Some additions to the Dancing Turtle roster require no explanation. Philippe Hemedy, known as Icon Freeye, is one of them. We have been collaborating since the late 2000s, when he was based in London, and his formal arrival on the label feels like a long overdue acknowledgement of a relationship that has been there all along.
What Philippe does, and has done for decades, sits at the heart of what Dancing Turtle has always been interested in. Roots reggae, at its best, is not entertainment. It is testimony. It carries within it the history of displacement, resistance and cultural survival that runs through so much of the music Dancing Turtle has championed, from the Lani Singers preserving West Papuan tradition in exile to the solidarity embedded in the Merdeka compilation. Reggae arrived in that lineage not by accident but by necessity: a music born from suffering, refined into something that could travel the world and still carry its original weight. Icon Freeye understands that. It is why he plays what he plays, and why he plays it the way he does.
Born and raised in Zaire, central Africa, and now based in Turin, Philippe has spent decades moving between music, film and fashion. DJ sets in Brazil, Russia and India. Film journeys through West Africa documenting the continent’s musical traditions. The founding of African Weave Attitude, a fashion label that brings the same cross-cultural instinct to design that runs through everything else he does. He runs his own 4.3 soundsystem from Turin, taking his roots reggae selections across the international circuit and building a reputation as one of the most distinctive selectors working today.
His arrival makes him part of the Dancing Turtle family. A selector of Philippe’s calibre, with his depth of knowledge and his roots in African musical tradition, belongs in this world.
