I am happy to announce the relaunching of my radio show and its new title, The Black Atlantic/Black Fantastic, on 1BTN every second Sunday from 4-6 pm (UK) and 11-1 (EST). Starts today! Shout out to Paul Gilroy’s text The Black Atlantic and the late Caribbean Canadian Richard Iton, whose epic work, In Search of the Black Fantastic, shaped much of my approach to the diaspora. For those of you who I’ve rolled with for years, you know his book has been cited like the bible. It has been since 2013. ...
Apr 11, 2022•2 hr
South Africa is one of my musical mothers. I discovered this nearly twenty years ago when I stepped on the continent for the first time and landed near the Indian Ocean in the city of Durban. By the time I pulled up to Durban, I had already spent that entire year listening to a Zulu musician, also from Durban, by the name of Busi Mhlongo. And while her name never really circulated in the States like a Miriam Makeba or a Letta M’bulu, I knew that her voice, her music, and her movement was an invi...
Sep 10, 2020•1 hr
I woke up in Paris this morning reflective and excited about how I found my way here. I’m in Paris because I’m a DJ and because I fell in love with house music enough to ask questions about its roots. In that asking I studied liner notes, read books, watched documentaries, and travelled globally to learn of house in the African Diaspora. I made my way across dance floors to get a sense of the network of underground club culture that’s existed in the name of house for multiple decades. My work as...
May 30, 2016•56 min
In 1985 Loose Ends performed on Soul Train and just like all other performers who graced the stage, Don Cornelius strolled up with a mic and a series of music journalistic questions. When guitarist Carl McIntosh opened his mouth to discuss how the band met, I experienced my first ever encounter with Black Britain. With a precious amount of naiveté my nine-year old mind asked, “So Black people exist outside of America and outside of Africa?” As far as I knew we were between those two places and t...
Jun 04, 2015•1 hr 4 min
An unreleased mix recorded in Berlin in 2015. In a sentence I would describe it as Diasporic Quiet Storm music. A lover once called me emotionally rigorous and when we broke up, these songs came to me, an archive of sonic heart reflections.
Apr 04, 2015•44 min
This mix is for Black women who love Björk Guðmundsdóttir. For some of us Björk is one of the guiding forces in the most secret parts of our emotional lives. And there is something to be said about the fact that my deepest, most intimate romantic relationships have been with Black women who speak Björk. She is one of the most brilliant artists of our time, with relevance far beyond the boringly sensational Academy Award swan dress debacle, which on the low, I believe was a challenge to American ...
Feb 20, 2015•56 min
A mix celebrating the last year in my 30s, please accept the answers to the deepest of questions. Track List: Nobody Else But You But You Dance Be Enough (feat. Shea Soul) Opolopo I Want U (Yoruba Soul Mix) Set Me Free (Native Roots Remix) Mr Funk Daddy, DJ Sue Into Your Story (Kai Alce Remix) Sandman, Riverside, Jeremy Ellis, Ayro I Cling (Yoruba Soul Mix) Deetron & Ovasoul7 My Desire (Jullian Gomes Remix) Copyright, Donae'o Walk A Mile (Ultra Tone Remix) Cuebur feat. Nathan X Hero (Hang Se...
Nov 27, 2014•1 hr
Sun Ra would have been 100 years old today and I'm in London preparing to present the soundtrack of my own brand of AfroFuturism. Please enjoy the second and final installment of the "Hibernation Series." Detroit's winter cracked my creative spirit wide open. This mix features the electronic music from Africa and space themed Black American jazz. Fix your mind for this. Satellites Are Spinning Sun Ra Space Is The Place Amapheyile Amampondo Fa Laay Fanaan (Ashley Beedle on Marz Mix) Segunguwo Rob...
May 22, 2014•50 min
I wrote this during layovers between Toronto and London, on my way to Amsterdam for the summer. Before I start my next voyage, I wanted to offer my musical reflections on South Africa. Three days ago (April 27, 2014), South Africa's democracy turned 20 years old. I spent much of December and January in South Africa, thanks to the support of my community of listeners, family and friends and a generous grant from The Astraea Foundation Global Arts Fund. This was my third time in South Africa; the ...
Apr 30, 2014•1 hr 14 min
“Your heart has to be ready to handle the weight of your calling,” is what she said casually over Korean BBQ, and for this reason and more I grew up reading bell hooks. ‘Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery’ was my first dance with her mind. In it she taught me how to identify the ways that patriarchy, white supremacy and global capitalism threatened humanity’s well-being. More specifically, she challenged me to examine the ways in which our own families replicate models of oppressi...
Apr 20, 2014•1 hr 15 min
I started compiling music for “Dark Black Girls” in Atlanta, early 2012. I wasn’t quite sure of what direction the music would head in after deciding on the first song, “When I Grow Up” by Fever Ray, a song introduced to me by the hyper-talented Faatimah Stevens, who created the visuals for the sound. In the end I learned that each song was a different iteration of reggae music, more specifically, the one drop. The mix was completed in May 2012, days before I moved to Montreal, Quebec for a stin...
