Sonorous Somatics 007: 9MAGICFOREVER1 + Harlem Masimba

For Sonorous Somatics 007 Blanc are excited to present DJ Harlem Masimba and 9MAGICFOREVER1 who will reflect on visual artist Andres Hernandez’ exhibition, code: KING ALFRED; a conceptual exploration of The King Alfred Plan by John A. Williams in his 1967 novel The Man Who Cried I Am. The two part performance begins with a DJ set by Harlem Masimba, influenced by their background as a trained jazz vocalist, poet, experimental tintype photographer + archivist, and channeling and transforming these practices into audio alchemy that expresses the themes of Hernandez’ work through house music, soul, jazz, and beyond.

Following Harlem’s set is a textural performance by multi-instrumentalist and producer 9MAGICFOREVER1. Through looping, electronics, and various instruments, he draws from his innovative technique in juke, jazz, hip hop sampling and more to illuminate the exhibition and build on the exhibition theme of liberation, exploration, and rebellion through sound.

For SS07, it is important to note the particular context into which Hernandez' work is being birthed. Chicago has always been a site of resistance and black radical organizing and imagining. At this precise moment, in the midst of a hardening of the fascist and racist policies that have always underpinned the US relationship to its citizens (and non-citizens), art that produces radical imaginaries and amplifies the histories of protest, resistance, refusal and possiblity is as necessary and pertinent as ever. Extending the logics and sonic reverberations of Hernandez' work, SS07 offers us a new way to sit in the ideas that underpin code: KING ALFRED

Harlem Masimba West is an archival griot and afrofuturist from Out South Chicago. They re-work black collective memory into portals in dedication to Sankofa, sonic communion, and intergenerational queer veneration. At their center, Harlem is an eldest sibling doing their best to honor the name they momma gave 'em.

Website: https://harlemwesth.wixsite.com/my-site

9MAGICFOREVER1 is the sonic embodiment of Black futurism — a mystical extension of self,rhythm, and resistance. Emerging from Chicago’s underground, he channels sound as technology: a ritual for transformation and collective awakening. His work fuses the spiritual charge of reggae with the cosmic pulse of jungle, house, and techno — forging living archives of liberation through rhythm and frequency.

Rooted in the diasporic lineage of Lee “Scratch” Perry, Theo Parrish, and Sun Ra, 9MAGICFOREVR1 constructs performances that move between worlds — a hybrid of live instrumentation, electronic production, and ancestral invocation. His sound operates as both frequency and weapon: a call to revolution, freedom, and higher consciousness.

He has performed internationally and across major stages including Pitchfork, Primavera Sound (Barcelona), Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz à la Villette (Paris), and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. He has appeared alongside artists such as Angel Bat Dawid, Vic Mensa, and Standing on the Corner.

His performances and sound installations have appeared at the Arts Club of Chicago (for Cosmo Whyte’s The Mother’s Tongue, Pressed to the Grinding Stone) and the IIT College of Architecture (Strife on State, with avery r. young and Angel Bat Dawid*), positioning his work within the discourse of sound as protest, memory, and witness.

For 9MAGICFOREVER1, music is not entertainment — it is a ceremony of survival, an act of creation in defiance of erasure, and a vision of the future forged through rhythm, perseverance, and eternal consciousness.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Blanc Gallery