Category: in memoriam

I don’t know why this song, of all of Womack’s, is my favorite by him. But it is.

Gone too young.

Matthew Africa is gone. I’m having trouble accepting this.

I probably first met him around ’91 or ’92, when I started volunteering at KALX FM in Berkeley. I admit: Matthew intimidated the hell out of me at first. He wasn’t unfriendly but he carried himself with a certain, serious countenance. He didn’t seem like the type to suffer fools lightly and I guess I thought myself a fool, or close enough to one. What trips me out to realize is that, for the longest time, I just thought of Matthew as being older and wiser but he was only the latter. We were the same age, but he possessed such knowledge and self-assuredness even in his late teens. I just realized this a minute ago and it blows my mind. We may have shared an age but he was always on another level.

But gradually, over time, I (mostly) got over that feeling, especially during the time that Matthew was working at Amoeba Records (Berkeley). There used to be a minor feeding frenzy when he’d put out new stock on hip-hop promos and other goodies; we’d all swarm as he filled the bins and I remember him looking out for me on occasion and placing a 12″ in my hand on some “you need this” tip.

In those early years, I’d always see Matthew hanging out with Beni B, who – as much as anyone – was the inspiration behind why I became a DJ. Beni was the first bonafide “crate digger” I met; he had one of those classic record-hoarder apartments where there’d be literally stacks of vinyl in every room of the house. Beni had/has a huge personality so it was easy to assume he was the big record dog and Matthew the sidekick but as I learned later, it was actually the other way around. Matthew was helping put Beni – and Joe Quixx and many others – up on the game at a time before the internet disseminated that kind of knowledge more freely.

That’s the thing about Matthew…I often told people that he probably had one of the best “shadow” collections in the Bay because he wasn’t ever the type to floss that. I often imagined there wasn’t any sick ass breakbeat record that Matthew didn’t already have and as I learned years later, my introduction to “breaks” probably came, indirectly, through him because I used to listen to KMEL’s Wake-Up Show, when Quixx would play the “classics” and much of those he learned from Matthew. Same goes for Beni’s show and all the breaks he used to play.

This site wouldn’t exist if not for inspirations like that. Real talk.

I have to borrow this from my man Noz because I love the way he puts this across:

“he was a master of dropping knowledge at a matter of fact angle without ever coming off like he was flexing or being pedantic. he’d clarify in the name of clarification and keep it moving. of course it also helped that he always knew what the fuck he was talking about. purely constructive og moves.”

I certainly was a beneficiary of those “constructive OG moves” on many occasions through the years. And I really need to emphasize this: Matthew wasn’t “the dude” because he had cool records. It was his generosity and basic kindness to people around him. He could have been a master of anything – making coffee, car repair, raising kittens – whatever mattered wasn’t what he knew but how he shared it. He was a mentor, a guide, a gentle hand on the shoulder that helped point you in the direction you wanted to go (even if you didn’t realize it at the time).

By the early ’00s, we both had logged in years as DJs at KALX and I had finally developed a comfort level with him. We ended up DJing two different (albeit short-lived) monthly parties together, Eastbound in East Oakland, and Popcorn in S.F. (along with Cool Chris).¹ To be honest, I was less bummed about losing those nights b/c of the money or whatever: I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to hang out with Matthew at least once a month. He was just such a good dude: avuncular, insightful, funny, and genuine.

It’s so hard to express how enormous a loss this is. He was really just one of the best people I ever got to meet through the DJ/record game. I will miss him eternally.

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I need to restrain myself from hitting you all with a gazillion links so let me be selective.

1) Michael Barnes has written an incredible tribute post to Matthew, including a few of the key songs he helped put him (and me, as it were) up on.²

2) Matthew was my very first guest on The Sidebar. I was listening to just the first few minutes again earlier tonight and was filled with simultaneous grief over his passing but also happiness to hear his voice.

3) Matthew wrote a Summer Songs post for us in 2010.

4) And as long as his site stays up, you can find some of his excellent mixes and podcasts here.

One last anecdote, at least this go-around…

Matthew and I co-hosted KALX fundraisers at least once or twice. If you’ve ever had to suffer through a public radio fundraising drive, you know how tedious it is and believe me, it’s not that much better on our side of the mic either. Most of us got into radio to play music, not to explain how listener supported radio is superior to commercial radio (it’s true, of course, but still) and whatever other boilerplate we had to whip out once a year.

But Matthew didn’t half-step. If he was going to do a fundraiser show, he was going to put his best foot forward. One time, when I was his co-host, he brought in some Grade A records to play…I was too lil dude to fully appreciate how much heat he had with him but I remember he had an original Third Guitar (“Baby Don’t You Cry“) and what blew my wig back even more: an original copy of Sugar Billy Garner’s “I Got Some“. I mean, he must have been toting several thousands of dollars worth of music, just for a fundraiser show, but he wanted to make the point that community/college radio like KALX could give listeners access to music they simply were not going to hear anywhere else. That’s just how he carried himself.

That was Matthew.