“The music industry right now is being grabbed by the throat by hip-hop,” says Charlotte DJ Mike Kitchen. To counteract that musical trend, Kitchen has organized an event he’s calling Seasons of Soul.
“Our goal is to have artists perform in a live-concert format twice each month in order to fulfill the need for an alternative to the traditional mainstream music that radio stations play.”
Seasons of Soul debuts at Amos’ SouthEnd Friday with New Jersey singer-songwriter Eric Roberson. Kitchen’s entertainment company, Sol Kitchen, started out producing shows in Charlotte that targeted the R&B/soul market. Kitchen and his partners also branched out into alternative soul, bringing in Van Hunt recently, and have plans to do a show with Joss Stone.
“I actually met Van Hunt before he signed to Capitol Records,” Kitchen says. “And the last time he was here, he said that he was getting ready to go on tour opening for Joss Stone. And he said we would love to come back to Charlotte — he loves Charlotte; he’s been here twice. He said, “make sure you call me, stay in touch with me in January, “cause that’s when we want to come back.’ So if everything works out right, we will have them back here with Joss Stone.”
Kitchen has also brought in Oakland singer songwriter Goapele as well as Dwele and Angie Stone, who resurrected old school soul by sampling Gladys Knight’s “Neither One of Us” on her hit “No More Rain.” He brought Anthony Hamilton to town for an acoustic set as well as Seek, from Atlanta, a group Kitchen says is popular on the underground scene.
“The shows are always packed,” says Kitchen’s publicist Jen Farris, of the Atlanta-based ZeeVee Consulting, “These people never hear the music anywhere else.”
Kitchen believes the problem is that there’s not enough of a support system in place for soul music. “Unfortunately, a lot of these artists aren’t getting exposed. Maybe they don’t have enough backing from their label, or their management is not pushing them enough. I do know definitely that radio is not playing their music.” The DJ wants to give the artists in this genre a place to showcase their talents live.
Seasons Of Soul is more than just a concert. The series will include not only recording artists, but painters, jewelry designers, and tattoo artists as well. “We want to include the community in this — kind of like a street fair, with visual artists as well as musical ones. We want to combine music and art to create a very soulful and inspirational vibe,” Kitchen says.
The concept is based on the Funk Jazz Cafe, an event that happens in Atlanta about every two months. “It’s like a much bigger version of what we’re trying to do here,” Kitchen laughs. “They have everything from fashion to food, spoken word, visual artists, networking, recording artists, vendors, dance, DJs — they have it all.” The Atlanta venue is presented on a much grander scale than Kitchen’s production. The Atlanta production has four different levels, and each level has a different vibe to it. Kitchen says the Funk Jazz Cafe is pretty much what he hopes his event becomes later in the future, but he wants the Seasons of Soul to have its own vibe.
Roberson, who sounds like a hip-hop version of Marvin Gaye, has contributed songs to neo-soulers including Vivian Green, Dwele, Jill Scott, and Musiq ( Soulchild).
Atlanta’s Algebra, a sweet-voiced soul singer/ guitarist recently signed to Motown who gets compared to Erykah Badu and India.Arie and contributes songs to Musiq as well, opens the show. “Eric and Algebra perform a lot together, so they vibe off of each other,” says publicist Farris.
Kitchen has tentatively scheduled Raphael Saadiq for his second event of the Season to be held at Amos’ on Nov 12. Saadiq, a former member of Tony! Toni! Tone!, reunites with former bandmate Dwayne Wiggins as well as former Lucy Pearl member Dawn Robinson for his latest album, Raphael Saadiq as Ray Ray.
“The show is 90% confirmed. We’re hashing out the money details,” says Kitchen. “You know how that is. I think more than likely he will be here, but I won’t say it until I sign my name on the contract.”
The promoter’s vision is to change the way Charlotte looks at nightlife by bringing a different platform and a different variety of entertainment instead of just having DJs and playing hip-hop all night. “Mainly, we’re just trying to do something that’s cool, that’s hip, and for people who have independent mindsets,” he says.
The inaugural Seasons of Soul takes place Friday at Amos’ SouthEnd featuring Eric Roberson with his full band. Motown recording artist Algebra opens. Doors open at 9pm and the live set will begin at 11pm. For more info & advance tickets, call 704-373-9820, visit Groove Merchant Records at 1306 Central Ave., or check out www.thesoul movement.com.
This article appears in Oct 13-19, 2004.
