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Nadir News

Songs From Studio East: With Detroit-based musician Nadir

Nadir_on Michigan Radio Credit Logan Chadde / Michigan RadioBy and Jennifer White
Originally Published at MichiganRadio.org

The Book of Jonah is the new album from Nadir Omowale.  It’s a blend of soul music, rock, funk and blues. While there are songs about love and relationships, themes of social and political consciousness carry through the album.

“I never felt like I had to fashion myself into one particular style. I grew up on Prince and The Time and Cameo and all that good stuff, and so funk is all deep within my soul. And I grew up in a small town in east Tennessee, so there were country music influences, there was a lot of Van Halen and rock and roll and so I love all of that music,” Nadir told Michigan Radio’s Jennifer White.

CLICK HERE to LISTEN to the full interview, and to hear more about Nadir’s newest album The Book of Jonah, including the song he wrote with guitarist and singer Mayaeni, titled 95 Miles Down the Road.

And click on the video below to see Nadir performing in our studio:

PRE-ORDER NOW: Distorted Soul Sound Pack for Producers, Beat Makers & DJs

Some artists defy classification. Detroit-based rock and soul insurgent Nadir rebels against it. So true to form, Nadir’s Distorted Soul Sound Pack for producers, beat makers and DJs, arms you with a stockpile of original rock, funk, jazz and soul kits, instruments and loops for your production arsenal.

Explore the making of the Distorted Soul Sound Pack, created by funk/rock/soul producer Nadir in collaboration with BKE Technology at legendary Submerge Studios Somewhere in Detroit.

We stuffed the Distorted Soul Sound Pack with tons of crunchy rock guitars, roaring B3 organ, percolating bass, stellar post-bop saxophone riffs, and loads of live drum fills and loops. Click below to download FREE kits and samples, and take advantage of nearly 40% pre-order savings!

CLICK HERE to Pre-Order your copy NOW!

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Afro-Punk & SoulTracks Spotlight “Go It Alone” Music Video

One is the most important hub of the urban alternative music community in cyberspace. The other is the biggest soul music website on the planet. Both of them featured Nadir’s “Go It Alone” music video this week.

SoulTracks.com

 


SoulTracks.com is the leading online resource dedicated to classic and modern soul music. Their “First Listen” feature presents the hottest new soul music to the international soul community. Here’s how they laid it out:

SoulTrackers who’ve been with us awhile know that we’re fans of Detroit funk, rock, soul and blues man, Nadir.  He’s always bringing us something real, and since it’s been a few years since we last heard new music from him, we were glad to hear he was working on a new album.

Click HERE to check out SoulTracks.com and their First Listen feature…

Nadir on the Afro-Punk Social NetworkAfter the release of 2003’s Afro-Punk, the seminal cult classic film spotlighting Black Punks in America, alternative urban kids across the nation (and across the globe) who felt like outsiders discovered they were actually the core of a boldly innovative, fast-growing community.

The online members of the social network the filmmakers created have been the driving force behind the exploding Afro-Punk (AP) culture, creating an authentic virtual home in www.afropunk.com, and nurturing the musics best and brightest.

Click HERE to check out Nadir’s video feature, and to visit the Afro-Punk community.

Exclusive Interview: Nadir Featured on TheDetroiter.com

TheDetroiter.comSince its founding in 2002, TheDetroiter.com has covered thousands of happenings and artists, and continues to be one of Detroit’s favorite sources for art and culture.

In this exclusive interview by Chariti Joi Ntuk, Nadir talks about his forthcoming album The Book of Jonah, about why Detroit is the world’s number one music city, and about why organizing artists is like herding cats.

Nadir Omowale: Diary of a Distorted Soul

TheDetroiter.com

Somewhere in Detroit sits an anonymous building on a nondescript block. Throughout any given day, a steady stream of conspicuously awesome people carrying guitars, keyboards, etc. flow in and out of this seemingly forgettable building on a seemingly forgotten block of a city whose demise some people seem to think is a foregone conclusion.

