Issue 29: Family Matters

Dearest reader,

I trust this letter finds you as it leaves me, in good health. Almost two years ago, in some vaguely industrial brick building on a street corner in Greenpoint, I witnessed a man from Chicago sing from his heart. He stood in the center of a small crowd, between two large PA speakers, wearing, as I recall, a red velvet suit that shimmered softly in the light. I hadn’t come across him or his music before. Yet, his poetry felt at once distant and familiar. Beneath the words of his poetry I felt the waves of life approaching, towering above like trees of an ominous forest, and then crashing back down into a tenuous, untrustable calm. The chords which I observed fill the space around us, the characteristic purple chords that I knew intimately from the days of my childhood, splashed violently against the walls and left them dripping with a thick and steamy residue.

This scene, my friend, is what you might’ve witnessed if you saw the world through my eyes that night in November. I’m honored to have eventually gotten to know the man who performed that night. The poet from Chicago. I’m grateful to have learned more about his story, to have experienced more of his work, and ultimately to have collaborated on music with him.

Danger Zone, the seven-track EP by Ibn Inglor is available now on Spotify, and wherever you prefer to steam music. I’m proud to have been featured on the EP’s closing track, “Family Matters”. You can check out the song below.

Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a magnificent weekend ahead of you. Until next week.1

Love,
Reef