Does Cullah Mind Tho?

It’s hard to believe, but over the last year, Cullah has created three music videos as well as producing yet another album. His natural intensity is reflected in this video, his newest accomplishment. Never a stranger to pushing the needle forward, he teamed up with local Milwaukee talent to create a flowing effortless portrayal of the rhythmic development of romance. Marina Dove, Dan Wein, and Cullah began working together they spoke over their plates of summer squash and lemonade homemade in Cullah’s childhood home. As they reworked section after section of the vibrant new world of “I Don’t Mind It” the message aged and maturated. According to Cullah, “I create my music to balance between my own individual expression and the forms in which others can digest them” He uses this approach as he salts the taste buds of our ocular and visual palates.

An aesthetic taste to sate appetites of all inclinations. Gliding across the screen, the natural and organic process of falling in love is absorbed. This pattern ingestion is not only the narrative of the music video but also of the viewer’s experience as they view the oftentimes psychedelic movement of Cullah’s music video. Even the choreography of the experience defied the expectations that society separates itself, and throughout the three minutes and thirty seconds, elevates it to high-brow. The three fates border Marina and Cullah as pervasively as society expects us to follow the rules and “natural progression” of love.

Ignoring the fates surrounded by the color blocks of red hotel stairs and cutting contrast of black costume and white. He believes that “Art is the most intense expression of individualism. A true artist believes in himself. A true artist must understand the society that they are formed by.” His struggle to maintain his freedom is clear in the dizzying melting patterns with brass saxophone. What, after all, separates an individual’s wants from the wants of their culture? The main character’s willful cold shoulder to the external elements that shape his art create a destructive paradox. In ignoring his culture, he is, at the same time subject to it. This excitement of love and staying in love that, in the end, resulted in the corrosion of his own artistic vision. Although, crossing the skyline of Milwaukee, it doesn’t seem that he minds following society’s expectations.

Again and again, Cullah goes above and beyond, not only through the stellar production work, but a masterful command of narrative. His methods are devoted to balance and a drive to deliver excellence of product and taste to truth. Heart and the ever-undulating pressures of society on the artistic mind are the central themes of Cullah’s newest production.

Worldwide Black Inturnet Radio

On a cool October evening in the setting sun of the Montrose area of Houston, Texas the two young men who make up the Worldwide Black Inturnet Radio sit before me. With clear-rim glasses and beanie, Ike details to me his love of craft beer (Yellow Rose, Victory Golden Monkey, Voodoo Ranger, and Jai Alai) and Courtland, his love of sleep and equal love of photography.  Ike Ekwueme and Courtland Webb tag team production and develop their lyrical sound with the same level of respect that they approach with each other.

Drawing from their contemporary existence and influenced by old inspirations they make music a priority rather than an afterthought. Having art and presenting it to people, they have only been in this particular project since January of 2019. When I first met them, they were freshman performers trying out their craft on one of their first live crowds at Axelrad’s open mic. But when not performing at trendy art galleries and crowded chic bars, they dedicate a large chunk of time toward producing their sound.

Every Monday, the music comes first, using samples from the 70s and 80s and Courtland playing the guitar they embark on the germination of their up and coming self-titled album WBIR. Working weekly, WBIR is a production duo made up of two individuals who got along so well you could’ve sworn they’d grown their whole lives up with their houses right next to each other.

They had only played their first show this past October after having put out a single called Velvet Bed Spread. Insomnia gallery hosted and the two shared the stage with a band called Uncommon colors. They’ve been playing in every corner of Houston since then. Their epic vibrations are out of this world. But for them, it’s all about the down to earth love and friendship that places its roots in the music. The skeleton of beats made flesh by their mouthwatering lyrical feats. Their self-titled album will grace the networks of the worldwide web most likely by the end of the year. Bring your friends, and enjoy the time-transcendence cranial global experience of Worldwide Black Inturnet Radio.

Spectacullah: your New Favorite Album

The inauguration of Cullah to the office of established name takes place as small wood violets bloom in the north woods. It is impossible to go down streets of Milwaukee without Cullah’s voice drifting out the open doors of the residents of Riverwest (a vibrant small neighborhood that represents the infusion of eccentric socialist intellectuals, DIY punk anarchists, and afrofuturistic creatives). Cullah has not only created and released a truly awesome amount of tunes; they have traveled the distance. From Milwaukee’s own Cactus club in Bay View, and to as far north as Sweden and as far south as Chile; Cullah’s cultural footprint has been painstakingly engraved. It’s alright if you haven’t heard of Cullah before. Like Milwaukee, he has been underrated and sometimes even written off (not enough “it” factor he was told). His iconoclastic courage told him that only he could tell his story. Therefore, he has kept total creative control of the production of his work. You can see the singular vision of the artist unify in Spectacullah.

