Footprints in the Dark is a way for Contour to make one part of his research practice public, and maybe add some incentive for vigor as he explores. Each month, he’ll compile two hours of music or sound from a single black artist. This prompt is intentionally vague – could be a musician, could be a poet, could be a filmmaker, etc. Some months may feature guest presenters/focus on more than one artist.

He will be rejecting the following ideas/instincts that come up for this kind of exercise as he proceeds:
– The instinct to focus on non-living, non active artists. There will be some, but he intends to represent a fair mix of those who are still currently active.
– The instinct to make this a comprehensive representation of a catalog, or a guide of sorts. He’ll select the material that resonates with him, in hopes that listeners find inspiration to further explore on their own.

“We Don’t Need No Music” or, a Pearl Cleage Tribute Piece – guest hosted by Etta aka Crystal Mioner, a cultural worker based in Detroit.

“Pearl Cleage is a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and activist based in Atlanta. The daughter of Shrine of the Black Madonna founder Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, she spent much of her adolescence in Detroit, surrounded by key figures in the Civil Rights Movement. Starting her writing career at a young age, she would go on to put out poetry with the independent Broadside Press and numerous novels and plays across various publications. A contemporary of black feminists such as Nikki Giovanni and Toni Morrison, her work centers the black woman experience in daily life.

In all of her writing, music has a strong presence. Characters preparing for a trip to Cuba by listening to Buena Vista Social Club, seeing Linda Ronstadt with girlfriends, fighting with her husband over Marvin Gaye. Her book, Mad At Miles: A Black Woman’s Guide To Truth directly confronts Miles Davis and his abuse of Cicely Tyson, a taboo at the time it was published (and still, even now.) The idea for this mix came while reading her work a few summers ago and feeling a strong alliance to her frankness. Many of the books are based in West Michigan, where I’m from, and overlap with Detroit, where I live. While I couldn’t fit all of the music she mentioned in this mix, I’m grateful to contribute this accompaniment to her work. I would like to also credit DJ Lynnee Denise for “DJ Scholarship” and all of the possibilities.”