Angel Bat Dawid and Tha Brothahood: LIVE (International Anthem)
From the one-sheet:
“LIVE was mostly recorded on November 1st, 2019, at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany, during the 2019 edition of JazzFest Berlin. For Angel Bat Dawid and her band Tha Brothahood – which includes Deacon Otis Cooke, Viktor Le Givens, Xristian Espinoza, Norman W. Long, Dr. Adam Zanolini, and Asher Simiso Gamedze – it was the first stop of their first European tour.
Forty-eight hours before the show, Angel and members of the band were on their way to the airport in Chicago when they received news that Viktor Le Givens had passed out on the street and subsequently woke up in a hospital with all his personal belongings missing. When they arrived in Berlin, the band’s manager Najee-Zaid Searcy reached out to the production staff of JazzFest Berlin to inform them of the situation. Their initial reply: ‘if you cannot find a substitute, we will have to reduce your fee.’
Of the cold, insensitive response to Viktor’s unfortunate situation, Angel recalls: ‘It really put a whole damper on my spirit to have to deal with this a few hours before performing. How the fuck is this response ever acceptable anywhere?!’
Angel continues: ‘I have issues in general about the way artists are treated because I see a difference in how tech folks treat women and artist of color… I’m calling it out. A lot of the racism and things I’m talking about are steeped in microaggressions and are so subtle and can go unnoticed. But all those things happen a lot and it was very evident at the festival… Yes I am hyper sensitive to any infraction I ever see, feel or observe when it comes to racism, and I no longer pass it off as an over sensitivity but an opportunity to blow the whistle on intellectual and structural racism that is still a rampant and ugly beast, especially in the European music world.’ […]
Another sound that Angel chose to include in the album is an excerpt from a JazzFest Berlin panel discussion she participated in, which was moderated by writer Emma Warren – a friend of Angel’s – and recorded by Searcy. Angel’s powerful declamations from the panel stage are heard on the album’s last track ‘HELL,’ through a dense layering of effects. ‘The discussion was led by Emma… so I was feeling very much myself and was going to tell the honest truth about how these festivals and music scenes still operate and support intellectual and structural racism, because they are never challenged,’ Angel recalls.
Despite, or perhaps in light of the difficulties Angel and her band faced, they performed a set at Berliner Festspiele that Angel considers to be one of their best ever. ‘The show was very deep, and really helped me to process all the rage, and uncomfortable things I was feeling... It made me think of all the artists of the past who endured way more than I ever will with this music industry. It was a very freeing and beautiful show… we played our ass off!!’ […]
Angel Bat Dawid: ‘I hope that this album will uplift and raise awareness to the world that we are still not in a good place when it comes to the relationship between whites other races. Universities, festivals, organizations etc that were built over 50 years ago, even though they have changed outwardly, have not changed internally, and still uphold the principles of their founders, who were racists. We still got a long way to go. And music is a great place to start in repairing this age old, distorted reality.’”