Last week, the Pérez Art Museum Miami brought on an unlikely duo as part of its WAVES series, an art initiative curated by Katerina Llanes that highlights collaborations between artists and musicians. Former Danity Kane member and platinum selling artist Dawn Richard joined Fade to Mind producer Kingdom, aka Ezra Rubin, to perform Nexus Re-Morph, an R&B opera that seamlessly blends the two artists’ strengths into one triumphant performance piece.
With multimedia projections from Kyselina, a Berlin-based artist known for his techno renderings that blend organic and fairytale-esque graphics, Nexus Re-Morph took the audience on a musical trip to a post-apocalyptic future. Who would have thought a Making the Band 3 winner and an underground grime-cum-hip-hop producer could come together under one art museum ceiling to produce a next-level sonic experience? We certainly wonder if Diddy could have foreseen...
Below, Fade to Mind label head Prince William talks with Dawn Richard and Kingdom before their show about how they first came together and why all music venues should be more like art museums.
PRINCE WILLIAM: Can you tell us how this collaboration came to be?
DAWN RICHARD: I was lucky enough to meet this amazing guy named Jacky [Tang from Opening Ceremony], and he had been listening to some of the material I had been doing as of late—it was very different from where I started at the beginning of my music career. He thought [Ezra and I] would be a great fit, so I sat down and spoke with [Fade to Mind] and Jacky was right. Literally within a month of that conversation, I stalked both of them—Ezra specifically—and asked him if we could get in the studio. Finally, after multiple stalks, he said yes [Laughs].
PW: Ezra, can you describe what it’s like to work with Dawn?
KINGDOM: After we first met in LA, I sent her “Honest (The Instrumental)” and she sent it back a couple of weeks later, or less than that.
DR: It was a few days.
K: Yeah, she basically sent it back in a few days and was like, “This is what I can do with an instrumental when you e-mail it to me.” She has her own system; she just came right back with a finished, beautiful song so I knew that she was super motivated and super ready to do it.
PW: Can you describe how the visual elements come into play in your project?
K: I’ve been working with this artist named Alberto Troia who goes by Kyselina and is based in Germany. I wanted to tell this story of recreation and apocalypse and traveling through really long spans of time. I wanted to tell this kind of sci-fi story, but also tie it into Dawn’s music and R&B—kind of creating a moody, sci-fi environment for this kind of music, which is completely not what normally gets put with it.
PW: Can you expand on the advantages of performing in an art museum versus a traditional venue?
DR: I think they’re very different. Both have their advantages, but what’s beautiful about performing in a museum is that there’s this factor of colliding different genres together. There’s this inspiration coming from Kyselina and Ezra. There’s this energy that each person’s artistic value b
With multimedia projections from Kyselina, a Berlin-based artist known for his techno renderings that blend organic and fairytale-esque graphics, Nexus Re-Morph took the audience on a musical trip to a post-apocalyptic future. Who would have thought a Making the Band 3 winner and an underground grime-cum-hip-hop producer could come together under one art museum ceiling to produce a next-level sonic experience? We certainly wonder if Diddy could have foreseen...
Below, Fade to Mind label head Prince William talks with Dawn Richard and Kingdom before their show about how they first came together and why all music venues should be more like art museums.
PRINCE WILLIAM: Can you tell us how this collaboration came to be?
DAWN RICHARD: I was lucky enough to meet this amazing guy named Jacky [Tang from Opening Ceremony], and he had been listening to some of the material I had been doing as of late—it was very different from where I started at the beginning of my music career. He thought [Ezra and I] would be a great fit, so I sat down and spoke with [Fade to Mind] and Jacky was right. Literally within a month of that conversation, I stalked both of them—Ezra specifically—and asked him if we could get in the studio. Finally, after multiple stalks, he said yes [Laughs].
PW: Ezra, can you describe what it’s like to work with Dawn?
KINGDOM: After we first met in LA, I sent her “Honest (The Instrumental)” and she sent it back a couple of weeks later, or less than that.
DR: It was a few days.
K: Yeah, she basically sent it back in a few days and was like, “This is what I can do with an instrumental when you e-mail it to me.” She has her own system; she just came right back with a finished, beautiful song so I knew that she was super motivated and super ready to do it.
PW: Can you describe how the visual elements come into play in your project?
K: I’ve been working with this artist named Alberto Troia who goes by Kyselina and is based in Germany. I wanted to tell this story of recreation and apocalypse and traveling through really long spans of time. I wanted to tell this kind of sci-fi story, but also tie it into Dawn’s music and R&B—kind of creating a moody, sci-fi environment for this kind of music, which is completely not what normally gets put with it.
PW: Can you expand on the advantages of performing in an art museum versus a traditional venue?
DR: I think they’re very different. Both have their advantages, but what’s beautiful about performing in a museum is that there’s this factor of colliding different genres together. There’s this inspiration coming from Kyselina and Ezra. There’s this energy that each person’s artistic value b