Soulaju is making some noise in the Mile High City and around Colorado. Within the past several months, SOULAJU has been written up in Colorado Music Buzz, 5280 Magazine, and now the Denver Post online edition: Reverb. Molina & Aju were also recently featured in the indie art series Colorado Stand Up.
COLORADO STAND UP
The “Colorado Stand Up” Project is, in two words, Colorado Hip-Hop. The design will focus on the Hip-Hop Community in Colorado and feature those who have put in blood, sweat, and tears to make the scene what it is today.
Write-up by Eryc Eyl for the Denver Post. Eryc is a veteran music journalist, critic and Colorado native who has been neck-deep in local music for many years.
“Molina Soleil and Aju released their first full-length album earlier this year. Produced in collaboration with Oakland-based DJ Icewater, the self-titled, 15-track collection bursts with head-bobbing beats, rhymes that flow like melted butter and melodic hooks that stick like maple syrup.
Its soulful jams and socially conscious lyrics recall Marvin Gaye and Gil Scott-Heron as much as the Roots and the Fugees. Strikingly professional and just plain good, ‘Soulaju’ would be a highlight for more mature artists, but is all the more remarkable as the duo’s debut album. In a way, though, it’s been years in the making…”
Icewater sent the beat track in February of 2009. Aju was living in Bedstuy, Brooklyn NY. I was living on the northside in Denver at the time, traveling back and forth between Denver, New York City, and Oakland to work on the Shine Flow EP and SOULAJU album projects.
Writing and recording this track transported me back to the Up Before the Sunrise days. Experimental rhyme structures and spoken reflections lending context to the poetics.
The odyssey of the DREAMER is riddled with layers of parallel dreams and realities. Imagine two worlds, equivalent in their truths, folded in to mirror one another. The true math lies in the eyes of the dreamer.
There is light and there is dark. There is good and there is evil. There is life and there is death. These are simple matters. It is in the gray area that dream interpretation begins.
Recognizing the power of the Dream, one’s mark is everlasting. All things are connected. All thoughts, words, and ideas manifest, touch, alter, and affect the eternal balance.
Your reality is your perception. Reflection is perpetually open to interpretation.
Play with the day, float away with the blue…
A.M. SOLEIL, RETROSPECTIVELY is a 52-week blog series in 2010, reflecting on 5 years of independent music by yours truly by Molina.
Sometimes I sit on a cloud andthink… Me inside of you… you inside me…
A simple but retrospective track, tracing roots, paying homage, showing respect to some of the people, and thus all of the people, who made me who I am.
The art of storytelling boils down to the ability to capture a feeling, to pull in a listener and make them feel you. To transport them into your world, weaving them seamlessly back into their own world, then back again, in and out, continuously, beyond the story itself.
REMIX: The original version of Wrong Ways appeared on Shine Flow EP during the summer of 2009. That was an Aju story—a journey through cultural transformation and personal affirmation.
The Soleil Mix is a tale of personal struggle—something everyone can relate to. Some of us have it rougher than others and circumstances transform us in unexpected ways.
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.
The arrival of SOULAJU: Soul flows like water. The long awaited album is finally complete. 15 solid tracks available for $5 mp3 download.
This story has many beginnings. This moment is a culmination of past reflections. The focus is on the Present, in these times, as we shape what will be.
SOULAJU is a fusion of lives, stories, styles, and cultures; this fusion is personal and universal. Each track stands on its own, but the true jewel lies in the journey of the album, start to finish.
In the words of photographer Ric Urrutia, “Soulaju is creative, conscious, energetic, sexy, intellectual, and overall: bad ass.”
The reviews, the hype, and the celebrations will come in waves. The album will soon be distributed by Itunes, Amazon.com, and other major distributors. For now, as independent, community-based artists, we are excited to share this release with our friends, our supporters, and your networks and communities.
Thank you for your support. Please help us spread the word.
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!
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.
The odyssey of the DREAMER is riddled with layers of parallel dreams and realities. Imagine two worlds, equivalent in their truths, folded in to mirror one another. The true math lies in the eyes of the dreamer.
