Black Love, Pt. II

and a new mix of music for folks already missing me on the radio

Ten years ago, Sarah MK and myself released a single called “Black Love” with Aotearoa-based producer SoulChef, that ended up being the genesis of the Evidence of Things Not Seen album (released the following year), and it was just one of my favorite songs and moments I ever got to be part of. That song and the project that followed connected with ears and hearts all over the world, in ways that were different than any of my projects had before.

When I started making this new album in the early months of 2020, all of the beats were based on Ethiopian samples, and Sarah MK was one of the first artists I reached out to, to revisit the story we started telling on “Black Love”. Sarah's verse on the first song was all about what it meant for her to reconnect with her father's homeland, Ethiopia, a place that she had never seen. One of our first conversations we had, the first time we met at Kalmunity in Montreal, QC, was all about what it meant for me to see my mother's homeland for the first time, to perform across the country, and connect with legends like Mulatu Astatke our very first night in Addis.

In 2020 Sarah was fresh from finally making her first trip to Ethiopia, and she tells the story in her opening verse. That feeling is something I think everyone from a diaspora reconnecting with their homeland for the first time can relate to.

But due to everything else that happened in 2020, I put this song and the entire project on hiatus. With an entire war popping off in Ethiopia, and tensions escalating between our communities abroad, the album that I started making in 2020 just couldn't be completed.

"i started making this album to remember

in January 2020, but that November

a war popped off, now i feel dismembered

i got good friends with family members missing

i got some friends that act like nothing's different

and some wave flags like they celebrate the militants

i just mourn my idea of home

this too is a pain that our parents have known

how they all got through it, i just don't know

but i don't think any of us can do it alone

Black love"

Coming back to this song in 2023, was the first time I was able to start capturing the complexities of what this time has meant, and how so many of us had our illusions shattered and our concepts and relationships to a homeland forever changed. This is a subject I come back to several times on the LP, but I don't think any of it would have been possible without first finishing this song.

And that's all me on the production. Mixed & mastered by Dume41.

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And here’s what the original sounded like, 10 years ago…

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I’ve been away from KEXP for less than one week, and I’ve gotta say… the feeling of not having a radio show to do everyday is strange! A big part of why I started getting more active on this Substack was leading up to this very moment…

I’ve got a brand new mix of music here for paid subscribers. Complete with a few exclusive remixes of tracks by Black Thought, Sa-Roc and myself, and new tunes from Cleo Sol, Terrace Martin, Jamila Woods, Mumu Fresh, and so much more!

Our new album comes out in 7 days. See y’all soon.