This project started out involving a movie called “The Spook Who Sat By The Door” made in 1973. After watching it, I wanted to make an instrumental project with excerpts from the movie. The project never transpired but was in the back of my head for years and so when I revisited it, I decided to broaden its scope and make it about the black experience in America. That black experience deals heavily with the title of this project.

The title basically came soon after I started working on it. We went from being called “Nigger”, being used as a form of degradation and psychological warfare, to calling ourselves “Nigga” as a form of endearment. I don’t use the term myself and feel that it is harmful and damaging in many ways but as an artist, I have to raise hard questions and sometimes address controversial issues. There is a complex history here and I tried to address some of that through this project. We cannot move forward until we deal with the past, and I feel that the word represents’ part of the past and present psychological oppression of black men in America.

You can download it or hear more on my site at www.damionismyname.com or on social media @damionismyname