‘Bring Down The Walls‘ is a benefit compilation featuring covers of the most enduring house hits, each produced as a collaboration between formerly incarcerated vocalists and established artists.
Released by New York non profit organization Creative Time in collaboration with The Fortune Society, artist Phil Collins and over 100 collaborators, the album is a three-part public art project which “turns an unconventional lens on the prison industrial complex through house music and nightlife.” It includes covers of famous house anthems such as “Your Love“, “Break 4 Love“, “Promised Land” and more. Larry Heard, Honey Dijon, Robert Owens, Empress Of, MikeQ and more all feature.
The project is also a communal space that functions as a school by day and dance club by night, which will be free and open to the public each Saturday in May starting May 5th at Firehouse, Engine Company 31, a historic, decommissioned fire station in Lower Manhattan.
Proceeds from the compilation will go towards Critical Resistance, a “grassroots organization that seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex”. More info here!
“Being formerly incarcerated myself, I am keenly aware of the therapeutic power of music and knew this project would be an opportunity for me to utilize my talent in a constructive way,” says vocalist Cameron Holmes. “I believe the people closest to a problem are best positioned to solve it.”
“House culture has, to me, always been a mode of resistance, opening up new understandings of community and solidarity. Its radical proposition of simply being together offers another way of engaging the conversation around the prison industrial complex, which sentences discriminately and disproportionately, but impacts us all. Even after their release, people remain confined and punished by invisible barriers – physical, emotional, economic. The very real human cost of systemic regressive policies comes sharply into focus through sharing time and space, and in direct exchange with one another. At a time when top-down politics of division devastates people’s lives and communities, it feels right to revisit the sense of yearning, loss, desperation, unity, and defiance which have always been crucial aspects of house culture, and to connect to the histories of institutional violence and indifference over the last thirty years.” Phil Collins comments.
‘Bring Down The Walls‘ is out now. Grab a copy here!
Listen to ‘Bring Down The Walls‘ below!
Tracklist
01. Larry Heard, Robert Owens & Cameron Holmes – Bring Down The Walls (2.0 Rework)
02. Empress Of & Michael Austin – You’re Gonna Miss Me
03. Figure Skater & King Tolen – Move Your Body
04. Nguzunguzu & Cinthia Candelaria – Break 4 Love
05. Kyp Malone & Robert Pollock – Promised Land
06. MikeQ, Ian Isiah & Amanda Cruz – Love Can’t Turn Around
07. Honey Dijon, Seven Davis Jr. & Q Williams – That’s The Way Love Is
08. Morgan Wiley, L’Rain & Patrick Gordon – Your Love
