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. 

….

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.

“Wings of the Butterfly” by Mannequin Rituals featuring SOULAJU.  This track appears in the movie “Papers” – a film about undocumented youth. 

Papers is a documentary film that tells the story of undocumented youth pursuing higher education in American society.  The film has screened in all 50 states.  It was recently released for personal home DVD purchase and can be licensed for educational use by universities, libraries, non-profit and for-profit organizations. 

“Wings of the Butterfly” is one of a half-dozen songs featured in Papers.  Dustin Neal of Mannequin Rituals wrote the music and inspired the concept.  Will Ross of CHiTT Productions produced the track.  Aju and myself wrote and performed the vocals. 

Dustin sent the track when i was in Mexico City late in July, 2009.  I lay in my hotel room the final morning and bumped the instrumental on repeat, watching monarch butterflies flying in droves high above cities throughout the United States.  

I saw THE DREAMERS as butterflies, delicate and susceptible to danger and capture,  but strong and agile as they pushed forward in the wind, demanding a space for themselves in the world. 

I am not a religious man, but a spiritual man.  Nevertheless, the religious imagery came as I watched the men in my family live out their struggle as immigrants.  I saw a daughter i did not have, beautiful eyes, hungry and dependent upon me.  And I began to write…

– Molina

Video edited by Adrian H. Molina.  Filmed by Molina and Amy J. Iwasaki in Bahia, Brazil (Aug 2010).

“Timeless” by SOULAJU w/ DJ Icewater, released on the debut full-length album SOULAJU, March 23rd, 2010. 

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, tracing back five years of independent music by Molina. 

Time in Brazil

Aju and I had an opportunity to spend 3 weeks in Brazil this summer.  Aju danced at Escola de Danca for two weeks with American and Brazillian dancers, studying Brazilian cultural traditions, Afro-Brazilian dance, Candomblé rites and the Orixás. 

For me, the trip was a break from the pounding of time that I feel in my life, my work, my existence here in the states.  My only goal was to shoot some video footage for a possible DIY music video.  Otherwise, I was on my own time.  No laptop, no cell phone, no schedule, no to-do lists. 

Aju’s dance program was in Salvador de Bahia.  We rented a cheap but comfortable one-bedroom apartment near the ocean and bussed to the city center (Pelourinho) every day.  I wandered around alot, just watching people and letting ideas float in and out of my head.  I took some capoeira and drumming classes, read “The Famished Road” by Ben Okri, wrote stories for my sun, but mostly wandered through the world and my mind. 

One of the things that I loved most about Bahia (north-eastern state of Brazil) was the comparative lack of cell phones.  After a few days in Bahia, spotting foreigners is easy: electronic gadgets, preoccupation with time, baggage…

I picked only a handful of days to walk around with a camera.   Bahia is over-photographed and many locals are weary of cameras.  Brazil is extremely wealthy, but that wealth is not shared.  The memory of slavery and the lived reality of historical exploitation are very much alive, despite the myth that Brazil is a racial utopia.  Frustration with tourists is evident in areas in/near the Pelourinho (Salvador’s city center), which translates to something like “whipping post”, because that’s exactly what it was. 

I tried to be as respectful and non-invasive with my flip cam as possible.  There are a lot of things I wanted to record but didn’t.  In shooting the video, I sought to capture the beauty of Bahia.  There is always “ugly”, no matter where you go, but it was the beauty that struck me.

Most of the video was recorded with a flip cam.  After it froze up on me, we used Aju’s outdated photo camera.  I used an old laptop and Windows Movie Maker to edit the video.  The “professional” elements are Intention, Imagination, and Work Ethic (i.e. endless hours troubleshooting).  There are endless details I could continue to tweak, but at some point you gotta be done (an important lesson).

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This is one of two tracks SOULAJU released with DJ Ceiba for “My America”, a benefit compilation for Papers the movie, released July 4th, 2009.  The other SOULAJU/CEIBA collaboration is “Believe It”. 

Sending love out to Brotha Sean aka DJ Ceiba, who recently became a father.  Ceiba is a Harlem-based drummer, DJ, and producer.  He puts together jarring, head-nodding beats, fusing Reggae, Latin, and Hip-Hop influences.  Ceiba flirts with some samples but relies mostly on his own musicianship. 

Ceiba played this instrumental for me in his home studio shortly after Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.  We watched the inauguration at a nearby Senegalese cafe a few days before.  We chopped it up over the politrix of “revolution” that afternoon, going back and forth over whether Obama really had the intention of being the agent of change he claimed to be.  If so, would this man’s intentions be enough to budge the babylon regime, or would he be co-opted?

