Our Aesthetics: Celebration of Black Sound

— Hush Harbour: A Black Feminist Queer Press

welcome weary sonic traveller!

we are guided by SOSA (aka The Sauce), a soft-spoken sound and music art therapist, who welcomes a new patient for a session. although you may arrive full of doubts and anxiety, SOSA uses the power of Black aesthetic sound to offer solace and healing.

an entirely FUBU call to the heavens, forever out of reach from the white gaze, this episode does a deep dive to unpack, understand, express, and celebrate the nuanced texture of sound-makers that are committed to Black collective aesthetics.

this work was actualized by Jo Güstin, Featuring tUkU matthews, Edythe Rodriguez, Tata Henieriette and jamilah malika abu-bakare

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This piece is part of a larger project called Speech Sounds. Speech Sounds is a 5-part audio-series showcasing sound artists, griots and poets working while engaging in a conversation around memory and culture for those within the African diaspora.
For more see: hushharbour.com/speechsounds

“We’re almost there, my dear.

I want you to welcome joy.

The upcoming nutshell of pure Black joy.

Black freedom. Black poetry. Black longing. Black longing for joy.

Black longing for freedom. Black longing for poetry.

I want you to let your body remember what they feel like.

Keep breathing in and out...

Relax your jaw...

Your eyes...

Your forehead…”

Welcome to our audio altar. Plug in. Relax yourself. Listen deeply.

[Headphones Recommended]

Jo Güstin is an intersectionality writer, playwright, director, producer, and comedian who celebrates Black and queer joy and creativity using fiction and comedy. After Cameroon, France, Germany and Japan, the multilingual novelist behind 9 Histoires lumineuses (2017) and Ah Sissi, il faut souffrir pour être française! (2019) now lives in Toronto (Canada) where she launched the creative production company DEARNGE SOCIETY.

tUkU is a composer, singer, and performance artist, exploring the relationship between words and melody; voice as archive to sonically weave community. A Dora-nominated theatre composer and a poetic songwriter who excels at uniting text with complex harmonic songlines, tUkU honours the place singing takes in Black woman culture. tUkU’s comes to music through a powerful musical lineage, from the Bey family of artists, in Canada and the US, prominently rooted in jazz culture.

Edythe Rodriguez is a Philly-based copywriter, hardcore Bustelo drinker and non-violent Beyhive member. She loves neo-soul, battle rap, and long walks through old poetry journals. Her work is either published or forthcoming in Obsidian, Brown Sugar Literary, Call and Response Journal, and Alebrijes Review.

Hush Harbour is dedicated to the imagining of Black feminism in the tradition of Octavia E. Butler. We create and envision Black futures through literary and sonic storytelling.

Black feminism is our constellation — the pathway towards liberation. Our guiding map along the way as we experience Black joy, suffering, kinship, sisterhood and love.

In this framework, we are rooted in a deep understanding of oppressive systems and barriers against us. And still, we resist. Among the many nuanced stories within Black communities, Hush Harbour seeks to build a home for all our histories and create a platform beyond binaries and borders. Our Black feminism must be readily available to the working class, the mother, the academic, the youth in transition, the cousin and everyone in between. We believe Black culture will heal us and storytelling is one step in the direction towards healing.