First and foremost, thank you Kelela for putting me on to this dope Dj via Instagram. BTW, check out “Take Me Apart” by Kelela on Apple Music.
My Actual Screenshot of @kelelam IG story
I enjoy female Dj’s just as much as I enjoy male Dj’s so when I checked out one of my favorite singers Instagram story, she was sycin’ this Dj named ASMARA. Because it was Kelela plugging everyone to ASMARA, of course, I followed through, I mean, WHY NOT?! Since I was at work I couldn’t listen to the track she posted on IG but best believe I looked for her on Apple Music. A few
Arabic and Eritrean pop artists later, ASMARA did not turn up in my search results (at the time). Thanks to my handy dandy Sound Cloud account there she was, the first result to pop up! Based off of her Sound Cloud stats, she was quite popping so I knew I came across a gem!
What made my discovery of ASMARA better was seeing my girl Alexandria from Awful records featured on one of her tracks. Before listening to her music, I wanted to get the background information about ASMARA or MA DJ:
Name: Asmara Maroof
Where: Los Angeles, CA
Active: 2008-Present
Discography: MoMA PS1, Let Ting Go
Affiliation: Nguzunguzu, Fade to Mind, Kingdom, Kelela, Total Freedom
Looking back, without realizing it, I already knew who ASMARA was due to her remixes on Kelela’s first album “Cut 4 Me” which is one of my top 5 favorite albums of 2015 so, you can say that I’ve been hip. I just wasn’t hip to her solo projects or even her duo projects with Nguzunguzu. Honestly, I was only interested in her solo project at that moment so, I can’t really tell you too much about her duet project.
Scrolling through MA DJ (one of her stage names) Sound Cloud profile, I finally reached her “Let Ting Go” EP, first track being titled “True Story Dude”. EVERY TRACK WAS A BANGER.
I enjoyed her electronic R&B fusion, definitely a concept that you don’t hear too often nowadays.
I’m going to play favorites with you all tonight though. My favorite track on “Let Ting Go” was and still is “4 Anything”. Not because of Alexandria from Awful Records and her sensual vocals but, for the perfectly placed soul and the right amount of bass to make the song dope for easy listening. By easy listening I mean, sitting back with your window open, enjoying the fall weather, television off, reading a book or blog J and burning an incense. “4 Anything” provides the type of style any listener would enjoy.
Alexandria’s vocals are properly placed on the track, the 808’s are dropped strategically, and the whirring, nostalgic background sounds tie everything together. As a first-time listener, I was very impressed and could not wait to follow MA DJ/ASMARA in the future. Which brings me to tonight. I’m going to drop her Sound Cloud link to “Let Ting Go” and also the link to her playlist, “ASMARA Mini Mix” for those of you who have Apple Music (Today I found some of her stuff but it was only a playlist).
I hope you all enjoyed this post. Feel free to leave some comments!
All Artists and songs are tagged!
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