Artist Studios – Page 7 – VITAL CAPACITIES

this work is a quick sketch >

it’s a rough work based on recent research >

< it also uses previous studies

the footage is taken from one mountain spring in the Harz >

suddenly any place where the water flows is a place I can imbibe with a sense of home/belonging >

bodies of water as liminal spots of belonging >

this work draws its title from lyrics in Mark of my Departure >

it is meant tobe funny >

video description: set to a classic Lollywood tune this video juxtaposes different images of flowing water in different shaped frames. The frames are sometimes overlapping, sometimes slowly elongating and are synchronised to reflect moments in the musical journey. The water is flowing from a small stream across grey-brown rocks flanked by some greenery and soft moss. The water is clear and the flow is strong.

As the beat drops and the tabla comes into full swing, two circular images are seen rotating on the screen. The two images are in the same style and both created in the same way. On the left is an image of my grandfather, reading a newspaper, looking away from the camera. His image is framed by a circular photograph of a chopped tree trunk. Using the same method, the image on the right has the chopped tree trunk frame with an image of my father and his brothers in it, all sporting the wild 1970s style of facial and head hair. The two images rotate continuously in the style of old vinyl before slowly fading out.

the tabla and dislocation pt. 3

more studies in chopping the tabla

An old circular photograph shows two stern, old brown men, in their 50s, both wearing glasses sizing each other up. Both are suited looking smart and they are both grandfathers of the artist. Obscuring the centre of the image is a perfect circle. It is filled with the texture of a chopped tree trunk but blackened to approximate the Syahi, the centerpoint of the tabla.

these are my two grandfathers surveying each other

This circular photograph contains the image of two 'almost smiling' women, looking softly at the camera with a lightness but strength of purpose. It is the artists grandmother and her best friend. Obscuring the center of the image is a circle filled with the texture of a chopped texture but blackened to approximate the Syahi, the centerpoint of the tabla.

my grandmother and her best friend

MADE THE SYAHI

Using the image of the chopped down tree stumps, I fashioned the syahi for these tabla’d images, making the symbol of dislocation the central point of attention. Reversing the process from the previous studies, trying to be more direct in the tabla reference and combing through the family pictures. This process has reminded me that so much of this work is about building an archive for/of the family that reconnects the ancestral lineage severed by dislocation.

OKO: the eye and Molniya orbits

Image credit: Groundtrack of a Molniya orbit. By Hartze1 – Public Domain

It was the OKO satellites connected with the Soviet M-10 supercomputer that mistakenly identified sunlight on clouds as the movement of nuclear missiles (OKO being the Russian word for ‘eye’). They detect infrared radiation which is then used to interpret the trajectory of missiles from the heat of their exhausts.

The OKO satellites moved on elliptical Molniya orbits of which there are some nice visualisations on the Wiki page.

Molniya translates as Lightening in Russian and this type of orbit has been used for telecommunications, TV broadcasting, and weather monitoring as well as in the military early warning systems I’m looking at.

Animation of EKS orbit around Earth - polar view

Animation of EKS orbit - ECEF - front view

Inside Serpukhov-15

Inside a nuclear control system. A curved dashboard of endless buttons and switches. Mirroring this is a similarly curved wall of screens, displays and controls.

I’ve been looking for photos that show the inside of the Serpukhov-15 bunker. This is the only image I have come across so far and it’s unverified.

watching: lollywood, editing, Noor Jehan

can’t stop watching/listening to these tunes >

Noor Jehan is an icon > singer of over 10,000 recorded songs > first female Pakistani film director in 1951 > affectionately known as the Queen of Melody >

Below you can hear Noor Jehan singing ‘Lal meri pat’ >

Lal meri Pat is the original version of the song that venerates the saint Lal Shahbaz Qalander > it brings the research out from the mystic 12th century reaches > out also from the Afro-South Asian connections > straight to Lollywood >

Pakistan’s film industry set up in Lahore has its own heroes and history > if interested > this podcast has been a joy to listen to >

I’ve been blaring these songs in my room and in my headphones on the go >

I’ve been paying attention to the way these videos are shot and edited >

I’ve enjoyed the sharp, deliberate, on-beat chopping >

https://youtu.be/3uNlVIpWDUA

the tabla and dislocation pt. 2

studies in chopping up the tabla

The top face of a tree stump is photographed from above. At its centre is a perfectly round image of my grandfather reading a newspaper. The round image has its own outer ring of a separate darker brown trunk.

