The second time Reiki Michael Hall played guitar in public was when he stood on First Avenue’s mainroom stage last July. The first time was at a basement punk show a week earlier. The 

, in which the venue’s staff selected 25 Twin Cities musicians, separated them up into five bands, and gave them 48 hours to write new songs together. 

“Courage, I guess, is the word for it,” First Avenue booker Dylan Hilliker says over the phone when I describe Reiki’s limited experience playing guitar in front of an audience. “He just kind of went for it. I think it's paying off for him now.” Hilliker and his colleague James Taylor hadn’t heard of Reiki when they saw his Rock Lottery submission form, but after listening to a few Spotify tracks, they decided to give him a shot. 

Reiki and I sit in Spyhouse Coffee in northeast Minneapolis as we discuss his career — from gospel choirs to punk basements; from the Minnesota Centennial Showboat to First Avenue; from Chicago to Minnesota to LA, then back to Minnesota, and a few places in-between. 

Reiki has just finished band practice at a City Sound rehearsal studio, and his arms ache from carrying amps. The punk-fueled R&B musician carries a warm and kind demeanor and surrounds his intimate stories with an air of mystery. He has lived in LA on two occasions — but the first time is too long of a story for him to tell. He visited his mother’s home country of Liberia for the first time in 2022 to assess land his grandmother owns and navigate local business and politics — but doesn’t get into the details. He is currently experimenting with a newer sound with inspiration from aggressive acts like Turnstile, Jesus Piece, Zulu, Gojira, and Black Sabbath — but doesn’t want to give too much away.

What’s clear is the role Reiki has played for most of his life: performer. He began singing solos at church at age five. Soon, other churches recruited him, and eventually he was singing national anthems at Minnesota United soccer and Minnesota Lynx basketball games. Five-year-old Reiki also started acting in commercials and films, including the internationally acclaimed short film “

.” After high school, he performed in 45 plays on the Minnesota Centennial Showboat.

Reiki’s mother managed these gigs in his youth, and the two have maintained a close relationship. His name is directly inspired by reiki, a Japanese form of energy healing that she practiced during her pregnancy. When Reiki was a child, his mother played classical CDs in the car, and he mockingly imitated Andrea Bocelli’s voice. He preferred listening to rap on his own at the time. In his mid-teens Reiki developed vocal cord nodules, vocal cord bumps that cause hoarseness and can result in lifelong damage, due to voice overuse. When a doctor said he could choose surgery or voice lessons, his mother decided to sign him up for lessons at MacPhail Center for Music.

“Reiki had incredible perseverance, a rarity in a teenager,” says Thaxter Cunio, Reiki’s classical vocal coach at MacPhail. In an email regarding his experience working with the singer, Cunio states, “It always comes down to an open and receptive mind to new ideas, and Reiki definitely had that. In fact, more so than most. There was something about his openness to learning that made him a joy to teach.”

The skills Cunio taught Reiki are applicable to his current work. “He helped me to understand the breath support needed to project, which is what I'm using when I'm doing this hardcore music,” Reiki says.

Although their work focused on building a strong technique based on a classical vocal foundation, they also applied the technique to jazz and pop material, too. “When I listen to some of his music now, I can hear the big voice and wide range that we worked on so diligently,” Cunio says.

With recovered vocal cords, Reiki began writing songs and releasing original work in 2019. He shares intimate aspects of his life story: A childhood moving from suburb to suburb in Minneapolis, beginning at the age of three. His mother had moved her four children from Chicago to Minnesota to distance them from Reiki’s father and an environment of drugs, addiction, and violence. 

At age 16, he says he received a notice of his father’s death from Chicago’s child support services, including payments. The piece of paper with life-changing information left him with questions. As a child, his “why” was a hope his father would someday see him on TV and try to find him. Now, through authentic songwriting and performance, his “why” is a mission to inspire people who have similar life experiences to overcome hardship by loving themselves.

In 2021, Reiki headed to LA to network and record a not-yet-released EP. A planned three-month stay turned into a year and a half. He compares writing music — which can begin in a variety of ways; with piano notes, guitar chords, a melody, or words on paper — to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He left LA when it eventually became clear that in order to tap into pure creative expression, he’d need the safety, financial stability, and family waiting for him back in Minneapolis. 

When he returned to Minnesota in 2022, Reiki wasn’t familiar with the tight-knit circles within the Twin Cities music scene, but quickly made connections by simply showing up to gigs. “Minneapolis is such a small music community, that when you’re getting out to shows and you're meeting people, it's really easy to work your way in,” the booker says. “I think [Reiki] has a real knack for that.”

