Official video for Greeny Jungle + upcoming shows in NYC, DC, SEA

It's finally here! The video for Greeny Jungle captures a moment with the Black Lives Matter movement in Seattle, on Reclaim MLK Day 2015 where an estimated 10,000 people took to the streets. You can read more on okayafrica... this one is special. I'm also currently in the midst of touring with the Evidence Of Things Not Seen album, and have just had some incredible shows and workshops in Montreal, QC; Toronto, ON; Buffalo, NY and Wooster, OH... alongside some of my favorite artists and minds including Nnedi Okorafor (who's speculative fiction works inspired the theme of Greeny Jungle), Akua Naru, Bocafloja, members of Nomadic Massive, Kalmunity, pHoenix Pagliacci, and more. Sending extra love to everyone who braved the Siberian vortex to make every date so awesome. This week I'm in New York City with a show in Brooklyn on Friday, Washington, DC on Sunday, and coming back to Seattle for a few shows next week. More details on everything below, and I've also been keeping the events page updated as I go. Friday, February 27th - Brooklyn, NY Gabriel Teodros with si dåko’ta & DJ Ian Head 11PM | $10 at the door invite your peoples on facebook here Bunna Cafe 1084 Flushing Ave Brooklyn, NY Sunday, March 1st - Washington, DC Gabriel Teodros with The 1978ers (yU & Slimkat) 9PM | $10 at the door invite your peoples on facebook here Bossa 2463 18th St NW Washington, DC Thursday, March 5th - Seattle, WA Abstract Rude & Myka 9 Gabriel Teodros Silas Blak hosted by Suntonio Bandanaz & DJ Able Fader 9PM | 21+ | $10 adv / $15 dos invite your peoples on facebook here Lo-Fi Performance Gallery 429 Eastlake Ave Seattle, WA Friday, March 6th - Seattle, WA Youth Speaks Seattle Wild Card Slam featuring Gabriel Teodros 6PM | $5 youth / $10 adults invite your peoples on facebook here Rainier Valley Cultural Center 3515 S Alaska St Seattle, WA And finally, if you haven't heard, Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements has a release date of March 15th, and is available now for a discount via AK Press. I'm so honored and excited to have my first published short story in this collection... the book includes short stories from LeVar Burton, Terry Bisson, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Alixa Garcia, Autumn Brown, Bao Phi, David Walker, Dani McClain, Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Gabriel Teodros, Jelani Wilson, Kalamu ya Salaam, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Mia Mingus, Morrigan Phillips, Tara Betts, Tunde Oluniran, Vagabond, adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as an introduction by Sheree Renee Thomas. There is a tour in the works, and we want to bring it everywhere! The information for booking Octavia's Brood is here. Hope to see you in your town soon!

"Black Love" 16mm short film directed by Shimby

Black Love: A short film directed by Shimby & produced by NSOROMMA
"something bout your happiness feels like freedom"

Check the short film for "Black Love" by Gabriel Teodros & SoulChef featuring Sarah MK, which debuted on okayafrica.com earlier today! Shot on a 16mm camera, the film was completely hand edited with no digital enhancements, and experimented on by the filmmaker using, among other things, dyes created from roses, frankincense and sage.

This work is like a prequel to my upcoming full-length album with SoulChef on production, entitled Evidence Of Things Not Seen, to be released October 28, 2014. For everyone asking about lyrics, there will be a limited-edition book that comes with the album.

NSOROMMA co-founders Luam Kidane & Hawa Y. Mire recently did a very relevant interview with The Feminist Wire about Black arts, feminism and the decolonial aesthetic. Definitely check that out and learn more about NSOROMMA.

In honor of the short film being released today, I decided to leak a remix of "Black Love" by one of my favorite producers, OCnotes. If you've ever seen my brother do a DJ set, you know that what he does falls more easily under the category of electronic jazz... taking musical elements you would never expect to hear together and making something brand new. If you can dig that, you might dig this.

See you in a minute
-- gt

Gabriel Teodros & AirMe - Children Of The Dragon

Gabriel Teodros & AirMe - Children Of The Dragon

I dreamed about making this album. To make an album with someone who spoke the languages of Ethiopian music as fluently as Hip Hop was perhaps as important to me as actually going to Ethiopia for the first time.

Children Of The Dragon was created in the Washington, DC area (aka Ethiopia's 2nd Capitol) mostly in a small office studio (that had no mic booth) that on most days was shared with a graphic designer/film maker, a painter, and a few singers. The conversations and the energy of everyone who shared a space with us is in all of these songs. (and of everyone in the studio I spoke the least amount of Amharic!)

The title is based on mythology I first heard of in Haile Gerima's film Teza. I also think of Audre Lorde's term biomythography when describing the album as a whole. The first voice you hear on the record is my sister Luam Kidane who also just published this incredible piece on calling ourselves into freedom: Black art and decolonial asthetics which you can read on The Feminist Wire now.

This album is the first music I made after my first trip to my mother's homeland. I actually met AirMe and we started working together when I was on a 24 hour layover in DC... between Addis Ababa and Seattle. I didn't take any pictures when I was in Ethiopia but it's all in the music. Needless to say, this album is very special to me. We pushed each other to make the best music we were capable of creating at the time, we're putting it out completely independently, and I hope to break as many so-called rules along the way as possible.

Enjoy an exclusive first listen on YouTube and get the album from Bandcamp (or send it as a gift!) before anyone else has it. If you feel it, please share the music far and wide.

The YouTube stream features footage from traffic in Addis Ababa, filmed and edited by Brandon Eversole (who also is responsible for all the footage of us in Ethiopia that was featured in the video for CopperWire's "Phone Home")

If you are in Seattle, come party with us on Wednesday, May 7th (the actual day I turn 33 1/3) at Jaam Rek (aka the old Hidmo building on 20th & Jackson) Tickets and more information here.

Gabriel Teodros & AirMe "24 Hour Layover" ft. Mahi

The good people at Okayafrica have premiered me & AirMe's debut single "24 Hour Layover" from the upcoming Children Of The Dragon record! Stay tuned here for details on the May 7th Seattle Release Party... and if you haven't signed up for the email list yet, what are you waiting for?  Shoutout to Mahi on the additional vocals, Gezaw on the photography, and Dume41 on the additional mixing & mastering!

Premiere: Gabriel Teodros x AirMe '24 Hour Layover' Okayafrica.

"airports, customs, tears and i'm gone..."
-- gt

The Lost Files of Getazia 13 Zeritoicus-Oxygen

The Lost Files of Getazia 13 Zeritoicus-Oxygen
an exclusive mixtape made in support of Octavia's Brood

Greetings, earthlings. I made a sci-fi themed ep/mixtape this summer in support of the Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements project (which went great!) and unless you selected it as a perk when you supported the book, you can't hear it.

That is, unless you sign up for a brand new e-mail list associated with this website... and then I send it to you for free! For a limited time only. (do it now!)

live performances, videos and languages...

So I've been digging through the vaults and putting a few live performance pieces up on YouTube. The above video is a performance of "Colored People's Time Machine" on The Seattle Channel's Art Zone, sometime last year. The video is closed captioned and you can read the subtitles in Spanish and English now!

Speaking of subtitles... if anyone wants to volunteer to translate lyrics let me know! We've got "Third World Wide" available in Spanish, French and Italian and have been adding languages to "Mind Power" as well. I'm so excited to have my lyrics accessible to more people and so grateful to everyone that's helped make it happen over the last few months. People power makes dreams come true!

The video below is from a classic show at The Triple Door with my group Air 2 A Bird, recorded in the summer of 2010.  An all acoustic set with grand piano, percussion and 4 vocalists. Enjoy!

CopperWire "Phone Home" Remi (x) App

1,953,125.

That's the number of remixes the hip-hop trio CopperWire has for the song “Phone Home”, the lead single from their debut album Earthbound.

The remixes are all part of the new Phone Home Remi (x) App, a free iPhone (and soon-to-be Android) app available TODAY April 3rd and created by Oakland-based AppSynth Media. Each remix is customizable by phone number. It's like a beat jukebox game with endless possibilities.... almost two million of them anyway. The innovative app turns one song into an interactive piece of music, and chances are you may never hear the tune the same way twice, redefining the way a single is released in the digital age. But the same number means the same version. So try out different remixes and find the ones you like. Maybe your mom's phone number is the best? Maybe your ex-boyfriend's? Maybe AT&T customer service?

Using the phone as a game interface, the user can further customize the song with interactive pads. Emcees can mute the vocals and have beats for their cyphers. Anyone can play along with the keypad and sound like a musician, and CopperWire themselves can perform a different version of the song at every concert.

AppSynth Media is a Black/Indian/Woman owned app development company inspired by a collective vision they refer to as “epic”. AppSynth Media and CopperWire have had a strategic partnership from CopperWire's inception.The Phone Home Remi (x) app is the first in a series of interactive apps planned for release in 2012.

The Phone Home Remi (x) App is LIVE as of TODAY! Go to your iPhone App store and download it while it's hot!

"Mind Power" KEXP Song of the Day, Interview and Performance!

"Mind Power" is featured as today's KEXP's Song of the Day, you can download the track and read an exclusive interview I did with KEXP on their website right now.  The above clip is a performance of "Mind Power" done on The Seattle Channel last week!  Thank you Seattle for all this love that on some days can outshine the cloudiness :)

"Beit / Home" - Gabriel Teodros & Sabreena Da Witch

Fresh Chopped Beats / MADK Productions presents the first leak and video from Gabriel Teodros' new album "Colored People's Time Machine"

"Beit" - Gabriel Teodros & Sabreena Da Witch
Produced by Amos Miller, behind the scenes video by Scott Macklin

Beit (featuring Sabreena Da Witch) by Gabriel Teodros

"Beit" translates to "Home" in many languages, including Amharic (my mother's language), and Arabic (Sabreena's language), as well as Hebrew. In Arabic, "Beit" means "Verse" as well as Home. I met Sabreena Da Witch in 2009 as the film Slingshot Hip Hop toured through the Northwest, and this song was made on one of Sabreena's trips that year. The beat (composed by "Lovework" producer and my partner in Air 2 A Bird, Amos Miller) incorporates elements of an old Ethiopian church song done in Ge'ez (an older language my grandmother spoke). Here you have at least 3 worlds coming together to reflect on what home has come to mean to us now.
- Gabriel Teodros

"Colored People's Time Machine" releases January 19, 2012. If you’re in Seattle, tickets to the release party can be purchased here: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=4113395

For more information on all the artists check:
Sabreena Da Witch: http://www.sabreenanow.com/
Gabriel Teodros: http://www.gabrielteodros.com/
Air 2 A Bird (Amos Miller + Gabriel Teodros): http://air2abird.bandcamp.com/
Fresh Chopped Beats / MADK Productions: http://www.freshchoppedbeats.com/
Scott Macklin / Open Hands Reel: http://vimeo.com/openhandreel

Gabriel Teodros & DJ Ian Head present "The Lentil Soup EP"

Gabriel Teodros & DJ Ian Head present
The Lentil Soup EP

"City blocks, good friends, old records, late-night recording sessions, and lentil soup. Over the past two years, Gabriel Teodros and DJ Ian Head have been on the move, but always managed some musical adventures whenever they found themselves in the same city.

The LENTIL SOUP EP is sampling of these journeys, that often found us back in Brooklyn, NY eating red lentils and freshly-baked pita bread.

We hope you enjoy!"
- everydaybeats.net

Air 2 A Bird "Let's Ride" :: Official Music Video

Debut music video from Air 2 A Bird! A film by Andria Ryan Millie & Lucien Pelligren. Air 2 A Bird's music can be found here, on iTunes or at http://air2abird.bandcamp.com

Let's Ride.

Air 2 A Bird "Crow Hill"

Air 2 A Bird "Crow Hill"

When Even Birds Need Passports:

In an era of auto-tune and sampling debauchery, Air 2 A Bird is wind to lungs starving for originality. Re-uniting hip-hop visionaries Gabriel Teodros & Amos Miller after their critically acclaimed Lovework collaboration, Air 2 A Bird was born in a manner similar to hip hop culture: amongst people attempting to fly in a world that only reminds you of gravity.

The synopsis begins with lyricist Gabriel Teodros, carrying displaced people inside his tongue, being detained at London-Heathrow Airport & deported. Sent back to New York with his world tour and contracts cancelled, he was given keys to a studio by a friend. His producer Amos Miller, who was to join him on the tour, now spends the next 14 days getting raw and open with the only resources available in the studio: Garage Band, a microphone, and live recordings of actual birds. Thus Air 2 A Bird was created: from two individuals determined to defy border patrol by lettings sounds fly over borders even when bodies are denied.

Beyond Barbed Wire Nests:

Musical aficionados understand the best projects are part invention, part audio ancestry. Air 2 A Bird does not disappoint: their collaborations are West Coast classic rap meets classical music. You would not be surprised to hear them channel early Organized Noise energy into sacred sounds. The movement of the crowd is architecture and indigenous in motion; it is South East Seattle & the C.D., Russian immigrant in a cipher with Hip Hop Pioneers, the Black Panthers, and displaced Ethiopians.

The first project literally is an experiment in flight, sampling a different bird per track. It is no wonder they say this project is wind to other people’s work and lives. Many have asked how do birds re-establish roots when displaced from barbed wire nests? In the words of Gabriel Teodros: "We needed NOT be broken what was in front of us- tour being cancelled- being deported. We needed to CREATE". Since the original recordings Air 2 A Bird has also grown, with the addition of a three part harmony via vocals of Lara Davis and Estrella De Leon.

Finding Roots Through Flight.

Air 2 A bird is an experiment in trust, friendship modeled through music, realizing you have everything you need, when you think we don’t have anything, It may be the first hip hop project focused on sharing stages, rather than monopolizing them. To quote Amos Miller: "Bird’s can’t fly without air; I can’t shine without a community of people, to support and hold me accountable".

For those whose greatest gravity is fear, Air 2 A Bird demonstrates through sound to not be weighed down by this world. It is an attempt to reclaim soul, self & freedom from a music industry that has more in common with border patrol than their listeners.

Should Gabriel and Amos’s tour have occurred, Air 2 A Bird would not exist. For many of us who write, dance, produce, we too know of the ways we are historically not supposed to be alive. Yet even if babies aren’t always planned for, it does not mean they cannot become beautiful. Thus is the way of beats, and the way of birds.

- words by Mark Gonzales

love for gt's ethiopium... with a new link to download!

Gabriel Teodros - GT's Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape
free download... right here, right now!

Had to re-up the link for those who missed the release last month... you can also check out individual tracks at AddisTunes.com... Check out what people have been saying so far!

"Dang I'm not a mixtape enthusiest but this is one that caught my attention and kept it. Producer Oh-No recently released an instrumental album using old-school and rare samples of Ethiopian music. These beats are ridiculous! Fellow Ethiopian Gabriel Teodros caught wind of this and felt compelled to create a mixtape using these samples which represent the strong roots to his home country of which he still feels such a strong tie. This mixtape is kind of cool because its less than 20 minutes long hence the name 'Jitter Generation'. But believe me, he sure accomplished a hell of a lot in a 20 minute span. This release shines light on the realities of Ethiopia, touches on America's own imperfections & stresses the importance of exploring your own intelligence and spirituality. I have to say this is the kind of mixtape that could possibly offend you at times. But it does it in a very compelling and intriguing way forcing you to evaluate your own views and opinions. If nothing else let this be a way to introduce yourself to Gabriel Teodros, he is very relevant to the hip hop scene right now and I predict will stay that way for some time."
- dope Hug