A perfectly round image of my grandfather with a ringed frame of a chopped tree trunk. This image is taken from the previous image and made larger to expose some details. These include the wooden wall of his house, the newspaper he is engrossed in and the sepia tint of his spectacles.

Another tree stump holds another perfectly round family photo. This tree stump has greying-green moss at its sides and a little on its cut trunk. The image at the centre is of my father and his three brothers. Their image is framed by another chopped tree trunk that is brighter and more yellow in colour.

A perfectly round image of my father and his brothers with a ringed frame of a chopped tree trunk. This image is taken from the previous image and made larger to expose some details. These include the wicked afro of my uncle, the fullness of three Pakistani moustaches and the intimacy of their holding each other.

studies in chopping up the tabla

these studies are produced by pushing family photos into images of chopped trees < these trees are located in the Harz Mountains in Germany where the bark beetle has destroyed local forests < amongst the decay and disease wild flowers and grasses < growback >

< the bark beetle is a kind of predatory invader to the forest < “nature” has its own forms of violent destruction < reoccupation of habitat < re-inscription of its role < colonialism >

< normally a tree would be able to ward off the beetle by producing its own resin < but increased heat and drought have weakened this defense < many trees are dying < many trees are being chopped down < chopping >

< roots in the ground remain as the wood is chopped and moved elsewhere> < chopping >

< the stump is a sign of this dislocation < a mark of my departure >

< the stump becomes the image of the tabla face < except it misses the syahi < the syahi is the blackened tuning paste in the center of the drum < the syahi is the pupil of the eye > < in the iris >

< in the iris < my father and his brothers < my grandfather alone < the generational split that I never knew < their relationship with the looking lens < the brothers facing the eye of the camera < the father lost in his work < neither looking at each other < both brothers and father >

< in my eyes >

< in my eyes < as I walk>

< at the rhythm and pace of a tabla>

< through the dying forest < and mystifying growback >

Studio

A living God.

Trumu Fetish
A 6:00min Cut of a 1hr performance
Alt text: A Black body covered in black paint.

A God realised. It was meditation to see the transgender God in space/reality. This is the beginning, where I create rituals for its appearance and movement in space. The black paint represents the Universe, a body that holds the planets and the stars and commands space-time. I understand my body as an integral part of this experience. I am interested in finding out: Am I in a trance as a vessel? How do I create transformation for other transgender bodies? How do I open myself to this present moment? I want to be consumed.

The God is nameless at this point; however, Trumu Fetish is the title for the experience of veneration.

A song by E B U. Listen to this while watching. I have added the lyrics too.

Take me back
To the silky black
The silky black of liquid sap
Slate and stone 
I feel at home
With space to roam 
This feels like home
Solace on a hill
Stones standing still
Standing proud
Out of the ground
Quietly
Watching me
Comforting
Company
So take me back
To the silky black
Take me back
To the silky black
Happy to be bound
By the embrace 
Of homeland

Written By - E B U

Related artworks: OKOgame by Nadya Suvorova

A person stands in a huge loft space interacting with a game on a big screen. — OKOgame by Nadya Suvorova

I came across an interactive digital work called OKOgame that uses NASA satellite imagery to form an audio-visual experience triggered by mouse clicks. It revolves around a target-like centre which splits into rings that you can control with your mouse. Working like a puzzle, the aim is to get them to fit seamlessly together revealing the original satellite image. There are various levels, each becoming more complicated with an increasing number of moving parts. The soundtrack is recordings taken from within space shuttles.

A peach and blue tinted satellite image broken up into concentric circles. — OKOgame by Nadya Suvorova

Virilio’s Bunker Archaeology: reflections Part 2

Sketchbook plans from Virilio's text that show architectural plans of bunkers from above and the side. — Photo: Virilio, Bunker Archaeology

This is the second part of my reflections on Virilio’s Bunker Archaeology and which sections are resonating with my research.

He writes about the materiality of concrete and how a poured substance can create this sense of claustrophobia and imprisonment:

“It is the coherence of the material itself that must assume this role: the centre of gravity replaces the foundation. In concrete casting, there are no more intervals, joints, everything is compact; the uninterrupted pouring avoids to the utmost the repairs that would weaken the general cohesion of the work. (p47).
‘Their grey cement relief was silent witness to a warlike climate’ (p12).

Although the bunkers themselves are solidly anchored into position, unable to move and or be impacted by events on the ground, Virilio knows that it’s the speed of the things that they are controlling that is at the core of their power. He focuses on the trajectory of weapons, how quickly they are able to move, and the battle for speed.

‘At the heart of combat’… “a new infrastructural-vehicular system always revolutionizes a society in overthrowing both its sense of material and its sense of social relationship” (p19).

It seems for him that it’s the speed of trajectory that is crucial. And related to this is the miniaturisation of space, of making distances feel shorter and easier to travel across. It ties into the omniscient, all-seeing systems of satellite observations, of mapping technologies, and geospatial tools of control.

“A homogenizing process is under way in the contemporary military structure, even inside the three arms specifications: ground, sea, and air is diminishing in the wake of an aeronautical coalesce, which clearly reduces the specificity of the land forces…(T)he volumetric reduction of military objects: miniaturization” (p18).

Finally, he makes a broader point about how technologies of speed and travel are related to the desires of military activities:

“It should never be forgotten that the ancestor of the automobile, the log transporter of the military engineer Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, during its first trip from Paris to Vincennes, was hauling a cannon” (p47).

Virilio’s Bunker Archaeology: reflections Part 1

by Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley

A black and white image of a rounded concrete bunker emerging from a sandy beach. One circular opening leads into the ground.

Bunker, France, ca. 1958–65. Photo: Paul Virilio

This week I’ve been reading Virilio’s Bunker Archaeology (1967), a collection of texts and photographs documenting his research and visits to the military bunkers of the Atlantikwall along France’s northwest coast. Spanning coasts from northern Norway to Spain, the Atlantikwall consisted of 15,000 bunkers built to conceal radar stations, submarine pens, and various military arsenal.

He reflects on what it feels like to enter one of these ominous monolithic spaces and the relationship between death, tombs and military architecture.

‘I was more impressed by a feeling, internal and external, of being immediately crushed. The battered walls sunk into the ground gave this small blockhouse a solid base; a dune had invaded in the interior space and the thick layer of sand over the wooden floor made the place ever narrower. Some clothes and bicycles had been hidden here; the object no longer made the same sense, though there was still some protection here. A complete series of cultural memories came to mind: the Egyptian mastabas, the Etruscan tombs, the Aztec structures . . . as if this piece of artillery fortification could be identified as a funeral ceremony…’ (p11).

He describes trapdoors in cement floors leading to crypts packed with ammunition, round or hexagonal inner chambers, and often the placement of what alludes to a religious alter or plinth in the centre of the space.

“The bunker was built in relationship to this new climate; its restrained vo1lume, its rounded or flattened angles, the thickness of its walls, the embrasure systems, the various types of concealment for its rare openings; its armour plating, iron doors, and air filters – all this depicts another military space, a new climactic reality” (p39).

I also found it interesting to read his thoughts around the relationship between territorial representation (maps, satellite views) and military expansion. He writes about these representations being strategies of military control – satilletes and radar systems – and desires around ‘controlling expanding territory, of scanning it in all directions (and, as of now, in three dimensions)’ (p17).

“The “conquest of space” by military and scientific personnel is no longer, as it once was, the conquest of the human habitat but the discovery of an original continuum thar has only a distant Iink to geographical reality.”

Another thought I had whilst reading this was the act of fortification and what it means to use the earth’s material itself and underground locations as a kind of barrier. It’s making me think of the subconscious and how the spatiality of physical spaces can have psychological connotations and interpretations. Also, what it means for the decision-making processes and the actions that are expected to happen at these sites.

“The fortification is a special construction; one does not live there, one executes particular actions there, at a particular moment, during a conflict or in a troubled period” (p42).

First Scene

So this is my second draft of the first scene of Episode 1

Sepp : Hey…looks like it’s just us.

June : Looks like it (giggles)

Sepp : Did you enjoy the ceremony?

June : Hahha fuck no… these traditional meetings feel empty to me especially as they never include me.

Sepp : Yeah…I know…they are wrong for that…you should definitely be front and center

June : front and center? I don’t think I want to be verified to that extent.

Sepp : well Maybe It would make me pay attention a little more …closely

June: ….oh and why would that make you pay a little more attention

Their bodies are closer now, almost touching. Almost breathing on each other.

The sky cracks in half as the long forgotten voice of a lost GOD returns to earth.

The air began to resonate as it shifted through the atmosphere of carbon nitrogen and oxygen. The make up of life changed unbeknownst to anyone.

