Mazz Swift — The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious

Mazz Swift

The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious

On Friday, May 24, 2024, Mazz Swift (they/them), the composer, conductor, bandleader, educator, singer, and Juilliard-trained violinist who weaves classic African-American musics, electronica, and mindfulness into their music, releases their upcoming debut solo album The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious via New Amsterdam Records.

The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious is influenced by Swift’s relationship with the Ghanaian concept of Sankofa (to “go back and fetch it”). The Work Songs and Spirituals of the enslaved people that Swift uses as jumping-off points for improvisation and composition serve to connect with their musical ancestors, creating a work that lives in the present moment while acknowledging the past and pushing their sonic palette towards the future. The 10000 Things is densely produced with synths, electronic percussion, experimental electronics, powerfully wailing violin improvisations, and commanding vocals which all come together to create a work that is deeply moving and sonically explorative, yet rooted deeply in tradition.

The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious is influenced by Swift’s personal relationship with the Ghanaian concept of Sankofa (“to go back and fetch it”), which Swift explains as “looking to the past in order to be able to move forward. Grounding in Who You Are. If you think of me as an arrow, Sakofa is the action of pulling back the bow. The adinkra symbol for the concept is a bird carrying a seed (or precious egg) in its mouth, head turned to look backward, while the feet face forward.”
The Work Songs and Spirituals of the enslaved people that Swift uses as jumping-off points for improvisation and composition serve to connect with their musical ancestors, creating a work that lives in the present moment while acknowledging the past and pushing their sonic palette towards the future. The 10000 Things is densely produced with synths, electronic percussion, experimental electronics, powerfully wailing violin improvisations, and commanding vocals which all come together to create a work that is deeply moving and sonically explorative, yet rooted deeply in tradition.
“Connection to ancestors is complex for Black Americans since there are often not a lot of records for the progeny of enslaved people to reference” Swift says, “so learning slave songs and spirituals is a way to get in touch with my ancestry.” Through the practice of Sankofa, Swift is able to recontextualize these folk songs through the lens of heavy improvisation and experimentation as they explore their role as “a nexus between past and future.
“We’re constantly having to restore our humanity and that is a huge drive for me to talk about Black Music and giving people the credit that they’re due because it’s so easy to take from people that you don’t really consider fully human. I’m always trying to re-expose the dignity of the people whose music we borrow all the time and to connect that music with the people themselves.”
Swift created The 10000 Things during a period of revamping their music practice. “Delving into the world of electronics helped create a shift in perspective. I had to remember to include playing the violin on the tracks! Because of that, I became more aware that what makes me a good musician is tuning in to what feels most true—and the more I make that my practice in life, the easier it is to do in music. I became a Person first. I am not just a musician. I am a person that makes music.”
Out of this revamp Swift referenced the book Slave Songs of the United States to find the melodies and words that would make the connections they were looking for. Swift tells us “I use this music to connect with my ancestors. It grounds me to know that this is the music that breathed life into what we think of as American Culture. It exposes the shame of (a)merica's* original sin (slavery) and simultaneously reminds me of the power of the people - my people - who transcended mere survival, casting a deep and lasting spell of spirituality, defining freedom for those who talk the talk but don't walk the walk. It somehow brings us back to our bodies, the earth, pleasure and pain. Truth.”
The 10000 Things is particularly special due to Mazz’s collaboration with the poet Regie Gibson, whom Swift met as part of a project of cohort artists doing an online concert series during the pandemic. Swift asked Gibson to record himself “saying a bunch of words for me and I will use them in my live performance by grabbing them and processing them. I wanted to have a voice in there that wasn't singing and that wasn't me.” On Gibson's contribution Swift says “For ‘No More’ I randomly took words that he said and made them make sense with the music, while on ‘BLVK Meditation’ I just let his voice play exactly as he recorded it since it felt like a poem in and of itself.”
On ‘New Anthem’ Swift explores ideas of family and gender identity via a series of interviews with their sisters. These conversations are central to the piece, in which Swift is asking, “what does it mean to be sisters?” during a time in their life when their identity as a “sister” — or any exclusively female term of relation — was beginning to become a question with which they were grappling.
The 10000 Things is also an exploration of Swift’s relationship to the concept of freedom. Swift explains: “The word ‘freedom’ is very rich and it means a lot to me because so much of my life as a neuro-emergent (my term for being ADHD/autistic) person has had a lack of freedom in the ways I behave and express myself in a way that feels natural to me because it does not work societally. Now I’m learning to unmask and ask myself ‘who am I?’. The concept of ‘America, land of the free home of the brave’ —What does that mean? Who is free?. Not to mention, the idea of Free will: you’re free to boycott but you still have to pay your taxes, so you’re always complicit. How are you free?
I have found freedom in making music this way and finding my path. I want to be a model for others to find freedom in their own way with whatever brings them joy.”
* I spell (a)merica this way because the country has a lot of work to do in order to earn capital "A" status.

Tracklist
1. No More *
2. Someday School
3. Eye Woke Up / O Brother
4. Freedom House
5. Hidden in Plain Sight
6. Alabamy
7. Don’I Know-dis…? º
8. BLVK MEDITATION*
9. New Anthem **
Credits
All Music and Lyrics by Mazz Swift except where noted:
* Tracks 1 & 8: Words and vocal performance by Regie Gibson
** Track 9: Conversation between Sisters/Siblings Camille Morrison, Nanette Hill, Mazz Swift and
Allisyn Swift.
Pieces of traditional Slave and Work songs were used in the making of Tracks 1 (No More My Lord), 2
(Give Up the World), 3 (O Brother), 6 (Alabamy), and 9 (Sister Dolly Light The Lamp)
º Dona Nobis Pacem - a traditional prayer (Give Us Peace) from Latin mass; traditional melody
All other words/lyrics by Mazz Swift
Programmed, Performed, and Produced by Mazz Swift
Mixed by Chris Hoffman
Mixed and Mastered by Michael Hammond at Figure8 Studios