There’s a sombre background to this story, but it’s also a raw piece of history propelled into 2020 in quite an innovative way. So what’s it all about?. Cultural Detectives is an interesting historical art experiment that harnesses the power of music and marries it with old poems and stories of slaves. The project was created by Wheeler del Torro and produced by the legendary DJ Tony Humphries. ‘The Merchant’ is a powerful and somewhat haunting poem delivered as a spoken word, which was originally written in 1840 by Juan Francisco Manzano, who was born into slavery in Cuba. Aiming things squarely at the dancefloor Manzano’s original poem gets transported into the house arena with some tasty remixes from San Francisco’s David Harness and Italy’s rising talent, Paul Adam. Compelling and certainly different!
4/5 Ratha Gud
Tony Humphries Presents Wheeler del Torro ‘The Merchant’ (incl. David Harness & Paul Adam Remixes) Dog Day Records
