Learning to Listen

with DANIELLE ALMEIDA 
moderated by MAX JORGE HINDERER CRUZ 

Danielle Almeida is a singer, educator, and researcher. For her project Diaspórica she has spent over sixteen years researching Afro-Latin American female singers who have been written out of history or forgotten and their song forms – the result is an extraordinary repertoire of songs. In her audio essay she will interpret a selection of these songs, interweaving recorded live performances with the biographies of the singers and reflections on the racist and sexist mechanisms implicit in the hegemonic narratives of cultural history.
Learning to Listen is a podcast format that explores different forms of listening – both listening and not listening – and the knowledge that can be drawn from them. The focus is on learning and unlearning to listen and engaging with internalized mindsets. The main aim of Learning to Listen is to initiate didactic processes intended to help us understand why certain sounds, songs, and narratives are heard and others are not, and to interweave auditory events with anti/decolonial education. The individual episodes are conceived as heterogeneous audio essays; the invited guests have free rein over their concept and realization.

Language: English | Portuguese
Available at Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Spotify

General Direction, Presentation, Production, Research and Texts: DANIELLE ALMEIDA
Musical Direction and Arrangements: SAMUEL CARTES
Editing, Mixing and Mastering: FLÁVIA FONTOLAN
Vocal Training: DIEGO MAURILIO
Audio Capturing: GUSTAVO SANT’ANNA (Estúdio Arsis),
P. SOULJA (Estúdios Casa PretaHub)
Translation: KARLA MENDONCA DOS SANTOS DANY
Speaker: NOELLE O'BRIEN-COKER
Production and Audio Design Learning to Listen: KENO MESCHER

LEARNING TO LISTEN #1 | English

LEARNING TO LISTEN #1 | Portuguese

with CHIMURENGA (NTONE EDJABE) 
moderated by MAX JORGE HINDERER CRUZ 

Ntone Edjabe is a DJ, curator, and journalist. In 2002 he founded the cultural platform Chimurenga, which includes the magazine The Chronic, the online Chimurenga Library, the Pan African Market in Cape Town, and the radio project Pan African Space Station. In his sound collages, Edjabe interrogates the audible as well as our understanding of music and audio consumption and the conditions governing it.
Learning to Listen is a podcast format that explores different forms of listening – both listening and not listening – and the knowledge that can be drawn from them. The focus is on learning and unlearning to listen and engaging with internalized mindsets. The main aim of Learning to Listen is to initiate didactic processes intended to help us understand why certain sounds, songs, and narratives are heard and others are not, and to interweave auditory events with anti/decolonial education. The individual episodes are conceived as heterogeneous audio essays; the invited guests have free rein over their concept and realization.

Language: English | French 
Available at Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Spotify

Featuring solos by FRANCO LUAMBO MAKIADI, PEPE FELLY MANUAKU,
BANSIMBA BAROZA, DIBLO DIBALA, DALLY KIMOKO, FLAMME KAPAYA, SARAH SOLO, JAPONAIS MALADI, KIMBANGU SOLO 
Commentary: RAY LEMA 
Production and Audio Design Learning to Listen: KENO MESCHER

LEARNING TO LISTEN #2 | French

with OLIVIER MARBOEUF 
moderated by MAX JORGE HINDERER CRUZ 

Olivier Marboeuf is an artist, poet, curator, and producer, whose recent work with audio and soundscapes is centered around the “politics of frequency.” Marboeuf, whose biography and research interests are largely connected with the Caribbean, confronts us with what he calls the “dimensions of sonic resistance” of the communities of the African diaspora. For our understanding of this dimension of sonic resistance, listening and un-listening are just as pivotal as speaking and de-speaking. In his audio essay he will examine the act of speech as well as collective speaking and listening – essentially, the possibility and impossibility of speaking and listening. 

Politics of Frequencies is the first step of an artistic research around Creole conversation as a cacophonic listening space that translates the paradoxical situation of a need to speak while protecting one's word, to speak in ‘de-speaking’. And thus, to produce a sense in a collective gesture of repetition, accumulation and saturation. A sense that calls for presence and remains inaccessible and opaque for those who want to stay away. A sense that requires both the ear and the mouth to travel in the entanglement of the voices and the hospitality of the frequencies. 

Learning to Listen is a podcast format that explores different forms of listening – both listening and not listening – and the knowledge that can be drawn from them. The focus is on learning and unlearning to listen and engaging with internalized mindsets. The main aim of Learning to Listen is to initiate didactic processes intended to help us understand why certain sounds, songs, and narratives are heard and others are not, and to interweave auditory events with anti/decolonial education. The individual episodes are conceived as heterogeneous audio essays; the invited guests have free rein over their concept and realization. 

Language: English 
Available at Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Spotify 

Recorded between August and September 2021 in Port-au-Prince (Haïti) and Saint-Denis (France). 

