“KEM KEM” Olukemi Lijadu

My Grandfather’s Wax: Nigerian Funk, Juju and Afrobeat with @kemkemlij “Every record in this set comes from my grandfathers’ shelves - highlife, juju, funk, and soul from 70s and 80s Nigeria that filled their homes and now fill mine, spun together in celebration of lineage and sound.” • • Audio gear partners: @audiogold @pioneerdjglobal @resorelectronics @ortofon_uk @ramar.berlin

FEEDBACK (2 channel video and sound system installation) My first institutional solo exhibition is up at @spikeisland in Bristol until May 10! Curated by @clementineproby Thank you @ramsham_hifi for the stack and @anneliseagossa for spatial design. In this work I am thinking through the mechanics of feedback as a way to think through music as memory and message across the Black Atlantic. Based on my time spent in Chicago, Detroit and Bristol, I am thinking about sampling, reverberation the drum and trance. Spiritual and sonic modes of expression that emerge in new ways upon each soil. The starting point of the film is at the point of no return in Badagry, Lagos. So grateful to the multitude of souls who contributed to this work, film credits following shortly. Humbled and grateful to think through these things in public. Installation photos by Rob Harris

The public voted, and the winner is @kemkemlij After a month of anticipation and more than 15,000 online votes, moving-image and sound artist Olukemi Lijadu received the £10,000 public prize powered by @piccadillylights for Sister, Sister – a love letter and portrait of her aunts and legendary singing sensations that took the world by storm, ‘The Lijadu Sisters’. Taiwo and Kehinde Lijadu embody the Yoruba principle of complementary dualism, rooted in Ifá metaphysics, as revolutionary artists and as Ifá priestesses. Fearless in their prime, they became the first woman-led band from West Africa to reach global acclaim, later creating refugia in Harlem. Growing up in Lagos, the artist carried their echoes in her name – Olukemi Lijadu – and went searching for them. Sister, Sister captures their bond, bravery, and home, through layered sound and ritual, becoming a quiet act of witness that echoes CIRCA’s vision of refugia. Now in its fifth consecutive year, the CIRCA PRIZE 2025 finalists included: @adham_faramawy @aliaskar______abarkas @_suutoo_ @laura_huertas_millan @billyjohnbultheel @frequentlyaskedquestion @canerteker__ @martielcarlos @vnoujaim @danglefree @candelacapitan @ceciliabengolea @jshwlfrd @jotamombaca @aziza.kadyri @leyla_stevens @lucybeech @magicmagid @matijhurry @oliviaerlanger @puppiespuppiesjade @ssaarraahj @tareklakhrissi @temitayo.shonibare @thelonious_art @zobayda__

999HEARD and @irl_energy invite you to the Toronto stop of the IRL Tour for Low End Theory on JUNE 12 .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ A night dedicated to the expansive and evolving electronic sounds of the African continent and its diaspora. .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ We are thrilled to welcome Kem Kem (@kemkemlij joining us from the UK. Known for her technical precision and sets that traverse Lagos-inspired grooves, heavy club edits, and UK bass, Kem Kem brings a global perspective to the Toronto underground. Supporting the night is a heavy-hitting lineup of local favourites: Sonic Griot @sonicgriot , Jelz @jelzjelz and 999ADJ @999_adj .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ This event is a collaboration with IRL @irl_energy , a platform that connects you to artists and venues around the world. In the spirit of the IRL mission, your presence is your participation, discover the sound, check in, and earn rewards just for showing up and being part of the community. .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ We’ll be serving free jollof starting at 11 PM while supplies last, so come early to fuel up for the dancefloor 🌀 poster by @samuelwasserman early bird tickets available on RA DONT SLEEP! .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚ JUNE 12 @standardtime.to 11-late .𖥔 ݁ ˖ִ ࣪⚝₊ ⊹˚

Each week, the Contemporary Art Society publishes the Friday Dispatch, an essay reflecting on the current state of contemporary art or a review of a recent exhibition. In this week’s edition, Elliott Higgs, the CAS Curator of Digital, visits @spikeisland to review Olukemi Lijadu’s (@kemkemlij ) 'Feedback', a film installation that unfolds as an aural history and sonic travelogue tracing rhythm, memory, and migration across Lagos, Chicago, Detroit, and Bristol 🪩 He writes, “At the centre of Feedback is an investigation of how West African sonic traditions survive displacement, although this inquiry is less posed directly than sustained implicitly across its fifteen minute duration. Lijadu draws on Paul Gilroy’s account of the Black Atlantic as a formation produced through forced movement across the sea, but the film resists the academic tendency to stabilise diaspora into theory. Instead, an aural history emerges through sensation. Percussive rhythms, recorded conversations, snatches of songs, and camcorder footage drift in and out of one another without settling into documentary coherence. The effect resembles listening to a stochastic succession of radio frequencies, each transmission bleeding into the next.” Read the full essay via the link in bio 🔗 Olukemi Lijadu: Feedback (2026). Film stills courtesy the artist. Install shots at Spike Island, Bristol. Images courtesy the artist, photography by Rob Harris

