"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 "Grow Up Before You Blow Up" ft. Luam Kidane

"Grow Up Before You Blow Up" ft. Luam Kidane

So last year Homeboy Sandman wrote this article on rap music and the prison industrial complex. He made these crucial connections from how a mere 232 media executives control the entire information diet of 277 million americans, to how some of those same media executives have huge stakes in for-profit prisons, to why popular rap music is the way it is.

After processing this information, I then looked around at my community and realized how many independent artists are playing the same role a media giant would have them play, without even having anyone tell them that's what they have to do... as if we're locking ourselves in a cage and holding the keys to our freedom at the exact same time.

This was in 2013 while we were actually mixing the rest of the Children Of The Dragon record... AirMe was just messing around with a beat while we were in between sessions. I was on the couch working on the first draft for my Octavia's Brood story... I heard the earliest version of this beat, quietly opened another window on my laptop, and in 15 minutes the song wrote itself... it even surprised us but it ended up making the album!

Written by Gabriel Teodros & Luam Kidane. Produced by AirMe. Additional vocals by Rebekah.
Mixed by AirMe, Gabriel Teodros & Dume 41. Mastered by Dume41.

"Sangre Nueva"

to feel like curtis mayfield and heal with words
i was held in this verse that soothed my hurts
wounded, now my love does walk the earth
for the young ones searching to build their church, inside
away from religious little lies to convert, no
we decolonize, realize our true worth
see school didn't work for all, we unearth
our true stories, freedom fighters and glory
the system tries to ignore the significance of these brilliant
young minds who innovate to survive
who make a way and thrive
society acts like it wants you to die
twomp-six, nirvana, the land of suicide
always was an outsider, now i'm still alive
so always have the courage to use your own mind
cause you do fulfill our dreams unrealized
and my love for you is impossible to recite
it'd be the sweetest note ever spoke upon a mic

my generation, is like a nation, that spans nations
nothing you build can ever contain them
when fighting for liberation
i'm free as my mind can see
think out the box, stay alive young g
i'm free as my mind can see
think out the box
stay alive

These are the original lyrics I wrote for "Sangre Nueva", a collaboration with Bocafloja and Danny Beat that ended up on the Colored People's Time Machine album. You never know where else your words might end up... for example, my sister Moni got a tattoo! (pictured above) And a while back my friend Hari Alluri asked if these lyrics could be included in this piece he was working on for a book. I said "sure!" not knowing how big of a book project it would be. Now I just got my advance copy of Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook For Youth from AK Press and wow! I can't believe something I wrote is published with so many of my favorite people and inspirations: Luam Kidane, Angela "El Dia" Martinez Dy, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Adrienne Maree Brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs and so many more! This is a huge project. But to my disappointment the lyrics I sent were not what ended up in print. What I wrote, and the way I write, is posted above. For the book it looks like someone just listened to the song and transcribed what they heard... something always gets lost that way. In this case a few lines lost meaning. I'm still excited about the rest of the book tho! For more information check AK Press.