By Adam Viles
I was at a friend’s house last night and besides showing me a few amazing internet technologies there was one thing that simply blew my mind. If you haven’t heard of Shaka Ponk until today then Mr Spencer.com is certainly going to make it. Shaka Ponk (sometimes abbreviated as SHKPNK) is a French crossover-band, residing in Berlin. The band uses elements of different styles, such as rock, funk and hip-hop in their music, with lyrics being written mostly in a mixture of English, French and Spanish languages. Simply put, they are one of the most forward thinking, artistic music bands I have ever heard.

Everybody wants to discover the newest hip thing and flirt with trends and many new bands are being sold as unique and hot. Rarely has there been a band that creates their own universe. Shaka Ponk made that magical step and leapt from being a band to being a brand and an icon – just what it takes to succeed in the ultra-communicative and here-today, gone-tomorrow 21st century. Musically, Hip Hop fuses with Electro, Metal uses sequences, rap phrasings and puzzle-pieces from across the globe are being pieced together into the fiery-hot Shaka-mix. Visually, the band is on a whole different level – from the extravagant website that wets your appetite, via the self-produced video clips that lead to addiction to the stage show which, accompanied by visuals, projections and multi-media madness, drives you insane. On stage, they take on any band and win audiences wherever they go. Be it playing club shows as headliners, opening for artists as diverse as Mudvayne, Exilia, The Boss Hoss or Sens Unik or being the only band at groundbreaking Berlin-Electro-Events – Shaka Ponk fits in with any surrounding and leaves the audiences begging for more. On stage, accompanied by sequenced electro sounds and a bone-rattling energy, the Shaka Master (Frah) and his crew transport the audience into their own universe which is both sexy and violent. Shaka Ponk is a high energy, dizzying musical road-trip.

Where did they come from…
Having left Paris, France due to the overwhelming pressure of the local industry to sing in French, the band moved to Berlin, Germany to pursue their musical dream. “Berlin added a certain edge to our music and made us be a real band. In Paris, we played together, now the whole band lives and breathes Shaka Ponk“, says Frah, singer, composer, lyricist, producer and mastermind. Whilst still in Paris, he self-produced the demos of the debut album and then got together with an old high school buddy and two Ponks he'd come across for years around Parisian studios and parties and played them the stuff he had just finished. The group set up straight away, went to ICP Studios in Brussels to record and mix the album and subsequently began to prepare a live show that measured up. Having arrived in Berlin, the management began the seemingly endless quest for the perfect record deal with artistic freedom being the imperative. After endless meetings the band finally signed to Edel Records who gave them exactly what they wanted and had the best reputation and the purest soul.

So once you listen to their music and you find its not sending thrills of delight down your whole body then, you just aren’t human.

Check out:

Web:
http://www.shakaponk.com/SHKPNK.html
http://www.myspace.com/shakaponk

Music Vids:
Shaka Ponk - Hell'o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUH-Fa5oQ7U

ShakaPonk - Body cult
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSnzWfkYETo

Shaka Ponk - Fonk Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATPxiiyrQzs