Adelaide, Australia was anything but a hotbed for R&B music in the mid-1980s, but Freekwency (real name: Benny Badge), who is on a mini-tour of Taiwan this weekend and next, was lucky to have soul and funk music in his life from a young age.
“My mother was someone who really pushed for import records to arrive in my home city of Adelaide,” Freekwency said in an e-mail interview with the Taipei Times.
“There was no shortage of eighties nostalgia when I was growing up, which led me to hip-hop culture in my teens, particularly b-boying,” he said.
Photo courtesy of Benny Badge
Freekwency is a vinyl aficionado and got into making boogie funk tracks when he learned how to play instruments.
“It wasn’t until I began collecting records that I really understood how these instruments made the sounds I loved. Buying my first synthesizer to complement my rhythms changed everything. It was all about funk after that,” he said.
Freekweency says that funk is “an approach, a vibe” that attaches itself to everything cool.
The says that highlight of Freekwency’s career so far has been releasing the Love Scenes album with the Night Class Girls.
DJ Wang Hart from LiaoLiao and DJ Resident Soul from The Soul, Sweat and Swank show are the reasons Freekwency will be in Taiwan.
The shows Freekwency will play over the next two weeks will be much different than what Taiwanese clubbers are used to. He said it will be “classy music for fancy dancers and funk freaks alike … everything from disco to funk into house territory and back again.”
■ Freekwency live with Sarah Bates and special guests Resident Soul, tomorrow from 10pm to 4am at M-Taipei, 3F, 456 Xinyi Rd, Taipei City (台北市信義區信義路四段456號3樓). Admission is NT$350 and includes one drink. Freekwency live with Sarah Bates and Wang Hart play Aug 1 from 10pm to 4am at Chic, 7, Dujing Rd, Greater Kaohusing (高雄市鼓山區篤敬路5號). Admission is NT$300 at the door and includes one drink.
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