RAGGA NYC: The pairing of music from the greater diaspora with electronic music originating in Detroit, being remixed across the history of all that we have made and conjured up for a night is the DNA of RAGGA NYC. At the nexus of these genres and various sub-genres is a shared lineage/universal narrative that we expands the notion of.
In these hella dark/ macabre times: for a Valentine's x Black History Month Ragga we finna "slow it down to a slow grind and speed it up till we drip". We figure why not lean into the lover's corner and gush a bit, even for a night w some rave candy on the tongue. So everything BLACK from 90s slow jams to Light Asylum to Underground Resistance classics. It's all BLACK. It's all mixy, sexy, silly and wet.
I’ve known (for example) Aaliyah had Jamaican roots for sometime so this is less a post about Caribbean people’s tie to multiple genres of music and more so a dedication: To black music of all kinds but specifically to rhythm and blues. To the slow jams of the 90s that carried me through the complicated times of my youth. Music that holds us in times of trouble. Music that confirmed you were falling in love or definitely outtt of love, lol.
I’ll never forget many moons ago Juju said to me “R&B is one of those genres that doesn’t get it’s just respect in mass media/ cross over culture until white folk ‘discover’ it in retrospect. To be like - ohh have you heard of this x track from x past…” lol. Girl. That said this Ragga made space for the hard and soft. The Lovers Corner. Celebrating all that is black from our love songs to OUR techno with our Riddim.
When I started Ragga I wanted to make a space where I’d hear music I don’t get to hear outside my bedroom so we are carrying through the tradition. From a slow wine to a hard bump and grind.