Comparing Reiki to Minneapolis noise-rock band killusonline, Hilliker notes the wide range of sounds that are angsty, but not necessarily metal. “RUN!,” a collaborative song with ROC BARBOZA, includes fuzz-tone production and frenetic stamina. The single “WATER” feels feverish as the songwriter repeatedly raps “Ain’t nothin’ clean in the water.” 

Even when he careens towards rock-infused rap, it’s with the inextinguishable spirit of swaying grooves and hints of gospel he grew up with. “He’ll play something that sounds like a Ken Carson song into something that sounds like a Frank Ocean or a Daniel Caesar type song,” Hilliker says. The contemplative ballad “chaos” opens with hypnotic guitar string finger picks, and “End of Time” swoons with serenity. 

Reiki’s angst can be felt even more viscerally live. He considers performance an exaggerated version of oneself. On stage, he plays unreleased tracks and wants to engage a crowd from start to finish, “You have to unleash and embody a level of not giving a fuck and a level of confidence in yourself to do that,” he says. “It’s not only just playing your instrument, or singing your song, or rapping your song. It's also letting go.”

“He had what I like to call the ‘it’ factor — that charisma that’s so needed on stage, but with Reiki, this was accompanied by a pure and authentic likability,” Cunio says, reflecting on how he identified the artist’s potential. 

Reiki says he has high ambitions and wants to play “arenas only” in the future. Far-reaching words of self-assurance — inspired by his belief in God and the workings of the universe — are wrapped in humble confidence. He attributes his conviction to the joys that he believes he owes to his inner child. On days he lacks motivation, he thinks, “You gotta keep going for 

 — the kid that wanted his father around, the kid that wanted to be understood, the kid who had so much energy at the school and [people who] didn't know how to handle that energy.”

Despite envisioning extensive long-term goals, at this moment, he’s honored to play First Avenue’s upcoming Best New Bands show and deeply appreciates the local connections that have allowed him to do so. When he steps onto the mainroom stage again, Reiki will be joined by guitarist Jake Beitel (Prize Horse), bassist Henry Breen (WHY NOT), and drummer Jon Lindquist (Raffaella, Brunette, Denim Matriarch), musicians whose live performance styles he respects as much as their technical skills. 

As the conversation comes to a close, Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” comes over the coffee shop’s speakers. As Crow sings the cathartic anthem about embracing one's own path to contentment, Reiki reflects on trusting himself while carrying a guitar onto the mainroom stage last July. 

He concludes the risk was worth it. “When you're stepping into a season of life, or you're trying to step into a new version or a new level of yourself, it never feels solid,” he says. “You never feel like all 10 of your toes are down, but you can embody that and have courage in the midst of that fear.”

{"type":"doc","content":[{"type":"paragraph","content":[{"text":"","type":"text"}]}]}

Macie Rasmussen

The punk-rage, R&B musician shares his story ahead of performance at First Avenue’s Best New Bands.


Kassidy Renee Paige

Reiki on self-trust, letting go on stage, and finding artistic community in Minneapolis 

Each week, we add new music, older tracks, which are known as “Gold adds”, and tracks that might not fit our general format, but still deserve a place in rotation because they serve our mission of showing the depth, breadth, and influence of Black musical expression - These are known as “Variety adds.”

. If you make music and want it considered for rotation, 

 If you want to give feedback directly, reach out to me at jgreen@mpr.org.

Tune in to hear our host Sanni B. live on The Message from 10 AM to 1 PM Monday through Thursday!

Keep all these tracks in one place with the 

 Spotify playlist. This playlist is updated weekly with all the new adds. When that playlist is cycled with new tracks, the tracks live forever on the 

 playlist. That playlist contains all of the music that we've added since the week of July 11, 2022 in chronological order of when it was added. All of the tracks available on Spotify, at least.

Julian Green built and manages the music library for Carbon Sound and oversees content creation.  


Julian Green

All of the tracks added to rotation on Carbon Sound the week of Jan. 1 2023.


Image for New on Carbon Sound Spotify playlist

Natalia Toledo

New on Carbon Sound

Old on Carbon Sound

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of Jan. 1, 2024

I’m happy to announce that Carbon Sound will begin airing mixes from DJs across the Twin Cities starting tonight, Friday, Dec. 29 at 8 PM. Tune in on the website, the app, or on 89.3 HD2 if you’re in the Twin Cities.

I’ll be kicking off this series with mixes that will drop every two weeks. From there, we’ll start introducing folks from the Twin Cities and beyond. Mixes will air every Wednesday and Friday at 8 PM Central. New mixes will drop on Wednesdays and air that Friday and the following Wednesday and Friday before a new one comes out.

All of these mixes are recorded in our new studio in St. Paul. We have a Pioneer XDJ-RX3 that works with USB, Rekordbox, and Serato. If you’re interested in coming in to record a mix, email me at jgreen@mpr.org for more info!

If you like what you hear tonight and these next few weeks, 

Thanks for tuning in! See you at 8 PM on Wednesdays and Fridays.

DJ Mixes featuring acts from the Twin Cities and beyond will air on Carbon Sound at 8 PM on Wednesdays and Fridays starting Dec. 29.


Carbon Sound Sticker and polaroid of DJ on Desk

Carbon Sound

Tune in Wednesdays and Fridays for DJ Mixes on Carbon Sound!

I’ve been DJing for about five years now. My journey with this craft has been a long, winding road. I did a lot of things wrong, but I did a lot of things right, too. I didn’t have a formal mentor. Well, I kind of did but… Long story.

Anywho, I want to use Carbon Sound as a platform to highlight past and present generations of DJs, the tastemakers in the community that get us moving, introduce new tracks, and lead events. Ultimately, I want this to be something that inspires others to pick up the craft and be introduced to the wider community here. There are a lot of cool people to learn from. I wish I knew that sooner.

I recorded a few mixes to get us rolling, each focused on a different genre that I enjoy playing during my live sets and SoundCloud mixes. This was the first mix I recorded in our studio. Combining jungle, breakcore, jersey club, and footwork is something I like to call “Deep Fried Pizza.” I’ll let you guess why.

Recording and producing these has become one of my favorite things to do. There’s so much talent based in the Twin Cities and coming through here on a monthly basis. It’s an honor to be able to highlight that. 

There’s a rich history of electronic music and hip-hop in the Twin Cities, and it’s still being made today.

Stay tuned for new mixes on Carbon Sound every other Wednesday. If you’re a DJ and want to be considered for the series, email a mix of yours to jgreen@mpr.org.

Take a listen to echo’s (FKA ech0astral) mix for Carbon Sound.


echo (12/29/23)

Toussaint Morrison stopped by to talk to Carbon Sound’s host Sanni fresh off the release of his album ‘The Very Best of Ricky & Jane,’ available everywhere now.

The Message - Toussaint Morrison Interview

Welcome back to Carbon Sound. This is The Message, I'm Sanni, your host. And we're gonna do something a little different. Normally we do music class, but we're growing, you know, when we're not just going to hang around in toddler world forever. So we're growing back here in operations, and I am sitting down with somebody that I like I knew them, but I didn't know that I knew them. And so I'm really geeked out and you guys are just gonna have to get the geek version of Sanni today. I'm sitting in here with an artist, activist, actor, three-time national slam poet, writer, Creative Director, moderator, youth mentor, and more. And he's got the voice of an MC ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Message on Carbon Sound Toussaint Morrison.

Hello, wow, you really got all the titles down there.

Man. Okay, this, this young man is being modest. That's the top of the sheet. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the first two sentences we have not got to the rest of the one sheet. Ladies and gentlemen. I'm really super excited for you to be in here. I just I'm just reading your resume, like you are really interesting person. And I feel like if I were to sit here for me to do justice, I would just have to go bullet point bullet point. I feel like we're really good at explaining who we are. And I'm geeked out I'm not going to do really good. So just Can you let us know who Toussaint Morrison is. Give us your greatest pitch.

The best way to explain it is...a pitch? What am I pitching for? My goodness. Is this a LinkedIn interview, is this an unemployment intervention? I know I'm freelance but darn, I didn't know that I needed it. So I guess the thing that ties all that in together is that and what I've learned if anything over the last three years is all of those titles are pretty much you know, they're in service to messaging other people. So yeah, so when you're when you're doing activism, it's messaging other people, when you're doing music, it's publicly messaging other people because you can keep that music to yourself, right? But a lot of that is just messaging other people. A paraprofessional, which you left out Sanni, that's working with messaging, you know, you know, students and working with them and whatnot. But yeah, a lot of it is it's just communication.

Remember when I said he's being modest, I said, I said, and you just heard it. Okay, now we have proof, because if I were to lay this out, this brother has an album, of The Very Best of Ricky and Jane -- I have to sit with music. I'm not gonna sit here and be like, I listened. No, I have to sit and I have to listen. The first song is banging. So you know, in the music world, they hear the first three seconds and if it's not popping they're not gonna listen. So the song demands that I listen to the rest of the project. You've got a new book, a poetry book, a new poetry book. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Not just any book, a poetry book. That is amazing to me. Because like you just said people write poetry all the time, but to share it with people.

So you're terrifyingly sharing album, material, terrifyingly sharing book material. And in between that you're doing activism.

Yeah. Well, activism is kind of like the underlying current of everything.

 So all of that you will put that in the activism bag. Okay.

So my parents met in New Orleans in the 70s. You know, doing community actions. And then they had me and my sister. And we were both raised in a household that was considerably, you know, like, not like, question everything, but it was like, you know, there is a, you know, your mom and dad probably have, you know, files and the FBI and CIA. And you were just raised to learn that, you know, like, the system doesn't always have your interests, your greatest interest in, in favor, and that's it. That's it. That's all it is. It's like, you know, that that guy with a gun, and the person with a gun in a badge is not necessarily out here to protect you. And as a kid, you're like, well, what does that mean? And so when you grow up with that upbringing, you know, a lot of the music reflects that. And I remember when Jamar Clark was killed by police, Minneapolis police and I wrote about it, but I never showed up. You know, I was like, it's too damn cold out here, in my mind, is what I was saying. And then when other things transpired, I was like, Okay, well, I'm gonna be out here. And so I messaged a prominent Black leader in the community. And she said, you know, you want to if you want to get up and speak at the Capitol, this is on May 30, 2020, and I got up and spoke and just kind of never went back from there. It's just a question of Sanni, how much am I going to do today?

Toussaint Morrison NIGHT GAME Music Video

You make very good points. You say, I didn't choose this life this chose me.

I mean, it is what it is. And it's like, how do you choose your trauma? It is what it is like, when I work with kids like the idea is they don't know anything about ethnicity or race. The whole point is, is that a world that has been indoctrinated by, you know, like colonialism, state sanctioned violence and power, rank and privilege based on your skin tone, or the amount of melanin you have in it, you know, then starts to indoctrinate, you know, youth and whatnot. So the idea is that it I don't choose it, it's more so it's the pool that we were thrown into. It's like, are you gonna swim or not? And you choose, you know how much you want to swim each day.

I like that you're saying, this is just my activism. I like this because I think when we hear words like Jamar Clark and George Floyd, it's heavy. And when we think of words like activism, it's heavy. I think all of us are like, what can I do to help? How can I help? And I think it's really cool that you have these different avenues of things that you do, and you're calling it all activism. Because I think it gives people who want to be active -- I think it gives them like, oh, that can be activism? I wouldn't have never seen it as me dropping music, me dropping a poetry book, I wouldn't have put the word activism on that.

Well, you know, but in a part of that is like, Okay, you have Instagram, right? So the idea is that when you post to your story, you can post like, you know, a funny clip from, you know, somebody singing, and then you may post something that's like, wow, this happened in Cleveland, you know, like with the police, then you may post something about, like, another funny clip. In 2020, for me, I did not allow myself to do any funny clips, you know, like, maybe a little bit, but it couldn't. It couldn't be right before or right after something going on.

I hear you. There's got to be some strategy to how I'm showing up here. Yeah.

So the thing now is that when you said what is activism what isn't? I don't necessarily police my feed or what I talk about. You said George Floyd and Jamar Clark were heavy. They are, they are. But I think it's for me, I'm getting to the point where I normalize it in my conversation to say, oh, yeah, I know that they were killed by police. And so yeah, then I went down to mojo to get some coffee, you know? It's like, why can't that be part of the conversation? And me as a Black person, why do I gotta get into like, the melancholy? And the thing is, is that look, the way that it's set up is emotionally, that's part of it. And we have to engage with that emotion. But I don't allow that to like be the entire day or the entire IG story for me, I think it should be normalized that, hey, something is wrong here. When we are in white institutions, when you bring up state sanctioned violence, or you know, any form of racism, or, you know, white supremacy or anything like that, the idea is that it's like, oh, God, we really need to sit down and have a conversation. Now we don't. It just happened.

This is what I think is so brilliant about the whole essence of what you're saying. Because I do think there is a 'oh, it's got to be heavy, it's got to be melancholy.' It can be and that's cool. But that don't need to be the only cover.

