Sonar Sessions 2009

Muhsinah

Rxlnger, New York City, USA

When you're a young lady who can play piano, produce heavy beats and jaggedly soulful flavours as well as sing on top, while recording and mastering your own compositions, it's inevitable that you'll be compared to a certain Miss Muldrow; but Muhsinah brings her own vision and style, which she describes as experimental soul or "grimey dream music". She's a fan of Chopin and Rachmaninoff and has toured France and Venezuela as the pianist in jazz ensembles. When not editing sound for documentaries, getting her Protools certification or absorbing studio tips from her Brooklyn neighbour Waajeed of Platinum Pied Pipers, you'll find her as a backing singer for artists like Raheem Devaughn or W. Ellington Felton and swapping inspiration with Phonte of Little Brother. Muhsinah is collaborating with artists like Oddisee, Jake One, Foreign Exchange and Stacey Epps. She collects raw food recipes and yarn, owns a sitar, and her greatest inspirations are hip hop culture, Jay Dilla and Alice Coltrane.