If music is indeed the soundtrack to life, then Detroit and more specifically, this building, is very much alive thanks to its long list of strong-winded musicians who blow life into it daily. One of the musicians you can find in this building, and who is most responsible for the city’s current musical pulse is none other than 11-time Detroit Music Award winner, Nadir Omowale.

Read the full article HERE

City Pulse: Nadir Keeps Funk Grounded In Reality

Originally Published in City Pulse, Lansing, Michigan

Get up. Get into it. Get involved.

Are you going to disobey James Brown? That would be unwise, according to Detroit neo-funk mainstay Nadir.

Nadir gives you funk for your grind and funk for your mind. He reaches into rock, hip hop, world beat and jazz, but keeps his feet planted in goldenage funk.

“James Brown saying ‘Get Involved’ is what our popular music is supposed to do,” Nadir said. “It’s supposed to encourage us and move us forward, not talk about buying a Bentley, Benz or Beamer — none of which is an American-made car, by the way.”

Nadir likes to keep it positive, but right now he can’t stop gnawing on a bone: rapper Lloyd Banks’ hit single, “Beamer, Benz or Bentley.”

Nadir’s cousin, who is in the Air Force, is about to be deployed in [Iraq]. Several friends of his have done multiple tours. One of Nadir’s latest tracks, “Guantanamo,” is a notso-gentle reminder the nation is still at war.

“How can you sit there and talk about my Beamer, Benz, or Bentley?” he fumed. In his view, “keeping it real” has become an empty catchphrase. “Gangsta rappers are talking about all this money they’ve got, and we know everybody is broke.”

Read The Full Article HERE

Nadir on KISS KISS BANG BANG I.S.P.Y.

Nadir was featured in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (KKBB), a specialty newsletter for the alternative music community produced by UNCLE Promotions in California. It includes weekly airplay charts, interviews with alternative radio and record company personalities, and other content geared toward the alternative music community.

A very big thanks goes to our good friend Jane Asher at RadioSophie 103.7 in San Diego for spreading the word in KKBB’s I.S.P.Y. feature. Jane says:

Nadir Omowale embodies the spirit of music. He is a singer, songwriter, producer and social activist. His latest album, “Workin’ for the Man,” is filled with soul-shredding funk and offers an amazing version of Terence Trent D’Arby’s (now known as Sananda Maitreya) “Sign Your Name.” Nadir was just awarded Outstanding Urban Funk Vocalist at the 2010 Detroit Music Awards on April 16th. If Motown had never moved to L.A., this is what it would sound like today.

Coolness! Click HERE to check out the whole Kiss Kiss Bang Bang newsletter.

MusickHead Interview: Nadir Omowale

Detroit writer Dina Peace’s blog Musickhead is “for those special people who love to blow the dust off of forgotten. obscure or underground hits.” Check out our interview:

With the discerning eye of a journalist and the soul of a rock and roll musician, Detroit-based funk disciple Nadir Omowale has made a career of speaking his mind on what is affecting the world and its inhabitants that range from matters of the heart, economics and yes, politics.   Omowale, whose first name is Jonah, encounters a whale of an issue allegorical to the narrative of his famous Biblical namesake with his new musick video, “Guantanamo”.

Read the interview HERE

Cincy Groove Magazine Interview with Nadir

Around the end of August I played a Friends for Chris Walker benefit in Cincinnati, and we did an interview with Cincy Groove Magazine, a webzine that covers all the musical happenings in and around Cincinnati.

In the interview, Cincy Groove publisher, Scott Preston and I talk about Workin’ For the Man, workin’ for the Beat Kangz, and workin’ for Detroit. 

Check it out HERE.

Third Degree Burn – S.O.U.L. eMag features Nadir

S.O.U.L. eMagâ„¢ – SECTIONS ON URBAN LIFE eMAGAZINE is the definitive voice of the urban-alternative experience reaching out to people all around the world.  The web publication is poised to become leader in reporting fashion, entertainment, and politics features for a multicultural audience online.

The Third Degree Burn is a column where each week a different artist is subjected to a barrage of random and ofttimes fairly meaningless questioning. This week Nadir feels the third degree burn.

Click HERE to read the interview

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