519 Hello Mantronix - Ladies

Chart  entered : 22  February  1986

Chart  peak : 55

Number  of  hits : 10

This  is  where   I  start  finding  it  difficult,  with  the  first  hip  hop  act  to  get  over  the  line. I  share  Adrian  Edmondson's  difficulty  in  accepting  rap  as  "music"  and  haven't  moved  much  from  my  initial  assessment  that  it's  for  people  who  can't  be  bothered  to  learn  how  to  sing  or  play  an  instrument. Of  course  this  makes  it  very  difficult  for  me  to  tell  good  from  bad  in  the  genre.

Mantronix  were  essentially  a  duo  with  the  driving  force  being  Kurtis  el  Khaleel  , born  in  1965  to  a  Jamaican   mother  and  Syrian  father.  The  family  moved  to  Canada  before  settling in New  York. Kurtis  immersed  himself  in  electronic  music  with  Riyuchi  Sakamoto's
polyrhythmic  instrumental  "Riot  in  Lagos"  a  particular  influence.  In  1984  he  was  working  as the  instore  disc  jockey  at  a  record  shop  in  Manhattan  when  he  met  rapper  Toure  Emblen , a Haitian   who  performed  under  the  name  MC  Tee. The  two  men  started  working  on  a  demo as " Mantronix"  with  Kurtis  adopting  the  name  "Kurt  Mantronik".

Their  first  single  ( in  the  US  only )  was  "Fresh  Is  The  Word " , five  and  a  half  minutes  of  blustery  self-promotion  over  a  couple  of  drum  machines  and  a  looped  sample  saying  "Fresh !". There's  no  melodic  content  at  all  and  I  find  it  completely  inaccessible. The  second, US-only  single  "Needle  To  The  Groove"  has  similar  lyrical  content  but  isn't  as  minimalist  with  a  Vocoder  hook   and  a  backing  track  that  sounds  pretty  similar  to  Herbie  Hancock's  Rockit  .

Both  these  singles  featured  on  their  debut  LP  "Mantronix : The  Album"   released  at  the  end  of  the  year. Having  negotiated  a  deal  with  10  Records,  the subsequent  two  singles  from  it  were  also  released  in  the  UK  and  this  was  the  first  of  them. Having  declared  their  musical  chops  ( in  their  terms  at  least ) on  the  previous  two,  Tee   now  announces  his  credentials  as  a  lover. It's  not  objectionable  and  the  line  " I  believe  in  magic  all  around  the  clock, well like  the  mouse  in  the  story  Hick  Dickory  Dock " is  worth  a  chuckle. In  fact  it  doesn't  stray  any  further  than  The  Floaters'  Float  On  . Musically  there's  not  much  more  than  a  simple  bass line, chattering  drum  machine  and  the  occasional  Art  of  Noise  Fairlight  crash  before  the  abrupt  ending. I'll  probably  never  listen  to  it  again  but  these  guys  were  undoubtedly  pioneers.