Feb 14, 2014•41 min
I never intended to release this mix. I considered it to be unfinished, in need of a polishing. Today, I heard it and it allowed me the space to breathe, to remember, to let go, so in that sense, it is perfect and I’m offering it AS IS. AS US. For Trayvon. Two years ago when Gil Scot Heron died I compiled and mixed music that spoke to the depth of joy and despair that filled his life, and ours as we witnessed his decline. Halfway through the mix I was confronted by the truth of Gil’s life—it rep...
Jul 14, 2013•53 min
The Love Space Demands, is a choreopoem published in 1991, by Ntozake Shange. In it she returned to the blend of music, dance, poetry and drama that characterized For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide....Her work has been described as sexy, discomforting, energizing, revealing, occasionally smug, and fascinating.” This is true. Ntozake Shange forces the kind of reflection that creates discomfort...growth. The first time I heard the words "The Love Space Demands" I paused and dropped ever...
Feb 14, 2013•1 hr 7 min
"The School of Badu" is a mix (compilation) inspired by one of the sexiest encounters I've had to date. Amazing what a deep soul connection with another human being can do to and for an artist. The heart is a beast. Take a ride through some of my favorite live performances and studio songs that, in my opinion, exemplify Erykah's work as the multi-dimensional, soul stirring and body moving performer that she is. Listen carefully, then pass it along. Dallas, stand up. embrace....
Dec 12, 2012•44 min
I moved to Atlanta from Brooklyn in March 2011 as a part of a Great (Re) verse Migration. Since being here I've been inspired by the calm of the breeze, the soul of the people and the movement on the dance floor. In circles we dance to house music, fed by rhythms that translate ancestral languages. Bass. With this mix I want to give back to ATL the love I've received, the creativity that's swinging from the history of these trees...and this dirt. Red Clay. My ancestors, my future. Take a musical...
Jul 06, 2012•1 hr 13 min
The moment I finished this mix, I put my headphones on and danced...to the entire thing. South Africa moves me. There cannot be a separation between the music, the history and the people. Layers. With the support of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant, I paid a visit to South Africa, determined to understand The Afro Digital Migration: House Music in Post Apartheid South Africa. I wanted to explore how house music took root in South Africa and shaped its national identity. The impetus for...
Mar 08, 2012•1 hr 9 min
The second scholar provides Haiku poetry inspired by Episode 2 "Mighty Real: The Sound of Tomorrow. This is none other than the author, poet, activist, lover, freedom fighter, professor, emcee, freestyler, vocalist, edutainer, tease, father, big brother, publisher, friend, papa bear, curator, scholar, raptivist, public intellectual, spiritualist, house-head: Mr. Tim’m West. Jimmy B-boy blues wide-eyed and full like his laugh surrender to joy We close our eyes inheriting the praise dance of sinne...
Sep 03, 2011•1 hr 4 min
WildSeed Music NYC is proud to present its first ever double mixed cd, High Holy Days: The History and Future of House Music. Episode 1 ”“The Children of Baldwin,” explores several periods of classic house where I mix both Chicago and New York City underground gay club hits to highlight the infant stages of house music. This compilation focuses on the music of two popular clubs credited with initiating the globalization of house music: Dj Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage Club in New York City and D...
Sep 03, 2011•1 hr 1 min
Liner notes for this mix are brought to you by my brother and friend Asadullah Saed Muhammad. His words speak truth to heart. Authenticity meets history for a future of honesty and peace. I want to love Love you like Mother Father god Introduced me to her As soon as I saw you Touch you like Black power Touched me Pick the cotton out your mind And make a cloth of you West africa and detroit Your smile Make your day With your words Write me a poem for me And hand you my art Coloring in chakras I m...
Jun 03, 2011•1 hr 15 min
Drum and Bass is Black Music… On the 30th anniversary of the 1981 Brixton riots, a historic reaction to the hostility and xenophobic environment that informed the policing of African and Caribbean immigrants, I examined the ruthless desire to keep Britain White. I pulled from Sam Selvon’s 1956 novel “The Lonely Londoners,” which tells the story of the Caribbean community’s communal response to the English brand of white supremacy and their cultural preservation as a means for survival. Additiona...
May 08, 2011•50 min
Journey with me on this "emotional migration" and expand in your freedom. This heartbreakingly sexy mix was inspired by my physical transformation and geographical relocation 2010-2011. "God is Change." Intro Drop—malena perez 1. Wake With the Day —Koyla Feat Zaki Ibrahim (Boddhi Satva Afri Soul Mix) 2. Eternal Love—Claude Monnet Journey into Dub—Daugi Rodann & Timothee Milton 3. Messages from the Stars— The Rah Band (Atjazz remix) 4. Clap Your Hands—Zakes Bantwini feat Xolani Sithole 5. The...
Apr 14, 2011•1 hr 2 min
A collage of deep house rhythms and seamless blends! These house musical selections represent the full spectrum of sub genre interests that dj lynnee denise developed with her ear to the New York scene. Pedagogy is the first of a series of summer house mixes from an album called "Givin up Sleep for House." 1. Life Youssou N’Dour 2. Everything in it’s Right Place (Radiohead) Afefe Iku 3. Secret Recipe Fabio Genito 4. Afro Bionics –Djinji Brown 5. Casabancal Soul (Casamena remix) 6. I’ll Never Kno...
May 07, 2009•55 min