"Yes. A thousand times yes. Noted globe-trotter, freedom fighter, and local dude made good Gabriel Teodros is back at it again. Our guy G Teezy just blessed the world with a new ep – free, downloadable, and all for you. The name? GT’s Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape. The concept? Oxnard, California hitmaker Oh No put together a beat tape exclusively sampling classic Ethiopian songs – Gabe raps over them.
It’s a pretty ridiculous result. Gabe’s been holding down the Mid-Atlantic seaboard for the last couple of months, following his kerfluffle with the British authorities at Heathrow, and the experience shows in this recording. It’s pretty direct to the heart, which is saying something for Gabe: dude does not do anything without heart."
- Last Night's Mixtape

"What made Gabriel Teodros' Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape one of my favorite records last year was, one, the passion he put into his raps ("the more emotion I put into it, the harder I rock"), and, two, the fact that he was rapping on beats produced by Oh No and collected on Ethiopium, an experiment that processed Ethiopian pop and jazz into hiphop. Not only was GT and Oh No a perfect match, but GT, a black Ethiopian, was in a sense giving praise to Oh No, a black American, for successfully processing parts of Ethiopian pop. It does not end with just that. Oh No's Ethiopium contains many samples from the fourth record in the highly regarded Ethiopiques series, Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974, which features compositions by Mulatu Astatke, the father of a form of music that processed black American jazz into new Ethiopian substances. And so what we find in Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape is this rich complexity: a black Ethiopian rapper is processing the beats by a black American producer who processed Ethiopian tunes that were produced by processing black American jazz and funk. This is nothing but the very meaning of hiphop—processing, processing, processing."
- The Stranger

Gabriel Teodros - GT's Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape

GT's Ethiopium: A Jitter Generation Mixtape
download it here

So i had plans to be in Ethiopia right now with The Arba Minch Collective, but sometimes life makes other plans for you... and instead i ended up somewhere between Brooklyn, NY and New Addis (Washington, D.C.) for the last 2 months. While here on the East Coast, i've been able to start and complete a collaborative project with Amos Miller entitled Air 2 A Bird, fine-tune and record more tracks for the Colored People's Time Machine album and found time to do a little mixtape! If you haven't heard, Oh No dropped an instrumental project recently called Ethiopium, a really dope collection of beats made using classic and rare Ethiopian samples. On one hand, i was really excited to see a producer who i'm a fan of using samples from my mother's land... on the other hand, it's crazy as a musician, to know the struggles of other Ethiopian musicians, and how much harder it must be back home to create this music, that in 2009 people are sampling our classics left and right, and i know that very little, if any, of the money made off these samples ever actually gets back to these musicians, who can barely make a living off this music, and who back home couldn't make a living off of it at all. Not to say i'm against sampling, most of the hip hop i love is still based on samples... but if someones gonna do it, i feel like there should at least be an Ethiopian perspective to go with these beats! So when nobody was looking, i made a mixtape... GT's Ethiopium! I call it A Jitter Generation Mixtape cause none of the songs are longer then 2 minutes... download it, love it, pass it on!

-- gabriel teodros

Special announcements regarding the Seattle show this Thursday!

If you needed any more reasons to come to the Chop Suey this Thursday, October 15th...

Gabriel Teodros x Khingz x DJ WD4D... now with special guests Toni Hill, DJ's EarDrumz & Introcut, and hosted by Amos Miller!!!

Khingz is releasing a brand-new EP entitled Cold-Hearted In Cloud City that you can get exclusively at the Chop Suey on the night of... and this is my last Seattle show before departing on what will be, at the very least, a 3 month journey through Europe and East Africa!!!

