[spectre] New podcast: Conversation with French musician Aho Ssan

[Radio Web MACBA]

*New podcast: Conversation with French musician Aho Ssan
<https://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/sonia-339-aho-ssan>*


Aho Ssan is a French musician of Ivorian and Ghanaian descent who has been
involved in graphic design and film works under his given name, Desiré
Niamké. These practices, like his multiple identity, resonate in his music.

Link: https://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/sonia-339-aho-ssan

In February 2020, Aho Ssan released his debut album *Simulacrum*, just
before the state of alarm in Europe, the lockdown, and the protests of the
Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the USA:
a fitting backdrop for a close listening of *Simulacrum. *The album’s title
was inspired by Aho Ssan’s reading as a teenager of Jean Baudrillard’s
*Simulacra
and Simulation*, in which the ideas of truth and equality are challenged by
the political sense of rootlessness arising from racism in France. In this
light, the processes of the digital synthesis of an African jazz band on
this album become possible. Realities open to slight changes, multi-layer
mixes, musical variations, and necessary silence, which demand attentive,
repeated listening.

In this podcast we talk to Aho Ssan about his grandfather’s lost trumpet
and about an Ivory Coast jazz band that’s impossible to track down. Along
the way, we share the cinematic tension of his debut LP *Simulacrum* and
the various routes that led him there. Techno’s cultural appropriation,
Black Bandcamp, and the glaring lack of representation of black artists in
global electronica are part of the road he has travelled and the lessons
learnt along the way.

*E/N/J/O/Y!*
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