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!

Gabriel Teodros LIVE in Montreal, New York City & Washington, DC...

Gabriel Teodros Children Of The Dragon East Coast Tour Dates!

Montreal, QC

Tuesday, July 8th 2014

with Kalmunity Vibe Collective

8PM | $5 before 8:30 / $8 after | 19+

at Les Bobards (4328 Boulevard Saint-Laurent) 

Brooklyn, NY

Sunday, July 13th 2014

Suena la Diaspora! with Quilomboarte (Bocafloja + Hache ST + Cambio), Sol Liebiskind & De La Cieba

8PM | $10 | All Ages

at Palisades (906 Broadway)

* Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/events/1441274282791945/

Washington, DC

Wednesday, July 16th 2014

with Colored Girls Hustle

9PM | $5 | 21+ at Bossa (2464 18th St NW)

* Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/583983531723234/

* I don't have a normal facebook page. If you do, please add yourself to the events and invite all your homies!

I'm honored to be on the road this summer sharing stages with so many inspiring artists! A good way to stay tuned in to the journey is on instagram. This whole tour started in Detroit a few weeks ago, where I performed and presented at one of my favorite annual gatherings, the Allied Media Conference, with one of my favorite projects I've ever been so lucky to be a part of, Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements! To get a taste of what happened, check this video Scott Macklin just posted from the Octavia's Brood event we had in Seattle earlier this year:

writing for freedom

Theme music: "mask." by Jean Grae. on repeat.

I want to start out by thanking everyone in Seattle who supported that beautiful Town Hall show with Krar Collective, as well as the 2 events I did at Seattle University last week. You all got glimpses of my latest work before anyone else, and I really appreciated the love. Aida Solomon at Seattle Globalist was kind enough to post some photos, check it out here.

Also, last week, The Feminist Wire ran an incredible week-long forum on Mumia and mass incarceration. I was honored to write something for it, about Mumia and My Survival which you can read here. In it, I talk about high school, what led me to become a vegetarian, schools and prisons, and how Mumia Abu-Jamal and MOVE's inspiration helped shape me.

The entire forum is incredible, brought together by Hakima Abbas and Tanisha C. Ford with contributions from so many of my favorite minds including Mumia Abu-Jamal and Angela Davis speaking on alternatives to the present system of capitalist injustice, a beautiful excerpt from Octavia's Brood co-editor Walidah Imarisha's upcoming book about how Mumia led her to activism, Meron Wondwosen speaking on the issue of political prisoners both in Ethiopia and the US, and SO much more! Did you know Mumia is a yogi? Catch up with the whole forum here, and let's keep raising our voices for every political prisoner to be free.

Another writing/storytelling project that I want people to pay attention to is Black on Palestine. Earlier this month, there was a delegation to Palestine that included dream hampton, Jasiri X, Ferrari Sheppard, Remi Kanazi, Bryonn Bain and others. They started a tumblr page you can follow here, and I love the much-needed conversations that are happening now about true solidarity between people of African descent and the people of Palestine. So necessary and overdue.

Also this month, Nnedi Okorafor wrote a beautiful piece for the New York Times titled African Science Fiction is Still Alien. The New York Times decided not to publish it, but she posted it on her blog anyway. This woman is one of my favorite authors, so you have to understand it means the world to me when she mentions CopperWire and quotes the line "whatchu' think we do all day, swat flies?!" Check it out here.

And finally, a show announcement. (Again in Seattle... will be touring soon, I promise!) I'm really excited about this one... a tribute to my other favorite voice in science-fiction, Octavia Butler. Octavia's Brood co-editors Walidah Imarisha & adrienne maree brown will be at the EMP Museum doing an interactive reading on February 28th (also featuring David Walker and myself), DJ Sassy Black (of THEEsatisfaction) will be spinning a science-fiction inspired set of music, Felicia Loud and myself will be performing a few Octavia Butler-inspired songs, and you will get to see a rarely seen interview with Octavia Butler, along with stories from people that knew her well. Ticket info on the EMP site. Also, On March 1st, Walidah Imarisha & adrienne maree brown will also be hosting a few workshops at Seattle University. Registration information for both workshops is here. Much love to John Jennings for the Wild Seed-inspired artwork on this poster.

Octavia's Brood is an anthology of radical science and speculative fiction written by organizers and activists, based in the idea that those working to change the world are already sci-fi/speculative thinkers. The anthology is set to release June 22, 2014.

2013: A personal retrospective + looking into 2014. (Part 3 of 3)

I live my life by a few golden rules. One of them is when deciding whether or not I should do something, if the answer isn't an ecstatic YES! then the answer is No. There are no maybes. Another one comes from my cousin Meklit Hadero's amazing work ethic which rubbed off on me in 2011/2012 when we were working together on CopperWire. Whenever I'm about to procrastinate on something, I hear her in my head saying matter-of-factly "if you can do it now, do it now." 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. 2013 was a year of experimentation.

The experiments I'm most excited about are musical. Two new solo albums coming your way in 2014. The first is titled Children Of The Dragon and is a collaboration with Washington, DC-based Ethiopian-American producer AirMe. 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 Ethiopia. It was instant 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.

"Scars/Stars" by Walidah Imarisha + other new books this month!

Scars/Stars by Walidah Imarisha 

The day has come, and my family Walidah Imarisha (co-editor of the Octavia's Brood anthology, co-editor of Another World Is Possible, and one-half of Good Sista / Bad Sista) has released a new book of poetry: Scars/Stars. This sister has been a constant inspiration to me for my entire adult life. I wouldn't be the same artist or human being without her, for real. You can get her newest book here now!

Scars/Stars also has the first blurb I ever wrote for a book on the back cover :)

While we're on the topic of new books... here's a few more I'm excited about, all published in the last month (or soon to be published):

Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor

If you don't know her, please get familiar. Nnedi Okorafor is the first sci-fi author since Octavia Butler who's work I got completely addicted to... and it wasn't until reading 4 of her novels that I realized there is a common alternate universe in all of them. Genius. If you follow my music closely, you would know Nnedi is also the resident Naijamerican novelist alien sorceress who wrote the "legend" of CopperWire as it reads in the Earthbound liner notes, and website. Kabu Kabu is Nnedi's first collection of short stories. Very exciting!

Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture by Ytasaha L. Womack

I have to admit, this one took me by surprise. It's Ytasha L. Womack's guide to Black Sci-Fi everything and it includes something about our Ethiopian Hip Hop Space Opera, CopperWire! I just found out about it a few nights ago, and can't wait to read it! There's also cover artwork by that genius John Jennings... who also did this!

Prognosis: descarga poetica decolonial // decolonial poetic exhale by Bocafloja (literary trans-creation by Sidony O'Neal)

This is my family Bocafloja's second book, and the first one that will be both in English and Spanish. It will feature poetry along with short stories and essays... and I'm very excited to be doing some Northwest events in November around the release of this book!  You'll be hearing more about this one very soon, but for now, check the video.

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!)

Voices of Octavia's Brood: adrienne maree brown & Walidah Imarisha

these 2 sisters having this conversation is everything to me. so much love and inspiration! there is now less than 3 days left to contribute to the Octavia's Brood fundraising campaign... check it out, and get this new music i'm not offering anywhere else!

Pieces of my last 2 weeks on camera: Debo Band x LoveCityLove x Octavia's Brood

On Friday I had the honor of opening up for my extended family, Debo Band at The Triple Door in Seattle. Scott Macklin was there to film some of the magic. Before the show started I said "it's not a Debo Band show if Bruck doesn't jump off the stage at some point and start dancing with people" before the show was over he did just sat, standing up and singing from the top of a table in the process. It's in the video. I love this group. I also got to go up to Vancouver over the weekend with them and sat in during their set at the Folk Festival, where we ran into another one of my favorite groups anywhere, Nomadic Massive! with special guest, our sister Sarah MK. Beautiful weekend.

Also here in Seattle, on Wednesdays there has been some unfiltered, unplugged improvised magic happening every week at LoveCityLove. Viliv Studios caught some of that magic along with conversations about what's happening in the city right now, featuring some of the Town's finest. (Sidenote: I was quoting Royal Alley-Barnes from Langston Hughes in the video.)

The Indiegogo campaign to publish Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements has been going great! We have 15 days left to reach all the stretch goals. My sister Walidah Imarisha and myself went to a park in Seattle that may be named in Octavia Butler's honor, just to envision that possibility, as a part of an ongoing video series her and Adrienne are doing with all the Octavia's Brood writers. Check all those videos out in the indiegogo gallery!

Support: Octavia's Brood | Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

This is the anthology I was talking about in my TED Talk, which also helped inspire the whole concept for CopperWire's Earthbound. It basically changed my life before it was even published. I discovered a love of writing stories because of this. So of course I'd put an exclusive EP on the fundraising campaign to self-publish. Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements is co-edited by 2 of the most brilliant people I know: Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown and includes stories from Climbing PoeTree, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarashina, Tara Betts, Vagabond and more, as well as essays from Mumia Abu-Jamal and Tananarive Due. You can help publish this book by Octavia Butler's 67th birthday on Indiegogo today! I'm so excited. And the video is awesome.