New Jersey native, London dwelling artist Baba Ali has just announced his pulsating new single “Black Wagon” produced with Al Doyle of Hot Chip and LCD Sound System. “Black Wagon” is taken from his upcoming debut album Memory Device, set to be released on the 27th of August via his new home Memphis Industries. Watch the video directed by Joe Bloom below.
Baba Ali - Black Wagon (Official Video) - YouTube
Though most debuts are the culmination of a lifetime of influences and experiences, few artists succeed in mapping their musical journey quite as vividly as Baba Ali has on Memory Device. Tracing his Nigerian heritage, an adolescence absorbing No Wave and the hip hop on NYC’s Hot 97, time immersed in the techno scene in Berlin, and the experimental punk spirit of his current base in London, Memory Device is an enthralling introduction to a musician who resolutely defies pigeonholing.
Written during lockdown, and recorded with Al Doyle (LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip) in East London, Memory Device is both a dizzyingly inventive exploration of Baba’s complex musical DNA, and a thought-provoking treatise on the collective angst of modern existence; a dance record dealing in small ‘p’ politics that, spiritually, has been three decades in the making.