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Art Radio Call for Content

 Art Radio is a platform for sharing music and sound art. The station is managed by dj afifa. This is a general call for content from artist. musicians, producers and interested persons. 

Zanj Radio premiers Umbalembe

Umbalembe is a soundscape documentary about the island of Jamaica curated by Zanj Racc. The project is based on the work of Zanj Racc and DJ Afifa, sound artist who live and work in Jamaica. The artwork for the project was designed by Isabel Dennis. 

In August 2018 a preview of the project was presented at the Umbalembe event at Mazola’s “playground” in Gordon Town, St. Andrew Jamaica. The event was an attempt to introduce sound art.

Zanj Racc explained that the key to curating Umbalemebe was to organize the material into themes and then present a macro and micro perspective on life in Jamaica.

Umbalembe premiered on Saturday Nov 10 on Zanj Radio during World Music Fusion with Dj Zanj Racc.

Listen to Umbalembe by downloading the Zanj Radio app for Android or Apple devices or via soundcloud.

DJ afifa presents: the Dub Poetry mixtape vol.1

Here is the most recent release of the Dub Poetry mixtape by dj afifa. The mixtape was created in 2017 for Ras Takura's "Dis Poem Wordz and Agro Fest" at the Neville Antonio Park in Port Antonio, Portland.

The mix was first aired during the Electromagnetic Radiation with dj afifa on Zanj Radio.The artwork for this mixtape are from pictures taken by Sokari Ekine at the Studio Be art gallery in New Orleans.

"I will be doing more mixtapes like this. Dub poetry is an art form that has influenced my life significantly.I am actively looking for new dub poets all over the world, i enjoying compiling interesting work and interesting ideas in the "dub style"- dj afifa

Physical copies of the mixtape can be purchased at the Sounds of Life store at the So((u))l hq, or Di Institute for Social Leadership.

5 Questions with DJ Afifa

1. Many people find what you do  interesting but weird and sometimes confusing. Do you do this deliberately and why do you think this might be the case?

*Laughs* I can imagine....I think I understand why it might appear that way. It gets confusing because I didn’t go to art school and I have a PhD but I don’t present papers or work in a university.  I believe art is life and I bring my life, that consists of a range of different backgrounds and experiences, mix it up and present it as my art. I think maybe it would be easier to understand if it was okay to mix things up, but people tend to compartmentalize everything so it’s not really the case. I guess, then, you could say I am doing it deliberately but I don’t feel there is much of a choice for me to do it any other way. I just prefer to use what I really love to explore myself and the world, so I play around with ideas and concepts and try to create new things. Laughs. I take everything I learn personally so whatever I think about I try to practice. I don’t know if I’ve confused you even more, but that’s kinda how I think about it. I would like to find out more about how other people would explain my art because maybe it has nothing to do with what I think.

 

  

2. Where are you now in your art?

Hmmmm… I have been working through and thinking through a lot of things. It has been tough and fulfilling at the same time. At times I have had doubts and fears about how everything will all work out and had to dig deep to remind myself about how I got here and where I really see myself going. I use my show on Zanj Radio to practice and work through what it really means for me to be a dj and a sound artist. I use it to help me figure out who is dj Afifa essentially. This has been my main focus over the last 2 years, and today I  have a much better idea about what I want to do as a dj and sound artist. I am working on a project that I feel confident in developing.  I am excited about it actually. I am creating a distinctive area for my work where I bring together  discussions, sound and space. I think I am at the stage where I can see how they can all fit other and I am recommitting to continue making it work. 

 

3. So who is dj Afifa now? 

Well she is a selecta who works on sound projects and she makes spaces inspired by music.... yea that's where dj Afifa is.focused right now.

 

 4. Tell us about something that you have been working on that you would like people to listen to? 

Well.... The body of a nine year old girl is a sound art project that I would like people to listen to and talk about. It is a very basic track that I created recently. One day I was listening to the local news on youtube. And I heard a story about a nine year old girl who was found dead in bushes. I heard the story first on TVJnews then again on CVM TV. Both stories started the same way and after looking it up in the newspaper and reading twice, the reality sank in. Why was something like this happening in Jamaica? What is going to happen to the children? I heard some parts of the story play back in my mind. The body... of a nine year old girl. I decided to put the two tracks together and recreate the feeling of being in a room listening to it. I want to know what people think about it. What Jamaican people think and what other people think.

I am really interested in what we listen to and how we are and perceive reality? Like when you hear the first sentence in the newscast does it make you listen more or walk away? I think it’s interesting because this is the news every day in Jamaica. Graphic descriptions of homicides are common place. You can hear it a lot and you can see it. If you want you can listen to the track ‘The body of a nine year old girl’ on my soundcloud. So yea...check it out.

5. Where do you see yourself in 2030?

Yea...2030. I see myself making more spaces inspired by music all over the place....building my catalogue of tracks, developing my soundscaping techniques, and just working on this dj Afifa thing. 

Well, all the best and we look forward to talking to you some more in the future.

Silvia No siri presents the Iridium mix

 

The Iridium mix by Silvia Nosiri is a mix of iridium-soaked lo-fi tunes / slow jams for alter-structures ft. Microsoft Zira as SIRI.

The mix takes its inspiration from the Iridium satellite constellation which  consists of satellites that orbit the earth's surface to provide communication technology services globally.

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