To close Black History Month with a bang, and to remind us that, everyday should be Black History Month, we give you this amazing interview with Flora Lucini, singer for Brooklyn based afro-progressive hardcore band, MAAFA.
The band has a demo on bandcamp, so put it on and we can guarantee you you'll start 2-stepping in your room with your fist in the air right after reading this.
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stand for?
FL: Thank you for reaching out to me and for your support, I’m honored to be a part of this. This project came from my desire and passion to create what I wish existed. I grew up playing bass/booking shows in Hardcore/Punk but outside of hardcore, I am also a professional Bassist with a Jazz/Latin Jazz background. I had the privilege of growing up training my ear to various styles of music from the African Diaspora because both my parents and most of my family are also professional Jazz musicians. This was a huge factor in shaping the way I hear music, like, for example, being able to hear percussion parts or re-harmonized arrangements in a classic hardcore song.
MAAFA wants to expand the definition of what Hardcore can sound like, look like, how it is inhabited and performed all while keeping our roots firmly planted in its original essence and through this project I want to bring Hardcore to areas of the world it has never been before. Some of the ways I try to manifest that vision is through musical composition, lyrical content, representation and the community we build around it. I also like being able to apply and share my experience from the music industry and session musician culture with songwriters, bands and musicians in Hardcore/Punk to help expand the way we approach our music.
This is technically my solo project and only my second time fronting a hardcore band. I wrote a bunch of songs, booked our first show which was Punx Of Color fest, 2017 and Hired some of the most talented musicians I have ever met to do me the honor of manifesting this vision with me and now 3 years later, here we are.
The name, MAAFA, is a Swahili word that translates to “Greatest disaster or terrible occurrence” but is also used to refer to the Middle Passages and the ongoing atrocities since then. “Afro-Progressive Hardcore” came from people trying to “define” us and failing every time. It is imperative that black and brown folks take control of our narratives and definitions and this was me doing so. You don’t get to define us if you ain’t us.
You say the message you wanna get across with MAAFA, is one of resistance, love and outrage, and that you write this music to ignite, up-rise, heal, take up space, to assert, organize, demand, redefine and rebuild. Why is it so important to you to show no compromise and are there any songwriters that influenced you to be so outspoken about your/our struggle?
I am influenced by many artists, too many to name in one sitting, that inspired me to create throughout my life and continue to do so today but one of my greatest inspirations to be unapologetically vocal and outspoken about the change I want to see in the world comes from my people. From experiencing and witnessing the myriad of ways my fellow QTPOC/BIPOC siblings and comrades fight for their lives and our lives, every day. I think one day I finally woke up and realized I too had a gift, a platform and an incomparable community that can create change and inspire others to reclaim power over their narratives.
I am a big believer that the systems in place to oppress us are going hard, so our resistance HAS to go, HARDER. Even if sometimes that resistance looks like creating a hardcore band that reflects BIPOC, reclaims our music and scene in safe spaces that center us. There is no “compromise” so-to-speak because I believe that asserting our humanity as more than just valid and visible is non-negotiable and that what we demand for justice, equity and protection are mandatory.
You also mention your ancestors in your bio, who are they exactly and what do they mean to you?
I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and my ancestors range from several regions throughout the diaspora. They are predominately a mix of West African (Yoruba, Oyo State), Francophone-West African (Maternal) and Indigenous North Eastern Brazilian, groups. They are political activists, artists, musicians, Jeli (“Griot”), healers, Iyalorishas, scientists, educators and much more. Overall, hard-working, loving people who raised amazingly strong families under incredibly oppressive conditions from surviving enslavement, indigenous genocide to surviving the dictatorship.
Shout out to my great-grandpa, whose mother was born enslaved and became the first Black-African man to be captain in the Brazilian Air Force and when no one was looking, used his position to transport food/medical supplies to indigenous tribes who were being purposefully excluded from access to basic resources they needed to survive.
Where did you grow up and how did hardcore punk get into your life?
I came to the U.S. in 1991 and was raised between both P.G. County, Maryland and Washington, D.C. I started getting into punk and making my dad take me to punk shows in middle school, lol, I think I was like 13. It wasn’t until I was 15 and in freshman year of high school that I really started getting into Hardcore, became obsessed with NYHC and started going to our local HC shows. The first hardcore shows I went to in D.C. were mainly straight edge shows on college campuses because they were the only all ages shows I had access to.
I heard about those shows through these two kids in my school who liked heavy rock music and who happen to have also been black girls. Eventually, those girls moved on and got into other types of music and I became completely obsessed with Hardcore and that was a wrap for me, lol.
At the time I was starting to gig and book with my family in their professional music community but wanted to also get my feet wet doing the same thing in the HC/punk scene. Eventually, I started getting called to play or work when local bands needed bass players and all ages spaces needed someone to book/work the door at those shows.
My freshman year of HS I joined my first punk band and because there were rarely any all ages spaces, accessible to low-income POC who lived outside the city, a DIY community space in Maryland ran collectively by a group of former “hippies,” older folks that used to go to early D.C. hardcore punk shows and local parents, hired me to book/work the door in exchange for the space to host all ages punk, hardcore and metal shows. I did that for about 5 years on and off at that venue, then when I got older I started working the door and booking at a bar in D.C. proper. Eventually, that experience lead me to major in music business/management and Africana studies at Berklee College of Music. So essentially, booking shows and playing in a bunch of bands is how I got into the scene for real thanks to 2 black girls in high school that brought me to shows.
Tell us about the scene in Brooklyn, the hardcore community, and how does a band like MAAFA fit in there?
Brooklyn and most of NYC, is going through a renaissance period lead and centered by predominately black and brown QTPOC. Not just in hardcore or punk but across the board. There is this resurgence of creative underground communities coming together here and it is absolutely incredible to witness let alone participate in. It truly feels like we are making history as we speak.
MAAFA will always be met with racist, anti-black, Q/T-phobic and misogynistic haters who want to “Other” us right out of Hardcore. We will never budge and they can die mad. There are so many people I love and respect in the Hardcore community, especially NYHC, that is one of our homes. But then there are several problematic folks whom I never expect anything of substance from because intellect is not necessarily that part of that community’s strong suit, therefore, they are non-factors. The rest of us however, are FLOURISHING. Bands like mine are reclaiming the definition, representation and narrative of what has been traditionally known as “Hardcore.”
Black History Month is just behind us. What do you think is a good way to celebrate it and how do you feel about what it means?
I love black history month but I love being black and celebrating our blackness every day. I’m just extra hype in Feb. lol. The month is complicated because of the obvious stuff such as why we need a month to begin with but the reality is we do, we need more than a month and we hope to leave the future generations a world where a month won’t be “needed”
There are a plethora of ways to celebrate the month, seeing black folks happy and carefree and joyous and showing off all the amazing new facts/history we learn while reclaiming what celebrating this month means to us, is my favorite.
Systemic and social oppression toward all forms of Black and Brown lives around the globe, is obviously an issue that is very important to you. What's your experience of it and is it something that you've witness in your musical endeavors?
My experience of racialized and gendered oppression has been layered. It is daily and I experience it in almost every aspect of my life. However, I did not have the vocabulary and access to resources of work by other marginalized and oppressed POC to understand or express my experience until my late 20’s. As far as musically in our scene, I remember many racist, sexist and xenophobic events in my formative years in the D.C. scene that have traumatized me and help shape the way I define what resistance looks like for me. Working to unpack and decolonize my own identity has helped me create tools to be able to not just survive it today but actively combat it through my music and life’s work.
What solutions you feel should be educated to future generations to help rebuild what's broken?
It starts with my generation creating a culture of normalizing accountability and actively decolonizing our identities, spaces and environments. My hope for future generations is that my generation leaves them with an overwhelming amount of works, resources and systemic changes so that whatever challenges they may face can be met with effective resistance.
