After three independent music releases and two years of youth advocacy and community work, the duo SOULAJU is officially on hiatus. 

BUT THE MUSIC AND THE WORK DON’T STOP. 

Molina and Aju are exploring music, arts, social justice and youth advocacy work on the solo tip for the tyme being.

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On Dec. 7th, MOLINA released a 45 single with DJ Icewater on 7” vinyl.  The single features "FAM BIZ”, with an appearance by Molina’s 7 year-old son. 

Producer Diles’ Albuquerque to Denver to New York MOOD STATIC compilation features two guest spots by MOLINA.

With the Moutain West / Southwest Denver to Burque connection growing stronger, MOLINA is set to release full-length album “NAME & TOWN” w/ Diles on January 18th, 2011.  The new album features collaborations with 303 emcee Mane Rok and Denver vocalist Venus Cruz, along with guest spots by Albuquerque artists Hakim Be and Sol.  A string of additional MOLINA works is set to follow early in 2011.

FOR ALL FUTURE INFORMATION ABOUT MOLINA MUSIC, visit www.molinaspeaks.com, where the MOLINA SPEAKS blog has also been moved. 

If you’ve been following Molina’s 52-week music blog: A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively, weeks 49 through 52 will be published at http://www.molinaspeaks.com/category/molinaspeaks/.  The entire blog series will be catalogued there early in 2011. 

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Stay tuned for AJU updates and a few SOULAJU surprises… when the tyme is right…

Thank you to all who have offered timeless energy and support.

The release of the SOULAJU album is an arrival.  I’ve been creating music professionally since 2006.   There are a few other ideas in the works for 2010, which will close a 5-year loop.  From that point forward, I am uncertain what will come.  But this is the apex of this moment.

Beyond the music we have arrived at a dramatic fork in the road as as a species.  Sometimes feels like we’re on a ticking time bomb.  2012 hype is heavy and ever-present as the minutes tick.  We’re moving towards an irreparable fracture in the order of things.  This coming point of impact becomes more clear in 2010.

As life speeds up and ideas collide, we begin to understand time and space differently.

Move forward without fear.

A.M. Soleil: the morning sun rises.  “A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively” is a 52-week blog series in 2010, reflecting on 5 years of independent music by Molina.

www.molinaspeaks.com

In celebration of International Women’s Day, March 8^th, 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.

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“We Moon” is the third single off SOULAJU

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.

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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.

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Towala by Aju begins “Sacred Paths”–the 15-minute title track off the Sacred Paths album–a collaboration with Asia Jazz Project, released by CHiTT Productions, 2009. Download this MP3 – (Right Click and “Save link as”)

Full-leaves waving in vibrant young green splendor under true blue sky. Eye, enwrapped in cool shades of room shadows, wet hair drying slowly. Summer, ’07. A wandering tune, folding into itself like waves, makes its way through my day dreaming, through motions of my right hand and takes shape as scribbles on an open page of my unassuming notebook. My red camera records the fleeting sounds.

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