Preview: Capitol Sound DC Presents Not.Alone Live from DC9
Meet Not.Alone - Randle (Manager/far-left), DÆTÄ (bass, keys/mid-left), Footz (accompanying drums/mid-right), Marc Amour (vocalist/far-right), and Nomad The Native (vocalist/bottom)
As D.C.’s hot, sticky summer begins, so do live stream performances from DC9!
A few days ago, we hopped on a video chat with Nomad the Native, Marc Amour, and Randle of the DMV’s own hip hop-jazz fusion group Not.Alone to discuss their upcoming live stream performance at DC9 on June 15. We dug into their new music on the horizon, hopes for tomorrow’s live stream and how they’ve been focusing on their families and well-being. Not.Alone will be the second act to grace the DC9 stage since March, and we hope this will be the first of many live stream shows we produce with them.
Tickets for the live stream are available here and all of the proceeds will be donated to LinkUp, an organization that supports change in the DMV and organizes on the principle of mutual aid. Some of their recent campaigns focus on helping tenants navigate their rights during COVID-19 in D.C. and Baltimore.
How would you describe your sound?
Nomad: Hmmm. I think we play around with a fusion of jazz and hip hop, but we also include R&B. An inspiration for our sound would be if you took A Tribe Called Quest and modernized it a little bit with R&B elements. Rather than using sounds, we do more original productions, but it's very much rooted in playing around with our different musical ideas and just being as authentic and expressive as we can.
Marc: Definitely everything you just touched on. It's always influenced by each of our individual music preferences. DÆTÄ's jazz and is classically trained, so he always brings that element and just completely makes everything ten times better. Nomad is definitely the hip hop historian. And for me, R&B has always been the avenue that I go down, so between the three of us coming together, it's always fun seeing what we create, especially since we pretty much do everything from scratch.
When was the last time y'all performed?
Nomad: I think the last show we did was...
Randle: SoFar Sounds, right?
Nomad: Yeah, SoFar in February.
Marc: I think it was February, but it seems like so long ago.
Nomad: Damn...all these months ago!
Marc: The last time we were able to create music together was probably around the same time, also.
But soon y'all will be able to get together and make music again!
Nomad: Yeah, we're actually planning on having a very rare jam session in person on Sunday. It'll be nice to have all of us catch up since the last time we were all in the same room together to have some bro time as well as prepping for the show on Monday.
How do you think the performance on Monday will be different from other performances you've had with everything that's changed in the meantime?
Nomad: I think it'll have a bit more of a jam session vibe than a typical show, just because it'll be us in a room by ourselves. We do a lot to feed off the energy of the people who are in the room with us. It's just a different energy to being in person with somebody, rather than over a streamed platform. But, I think that'll add a different type of charm that people don't usually get the see from us because a lot of our interactions are cracking jokes on each other and playing around. We'll be having some of our brotherly jam session vibes going on during the show, which isn't always what you get when it's live and there's a crowd of people there.
Marc: It's definitely going to be interesting getting everyone back together and actually being able to make sounds in the same room again.
Do you have any projects on the way or anything that's in the works in the next few months?
Nomad: We're in the process of putting together some singles here and there that will come out from month to month. We were initially working on a series of singles in the beginning of the year, and the plan was to drop one single a month for the year as it went along. But, as the pandemic hit and protests ensued after, we have been trying to deal with more of real life. Everybody in the band has been trying to focus on taking care of ourselves and our needs and our families more so than putting out music. But, in the coming months, we hope to get back to that series of singles called "Willing to Barter." And then after that, we still have a lot more content that we want to put forward. Right now, it's a lot of building for us. We want to have the singles come out, we're working on some visual stuff, and then they'll be some more music as we get into the next year.
Can you tell us about the organization that you're donating all of the ticket sales to for Monday's live stream show?
Nomad: We wanted to commit all of the money from our show to people who are directly dealing with the unrest that's going on not only across the nation, but specifically in D.C. because that's where we perform most and that's the city that fosters our growth as artists. Link Up is the organization that we're donating our money to....Link Up has been working with artists in the city and working to try to end mass incarceration. It felt like a good organization to put some money toward to try to help them as they help the rest of us. I’d like to get more involved with more organizations moving forward on a personal level so I can play a more active part. I know there's going to be a long haul. Everything that's going on in terms of addressing police brutality, addressing social and economic inequality when it comes to all oppressed peoples, not even just Black people, but specifically for me as a Black person, I want to be more involved in that fight.
Even after this pandemic resolves and we're able to move forward to have more shows in person, as you said, this is going to be a long fight to keep this conversation going. How do you think bringing back live music eventually plays a role in advancing the cause for justice in D.C.?
Nomad: I think that a way that live music can push the causes of our peoples forward is by being focused on what's going on with people. Rather than making the show just about having fun, we can have them for a cause. Maybe bringing canned foods to help people suffering from lack of resources and donate to a local food bank. If the issue is voter registration, we can host tables where people can get information about voting and the issues in their districts. We can be mindful and intentional about the things that people do, because they are different issues and resources that apply. We can commit ourselves to do that moving forward. The same thing we're doing right now with donating money from the show, that same type of initiative and energy can be done in a live setting as well.
Marc: It's really a matter of being intentional of what you're trying to do with each show and what your goal is - the message that you're trying to get across. Just having meetings as a team and figuring out where the three of us all stand on different subjects to find that middle ground and ways to make an impact.
Randle: I think art and artists are really important in times like today. It's both like an escape and tool for education. Live shows have a captive audience so if we get our messaging right, we can actually disseminate certain messages that people may just scroll past on social media or something. But, informed artists and people that are invested may have a better link to peoples' hearts, and we can spread information that way.
Anything or anyone else that y'all want to show out?
Marc: Shout out to God, man.
Nomad: Shout out to God! Shout out to Capitol Sound and DC9. I want to shout out my friend Melanie, she's the bass guitarist for Purple Hurt, another amazing band in our area. She's a very compassionate person and does a lot of work to help other people. I just wanted to shout her out, because she's been on my mind. And shout out to Purple Hurt, the whole band!
Shout out to Purple Hurt, we love them so much! We miss sweaty, sticky summer shows with Purple Hurt downstairs at Songbyrd.
Nomad - I hope that when things get back to some...I don't even know if normal even exists anymore, but whenever we all get back to some live setting again, I'd like to catch some of y'all's shows.
It'll happen! It's not a question of if, just when! We'll all be back together again soon.
Keep an eye out for upcoming DC9 x Capitol Sound shows! In the meantime, get tickets for tomorrow’s Not.Alone stream live from DC9 at the link below: