mp3: tigarah ‘ girl fight’
mp3: the tape vs rqm feat tigarah ‘fake out’
lazy comparisons always make me feel cheap, but in the current climate of cultural redux, they can obviously provide a short cut to discovering new music that suits our own broad tastes. so when i heard tigarah described as ‘the japanese m.i.a.‘, i had to get on the good foot with google.
first off, let’s dispense with that comparison immediately – tigarah does have some baile-funk-style tracks in her repertoire. the rest of the material however is in a far broader hip hop, garage and r’n’b vein – gwen and lady sov are more immediate touch-stones. that aside, ‘girl fight’ has provided us with the first opportunity to hear baile funk sung in japanese rather than portuguese – it’s a wonderful surprise, deliciously refreshing and packed full of attitude. she describes the song thus: “this is the starting moment of the fight that everyone must experience. everyday is a fight. people fight for what they believe and what they wish to be. do what you love for what you believe. this is not about tough guy’s story. this is about everyone.”
tigarah came to music after studying political science in tokyo – somewhere along the line, she decided that music would provide a far more relevant platform to promote her opinions and influence minds. tucked away in her bedsit, she was sufficiently inspired by baile funk to not only write her own material, but to fund a trip to brazil to study the scene and work with local producers. it’s there that she met with mr.d – their partnership has now lasted three years and forms the basis of all the tracks on tigarah‘s debut release, due this summer. you can pick up the e.p. and sample all the tunes at tigarah.net and myspace.com/tigarah
the second mp3 is a twisted electrofunk remix of the track ‘fake out’, courtesy of the tape vs rqm. check out thetape.de for more info on their recent release ‘autoreverse’ (available on kitty-yo).