Friday, December 4th 2020
11pm Ireland / 6pm NYC
I.NY Friday House Party
B+
Denise Chaila
Peter Curtin
Well, we’ve all been indoors for quite a while. And we may be for a little longer. We’ve felt some things. Unsteady, purposeful, shocked, grateful, sleepy, concentrated, intrigued, sometimes panicked, often startled, confused, defiant. We’ve been busily resting, watching, listening, feeling, reaching out, reaching in, shaping new work, adjusting, preparing, and eventually, presenting. Same as you.
Now that so much is digital-only, and we’re so apart from one another, the condition somehow fits the very thought of I.NY, the deeper purpose of it. . . to try, through stories – some known, many unknown – to shorten the distance between us Irish here at home, and our Irish in New York. That’s an easier gap to tackle digitally, in 1s & 0s, than by plane and train and yellowcab. For today, at least.
Having said all that though, we are ready for some records. And a good tall drink.
Join us for Friday’s I.NY House Party, where B+, Denise Chaila and Peter Curtin will gather online, from 11pm – 1am(ish), and live stream as they play the New York records which mean the most to them, and tell us the stories behind why they do. So link in, turn up your sound system, open a bottle of anything ranging from water to poitín, and tell us what’s what in the comments.
B+
Born and raised in Limerick, Ireland, Brian B+ Cross is best known as a renowned photographer & hiphop archivist, including defining work with DJ Shadow, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Jurrassic 5, Biggie, Q-Tip, Mos Def, Dilla, Doom and many others. LA-based, he’s also Professor of Visual Art at UC San Diego and the author of It’s Not About a Salary: Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles, and Ghostnotes; Music of the Unplayed. B+ still lives in LA, answers his own phone, photo edits for Wax Poetics Magazine, still digs like crazy and DJs from time to time. He is currently working on a book of photographs.
NPR described her as a limber lyricist; The Irish Times credited her with contextualising Irish hip hop; and RTÉ said that her music marries art with a passion for justice and social change. In 2020, Limerick’s Denise Chaila was catapulted into ‘household name’ territory, and became the highest charting female artist in Ireland following the release of her single CHAILA and her Other Voices performance at the National Gallery.
During the past year, she has performed at the Barbican Centre in London, the National Concert Hall in Dublin and the Black Box Theatre, Galway – all three as part of the critically-acclaimed Imagining Ireland series with contemporaries including musicians Imelda May, Radie Peat, Soak, and Lisa O’Neill, and writers Sara Baume, Sinéad Gleeson and Sarah Moss. She performed at the opening of the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) and the National Concert Hall’s ‘Make your own Markievicz’ event for International Women’s Day 2020. She also played the 2019 Red Bull Free Gaff weekend festival in Dublin and made a number of summer festival appearances last year at the likes of Body & Soul, All Together Now, Electric Picnic and Other Voices Dingle.
Peter Curtin
Peter is a DJ, record collector and radio documentary maker. Involved in radio for over ten years, he currently works with RTÉ Lyric FM, presents a weekly music show on RTÉ 2XM showcasing the finest new soulful sounds from the underground with interviews and Studio 8 sessions with Irish musicians and previously presented on SPIN South West. He also presents a show on Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM station – called WW Éireann – which focuses on the best new releases coming out of Ireland. Peter also curates and promotes events for the Prima Volta collective in Limerick, focusing on emerging Irish talent.
I.NY Project Partners
