, but it takes the want, and y’all have the want. And I tip my hat to you for that. I got one more question for you, but I just want to first thumbs up. Thank you for continuing to make music and continuing to release music and finding new ways to do it. I didn’t know how great it would be to hear black market brass with a vocalist, and it is so great. Like, the minute Murph sent over that music, I just go, Oh my God. Like, this is, this is incredible. Thank you. Okay, we’re on a jazz station we love. We got Fela in the mix, we got Obi original in the mix, we got these things in the mix, we got black market brass in the mix. But a lot of times it’s a side dish to jazz for a lot of our listeners. And you know, that’s no problem with that. But my question is, what is the most commonly misunderstood thing about Afrobeat that you wish people understood better? I see the most dynamic head shaking from Obi. So we’ll start with Obi.

 

Obi Original 

I think is to understand that jazz is an essential part of Afrobeat, even in the aspect of if you look at it, from the Fela Kuti lens, you know fell out was a man that was able to take his jazz influences, and he went to school for jazz. Was a big fan of Miles Davis was able to do that. So the same way you can talk about correct me if I’m wrong, but the track, so what from Miles Davis, how that influenced funk with James Brown, it’s the same way Afrobeat is as a product of that. So with it, we’re able to celebrate the evolution of jazz through its different means and forms of how it reaches cultures, especially Africa.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Anything to add black market brass gentlemen?

 

David Tullis 

I think for me, the it’s Fela is saxophone playing. I think he technically he’s not the best. Squeaks and squawks a little bit. So a lot of people tend to think he’s not the best. And if you go listen to a bunch of his records, and you listen to the sex versus the singing, you realize he’s playing the sax the same way that he sings keyboards. He squawks when he’s singing, and so it’s very much an extension of, you know, the rhythms are dances, and the rhythms have meaning. A lot of his sax solos, from a jazz perspective, are a lot more vocal and a lot more melodic than a lot of jazz traditions. And I think that gets ignored based on the technical kind of proficiency or perfection that he was trying to even go for, yeah, and I

 

Mitch Sigurdson 

think, to add to that, like this, music’s not polished like, you know, Fela would do these songs in one take, and the recording studio is like 120 degrees in there, so obviously half the horn parts are out of tune too. So people get turned off by that because it’s not polished, you know. And also to commit to a 25 minute song too.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

But I love it, and I think the lack of polish at certain times is also just the beautiful thing about the music, how it’s how it’s delivered. I’m so thankful y’all are carrying this torch and keeping it alive. The show is on Saturday, March 22 at Turf Club, OBS double duty and man, because Obi the night before you’re going to be over at uh, at the Dakota with La Buckner and big homie. Thank you all for making beautiful music and bringing into the city and bring it on to wax and sharing with us here at jazz 88

 

Obi Original 

Thank you. Thank you.

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