The Habibi Funk series put out by Habibi Funk Records is one of the best bandcamp record labels going. This track comes from Habibi Funk 018, and thus far I've not allowed myself to get the LPs, because mostly I've just been playing 45s on my turntable, and LPs somehow got so fucking expensive even though nothing's really changed with them in twenty years. There's shockingly less record stores too than there were in the '90s, with many of the old school black-owned ones I used to love in Virginia long gone, and replaced by expensive white-owned ones with quite the mark-up on used albums, but always called a fair market price lolol. Plus, the majority of new releases are white-friendly albums on colored vinyl instead of just basic black, which is annoying as fuck from a DJ's perspective (or making mixtapes even). But that's what's selling. They've essentially gentrified record collecting. So much shit exists beyond the realm of that though, and I recently had found a junk/antique store with literally thousands and thousands of 45s and LPs, that I dug and dug through, cheap as fuck too. So I guess I appreciate a Berlin label re-releasing collections of stuff I'd never get otherwise exposed to, like Habibi Funk, and this Hamid El Shaeri release (and the Roger Fakhr and Al Massrieen ones before it... my other favorites from this label). There's a deep digging involved, and the artists themselves (or their family) seem to benefit from the releases. But there's a capitalist/colonialist mentality to a lot of record stores and labels nowadays that I feel weird about, but not entirely sure how to express it all. Nonetheless, good music is good music, and there's such an abundance of good music that's been pressed to vinyl (or uploaded inside the internet) that you have no reason not to find awesome shit to enjoy without going broke trying to have the In Things.
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