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In Tunde Olaniran's 'Symbol,' Sounds Spring Out In Every Direction

Tunde Olaniran's new song is titled "Symbol."
Jon Dones
/
Courtesy of the artist
Tunde Olaniran's new song is titled "Symbol."

If you haven't heard "Namesake," one of the many wildly joyous highlights of Tunde Olaniran's 2015 debut Transgressor, take a few minutes to listen before proceeding with... well, anything in your life. A boundlessly inventive ode to individuality, it sounds, appropriately enough, like nothing else.

A Flint, Mich., multi-hyphenate whose artistic ambition suggests a drive for immortality — he's a singer, rapper, organizer, choreographer and so much more — Olaniran stuffs his songs with ideas. "Symbol," his first song since Transgressor, is no exception: It slithers along at an even pace, but lets unusual sounds, samples and effects (as well as pointed bits of commentary about identity and power) spring out in every direction.

"I wrote 'Symbol' as the child of an immigrant, under the global specter of violence against black and brown bodies, and in light of the international refugee crisis," Olaniran writes via email. "Now, with the Trump Administration, black and brown bodies are again held up as political symbols to attack DACA and feed white nationalism. It saddens me that these lyrics feel like they will be relevant for many more generations. 'Symbol' is about still finding joy in the knowledge that despite a dark history, we still became the future, and that my body is the literal wildest dream of my ancestors."

"Symbol" is out now.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)