Breathing Room: In The Wake of D’Angelo w/ Lynnée Denise
Woensdag 22. oktober om 19:00 - 22:00
Metro54, Amsterdam
Breathing Room is a proposition to dream out loud, building upon the vibrant, intergenerational sonic and visual cultures as well as addressing the racial, political and ecological turmoil that shape our societies, streets and wellbeing of our communities. To breathe within these supremacist structures, from a racialized position, is to intervene into its apparatus of violence and repression. It is to be hungry for air, to desire aliveness and rehearse ways to remember each other.
This Breathing Room is dedicated to the world(s) that shaped the artist D’angelo, who transitioned on October 14, 2025, hosted in collaboration with researcher, artist and DJ Lynnée Denise, moderated by Metro54 curator and artist Raziyah Heath. In The Wake of D’Angelo gathers us in a moment of collective mourning and reflection following the recent passing of the beloved artist. We’ll walk through his songbook and the cultural meaning of his legacy that has led to an outpouring of collective grief. In this session, we’ll discuss the perils of fame and the longstanding tension between Black privacy, the myth of genius, and the industry’s refusal to dismantle the conditions under which artists are exploited; conditions that mimic a colonial/plantation model. Drawing on clips from D’Angelo’s sharp critique of the music industry and a collage of his songs and live performances, we’ll have a conversation about how, in the words of one of D'Angelo's musical inspirations, Parliament-Funkadelic, “America Eats Its Young.”
Lynnée Denise is a global practitioner of sound, language, and Black Atlantic thought. An Amsterdam-based writer and interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, Denise’s work emerges from her parents’ record collection and the sonic memories of the 1980s. Through her practice of DJ Scholarship, she redefines the DJ as archivist and cultural worker, tracing the intimacies of underground nightclub movements, music migration, and bass culture across the African Diaspora.
Metro54 • Westerdoksdijk 597, 1013 BX Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Nederland
