Dr. Layla Zami is in conversation with fellow artists-scholars Mendi and Keith Obadike, a married Igbo Nigerian American couple who create music, writing, and art. In this first episode, they discuss alternate ways of listening that allow us to perceive something beyond the surface. Learn more about their work, such as 'Frequency' and 'Timbre', which were inspired by a lively African-American literary legacy.

In conversation with

Mendi+Keith Obadike

Mendi + Keith Obadike make music, art and literature. Their early works include The Sour Thunder, an Internet opera (Bridge Records), Crosstalk: American Speech Music (Bridge Records), Black.Net.Art Actions, a suite of new media (internet art) works (published in re:skin on M.I.T Press), Big House / Disclosure, a 200-hour public sound installation (Northwestern University), Phonotype, a book & CD of media artworks, and a poetry collection, Armor and Flesh (Lotus Press). They have contributed sounds/music to projects by wide range of artists including loops for neo-soul singer D'Angelo's first album and a score for playwright Anna Deavere Smith at the Lincoln Center Institute. They were invited to develop their first "opera-masquerade" by writer Toni Morrison at her Princeton Atelier. Their recent projects include a series of large-scale sound art works: American Cypher at Bucknell University and The Studio Museum in Harlem, Blues Speaker (for James Baldwin) at The New School in New York, Free/Phase at the Chicago Cultural Center, Sonic Migration at Scribe Video Center and Tindley Temple in Philadelphia, and Fit (the Battle Of Jericho) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Their music has been featured on New York and Chicago public radio, as well as on Juniradio (104.5) in Berlin. Keith received a BA in Art from North Carolina Central University and an MFA in Sound Design from Yale University. He is a professor in the Department of Art at Cornell University. Mendi received a BA in English from Spelman College and a Ph.D. in Literature from Duke University. She was a postdoctoral fellowsh at Princeton University, and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute.

Website

Facebook

Instagram @mendiandkeith







References


P&T Knitwear Bookstore and Podcast Studio, New York


Sonic Innovations at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts


Mendi + Keith Obadike. Frequency (2022) on Youtube


Kevin Quashie. The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture (2012)



Credits

Sound excerpts Timbre and Frequency by Mendi + Keith Obadike (2022)


Field recordings by Layla Zami, New York (2022)


Episode Cover Photo by Layla Zami


Show notes photos by Mendi + Keith Obadike



Podcast Info

Concept

Dr. Layla Zami, Postdoctoral Researcher in Performance Studies

Producer
Freie Universität Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts
(SFB 1512 Intervenierende Künste, TP B05)

Funded by
German Research Society (DFG)

In Cooperation with

FU Berlin, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft

Eufoniker Audioproduktion

Special Thanks

P&T Knitwear Bookstore and Podcast Studio, New York