Politics is politics, we agreed.  Real “change” is possible only on small scales, beginning first and foremost with the individual and what one chooses to stand for, and who you choose to stand with.  The small stuff individually is the big stuff socially.   

These conversations led to the writing and recording of “Rise”.  Aju wrote the hook first: an elemental call for people to rise up and reclaim a healthy and just space for themselves. 

Ceiba’s hard-knock beat really set the tone for the grittier side of my mentality.

MOLINA

The General is a makeup artist, designer, event emcee, blogger, and in her own words “a bunch of other shit.  Ask about me.”

On SOULAJU:

“It’s the kinda shit that makes you wanna just lay back and close your eyes so you can feel every word. It’s like dark smokey vintage lounge sexy meets earthy nature sexy meets 3am urban sexy meets revolution sexy. If that makes any sense at all. But yeah, its that good.”  READ MORE.

“Trinidad Undaground”

Our main goals in working with these young people were to empower them to tell their own stories and engage in a process of creating their own media.  Before we put cameras in their hands we ran some workshops with them, talking about their experiences, identity, their dreams, life beyond Trinidad, getting them writing their thoughts on paper.  The following video is a “making of” look at our work with this group of youth.

The Making of “Trinidad Undaground”

“Poet Gettin’ His” by Molina of SOULAJU w/ DJ Icewater

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Switchin’ up the vibe and pulse.  Recent weekly Retrospectives explored the lighter side of my work.  A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively now moves back into harder-hitting territory. 

Everyone’s heard the song “Gettin’ Mine.”  Every rapper’s got a Gettin’ Mine track.  The world is in a Gettin’ Mine state of mind.  This is my version of Gettin’ Mine. 

The track is produced by DJ Icewater.  Dig the bounce in the beat.  Love the organ.  Was unsure about the “hook” when DJ sent the beat, but as I marinated on the possibilities, I got into the hook.

My favorite rhymes on the track:

Verse I: “I swim wit da riddim, a tree said to give ‘em /somethin’ new for the listen, fresh for the mission / she grew new leaves, I saw my pen bleed / like a phantom in a dream planted a seed / like a fly new track by that man named Molina / just climbed out ya speakers and hopped in ya lap / opened up ya gut, swam through your chest / hit you in your heart so you felt it kick start…”

Verse II: “So suckers be like ‘please’, they hate when you like me / like ‘oh, I think they like him,’ now we gotta spike him / take his last life, strip him of his power / end the final game, conquer him like Bowser / I tower like a hawk, swoop through all they tricks / bypass the facade, see the game like Oz…”

Verse III: “…reflected dialectics, eclectic, polyrhythmic / A-freeka aesthetic, Mexika-type phonetic / like Nezahualcoyotl just snuck inside my head, took me for a ride, dropped me from the sky / like Damn Xicano Brown, he rip the mic right / inject the enigmatic and inflect the lime / with style that permeate, moist up the vibe /with rhymes that elevate, snake like wild vines…”

“Like a black JFK I know that I can…”  BUT I will…

Get yours how you get it and give back.

- Molina

Despite his young age and youthful appearance, Molina is a veteran Hip-Hopper, philosopher, law school graduate, DIY/indie entrepreneur, college lecturer and all-around human bridge.  Molina is nationally renowned for his eclectic music collaborations and his work as a poet, storyteller, and youth advocate.

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week music blog in 2010 reflecting on five years of independent music, one song at a time.

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I was in Brooklyn when DJ Icewater sent this beat.  This was before Aju and I were SOULAJU, before we decided to make an album together. It was a winter day in January 2009.  I had the track on loop in my headphones, staring at the thick snowflakes falling outside Aju’s apartment window in Bedstuy. 

No doubt about it, this was a love song…

Updated sometime in 2011

Love comes and goes but it always remains the same, true to its essence: Love.  We’re always looking, wanting, hoping, wishing, praying… for that one true love.  Some of us find it, some of us do not.  For some of us, there isn’t meant to be just one.  Some people come into our lives to help us prepare for the one. 

It’s a tricky game, not supposed to be a game, but so often a game, even when no one is getting played.  The game of life.  Love is.

Love is… a beautiful song, to be remembered always….

