Onra featuring Buddy Sativa, Sweater Funk DJs October 29, 2010

Onra first appeared on the collab-album “Tribute” in 2006 alongside Quetzal, a Hip-Hop tribute to Soul music which was championed by Gilles Peterson, Benji B and covered on Okayplayer.com.

At the same time, he started collaborating with Byron The Aquarius, an American keyboard player from Alabama. Together they released an album under the name of “The Big Payback” in 2007, on Japanese label Circulations. A project full of different influences such as futuristic hip-hop, nu-soul and broken beat. They also appeared on highly praised compilations such as Beat Dimensions and New Worlds.

In 2006, year of his first trip to Viet Nam, the land of his grand-parents, he managed to bring back some Chinese and Vietnamese vinyls out of which he created a hip-hop instrumental album called “Chinoiseries”. The stand-out track “The Anthem” has been included on various compilations, and also covered for TV ads.

In 2008, he was selected to attend the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy, and played the Sonar Festival the next summer.

His project called “1.0.8″, made out of Bollywood samples, has got the Internet buzzing over once again in 2009, and had been elected as album of the week by many different shops across Europe and his latest is “Long Distance”, which was released in May 2010.

He and his trusty two Akai MPC1000 samplers have toured the world (Japan, China, North America, New Zealand, Viet Nam and Europe). He will be bringing his talents to SOM. in San Francisco for his debut performance alongside Buddy Sativa.

About Sweater Funk:

The San Francisco based DJ crew Sweater Funk has been holding down the only weekly night dedicated to boogie, modern soul and soulful steppers on original vinyl for 2 years straight.

Inspired by Dam-Funk’s Funkmosphere night in Los Angeles, co-founders and So Cal ex pats Jon Blunck and DJ Guillermo decided to recreate the Funkmosphere vibe in their new digs, San Francisco, in 2008. Using their own soundsystem, they took over a basement in Li Po Cocktails, a China Town dive, every Sunday with the goal of throwing a free party that presents this sound on original vinyl strictly for the dancers.

Two years, 11 more crew members and 4 blown speakers later, the crew has won the SF Weekly’s Best New Club 2009 award & hosted guests such as Dam-Funk, DJ Haircut (aka Mayer Hawthorne), Kon & Amir, Daz I Kue (Bugz In The Attic), Cool Chris (Groove Merchant), DJ Frane, King Most, E Da Boss, Damon Bell and more.