Yeah! And, you know, I learned this from Milwaukee. Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the country, and they know it. And there was a brother who actually, he was killed in the back of a police car. They handcuffed him, and he couldn't breathe. And you know, they had the footage and everything. And I remember watching it, and this was back, like 2018/2019 or even earlier. I was like, what the heck is going on here? And I remember being on Brady Street near Sciortino's Bakery, and like, you know, some white dude, at Rochambo was like yeah man, that was messed up, man. And I chopped it up with somebody very quickly about it. Whereas in Minnesota, this is no knock in Minnesota -- the way that you maintain the status quo or system is by scorning somebody passively who brings something up, or entirely dismissing it all together. So in Milwaukee, the way I couldn't get to Minnesota a lot was people in Minnesota be like, 'what do you mean the police?' I'd be like 'they're right there!' and they're like, 'I don't know what you're talking about. I have to go to my job.' But in Milwaukee they'll be like, 'yeah, yeah, no, that's messed up, man. Yeah, saw the footage, it's wild.' So how I got to that, just like addressing something and being not entirely like it's going to domineer my day, It's kind of like Milwaukee. It's like, 'hey, yeah, that's messed up. Hey, do you want to go watch the bucks? We'll talk about it there?' Yeah, I would love to.

I feel like I've seen you more in an entertainment space. I know you do music but then the activism part, that part to me was like, 'so how does it fit in?' And it seems like in your resume, it keeps showing up, but just the way you're explaining it, I received it heavy. But then coming here and you're chilling you got the coffee you know you got a book about poetry. You're like floating, doing it.

Because for it to exist, or for it to exist in me...So me and my therapist sat down and worked this out. So I pulled up outside of MPR here we're recording, I pulled up an entourage of people during a protest to address like white messaging and white spaces in white institutions of media, regarding George Floyd like in the summer of 2020. And the point was, is that I left my job at PBS because they, they didn't say anything about --

That was you? See I know you, but I don't know I know you. Your movements. People are talking about you. And I feel like that's the activism.

Toussaint Morrison - An Open Refusal To Work With TPT & PBS Until They Do Better

That is activism. Yes, you're totally correct. But the other part of it is like, how do you then speak up for what's going on? And help everybody in the room? So there was a point where, you know, we pulled up to certain, you know, media institutions and said, 'Hey, this isn't right. You can't talk about this person like that.' And I credit a lot of this, I have to say her name, Nekima Levy Armstrong. She definitely shaped the way that I look at the world. And so in doing that, it shaped the way that I look at media, and in my part in it. So I had a job at PBS in a show called this is, this is America? No, it was called. It was called America from scratch, and we started off every show with, if we made America from scratch today, would we...And then you enter a question. Would we have state lines? Would they be governed by you know, rivers? Would 12-year-olds be able to vote? You know, like all these things that have been going on and swirling around and civic engagement, And then we ask a question. And there was a question that was floated out during a meeting saying would we give the land back? And the producers were like, 'we can't talk about that." Now, here's the deal. Objectively, the question is, why is that too heavy for them? It's happening right outside your door. It is what it is. Now look, I'm not even floating it out as like an accusation or indictment. I'm just saying, can that be an episode? Now, who does that make feel uncomfortable? Well probably a lot of the white people that donate money to PBS. So we can't make them feel uncomfortable. So we got to pause that conversation. But now the question is going further is, I come back to what I said earlier, we can't talk about X, Y, and Z, because it makes so and so feel uncomfortable. But in doing that we maintain the violence that's happening. And I said this at an action the first day of the Derek Chauvin trial, I said, I want Derek Chauvin to be found guilty, because I want your white child to know what justice is. And so when you live in a world -- and we go back to June 14, 1920, in Duluth, there were three Black men that were hung, lynched to an all-white crowd in Duluth. And that's a thing, that's a thing on its own. The other thing, Sanni, is that there was a picture taken of these three young Black men hung in front of an entire white crowd and they're all smiling next to them. That's another thing. And the issue is that those people in that audience and that crowd grew up thinking that's okay. And then what the person that was alleged to have been assaulted, and the physician found no signs of assault, white woman who was alleged to be assaulted in June 14, 1920, by these Black men, they lined up 20 Black men. And then she picked out three of them. And that woman, her grandson, or her great grandson, then grew up to be the chief of police in Duluth. So the thing I offer to you is that it doesn't stop there. And so if we don't address it, if I don't say, 'hey, PBS, something weirds going on here, that's kinda strange dog.' Or MPR, 'something weird going on here. Hey, can we talk about this?' Or 'why did you label that young Black man a suspect when he wasn't?' Amir Locke, Star Tribune. There's an issue there. And if I don't, if we don't say something -- and hey, it's not burning down an AutoZone. It's just at the dinner table saying, 'Hey uh, that was weird.'

But I'm gonna say the dinner table can get lit though. I mean, we coming up on the holidays. I know, y'all know, about to be the most lit spot in the house. So now here's my next question. Keeping all that in mind and you make understanding that, hey, when I bring this up in this space and make certain people uncomfortable, then this messaging is untouched, and it's passed down. So, are all of these avenues of your work -- Is that a response to that? Or is that just you being you and it just intersected?