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: The Sounds That Move Us Celebrating the launch of SITE Toronto and marking the inaugural session of our residency program, The Sounds That Move Us is an invitation to listen deeply and move freely. Expanding upon the artist talk, residents Olukemi Lijadu (@kemkemli ) and Yantong Li (@simon_liyantong ) will present their work through an experimental format that unfolds across sonic recordings and live reflection. Working across distinct geographies and research trajectories, their thinking converges around sound as a method for tracing histories of movement, displacement, and new cultural formations. Developed in collaboration with Akash Bansal (@my_bodys_in_troubleshoot )—and sound and technical support by Ayush Sharma (@chum_b0 )—The Sounds That Move Us prioritizes new forms, formats, and collaborations, culminating in a sound-focused environment that moves from listening into DJ sets and dancing. Please join us! ✨✨✨ Location The Courtyard, 401 Richmond Street West (entrance beside Dark Horse Espresso Bar near Spadina Avenue). Please be in touch if you have any accessibility requirements. Tickets $10 general / $5 students + reduced / $15 supporter All proceeds directly fund SITE’s programs and future initiatives. Please reach out if cost is a barrier. Schedule 7:00 PM — Doors 7:30 PM — Welcome 7:45 PM — Experimental artist talks: Olukemi Lijadu and Yantong Li 9:00 PM — Akash Bansal DJ set 10:00 PM — Kem Kem DJ set Event poster designed by Omama Mahmood (@runzarchive ) and Aaryan Pashine (@a____p.jpg ) Full details and tickets through link in bio ❣️

books, books, books

Last Thursday for @bristolnewmusic a performance collapsing the barriers between the moving image and the dj, tradition and modernity, black music as part of an ongoing feedback loop, destabilising ideas of origins towards a discussion of exchange. Thank you @bristolnewmusic and @spikeisland ’s amazing team for the technical feat this was! Photos by Adam Reid Adam Reid @schwetography

“Feedback” refers to both sustained response and, in musical contexts, to the noise produced by live electronic instruments. It is a loop, but the transmission changes as it’s circulated. In a new show of the same name at Spike Island (@spikeisland ) in Bristol, Olukemi Lijadu (@kemkemlij ) draws out the implications of feedback loops, recursive recall, and call-and-response, in a wideranging examination of the interrelated musical worlds of West Africa, the US, and the UK.⁠ ⁠ Centring on a film commission formed through extensive research in Chicago, Lagos, and the UK, ‘Feedback’ follows the influence of West African drumming on diasporic music traditions in the West. ⁠ ⁠ Read Lijadu in conversation with Finn Blythe (@finnblythe ) on Ocula, link in bio.

In conversation with GIDA, Nigerian-British artist, filmmaker, and DJ Olukemi Lijadu (@kekemlij ) reflects on “Feedback”, presented at Spike Island (@spikeisland ). Developed across Chicago, Lagos, and Bristol, the exhibition centres on a major film commission that uses audio feedback as both method and metaphor, tracing how rhythm, memory, and cultural codes circulate within the African diaspora. Grounded in the Yoruba concept of ‘ranti’ (to remember), the work moves between traditional West African drumming and electronic sound, positioning the drum as both instrument and symbol of connection, continuity, and communal time. Across the interview, Lijadu speaks on constructing the film’s visual and sonic language, drawing from her experience as a DJ to shape its soundscape and pacing. She reflects on the film’s movement from remembrance and exploration to expansion and grounding, alongside her use of mirroring and repetition to suggest shifting perspectives. Extending beyond the screen, the inclusion of a sound system, rooted in Bristol’s sound system culture, acts as both a display and metaphor, amplifying the histories and frequencies embedded within the work, while pointing towards how Feedback continues to inform her evolving practice. Swipe to listen to the full conversation.

RESIDENCY INTERVIEW: Olukemi Lijadu (@kemkemlij ) “I’m really interested in tracing the ways sound is a form of knowledge that can tell us about the movement of across space and time of Black people across the Atlantic.” Learn more about Olukemi’s practice at our upcoming event, ✨The Sounds That Move Us✨, on May 30th, as well as at Niaflix: Feedback, a screening with live score by the artist in collaboration with @niacentre on June 4th. Full details of both events announced soon. Olukemi’s residency is made possible through the support of: @401richmond @artmetropole @anjlitoronto @pskeila @partnersinartcanada Video by Miles Rufelds (@milesrufelds ) #SITEToronto #ArtistinResidence #InternationalResidency #OlukemiLijadu #Lagos