June : What the fuck was that?

Sepp : (covering her head) Jesus sounds like the whole sky exploded.

June is already running to a window. There are a lot of murmurs in the bar.
June looks out the window but sees nothing

A few others who were in the room have also run to the window.

No one says anything as they stare transfixed outside.

Sepp : (after catching up) Do you see anything?

Sepp comes close to them and holds their arm. It’s the first time they have touched all evening

June : (wrapping her arm under the waist of Sepp) No…but I feel like…(they look at Sepp and notice the anxiety on their face)…Hey are you ok?

The air was charged. Like a thick soup of static. As the voice wrapped itself around the planet and began to touch the ground the static rose on the skin of their backs.

June’s hair was floating as though she was submerged in water.

Everyone looked at her but their hair remained normal.

A buzzing sound could faity be heard.

June : It feels like I’m surrounded by electricity (they stop and listen)…can you..(they listen again)…do you hear something?

The buzzing sound gets louder.

Sepp : Let’s get away from the window.

The buzzing sound can be heard by everyone now. Although it had begun as an auditory experience, its frequency had begun to resonate within their bodies.

June sinks to the floor feeling a wave of nausea as their organs shake with the sound

June : Sepp I…I…

A pulse shook through the ground.

Sepp falls to the ground beside june.

The two bury their heads into each other’s shoulders.

They scream in unison as they expect the building they are in to fall in on them.

And then suddenly

everything stops

June: Are you still here…

Sepp: I’m with you…im with you

Their heads rise to meet each others gaze.

They are only an inch apart

The other members in the room are all standing against the walls as if the pulse had not been felt by them.

Their gaze fixed on the two holding on to each other

They watch them in silence.

June : Sepp…

Sepp leans in whispering

Sepp : Don’t leave me tonight

kissing June.

Studio

Understanding Shrines

Shrine in the volta region of Ghana. Deity unknown

West African traditional religions have pantheons of Gods.
Within these pantheons, there is a hierarchy. The supreme being is at the top, followed by deities, the ancestors, human beings, animals, plants and minerals. Our Spirit/Vital force is what connects us. There are not as many temples for the supreme being or the Gods; however, there are shrines dedicated to the specific deity. These Shrines have different purposes, but this is where the deity resides. Each shrine has a caretaker or caretaker and a priest who can communicate directly to and with the deity. We find shrines in mountains, rivers or seas, at the foot of a village or at the residence of a priest/priestess. Offerings of prayer, alcohol, food or money are given to the deity for goodwill, protection or gratitude.

What I find exciting is these enormous Pantheons still have unknown or undocumented deities. It is a platform for research and discussions on transgender deities and their place in Africa’s transgender society. What rituals safeguard and re-energise our vital force and connection to the spiritual universe? How can we hold spaces for those witnessing our transition? These are the questions I am working on.

MARK OF MY DEPARTURE

by Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley

All work on my profile is orbiting this piece right here

These are the opening liner notes for MOMD. There are two images. They both share the same style; a black roti-textured background with bright pink text. On the first image, the text cascades down and reads ‘mark of my departure’ with each word in a different font. In the middle, across the cascade are the letters MOMD emblazoned large.

The second image has the same large MOMD across the middle. Above it is the track list. Which reads as follows:

mark one: water
mark two: melanogenesis
mark three: in the bazaar
mark four: ilford lane
mark five: be you

Underneath is a body of text that reads as follows:

MOMD produced, arranged and entirely composed by Allah SWT

features include Nusrat and company, the Chapparrals, whoever recorded that tabla loop, some random heads, Mufti Menk and that hilarious kid, Hamza Mohammed Beg and everyone who has ever interacted with us.

In the name of Allah the gracious and the merciful

I am greeted at the archway of my own work, stepping into it for the first time, hearing my voice drowned in the divine. All voices are dripping with it.

MOMD is a parting letter but I do not know to whom nor do I know where I am leaving to.

Those whom you guide none can misguide and those whom you misguide none can guide.

All of my research, writing and creative work for this program is trying to understand and expand on this that tumbled out of me >>>>>

INFLUENCE

I am attempting to make a interactive radio play controlled by speaking so the first things I have looked at are modern radio plays….which happen to be fictional podcasts

I never knew the radio play lived on in this form but I have to say

These three podcasts Carrier, The Message and Lif-e.af/ter have been a huge inspiration in how I can use sound as a way to craft a world that feels real and lived in.

Now the differcult bit is to finish writing the episodes.

Mistaken identities

Adversarial.io is a tool created to evade technologies of image recognition and reveal how differently machines and humans interpret images. Subtle noise added to images can completely alter how an algorithm will classify a photo, while in terms of human perception, there is little change to the original image.

I find it interesting in the context of my project because of the high confidence with which the M-10 computer declared its identification of the missiles (which turned out to be sunlight reflecting off clouds).

In my experiments, I gathered photos of nuclear missiles which, through such added noise, became sewing machines, freight cars, obelisks and totem poles in the eyes of computer vision.

Some of the nouns used to describe these missiles were quite obscure! I had to look up the definitions for: a stupa (a dome-like building usually containing relics and used for meditation), a barracouta (type of fish) and thresher (an agricultural machine for separating grains).

A grid of photos showing various nuclear missiles but which have been labelled as sewing machines, trailer trucks, obelisks and other names by an image recognition AI. The background is colourful and pixelated.

Research

Origin Of Transgender In Hinduism

The Hindu God of Transgenders

What I find exciting about this story is a supreme being, Lord Krishna, transitioned to form the Mohini avatar and blurred the lines between masculinity and femininity. Thus, being transgender is divine.

another Shahbaz, Erick Sermon, lost in the work

Timbaland samples a Colombian song and calls it Indian with saris and babas in the video.

CW: mentions of suicide

Another Shahbaz, this time a veneration for the famous and beloved Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalander.

Fascinated (as an outsider), proud (as an insider) of how this/my culture can infuse prayer, dance and music into ritual. I use this visual in Mark of my Departure to bring up a sense of collective ecstatic spirituality and straightforward party vibes.

The visual alone is full of such absurdity and humour; I love the ageing baba having money thrown at him, the dancing kids doing some ubiquitous skanking < maybe the key here is how intergenerational the celebration is?

The people they party to venerate the saint, Lal Shahbaz Qalander.

So much of my own practice is informed by techniques used and made popular by hip hop > sampling, chopping, rapping > somehow this video feels like it has every aspect of a classic early 2000s hip hop video and therein lies the appeal of the visual > it’s a kind of indirect nostalgia > I can access this image of my collective ancestral culture through my individual nostalgia for early 2000s hip hop < displacement is strange

South Asian culture (and cultural artifacts) have a relationship with hip hop that is everywhere to see but not many places to fully understand. My own work tries to explore that relationship. Famous hip-hop producers have lent on South Asian culture to give their music some flair, some essentialised but deliciously addictive vocal chops and catchy melodies < that’s only one aspect of this cultural exchange >

SIDEBAR

Here is the briefest non-chronological history of South Asian samples in mainstream hip-hop production from the early 2000s. ^{that I can remember}

Dr. Dre samples the legendary playback singer Lata Mangeshkar for one of the bangers of the decade.

Just Blaze serves up a certified club classic with Erik Sermon and Redman with the help of Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi.

SIDEBAR CONT…

I’m writing as I research and have just come across the work of Professor Elliot Powell. Phew. Elliot Powell is doing the work!

“His first book Sounds from the Other Side: Afro-South Asian Collaborations in Black Popular Music (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), brings together critical race, feminist, and queer theories to consider the political implications of African American and South Asian collaborative music-making practices in US-based Black Popular Music since the 1960s. In particular, the project investigates these cross-cultural exchanges in relation to larger global and domestic sociohistorical junctures that linked African American and South Asian diasporic communities, and argues that these Afro-South Asian cultural productions constitute dynamic, complex, and at times contradictory sites of comparative racialization, transformative gender and queer politics, and anti-imperial political alliances.”

“I Don’t Really Know What She’s Sayin’: (Anti)Orientalism and Hop Hop’s Sampling of South Asian Music”

SIDEBAR BECOMES MAIN WORK…

Here’s a story from Powell’s work

Powell charts the link between the lamenting lines of Asha Bhosle (sampled by Just Blaze) and the flippant response from rapper Erik Sermon. The sampling of South Asian music seems to fall into what Powell describes as an early 2000s Indo-chic. The ‘Indian’ aesthetic is utilitzed widely and carelessly to point to a sense of the exotic or oriental. This seems nowhere more evident than in the translation of the sample for the club-ready party hit ‘React’.

