Amai Kuda et Les Bois Share New Album 'EmUrgency!'

Amai Kuda et Les Bois - Toronto's favorite musical movement - are proud to release their latest album EmUrgency!, which is available across all music platforms. The release of EmUrgency! was preceded by "Eshu", "Oshun" and the latest single, "Which Way".

"EmUrgency! is both an act of healing and an act of resistance," says Amai Kuda. It is a collection of prayer songs, war chants, lullabies and love ballads for our times. Primarily composed from 2018 to 2020, with co-write and production contributions by her then 16-year old son (Imoja), EmUrgency! addresses issues of colonization, police brutality, parenting Black youth in a racist world, the protection of the environment, reclaiming African spirituality and decolonization.

To better explore these issues and shed light on African spirituality, Amai Kuda et Les Bois are collaborating with rising Nigerian animators Spoof Animation, part of the burgeoning animation community in Africa, for the album's visuals. Like the album, the animated videos for EmUrgency! draw on timeless themes found in ancient traditions while addressing current events, and are, in fact, teasers for a full animated series that Amai Kuda is creating based on the album.

Amai is committed to addressing the need for more Black animated content, and more popular media that portrays African spirituality and mythology in a positive light. "After 500 years of colonial genocide designed to erase us, remembering and reclaiming who we are is, in fact, the most powerful way to fight back against the colonizer," she says.

Born from Amai Kuda's journey as a queer woman of African descent reconnecting to her cultural knowledge and supporting her community in processes of healing, the album and visuals speak to the struggles, wisdoms, and joys of walking an unconventional path guided by ancestors and orishas, to come into her power as a mother, healer, warrior and griot.

The album addresses the need for both personal and communal emergence. "There is urgency in the emergence process," she says, because it is, in fact, a matter of survival. Likening it to a plant that must be brought into the light to be kept alive, Amai is passionate about the need for African spiritual practices to be brought out of hiding in order for both the traditions, and the peoples that rely on them, to survive.

That said, Amai doesn't romanticize the journey of emergence, or pretend that it is an easy one. She knows all too well the discrimination, rejection, and pushback faced by people like herself for walking a path that is in direct opposition to the dominant narratives of our society, but she credits the support of ancestors and the Orishas with enabling her to get stronger through the struggles rather than be defeated or broken by them.

Through sharing her journey Amai Kuda hopes to inspire others who are facing similar challenges on their healing journey to stay true to themselves and persist in the face of opposition.

EmUrgency! was recorded, mixed and mastered at Quantum Vox Music with co-producer, Jimmy Kiddo, and reflects Amai's vast influences: Afro-House, Motown, alt-rock, hip hop and downtempo, with inflections of Amai's Trinidadian heritage and Toronto upbringing in the mix.

The album speaks to the struggles, wisdoms, and joys of Amai's journey, being guided by ancestors and Orishas, and staying true to her calling as mother, healer, warrior and artist, despite the many obstacles facing Black, queer women in the music industry and society at large. On EmUrgency!, Amai delves into African Indigenous spiritual traditions, connecting with gods and deities of Yoruba cosmology, the anti-colonial war for survival, unconditional love, honoring elders, as well as the inner child and how to preserve it in times of struggle.

Listen to the new album here:

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