I don't prioritize white comfort. And the thing is that Minnesota prioritizes white comfort. That's what PBS was doing. That's what even here was doing, Star Tribune was doing. You mean in the messaging, the messages that makes? In the messaging, in the staffing in the wording, in everything. I remember Fong Lee, young Southeast Asian man, killed by police here, and there were murmurings of it. And I was like, 'What's that all about? That's weird.' And then I remember Terrance Franklin, and that's when things got really hot. 2013 I was driving uptown. I remember there was a chopper in the sky. Traffic was locked up. And I remember seeing like a cop, like, do probably 50/60/70 on Lyndale or Hennepin. And I was like, 'the heck's going on here?' You know, they killed Terrance Franklin in uptown. And then I was like, 'the heck is going on here?' And then they said, 'Well, what happened?' and they're like 'Oh, you know, he grabbed one of our guns, dog. And we had to uh, you know, it was wild, you know, we'll um, press conference in a few days.' And say, 'Oh, well, that's strange.' But then when Darnella Frazier, when, you can't get ahead of the beat. And the video just comes out, of so and so being choked out or killed, murdered, state sanctioned violence by the cops, you can't get ahead of it. And you can't change anybody's mind. And Mike Freeman stood up in front of everybody and said, "Jamar Clark said, 'I'm ready to die.'" And I was like, hold on. What do you mean? Like, what? And I'm like, that don't make no damn sense.

I remember that now that you said it like that.

And then Nekima and somebody else stood up, and I was like, 'What's going on here?' And then clicked off the channel. I went somewhere else. I went somewhere else. Because it made me feel uncomfortable. But then when we have to dive into that, and what my parents dealt with, is that they were like, 'This Vietnam wars funky dog. I'm not finna sit at the dinner table and be like, oh, yeah, this is cool.' And then they get sold on, you know? Well, the Vietcong are terrorists. And so they're like, Yeah, but hold on a second. Why are we going up Hamburger Hill a 100th time? And look, objectively, that's a great question. Why are you there? Why are we here?

That's why I mean, that's why the messaging is the way the messaging is so you don't start asking questions like that.

And the other question is, whose interests? Whose interests are we funding? Like, what? And so those questions, regardless of where you stand, and like, you know, you could be, you could be pro cop and be like, 'Why is he a training officer with his knee on that guy's neck?' What else is going on here? And I think you can talk about the stories you can talk about your breakfast, or your coffee, and address, you know, like, yeah, there's a cop out there. I wonder for who? I wonder who called that in?

I love how you lead me there, and then you kind of lift. Like you know, what are you gonna Toussaint?

Look, man, I'll tell you this, like the whole thing, like there's the economic -- when you get down to it and my dad, such a cryptic man -- so the album is The Very Best and Ricky and Jane, my father's name is Ricky, my mother's name is Jane.  They met under the umbrella of activism. And they, they had me and my sister in New Orleans, under the umbrella of activism. But also in New Orleans, where you party, you let loose. But people do it in a way that's, you know, it's just cultural. It's not like, today's the big party. It's like, 'dog, you want to get after it?'

There you go Sanni. Sanni, you get it dog.

It's a silly question I have to ask, but artistically, we all approach different projects differently. How much of New Orleans is in here, aside from mom and dad?

Dear God, it's all New Orleans. Like it's entirely that like, there's a Fleur de Lee nearly in everything.

