Fàájì Lawa: Julian Green Takeover

Fàájì Lawa as the title loosely translates to "having a fun time" in colloquial Yoruba. The show focuses on narratives of fun/pleasure/enjoyment as present in music yet does not call for complicity and inaction. Fàájì Lawa is all about emphasising the boundlessness of the Indigenous African identity. This show works to explore various genres, performances, and modes of being from Black/African artists, with an inclusion of personal & historical artefacts.

A message from Julian Green: As the end of this year has been creeping up, I’ve noticed that my mind, body, and soul have been exhausted. Being present with myself, my responsibilities, my loved ones, and my communities has been very difficult, to say the least. The new year ahead also looks to be more demanding than this one has been. So I resolved to undergo a refresh that would allow me to feel rejuvenated and prepared for what’s to come.

DJing has consistently been one of the tools that I employ to refresh. The artistic gratification, euphoria, and deep connection to music that I experience while doing it have brought me up from my lowest of lows. To address the emotional lows I’ve been feeling recently, I set out to create an extended mix.

Certain genres always speak to me at the beginning of a mix-making process. For this extended mix, those genres were contemplative, instrumental and bass heavy, and relatively slow (at 85-115 BPM). They include downtempo, hip-hop, trip-hop, r&b, soul, dancehall, reggae, and a couple variations of rock.

As I was in the process of digging for tracks for my mix, Ayo hit me up and asked me to appear on his radio show, Fàájì Lawa. Coincidentally, downtempo and other related genres have also been speaking to him. He felt that they’d appropriately wind listeners down at the year’s end, and he asked me to focus on these genres for the radio show. This led me to open up my track digging to variations of downtempo from African artists. Classic kwaito, afro-downtempo, and psychedelic rock spoke to me the most during my digging. Together, the songs I have chosen from these genres give me the refreshing and rejuvenating feeling that I initially sought out with my other mix (I’ll be releasing it in late December). I hope they are able to provide the same feelings for you!

With Guest: Julian Green is a Chicago-based open format DJ. Their mixes and sets center their experiences as a young Black queer person, and they concern topics such as belonging, community, love, joy, and care. Their creative process involves drawing from their emotions, the energies that guide them, and their worldwide influences. They channel these elements into a collection of sounds, which they hope enchants their listeners, makes them feel something, and propels them to move their bodies. They have spun at venues around Chicago, including the Promontory Nightclub, Millennium Park/Millennium Hall, Epiphany Center for the Arts, Elastic Arts, Fortune House/The Blk.Room, Promontory Point, and WHPK 88.5 FM radio.

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