Episode 20: PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY - with Speaker Music [replay]

DeForrest Brown, Jr. (aka Speaker Music) is a media-theorist, curator, and self-described rhythmanalyst. While he’s been based in NYC for the better part of the last decade, he was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, which also happens to be where Sun Ra first landed on Earth. Brown’s just-released book, Assembling a Black Counter Culture, traces the cycles of American history through the Great Migrations from the Deep South to the industrial centers of the north and back again. In this episode, Brown discusses his profound sense of future shock, the meaning of rhythmanalysis, and the making of Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry, his critically acclaimed 2020 album.  Headphone listening recommended. TRACKLIST Speaker Music – “Ex-American Blues (excerpt)” (Soul-Making Theodicy, Planet Mu, 2021) Drexciya – “Depressurization” (Deep Sea Dwellers, Shockwave, 1992) Speaker Music – “Amerikkka’s Bay (ft. Maia Sanaa)” (Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry, Planet Mu, 2020) Speaker Music – “Techno is a Liberation Technology (ft. AceMo)” (Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry, Planet Mu, 2020) John Coltrane – “Alabama” (Live at Birdland, Impulse!, 1964) Sun Ra & His Myth Science Arkestra – “Space Loneliness” (We Travel the Space Ways, El Saturn, 1967)   Nina Simone - “Mississippi Goddam” (Live At Carnegie Hall New York, 1964) Speaker Music – “Magic City Classic” (CRACK magazine, 2021) Kepla & DeForrest Brown, Jr. – “sunken place in reverse…a cancelled future, a horizon of a pipe dream” (The Wages of Being Black is Death, PTP, 2018) Carl Craig – “Dreamland” (More Songs about Food and Revolutionary Art, SSR, 1997) Moor Mother & billy woods – “The Blues Remembers Everything The Country Forgot ft. Wolf Weston (of Saint Mela)” (BRASS, Backwoodz, 2020) Sterling Toles – “6/19” (Resurgent Cinerbus, Sector 7G, 2017) Gang Starr – “1/2 & 1/2 (feat. M.O.P)” (1/2 & 1/2, TVT, 1998) Dakim – “Typeofblue” (Ntoo, Poo-bah, 2011) Yusef Lateef - “Woodward Avenue” (Yusef Lateef's Detroit Latitude 42° 30' Longitude 83°, Atlantic, 1969) Underground Resistance – “Riot” (Riot EP, UR, 1991) Cybotron – “Techno City (vocal)” (Techno City 12”, Fantasy, 1984) Carl Craig – Party/After-Party (Dia:Beacon, 2020) Theo Parrish – “Dreamers Blues” (Parallel Dimensions, Sound Signature, 2000) Ethel Waters – “Down Home Blues” (Down Home Blues 78, Black Swan, 1921) Speaker Music – “An Expression of Hi-Tech Soul” (Percussive Therapy, self-released, 2020) Model 500 – “Future (instrumental)” (No UFO’s, Metroplex, 1985) Axine M - sᑦ⍺𝜼(s⍺𝗩𝐢Ơ𝑟〕(Speaker Music Remix) (SBVRSV.press, 2021) Speaker Music – “Black Compositional Thought––Torkwase Dyson_s Evolving Theory of Environmental Liberation” (a bitter but beautiful struggle, PTP, 2020) Sun Ra - “UFO (Mike Huckaby Reel-2-Reel Edit)” (The Mike Huckaby Reel-To-Reel Edits Vol. 1, Kindred Spirits/Art Yard, 2011) John Akomfrah - the last angel of history, 1996 J Dilla – “Welcome 2 Detroit” (Welcome 2 Detroit, Barely Breaking Even Records, 2001) Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – “Beyond Vietnam” (Riverside Churuch, 1967) The Roots – “Something In The Way Of Things (In Town) [feat. Amiri Baraka]” (Phrenology, MCA, 2002) Kanye West / Gil Scott Heron - “Who Will Survive In America” (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Roc-A-Fella, 2010)