Tag: Black IN Colorado

Features

Common Ancestor: LowDown Brass Band’s New Hotness Has Roots

February 10, 2022

“LowDown Brass Band has roots in the Jazz education world,” MC Billa Camp tells BandWagon, “but the Jazz education world has the habit of treating Jazz like an island. As if – Jazz isn’t birthed from the same struggle as Hip Hop. As if they are not Black father and son, born fighting the same fight.” 

Lowdown Nights, the latest and most future-leaning record from LowDown Brass Band, was appropriately released during Black History Month. It takes things further out of the pigeonhole and into the pan-genre stage, using the history of the African American experience as its guide. 

Especially with the hit single “Be The One Tonight,” they go mainstream – and that’s a good thing. The collective has enough talent within its ranks to deliver a show with as much variety as Beyoncés 2018 Homecoming at Coachella. It’s the multi-lingual, multicultural, multi-genre kind of mainstream pop and dance music that encapsulates the musical stew of 2022.

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Joy as Resistance: Wayne Watts Raps Decompression for Revolutionaries

February 2, 2021

Wayne Watts is a man of letters, but he is also an educator and activist.

“I wanted to make music for revolutionaries to decompress to. While you’re fighting these things it’s really essential to remember to breathe.”

The power of his dedication to words lies in the myriad of ways in which he employs them.

“They’re filled up with a lot of manifestations and affirmations,” he said. “I treat my mantras like songs.”

As an educator, Watts co-founded the Dream Create Inspire Tour. “The intention has always been to create an incubator to give disenfranchised creators a platform.”

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Can We Just Live? Devin Tremell Speaks Out with Hip Hop as a Tool of Influence

August 3, 2020

Devin Tremell insisted to the crowd of hundreds looking up at him from the Lincoln Park gazebo in Greeley that he was just a regular Black dude. “The message had to reach all the nooks and crannies of the country,” Tremell, a UNC student, rapper and activist said. “Greeley is kind of out of the way, and it needs to reach there too,” he says of the Black Lives matter movement. “This is a problem across the board. But I was surprised at the amount of people who felt the same way I did. I see more of that coming out.”

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Drum As You Are: Eric Riley Throws Down The Beat As A Black Musician In Metal

July 4, 2020

Even with all the fun Eric Riley has thrashing onstage with his longtime friend Nate Valdez, there is always that one drunk person who has to point it out: a black guy in a metal band!

“I mean, there’s not a lot of diversity [in the Colorado Metal scene] but it’s not really anyone’s fault,” said Riley, drummer for heavy rock duo In The Whale.

Riley grew up listening to black soul artists from the 60’s and 70’s, but the harder rock acts were where his heart was.

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