(Love) Right Nowby Akua Naru

Album-versary! Released five years ago today! ". . . just through spending more and more time in Africa, and finding peace on the continent, I was thinking about the power of joy, a black joy. Why that’s so important for us as a form of resistance, as a political act, as a force in and of itself. And I was also coming out of the space that I was in with the last album, and I was also learning to carve more space for joy. Really, really, really understand how that feels when I swallow it, when I gobble it down, when I’m housing it here in this body. So obviously, the music was going to reflect that as I was inquiring. And this album is itself the blackest joy." afropop.org Akua Naru is hip-hop's spectacular global, poetic, intellectual, spiritual, political, female balance. Naru's musical and poetic gifts have been appreciated among hip hop circles and are amplified within live performance. Check out a live spoken word performance from Naru: youtu.be soundcloud.com

". . . just through spending more and more time in Africa, and finding peace on the continent, I was thinking about the power of joy, a black joy. Why that’s so important for us as a form of resistance, as a political act, as a force in and of itself. And I was also coming out of the space that I was in with the last album, and I was also learning to carve more space for joy. Really, really, really understand how that feels when I swallow it, when I gobble it down, when I’m housing it here in this body. So obviously, the music was going to reflect that as I was inquiring. And this album is itself the blackest joy." afropop.org Akua Naru is hip-hop's spectacular global, poetic, intellectual, spiritual, political, female balance. Naru's musical and poetic gifts have been appreciated among hip hop circles and are amplified within live performance. Check out a live spoken word performance from Naru: youtu.be soundcloud.com

50 years of music on KEXP! - celebrating the music of 2018 this week! Akua Naru is hip-hop's spectacular global, poetic, intellectual, spiritual, political, female balance. Naru's musical and poetic gifts have been appreciated among hip hop circles and are amplified within live performance. Check out a live spoken word performance from Naru: youtu.be akuanaru.com.