No. 3 Week of May 1 10 tracks · 35:50

This week's rotation, curated by
Kabati David · Lusaka, in the dark

Pain is
optional
inevitable.

Press play. Stay. Press play. Stay.

Do not skip. Do not shuffle.

Nº 3 May · 01 · 26

The opening. You arrive ready to be loved.

Lights at 60%House warm, easy
Tempo open, unguarded

You walk in light. The room loves you back. You forget you ever doubted.

Goin' Again

Akeem Ali

—

He says wait. You do. You want to. You are not pretending.

Slow Down (feat. Lucky Daye)

VanJess, Lucky Daye

—

A name you have said before. The room tilts a degree. You straighten the picture and call it nothing.

SAME MISTAKE

DESTIN CONRAD, Alex Isley

—

II.

The turn. The wound opens. You stay anyway.

Lights cut to redTempo drags
Shift to minor key

You try. You always try. The trying is the trap, and you knew it on the way in.

Willing To Trust (with Ty Dolla $ign)

Kid Cudi, Ty Dolla $ign

—

You see what you did not want to see. You see all of it. The seeing does not flinch.

eyes wide open

kwn

—

The shot lands clean. Slow motion. The blood is yours, but the hand was already familiar.

Shot My Baby

Daniel Caesar

—

You watch the door he just walked through. He does not come back. You stop watching it.

BEADY EYES

SIPHO.

—

III.

The mending. You leave the room. You take the door with you.

Lights up, soft and warmSlow swell
Curtain rises, not falls

You kneel. Not at his altar. At a higher one. Something in you finally answers.

God, Protect Me from My Enemies

SAULT

—

An older language remembers you. You remember yourself in it. The drum is patient.

Mogoya

Oumou Sangaré

—

You mean it. You are surprised that you mean it. The curtain is yours to raise.

You Could Be Happy

Snow Patrol

—

Curator's note Written in the second person.
Read slowly.
Don't look away.

You knew what you were doing when you hit play. The trap was already set — by your own hand, and by mine, in about equal measure. The trap is what we call wanting, after the fact.

I built this as three acts because the heart only ever moves in three movements. Act I is the part where you trust without thinking about trust. Act II is the part where you do think about it, and the thinking is too late. Act III is the part nobody promised you would arrive — where the room you kept paying for finally turns its lights back up, and the door is the way out, not the way in.

Pain is inevitable. The walking through it is not.

— D.K.

Guest curator · Week 3

· End of play ·