Matthew Africa you will truly be missed. Sending my condolences to his friends and loved ones. For those who aren’t familiar with Soul Boulders, here’s the story. Back in 2005, San Francisco’s DJ B.Cause posted a mind-blowing 10-minute mini-mix on the SoulStrut message board. The songs were exquisite but hard to pigeonhole—soulful and funky, but not purely funk or soul, slow, psychedelic, moody, maybe a little haunted. In other words, exactly my sound. DJ Matthew Africa sent him a message urging him either to finish the mix or to let Matthew hop on and collaborate with him on turning his ten minutes into something CD length. Matthew grabbed a dozen or so of his favorite records, figured out their sequence and recorded his half at B.Cause’s house one rainy afternoon. Once B.Cause fleshed out his half and massaged the whole thing a bit, we released it in the spring of 2006. It was his first commercial mix CD.

Originally posted on Soul Strut Wednesday, September 12, 2012