We'll see here's the thing, I lived in New Orleans from '82 to '86. My parents split they brought me up here. Well, my mother brought me up here. And then I went back to visit my father, you know, every now and then. But then I would go to Detroit with my dad to visit the family out there. And the thing was, is that look, man, it's nothing to any other city in the country or the world, but New Orleans is so specific. It's so unique. It's so one of one, that you can't, you can't get away from it. And so noting on that, that's what this album is about a lot. So when I was in New Orleans, I had a thing happen where I woke up -- I came down, and I was hanging out with my sister and my dad. Now I had been in New Orleans many times before this, but this was the first time I've been in New Orleans after going to therapy. Started therapy in 2020. And I woke up in the middle of the night, Sanni, woke up in the middle of the night, on Magazine Street in the bed. And there's a scene from a comic book where the Hulk is attacking Earth because he was done dirty by Reed Richards, and they call this dude The Century. Now, I'm not saying I'm The Century, but I just, I remember the scene from the book. And I literally was in it doing the same thing. They call The Century. Now The Century is like this super powerful superhero, but he's not really a superhero. He's more just a conflicted dude with a lot of powers. And The Century is agoraphobic. So he's afraid of the outdoors at this point. They call him like, 'Yo, bro, we need your help, man, we need you to handle the hog your homies with him. We need you to like straighten him out.' And The Center, he's like, 'got it.' And there's like several pages of him standing in a doorway, just looking out of this trailer home, and he just can't leave. But Sanni, he's standing there, fists on the hips. But he's also like, I can't leave because I'm terrified. I woke up in the middle of the night, sleepwalked to the doorway. Opened the door, in my underwear. And then just looked out to Le Boun Temps Roule, which is a 24-hour bar, mind you, on Magazine Street. And I just stood there in the doorway. And my friend was like, 'hey, what you doin’?' And I was like, 'oh, yeah, yeah, I should go back to sleep.' Went back to sleep. The next night. I had an Airbnb. I woke up in the middle of the night. And I was looking out the window. And then I went back to sleep. This is my theory on a cellular level when you -- for those four years that I grew up in New Orleans, I watched my parents actively split up. My sister was born in '86. And they were just like, sister bye, she was she was raised in Minnesota. She didn't see the fighting and she didn't hear the yelling. She experienced it in a different way, not to dismiss her experience. But for me, I grew up in a household with people just screaming at each other.

They say that even though you got siblings, them different parents.

Straight up, yeah. So in New Orleans, there's still unfinished business to this day for me. On a cellular level. And my body was, as a, at that point a 39-year-old man responding to the --

Right, to your environment, where you're at.

 And that was wild to me. And so once I figured that out, I was like, 'well, I gotta write through this.'  And so here's this album. Here's this book of poetry. So this is me actively working through like a lot of that, you know, like, dealing with the fights or like being born in the warfare, like, you know, a lot of stuff in the DSM that you grew up with as a kid that you're like, 'oh, that person was doing that. That's wild, man, I don't even know that.' So, yeah, it's unraveling a lot of that in the album.

So when did you decide I need to write this down? Was it the therapist? Was it your friends being like, 'hey, homie, you've been sleepwalking.'

The first time was in New Orleans -- that time two years ago. Yeah, that was when I actively understood it. There were times where I woke up on the couch. And I'd be staring out a window. And I didn't understand why you know, and that would happen just alone.

Wow, no, I love this. I love all of this. I was like, When are we gonna talk about your music? Nah but you a artist so I understand. There's a method, you gotta method. I love the way this came to this experience of your mom, your dad your sister, New Orleans, Detroit, Minnesota. I love this.

Yeah, it's a whole it's a whole story, Sanni.

See, and it seems messy, and I love that.

Toussaint Morrison stopped by to talk to Carbon Sound’s host Sanni B. fresh off the release of his album ‘The Very Best of Ricky & Jane,’ available everywhere now.


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TOUSSAINT MORRISON - NIGHT GAME

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The Very Best of Ricky & Jane

Interview: Toussaint Morrison on The Message

 by Azealia Banks could be classified as a religious text. With a few simple lines, a crowd thrashes, a sweaty room keys up to one hundred: “What you gon’ do when I appear?/W-W-when I premiere?/Bitch the end of your lives are near!”

The cultish fervor is well justified. A nimble blend of hip hop and house, “212” is an indelibly catchy celebration of both queerness and Banks’ native New York. Its 2011 release hit the culture like a lightning strike, and in turn introduced the world to Azealia Banks.

“212” later made its way into Banks’ first and only studio album, 

 (2014). This November marked nine years since the release of the LP. Almost a decade later, 

 is still fresh and fascinating. Loose and maximalist, the record is held together solely by bravado, genres and storylines bending to Banks’ will. Electroclash cut “Heavy Metal and Reflective” makes 

 amid bracing synths. Album opener “Idle Delilah,” which reportedly cribbed its tropical beat from a free iTunes download, chronicles the tale of a 

plantation owner's daughter killed by her father’s slaves

. UK garage beats melt into steel drums. ‘90s trance gives way to glossy house. 

“Looks and such, seductive strut,” Banks raps on “Desperado.” “I be Aquafizzy or that Passion Punch.” The rapper’s penchant for consonant-heavy, internal rhyme makes for an entertaining listen, with couplets meant to be spat or shouted.

“Gimme a Chance” is a particular standout, sampling a 

 and cushioning it with horns and DJ scratches. “Gimme a chance, I will have to make you dance,” the hook blares. It’s a thesis for the album itself, an atmospheric and ballroom-ready tour through Banks’ psyche. In a stroke of genius, Banks dovetails the whole affair with a bachata-influenced outro, sung entirely in Spanish. 

