North Carolina’s N-Prolenta, also known as Brandon Covington, is an elusive producer. Fleeting productions such as the slippery ‘Penance’ for Serpentwithfeet, or their own ‘Hreams’ Dream’, which appeared on NON WORLDWIDE COMPILATION, VOL. 1. compiled by the justly embattled African-diasporic label of Angel-Ho, Chino Amobi, and Nkisi, showed a fierce experimentalism.
Like NON, N-Prolenta is concerned with the articulation of societal structures, but particularly with the way such oralities “overlap, collude, separate and shift”, causing what they term ‘supraoralities’, which “remain in instantaneous dialogue with individual actors in a sort of call and response”. Acknowledging standardised narratives of disengagement, Convington affirms: “Lots of us have spent our lives and our time disengaging from pressures through the internet. We have had to latch onto, dramatize, and romanticize the narratives aestheticized before us in the media precisely because many of us aren’t invited to aspire beyond the pressures of our impositions”. In their Get Me Bodied mix for aqnb, N-Prolenta assimilates these expressions into a problematic mix of ‘supraoralities’. More specifically, they do so by engaging with components of what they find most local.
“I live in Fayetteville”, Covington explains, an enclave of one of the largest military bases in the US, where there are few options. “For most of us, it’s either school or the military, or school-then-the-military and vice versa if you aren’t looking to spend your life scrambling through various degrees of poverty. We don’t live in an area where there are existing industries that might provide alternatives to these paths. There aren’t many resources available for people falling outside of these, and for many of us it isn’t exactly the easiest thing to relocate at the drop of a hat. These kind of limitations are what we all deal with…”
As a result, the Get Me Bodied mix is an appropriate test of these limitations —from audio thresholds to hierarchical aesthetic boundaries, to the perceived limitations of one’s own energy and feelings —straining and surpassing them through overdrive and overload. Rihanna’s ‘Work’, for example, is overlaid threefold, while the excessively laden ‘Maria I’m Drunk’ channels the already burdened conglomerate of Travis Scott, Young Thug, and Justin Bieber through a piano cover stacked further with Hilary Duff, Beyoncé, German classical and world musician Stephan Micus, and a monologue entitled ‘Feeling Joy Past Limits’ ripped from Youtube. Also including tracks by contemporaries v1984 and Eaves, it’s conveyed equally by the overdriven, distorted sound, resonating with the pressures of audio’s own impositions.
Listen to the mix above.**
TRACK LISTING:
Let Me Hold You – Omarion, Bow Wow
Say It Right – Eaves (Played Concurrently With TheCreeativeOne’s “Feeling Joy Past Limits”)Apple Pie – Travis Scott (James T Wesson’s Piano Cover Played Concurrently With TheCreeativeOne’s “Feeling Joy Past Limits”)
Maria I’m Drunk- Travis Scott, Young Thug, Justin Bieber (James T Wesson’s Piano Cover Played Concurrently With Steven Micus’ “Passing Cloud”, Hilary Duff’s “So Yesterday”, Beyonce’s “Dance For You”, and The CreeativeOne’s “Feeling Joy Past Limits”)
WORK – Rihanna (feat. Rihanna feat. Rihanna feat. Rihanna)
Don’t Let Me Cry – FABIO JUNIOR
Synchronized Joy And Sorrow – v1984
