REVIEW: Colored People’s Time Machine – Gabriel Teodros
Gabriel Teodros
Colored People’s Time Machine
Fresh Chopped Beats/MADK Productions; 2012
Score: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Telling Seattle rappers they’re not making an honest attempt at gaining visibility outside of their area code is a fairly common accusation nowadays. Truth be told, there’s a lot of Big Fish in Small Pond syndrome being passed around — that every MC comes through to every other MC’s video shoot is both the charming and tedious nature of the Seattle hip-hop community. The Six is a quaint environment in which to exist as a musician, but I would imagine the socked-in loom of the Pacific Northwest winter becomes the perfect metaphor for a restless MC feeling particularly confined to his or her own insular bounds of the region.
Gabriel Teodros’ new LP, Colored People’s Time Machine, serves as a direct affront to the notion that Seattle rap has yet to grow beyond its geographic margins. It’s a stark (albeit humble) answer to local music writers who’ve posited the conceit, as well as an inspiration of sorts to fellow artists who want to stretch their own boundaries, though not in the fashion that results in rap’s standard measures of fame and largesse.
Corporate capital has never been Teodros’ main pursuit, anyway. It’s more appropriate to call his hustle one for identity scratch, but not the type that wins you admission to clubs or free custom-made clothes. More like the kind that enriches your soul and the various communities you associate yourself with. You know, fairly inconsequential stuff. CPTM cuts the broadest cultural swath of any area rap record in recent memory, featuring guest appearances by artists rhyming and singing in their native languages (including English, Spanish, Arabic, and Tagalog). Recently an obsession with interplanetary commutation has infiltrated Seattle rap subject matter, but on this album Teodros favors good old-fashioned terrestrial navigation.
The central theme on CPTM is home. Many of the album’s tracks serve to extrapolate the concept, beginning with its definition as a specific physical location and extending outward to include less concrete ideas. Though Gabriel reps strongly for the Pacific Northwest, “Alien Native” describes a regional upbringing in which a sense of belonging was never fortified. He documents physical and spiritual movements through other US cities (Las Vegas on “Babylon by Bus” and Brooklyn on “Saturn’s Return”) and other countries like Canada and Ethiopia, that served to define his identity. Teodros grapples with the same paradox that many other people of color in America do: That one’s birthplace here does not, by default, represent one’s cultural center.
He and his brethren essentially remain strangers in a strange land, relying on serendipitous collisions with others who share similar experiences to assist in a perpetual search for belonging. Colored People’s Time Machine is the fortunate product of happenstance and focused directive from an MC that values his community, wherever it may be found.
THE SIX: Featuring Gabriel Teodros
This post marks the inaugural edition of 206UP.COM’s THE SIX, a new interview feature on the blog where we focus on a single Town artist who has a recent project (album, single, video, etc.) either upcoming or already in the bag. The format is simple: Six questions are asked by 206UP.COM, six questions are answered by the subject. (Can you guess how we came up with the title?)
We’re incredibly pleased to feature Gabriel Teodros in the first edition. Yesterday, the Ethiopian-American MC dropped his new full-length, Colored People’s Time Machine, a world-wise collection of tracks that highlight his expansive roots and influences from various locations across the globe. Check for the record, here. Read on for more insight into the project.
Photo via Seattle Weekly.
1. What is the origin of the album title, Colored People’s Time Machine?
It came from a few places, one was this Ethiopian guy I met in DC who told a group of us it wasn’t until he moved to the US that time became a commodity, something that you can lose, something we count, and something we always chase. He said “Here time moves, but back home i move through time,” and it just made sense to me. Another origin is over 10 years ago the homie Orko Elohiem told another group of us he only believes there are two kinds of music in the world: Music that is timeless, and music for the time. Also, the term “CPT” has always has had a negative stigma, it implies people of color are always late. I wanted to take that term and completely flip it. All music is based on time and people of color are responsible for every musical movement this country has ever produced. With music you can travel to the future and let voices from the origins of this universe come up through you. So in short, music is our time machine. We’re not late, the way we move through time is just different. The concept of Colored People’s Time Machine embraces all of this.
2. The idea of one’s home is a dominant theme on CPTM. Is your definition of “home” that of a specific physicality, or is the concept more ambiguous than that?
Definitely a central theme, it’s said so many ways on the album, but “home” has come to mean a lot [of] places, and no place at all. Earlier this year my extended family in Toronto came up with the concept of “pieces of home” because we all seem to have pieces scattered all over the planet. This last year felt like I was constantly leaving home to go home no matter where I went. A lot of what home means is just the people we love. And as far as home as a place… I feel like every “place” that ever felt like home, at some point got jacked, and will never be the same.
