A Safe Place For Us / From the Ashes of Our Homes
It's here. A new project from Gabriel Teodros & Khingz.
Happy Speakerboxxx / The Love Below anniversary. Thank you OutKast for making a double album made of two solo albums, and showing another duo from South Seattle what was possible 20 years later.
I started making an album over 3 years ago. And then we had a global pandemic, lost multiple friends, ran out of a house fire with nothing but the clothes on our backs, saw a war in my mother’s homeland rip our communities apart, and the album I started making 3 years ago didn’t make sense anymore. At the same time, I got a job playing music for people every single morning in an era when we collectively got more isolated than we ever were, we raised a million dollars and gave it all away to local artists when there were no gigs anywhere to be had, and somehow Ijeoma and me found a way to smile every single day.
This album is about how we survived and are still surviving the apocalypse.
A conversation with Khingz earlier this year got me into making my own beats for the first time, and I then asked him if he could do me the favor of expecting me to send him new music every week. I realized I wasn’t gonna finish a new album if I didn’t have someone in the world who was expecting new work from me. Since all my projects before were collaborations with at least one producer, I realized that sense of accountability to at least one person was something that I actually needed to see projects through to completion. After a few weeks, Khingz started sending me songs on a weekly basis too, and our two albums started to be a conversation. We’re very excited to now share that conversation with you, too.
I want to send love to everyone who played a part in crafting both of these projects. Healing is a collective journey, and these projects took a whole global village to produce. Shoutout to Aisha Fukushima, Rell Be Free, BeeLyn Naihiwet, Vitamin D, Meklit, Kimmortal, Nikkita Oliver, Jennifer Johns, Sarah MK, Ian Kamau, Dakota Camacho, Ujjy, Nguyen, Prince, Ijeoma Oluo, Chief Ahamefule J. Oluo and the Shrine All-Star Band… it’s a lot of people that helped make this music! Dume41 who mixed & mastered the Ashes side and Sendai Mike who mixed & mastered the Safe Place side. The spirit of Rahwa Habte and the spirit of Gift of Gab.
I want to send more love to everyone who lost someone they love these last 3 years, no matter what the reason may be. Sending love to everyone who lost a home or a sense of safety these last 3 years… you are not alone. Sending even more love to everyone still reeling from a war in their homeland these last 3 years, this music is for you especially.
A Safe Place For Us / From the Ashes of Our Homes
I hope you get a chance to listen with your whole heart.
If the music moves you, please share it. There's no machine behind us. Just y'all.
It’s on Bandcamp and everything else now.
Abyssinian Creole, forever.