Giant Steps Music, the San Francisco based organization
where musical and social innovation collide, is back with the release of their
sophomore album, What If. The album is slated for release on March 8, which
also marks International Women’s Day.
What If is the result of Giant Steps’ Music Action Lab 2.0
that took place in the Fall of 2017 throughout the Bay Area, with the monthlong
program ending in Ixtapa, Mexico. The Music Action Lab is an innovative
residency uniting musicians from around the world to create social impact music,
and to nurture the next generation of musical change makers.
Music Action Lab 2.0 featured nine musicians across the
globe including GRAMMY-nominated drummer and founder of an ecocultural
nonprofit (Ernesto “Matute” Lopez), an award-winning percussionist and global
TED Fellow from Kenya (Kasiva Mutua), an Oberlin and Juilliard-trained cellist
whose work as a global music educator has included work in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Turkmenistan and El Salvador (Avery Waite), a cultural catalyst and
multi-instrumentalist bandleader bringing Turks and Armenians together (Sevana
Tchakerian), a semifinalist in the EuroVision contest (Rona Nishliu), a Sony
Records recording artist alum and jazz saxophonist and composer (James Brandon
Lewis), a Tanzanian multi-instrumentalist/percussionist (Kauzeni Lyamba), a
Japanese-American pianist and flautist (Erika Oba), and California native and
bassist (Chris Bastian). Full biographies of each member can be found at
http://bit.ly/GSmac2-bios
Drew Foxman, the founder and executive producer of Giant
Steps Music adds, “The primary inspiration behind the release is the unique and
diverse talents of this year’s collective that joined the Lab for its second
season to catalyze our mission to build a global community of musicians that
create music to advance social change. Facilitated by leaders in the music and
social impact industries, our collective gained insight, skills, and tools in a
month-long curriculum that informs the creation of the music.” In one month of
workshops and rehearsals dedicated to advancing social causes as part of the
Music Action Lab, the Collective created a suite of eight original compositions
and arrangements on the album What If that address issues of gender inequality,
human rights, neocolonialism, and more.
The title of the album What If captures the heart of this
release—addressing and exploring disparity and injustice through the lenses of
gender and women, human rights, and water, while bringing across a message of
inspiration by calling listeners to actively participate in ending injustice.
It is no coincidence that the album’s release day is on
“International Women’s Day.” The lead off track “Overlooked” is an upbeat,
uplifting representation of women in society—and the courage, strength, and
resolve to face the indignity of discrimination and inequity with power and
grace. Other timely and socially conscious themes run throughout the album. For
example, the track “Monuments” builds over a haunting jazz-inspired groove that
challenges the concepts of monuments as a physical structure, cautioning the
celebration of war and violence over the fragility and transience of life,
while “Agua” is a love song to water, our most precious resource on earth that
calls listeners to treat it as if she were our mother, lover, spouse, or
friend.
The title track “What If” is inspired by the global human
rights framework and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. “What If” is a call to
each and every one of us to actively work, support, defend, uphold, and
persevere to protect the fundamental rights of all. This melodic ballad
integrates spoken word in the spirit of African-American civil rights leaders
to both point to the possibilities of fulfilling the human rights mandate—while
freely revealing its shortcomings without a legal mandate to uphold it. “New
Babylon” (for Delasi) is a tribute to Ghanaian rapper Delasi Nunana, who was
refused entry to the U.S. after his selection to the Music Action Collective.
“New Babylon” speaks to the inequities intrinsic to the nation-state system,
and the inequality between the rich and developing countries, the global North
and the global South. The song “Right Again” was created in a workshop with
incarcerated men in San Francisco Jail #5, as part of the Music Action Lab
global music residency, while “Kesaule (live)” is a traditional folk harvest
song from Tanzania that is a percussive, upbeat, uplifting celebration of
people working together as community to create safe, vibrant relationships and
ways of living in unity. The song was recorded live from the Collective’s debut
performance at Ashkenaz World Music Center in Berkeley, CA.
Although the Music Action Collective’s debut album
Foundation received critical acclaim from The Huffington Post, KQED, and Jazz
Weekly, What If takes the structure built from the first sessions and builds
upon it. Foxman concludes, “The artistry is on a whole other level as we’ve
grown up from our pilot season. This is less a compilation of songs from
musicians around the world than it is a cohesive statement on rights and
justice from the participating members who have come together to create a
unified and quite unique sound. It fits nicely into our catalog since it
touches universal social justice topics of rights.”
What If – Track Listing
Overlooked
Monuments
New Babylon (for Delasi)
Agua
What If
Kesaule (live)
Right Again
Utamaduni
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