APEX Express -11.10.22 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #2 by DJ Miu

KPFA - APEX Express

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #2

Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.

Episode #2

This month’s episode features Thao and The Get Down, Stay Down, Star Feminine Band, Taj Majal, and Tohur Aizawa Quartet. Sounds from Cambodia, Benin, Americas, and so much more.

With winter coming in the northern hemisphere, I was inspired by music that ponders, wanders, and lingers. A time of reflection of the change from mercury retrograde and the stillness in this Scorpio season and recent Scorpio eclipse and the current mars in retrograde in Gemini. All that to say, reflect on your desires, needs, and goals. Be honest, truly honest about where you are and where you want to be. Send compassion to yourself and those around you. Listen to this set and allow yourself to transmute these energies by meditation and sonic medicine.

Star Feminine Band

• A group of 7 girls, aged between 10 and 17 years old, from Natitingou, a remote town in the north of Benin. I absolutely fell in love with the energy of their music, light and playful and deeply talented. I found their record digging in Pasadena, CA over the summer of 2022.

Thao and The Get Down, Stay Down

• I first heard her and her band in Los Angeles for my auntie’s birthday. It was a free concert and that’s how my aunt convinced our whole family to go. I was 14 at the time and I didn’t really connect to her music at first, my auntie did get an autograph and it was the happiest I’ve ever seen her.
• But then when the pandemic came around, I listened to Thao’s tiny desk and it ignited a love for her and her music. I had spent more time learning about folk, rock music so I was able to appreciate it more and understand the depths of her music, especially during March of 2020.

Geraldo Pino

• So I found this next track off the Nigeria Soul Power 70 Compilation album. It’s got some serious gems on it and this is no exception.
• Pino is a Sierra Leonean Nigerian musician. He was one of the early pioneers of modern African pop music.

The Charles LLoyd Quartet

• This was one of the “First psychedelic jazz bands” and the group was all about “Communication is the prime concern” The quartet is made up of Keith Jarret, Ron McClure, Charles Lloyd, Jack DeJohnnette.

Taj Mahal

• Taj Mahal is a Blues musician but fuses Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific so naturally I had to share some of his music. I found his music crate digging as well as all good music is found by word of mouth or found hidden in a crate.
• Henry chose his stage name, Taj Mahal, from dreams he had about Mahatma Gandhi, India, and social tolerance. He started using the stage name in 1959 or 1961—around the same time he began attending the University of Massachusetts.
• He formed one of the first interracial bands back in 1964 when he moved out to Santa Monica and they released one album together before creative differences. At that time he also worked with Buddy Lee and Muddy Waters. Later in his career, he formed Hula Blues Band in Hawaii.
• He will be performing in Oakland if you want to check him out on December 2 and 3 at the fox theater and in Los Angeles on December 4.

Tupac

• Tupac is famously known for his rap music and repping Los Angeles, California. Though he was born in Oakland, CA and wrote an amazing book collection of poetry called “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” that features the very first track “Wake Me When I’m Free” as well as other tales of growing up in the ghetto and his life stories. The rose is a symbol of beauty and love showing resilience in its ability to grow in the face of insurmountable odds, the concrete.

Lisa Lowe’s Book:

In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press

About the DJ

My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, poet, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere and go by DJ Miu. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound.

Lastly, special shoutout to my DJ crew 730 Faders. Catch us throwing the next best party in LA and coming near you. And my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.

Find me anywhere and everywhere @paigechung @DJxMIU

• Website
• Instagram
• Twitch
• Mixcloud
• SoundCloud

Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents’ Episode #2 Set List:

• apex express intro music
• “Wake Me When I’m Free” by sang by Babatunde Olatunji, Sikiru Adepoju written by Tupac
• “Teacup’s Jazzy Blues Tune” by Taj Mahal
• “Holy Roller” by Thao and The Get Down Stay Down
• “Samba De Orfeu” by Tohru Aizawa Quartet
• “PEBA” by Star Feminine Band
• “Love In (live)” by The Charles Llyod Quartet
• “Man of Constant Sorrow by Pan Ron
• “A Who Se Me Dun (Blind Alley Mix)” by Cutty Ranks (DJ Babu famously routined this beat)
• “Ain’t Nothing Wrong” by KC and The Sunshine Band
• “Wan Maha Sanook” by Plearn Promdan
• “Bacao Suave” by Bacao Rhythm and Steel Band
• “Sob A Luz Do Sol” by A Bossa Electrica
• “Soul Lam Plearn” by The Petch Phin Thong Band
• “Words of Wisdom” by Tupac Shakur
• “Femme Africaine” by Star Feminine Band
• “Suối Mơ” by Khánh Hà
• “Love Till The End of Time” by Paulinho da Costa
• “Higher” by DJ BABU
• “Tribal Dance” by The Charles Lloyd Quartet
• “La Musique” by Star Feminine Band
• “Ngày Vui Bên Nhau” by Khánh Hà
• “Saturday Love (Mirror Pop Remix)” by Cherelle ft. Alexander O’ Neal
• “Africans Must Unite” by Geraldo Pino and The Heartbeats
• “Merengue” by Boliver
• “Loan mắt nhung” by Elvis Phương
• APEX Express Outro

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