This week I had a chat with M Lamar an incredible mind and artist, spanning many different genres. We are so excited for him to be doing a London first performance of his new show DECONSTRUCTION AT VFD. Thursday 6th August, 7.30pm. Tickets available in advance for £7 at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/m-lamars-destruction-tickets-17793970244
HAVE YOU BEEN TO LONDON BEFORE? Hi Angela, I have been to London before in 2012. I performs at z3 different places but the most memorable was Duckie. The crowd was amazing and I had a great time singing there.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THIS NEW WORK? As a devil worshipping free black man in the blues I have been obsession with the negro spiritual since I was a kid but never really interested the Christian themes in the music. Angela Davis reminds us in her book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism that christianity was forced on to black people during slavery in the United States and that the release from slavery was what allowed blues to be formed. These newly freed black people wanted to sings about everything ungodly!! Of course I am obsessed with this tradition as well but with the Spiritual I was always drawn to the revolutionary themes and end of the world themes which to me also mean revolution. I love being a part of a musical tradition with these radical transgressive themes. So this new piece The Furneral Doom Spiritual draws from the traditional spiritual as well as my own compositions that are often written in the mode of a spiritual to go deeper into what are often apocalyptic doom and end of the world pronouncements. I read this as being about the end of a white supremacist world.
YOU HAVE A VARIED ARTS AND MUSIC BACKGROUND, WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MEDIUM AT MOMENT TO WORK WITH?
Music is at the core of my artistic practice. Weather i am doing and installation making a film or designing an object it always emerging from some idea that began musically or in some bit of text I have written as a part of a music piece.
WHERE ARE YOU HOPING TO TAKE THE SHOW THAT YOU WILL BE PERFORMING AT VFD (VOGUE FABRICS) TO AND WHY?
From an artistic stand point I want the new show to be a song of mourning for my people in terms of the continued devaluing of black life here in the United States as well as around the globe but especially here in the United States between police shootings, the prison system and education we are under constant attack at all time from all sides. I this works can provide a space to grieve as well as inspire an awake revolutionary impulses.
In literal terms I am performing it in Brighton Glasgow and Amsterdam ahead of a big performance in New York of this piece in September. I also have plans to perform a more develop and elaborate version of the piece Next year at the One Archive on the campus of USC.
CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE YOU ON ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK AGAIN? I don't know. I do make a brief appearance in season 3 but doing corporate work like that written by white people isn't my main focus. I am really focused on my own work which includes long form music pieces film and exhibition.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE OR DO WHILE IN THE UK? I would love to see lots of people at my show. Also i am staying with a friend who promised to take me to some goth clubs in London. I am NEGROGOTHIC after all.
WHO WOULD BE YOUR DREAM PERSON TO WORK WITH? I love everything Stephen O' Malley of SUNN 0))) fame has ever done. From Burning Witch to KTL to the new record SUNN 0))) just did with Scot Walker I just think he is a genius!!
GIVE US SOME GOOD ADVICE ON FOLLOWING YOUR HEART WITH YOUR WORK AND WHAT ONE SHOULD ALWAYS TRY AND DO WHEN CREATING A NEW PIECE? I always try to work from the deepest parts of my soul. Even when I am making very political work I try to lead with emotion first from the darkest parts of myself. Being an artist truly requires deep self knowledge and self interrogation. As I begin work on a new project I am constantly asking myself who I am and what do I want. This is an ever evolving question an answer and one has to be open to the way the work will change the this question answer. In your struggle with your work you should be willing to surrender to the work and the process to such a degree that it changes you.You have to really know who you are and be willing to fight for what that means but in art you have to be willing always allow in the fight to become a different person!!