In celebration of International Women’s Day, March 8th, I would like to share a song with my fellow WeMoons that orbit this extremely complex yet extremely beautiful home, our planet Earth, and also to the men that support and nurture humanity’s most sacred resource: the life givers.
WeMoon is a trance floetics dedication to the divine feminine powers embodied by all mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, granddaughters, cousins, aunties, nieces and roots. It is a song to all the women that have fought, danced, worked, sang, organized, loved, and planted seeds of all forms for the rights of women, for the rights of all humans, for the rights of our animal-relations, for the rights of the environment — for justice, respect, equality and for the joy of living.
After many hours of learning pains and frustration, offset by a good dose of inspiration, we present an edited short film documenting the SOULAJU Youth Jam and Youth Climate Justice workshop, organized w/ Josh Watkins and Jennie Nevin in conjunction with Green Spaces Denver. The event took place on January 15, 2010. We look forward to hosting future green events in the mile high city, fusing art and music with conscious and sustainable living. Enjoy!
“Beyond Sundown” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals, featuring Day Acoli & Helen Changthongthip, CHiTT Productions (2008)
Mass deception, coups d’etats left and right, shared confusion, no way to tell what’s real and what’s fake—a collective inability to ascertain truth from lies because the spin doctors are that good.
Polar ice caps melting, mass global poverty ignored, apocalyptic natural disasters, conspiracies linking what was once natural to what is now claimed to be man-made. Seemingly no empirical way to make sense of it all, so the masses don’t even try. They just wait for 2012.
Sticking with the theme of the moon, “Letters to the Moon Pt. 1 (Heart in Motion)” appears on Sacred Paths—a collaboration with Asia Jazz Project.
Sacred Paths is a 9-track album that fuses nu jazz and living word poetry. It was released on September 20th, 2009—a day that marked both Asia’s and Aju’s 26th birthdays. The album contains two tracks that are each almost 15 minutes long. These tracks are more like journeys, or opuses, than they are songs.
following “Like Magic” and “The People II”. If you like what you hear, click “download” above to purchase the track and support Soulaju music.
This week’s reflection builds off last week’s post, when I wrote about Wrong Ways (Aju Version). I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the my work within the male/female duo SOULAJU, especially since we are increasingly asked to speak and perform at events that focus on gender equality.
Working within the context of a male/female duo has profoundly impacted my ongoing development as a man.
This is the Aju version of Wrong Ways, released on Shine Flow EP w/ Dj Icewater (2009). The Molina version appears on the forthcoming album SOULAJU.
Mixed entangled confusion / infused by my name and tongue / constant duality, redefine sanity, birth burning heart internationality…
This is one of the oldest stories in human history, because people have always moved, for survival, for opportunity, sometimes for love. Sometimes we are pushed or pulled by the wind, not knowing where we may land.
This is the second version of The People. It is the second single off the forthcoming album SOULAJU, set for release March 23rd, 2010. The single can be purchased for $.99 via the download link above.
The first version of The People was titled “People (Molina Mix)”. It appeared on Shine Flow EP w/ DJ Icewater, released June 9th, 2009. I wrote the original in October 2008 in Portland, OR, where I was emceeing Graham St. Productions’ first major fundraiser for Papers the movie. I was two months into the Up Before the Sunrise tour. After the Papers benefit, I hopped on the plane and headed to the Bay Area to volunteer for Youth Speaks’ Living Word festival. At the end of my stay in the Bay, I recorded “People (Molina Mix)” and “Shine Flow” with Icewater in Oakland, CA and did an interview with Hard Knock Radio. I added (Molina Mix) to the title of People because Icewater is a mixtape DJ, so he often uses the same beat for multiple purposes, so I figured that other emcees would be flowing over the same beat.
This second version, The People II, was written and recorded in December of 2009 for SOULAJU. It was a last-minute decision at the time, being that the album was originally set for January release. The words came to me one evening when Aju and I were catching up on Democracy Now episodes. I felt like The People needed an update, so I put the pad to the pen and flipped the track.
