Vaughn Kimmons – Cosmos Dark

Vaughn is a multidisciplinary artist celebrating Blackness as the cosmic source of sacred inspiration and gives voice to the connective power of shared human nuance. Through voice, music composition, new media and spatial design she explores authenticity and its influence on spiritual and emotional development. Her work seeks to unpack issues that challenge self-actualization within Black communities, examining historical and current contexts that have stifled and transformed our identities. The avant-garde realm encourages us to consider and develop new perspectives and through this lens she challenges the stereotype that Black people are monolithic.

Cosmos Dark is a performance art exploration of absurdity by Kimmons. Through the use of off-kilter rhythms, haunting vocals and sometimes the recitation of a text message from a former partner, they invite us to befriend the shadow as a path to liberation.

elijah jamal asani

elijah jamal asani is a nigerian-american anti-disciplinary artist bred in chicago & based near the river wimahl. as an abstract romanticist ,, he navigates soft sonic&visual waters through new hues of invocation & infinite sweet nothings/everythings.

Link: https://elijahjamalasani.love/

Brown Calvin

Born in Philly into a family of musicians and artists, keyboardist/ producer Andre Raiah was steeped in an eccentric mix of sounds from a very young age.

Starting formally in Puerto Rico in 2007 before relocating to Portland, OR in 2009, he has engaged in an unending study in practice of piano, production, performance, recording, sound-seeking, DJing and listening, which have helped him to map out a unique approach to music, and a sound that is all his own.

Unconventional rhythmic structures, elements of improvisation, jazz harmony, and Rhodes-soaked psychedelic soundscapes are woven together with samples, synths and found sounds to make up Raiah’s solo work, recorded under the moniker ‘Brown Calvin’.

Link: https://browncalvin.bandcamp.com

esperanza spalding

esperanza spalding (a.k.a. irma nejando) is an eaabibacliitoti* artist, trained and initiated in the North American (masculine) jazz lineage and tradition. Her work interweaves various combinations of instrumental music, improvisation, singing, composition, poetry, dance, therapeutic research, storytelling, teaching, restorative urban land & artist-sanctuary custodianship, and growing in love as a daughter, sister, cousin, niece, auntie, great-auntie, friend. She is co-founder and curator of Prismid Inc., a 501c3 that ushers and stewards restorative artist residency & workshop space in Portland, Oregon. With her dance project Off Brand gOdds and the Songwrights Apothecary Lab she curates multi-week performance, workshop, teaching, and therapeutic-arts research residencies. 

*European-African ancestored being influenced by American cultures living in Indigenous Territories of Turtle Island