MADlines, an MC and educator originally from Seattle, Washington, has called East Oakland home for almost a decade, working in the community as well as in San Francisco’s Juvenile Hall. Those experiences, as well as headlines about infant mortality rates and police brutality—especially the killing of Atatiana Jefferson—have inspired her latest video, “God Talk.”
“I’m a deity, the birds envy me. Lips is sweet, divinity,” MADlines raps on the chorus of the new track, which features the Bay Area’s own Xiomara. She premieres the video, shot by Emmy-nominated producer Contessa Gayles, in an event on Nov. 8 at Bandcamp’s headquarters in downtown Oakland.
“Black women do want to be vulnerable,” says MADlines. “But it’s hard to walk in the world without armor.”
This is the first feature off of an album MADlines plans to drop in the summer of 2020, made possible in part by the City of Oakland’s Individual Artist Grant Program.
MADlines says the driving concept behind her Nov. 8 performance is related to other arts projects in the Bay Area, such as House/Full of BlackWomen, Black Womxn Dreaming and The Black Woman is God, which is curated by Karen Senefru, who makes a cameo in MADlines’ new video. “So, it’s not standing on its own,” says MADlines. “It’s a part of a larger push about the way we’re responding to society.”