Spectacullah has shown off Cullah’s unwavering and broad talents, as well as pulling his sound from the things most personal to him. “I Want you to Be Kind to Yourself” is written to his mother, who has been experiencing health problems. Cullah’s new album represents the month that he was born in. To that season of new growth -he has pledged to dedicate the fully-formed creation, execution, and manifestation of his virtuoso. To understand his capabilities you only need to listen to “Love You Gotta Be” this particular song incorporates three different key signatures and the wild heart of his sister’s songwriting. To only call him technically talented- that would be underselling. To call him the next greatest artist – that would be only logical.

www.cullah.com album art – BigShotRobot

“I See” animated by Marci Klugiewitz

 

Cullah’s new music video has me delightful. It’s not secret that his Cullahsus album was a banger and is in the running to be my favorite album of the year. 2018 was a fantastic year for music. Marci Klugiewiez’s interpretation of Cullah’s new song “I See” added new layers of emotional value through narration and inventive interactions with the song. This music video makes you want a relationship with the music instead of a one-night stand.

When I watched this video for the first time, I could feel a grin spreading from ear to ear as I leaned forward with giddiness. My chair creaked below me. I felt the hair raise on my arms and on the back of my neck. Then I repeated the song. The banjo grabbed me, and the stop-motion family of bears kept me there. Marci has been going to MIAD, an art school in downtown Milwaukee and used a combination of heavy paper, markers, and colored pencils improved with a smattering of photoshop for the eyes.

This north woods vocalist didn’t take a minute to grab my attention. Synth and the banjo work together to explore the periphery of sound. “I See” became more than a fantastic song, it became a dynamic odyssey into the turbulence of uncertainty. In a year dominated by great sound, “I See” stop motion video stood out.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

“We’ll play till they stop us”

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It was a dreary afternoon. The sky was overcast, and the wind was a little bit too cool for early June. Despite the weather we were in line for the concert that was in such demand it sold out. Luckily, we had bought tickets months ahead of time. Every time I go to a show in the Pabst, the architecture of Milwaukee’s Pabst theater always takes my breath away. We find our seats and wait for the show to start. I get impatient and buy a white claw and a Guinness for my boyfriend.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard played in Milwaukee on the 9th of June. When the lights first came on a different Australian band strut on stage, every single one of them sporting mullets. Spiit’s cacophonous punk attitude filled the whole theater. People started dive bombing into their fellow crowd members in the front. I was flabbergasted at the choice of a punk band to play before the headliner, a psychedelic rock band. I’m afraid to say that, by the end, I wanted to go home.

I promised my boyfriend to stay for only a couple more songs right before King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. As I listened I held my left wrist’s fingers to count. Slowly my hands dropped to my sides as I heard the familiar flange of the guitar. Rattlesnake permeated the room with the sound of their flawless guitar riffs. The sheer amount of music that they knew by heart was impressive. By the end of the show, all people were jamming to polyrhythmic psychedelic rock and were demanding encore. The band gave in and eventually played us a song that they hadn’t performed in a while, they told us.

At the end of the show I was happy that I went. Despite the horrible weather and a less than stellar opener, the headliner took our standard of what a good performance was and elevated it.

!! Exclusive!! Cullahsus

Have you ever wondered about what the heck Cullah’s new album is going to sound like? Well, wonder no more here is the ever genre-bending Cullah’s new single, Moonlove Funk.

“Why, man he doth bestride the narrow world like a “Cullahsus”; and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves.”

When I asked him to describe his album in a single sentence, his response was this Shakespearian phrase. Taking in the narrowness of the world and this phrase describes the darkness of shadows cast by things that we can’t control. He describes the themes of his album with rhetorical flair. But it doesn’t describe it all in a nutshell. Not by any means.

When you get Ian (the mind behind Cullah) talking it’s hard to tell when he’s going to stop. This is a quality that has allowed him to produce album after album without so much as a hiccup. On the advent of his upcoming 27th birthday he is now releasing his stylistic 12th album. Different from so many artists who have landed on top spots due to pure luck and catchy singles; Cullah redefines maximizing your potential and has become inseparable from the music that he lovingly records, rerecords, records again, and remasters.

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With his aptly named brand new album Cullahsus, he takes us back to his roots. His funky beats and that Milwaukee melodic spirit that never left now accompanies every song. His bachelors’ in Computer Engineering and the old school MC Cullah shows in the electronic tinkering that defines his song, “Till at Last”. Well-placed sampling and cheery chirps travel to your ears with ease. Positivity beams at the fall of every beat and brings a smile to your face, making you wish for just one more verse.

Budgeting his food solely from the small amount money he makes from Spotify since he has refused to fully commercialize his music; he declares his resolute spirit through “King Jebediah (The Falcon Messiah)”. The themes infused the album are a lack of control of circumstances to a larger benevolent beast. In Cullah’s case, King Jebediah seems to be the music itself that he creates and is provided by.

