Adeline Reminds Us That Protesting Is In Our History and We Can Find Our Voice

Our Tower Instagram Live show hosted indie artist Adeline, who has recently released the “Twilight Challenge” EP, a collection of artists adding lyrics to the same instrumental piece released as a B-side with her single “Twilight”. Proceeds from the EP will go to charity. Whitney Moore asked if being isolated has been a challenge for Adeline in doing work on her own, and she commented that “creativity comes from necessity”, and she has attempted to “make lemonade out of lemons”. She feels this time forced her into the video aspect of her career when she might not have otherwise directed her own stuff. Moore explained that she’s been hearing that musicians feel pressure to be productive right now and asked if Adeline has felt that too. Adeline feels that things have gone in phases with “Part 1” of Black Mirror, which was Corona. She pushed herself to work during that time and try not to get “stuck”. She wanted to do as much as possible and try not to get distracted, but then when the next phase hit, which was Black Lives Matter, she felt “fully paralyzed” by it. She had conversations with her team and manager, and they decided to change the release date for her EP because for 10 days she felt “frozen” in terms of her creativity and career. Instead she needed to dedicate her time towards the cause. Did her experiences inform her music? Adeline says that they have influenced her a lot and “helped” her understand even what it means to be a musician and what her “message is” as an “immigrant black woman living in the United States”. It’s actually a “walking protest” to be those things, and she didn’t realize that before. When Black Lives Matter was starting off, it felt inappropriate to post about her music, but after sharing and “opening up conversations”, she realized that was a “way of fighting”. She released a video online saying that she’d be using her voice for “the cause”. About an hour later, one of the marches went by her street in Brooklyn. She felt compelled to join with some friends, and they walked out of her house, joined the protest, and as they reached the Barclays Center, the leader with a megaphone asked for someone to speak. She felt “called to the altar” and she took the megaphone and started singing. Adeline felt this was really an answer from the universe about how to use her music related to this cause. Moore observed that Adeline has been connected with fans in new ways online, doing livestreams and more, and wondered if she’ll continue to do that after quarantine. Adeline loves connecting “through the stage” but being able to “communicate directly” has been very positive and it’s something that she hopes to keep doing. It’s good to know that you can perform for people “around the world by staying home, and it’s possible, and we’ve all gotten better at doing it”, she said. One of Adeline’s videos, for “After Midnight”, reminded Moore of getting ready to go out at night and she found it really “joyful”. Adeline said that the description was very apt, since that’s what she intended. She’s “slightly embarrassed” about the video, but she just dove into making it, and said, “Fuck it!” The minute she started working on it, she felt like it was a “physical manifestation” of how her mind works when making music, but acted out when trying to find outfits to go out, instead of composing. She said that she decided in the video that she wanted “to make a fool of myself”, since she was stuck at home making the video. The song itself is “bittersweet” but also “joyful”, Moore explained, and said that Adeline really “knocked it out of the park”. In the video for “Twilight”, there’s a strong vintage feel, Moore said, and asked more about the “Twilight Challenge” that Adeline ran and created. The organization “Until Freedom” was created by Tamika Mallory and she started it with a similar message to “Color of Change” and “Black Lives Matter”, but Adeline wanted to highlight this smaller organization. View this post on Instagram So proud to announce the release of the #twilightchallenge EP tomorrow !!! A couple months ago I released a single called Twilight, with its instrumental as a B side. I launched a #twilightchallenge asking people to write their own songs to the instrumental. I was SO blown away by the versions that were created that we decided to release an EP with a collective of artists of colors from all over the world (France, Brazil, US...). TOMORROW Juneteenth, the #twilightchallenge comes out, with all proceeds going to @untilfreedom ✊🏽 Feat @jonathansingletary (Brooklyn, NY) , @lisko (Nancy, France) , @vildaray (Los Angeles), @estreladalva & @lucasafonsooficial , @syndeewinters (Miami) , @paze_infinite (Bronx, NY). Each one of them put such a unique and fire twist to this track, I can’t wait for you guys to hear! Please make sure to check out these guys’s work. To everyone who participated in the #twilightchallenge , thank you SO MUCH for sharing your gift. Support black music ✊🏽 A post shared by [ad•uh•leen] (@adeline) on Jun 18, 2020 at 3:01pm PDT The “Twilight Challenge” started in early April, soon after the song came out, when they released an instrumental as a B-side. A French rapper released the instrumental with his rapping to the music, and Adeline loved it. A friend suggested that she do a “Twilight Challenge”, and so many people submitted versions that it was “overwhelming”. But they picked out recordings from all over the world from people of color to put out as the EP. The idea was to “give a voice to black artists all over the world”, said Adeline, who is international, having been born in France, and she wants to highlight that racism and police problems are worldwide issues. “Protesting is in our history.”, Adeline reminded, regarding both France and America. Adeline has had her work re-mixed before and has some new remixes out. Kraak and Smaak have done remixes of a couple of her tracks before and they knew of each other. “After Midnight” was the perfect song to remix, so she reached out to them, and they said ‘yes’ right away. Adeline did wonder how it would “work” since people can’t go to clubs and dance right now, but it seems to be working. The EP Interimes is titled with a “made up word” and is coming out July 10th. She made up the word with her brother, Adeline said. She loves the band Outkast, who have made up words, and also Prince did that. So the word has to do with the fact that the songs each take place at a different time of day, so the Latin word “Interim”, which conveys the spaces of time between hours of the day is relevant. It’s mixed with the French word for “rhyme” as well. Moore brought up Adeline’s background as the front woman of a dance band, and asked how she’s grown as a musician since releasing her debut solo album in 2018. Back in the band Escort, she didn’t have as much involvement determining sound and directions, but now it’s all in her hands. Adeline said that she had “so much music in me” and things she wanted to do, which led her to leave Escort. Adeline has produced all her music with Morgan Wylie, who was in the studio with her. She got together with him due to his keyboard skills, and they ended up making a track together, then a whole album together, and it was a “great learning process” for her. He’s very good at “allowing people to express their creativity”, Adeline said. It was around 2016, and the start of the Me Too movement, and she wanted to be a “woman who produces her own music”. It was very important to her to be able to convey to other women and young girls that “music has nothing to do with gender” and a woman does not need a man to make music. Asked if she has any advice from what she learned during that time, Adeline said that what worked for her was to “not care about what other people think”. That pushed her to get started with a solo career, and also the fact that Prince died, who was her favorite artist. It was very emotional for her to lose him, and it reminded her that there was urgency in her work and she needed to get started. Hearing other artists talk about him, and the fact that they admired that he didn’t care what people thought of him, pushed Adeline to make music that speaks to her. She says that the “truer you are to yourself”, the more people will “connect”. Asked if she has an ideal situation for fans to listen to her music, Adeline said that it wouldn’t necessarily be driving because she’s a New Yorker. For her, it’s kind of sad that she imagines that people listen to her music as “background music”, but what she means by that is that it is “music that can accompany you at any time of the day”. It works for all situations, she feels. In this “streaming world”, she understands that situation, since Adeline has music “constantly on” throughout the day. It’s there, and she needs it to be there, even though she’s not consciously listening to it all. The first thing she listens to when she wakes up is bird song, then she meditates, then she has a play-list with The Silvers, and a mix of East African and West African music. There’s also music from Zimbabwe, M’bira music, that she loves to listen to for a calming influence in the morning. Then she heads into “old school Soul music” like Marvin Gaye. When she gets ready for a show, it’s “only Prince or Chaka Khan”, Adeline laughed. Moore brought up Adeline’s sense of style and asked what she wears to cheer herself up and whether she’s been building outfits in quarantines. She’s been wearing a lot of tights and sweatpants in quarantine. She’s started biking a lot, so she has a lot of different types of “cute biker shorts” with prints and colors, even tie-die. She doesn’t think “outfits need to make sense” and she tries to go in opposite directions on that. Asked about Tower Records’ motto, No Music, No Life, Adeline said that personally, her “whole life revolves around music”, so there would be no life for her without it. She can’t imagine a life without music. The motto is “more an answer than a question”, she observed, to the question, “What does life mean to you?” Adeline’s words for fans were “support independent artists”. She thanked people for listening to her, since she’s independent and “not part of the machine” herself. She also asked for people to “support Black Lives” and “have conversations, do something”. She mentioned the Okra project for Black Trans Lives. She encouraged fans to reach out to her with questions, too.

Adeline Reminds Us That Protesting Is In Our History and We Can Find Our Voice

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