IBE SOLIMAN, the London-born, Maryland-raised, and now Brooklyn-based DJ and producer, likes to guise up for the world of music he produces as Bad Colours; and he’s set to release his first full-lengther, PINK, on Bastard Jazz at the end of this month.
The album sees him drawing on influences from across the beats and grooves spectrum, pulling together transatlantic strands of garage, funk, future disco, the more recherché fringes of house, and sampled hiphop, in order to sonically forge forward.
He’s already got a single drop under his belt, last autumn’s “Cookin'”, which judiciously loops a Chris Faust sample, some tight electro and filter house down the rhythm alley, mid-Seventies funk and saxophone from virtuoso south California blower Carras Paton; intriguing.
He’s just unveiled a second single from the forthcoming album, “Feelin’ Like” – you can watch the video below.
“Feelin’ Like” was originally built around a sampled vocal hook from Seattle’s Jarv Dee, but the rapper contributed additional black power lyrics after hearing an early version; it’s got the qualities of late-Eighties’ hiphop in that dancefloor fusion, with a sequencer busying itself like MARRS. “Dancey stuff with a message,” says Ibe. As Jarv’s hook declares: “We’re only gettin’ stronger, while times are really sombre”.
The drive to record an album came about while Ibe was isolating at home in Flatbush during the first wave of the pandemic. Inspired by some rough ideas and samples that friends sent him, Ibe found musical focus. He took his palette from early Trax records and Larry Heard, MJ Cole, Todd Edwards’ way with a vocal sample and an encyclopaedic knowledge of disco, funk and soul.
It may be his first spin out at the helm of a record, but Ibe has residencies at some of New York’s top venues, rocking crowds as a DJ for more than a decade, and he’s produced for Kendrick Lamar, Faith Evans and Keyshia Cole.
Find out more about Ibe and his groove aesthetic at his website; PINK will be released digitally and on vinyl on February 26th, and is available for pre-order over at Bandcamp, right now.