This is the first year that he has been able to concentrate his efforts solely on creating his music. Unhindered by other responsibilities, in “Hurrycane” and “Helios 3” he seems to be both overwhelmed and liberated in the storms and boundless space of creativity.

Despite these new joys and pains, a bit of the previous “Cullahmity” album influences “Cullahsus”. A heartbroken Irish trill echoes in “The Grief of Ceridwen” illustrating the loneliness that comes with the freedom expressed in his other songs.

The way “I see” begins initially makes you think the song is going in a completely different direction than Cullah decides takes you. Starting with a genuine hook, he takes your hand and leads you through a story of an individual rising up against nature and winning the fight. Using his new violin and banjo skills that he has acquired for the album he pours his heart out in a Call of the Wild twist on classic folk sensibility.

There are so many other songs that stitch the freedom of life in all of its joys and sorrows together in one man’s work of art. The sheer volume and the quality of the work that Cullah annually presents is impressive. He is an artist to watch for.

Find even more of his music FOR FREE on his website www.cullah.com

OR if you have spotify and if you have ever been to youtube he’s also on there!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSj-fZZlBZTCTEBpiMwMWGg

Credits for the wonderfully done Album Cover go to
BRENDAN LOSCAR

http://brendanloscar.com/

Women’s March on Washington 2017

The Woman’s march on Washington was a collection of identities that intersected in one purpose; rallying for Civil Liberties. Joining together for the freedom that was promised to us as our birthright. America is our home; she is our adopted mother. During President Trump’s inauguration speech, he promised to put America first.

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But his rhetoric is indicative of a single type of America, a single story. The American that is of European decent. The one that is rich in money and intolerance. The one who has gotten what was promised to him from the moment he was born. That is not the Common American. She is one of many faiths, ethnicities, abilities, orientations, occupations, genders, and other many cultures. We are proud, intersectional, and we are strong.

The America that I know is one that is made stronger by our differences. The lines that divide us; we use to build the strongest foundations. We have grown from 200,000 in 1963 (History) to 470,000 in 2017 (NY Times). Arm in arm we march and we lend our voices to each others life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

We marched for that America.

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Martin Luther King Jr. was a preacher who was viewed as more of a threat to our society than the disease of segregation, than intolerance, and especially the domestic terrorism that has been waged and still is being perpetrated against the most vulnerable of us. In my eyes this domestic terror starts with hate speech, and that violence has no place in this nation.

During the hearing of Dylann Roof, a young man who shot nine black Americans in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Chruch on the basis of their race; a victim’s family member said this “We are the family that love built, we have no room for hating” (CNN) Our strength in the face of violent hate and after losing so much, is forgiveness.

But, we must remember the pain of extrajudicial killings from police officers; the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, and countless unnamed others whose justice was denied without police accountability for their fatal actions. Remember that the change we need doesn’t come from a single person, it comes from a movement, it comes from a place of love.

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We have not come to denounce each other, we are here to grow in our understanding of each other. To show our solidarity to all others who are also living their nonviolent struggle for peace. I am here to say that Black Lives Matter, Islamophobia is Anti-American, we stand in solidarity of our water protectors in Standing Rock as well as all those people still suffering in Flint MI. Among so many others we stand in solidarity. We must answer the hate by filling the world with more love. I’m hoping by standing out here that the other side will see the validity and soundness of our arguments and appeals. They will gather around the firmness of our truth and our love.

But as Gandhi once wrote back in 1918 in the Indian times, “Prejudices cannot be removed by legislation… They yield only to patient toil and education.”

Donald Trump attended Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania (BS). And in places of such learning, it saddens me that some lessons didn’t stick with President Trump. With his prosperity, he went to turn over the earth, instead of building bridges and he built walls around his home.

He forgets that we are not opponents on either side of an ideological war. We are not authoritarian soldiers coming to take everything that he holds dear. We have no guns, no tanks, no swords; We only have our pens, our voices, and our want for peace. Especially for those backs that this country was built on. Those who are still searching for the freedom that they came here to find, and who’s justice has been denied for far to long.

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To invoke the words of Martin Luther King Jr, just before he was shot like so many of ours today. I have been to that mountaintop, He saw America for all that she could be. He was dismissed as a radical by many but as he states in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” He is a radical of love. He lived the revolutionary moment that existed in his mind. And like him, I have seen that shining city upon that hill.

You are here because you have seen what I have. You have heard the words of our new president and you know that those words do not represent America, our shining city that exists in all of our minds. We have seen a world were people are heard and believed and protected from those who would do us violence. Looking at the past of America; we know that intolerance will fail as all things tended with hate do. Progress is achievable because when we rise with love in our hearts; we win. 

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[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M1WJ48_wac&w=854&h=480]

“There is nothing more American than peaceful protest”

— Russ Feingold

 

 

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington/videos/martin-luther-king-jr-leads-the-march-on-washington

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