3. What’s your favorite city or town other than Seattle?
Brooklyn/NYC, Addis Ababa, Toronto, the Bay Area, DC… These are the places I spent most of my time the last 12 months.
4. What was the last great book you read?
Octavia Butler’s Parable Of The Sower. and before that Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death. I HIGHLY recommend both.
5. Did you participate in any of the Occupy movements?
I didn’t. I did watch it in awe… And had loved ones on both coasts who were heavily involved.
6. Is there another Abyssinian Creole album on the horizon?
We’ve had an EP (produced by DJ Ian Head) recorded for a while now. How and when we’ll release it is a mystery to me! After Colored People’s Time Machine I have a group project with Meklit Hadero & Burntface entitled CopperWire Earthbound coming out on Porto Franco Records. I also have another solo project recorded with a producer from DC/Addis named AirME, and collaborative projects in the works with Suntonio Bandanaz & Thirdeyebling, and producer agentCB from Seattle. Khingz recently released a solo project called Liberation Of The Monster with producer Rel!g!on out of Vancouver, and the new Hi-Life Soundsystem album dropped earlier this month too! Khingz has a huge year coming up with two more solo projects, one produced by BeanOne and another by Vitamin D, as well as a group project called OTOW Gang. There’s so much to look for from both of us! And we do feature each other on our projects all the time.
NEW MUSIC: “Blossoms of Fire” – Gabriel Teodros
If the content of Gabriel Teodros‘ upcoming album (watch for it on 1.19.12) is as epic as its title and cover, Seattle rap is in for a resounding entry into the new year. Stream the opening track, “Blossoms of Fire” below.
DOWNLOAD: “Beit” – Gabriel Teodros (feat. Sabreena Da Witch) (prod. by Amos Miller)
Photo by Adam Way.
The scope of Gabriel Teodros’ music continues to widen with this drop from the forthcoming Colored People’s Time Machine (release date: 1.19.12). Featuring a vocal appearance by Palestinian-American artist Abeer Alzinaty (otherwise known as Sabreena Da Witch), GT’s kaleidoscopic and worldly point-of-view isn’t held by The Town’s concise geographic margins, and that’s something to be applauded.
VIDEO & NEWS: “Colored People’s Time Machine” Preview – Gabriel Teodros
Taking a cue from Town brethren like Macklemore and Blue Scholars, Gabriel Teodros is asking the fans to help fund the production of his new full-length album, Colored People’s Time Machine, via the IndieGoGo fundraising platform.
Here’s how his campaign tells it:
“Community activist and hip hop pathfinder Gabriel Teodros stands poised to turn the clock backwards to reach the future. His sophomore solo effort, ‘Colored People’s Time Machine’, is an examination of the history, dreams and future of native people everywhere. Not content to analyze the past, Teodros prepares listeners for a future free of the constraints of genre.” – Dume 41
“15 tracks, 9 different producers, 11 featured vocalists later… in many ways ‘Colored People’s Time Machine’ has been the biggest and most involved album I’ve done to date. It took a few years, some of the most personal songs I’ve ever written, and I want as many people to be able to hear it now as possible. Getting the funds to put this album out the way we want to hasn’t been easy, and it seems what makes the most sense now is to put the power in your hands. By ordering the album now, by getting any of the packages offered, or even just by spreading the word, you help this music live. Can’t wait to share the album with you.” – gabriel teodros
Where is the money going you ask? Publicity (print, web, radio), CD duplication, Printing, Shipping, Design Services, Mixing, Mastering…
And if we don’t make our goal? The album still comes out and packages still get filled… we just have to come up with the rest. Some people may not get paid, and the album might get slept on. All hell will break loose in Seattle’s streets. This can not be an option… pre-order the album today!
Below is a clip of GT performing some of the tracks off CPTM:
DOWNLOAD: The Lentil Soup EP – Gabriel Teodros & DJ Ian Head
Click album cover for D/L link.
Gabriel Teodros (real name, no gimmicks) and DJ Ian Head bless us with this freebie, The Lentil Soup EP, which is in part an appetizer for GT’s next full-length, Colored People’s Time Machine (dropping sometime in the next 299 days).
GT’s pastiche of lyrical content is a result of his ongoing continental navigations. Some local cats see fit to remain stationary, and for that their music suffers. Gabriel’s lens is wider than most SEA folk and consequently so is his lyrical scope. Hip-hop is international now, dunny. If you ain’t movin’ you ain’t winnin’.
