The Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp Dubai is uniting Academy lecturers like American hip hop producer Just Blaze, electronic musician Derrick May, world renowned UK producer Gareth Jones, Grammy-nominated dance music guru Kenny Dope, and DJ Gerd Janson, with 32 of the region’s most prominent instrumentalists, vocalists, DJs and producers, giving them the chance to immerse themselves in all things musical.

The Academy itself is a closed event, featuring lectures, workshops and studio sessions, but it will culminate in 4 club nights featuring live performances from the attending lecturers. The grand finale on the 28th of September will see 17 participants, including Adil Omar, taking the stage at The Music Room for a collaboration. Akin to the birth a Middle East super group, This RBMA All-star jam session will brings together all the live musicians from Bass Camp including artists from 8 countries, covering a wide music spectrum from funk to rock to electronic music and a shade of everything in between.

On the 26th of September, 360 in Jumeirah Beach Hotel, in partnership with Infusion, will host Derrick May and Gerd Janson featuring Charl Chaka, Ronin, Liliane Chlela and Salar Ansari while Ohm Eventswill put Just Blaze center stage in 2Liv at the Sofitel Dubai The Palm Resort & Spa featuring DJ Outlaw, Klash & Mr. Shef Codes. At the Tamanya Terrace at the Radisson Blu Hotel, and in partnership with DUST, Kenny Dope manning the decks on the 27th, featuring Zahed Sultan, DJ Safe-T, James Locksmith & Megadon Betamax.

After making the Lebanese capital Beirut its home for the past two years, this three day mini-Academy Bass Camp will make its Dubai debut in the Al Fahidi Historic Neighborhood and will feature artists from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Jordan, Iran, KSA, Bahrain, Syria, UAE and India.

ART COMMISSIONS

Tashkeel, a studio and exhibition space supporting contemporary art and design in the UAE, will be collaborating with Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp Dubai – commissioning UAE based theculturist.com blogger Hind Mezaina and artist Ruben Sanchez to develop installations in the Bass Camp venues. Hind Mezaina’s Cassette Tape project will be open to the public the following weekend – she takes us on a journey through the history of the cassette tape and its association to Dubai, both on a personal level, growing up in the UAE  listening to music from the west, as well as regional music that is still distributed today on cassette tape in the UAE.

“Cassettes have played an important part of my life when I was growing up in Dubai in the 1970s/80s. There was an amazing selection of cassettes on sale – all pirated copies, but they kept me up to date with the pop music scene. Additionally, I would make my own mixtapes, recording my favourite songs from the radio for me to listen to whenever I like or for friends. And that’s the beauty of cassettes, they are tangible objects that hold memories, whether brought from a music store, or a personal mixtape of music and words. For this exhibition I am sharing my personal collection of cassettes from the late 1970s till the early 1990s. A record of my music and tastes over the decades.” Hind Mezaina

There will also be projections of Mezaina’s own photography of Dubai taken using a combination of low-fi analog cameras like the LC-A, Diana+, Holga and Polaroids. ‘The simplicity of these cameras gives me the freedom to concentrate and capture the subjects and emotions I want. I love experimenting with techniques like multiple-exposure and cross processing because the results are always surprising – the mundane can have a new and fresh look.’

In one of the galleries there’ll be a mixtape creation station! Fat Nancy will be heading down to take a peak and make a tape and cassette cover of her own … Opening times tbc. Keep an eye on Tashkeel’s facebook page.

Red Bull Music Academy

The Red Bull Music Academy is a world-travelling series of music workshops and festivals: a platform for those who make a difference in today’s musical landscape. Two groups of 30 selected participants – producers, vocalists, DJs, instrumentalists and all-round musical mavericks from around the world – come together in a new city each year for two weeks’ worth of recording sessions, lectures by musical luminaries, collaborations and performances in the city’s best clubs and music halls. The Academy began back in 1998, and has been traversing the globe since: from Berlin to Cape Town, São Paulo, Barcelona, London, Toronto, New York and beyond.