“The verse, sung by Asha Bhosle, can be loosely translated as, “If someone has a fondness for suicide, what can one do?,” to which Sermon responds, “Whateva’ she said, then I’m that.”” ^{_{< Elliot Powell}}

While Powell suggests that the White orientalist gaze has to be decoupled from the African-American orientalist gaze he still substantiates these critiques. Powell recognises some of the problems.

Of course it has problems.

Using the female-presenting body and voice as an essentialising tool while also minimizing/invisibilizing the labour of the South Asian body < exoticising, homogenising etc etc > Marking South Asian culture as an empty form > a type of commodity that has to have its meaning by-passed because of its illegibility “whateva she said, then I’m that, if this here rocks to y’all then react!”

Powell does not deny these critiques but does complicate them.

He does so by recounting the fact that a year before the release of React, Erick Sermon himself had an alleged suicide attempt.

Powell notes how difficult it was for him to admit it and how he had dissociated from the events that left him in the hospital recovering from various wounds.

One year later, Erick Sermon and Redman are hanging out at the studio and Redman plays a CD of Just Blaze beats. Erick Sermon feels that he doesn’t have a big single on his upcoming album.

There was no conversation between producer and emcee, Erick Sermon just heard the beat and decided that it was the one.

He was immediately struck by it and the next time producer Just Blaze heard the song, it was already a smash hit on the radio.

Powell invokes queer theory and cites this as an example of ‘queer temporalities’, conversations caught between time, unwittingly had, unknowingly needed.

“In the field of rap, I’m superb, I’m fly
I should be in the sky with birds”
^{_{Erick Sermon, React}}

MAIN THREAD RETRIEVED!

Phew.

Long time-ways from the 12th century sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalander.

But perhaps not > Lal was also known to be ‘fly, in the sky with birds’.

Here is a closing anthem from Qawwali singer Faiz Ali Faiz in homage to the legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who is being readied for further research. The image below shows a flying Laal Shahbaz Qalander who is often likened to a red falcon.

_{The story of 12th century saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar is on pause but set to continue > it’s an incredible story of syncretic religious traditions, long-lasting spiritual practices and it is our link to Amir Khusro < famous South Asian poet and inventor of the tabla > it is our link also to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and straight through to the heart of the South Asia diaspora.}

Research

Towards a Transgender Spiritual Universe

Image Description: Front cover ” African Traditional Religion”

Chapter 2 – A spiritual Universe
‘The symbols that men use, masks, colours, numbers, names, and metaphors, all link up with the desired object; they are not dead symbols.’ pg26
‘The Material and the spiritual are intertwined, the former as a vehicle of the latter’ pg27
“The African sees these ritual observances as the supreme safeguard of the basic needs of his existence and of the basic relations that make up his social order…” pg27

Creating the spiritual universe of “Trumu Fetish” finds its footing in these two quotes. It is worth noting that this view is patriarchal, and I am searching for a transgender view and experience of African Spirituality. I aim to create rituals that safeguard the transgender experience and its spirituality-ladened body.

the tabla and dislocation

…the first musical instrument I remember touching was

[ the tabla in my uncle’s home ]

this pair of beating eyes, bringing life
the touch of taut skin
flitting
flatting
frequencies
skimming
skipping
sentences of sound
there is no more desperate path out
                                                                                                     _{(of dislocation out)}
than my divine desire to crop my fingers
fold them into pegs
to fling and to follow
to play play play

Un-tabla’d as I am, I dedicate my sound to learning about the music in me that already knows the rhythm of the tabla. This is the first section of Mark of My Departure. Speaking over the tabla loop here felt liberating. The image of the tabla is currently in my mind and everywhere around me all the time.

if you got the rhythm I can go with precision
i can flow with the feeling of the water
i can drop unexpected, drop like the t’s in the native speech it’s sorta
sorta slick with these thick lips flip syllables to spit am from L D N
but you can find me in the kiez by canal in the sun, in the rain, in the hail my friend
all praise due
all praise due
all praise due Allah
if i wanna manifest a blessing, my head be pressing the musallah

this language I hate it the colonisers tongue – not very fun
this language I love it, it’s the only one – well I guess that’s done

i can flow with the feeling of the water
cut through the border
what you gonna do with this bricks and mortar when the sea-levels rise
hoarder
that’s me though too much stuff
who come rough round the edges and bluffs
i can float in the cushioning clouds, pushing them bounds
kush and a crown

awash with the watch