Ancestral Cadence: Building a Vibe in Music

Please join the African Thought and Media Speaker Series for "Ancestral Cadence: Building a Vibe in Music," by curator, sound artist, and DJ Alexandria Eregbu.

What happens when the body stops dancing? In this presentation, multimedia artist, DJ, and independent curator, Alexandria Eregbu aka 'Ijeoma' engages the origins of dance music genres- disco, house, and Afrobeats music to consider the role of the DJ in contemporary lifestyles and practice. Exploring her current thinking in vibration, ancestral memory, digital archives, and storytelling, join Alexandria as she discusses curating a vibe with recent projects across art, music, and community.

Alexandria Eregbu is an award-winning Igbo-American independent curator and creator whose work spans across art, music, and storytelling in order to consider and produce forums that dignify Black life. Under her stage name, FINDING IJEOMA, she has appeared performing for leading musicians such as Grammy-nominated Uncle Waffles, Noname, Common, Sudan Archives, Ibibio Sound Machine, and Chicago's house music legends, Lady D and Duane Powell. As a DJ, she combines distinct methods of sampling and mixing of found and recorded audio with music genres such as Afrobeats, house, jazz, disco, electronic, r&b, soul, gospel, and hip-hop to amplify femme voices, recall collective wisdom, and invite ancestral memory. Using her curation of music, the Chicago native applies her DJing practice to engage the rich tradition of storytelling in dance music culture and the overall continuum of Black creativity and legacy-building.

Alexandria is a 2023 participant of the symposium, "Afrobeats: Lower Frequencies of Contemporary African Sounds" at Northwestern University. Her work was recently published in The Black Scholar, and she has previously taught as faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).

The event is presented by the African Thought and Media Working Group convened by Damilare Bello and Kasyoka Mwanzia, and is generously sponsored by John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Africa Initiative, Forum for Scholars and Publics, and Lunaris Literary.