I also want to let you know, i finished a new album entitled Colored People's Time Machine and this is your one chance to hear new songs from the album before we release it in 2010... and to make the evening even more special: My homie, and one of the illest artists i know, Jonathan Matas will be doing live paintings on stage the entire night... the end result? My new album cover!!! That means YOU get to be a part of this unique process of making Colored People's Time Machine come to life. To get a sense of Jonathan's work, check his website: http://www.jonathanmatas.com

Tickets are still on sale at Chop Suey, Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine, Sonicboom Records and online at Ticketweb.com

All the proceeds of this show are going to my trip to Ethiopia... to find out more about what we're doing, and how you can help please check http://www.arbaminchcollective.com

peace.love.respects
-- gt

10.15.09 :: Gabriel Teodros, Khingz & WD4D @ Chop Suey!!! (Seattle, WA)

Thursday October 15, 2009
Chop Suey & Hidmo Entertainment presents

Gabriel Teodros
Khingz
DJ WD4D
+ special guests!

8PM
ALL AGES :: Bar w/ i.d.

$10 adv / $12 dos
Advance tickets available at Ticketweb.com, Chop Suey, Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine and Sonicboom Records

Chop Suey
1325 E. Madison St.
Seattle, WA


Hey Seattle, I'm headed to Europe for shows late October and through all of November, and then to Ethiopia with The Arba Minch Collective in December! Not sure exactly when i'm coming back, i may be in Africa for a really long time... but i should see you some time in 2010. So this is my farewell to you, as well as a Release Party for my brother Khingz new project: Cold-Hearted In Cloud City! These past few months i've been working on new music as well, and am just about finished with a new album entitled Colored People's Time Machine. October 15th will be your one chance to get a sneak preview of this project before it drops! I got a special mix-tape on the way for this show too, and if you haven't done so already... check the re-releases of The Kafa Beanz: Andromeda: The Chronicles of Blackopia, Vol. 1 and Westlake: Class of 1999! See you on the 15th!!!

The Kafa Beanz "Andromeda: The Chronicles of Blackopia, Vol. 1" - Available 9.25.09!!!

The Kafa Beanz: Andromeda: The Chronicles of Blackopia Vol. 1 is finally being released to the world! Available exclusively on AddisTunes.com, starting this Friday September 25th, 2009 - which coincides with the very first Ethiopian-American Appreciation Day.

If your just tuning in, The Kafa Beanz is a group comprised of Ethiopian/Hip Hop fusion pioneer Burntface, B. Sheba, Grammy-nominated singer Wayna, AP, and myself - Gabriel Teodros, with special guest apperances including Hermela Mulatu (daughter of Ethiopian Jazz legend Mulatu Astatke) The music is where Hip Hop, Soul and Ethiopian Jazz all meet and decide to create our own planet. We released the album in the Summer of 2008, and distributed all the discs almost exclusively in Washington, D.C. (where most of the group is based) at the ESFNA Soccer Tournament. The album has been pretty impossible to find since then... and it's too good for you to not experience the whole ride. I mean, my guy designed a Meskel Spaceship! (see the video above) We also produced a whole series of music videos for this project... (check Tizita, Fly Away, and iRock.)

See what Larry Mizell, Jr. of The Stranger and KEXP 90.3 FM's Street Sounds had to say about The Kafa Beanz, after i passed him a very limited-edition physical copy of Andromeda, last summer for his column, My Philosophy:

"Speaking of, I just ran into my man Gabriel Teodros, who's all over the map these days finding inspiration from D.C. to Toronto to Vancouver, BC. He hit me off with Andromeda: The Chronicles of Blackopia Volume 1 by Kafa Beanz, a collective of Ethiopian-American hiphop artists that includes Teodros, Burntface, BSheba, Wayna, and AP. Yo... this shit is dope! I'm particularly impressed with Burntface's ill, commanding flow (just hear him skate on the Afrobeat of "iRock"), but there's definitely no slouches here; there's some gorgeous soulful vocals from Wayna, and BSheba gots way more swag than most females on the mic—I expect to hear more from her. AP brings a street-born wisdom and Gabe himself sounds more inspired and his delivery more refined than I've yet heard—whatever he's been up to since he peaced out of here is clearly working. Much love, homey! This is a very strong debut from the Blackopia collective- consciousness, street and revolutionary. "

Get you some of this at AddisTunes.com - 9.25.09!!!

