ÌFÉ
ÌFÉ – the musical/spiritual concept of Otura Mun – is back with a new, sophomore album. The title, ‘0000+0000’ (pronounced Yay-koon May-yee), symbolically point to Ifá prophecies that narrate how the night was born, and how embracing death leads to a new birth – a new chance.
Mun is no stranger to taking chances. The African-American artist uprooted himself from Black American culture and settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico for 20+ years. From there, he spawned his ‘IFE’ concept – a creative union of experiences as DJ/producer, percussionist, and babalawo (a priest initiated in the ranks of Ifá spirituality). Guided by ancestral calls & the need to creatively expand, he bravely relocated to New Orleans in the midst of a pandemic. Knowing the city is widely recognized as the birthplace of Jazz, Mun dove into the pool of African Diaspora culture that lay before him.
His musical intuition took him to the underground, drawing together a team of a collaborators: vocalist Maria ‘Lavoski’ Rowinska, New Orleans vocalist Lex, Robby The Lord (vocalist steeped in the Congolese Sapeur culture of Paris), Yoruban guitarist Saint Ezekiel, and the London Lucumi Choir (whose vocals on the album’s closing track is hauntingly beautiful).
Fans of ÌFÉ will truly welcome this new sweet, dark chapter, armed with more electro beats, dancehall-style rhythms, digitized Cuban rumba, sacred Afro-Caribe chants that keep the music fans mystified. But threaded in every link of the Mun’s productions is a replenished pride in Blackness, in Black America, charged by his ancestors, unafraid to walk the night, ready to watch the world burn. His inspiration behind the album is summed eloquently in his own words:
“In 0000+0000 the sun has set in the visible world. The night and the 'magical’ world has come to life,” states Mun, “In many ways the record is saying the sun has set on Western world. It is the fear of it’s inevitable death that we must overcome if we hope to transcend and survive as human beings. Nothing lasts forever.”