Let Amirtha Kidambi’s New Monuments be your call to action
thefader.comFor most of her career, Amirtha Kidambi didn’t refer to herself as an activist, in the same way she didn’t consider herself a Carnatic singer despite studying the form for years.
Both of these practices, she explained in a 2017 interview, are lifelong callings. And Kidambi, while channeling both a revolutionary spirit and elements of Carnatic music — a form of classical Indian songcraft rooted in ancient Hindu traditions — in her explosive strain of free jazz, has tended to follow her own, separate vision.
In her earliest works, she sang strictly in phonemes, avoiding not only English words but also the symbolically significant syllables associated with Carnatic ragas and the tropes of jazz scatting (e.g. “daba-dooby”). “I wanna be a horn!” she said in the same interview. “I want to have the freedom to be liberated from text when I’m into a solo or improvising.” In recent years, however, she’s stepped into the role of activist with fervor.
During 2020’s George Floyd protests, she organized musicians to preempt potential violence from cops in riot gear with the force of their instruments.
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