Gabriel Teodros "Westlake: Class of 1999" the Digital Re-Release available on iTunes NOW!

Gabriel Teodros "Westlake: Class of 1999"
A Musical Scrapbook (2006)

Now available on iTunes, CD Baby, and other digital outlets soon!

About Westlake: Class of 1999:

I never graduated high school. 1999 would have been my graduating year, but instead, i left Las Vegas (where i was attending school at the time) and moved back up to Seattle, WA. I met a crew of emcees at Westlake Center and that's where my higher education and journey with music really begins. We would meet up every single day to sharpen our freestyles, and everything i'm on now, can somehow be traced back to lessons learned and connections made when i used to freestyle on 4th & Pine every day. I wouldn't recommend this exact path to anyone coming up now... but it is what it is. Many mistakes were made, i hope you can learn from our past to not repeat it in the future. This is not an album, this is not a mixtape... i call it a musical scrapbook.

Westlake: Class of 1999 was originally released in 2006, as a pre-cursor to the Lovework album. It is a collection of songs that i love, recorded between 2002-2006, that may not have ever seen the light of day unless i released a project like this. In many ways this project is more personal to me than any of my albums... as it documents my growth as an artist and human being, it features so much of my family from around the world, and it is a bit rough around the edges. This musical scrapbook features all original production by Moka Only, DJ Ian Head, Kitone, EarDrumz, DJ T-Bone Steak, Khazm, Jeff Spec and more. It also has guest vocals from Moka Only, Khingz, Toni Hill, SistaHailStorm, Xololanxinxo, Rise & Shine, Ishkan, Jeff Spec, Manik, Ndidi Cascade and much more. The songs were recorded in 3 cities that i call home (Seattle - Vancouver - Brooklyn) and i mastered it myself at The MAD Lab (which is also home). The new cover art features a photograph my cousin Meron took in 2007, it's a picture that represents a part of everyone that performed as "Gabriel Teodros" at the Bumbershoot Festival that year... and it's just a huge part of my musical family in one photo. Not all the faces from the cover are on the disc, not all the voices on the disc are on the cover, but i still feel like it was the most fitting cover as this project, my music, and my work has always been about something much bigger than one person. I have my community to thank for making me who i am... even at my best i'm still just a reflection of the people around me. A final sidenote: In the Ethiopian calendar, 2006 was 1999... which was another reason i chose the title. This is also about letting go of the past to make room for new beginnings.

I hope you enjoy the music as much as we did making it.

loveiswork.
-- gabriel teodros

The LivinYard :: Summer's Here / Society Of Summer (FREE DOWNLOAD)

The LivinYard
Khingz X Gabriel Teodros X Nam

Summer's Here
Free Download

Society Of Summer (feat. B-Flat)
Free Download

This past week Seattle saw it's hottest day on record... and the debut of a brand new group called The LivinYard. We make Summertime Anthems, strictly. So enjoy these songs this summer and every summer to come! Produced & mixed by Crispy (of Godspeed), Mastered by Dume41.

"Me & You" - Gabriel Teodros feat. Silver Shadow D :: FREE DOWNLOAD

Me and my big brother Silv did this track for the upcoming 206 Zulu compilation... but the subject matter is so urgent i wanted to give it away now. This is for my students at Southlake who told me near the last day of school that "Summertime is War Time" I'm still praying for all of us to make it throo this summer. Southend, Central District, Westside... we are all sides on one side.

Produced by Silver Shadow D for ShadowMuzik.com
Recorded by Dume41 @ The Legion Of Dume
Photo by Pablo D for Studio Narvaez Photography