GODINI

I remember the tension and release of listening to chopped-and-screwed songs way back in the 1900s. It also puts me in mind of watching Zulu dancers. One dancer raises a leg high, then stomps it rhythmically onto the ground while the audience provides percussion. The athleticism and rhythm are exciting, but what stays with me is the tension and the release of that stomp.

GODINI began with an idea about sound passing through a hole. There is a place in Zimbabwe called Esgodini; I use Godini as a contraction meaning “a hole.” Think of putting a phone in a box to amplify it: the echo changes. The deeper the hole, the stranger the music feels as it bounces around and reflects, slows down, and takes on something like a Doppler effect.

I wanted to explore soul and trap-soul songs passed through that deep space, with the chopped-and-screwed influence and the sensuality of intimacy laid out plainly.

For the cover, I imagined acrylic-like depth mixed with stone-like structures and images of distant constellations seen through a telescope.