New Label Amplify Palestine Releases First Volume of “Mixtape” Series in Support of BDS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 10, 2023: New York, NY – Due out on all platforms April 10, new music compilation People of Eternity: BDS Mixtape Volume 1 features tracks by sixteen artists and bands that support the Palestinian call to use boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to pressure Israel to end its oppression of the Palestinian people. Curated by Gavilán Rayna Russom and Sanna Almajedi, the volume is dedicated to the late acclaimed trumpeter and composer jaimie branch, who was an advocate of the Palestinian cause. branch’s track with Jason Nazary, as the duo Anteloper, opens the compilation.  


Prior to its April 10 release, People of Eternity: BDS Mixtape Volume 1 has already been featured by music outlets DJ Mag, The FADER, MixMag and Resident Advisor. Three BDS Mixtape volumes are expected to be released by Fall 2023, featuring dozens of artists supporting Palestinian freedom.

The BDS Mixtape comes online as Israel’s most extreme right-wing government escalates attacks on Palestinians and theft of their land, and as a poll shows sympathy in the US for Palestinians has reached unprecedented levels. The current Israeli government includes one Minister convicted for supporting terrorism and another Minister jailed for conspiring to carry out violent attacks. There is a growing global consensus including Palestinians, South Africans, Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem, premier global rights experts Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and many others that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians. 

Released through the new label Amplify Palestine, the BDS Mixtape series takes inspiration from the famous 1985 Sun City album by artists boycotting apartheid South Africa. New York City’s vibrant electronic, jazz, and avant-garde music scenes are well represented on Volume 1, which includes tracks from techno musician and author of Assembling a Black Counter Culture DeForrest Brown Jr. (Speaker Music), sound artist and abstract turntablist Maria Chávez, and composer, trumpeter, maqam vocalist, and santur-player Amir ElSaffar. The flourishing Palestinian electronic music scene is also represented with tracks from Dakn and Baraari. 

In the album liner notes, writer and editor-in-chief of e-flux journal Kaye Cain-Nielsen captures curator Gavilán Rayna Russom’s reflection on the growing support among musicians for the cultural boycott of Israel: “Why did Mercury Symbol, from the Bronx, Rayna asked … want to make a track in support of BDS? She answered that he’s a person with a strong sense of community who believes in liberation. And who, like you, knows music is a way in and forward.” 

The project goes live as artist support for Palestine — and decolonize movements across the globe — surges. Lorde, Lana del Rey, Princess Nokia, Black Motion, Big Thief and more have canceled shows in Israel. John Legend, Halsey, Dua Lipa, The Weeknd and more have publicly spoken out for Palestinians’ right to freedom and equality. FKA Twigs, Ben UFO, Arca, Coco Rosie, Nicolas Jaar, Juliana Huxtable and over a thousand more have signed onto the Musicians For Palestine solidarity pledge. TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe, Tamar-kali, and other prominent artists endorsed cultural boycott in a 2015 video produced by Adalah-NY that premiered at a live event in NYC with DJ sets and performances by Simon Shaheen, Sonny Singh, Tamar-kali, Tamer Nafar, and more. The event and video formed the foundation of the new resource platform and label Amplify Palestine.

Proceeds from BDS Mixtape’s sales and streaming will support cultural initiatives in Palestine through Adalah-NY’s Amplify Palestine campaign. The BDS Mixtape series was initiated by Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel and BDS Houston and is being collaboratively produced by a team of musicians, cultural workers, educators, and grassroots organizers. 

People of Eternity: BDS Mixtape Volume 1 credits

Curated by Gavilán Rayna Russom and Sanna Almajedi. Liner notes by Kaye Cain-Nielsen. Album art by Selwa Abd (aka Bergsonist). Mastered by Russell E. L. Butler. Music by Anteloper (jaimie branch, Jason Nazary), Baraari, 400PPM (Shawn O'Sullivan), Dakn, Maria Chávez, Gavilán Rayna Russom, King Vision Ultra, Marcy Angeles, Dynoman, Mercury Symbol (Adonis Staten), Rat Porridge, Speaker Music (DeForrest Brown, Jr.), Amir ElSaffar and the Rivers of Sounds Orchestra, lawd knows, Sunk Heaven, Elder Ones (Amirtha Kidambi, Matt Nelson, Nick Dunston, Max Jaffe). Additional graphics by Elias Rischmawi.

Clockwise from top left: Album art by Selwa Abd (aka Bergsonist), curators Gavilán Rayna Russom and Sanna Almajedi, album track list, album contributors. (All graphics but cover art by Elias Rischmawi.)


CURATORS

Sanna Almajedi is a Brooklyn-based curator and DJ. She has performed as a DJ and programmed music at multiple venues across Europe and North America, including MoMA PS1, Red Light Radio, Salon des Amateurs, and Good Room. Almajedi has two monthly online radio shows (The Lot Radio and Half Moon). She is also the curator of Satellite, a monthly music series for experimental music at e-flux Bar Laika.

“As Israel continues to steal and appropriate Palestinian culture, it's important to reclaim the narratives through music; People of Eternity is not only an album that celebrates experimental sounds and boundary-pushing musicians, but it's also a testament to the power of art in advocating for the liberation of Palestine. By amplifying BDS, we're taking a stand against cultural erasure and making sure that the world hears us advocating for Palestine.”

Gavilán Rayna Russom is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. Over the past two decades she has produced a complex and compelling body of creative output that fuses theory with expression, nightlife with academia and spirituality with everyday life.  The central thread of this practice is the exploration of liminality as a healing agent.  In March of 2020 Rayna founded Voluminous Arts, a creative network for supporting and disseminating works by boundary pushing artists.

"Just as water is life, land and culture are inextricably connected. As a result of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Palestinians have developed rich and innovative ways to honor connections between their land and their culture while negotiating with the brutal realities of land theft and displacement. This kind of innovation is a liberatory praxis of its own, one which finds kinship in the radically expressive musical practices of the artists featured on People of Eternity. Connecting these dots is not just conceptually and poetically relevant, it is a direct and practical way of building power and support towards Palestinian liberation through the BDS Movement, and an end to colonial and imperialist occupation everywhere.”