Last week, Fat Freddy’s Drop touched down in California for their first ever concerts in the U.S.  I made the trip out west to witness one of my favorite bands on the planet live for the first time and was completely blown away.  The crowd’s energy, especially at the Los Angeles show, was intense and the New Zealand-based band was shocked at how much love they received across the pond.  While I was at this show, it was also webcast, so here is the soundboard rip of the complete show, courtesy of oneworldreggae.com.  Stay tuned for exclusive performances from their show at The Roxy, which I will be posting next week.

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Brother Ali, who recently released his latest album “Us” (get that if you haven’t),  has been touring the country along with Toki Wright, BK One and Evidence.  They recently stopped off to rock the crowd in Louisville and luckily for us, there was a taper in the house to bring it home for the rest of the world.  Here is Brother Ali’s full set from the evening.  Setlist and download link after the jump.

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Robert Glasper held his album release party/concert at Le Poisson Rouge not too long ago and rounded up his usual suspects (Chris “Daddy” Dave, Casey Benjamin, Derrick Hodge and Vicente Archer) to play cuts off his fantastic new record, Double Booked (iTunes | Amazon).  Many special guests came out for the occasion, including Bilal, who performed his awesome new song off the Double Booked album, “All Matter”.  Here’s our exclusive 10+ min recording of the song, which is jammed out with some amazing solos and some out of this world drumming by Chris Dave.  I also found some video of the performance, which I included below.

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Fat Freddy’s Drop were the headliners at Gilles Peterson’s Awards show back in 2005.  This show was actually my first introduction to the band and the rest is history.  FFD will be making their debut in the United States with their first ever shows lined up on the west coast in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.  I already booked my trip and if you truly love live music, I would advise you do the same. Here is their entire set from the Gilles Peterson Award Show at Kokos in London.

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