Win one of five copies of Shawn Lee’s Incredible Tabla Band’s new album, ‘Tabla Rock’, with just a tweet!
‘Bongo Rock’ by Michael Viner‘s Incredible Bongo Band is a truly seminal album in sampling culture. It started life as studio project initiated by Viner, then MGM’s head of music, to record a soundtrack for an obscure horror film. It then evolved into an instrumental album of cover versions, that was released in 1973 and didn’t get much attention. However, it did get the attention of the early Hip-Hop pioneers of the mid-70′s, notably DJ Kool Herc, who adopted it for its infectious tribal grooves and lush orchestral production. The track that got all of the attention was ‘Apache‘, a cover of the Shadows with an epic drum break. It had such a massive impact at parties that Herc calls it ‘the national anthem of Hip-Hop’. ‘Apache’ went on to become one of the most sampled records of all time, from its early central role in Hip-Hop to helping to spawn new genres such as Jungle / Drum & Bass. Over the years, producers have started to pick up on other great tracks from that album, making sure every bongo hit gets the attention it deserves.
Fast forward to 2012, we were incredibly excited to learn that one of our favorite contemporary musicians, the multi-talented Shawn Lee, is reworking the entire ‘Bongo Rock’ album… in Bollywood style! Lee, who has already impressed and entertained us in the past with the brilliant Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra, where he reworks chart hits and even Classical music in an old school Funk style, has this time formed ‘Shawn Lee’s Incredible Tabla Band‘ and made another crazy, soulful, brilliantly executed gem.
The album was released last week on Ubiquity Records and the label was kind enough to offer the WhoSampled community 5 copies to win! Even better still, winners will be able to choose the format they’d like the album in – vinyl, CD or digital. To enter the competition, just tweet a link to your favorite Shawn Lee / Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra / Shawn Lee’s Incredible Tabla Band cover on the site. Make sure you tweet in the following format to make sure we can see your entry:
@whosampled @UbiquityRecords #ShawnLeeComp This is my favorite Shawn Lee cover: [paste WhoSampled link here]
Anyone in the world can enter the competition and no payment is required to enter. The competition will run until the end of the week and close on Friday, January 27th at midnight GMT. Five winners will be randomly selected from the entire pool of entrants. Once the winners are selected we’ll get in touch with them via Twitter to arrange for delivery.
Oh, and to catch up on the best Bollywood samples of all-time, make sure you read our past posts here and here.