Hosts and Lecturers

1. Just Blaze, New York

Working closely with Jay-Z, State Property and Cam’ron, Just Blaze helped give East Coast rap a new sound around the turn of the century with his soul-inflected and brass heavy production work, spawning admiration and imitation alike. Blaze’s signature style has remained a staple, making him a much sought-after supplier of hit records with a distinctly street edge. More recently, Blaze has been making forays into electronic music, collaboratingwith ‘Harlem Shake’ producer Baauer and bringing his hi-octane approach to beatmaking to a new generation of fans.

2. Gareth Jones, London

As one of the earliest producers to straddle the worlds of live bands and synthesizers, Gareth Jones has a very particular view from behind the boards. Learning the ropes at Pathway Studios in London in the ‘80s before taking up a position at Berlin’s iconic Hansa Studio, Jones has worked with – and learned from – the best. Innovating recording techniques and working with new sound palettes developed by acts like Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten and Diamanda Galás, Jones has developed a studio intuition like few others. Psychology, courage, impartiality and a certain acoustic voodoo are all vital to the Jones audio armory, which has helped him shape some of the most notable moments in modern recording history.

3. Derrick May, Detroit

The classic Derrick May sound is a clever balance between streamlined percussionheavy cascades of sound with string samples and a warmth gained from time spent in Chicago, enraptured by the grooves of essential DJs like Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles. May’s Transmat Records label was the home of his best material, cuts like ‘Nude Photo’, ‘Strings of Life’, ‘Kaos’ and ‘It Is What It Is’, most produced from 1987 to 1989 as Rhythim is Rhythim. Though his release schedule all but halted during the 1990s, he continued DJing around the world and honed Transmat into one of the globe’s mostrespected techno labels.

4. Gerd Janson (Host), Berlin

Gerd Janson holds residencies at two of the best clubs in the universe: Robert Johnson and Panorama Bar. He reviews the latest 12” singles for German music reads Spex and Groove and, of course, releases some of today’s most daring dance music on his own Running Back label – it’s all ina day’s work. A true DJ’s DJ, Gerd might dabble with production and remixing, but his natural habitat will always be the DJ booth. From classical house to dreamy disco, just give the guy two turntables and an audience, and the rest will follow.

5. Masters at Work/Kenny Dope, New York

Kenny ‘DOPE’ Gonzalez is one of the most prolific artists of the modern music age. The four-time Grammy nominated musical genius has been entertaining and astounding the masses with his fusions of house, hip hop, Latin, jazz, funk and soul, reggae, alternative pop and broken beats for two decades. He has been collaborating with ‘little’ Louie Vega for more than 20 years as Masters at Work, shepherding dance music down new pathswith their inventive production style and imaginative feel for different musical forms. With remixes being their specialty, the Masters at Work treatment has been given to a diverse roster of artists, from Madonna and Debbie Gibson to Lisa Stansfield, Saint Etienne, Michael Jackson and many more.

Participants:

1. Paki Rambo-Pakistan

2. Avedis Demerjian from Autostrad-Jordan

3. Carl Ferneine-Lebanon

4. Adriano Konialdis from Desmo Records-UAE

5. Bojan Preradovic from EYE- UAE

6. Dia Hassan from Juliana Down-UAE

7. Dirar Shawagfeh from El Morabba3-Jordan

8. DJ Sajo-UAE

9. James Locksmith-UAE

10. DJ Mazen-Bahrain

11. Dualist Inquiry-India

12. Jibberish-UAE

13. Khaled Omran from Tanjaret Daghet-Syria

14. Henry Bennet-UAE

15. DJ Outlaw-Bahrain

16. Klash-Saudi Arabia

17. Megadon Betamax-UAE

18. Mr. Gremlin-UAE

19. K. Light-Saudi Arabia

20. Miran Gurunian-Lebanon

21. Nadia-Saudi Arabia

22. Liliane Chelela-Lebanon

23. Mr. Shef Codes-UAE

24. Nancy Mounir-Egypt

25. Neobyrd-Egypt

26. Ronald Ch. Hajjar from Ronin and Nesta-Lebanon

27. Zahed Sultan-Kuwait

28. Omar El-Deeb-Egypt

29. Sandunes- India

30. John Imad Nasr-Lebanon

31. Rami Lakkis from Bull Funk Zoo-UAE

32. Vahag-Iran