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Electronic trio Trouble in the Street’s celestial groove theory defies definition. Ableton maestro Andy Leonard incorporates “EDM danceability” into his music along with driving rhythms. But it’s not just party music. His vocalist, Nnedi “Nebula” Agbaroji, conveys the pain of the times while imbuing the band’s uptempo jams with the deep soul of his early R&B and rock and roll. One moment she inflate her hopes. A few songs later she will smash you to the core. People cry at the show.
“I think it’s more cathartic than anything else,” Agbaroji says.
The show is a journey, and “we take people on dark turns,” says Leonard.
Agbalogi says you can clear out your emotions to create “space for people to process their vulnerability to whatever it is they’re going through.”
“And I think that’s what music and art should be,” she says.
Dive into your emotions and dance away your grief as the band celebrate the release of their debut full-length, ‘Satisfy Saturn’, at The Drop’s next release on April 14th at 6pm at Waterloo Records.
The Drop is a live music series co-produced by KUTX 98.9 FM. Each month we feature an artist from the diverse community that sustains the music capital of the world. The show is for all ages and is free and open to the public.
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Trial Time Survival Anthem
The collaboration between Leonard and Agbaroji began in 2014. A series of festival jams performed in her converted school bus inspired her Agbaroji, her back-up vocalist in high demand around town, to share her original material. She wanted Leonard and his Studio Bass partner, drummer Bobby Snakes, to help create the demo. Instead, they wanted to form a band.The trio released two of her EPs, but then lost momentum because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Snake left town and Kenny Schwartz eventually replaced him on drums.)
“Satisfy Saturn” swims in the same musical waters as Leonard and Agbaroji’s other band, the cosmic jazz and funk band Golden Dawn Alkestra, but pulls the listener into a deeper emotional awakening.
“Can I, can I Breathe/Brace for the Fall/ Can’t take it back/When I don’t want to let go/Where no one hurts.”
In the album’s life, it’s the opening breath. The song evokes incidents of police brutality, not by accident, but it also has a deeper meaning. It’s “you want to take on this life, but these things, these entities, these people, these power systems are suppressing it and then holding you back and pulling you back,” says Agbaroji.
A survival anthem, the song centers around the struggle to find connection and resist desensitization. The social structure “creates this division that makes it even harder to help each other,” she says.
“What’s going on with SB 12,” she says. Texas Senate Bill 12 limits drug performance where minors are present. LGBTQ advocates argue that playful representations of queer culture in drag can benefit queer youth. Agbaroji continues. It’s kind of crazy not to realize that most of my friends are queer and blatantly disregard human rights. ”
The album takes nearly an hour. Along the way, there are lighthearted moments and party tracks that trace life from birth to death. The band’s latest single, “Mother’s Tongue,” is a gorgeous ode to resilience that draws on Agbaroji’s Nigerian heritage.
“It’s a love song to the African diaspora, but it’s also a love song to the world, because I want people to know that we all belong to each other,” she says.
Directed by Leonard and featuring Austin dancer Sade Jones, the video draws on Igbo’s masquerade tradition. “I’ve created a gender-bending, non-binary vibe that encapsulates not just the maiden, but the chief,” she says.
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“Can you see the other side?”
As the album draws to a close, Agbaroji shakes off the human coil with profound power.
The title track, “Satisfy Saturn,” is an eight-and-a-half-minute elegy about a seven-year-old girl who died in senseless gun violence in Agbaroji’s hometown of Houston. The girl and her mother were shot and taken to separate ambulances. “She died on the way to the hospital, so her mother never got a chance to be with her,” says Agbaroji.
She watched the events unfold, and the lyrics were played on the day of her child’s funeral. She sings to a child transitioning from life to death, using the metaphor of a plane in which her mother and daughter crash.
“I didn’t I didn’t Do I always hold your hand/Looks like/What my arms can’t do now/I trust the waves.”
Through grief, she lights the way to the deep unknown.
The song challenged the band to dig deep. They wanted to highlight devastating social issues without being hostile. The end result is a masterpiece that will shatter you.
“I don’t know how to fix gun violence,” Agbaroji says.
“All I can do is repeat this story and hope someone feels something.”
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