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WEEK 4 – MOOR MOTHER TRACK ANALYSIS

Written by

James Fitzgerald Burke

in

Discussing the track “Parallel Nightmares”and the production/musical elements she uses and how this piece of art combines into political activism.

Moor Mother is an American artist, rapper, poet and political activist who combines elements of queer music techniques and blends different genres of music in which she is inspired by or is from her cultural upbringing in Washington Park. The music she writes comes from the sound and time of underground music clubs and political activism societies, which have a link to her sound as she samples or write out speeches of far left politicial messages and ideologies and uses these in her music normally playing over and instrumental that is “queer” and repeats like the four bar loops of hip hop.

The piece opens with “Spooky Gospel” sounding vocals which she has clearly taken inspiration from her dad on as she mentions in her Red bull interview video, these vocals sound like chants and almost religious in the way they are pronounced, in which she believes is important in her music.

A J Dilla inspired “queer” beat is used which is very industrial and processed sounding heavy, using syncopation and rhythms falling on and off strong beats, similar to J Dilla’s track “E=mc2” she is using anchor points to not give total rhythmic confusion and make a beat more in style of “Afro futurism” which she, this also gives this feeling of the music being “Difficult” to get into which she refers to her music as in the Red bull interview video, but these beats being blended of reggae and r’n’b drum sounds that are heavily processed are a fore feature of Afro futurism with the purpose that “empowers African people to locate themselves in the past, present and future with agency” as described by The guardian’s article “How Afro futurism can help us imagine futures worth living in”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2025/apr/03/afrofuturism-imagine-futures

The lyrics are singing political speech inspired lyrics, they sound like a speech at an activist rally. That feels more informal and lots of information and poetic in a way. And coming from her mind and thoughts quickly being improvised or spoken rather than written out with her thought process being that she focuses on the singing and performance with the lyrics coming naturally, mentioned in the red bull interview video.

The Chorus has vocal parts using these spiritual sounding timbres that sound sampled, taking from her hip hop influence, but contrasts this dark and bleak topic of “the surrealistic horror of our sociopolitical circumstances ” as mentioned by Big Ears Festivals’ article “Listen: Moor Mother’s “Parallel Nightmares” Whilst also contrasting the sound of the “Gothic” R’n’b choir, in a way this come across to as a voice of reason and this spiritual vocal is like the light at the end of the tunnel of hopelessness and coming across to her listeners that if we rise up we have a sense of hope.

Listen: Moor Mother’s “Parallel Nightmares”

The instrumental feels very dark and spooky like the gospel vocals, but have this influence of both punk in political lyric topics and hip hop, which she both is very influenced by, in the way they flow and the rhythm of vocal’s movement. Possibly taking from her influences on Public enemy as her experience at their fight the power tour impacted her which she mentions in the Red bull interview video, as well as the “truth” telling she wants her music to have. But the violent and aggression sound in the instrumental contrasts this strong political message sounding haunting is possibly being taken from the punk , even that she “specializes in practical concepts” said by Cafe Oto, which is very typical of the punk genre, this had and impact on her early teen year and bands like “Bad Brains”being a big influence and also using practical concepts apart of their music. This idea of blending genres and “queer” sounds makes her instrumentals stand out and help create an atmosphere to her music similar to experimental hip hop artists like Death grips with their track “Ring a bell”.

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/moor-mother

The Lyrics being spoken are “We are going to kill the king” sounding like a protest and defiance suited in her origins in Washington park and in the part of groups and protests she aligns herself with. This plays throughout the whole song and reminds me of Bad religion’s “Voice of God is government” which takes a mock sound on organised religion and tells the listener in a way to avoid these people in the intro of the song, where as Moor mother’s is used to motivate and lift the listener and speak to the people of lower class and her disapproval of monarchy and social hierarchy, with this being improvised it also comes off as more authentic with saying that she wants “the music continues to breathe” when talking to Walker Art, it gives a fine distinction between the vocals and the music itself and making the vocals the forefront in the message but her accompaniment the focus in terms of the creativity.

https://walkerart.org/magazine/sounds-continue-to-migrate-a-conversation-with-moor-mother

Moor Mother’s track is a hard hitting piece of honest and truth of political socialism which she personally feels very strongly about, the choice to sample “Soon And Very Soon” by Andrae Crouch, makes the ideologies of social order and status come across as a product of disgust and something that should be looked at with more concern rather than cheer and support, her instrumentals whilst Brutal and very DIY sounding help support her aggression and coinside nicely with the feeling to rise above the social standards set by politicians, the beauty in her music is that her instrument choices as she mentions are “special to me” but as she mentions “the main instrument is myself” in the Sonic Origins video via Youtube, without this balance of harsh and queer noises, with the spoken words she preaches in her music, her music doesn’t work as this is what makes her sound.

Here are some links and references below, that helped me in my research and arguments to discuss Moor mother.

  1. Album Review – Fetish Bones – Pitchfork
  2. Listen to Moor Mother’s Parallel Nightmares – Big Ears Festival
  3. ‘I tell the truth about what’s unknown’: Moor Mother on revealing Britain’s ongoing slavery links – The guardian
  4. Moor Mother – Cafe Oto
  5. Sounds Continue to Migrate: A Conversation with Moor Mother – Walker Art
  6. Moor Mother on creating the future you want to see – The creative independent
  7. How Afrofuturism can help us imagine futures worth living in – The guardian
  8. Moor Mother on Sampling, Afrofuturism and Collaboration – Red Bull Music Academy via YouTube
  9. Sonic Origins | Moor Mother – Moog Music via YouTube
  10. Moor Mother’s “Parallel Nightmares” – Don Giovanni via YouTube
  11. J Dilla’s “E=mc2” – maluco97 via YouTube
  12. Public Enemy’s “Terminator X to the edge of panic” – Public Enemy via YouTube
  13. Death Grips’ “Ring a bell” – Death Grips via YouTube
  14. Bad Religion’s “Voice of god is government” – Epitaph Records via YouTube

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