Built from a solid foundation of defiance, disturbance and discontent, Nafada — a cross-cultural collaboration of conscious creators — shares a social statement that continues to disrupt the status quo, as it unveils a visionary new approach to the future of art consumption. EXPERIENCE NAFADA [Detroit, USA] Reginald Tiessen is new in every sense of the word. His approach to art is new, his focus on filmmaking is new, and his foray into storytelling through mixed-media application is also new —especially when it comes to innovation and creativity in digital art. What is not new about Reginald however, is his intrinsic drive to freely share his artistic skills and talents wherever there is even the slightest opportunity to inspire, empower and/or expand the minds of others.Rewind to 2017. As an active recording and performing artist with 30 years’ experience in the music industry, Reginald was navigating creative spaces as an art director, photographer, motion designer and digital strategist, while forging a new identity in the destructive editing, glitch art and generative AI communities. Becoming increasingly dulled however, by the prospects of creating music within the current model of ever-changing algorithms, egoistic streaming platforms and extinct revenue opportunities, Reginald (not surprisingly staying on brand here) decides to take his passion for music in a “new” direction.Enter Nafada — a cross-cultural, multinational collaboration that set out to unite the rebellious nature of hip-hop with the anti-establishment, anti-government stance of industrial music in an effort to take a revolutionary, genre-bending approach to social justice advocacy through music.“There is no denying that music is both a tool and a weapon when it comes to highlighting the injustices that exist in our world,” says Reginald, explaining how he transitioned into projects that focused on creating art with cause over producing art for purposes of self-indulgence. “Music can inspire, it can motivate, it can mobilize the masses in a way that other message mediums cannot. It can also provides a platform to be heard, as well as amplify the voices against those who seek to silence them.”Stirred by the anomalous upheaval that followed the 2016 U.S. federal election, Reginald was driven to understand the words beginning to be used more commonly across the media to describe the current state of political affairs. Through his desire to create art within a sphere of critical thinking, Reginald noticed words like kleptocracy, theocracy and authoritarianism suddenly creeping into everyday language. But it wasn’t until “intifada” began to be thrown around indiscriminately that Reginald really started to pay attention. And so began his journey into what would eventually become a multi-modal, multi-arts project called Nafada. THE TALE GETS RETOLD A lot can change over a short period of time. Add a global pandemic into the mix, and while time appeared to stand still for many of those quarantined within their homes, a major shift in the world’s collective consciousness rapidly took hold. The result? Nafada, forcibly reimagined. When Reginald partnered with music producerINFEST8 in Sydney, Australia to curate a concept album that would invite female Muslim hip-hop artists to rap over music developed by Detroit-based industrial-electronic band Konqistador —he really had no idea the transformation that would lie ahead for both the music industry and the world as he once knew it.After delving into the origins and meaning be-hind the word “intifada”, Reginald spearheaded a campaign that would bring a band of conscious creators together in an exploration of musical defiance. Aptly named Nafada, which is anArabic term for rebellion or uprising, and of which“intifada” is directly derived from, the initiative combined lyrics and beats that in the world of conventional music-making defied industry norms at the time.The intention was to create music that would break every stereotype imaginable — from a collaboration that spanned four continents and nine countries without a single contributor ever in the same room at the same time, to tracks produced in the native language of each artist… despite the accepted risk that comes with making music that doesn’t appeal to the masses if it’s not immediately understood.“We decided that if we were to be authors of an album that would resonate and make impact, we would have to hand the torch over to the artists so that they could use their own voice to tell their own stories,” shares Reginald who adds, “Not only would this mean we shared the song-writing process but it also opened us up to more accurate, more authentic storytelling, and an ability to move people in a way that might better effect change.” The no fear, no boundaries, no borders tagline of Konqistador set the stage for Nafada to become a soundtrack for rebellion, positioning itself as an intersectional arts project that did not bow to the pressures of government censorship, religious taboos or the threat of limited commercial success.“The very fact that we had Muslim women in hip-hop combining their talents in a marriage of genres not previously explored before was, by de facto, an act of defiance itself,” claims Reginald.While the band name was adapted from theSpanish term “conquistador” as a means to conquer or be a conqueror, Konqistador adopted a variation of it, according to Reginald,“with the intention to — use diplomacy, kindness and genuine curiosity — to conquer cultures, assimilate, cooperate and motivate us in a way that would ultimately establish Konqistador as leaders in the charge toward next world music.”Despite being touted in a 2020 review byPopMatters as, “one of last year’s most powerful (and underrated releases)”, the “deliciously defiant album with immense crossover appeal”,“conceived as a celebration of women’s courage in fighting for change around the world, as well asa rebuke against the rise of anti-Muslim politics in the United States”, — sadly never got the recognition or exposure it deserved.In the wake of a seismic world event — Nafada, the album, the fervor, and ultimately the tour were furloughed when Covid hit … and the opportunity to be seen and heard on a global scale, sidelined along with it. COVID KILLS THE RADIO STAR “When we eventually emerged from Covid, the whole world, and particularly the way we consumed music, had changed,” reflects Reginald. “Before the pandemic, Nafada was gathering steam. We had SonyMusic Middle East on board, tours lined up, public space events were still celebrated instead of feared, and live performances remained a fiscally viable, broad scale option to reach new audiences and widely promote your music.”In the aftermath of the global pandemic the world was still recovering from the impact that shutdowns had on many services where demand for them had slowed dramatically throughout the Covid period. That meant accessing visas, getting passports and navigating the government departments responsible for them, made it a near-impossible logistical task to manage for the multinational team of artists who made up Nafada. Nafada elevates entertainment with its multi-modal use of audio, visual, digital and live performance art to tell its story. “Covid really ground things to a halt. Any opportunities or interest Nafada had following its release in 2019were pretty much dead in the water by the time restrictions lifted and we had the chance to revisit the album’s future,” Reginald admits. Additionally, the opportunity to capitalize on creating a buzz or a following on social media was also not an option. “Let’s put the obvious controversy that exists around Arab and/or Muslim women in hip-hop aside for a second — even if some elements of the project weren’t an issue, relying on social media as a tool for self-promotion is basically akin to playing the lottery and no one has time to invest in that.”The controversy Reginald is referring to is the prolific, uncontrollable social media commentary that comes part and parcel with having a public online presence.“That’s nothing new, but as a collective of producers and performers headlined by women breaking away from the confines of religious customs, we intentionally choose not to play in that space,” comments Reginald. THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE While Covid-19 decimated the music industry in many ways, it did facilitate a massive change in the way people consumed and accessed entertainment. And, as a result, through absolute necessity and the widespread global digitization of communication, the bar for innovation in audience engagement was raised significantly.“As consumers ourselves, we were growing bored with the traditional methods of delivery and began to seek out more diverse storytelling genres, platforms and formats. With that understand-ing, I began to imagine a different future for Nafada — one that would involve transitioning it from a one-dimensional consumption model into a multi-arts, multi-sensory digital experience that would meet new age demands in entertainment and appeal to a broader market of arts enthusiasts.” Although not an established documentary filmmaker, Reginald’s experience in graphic design, videography, glitch art and music, along with the change in audience expectations, not only led to anew way of storytelling, but ultimately — a new way for the Nafada story to be told.“It started to become clear to me that film might hold the key to introducing the artists, the songs and the messages better than the music on its own ever could,” says Reginald. “There’s a Canadian communications theorist and philosopher, MarshallMcLuhan, who coined the term, ‘the medium is the message’, which suggests that the vessel through which we choose to communicate holds as much, if not more, value than the message itself … and I think, or at least hope, that through this film we might have the potential to prove that theory right.” THE NAFADA EXPERIENCE While Reginald’s intention behind the film was motivated by his desire to find an alternative platform to raise awareness, uplift voices and showcase the genre-bending talents of Konqistador and Muslim women in hip-hop, Nafada: An AudioUprising, is far from your stereotypical concert film.Firmly established in the principles of arthouse cinema, Reginald takes a refreshing, yet experimental approach to indie documentary filmmaking. Using a prompt and response, non-linear way of storytelling, Reginald relies on a hybrid amalgamation of visual, audio and graphic design elements to underpin an ongoing theme of censorship, surveillance and digital defiance.“The film uses the symbolism of binary coding throughout to represent the concepts of culture jamming and digital repression,” explains Reginald.“It’s an approach that certainly lends weight toSusan Vreeland’s famous quote that ‘art begets art’,” he suggests in reflection.A creative form of activism, culture jamming seeks to disrupt operations, clog channels and/or block attempts to access information, or conversely, share it freely. Of course, depending on the motives behind the jamming, this collection of tactics can also be used nefariously to censor, surveil or provide a barrier to freedom of expression and speech — particularly in countries where autocratic governments or dictatorships still exist.“When we set out to make Nafada, these overarching infractions on basic human rights were something we hoped to shine a light on,” says Reginald. “So in the early stages of gathering support material, the prompt and response method I took was devised to create a safe and open forum to freely exchange unscripted dialogue and ideas.”To do this, Reginald aimed to elicit thoughts “on the fly, in the moment and get real time answers by using a one-word prompt to trigger a stream of consciousness in reply.” Although unusual when you consider the amount of hours that go into conventional plot structuring, Reginald used this unorthodox technique to secure uncensored and unfiltered content that would not only fly in the face of censorship ideals and challenge the realms of traditional storytelling, it would ultimately better align with the defiant nature of Nafada and the vision he had for its future. What Reginald didn’t anticipate with this approach was how the impact of time would affect the overall story to be told. “That’s what happens when you take a 2018 project and try to market it to 2024audiences. The world changed so much in those six years that we were left with the realization that we’d actually have to first justify the project’s existence, before we could ever celebrate the significant contribution it had made to the arts and the world of activism itself.”However, if it isn’t obvious by now, Reginald is not one to acquiesce easily, nor is he one to repurpose tried and true methods of producing art. Needless to say, Reginald found a way to circumvent both the challenges that faced the music, and those that would confront him in film.While the documentary does still provide glimpses into the music through electrifying performance footage; it’s the extemporaneous interviews, the arthouse nature of the film and the controversial topics it covers, that consolidates Nafada the album, and Nafada: An Audio Uprising, into an entertainment package that can only be described as an “experience”, as opposed to individual art forms merging together to merely complement the existence of one another.Combine that with a live performance following the documentary’s test screening at this year’s Concert of Colors Diversity Festival in Detroit — and now you have an activated arts installation, (the first of its kind to be added to the program) as part of a festival that has been celebrating world music for more than 33 years.When you add Detroit’s long history steeped in music and rebellion, not to mention its growing reputation as a creative arts capital to the mix, the event provided the perfect springboard to relaunch the music of Nafada … along with its ambitious vision to revolutionize the way we should expect to experience art into the future.“It could not have been a more appropriate platform to debut the film,” shares Reginald. “The amount of positive feedback we have received from those who attended the show has been overwhelming to say the least. If I could sum up those responses very succinctly, it would be to use the words of the festival founder himself, Ismael Ahmed, who described the event and film to be,“Killer … Absolutely killer,” to watch.