I have unshakable faith in the future. I come from a period of Hardcore that was youth centered and driven. The culture of hardcore in DC has a huge element of that, of course, like when we think about Minor Threat for example. Protecting the younger generations who are essentially the ones responsible of keeping the legacy of this culture alive is imperative. If we don’t encourage and support them, everything we’ve worked for dies with us. They are one of the greatest driving forces behind why I do this.
If I had to pick some important lessons to leave them with based off of my life experience, they would be:
1. Wait on no one to get shit done
2. Take control of your narratives: Meaning, tell your own stories because if you don’t, those stories will get told, they will be told by people you don’t even recognize, who study us all the time and they will leave you out of your own story while claiming all your labor as their own.
Is there anything else you'd like to do eventually, other than playing hardcore punk, to raise awareness on issues important to you?
Absolutely, I was created to create lol. I have plans, always have, to write/publish, teach, compose, organize and continue building from my passions, projects that are based on servicing my communities globally. Recently I have been weighing out the possibilities of starting a non-profit in the near future.
What's next for MAAFA, is there a full length coming out soon or some touring and how can we support the band?
I’m currently writing the last few touches on songs for our first full length which we will definitely be releasing this year (2020), designing more merch. and prepping us for our yearly festival circuits/out of state tours.
Let's finish this with some suggestions:
Some classic hardcore records we should check out:
That’s gonna be hard to only name a few LOL. I’ll try my best but Let me preface with a few things, lol:
1. When I think of MY experience in Hardcore these are *SOME* of the first records I think of whose music have influenced me, have sentimental significance to me because of hardcore and some whose band members I met through hardcore that I now consider family.
2. They’re not ALL considered “Classic Hardcore” especially cuz some of these bands are not considered “hardcore” bands but may have stemmed from hardcore, influenced it or are beloved by the scene.
3. Almost everything Bad Brains has ever recorded is always first on my list:
SNAPCASE
“Progression Through Unlearning”
IRATE
“New York Metal”
DISTRICT 9
“School of Hard knocks”
INDECISION
“Unorthodox”
STOUT
“Stout N.G.M.F.”
86 MENTALITY
“Goin’ Nowhere Fast”
DAG NASTY
“Can I Say”
THURSDAY
“Full Collapse”
SHAI HULUD
“Hearts Once Nourished With Hope and Compassion”
RATOS DE PORAO
“Homem Inimigo do Homem”
(Classic Brazilian Hardcore!)
BOTCH
“We are the Romans”
STILL SUIT
“At The Speed of Light”
EVERYBODY GETS HURT
“It is what it is..(Born to lose, Live to win)”
CANDIRIA
“Beyond Reasonable Doubt”
BANE
“Give Blood”
MADBALL
“Set it off”
LEEWAY
“Born To Expire”
CRO-MAGS
“Age of Quarrel”
WARZONE
“Don’t forget the struggle, Don’t forget the streets”
GORILLA BISCUITS
“Gorilla Biscuits”
(Self-Titled Debut)
But Also, “Start Today” of course!
Some good books to check out:
“Born Palestinian, Born Black and The Gaza Suite” - Suheir Hammad
“On Intersectionality:” – Kimberle Crenshaw
“Warmth of Other Suns” – Isabel Wilkerson
“Farming While Black”- Leah Penniman
“The New Jim Crow” – Michelle Alexander
“How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” -Walter Rodney
Any interesting documentaries for us?:
The original and ONLY, legit, “Afro-Punk” documentary
By the originator and my dear friend, James Spooner. It’s on Youtube and it is free.
“From the Back of the Room”
By my childhood friend, Amy Oden.
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Thanks so much again to Flora for taking the time to speak to us. Make sure you follow the band and show your support!
Bandcamp:
https://maafahardcore.bandcamp.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/MAAFAHARDCORE/
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/maafahardcore
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