In conversation with Bahar Noorizadeh’s exhibition The Debtor’s Portal, The Showroom presents Deeper than Rap in collaboration with ETP Studios.
This is an intentional, intimate listening session that honours Black Sonics as knowledge transmission, acknowledging the depth and gravity of information encoded within the wavelengths and frequencies of our musical offerings.
This session will encourage attendees to listen not only with their ears, but with their minds and bodies, and, in doing so, receive this information in a space that encourages considered and critical engagement with the art. Proposing Black Sonics as an alternative pedagogy and living archive, we will engage with J Hus’ Big Conspiracy as a rich text from which we can learn about the world and our place in it.
This session will be led by Dipo Alao-Odeleye, The Showroom’s Assistant Engagement Curator and Ezra Olaoya, founder of ETP Studios.
About
Dipo Alao-Odeleye is a cultural worker, poet and curator whose community-based work engages with memory, diaspora and the Blues via poetry and sound to transform the mundane into stories that affirm aliveness. They have previously worked with several institutions such as Bold Tendencies, Black Cultural Archives, V&A Museum and Rich Mix.
Ezra Olaoya is a Nigerian-Irish writer, artist and strategist whose expressions and explorations are driven by a desire to connect people, places and ideas by questioning, amplifying and constructing narratives. His work encourages people to not only look inwards and introspect but also to look outwards to perceive the connections that exist between individuals and ideas across geographies - especially between Africa and its diaspora. His writing has featured in publications including Dazed, The Republic and The Culture Crypt while he has also exhibited multimedia image and sonic works at the ICA. He regularly DJs for pan-African plant-based kitchen Garden of Afruika and opened up for Major League DJz AT Roundhouse. Through ETP Studios he has self produced and performed two editions of ‘Burning Questions’ - a satirical poetry show - in London and Lagos. He also wrote and co-directed Adétòkunbọ̀ a poetry film meditating on heritage, destiny and identity.
