From his days with the Killer Bees to his solo debut with 2000’s storming Thunder Chicken and his rise as a producer helming the widely acclaimed The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster, Malcolm “Papa Mali” Welbourne has established himself as quite possibly the most ferociously funky guitarist and swamp-rock savant between South Austin and the Big Easy. A native of Mississippi who grew up in Shreveport, La., Mali describes his most recent album, 2007’s Do Your Thing, as “the audio equivalent of a warm mudbath on Jupiter,” which is at once both right on the money and deceptive: both Mali and his music may be “out there,” but there’s nothing at all spacey about this dreadlocked artist’s deep and dirty earthy grooves.