DJ MUTAMASSIK [US]

From the jungles of Brooklyn to a cave in the mountains of Italy via Cairo; Mutamassik keeps relocating headquarters for immigrant punkjaw revolution. She collides South Egyptian sa’aidi hardcore with jungle with baladi breakbeats with hip hop from the Bronx. The sounds have gotten deeper and darker with the years, but the rhythms remain as aggressive as ever. As a DJ and producer, Mutamassik always attacks full on —rough and rugged. But then again, Mutamassik means stronghold in Arabic, with a touch of fanaticism. She defies the tendency to clean up and gloss over "savage" music for the museums. Rough Americana, her project with bassist Morgan Craft, is a reaction to US politics post 9/11. They simply relocated their studio from Brooklyn to the Italian mountains, living their politics and dealing with issues of colonialism, migration and cynicism. Here, Mutamassik and Craft are exploring experiences growing up in the depressive Mid-Western Rustbelt of America, with North African, Italian and Native American mixed backgrounds. The darkness of apocalyptic post-industrial wasteland seeping out and sinking in. Teenage punk rocker experiments in heavy metal bands. Living their politics, the Mutamassik and Craft mission is to "wake people the fuck up" and make them feel something. Protests and marches are not enough. As Mutamassik says, "for those with simple means, may your resourcefulness shine. Lest we ever forget, where one is the oppressed, in another land he is the oppressor." Dj Gavana