Vox Amps | 3 years ago
VOX is Amplifying Voices With Pride throughout the month of June in celebration of Pride Month. We’ve teamed up with artist Torrii Wolf to host a series of interviews LGBTQIA+ artists that inspire courage and acceptance.
Join us in recognizing the great impact the LGBTQ+ community has had, and continues to have, on the music industry and learn from these extraordinary voices.
In this “Amplifying Voices with Pride” interview, Torii Wolf (they/them) discusses Pride with Los Angeles artist/poet/cultural worker/designer Def Sound (they/them/he/him).
About Torii Wolf: Torii Wolf is a queer, non-binary artist who believes in music’s power to transcend. And when people hear Wolf’s arrestingly moving voice and wide-ranging musical style, they immediately drop into the emotion of the song and connect on levels that transcend genre, gender, time, and space.
“I like how music can be a bridge to the spiritual world,” says Wolf. “I want to use my music to build a safe space for people to feel.” To feel anything—to feel excited, or safe, or unsafe, or shocked, or uncomfortable. Music has a power to bring all these feelings forward in a safe way.
If music was a menu, Def Sound would be the vegan option. As an Afro Latinx (parents from Belize & Panama) non binary artist (pronouns he/him/they/them) born and based in South Central LA, Def Sound (mom given name Emmanuel Ashley Ricketts) is a Grammy Award considered contemporary hip-hop artist, producer, published poet, DJ, and award winning academic.
Def’s work as a poet has been included in Saul Williams' Anthology CHORUS, while his music has been featured in LA WEEKLY, LA Record, The L.A. Times, LACMA’s Poetry series POETRY In Color, the art exhibition The Black Index curated by Bridget Cooks and the Emmy Nominated Television series Music Diaries.
During the COVID-19 pandemic Def pivoted to making a 1 of 1 organic mask line called eXHIBIT AYe.
Lastly, Def is the 2021 recipient of the LINDON W. BARRETT Award from the African American Studies Department School of Humanities at UC Irvine. Def is using his work to shift and expand on the queer black narrative into a space that frames the magic of the mundane with an Afro Presentist perspective. Def is serving a buffet of healthy experimental raps and poems that feed both the mind and spirit.
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