Brooklyn-born and based musician, experimentalist, and multi-instrumentalist Taja Cheek, aka L’Rain, is mapping the enormity of how to change. Cheek has dipped her toes in every corner of the arts, through her work at some of the most prestigious art institutions in NYC and collaborations with the likes of Naama Tsabar, Kevin Beasley, Justin Allen, and others in the contemporary arts. Heavily blending genres (thus making new unnamable space for herself) including but not limited to gospel, jazz, and neo-soul, L’Rain fractures and mends our expectations of what musicians, especially Black women musicians, are categorized to do versus what they need to do (and actually do). 

Her music demands introspection from ready ears with an array of keyboards, synths, and hauntingly delicate vocals that create a genre entirely her own. L’Rain encourages us to listen, laugh, mourn, hum, linger, realize, know, accept, and release who we are, who and what we can be when we allow movements of change to be a necessary component of—not an antithesis to—rest.

Contour will perform an opening set.

Khari Lucas describes himself as a multifaceted artist, musician, score composer, film lover and radio programmer. Contour — the musical alias he started in 2014 — is the vessel for his musical research, songwriting and production practices. Following on from Weight (2020) and Love Suite (2021), the 27-year-old, South Carolina-based artist is set to release Onwards! on October 7th 2022. This third body of work serves as an expansion of his songwriting ability, both lyrically and thematically, beyond autobiographical expression.