A 5-month program series that celebrates the migration and creative evolution of Black music, highlighting the routes and circulations of rhythms and sound culture in a Diasporic context.
CCCADI’s Rhythm, Bass and Place: Connections and Reflections on Music of the African Diaspora, curated by Lynnée Denise, is a five-month-long celebration from February 2023 - June 2023 that traces the migratory nature of Black music and constructs a living archive through engaging stories from neighborhoods, stages, studios and dance floors that shaped the sonic landscape in select U.S., U.K. and Caribbean cities over the last three decades.
Black music is multi-regional, multi-dimensional and multi-rhythmic. It has been defined by the characteristics of Black social spaces and is a cultural reflection of our people’s connection with spirituality, community, nature, circumstance, emotion, and society.
Through signature CCCADI programs that you know and love, plus new programs specifically designed for this celebration, Rhythm, Bass and Place will explore ideas on gender, sexuality, race and technology, and the making of multi-sensory music in a Diasporic context. Through virtual as well as in-person curated conversations, screenings, and performances, we’ll highlight the routes and evolution of music throughout the African Diaspora.
EXHIBITION
ON DISPLAY
March 17 - June 24
CCCADI FIREHOUSE
New York, NY
This exhibition will feature the works of photography documentarians, Joe Conzo Jr. & Malik Yusef Cumbo who have captured the essence and elements of Black music as it has evolved between the 1970s - 2000s through black and white photographs.
RnBnP READiNGS
Rhythm, Bass and Place: Connections and Reflections on Music of the African Diaspora will kick-off in February during Black Futures Month, pushing new boundaries of how we understand Afro-Futurism in a global context with Africa at the center.
FEATURING
February 16
7PM
VIRTUAL
We’ll follow Black Futures Month by taking a moment to intentionally uplift and acknowledge the contributions women have made to the preservation and evolution of Black music during the month of March, celebrating Women’s History.
Virtual Concert featuring avant-garde Black women musicians with regional and musical lineages in electronic music.
March 8
7PM
Virtual Airing
MARCH
MARCH
This installment of our family-based art education program will explore the 4 elements of Hip-Hop and how they evolved through the African Diaspora & Social Justice through women-led workshops embodying the legacy of Hip-Hop’s femme graffiti, DJ, breakdance and MC pioneers.
March 11
1 - 5 PM
CCCADI Firehouse
Take a seat in the Director’s Chair through this virtual discussion and screening of select scenes from our featured film, “Salsa, un tumbao’ caribeño”. This program will give viewers an opportunity to hear directly from filmmakers Jeanette Charles and Beni Marquez on the source of their inspiration and creative direction.
March 29
7 PM
Virtual Program
APRIL
APRIL
In April, we’ll celebrate our appreciation for Jazz, the nostalgia of sound on vinyls and the intersectionality between Black music and poetry.
April 19
7PM
Virtual Program
This virtual panel discussion and musical performance will elevate Dominican Haitian voices through music, poetry and literary works of Dominicans of Haitian descent impacted by statelessness. Our Critically Black Dialogue Series is dedicated to exploring issues and topics that examine the deeply rooted Pan-African vision that has allowed us to survive, despite our struggles, and has kept us interconnected to this day.
This installment uses art and dialogue to draw from the spirit of global Black solidarity as a means to build and strengthen bridges that combat the systemic divisions created among inhabitants of Ayti/Kiskeya.
Speakers:
Ana Belique
Epifania St Chals
Miriam Neptune (Moderator)
Performance by:
Sanctuario
Okai Musik - Percussion
Deglel Tecle - Guitar
Mónica Ortiz Rossi - Vocals
APRIL
APRIL
In April, we’ll celebrate our appreciation for Jazz, the nostalgia of sound on vinyls and the intersectionality between Black music and poetry.
April 22
CCCADI FIREHOUSE
In-Person
FREE
A celebration of this sound medium that can’t be replicated and transports us to the past featuring live DJ sets spinning a variety of genres from house and disco to Hip-Hop, reggae, soul and funk. Plus, a special screening of the short film “Record Shop” by Mario Carrión and a vinyl and roller skate pop-up shop hosted by The Shop NYC .
Featured DJs: Uptown Vinyl Supreme (Latin/Disco), Sucio Smash (Hip-Hop), Reborn (House, Funk, Soul), Hard Hittin Harry (African/Caribbean), Kamala (Jazz/House)
Remembrance and Kinship 70s-00s
Rhythm, Bass and Place: Through The Lens Virtual Curatorial Talk
We’re chatting with the featured artists of our current exhibition to examine their artistic practice and the impact music has had on their respective bodies of work, “How Do You Stop Time, How Do You Remember A Feeling, How Do You Remember A Movement” (Malik Yusef Cumbo) and “Who Was All There? Kinship, Community, and Connection in the Making of Hip-Hop” (Joe Conzo Jr.). Join us virtually for this curatorial talk!
MAY 4
7PM
VIRTUAL
MAY
MAY
In May we sit down with our Rhythm, Bass and Place exhibition artists and we take a seat in the Director’s Chair to learn more about techno music’s Black roots.
This installment of our virtual film talk series will feature scenes from “god said give’em drums” as well as a Q&A with filmmaker Kristian Hill. “god said give’em drums” tells the story of Detroit's contributions to world culture: Techno, the electronic music phenomenon, created by Black artists in the 1980s, that transformed dance music and blossomed into the multi-billion dollar EDM industry.
May 24
VIRTUAL
7 PM (EST)
Critically Black Dialogue Series: Reclaiming Cortijo & Black Puerto Rican Artistry
In collaboration with Proyecto Cortijo
We draw inspiration from Rafael Cortijo Verdejo to highlight and expose cultural and intellectual production of Black and Afro-descendent people from the archipelago of Puerto Rico and its Diaspora.
This conversation brings an important discussion about the historical meaning of the Afro-Latin Diaspora and how it shows up in sound.
Featured Speakers:
Marissel “Maruca” Hernández Romero, Moderator
César Colón Montijo
Ivette Chiclana
June 12
VIRTUAL
Curators in Conversation: Music as an African Diasporic Connection
A reflective discussion on the CCCADI Rhythm, Bass and Place series.
SPEAKERS:
Lynnée Denise, Rhythm, Bass and Place Curator
Sabine Blaizin, Director of Programs, CCCADI
HOUSE IS A FEELING
JUNE 24 • 1-6PM
Celebrate the close of our five-month-long series Rhythm, Bass and Place as we tap into the power and intersection of Black Music Appreciation and Caribbean Heritage Month.
Rhythm, Bass and Place closes with the House is a Feeling day party that will move you through African Diasporic sounds and dance music such as Latin, Disco, and House.
*Events will continue to be added to our schedule of programming for Rhythm, Bass & Place, stay tuned. All events may be subject to change.
Listen up.
Series Curator
Meet Lynnée Denise - Curator, Rhythm, Bass & Place Series & Exhibition
Lynnée Denise was shaped as a scholar and a DJ by her parent’s record collection. She is an artist, writer, and DJ whose work reflects on underground cultural movements, the 1980s, migration studies, theories of escape, and electronic music of the African Diaspora. Denise coined the phrase "DJ Scholarship" to reposition the role of the DJ from a party purveyor to an archivist, cultural custodian, and information specialist. Her bylines have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Black Scholar Journal, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, The Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, and the Oprah Daily. Her writing is also part of anthologies including Women Who Rock, and Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity. In 2020, Lynnée Denise was invited to be an Artist in Residence at the Stanford University Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and she was invited to be the Sterling Brown '22 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College. She is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths University of London.