The album is a sonic imagining of body, love, sorrow, trauma, history, pain, rebirth.
Album artwork
Nationwide — “Dismembered & Unarmed” is a collaborative album executive produced by Chaka Mkali and Resmaa Menakem. The album was created in conjunction with Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands as a way to engage a larger audience.
The album features 30+ prominent musicians from the Twin Cities touching on issues of intergenerational trauma, healing, and the realities of America’s current racialized divide. The “Processions” single will be available for free download on April 30th, 2018 online at http://dismemberedandunarmed.bandcamp.com.
The full album will be available for digital download as well as a vinyl collector pack (including a copy of My Grandmother’s Hands) on June 15th, 2018.
The Single
The first single from the album “Processions,” is produced by produced by Greg Grease and features Meta, I Self Devine, Greg Grease, and Alicia Steele. It recalls both the grief of unjustly losing loved ones as well as the circumstances that continue to perpetuate the violence that is causing these losses across the United States. Each lyricist reflects on personal and shared experiences that speak to the realities of the effects that racism, oppression, and police violence have had on them and their communities.
“Got my black shoes, got my black suit on. Tribute tattoos, R.I.P shirt on, heard the bad news, left me confused, dumb.” — Greg Grease
The Book
The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze. My Grandmother’s Hands is a call to action for Americans to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body. My Grandmother’s Hands introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.
Menakem comments, “From the start of the writing of this book we had a conceptualization that this needed to be a multi-sensory experience that incorporated sound, vibration, sight, image, and thought.”
He adds, “We wanted to provide people with multiple access points to this work. The first person to get involved was executive producer Chaka Mkali/I Self Devine, because he is a multi talented artist he understood the heart of this project right away and ran with it. He brought in Lioness, Jake Virden, Brother Ali, and many other producers and artists.”
“This book was written out of love and collaboration. The book could not have been written without the help and challenge of others. For years we have wanted to do some artistic work with Chaka and other musicians. When we shared with them the content of the book, they immediately wanted to do music for it. We are humbled by their time and dedication. May the ancestors be pleased by our work and efforts,” he says.
For more details about the album, visit www.resmaa.com
Dropbox link includes:
Press images, album art, and a video snippet for “Processions”
www.dropbox.com/sh/wnxldkd3boe1epx/AACuz3IU16Wv7nBsFXaxbojfa
For additional information or to schedule interviews please contact:
Zanib Ibrahimm
612-810-2605
Zanib@Resmaa.com or
Pam McCurdy
612-839-3932
Pam@TheMarketingTroupe.com