Archive for May, 2014

OYASABA, The Flatbush Sound: 13 on SoundCloud

" target="_blank">

Categories: Music
Comments Off on OYASABA, The Flatbush Sound: 13 on SoundCloud

13cd

13 is the first album by OYASABA.
The songs on this album are about love and loss in the big city.
Recorded in my Flatbush Studio.
Music videos for the songs Gravity (on the Q), Possessed, and Avail are featured further down this page.
Artwork by Rhasaan Oyasaba Manning.
Full layout is featured in PORTFOLIO.
Copyright 2008 by Rhasaan Oyasaba Manning.
All Rights Reserved.

nocountry1

This show aired on BEL-AIR.org’s program NO COUNTRY COUNTRY, hosted by Davis Thompson-Moss in collaboration with Tyrone-Brown Osborne of FUNKY BLACK ANGELS, AREA BOY PICTURES, 21 MISSING, MANNING-OSBORNE.
Special Guests included Honeychild Coleman, K. Neycha Nerford, Monk Washington, and Rhasaan Oyasaba Manning. The panel was set the discuss the art of living as independent artists in New York City today, while sharing music from the FUNKY BLACK ANGELS diaspora. A barrage of callers changed the course of the discussion from the surreal to brief expressions of love, support and appreciation. The experience of live radio opened my eyes to the inherent impact of live radio today. I am inspired to enter the fray with an ensemble radio show early next year. In the meantime, Davis and Tyrone have organized a second installment of the NCC/FBA which will be recorded live at The Flatbush Sound Studio in early June. Stay tuned…

On this episode of U Look Hungry, it’s time for story-telling from some wise former waiters who have worked at some of the top restaurants in New York City. Helen Hollyman is joined by DJ SWV (Anna Margaret Hollyman) & Lonewolf McSuede (Rhasaan Oyasaba Manning) to discuss nightmare dates at restaurants and more horrible love stories. Is the customer always right? Is your hostess hitting on your, or is she just trying to be friendly and do her job? Is it cool to make out in the corner of the establishment? All this, and so much more, only on U Look Hungry. This program was sponsored by Tekserve.

AfroCentaur by OYASABA on SoundCloud

Categories: Music
Comments Off on AfroCentaur by OYASABA on SoundCloud

This is the second album from OYASABA.
AfroCentaur is the soundtrack for the upcoming film THE RETURN OF BLACK SHAMUS, a MANNING-OSBORNE production.
Photos by Tyrone Brown-Osborne.
Full layout is featured in PORTFOLIO.
COPYRIGHT 2013 by Rhasaan Oyasaba Manning.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

CD’s (with 8 page full-color booklet) are available here on OYASABA.com at:

http://www.oyasaba.com/afrocentaur-cd/

THE RETURN OF BLACK SHAMUS is inspired at once by the archetypes of Film Noir and Blaxploitation. Black Shamus is a man imprisoned for crimes he did not commit. It is an old tale in many ways, which is also a recurring nightmare of mine. This negative fantasy has pushed me to take great care in choosing my friends and lovers, and in deciding which members of my family I associate with. The resulting fiction addresses many of my primal fears: the fear of surveillance in general which connects to fear of the Panopticon as described by Foucault in DISCIPLINE & PUNISH, The Birth of the Prison; the fear of being followed in particular; the fear of the police state, the FBI, CIA in general, and the NYPD in particular; the fear of an unknown evil double, or doppelganger, who may want to be the only version of me, thereby needing to negate me; the fear of finding a life partner and starting a family only to lose them in a violent fatal tragedy; the fear of guns and gunplay; the fear of being driven to seek revenge; the fear of taking a life; the fear of losing it all (whatever the “all” is), and starting all over – again.

Black Shamus goes through a series of tragic events as a means to address my obsession with duality, inversion, nihilism, self-destruction, and the struggle for freedom from all these things, which is the only choice. Shamus must contend with his own sense of self, as well as the villain, aforementioned evil other, the diabolical double. Yet, the villain is the same man. This story is meant to serve as an allegory, a metaphor. A man must destroy a part or parts of himself, if not himself entirely in order to transgress the present reality, in order to move forward. Black Shamus is a hero/anti-hero. In reality, the battle (inner) to learn, grow, change, love, understand, appreciate, and express anger, in short, to be a man, is a lonely voyage. Another goal of presenting the fiction of Black Shamus is to construct a man who fits in the world Raymond Chandler described in his essay “The Simple Act of Murder”:

The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in….

In the last scene Black Shamus sits on the pier after having murdered his double in retaliation for the deaths of his wife and child, contemplating his next move. His war has just begun. This is but the first chapter of his quest, his saga.

DJ OYASABA at bar 718 this SATURDAY.05.24.14…!

Categories: News
Comments Off on DJ OYASABA at bar 718 this SATURDAY.05.24.14…!
PARK

SUNSET PARK

ALL VINYL ALL NIGHT LONG…!
Christian will be holding it down behind the bar,
DJ OYASABA will be choppin’ it up in the booth.
See y’all in SUNSET PARK.
718 5th Avenue, BKNY
10p-4a

DREAM SEQUENCE #1

Categories: Film & TV, OYASABA Music Videos, THE RETURN OF BLACK SHAMUS
Comments Off on DREAM SEQUENCE #1

This is a stop-motion animation experimental work-in-progress using stills from the film THE RETURN OF BLACK SHAMUS. This film is based on the album AfroCentaur, A Love Story in Twelve Parts by OYASABA. The featured song is FEAR.

Featuring: LARA VALLANCE & RHASAAN OYASABA MANNING
Director of Photography: TYRONE BROWN-OSBORNE
Writer, Producer, Director: RHASAAN OYASABA MANNING

A MANNING-OSBORNE PRODUCTION.
All Rights Reserved.