Tunde Olaniran: Chaotic Good
Jan 27, 2024
Amsterdam Bar and Hall
Tickets: $15
Flint, Michigan-born musician, filmmaker, and artist Tunde Olaniran (they/them) subverts the status quo and delivers messages on environmental and social justice through a genre-bending blend of pop, soul, and experimental electronic sounds. Known for their energy, intimacy, and emotional resonance, Olaniran’s work draws on their intersectional identities as a Black and queer person. This lively, entrancing performance as part of The Great Northern 2024 will showcase a spectrum of work including songs from their forthcoming album, Chaotic Good.
Related event: On Jan 28, the day following the concert, The Great Northern will present a free screening of Olaniran’s debut short film with music Made A Universe, which depicts the impact of the Flint water crisis on Olaniran’s community. Join us at North Garden Theater for the film and a conversation about climate justice with Olaniran.
About the Artist
Tunde Olaniran is an artist based in Flint, MI, whose work spans the worlds of music, dance, film, literature and performance art, exploring themes of Blackness, gender expression, class, agency, and psychic/emotional power.
Their debut and sophomore albums led to critical praise from The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NPR, The New Yorker and countless others. They have produced globally-impactful work in collaboration with many artists including Mona Haydar, adrienne maree brown, Nick Cave, Esperanza Spalding, and Yo-Yo Ma.
Olaniran is a 2017 Art Matters Fellow, 2019 United States Artist Fellow, and 2020 University of Michigan Artist-in-Residence. Tunde’s work for PBS won a 2021 Regional Emmy. In 2022, they created an experimental short film/exhibition entitled Made a Universe (as well as a companion performance installation entitled Everything is a Portal) in 2022, commissioned by Cranbrook Art Museum, with support from John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. They were lead producer for Walk with Amal's 2023 activation in Flint, MI. Their third album, Chaotic Good, is due in early 2024.
This activity is supported, in part, by the City of Saint Paul Cultural Sales Tax Revitalization Program.
This program is funded in part with money from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund that was created with the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.