I find a lot of power, peace and sometimes pain in getting immersed in the vast and formless world of frequencies. Music has always played a major role in my life back in the days when I started making beats for my friends that were up and coming MC's. 4 weeks after getting my Akai MPC 60II, I started making beat tapes and every week there were new MC's knocking on my door looking for beats. That's when I realized that music was a high form of communication. I made lifelong friends associated with this machine that assisted me in making Hip Hop.
Years later I started making a lot of different styles of music, every new style of music came with a friend circle, school of thought and a host of other practices that go along with any community and culture. One thing that I noticed when I started exploring music outside of the standardized options that we have offered to us in the inner city, (Black/Latino) communities...
I started to feel like a minority. Most of the time I was the only black guy at the show and would roll alone most of the time because the people I grew up with didn't listen to the other kinds of music I was into...no worries.
90% of the time everyone is cool and welcoming when I go to shows, I've had a few occasions where someone has said something ignorant in passing but this is nothing new, I just laugh most of the time.
One of the difficulties of being an experimental modular synth composer of color is the community I come from has no clue, interest or understanding of what I do, if it's not Hiphop, R&B or something with a beat my tribe ain't feeling me. The people that feel my frequencies often don't understand the frustration of being a POC, specifically a black man, we're kind of like an endangered species except we're not on a government-protected list. I tend to keep the ignorance I still experience from cops and people following me around at stores and shit to myself when I'm not in my community because people outside of my experience get uncomfortable at how this level of injustice is still prevalent and would rather focus on more positive things... trust me I would love to move on from racism as well. in the meantime, I chip away at ignorance one note at a time and neutralize negativity 1 volt per octave.
I have to say I have some great life long friends that rock with me no matter how weird I am and the modular synth community are a progressive bunch of artist... all outcast and weirdos are welcome.
Peace and love to all the original and innovative motherfuckas out in the world. Keep on rockin the planet.
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