Black Lives Matter And Trap Heals Partner For A Concert Series And A Cultural Pivot

Cultural, individual, and political spaces don’t have thick boundaries. Their borders blur as our lives move into new purposes and directions. Trap Heals, a cultural architecture firm, and Black Lives Matter Global Network are working to synthesize these blurry intersections for the benefit of America’s communities. 

Their partnership’s next hallmark is a two-night concert series in celebration of Black Futures Month, a term for the afrofuturistic*^{ideation on Black History Month.}

Headliner Zyah Belle performed February 24. Belle is known for working closely with Snoop Dogg and Freddie Gibbs, two titans of Southern California culture. Jimetta Rose headlines on March 3. Both concerts are in historic Inglewood, and the performers were chosen in part for their personal connections to the community.

“Working with Black Lives Matter Global Network over the last few years has been really awesome to help pivot the organization from this really politically centric organization back into the cultural space where it was really conceived out of,” Damon Turner, founder of Trap Heals, admired.

Turner promised, “this concert series is just a testament of what the last eight years of cultural work has been, amplifying artists who are relatively unknown, but deserve the biggest platforms in the world.”

His argument is that political movements should be bred with cultural cloth, that the two forces are, by nature, intertwined. 

“You’ve seen what’s happening at the border with our Haitian brothers and sisters. If we’re looking at policies that our president has or has not moved on, there’s a lot of things to be frustrated about. We’re still in the pandemic,” Turner lamented. “The point of the festival is that we’re able to uplift each other. A big, desired outcome from doing this concert series is to really beta test a new model for how we can service our people globally.”

Turner’s plan starts in Inglewood and travels. “I want to be a global festival that goes to cities, communities that are often smaller markets or not really seen as worthy of investment. And I want to bring a major festival to that city so that we’re not only uplifting the spirit, but we can also uplift folks economically.” He’s driven more than partially by the will to make a better world for his daughter. 

“My daughter was six years old, and she led the first BLM protest when we were still Justice for Trayvon Martin,” he said with pride in his treble and demeanor. “She’ll send me links to influencers talking about gender equity and racial politics and all these really complex things, man. But like, she’ll send me a TikTok link,” he giggled.

TikTok and the TikTok generation primed us for the conversations Trap Heals and Black Lives Matter are hoping to champion, “considering all that backlash that Spotify is getting right now,” Turner said. “Artists are taking their music down and saying we deserve more than three pennies on the dollar.” 

At the spearhead of the dialogue is Pierre Bennu, resident Black Futures Month artist for Trap Heals and Black Lives Matter. His drawing, sketches, and animations will be prominently displayed during the live performances and at the venue in Inglewood. 

He collects and reads children’s books from the 60s and 70s to learn what materials our politicians were indoctrinated into the social world with.

“There’s old ABC, Mother Goose books where there’s wild racist stuff, but that was woven into, and sexist stuff, how they learn language,” Bennu argued. “And I’m saying with art, you can do that. For somebody right now is the old school, and artists have the power to influence.”

One of his featured animations, “Black and Green,” looks to alter our social language. “I visually wanted to reconnect Black people with the environment, with nature, reconnect us visually in that space,” the artist said. “‘It is part of a way larger narrative about gardening and all the things, all the life lessons I’ve learned through my connection with dirt and my ancestors and my parents.”

“Black and Green” isn’t the only thing that is a part of something larger. Trap Heals, Black Lives Matter, Pierre, Damon, everyone who read this article, and everyone engaging in conversations of progress and equity blends political, cultural, and individual portions of their lives. The two organizations, the two men, and the two headlining performers have hopes to labor that liminal space into something Black, green, and culturally relevant.