Money Jungle: The Poltics and Aesthetics of Independent Music

Discussion and Performance

Money Jungle: The Aesthetics and Economics of Independent Music with Kazembe Balagun(co-moderator) Gabriella Callendar, Eric Eigner,Jeremiah Hosea(co-moderator), & Tamar Kali


The title of tonight’s presentation references the struggle of independent musicians to develop their craft and build audiences in the face of constant economic pressure. It also inspired by the
collaboration by Duke Ellington, Max Roach and Charles Mingus of the same name, speaking to the joyful process of creation and pushing boundaries of art and politics.

This discussion will focus on the collaboration of political movements and artists as well as the new openings created by technology and the fall of the music industry. We will also explore strategies of developing common ties for distribution of art and the development of new audiences.

Gabiella Callendar is a member of the Mahina Movement, a dynamic trio of 3 women that blend song, visual arts and poetry and released their first album "Speak in the Fire"

Eric Eigner is a musician and member of mysterium, a "project designed to function as a worldwide bridge-way to isolated improvising artists, of multiple mediums, cultures, disciplines, genders and generations, to come together and engage in new work."

Jeremiah Hosea is a musician and one of the driving creative forces behind Earthdriver, a music collective based "a band exploring a new and hybrid approach to music. Instrumentalists and vocalists, painters and poets, dancers and propagandists, all were invited into a common space to share in a free expression of sound and ideas." Earthdriver released their second studio album Earthdriver.

Tamar Kali is a legendary pioneer of the Afro-Punk music scene playing with luminaries such as Fishbone and leading her own Psychochamber Ensemble. Her latest album Blackbottom has been released on Flaming Yoni Productions.


Admission is a sliding scale $6/$10/$15