Daniel Haaksman’s acclaimed With Love, From Berlin album (released on 25th of January) is focussing on Berlin as a city of yearning for international artists. For his album Daniel commissioned various co-artists to reflect upon their life in the German capital. “Occupy Berlin”, the feature with Angolan singer Kalaf Angelo (formerly of Buraka Som Sistema) e.g. reflects on what it means to be Black in Berlin. Mexican singer Coco Maria sings in “La Añoranza” ft. Dengue Dengue Dengue and Ori Kaplan about feeling homesick and eventually transforming into a Neu-Berliner.
One of the outstanding tracks of the album however features Brazilian singer [{“CIBELLE”(})]. Internationally known since the late 1990s as one of Brazil’s most radical and talented singers and interdisciplinary artists. After a musical hiatus for transitioning and their coming out as a non-binary person – thus addressed in “they/them” pronouns – [{“CIBELLE”(})] moved to Berlin in 2015 after finding comfort and room for self exploration in Berlin showing itself as an accommodating, sex positive trans feminist queer hub.
[{“CIBELLE”(})]’s work addresses a need for us in society to halt the redistribution of violence and structural oppressions stemming from excluding each other on the basis of race, ability, beauty standards, gender assignment, identity or expression.
“Corpo / Sujeito” (“Body / Subject”) unfolds into a radical questioning of what it means to be a man or a woman, a body bound person or a person beyond a body, our gaze upon each other. Lyrically it narrates states of being that lay beyond gender binaries whilst affirming the strength that arises within someone in letting go of complying with the pre-existing gender binary boxes and their roles. Berlin echoes in “Corpo / Sujeito” (“Body / Subject”) as one of the global centres where one may find room to better understand oneself outside of cis-hetero-normativity, and play out one’s existence with moderately more safety than other capitals, such as São Paulo, where [{“CIBELLE”(})] comes from.
The single is accompanied by a breath taking remix by LA’s Kelman Duran. Known for his unique deconstruction take on dembow ryhthms, Duran transformed [{“CIBELLE”(})] ́s song into a sacral sounding, introspective track with a gut- shattering bass.