Source: Thinking Thing

I had an opportunity to watch Curumin perform with “special guests Tommy Guerro, Blackalicious, Lateef and Money Mark” at Slims in SF on January 22, 2009.

The opening band (didn’t catch the name, but think baby Manu Chao) had just finished and the stage was set. Curumin, a thin, jerky man in his early to mid 30s, with a shaved head, turn-of-the-century presidential sideburns framing his long face, baggy pants, and boldly striped polo shirt, took the stage with his reticent bassist, and drummer/percussionist (who resembled a lither version of Seth Rogan). Guest stars Money Mark (keys), Tommy Guerrero (guitar) and Lateef the Truthspeaker (MC) and Chief Xcel (DJ) would also join in throughout the evening (Gift of Gab was absent). Curumin’s music, categorically placed under the broad genre Música Popular Brasileira (categorically only), was a melding of funky electro and acoustic sampling (a nod to the legends of Bossa Nova and Samba), groovy bass lines, tight creative percussion and dancehall/hip-hop rhythms. Curamin and his posse were technically very good, and the music was very, very good.

Follow up:

What was very, very, very good about Curamin’s performance was his love for the moment, and his expression of total humility, grace and gratitude. Example: even when Lateef & The Chief came on stage to push a couple of their own songs during Curamin’s set – I suspect a not-so-subtle marketing arrangement devised by Quannum Projects/Lateef & The Chief to boost rep, and accordingly, sales (hey we all need to eat, right?) – Curamin happily pounded away on his drum, taking second stage, smiling chop to chop, completely immersed in the process of rocking the fucking show. Oh, and did I mention that Curamin was totally “OMG” after Lateef & The Chief finished their mini-set and exited stage left? =)

This concert was a refreshing reminder that music (and art in general) is beautiful not because it is a timeless composition suspended in some weird multi-dimensional space-time continuum located between an artist’s ears, but because it espouses a framework for a beautiful collective exchange: Curamin, the artist and performer breathing into us his creation; we, the living-hot-sweaty-musky body enraptured in existential bliss – the kind of bliss that is the warm counterpoint to everything selfishly pretentious, coldly abstract (i.e. modern for the sake of being modern), and unnervingly uncreative. Oh joy!

Curumin would shout in his Portuguese flavor, “I am so happy to be here!” So am I, Curmin, and thank you for that.