Afriqua has a new single entitled “Turner” off his upcoming LP Colored due out October 4th via R&S Records. The work of Adam Longman-Parker, the Berlin-based musician credits his upbringing in Virginia as being key in shaping his idiosyncratic sound. Pointing to the early-2000s, and artists like The Neptunes, Timbaland, and Missy Elliot, he explains:
“Black electronic music doesn’t have to be from the Midwest�this isn’t from Detroit, this isn’t from Chicago. It’s from Virginia.”
Afriqua’s unique approach can be heard on this rhythmically driven new cut “Turner.” Utilizing a technicolor palette of sounds, the track’s heady sense of drift is still rife with an almost unidentifiable tension. Upon closer inspection, though, it is Longman-Parker’s use of negative space upping the anxiety levels here. Discussing the track, he explains:
��Turner� is the darkest point of the otherwise uplifting album. When I first started it in London, it transported me to a different place than any of the other joints on the record. Its sinister vibe gave it a cinematic feeling while never losing its drive. It was only a few months later when I finally stopped listening to the loop on repeat and decided to finish the track that I thought of Nat Turner, the slave who led the legendary revolt very near to my hometown of Hampton, VA. For me, the drum-line evokes both the HBCU marching bands that I grew up on back home, and also the martial spirit of that moment in history. On the same tip, with Turner�s revolutionary efforts in mind, the explosiveness of the track falls apart and builds to an intense and abrupt end.�
