Dapele: Blast from the past

Dapele: Whose Blues + How Do You Love
From Bop ‘N Pop…and All That Jazz (Dapele, 1978)

I don’t know if it’s shown but I’ve been feeling unmotivated to post lately. It’s mostly because I’ve been exhausted by a slew of other work (much of if SSV2-related, ironically enough) but also, I’ve been feeling uninspired by music to some degree. I’m not going to turn this into a therapy session or anything but the gist of my dispassion is a combination of a few forces (among them a general pessimism about the state of hip-hop but why roast that old chestnut again?).

In any case, I came upon this story today and I was so incredulous over it that it renewed some of my faith in the magic of music. Why?

Because the Dapele album that this story discusses being rediscovered in Japan and bringing attention to a group no one’s heard from in three decades was something I wrote about in 2004 on this very site. Yeah, you heard right: I was up on Dapele since back in the day (insofar as “the day” was three years ago). In fact, do a search for “Dapele” and who comes up #2 in Google? Sayin’.

My point is not to preen – it’s not like my site had anything to do with Dapele’s resurgence (not that I know of). My point is that sometimes, I forget that what makes writing about music fun isn’t opining over whether or not the new Fabolous cut with Jay-Z is hot lava or not (btw…not really) or trying to figure out if Amy Winehouse is Elvis with a beehive but sometimes, it’s about discovering music you haven’t heard before and trying to share it with people. I know that’s pretty much most of what I try to do here but for whatever reason, lately, I’ve lost sight of that and this whole Dapele phenom was a nice reminder that there are many great stories and music waiting to be rediscovered. I’m still exhausted but at least I feel reinvigorated to get back to why I started doing all this to begin with.