Conzert: Testimonies from X to D

In the performative rap concert Testimonies from X to D, testimonies from captivity become deep breaths. Inspired by Frantz Fanon’s Combat Breath – which analysed combat breathing as a direct result of state repression – KDM and Odete weave together texts by political prisoners into a ritual chain letter. This lyrical chain letter against the isolation and alienation of imprisonment emerges over raw sound textures and atmospheric electronic sounds. Because a thorough analysis of power and oppression only becomes possible through the voices of political prisoners: the performance reveals the profit-orientated structures of the prison industrial complex and shows how punishment is linked to social and political systems spread throughout the world. The rap concert illustrates what George Jackson observed while in prison: “If they let us out, the world would hear our analysis, but until then, our words from here are the only testimony.”       

Myassa Kraitt (she/her) is a performance artist, rapper, director and social anthropologist. In her work she brings together rap, performance and lectures with queer-feminist and anti-/decolonial discourses. She has been performing as her artistic alter ego, “KDM Königin der Macht” (Queen of Power) since 2022. Her artistic practice deals with feminist movements and forms of violence, although she focuses particularly on epistemic violence, coloniality, patriarchy and necropolitics.  

Odete (they/them) is the alias of Levi Carvalho, a multidisciplinary artist who works across writing, music, theater, and visual arts. They have been researching and working on building connections between “effeminate” histories, from Baroque castrati to 19th-century dandies.