The Celebration!
2011 Performers
DJ Reborn
DJ Reborn has been moving crowds for over a decade with her mellifluous blend of funk, soul, hip-hop, reggae, house, latin, afro-beat,rock, 80’s, electro and more. Based in New York, DJ Reborn has built an amazing career spinning everywhere from concert venues to clubs and museums including the Whitney, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. She’s also spun exclusive events for musical artists Metallica, Maxwell and Lauryn Hill as well as celebrated visual artists Kara Walker and Wangechi Mutu. She has proudly provided customized soundscapes for Eve Ensler’s V-day project as well as staged readings for Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History. Reborn was the international tour DJ for Russell Simmons’ Tony award winning Def Poetry Jam as well as musical director and DJ for renowned actor and playwright Will Power’s off Broadway hit show Flow.
DJ Reborn is a youth mentor and arts educator with Urban Word NYC, where she created a workshop for teenage girls that explores DJing, creative writing and critical analysis of women’s images in media culture.
Dope Sagittarius
Dope Sagittarius are an electro, hip hop, punk rock extravaganza. This three piece unit of Bass, Drums, & Guitar (& computer) is like one mega DJ mixing and blending Hot modern dance floor beats guaranteed to have the party jumping. Utilizing live instruments to create amazing grim, dub step, drum & bass, & breakbeats. M.C. Whistler lyrical flow switches styles so fast that you will do a double take, looking for the DJ.
More on Dope Sagittarius via their Facebook page.
Imani Uzuri
photo credit: Yossi Michaeli
Recently featured in the New York Times, vocalist/composer Imani Uzuri is an eclectic artist who creates, performs and collaborates across various genres including concerts, experimental theater, recordings, visual/performance art and sound installations. She has performed at numerous international venues/festivals from Morocco to Moscow; from Lincoln Center to The United Nations including a recent special solo performance at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Television appearances include David Letterman and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots.
Her diverse collaborators include musicians ranging from Herbie Hancock, Vijay Iyer, Talib Kweli and John Legend; to noted visual artists Wangechi Mutu and Sanford Biggers. Uzuri’s nomadic world travels, and her interest in sacred music and experimentation is reflected in her various projects including her critically acclaimed debut album Her Holy Water: A Black Girl’s Rock Opera. New York Magazine has called her work “stunning”.
Her forthcoming new album The Gypsy Diaries, which features vocals, violin, cello, acoustic guitar, sitar and daf, is a lyrical and spiritual soundscape.
No Surrender
With roots that go deep into the downtown alternative hip-hop, Afro-Punk, and electro scenes, brooklynites NO SURRENDER have been widely respected for their unique blend of sounds. The group has recorded with Tunde Adebimpe, lead singer of TV on the Radio, Radioclit (Santigold, M.I.A., Bonde Do Role), members of Antibalas, and breakbeat king Freq Nasty (Santigold). The album Medicine Babies— a seamless blend of electro-punk, dance and alt-rap–was released on ZerOKilled in June 2011.
Produced by former Tricky’s muse singer Costanza Francavilla and European production team Radioclit (Santigold, M.I.A The Very Best), Medicine Babies features several guests including TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, New York fixture DJ Monica Sharp, Afro-Punk Brooklynites Apollo Heights and collaborations by cutting edge electronic artists/producers Brando Lupi & Folco Peroni. With the coming of Medicine Babies, everyone will learn the underground’s best-kept secret. And the guys will be more than happy to fill the prescriptions.
http://www.nosurrendermusic.net
Saidah Baba Talibah
Toronto rock soul songtress Saidah Baba Talibah’s – who’s been described as Living Color-meets-Erykah Badu – debut LP (S)Cream is more than just an album: It’s an experience. The suggestive, choose-your-own-adventure parentheses around the ‘S’ in the album’s title are indicative not only of the album’s lyrical content, but of Saidah as an artist and as a person.
In Saidah’s own words, “(S)Cream is a collection of dreams, daydreams and realities, that speak from a place of fierceness, vulnerability, insecurity and assuredness. (S)Cream has put away all childish games and is all grown up, but is still searching and getting comfortable in all of her cracks and bulges, turn ons and turn offs. This is my coming out as a woman who likes to talk sex & sensuality, broken-heartedness, not taking anymore shit-ed-ness. I growl. I purr. I go to pretty places, harder places and naked places. I wish you joy, despair, heartbreak, inspiration and to be turned on.”
Clearly, her magic worked on the judges of the recent Soundclash Music Awards, where Saidah won the first place, $5,000 prize in the inaugural competition, besting a field of over 250 entrants.
Born and raised in Canada, Saidah Baba Talibah’s music has been greatly influenced by Toronto’s musical and ethnic enclaves. Moreover, the daughter of Salome Bey, Saidah credits the internationally renowned jazz/blues singer and actress for her talent and ambition. In addition to her Tony and Grammy-nominated mother, her uncle, Andy Bey, also a Grammy-nominated musician – she says that growing up in a family where the arts were respected, gave her the confidence to embark on a solo career.
More on her at sbtmusic.com.
Tamar-kali
The dramatic intensity of Tamar-kali’s music defies any traditional genre. Borne from her seemingly endless well of ingenuity it enchants you with its melody, while delivering a swift kick to the gut with its incisive emotional core.
As a composer and vocalist she has defied boundaries and blended styles to craft her own unique sound. Her eclectic influences allow her to lead a raucous 5 piece rock band, an all female experimental string and voice group – Psychochamber Ensemble or take the torch song tradition to a new level with her Pseudoacoustic project.
The uninitiated may have discovered Tamar-kali when she appeared in James Spooner’s award-winning Afro-Punk documentary, with clips of her incendiary performances putting the world on notice to her unsung talent.
Tamar-kali’s voice and vision has been enjoyed by international audiences at Festivals such as the Peiferias Festival – Spain, Sons D’hiver – Paris and Omiala: A Festival of New Black Culture at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre as well as NYC venues Joe’s Pub, HarlemStage, Lincoln Center Out of Doors and Central Park Summerstage. Her eclectic sound and versatility has allowed her to share stages with a diverse list of artists from Paramore, John Legend, and Cassandra Wilson to Meshell Ndegeocello and Roy Ayers.