Georgia Anne Muldrow: Instrument of the ancestors

We’re celebrating 10 years of MASCHINE by catching up with some of our favorite artists. In this installment, we meet Georgia Anne Muldrow. The prolific LA-based artist has released 19 full-length albums of deep, vibrational music fusing hip-hop, Motown, psychedelic, and jazz, and boasts collaborations with Blood Orange, Madlib, Mos Def, and Erykah Badu.

But it’s Muldrow’s immersive, Afrofuturist style – the way she weaves a sonic tapestry, telling a story with sound – that truly sets her apart. Her Brainfeeder debut, the astral jazz odyssey Overload, claimed a spot on Pitchfork’s 50 Best Albums of 2018.

While she excels at composition, she’s also tech-savvy. Muldrow’s been a faithful MASCHINE user for years – “it’s my favorite pad controller because I feel like it can take what I’m dishing out to it. I’m on the hard setting. We out here” – and she credits it with getting her deeper into sound design: “I feel like I’ve devoted more of my beautification skills into my music that I have into my real life. When it comes to beats I’m a beauty queen.”

All of the above makes Muldrow an ideal candidate for The Broad’s Black Fire Sessions: two nights of hip-hop, jazz, and R&B inspired by their Soul of a Nation exhibit, which features era-defining artworks from the height of the American civil rights movement. It’s here that we caught up with her to talk discuss MASCHINE, production philosophy, and the power of transformational art.

Black Love & War

Georgia Anne Muldrow’s latest project with rapper Declaime as G&D, Black Love & War was released this summer. Listen here:

10 years of MASCHINE

From artist stories and engineering tales to hardware makeovers and birthday freebies, join us as we celebrate ten years in style. To see what’s new, head to the ten years of MASCHINE homepage.

Photo credits: Antoinette Brock