Documentation of the Riot Radio Live project.
On June 19, 2021, the air felt different. It was a moment when the calendar finally caught up to a long-standing cultural reality. Juneteenth had recently been designated a federal holiday, but for many, it had been a day of observance, resistance, and reflection for generations. As an independent artist, I’ve always been drawn to the spaces where history is synthesized into something lived-in rather than something merely recited. That is where Riot Radio Live began.
Bringing Kamau Kenyatta into that space wasn't just about marking a date on the calendar. It was about situating ourselves within a lineage of thought and sound. Kenyatta carries a particular kind of wisdom—the kind that comes from decades of meticulous observation and education.
We have to ask ourselves: who owns the narrative of our liberation? When institutions co-opt a day of profound significance, the risk is that the sharper edges of history get sanded down. The beauty of independent platforms like Riot Radio is the ability to keep those edges sharp. We don’t have to appeal to the lowest common denominator or wait for a board of directors to approve the tone of our critique. We simply hold the space.
It isn't just about preserving the past; it's about building an infrastructure—mental and physical—that allows us to imagine a future where we aren't just surviving the systems built around us, but actively reshaping them.
Revisiting this archive, I am struck by how much of that sentiment remains relevant. The technology changes, the platforms shift, but the core task of the independent practitioner remains the same: to speak with clarity, to listen for the underlying frequency of the culture, and to ensure that the stories we tell belong to us.
