Bio:
Adrian Younge is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, composer, and orchestrator who has produced for entertainment greats such as Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Wu Tang Clan.
In 2007, Younge relinquished his position as a professor of law to find himself at the center of the Black Dynamite phenomenon. He served as the film’s editor and composer. Hailed as a modern blaxploitation masterpiece, the soundtrack was listed in the top 10 best soundtracks of the year by the LA Times.
In 2011, Younge created the album, Something About April, showcasing a dark mix of psychedelic soul and cinematic instrumentals. In 2013, the project was sampled twice by Timbaland for Jay-Z’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail, solidifying Younge as a new sound in hip hop. Younge’s work has also been sampled by various artists including No I.D., DJ Premier, Schoolboy Q, and more.
Younge owns and operates Linear Labs, a recording studio and label. Linear Labs reflects his dedication to the art of analog recording, utilizing analog tape and live instrumentation exclusively. Under the label, he’s produced projects for artists such as Ghostface Killah, Souls of Mischief, and The Delfonics.
In 2017, Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest) formed the band, The Midnight Hour. In addition to musical releases and touring, they’ve teamed to score a myriad of television and film projects: Marvel’s Luke Cage (Netflix), Raising Kanan (Starz), The Equalizer (CBS), Reasonable Doubt (Hulu), Run This Town (2019), Washington Black (2023), Boogie (2021), and Bitchin’, The Sound and Fury of Rick James (2021). Younge has also scored Black Dynamite (2009), Black Dynamite animated series (2012), California King (2023), The Big Payback (2023), Queens (ABC), All Rise (OWN), and Human Footprint (PBS).
In 2019, Younge, Muhammad, Andrew Lojero and Adam Block created Jazz Is Dead (JID): a multimedia company specializing in the production of live concerts, studio albums, television and film. JID concerts have earned an ever-growing fanbase through national and international tours. Under the label, Younge and Muhammad have produced albums with their musical heroes including luminaires such as Roy Ayers, Lonnie Liston Smith, Gary Bartz, Jean Carne, Marcos Valle and Tony Allen.
In February 2021, Younge released the seminal album, The American Negro, his most important work to date. This project, in tandem with his Amazon original podcast, Invisible Blackness and short film TAN, provides an unapologetic critique on the evolution of racism in America. The podcast features conversations with guests such as Chuck D, Roy Choi, Dr. Melina Abdullah, Wayne Brady and Mahershala Ali. For Younge, the message is more important than the music.
In their short film "Artform", the prolific producers Ali Shaheed Muhammad & Adrian Younge share their creative roadmap and studio secrets - encouraging today’s creators to pick up an instrument and discover their identity through music.
Matrix team-member Darius Mans, Economist (PhD, MIT), president of Africare (largest aid organization in Africa), presents Africare award to Lula (2012). From 2000 to 2004 Darius served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola, leading a team which generated $150 million in annual lending, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment. Darius lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador, Bahia.
IV. LET THERE BE PATHWAYS!
"I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
— Susan Rogers, Personal recording engineer for Prince at Paisley Park Recording Studio; Director, Music Perception & Cognition Laboratory, Berklee College of Music
"Many thanks for this - I am touched!" — Julian Lloyd Webber
"I'm truly thankful... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)" — Nduduzo Makhathini, Blue Note Records
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!" — Alicia Svigals, Klezmer violin, Founder of The Klezmatics
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))" — Clarice Assad
"Thank you" — Banch Abegaze, manager, Kamasi Washington
The Matrix uncoils from the Recôncavo of Bahia, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history and from where some of the most physically and spiritually uplifting music ever made evolved...
...all essentially cut off from the world at large. But after 40,000 years of artistic creation by mankind, it's finally now possible to create bridges closely interconnecting all artists everywhere (having begun with the Saturno brothers above).
By the same mathematics positioning some 8 billion human beings within some 6 or so steps of each other, people in the Matrix tend to within close, accessible steps of everybody else inside the Matrix.
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles — jungle and desert and dense urban centers — both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil's national music — the pandeiro — the hand drum in the opening scene above — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil's culturally fecund nordeste/northeast, where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa (Lagoon of the Canoe) and raised in Olho d'Águia (Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil's aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
