Last weekend’s historic March on Washington — which called for justice, the abolition of police violence, and more — drew thousands of participants to the National Mall in D.C. Along the National Mall, that landscaped park home to several museums and book-ended by the Lincoln Memorial and the United States Capitol, stands an installation for which two New Orleans musicians composed the soundscape.
Raney Antoine, Jr. (L) and Lovell “U-P” Cooper.
Lovell “U-P” Cooper and Raney Antoine, Jr. were commissioned to create the music to accompany the interpretive installation, which is open to the public until Saturday, September 5. The duo’s composition is titled “8:46,” in acknowledgment of the eight minutes and 46 seconds a Minneapolis police officer kept his knee on the neck of George Floyd, murdering him in the process.
“This soundscape is our musical expression and interpretation of the following elements of institutional racism,” the two said in a joint statement. “Racial lynching, death by cop, mass incarceration, and state execution.” The composition plays on a loop at the Society’s Cage pavilion, at 12th Street and Madison Drive NW. According to its website, Society’s Cage is “a timely interpretive installation born in the aftermath of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murders as our society reckons with institutional racism and white supremacy.”
Cooper is the founder and head producer for Fresh Music Group, where Antoine, Jr. serves as a producer, songwriter and composer. Cooper, a multi-platinum selling producer/mixing engineer as well as a professor of music, serves as the facilities coordinator and co-creator of the new Urban & Electronic B.S. degree at Loyola University New Orleans. In addition to his work as a musician, Raney serves as an educator at Einstein Charter Schools and Loyola.
To hear “8:46,” click here.
