I live my life by a few golden rules. One of them is when deciding whether or not I should do something,
. There are no maybes. Another one comes from my cousin
's amazing work ethic which rubbed off on me in 2011/2012 when we were working together on
. Whenever I'm about to procrastinate on something, I hear her in my head saying matter-of-factly
Which in 2013 settled into something else... because I've always loved challenges: now when there is something I have an "ecstatic yes" for, and I realize I can do it, I have to do it. It doesn't matter if I've never done it before, if it's never been done before, or if I don't know how.
The experiments I'm most excited about are musical. Two new solo albums coming your way in
. The first is titled
. We started working on this project the same day we first met each other, which was in the summer of 2011 just hours after I landed in DC from my first trip to
. It was
chemistry. Maybe it's because of the different types of music we grew up listening to (a mix of Ethiopian music and Hip Hop) and a unified interest in pushing boundaries... but I never worked with someone that understood my musical ideas so instantly. This last summer (2013) I went back to DC to finish what we started in 2011... final recordings, arrangements, that sort of thing. At some point I started singing a bass line and AirMe was able to play exactly what I heard in my head. To me, the album changed at that point, and a lot of these songs now have me in the instrumentation in ways no other project does. Excited for ya'll to hear it... soon!
The second album is one that I'm still working on, and is a very different process. A long-distance collaboration I'm recording both at home and as I travel, with
Auckland, New Zealand-based producer
SoulChef. I first heard of SoulChef because of his work with an incredible emcee named
Uptown Swuite, who I first heard when we wound up
on a song together with the homie
Random Abiladeze. SoulChef reached out to me to do a track for his latest record
Food For Thought, which you get
on iTunes now. That song was
Black Love featuring
Sarah MK, my favorite song I had anything to do with that was released in 2013. Video soon come.
Black Love is an extension of how spending part of my summer in
Toronto felt. Those rare moments with loved ones where you feel seen, and cherished, understood, and even beautiful... in a society where we so often feel invisible. It is also an extension of how so many nights in
Montreal feel, making music just for the love of it, in the moment, with members of
Kalmunity Vibe Collective. Sarah MK is one of the first artists I met through Kalmunity, and this song happened to be recorded in her living room. Looking forward to more of the Montreal sessions coming out in 2014, including collaborations with
Jonathan Emile,
BluRum13 and another with Sarah MK.
Another experiment from 2012 that carried over into 2013 was
this TED Talk I did on Hip Hop & Science Fiction, and all the themes in it. It just went everywhere... including to so many of the people that inspired it, including
Afrika Bambaataa. This leads to another personal highlight when I got invited to the
Langston Hughes African American Film Festival to present on a night of
Afrofuturist short films. I was supposed to just perform... but a few nights before the event I realized I could make an interactive video presentation behind my whole performance where the films would be shown... so I put on my newfound video editing hat, didn't sleep much, and made that happen.
Another Afrofuturist highlight has been continuing to see
Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Movements come to life. Over the summer they had a very successful
indiegogo campaign to self-publish the book, for which I contributed an exclusive mixtape that some of ya'll might of heard. Writing a story for
Octavia's Brood was another experiment that pushed my growing edges in the earlier part of the year. One story leads to another, and I started writing a book. I talked more about this in an interview with
Alison Isaac, that
you can read here.
Octavia's Brood is set to be released in June of 2014.
Two more experiments that made me happy in 2013 have to do with language. If you'll notice, several of my
youtube videos have subtitles in different languages now. That's from the power of social media and people tuned it to the music, that were down to help translate lyrics to make it accessible to more people. So thankful. This is an ongoing process, so if anyone reading this wants to help, get at me. In the meantime, I've been working on getting the written form of the
Amharic language down. It's something that used to overwhelm me so much... but one day this year I needed to translate a song title, and I realized with the Fidel (Amharic alphabet) on my wall, and an Amharic-English dictionary close by, it was easy to do. It was an obvious lightbulb moment as these tools have been around me forever, and I've been working more on it ever since.
There were a lot of great shows I got to do in 2013. It's hard to remember them all, but I'll name some highlights. All of the time spent in Montreal was like an ongoing live improv session with Kalmunity and Sarah MK, and all of those nights are highlights. Back in
Seattle, I got to participate in the birth of another improv night called
Lovecitylove, which also has been a consistent highlight every Wednesday in the Town. I went to
Oakland (the other Town) and had a great show with sisters
Aisha Fukushima,
Antique Naked Soul and surprise guest appearance from
Jennifer Johns. I found out that Oakland love is like no other. My extended family, and one of my favorite groups anywhere,
Quetzal had an amazing year, they won a Grammy! And
Martha Gonzalez got
her PhD. They also came through a Seattle a few times, and I got to sit-in with them twice. The Macklins caught one of these times
on video. I started performing songs from
Children Of The Dragon, and it's debut/sneak preview was the perfect location:
Sankofa Video, Books & Cafe in Washington, DC; meaning we rapped on the porch of the house that
Haile Gerima built. I hope he's not mad at me, but the album title was directly inspired by the mythology in his film
Teza. Another highlight was rocking Evergreen State College with
Shabazz Palaces and
THEESatisfaction (2 of my favorite groups anywhere), as was the following week performing at my brother
Ka.lil's beautiful release party for his album
Between Saturday Night & Sunday Morning which you can
get on bandcamp now. Performing with
Debo Band both in Seattle and Vancouver was another highlight that you can
see part of here. And those most recent shows with
Bocafloja in Seattle were great, so much community support. I'm hoping to take this show on the road and see you all a lot more in 2014!
I spent more time in Seattle in 2013 then I have in the last 5 years, and in addition to everything else I worked regularly in schools. Shoutout to all my regular students at
Denny Middle School,
McClure Middle School, the
Seattle World School and everywhere where I did a workshop. Since I've been at home so much, nothing defines 2013 for me more than this video, released on the 20th birthday of
Queen Latifah's
Black Reign.
Rest In Peace to
Jean-Marc Daga,
Jusdeep Singh Sethi,
Byrdie,
Sathima Bea Benjamin,
Kofi Awoonor,
Yusef Lateef,
Malcolm Shabazz,
Hugo Chaves,
Nelson Mandela, and everyone we lost this year. Life is precious. Show your people you love them everyday.
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