D'Angelo, Saya Music, Fishbone and Ayebaitari
Updates on some things we're doing on the music side over here.
Hello there,
Aisha here.
Hopping on here to share an article I recently wrote in prep for D’Angelo’s upcoming Verzuz Battle. Some folks aren’t familiar with him and I wanted to provide a mini introduction for the uninitiated.
Photo Courtesy of Vickie Ford for OkayPlayer
As of late, I’ve been attempting to dip my toes into Saya music, which is a type of Afro-Bolivian dance music. I think that venture will take longer than what I imagined due to the depth of the history, but also a limited record of published materials. My friend, Dara, cued me into the music and I told her what I have found most interesting so far is how many Black people I am not seeing in the forefront of music. Perhaps that is due to me not knowing enough at the moment or even the understanding of race (phenotypically) could be extremely different in Bolivia, but it’s still noteworthy. More research on my part needs to be done.
I think this is playlist I started listening to via Spotify.
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Yesterday, I made a post on my Instagram page about Fishbone. This band is absolutely the coolest. I’m typically not a big “rock” listener (make no mistake they do much more than rock), but I’m digging them and I wish I would have known about them wayyyy earlier. They have this sort of raw, unfiltered sociopolitical sensibility you don’t see as often anymore.
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Traveling to the drum n bass world at Ram Records in London, they invited DJ + visual artist Ayebaitari to come and speak about her RamLive debut set. She’s deeply inspired by DJ Kemistry and DJ Storm, who were pioneers in the DnB world and the first women to become critically acclaimed DnB DJs. Ayebaitari’s mix is filled with, as she calls it, “90s old skool jungle/ dnb and Asian Underground tracks.” Even more awesome, Ayebaitari has created a platform called Queer Rave which she shared is, “a beautiful solution to the lack of representation of queer, female, non-binary, trans, and genderqueer (Drum and Bass) DJs, giving us our own personally tailored and curated platform.” It seems to be a great safe space for folks and I would love to participate one day when it safe to travel again (and when they’re having live events).
[Shoutout to Jackson for putting me onto her!]
Read about DJ Ayebaitari below and watch her RamLive set!