Behind the Mic    

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

When asked to describe his radio show “Something Wicked This Way Comes” on Brock Radio CFBU 103.7 FM, Kamir Hiam notes that he doesn’t like to limit himself to any one particular genre of music. His show is an open-format mélange of funk, soul, world, hip-hop, dub, tropicalia, comedy and electronic music — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But when pressed on the topic he confesses an admiration for the hip-hop end of funk and soul — “take the 60s and 70s style of old soul and give it that hip-hop updating,” says Hiam.

Hiam’s fondness for that classic “old soul” sound also lends itself to another of his infatuations: vinyl. A confessed seek-it-out record culture junkie, the first hour of Hiam’s weekly one-and-a-half hour radio show is all vinyl.

“I love playing records that are twice my age,” says Hiam, who is in his final year of studying psychology at Brock. “I like to emphasize the old.”

When he’s not busy plotting playlists for his weekly show, Hiam busies himself with hunting down rare vinyl sides in dusty old record stores from Niagara to Hamilton to Toronto. He even hits the streets of Peru and Brazil, which he visits at least twice a year to spend time with family and friends, in search of hard-to-find Afro-Peruvian, Afro-Caribbean and Latin funk/soul recordings.

“My rarest records are Peruvian funk records by the likes of Black Sugar and Enrique Lynch from the seventies,” says Hiam. “Artists were emulating the funk/soul movement in the US but the sound was not successful in Peru. Only now are DJ's and vinyl collectors taking an interest in Peruvian funk records."

Hiam, who is preparing to graduate in the spring and relocate to Peru to be with his family and start working, plans to move ahead on a number of interests he’s picked up while volunteering at Brock Radio. He hopes to start up an Internet radio station and continue to shine a light on overlooked Afro-Peruvian music.

“My dream is to release a compilation of the best in Afro-Peruvian music at some point,” says Hiam. “It truly is one of the lesser known beautiful art forms of Latin America.” 

For more info: http://www.trntbl.me/kamirkamir

“Something Wicked This Way Comes” with DJ Kamir Hiam, Wednesdays from 10 to 11:30 p.m., live on CFBU 103.7 FM .