TYGAPAW – Together You Gather All Power Applied Worldwide

Description

With the process of creating the album starting in 2023, as TYGAPAW (Dion McKenzie) was in the first year of their
transition, the music reflects the intensity of that period, where they were experiencing deplatforming as a
response to the shift in their physical appearance: Tracks like ‘M32 Riddim’ and ‘Helicopter hovers over my Crown
Heights Apartment’ feature high-paced rhythms intersecting with intense siren-like synths to form demanding
compositions echoing a heightened sense of alert. Yet throughout the album, relief comes in the form of
TYGAPAW’s vocal features, co-conspirators, and chosen family, whose voices are treated with reverb and echo, a
sonic fingerprint that leads back to the pioneers in the legendary studios of TYGAPAW’s native land, Jamaica, an
important reminder that the past will always inform the future. It is an album for dancers first and foremost, where
joy, defiance, and integration with the natural body coexist, and every drop feels less like a climax than a
transformation. Expect a bass that permeates your soul and melodic synthesized sequenced phrases echoing the
dancehall eras of TYGAPAW’s youth, reshaped into hypnotic melodies that glow over industrial kicks designed to
command attention, reasserting Jamaica’s pioneering yet often overlooked contribution to electronic music.

In the opening track, ‘Can I Live’, Precious Okoyomon’s words feel like the beginning of a ritual; setting the
intentions for the rest of the proceedings. As McKenzie puts it, their “work is about regeneration, resetting, getting
integrated into nature, and about rebirth. That’s the tone I wanted to set at the outset of the album.” Ms Carrie
Stacks continues this thread of support in ‘Don’t Panic’ with heavily processed vocals on top of a beat that takes
inspiration from another important ingredient in the antidote to the oppression of isolation: Ballroom culture. “ I feel
like I found my queerness in Ballroom, that’s why this track is very important to me.”

Echoes of NYC Black queer nightlife scene also permeate in the energetic drums of ‘Exorcise the Language of
Domination’, in which Julianna Huxtable’s spoken performance complements the various movements and tones of
the music. “My producer brain thought this was the one that Juliana’s vocals would be best suited for. I hinted:
‘what do you think of this one?’ She just went into her notes and picked some passages to go with the first section
of the track. From there, it was a year-long process of development. It required time and space for this thing to
evolve, but I think it’s one of the most powerful tracks on the album.” London’s SUUTOO contributes the album’s
only musical collaboration on ‘B2B’, a track that emerged from sessions in McKenzie’s New York studio where the
real objective was to connect and have fun; a time out from the demands of life outside.

The album closes out with a double hit of emotion in the form of ‘Effects of Resistance and Black Trans Masculine
Experience’. The former features South African scholar Khanyisile Mbongwa drawing connections that exist
between Africa and the Black diaspora, whilst looking to the future and calling for a shared sense of community.
The latter piece, an instrumental version of the piece which featured on the IMMIGRANT E.P. of 2025 is a gentle and
deeply affecting end to the record, a place of peace and acceptance.

This end-of-cycle tone is mirrored in the sleeve photography, which also ties back to IMMIGRANT by finally
revealing what was hidden: a portrait of the artist fully self-actualized; a step towards true inner liberation.
TYGAPAW is sonically defiant across this album; bass frequencies feel tactile — less heard than inhabited —
infectious lead synth melodies remain with you long after the track ends. An overall sound that leaves asserting an
urgent need for connection. From Detroit to New York to Berlin to Jamaica, despite geographic distance, this album
reminds us that we remain in solidarity, recognising that meaningful world-building requires collective input and
action, both personal and communal, if we are to move toward liberation.