BACAO RHYTHM & STEEL BAND Live 2024

Even though the Schaugewächshäuser are closed due to renovation plans, tropically inspired vibes will be wafting through Planten un Blomen on 12 June: after sold-out singles, millions of streamed hits such as "P.I.M.P" and albums on Brooklyn's Big Crown Records, the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band will be presenting their new longplayer BRSB live at Cafe Schöne Aussichten. A rare opportunity to experience the myth-enshrouded and globally acclaimed project in its home town.

Steel pan drums from Trinidad and Tobago fuse with Afro-funk-style brass sections and a seventh sense for club and DJ music - the characteristic, incredibly successful sound of the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band not only blurs musical boundaries, but also erodes the sense of space and time.

When the then still completely unknown project released a version of "P.I.M.P" in 2008, many wondered whether it wasn't the original version of the 50 Cent hit - created decades ago in a backyard studio in Port of Spain. The fictional band story, which actually set the band's origins in the Caribbean state of the sixties, further fueled the international hype and created a huge buzz around Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band and their cover and original tracks.

By now you might know that the multi-instrumentalist Björn Wagner is behind this project, who as part of The Mighty Mocambos is one of the most influential European deep funk bands. But that doesn't detract from the magic. On the contrary. The knowledge of Wagner's deep connection to the steel pan, which he developed as a student on an exchange to Trinidad and Tobago, makes things even more rounded. After all, he had one of these traditional instruments made from oil drums built, learned to play it and later brought it home with him.

In Hamburg, he created his own musical universe with his steel pan drum. Unlike in the Caribbean, where the instrument is mainly used in calypso and soca, a darker, harder, more Nordic sound developed, which, thanks to Wagner's affinity for soul, disco, funk and jazz, also remained compatible with organic grooves and their diverse metamorphoses into genres such as hip hop.

The Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band can now look back on countless sold-out singles, streaming figures in the millions and three albums on Brooklyn's Big Crown Records. But right now they are looking ahead: to their fourth album "BRSB", which will also be released on Big Crown on March 8, 2024 and will continue the success story: With new interpretations of all-time classics such as Dr. Dres and Snoop Dogg's "Nuthin' But A G Thang" and Drake's "Hotline Bling", but of course also with original songs that sometimes celebrate African funk influences and sometimes sound like an homage to the traditional steel pans of Trinidad and Tobago.

History cannot repeat itself, every context is unique in its own way. But when there are good moments in music history that merge with something new in their own timeless way, then we are right in the middle of it - in the world of the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band.

DJ set

Wajang Diskotheque is a collective of artists and curators in Trinidad's capital Port of Spain. It was founded by the Trinidadian writer Attillah Springer, the German DJ, producer and Cree Records boss Merten Kaatz and the Scottish artist Peter Doig.

Since 2017, Wajang Diskotheque has existed as an ad hoc underground club night focusing on hard-to-find or forgotten vinyl classics and contemporary tropical disco and funk, soca, rapso, zoukous, soukous, reggae and other music of the Caribbean and African diaspora. But it's about more than just capturing the energy on the dance floor.

From celebrations of emancipation focused on the musical activism of Lancelot Layne to a podcast about the journey of Afro-Latin American music traditions to Trinidad, from interviews with Guggenheim fellow and jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles to a public art project with Belmont Secondary School, Wajang Diskotheque is steeped in the work of contemporary documentary and archival activism that explores and revitalizes dying, underrepresented, or lost forms of cultural production to find new ways to engage diverse audiences.