Concept: OLIVIER MARBOEUF
Texts and Lectures: ROSSI JACQUES CASIMIR, OLIVIER MARBOEUF
With Voices of: SHELO FRANCOIS (PLEB MIZIK), STEEVE PIERRE LOUIS, DARENS JABOUIN, JEFF RON, ALAN SANDARSEN (JUSTICE), DAVID AND JAMES PETER ÉTIENNE (MIMETIK NEG)
Translation: LIZ YOUNG
Sound: VICTOR DONATI

LEARNING TO LISTEN #3 | English, French, Haitian Creole

with TROPICAL DIASPORA (DJ GARRINCHA, DJ DR. SÓCRATES) 
moderated by MAX JORGE HINDERER CRUZ 

DJ and producer GArRinchA (São Paulo, but Berlin-based since the 1990s) and cultural researcher DJ Dr. Sócrates founded the event platform and record label Tropical Diaspora in 2008. Tropical Diaspora Records produces vinyl records and views production as a means of empowerment, as a way of supporting artists and raising awareness of past and present stories of the African and neocultural diaspora – imposed by enslavement, economic causes, and the flight from war and poverty. DJ GArRinchA and DJ Dr. Sócrates will present some of the label’s productions and talk about the founding of the label, which itself is in a state of diaspora. 

Learning to Listen is a podcast format that explores different forms of listening – both listening and not listening – and the knowledge that can be drawn from them. The focus is on learning and unlearning to listen and engaging with internalized mindsets. The main aim of Learning to Listen is to initiate didactic processes intended to help us understand why certain sounds, songs, and narratives are heard and others are not, and to interweave auditory events with anti/decolonial education. The individual episodes are conceived as heterogeneous audio essays; the invited guests have free rein over their concept and realization. 

Language: English
Available at Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Spotify 

With contributions by ABEOKUTA, BANDO, DOCTOR NATIVO, EL SANTO GOLPE, EL V AND THE GARDENHOUSE, FORRÓ DE CABEÇA, GEKAH, HÖRÖYÁ, LA DAME BLANCHE, LA FANFARIA DEL CAPITAN, LA RUEDA, LOS MADE IN BARCELONA, OGUNHÊ, RAPADURA, RENATO GAMA, REGIS MORENO, RIOSENTÍ, SKA MARIA PASTORA, SUPER SPANISH COMBO, TRANSILVANIANS 
Production and Audio Design Learning to Listen: KENO MESCHER

LEARNING TO LISTEN #4 | English

Nikki Solomon - Plaguing (audio preview) from the album "Off the Chain".

Off the Chain

Plaguing

Nikki Solomon - Plaguing ( Official Audio preview)album "Off the Chain"

Inspiration pulled from Eminem's Relapse album, horror franchises Saw, Purge, and Hostel.

Disclaimer: It's a song. No humans were harmed in the making of this song.

Songs that inspired this song: Insane, Underground, 3AM, Framed, Music Box, and Stay Wide Awake.

Wicked

Cancion: Fire
Album: Maquinas de media noche

Maquinas de media noche

Fire

My Love

Breaking Down

2003 (So incredible) tells the story of J Ed’s journey back into music (for good), over Kenny Beats and Denzel Curry’s So incredible beat.

J Ed cleverly recaps the first two decades of his life, with fast, witty wordplay and a heroic sense of pride, as the artist conquers his fears and steps back into the spotlight.

With many references to pop culture, movies and media, J Ed is unapologetically bold and there is much more to come from the artist in 2025, as he breaks onto the UK rap scene, with an innovative sense of honesty, maturity and hunger that can’t’ be quantified, in a cold, numeric world.

2003 (SO INCREDIBLE)

GRAVE WALKER

I was inspired to write 'Shadows' on a sunny day walking in the park.   It made me think about how the shadows get darker when the sunlight gets brighter.   The shadows are a metaphor for that place you go to when the rest of the world gets too much.  That can be a physical place or somewhere inside your mind.  The song plays with the juxtaposition of how shadows get darker in the sun and how in the darkness the shadows just take over.  This song has a chilled pop rock vibe and can be relatable to any age group as it can have multiple meanings depending on how you perceive things.  I started recording it with voice memos on my phone and when I was back at home I wrote the rest of the song on the piano.  Hope you like it x

Shadows

Sweet Heart - (Suf)

Moonlight

Die Akademie der Künste der Welt (ADKDW) bewegt sich jenseits der eurozentristischen Doktrinen der Kulturgeschichte. Sie initiiert, produziert und organisiert Veranstaltungen in unterschiedlichen künstlerischen und diskursiven Sparten. ADKDW [•rec] ist das Archiv der Gesprächs- und Diskursveranstaltungen. Die Sprache jedes Mitschnitts, der als Podcast-Folge erscheint, ist die der jeweiligen Veranstaltung.

The Akademie der Künste der Welt (Academy of the Arts of the World, ADKDW) operates beyond the Eurocentric doctrines of cultural history. It instigates, produces and organizes events in various artistic and discursive fields. ADKDW [•rec] is the archive of its talks and panel discussions. The language of each recording, which appears as a podcast, is that of the respective event.

LEARNING TO LISTEN #1 | Portuguese

Akademie der Künste der Welt (ADKDW)

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