I say all this while ignoring the elephant in the room — Banks is mired in controversy, to the point where her internet spats have long eclipsed her music. Once on the brink of stardom, her career quickly torpedoed after 

 (the rapper has come to blows with everyone from 

). Banks also gets more than well warranted hate, facing extremely valid (and recurring) accusations of 

Concessions can be made. Banks has faced her own series of woefully bad breaks, from an abusive upbringing to struggles with bipolar disorder. In a 2016 Facebook post, Banks shared, “When you’ve been trying to engage the public with music and share with via music them [sic] your personal struggles with mental illness but they just refuse to pay attention. Instead they joke and prod at you and say you need a doctor yet have no idea about the type of uncontrollable chaos that goes on inside your head.”

 also came about in dismal fits and starts. After famed producer Diplo discovered Banks’ MySpace, she was, seemingly, on the precipice of greatness: Legends Nas and Q-Tip gave her their ringing endorsements. Kanye West at one point clamored to sign her. The 

 hailed Banks as the “next Nicki Minaj.”

In a flash, Banks’ luck took a sharp downturn. Her first label, XL Recordings, signed her into a paltry $5k development deal, then proceeded to only send 

 rejected beats her way. Banks’ demos were met with confusion and disapproval, execs concerned that Banks’ work lacked commercial appeal. Calls and emails to the label went unanswered. 

“I remember [XL] signing Odd Future around the same time and being very, very jealous,” Banks shared in a 

. “They were being mentored and I was left by the wayside.” 

After hearing early cuts of “212,” XL finally dropped Banks in 2011. (In retrospect, this was a cosmically bad decision. Since then, Rolling Stone has named the track 

Her next deal, jointly made with Interscope and Polydor Records, was more of the same. It came to a head when Banks 

 out of her contract. “I’m really in hell here,” she tweeted. “I’m tired of having to consult a group of old white guys about my Black girl craft. They don’t even know what they’re listening for or to.”  

After wrestling her work away from her former label, Banks signed to Prospect Park, finally releasing 

 in late 2014. After years of underpaid, undervalued work, she had issued a record on her own terms, to not an insignificant amount of praise — Pitchfork dubbed Banks a “true rapper-singer double threat.” Spin deemed the LP “a project dripping in confidence, class, brilliance, and personality.”

It was a victory short-lived. In the years since, Diplo has faced multiple allegations of sexual abuse (including from 

). In 2020, Banks’ former manager and Prospect Park head Jeff Kwatinetz sued her for extortion, to which Banks swiftly 

 for “breach of contract, fraud and deceit, claiming [Kwatinetz] groomed her.” 

In the midst of this gruesome legal battle, Banks pleaded for fans to stop streaming the album: “Jeff Kwatinetz stole all the money and sent a $15k check for an album that has been streamed over 200m times. The pain I feel right now is so deep. I lost ‘212.’ I worked so hard on that record. But every stream goes into his pocket.” 

This is true: Banks and her producers have 

 since 2020. In short, no one was paid. No one won. The lawsuits are still ongoing. In an effort to reclaim her work, Banks recently 

 plans to re-record the album, but no further information has been disclosed. 

It all gives Banks’ belligerence a tad more context. 

 of Banks’ tiffs stem from artists “she fell out with at some point during their collaborative process,” including Pharrell, Disclosure, Lady Gaga, TI, and last but not least, Kanye West. (My personal favorite Banks quote eviscerates the latter: “In the future, when you’re walking down Times Square and you see Kanye West drinking [a] flat Sprite out of a McDonald’s cup out of the garbage can, you can bring it all back to this moment.”)

What also often gets lost in the muck is Banks’ sheer youth. At only 17, Banks had signed a major record deal, dropping out of high school to do so. Most of 

 was written from ages 19 to 22. While most people her age attended college, Banks was grappling with grisly label politics and music industry bias.

, Banks initially peddled the LP as an ode to adolescence, to growing up broke in New York: “[While making this record,] I was raving a lot and wasting time at parties… you’re running around the city with your MetroCard trying to get free weed and free booze and stopping at your mom’s to eat. That’s that ratchet-ass teenage shit… Shit was grimy but those were like the best times of your life.” 

still stands as glossy, dizzying work, brimming with promise. Like all great music, it makes you 

 with Rolling Stone, Banks herself put it best: “Every time I hear ‘212,’ it riles me up… I feel like my wings are going to break out of my shirt. I’m ready to fight; I’m ready to fuck; I’m ready to run; I’m ready to drink. Let’s go.”

Fatima Rahman

Take a look back on the impact of Azealia Banks’ seminal album with Fatima Rahman.


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