A music video was supposed to come out of this.  I spent a lot of time, energy, and money trying to make this happen.  DJ Icewater flew out to Denver from NYC.  We went through the whole shoot… dope ass footage… but months passed and shit fell through on the editing end.  A disaster.  A mess of egos and bad business.  Unintended complications on the part of some. Toxic intentions on the part of others.  Ultimately not meant to be.

There was never supposed to be a visual.  But the song lives on. 

This was one of the people’s favorites.  “Love Is, Molina that’s the jam!” I was often told back in the Soulaju days.

Love is… what you make it. 

Molina

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively

I’ve been a Hip-Hop head for 18 years, over 2/3 of my young life. I’ve been emceeing for 13 years and utilizing Hip-Hop as a tool for education, consciousness raising, and social justice activism for 9 years. I have released six independent music projects and am the music supervisor for a film about immigrant youth that has screened in almost all 50 states. I have paid some dues.

My hard work has bred some success … but not without some controversy.

The Situation:

After two years of having album review requests ignored one album and EP after another by major news and entertainment publications in the Mile High City, Denver Post journalist Eryc Eyl recently took notice and wrote a dope piece about SOULAJU.

The controversy came when a few people apparently mistook the Reverb Blog as an artist profile FOR Denver’s 2010 Juneteenth celebration. How, they wondered, is it legit for a non-Black music group to be one of the only acts that gets press for a Black-arts oriented festival that celebrates the end of slavery?

Important question. Realistic scenario. Not the case this time around.

The timing of the article coincided with SOULAJU being asked to play a small role in this year’s Juneteenth celebration. We did not seek out the opportunity but we respectfully accepted it. We were not contacted by any journalists or media organizations to discuss our involvement in Juneteenth. If you read the article, it is clearly a profile about SOULAJU as a music duo and the larger work we do in communities throughout the West.  We were asked what our next gig was.  We said Juneteenth, and that was that. 

Sometimes you are brought into histories and situations that you did not create but nevertheless must be accountable and responsible for. If it was empty shit talk I wouldn’t even address it. I constantly teach my six-year old son that there will always be people who judge for what you do, regardless of your intentions. What ultimately matters is that you stand up and be accountable for yourself, your truth, your passion. But the circumstances of this small controversy extend beyond the personal. As a man of color and a Cultural Studies lecturer, I recognize that the substance of this matter and the concerns expressed are relevant.

I am publicly addressing this issue to straighten things out personally, but also out of respect for Denver’s African-American community, especially the artists and activists who struggle against racism and economic inequality, political neglect, disproportionate funding cuts, gentrification in areas like Five Points, and over-criminalization of Black youth, among other pressing issues.

I am not a Denver native but I am a conscious Denver resident and I have done my homework. I recognize that what was once one of the largest Juneteenth celebrations in the country (Denver’s) has been sliced and diced in terms of scale and funding. There is a clear lack of representation in media and political representation as it relates to African-Americans and other residents of color in the Denver Area, as is the case nationally. I can understand the frustration that would arise from the snubbing of African-American artists as it relates to a Black cultural festival, or the idea that a non-Black group would take an opportunity to contribute and in turn exploit it for festival-related media coverage.   There is a long history of exploitive cultural appropriation and Black identity theft in the United States.

But this is not that story, neither with respect to the journalist nor the artists involved. 

The story is a fresh and meaningful mixture of multi-ethnic storytelling traditions, Hip-Hop, multilingual vocals and poetry, fused with other music genres. 

In Conclusion:

As the brown rapper at the center of the controversy in question, I hope this statement squashes any misdirected frustration and unsettled feelings regarding the recent press highlighting SOULAJU. Myself and SOULAJU as a duo stands in solidarity with all people who struggle against oppression, exploitation and slavery, which continues to be a major issue worldwide on all continents. We stand in solidarity with all people, all colors, all nations in celebration of victories for the people.

We look forward to contributing to the vibe at this Saturday’s Juneteenth Festival. Pro-Black. Pro-People. Pro-Planet.

con paz,

Adrian H. Molina

(aka Molina Soleil of SOULAJU)

SOULAJU hosted a youth DJ workshop at the end of January 2010.  The workshop was one of five community-oriented events we hosted in celebration of the coming SOULAJU album release.

I’m focusing more and more on the visual aspect of the music.  In recent months I edited footage from our Youth Jam / Youth Climate Justice Workshop and made a music video for “In Sight”. 

Dee-Jay – the heart and soul of Hip-Hop culture.

Enjoy.

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A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, focusing on 5 years of music by your man Molina.