To some people, this may seem unoriginal—the same artist using the same beat twice to tell a similar story. To me, this hella fresh. As an emcee, an instrumental is a blank canvas. Give 20 emcees the same beat and you’ll get 20 different stories. Give me the same beat with the same hook two different years and I’ll give you two different stories that are similar in vein, but different enough to provide new insight and keep your attention. Hip-Hop is all about re-creating and re-using, building upon what has already been done, personally, musically, culturally.
So… enjoy the new mix and keep motivating and originating in 2010. We’re definitely in the middle of very destructive times, but the flip side of destruction is that it offers space for creation.
“I strut, I flow, my style I’m all mine / I shine my truth / I chop, mash up time / you work, you grind, you climb with no interlude / your push, your pull, you rise high, it’s all you…”
Peace to our fans, friends, and supporters. We came to a difficult decision this week. We will be pushing back the release date of SOULAJU with DJ Icewater until March 23, 2010.
The album’s release date was set for next Tuesday, January 26th. We planned a month-long series of events in Denver to celebrate this release with our friends and fam here. Last week, we hosted an album listening party at the Gypsy House Cafe in Denver, giving several dozen people a sneak peak at the album. We also co-hosted a successful SOULAJU Youth Jam and Climate Change workshop at Green Spaces Denver on January 15th. We will move forward with the other events we have planned to celebrate the work that has been done, and the work that is to come.
DJ Icewater will be in town for pre-release events next week, including a free youth DJ Workshop at the Flobots Community Center and a pre-release party at the Walnut Room in Denver, CO on January 29th at 8:30PM. Tix for the Walnut Room show are $8. We are also excited to announce that the Secret Techniques B-Boy crew at the University of Wyoming will be hosting us for a show on January 28th. The performance is free for UW students. Doors open at 9PM in the Union Ballroom of the Student Union. Crowds at both of these events will have the exclusive opportunity to see the SOULAJU set performed for the first time.
We appreciate your continuing support in our decision to delay the release of SOULAJU. Combined, we have released four solid projects in less than a year and a half, including Molina’s release of Up Before the Sunrise in August 2008 and the My America benefit cd for Papers the movie. We have kept a hectic touring schedule and have spent a great deal of time working with youth in schools, community programs, detention centers, and group homes.
We are confident in our decision to take a little more time with the release of SOULAJU, which we have been working on since the fall of 2008. Several of the earliest tracks will be re-written, re-recorded, and re-mastered to better reflect the work we are doing now. We want to give our best and most honest work to the fans and communities we represent.
We have released a free download of “Like Magic” —the first international single off SOULAJU, which you can download at http://www.mediafire.com/?zoe4lmj5zyl. We will continue to leak bits and pieces of the 15-track album to the broader public in February and early March.
As for our most energetic fans who are really jones’n for the new tunes, we appreciate your patience. Keep spreading the word.
As MLK Day 2010 comes to a close, I am reminded of my responsibility as an emcee. I walk in many shoes and wear many hats. I use my music to entertain, to educate, to inspire, to provoke thought, to create controversy. These lines often intersect and sometimes they become blurry. I don’t expect everyone to support everything I do. At the end of the day, I am accountable first and foremost to myself.
[MO-LEE-NA SO-LAY + AH-JOO] Molina Soleil & Aju’s genre-bending style is pure fusion. The bold and eclectic duo blends cultures, languages, and artistic styles, combining masculine and feminine energies, water and fire. Molina is a reflective wordsmith who pairs conscious & experimental flows with the soulful sound of Aju--a poetic vocalist who weaves 5 languages into timeless allegories & modern-day proverbs. The duo works together as artists, educators, social activists and youth advocates.
Archives
Search
Support the Movement
Contribute to Molina Soleil & Aju's art, activism, and youth advocacy work.
Aju
most sacred resource: the life givers. 
