Moor Mother’s sound resonates inside these genre-crushing spaces: low fi/dark rap/chill step/blk girl blues/witch rap/coffee shop riot gurl songs/southern girl dittys/black ghost songs. Her work is autobiographical, with her often declaring to the crowd she plays live to that, “Everything I do is a true story”. Moor Mother has spent over a decade in the Philadelphia underground scene reimagining the sound of protest songs, giving them electric, abrasive, rich and hollowing undercurrents that sweep the listener up with lyrics about systemic racism, historical trauma, alongside black theory, intersectional feminism, and Afrofuturist quotes. Her work can often be found through her live performances and tracks; she has also published two books of poetry, Fetish Bones and Analog Fluids. In 2016 she also created a work entitled Hour/Shift, which was performed at Vox Populi and took the form of a 14-hour endurance test, “a sonic act of protest” in solidarity with survivors of domestic and sexual assault. In addition to her art, she is also one part of the community collective Black Quantum Futurism with her partner Rasheedah Phillips. For this biennale, Moor Mother will create a listening room that explores her total vision of sound, spoken word, protest, and empowerment. Concrete-heavy, abrasive, and measured, her sonic messages are both a call to action and a reflection of what has happened.

Loom, 2021
Original sound piece, 5’09’’
Courtesy of the artist
Commissioned and produced by the Athens Biennale