In Tunde Olaniran's 'Symbol,' Sounds Spring Out In Every Direction

If you haven't heard "Namesake," one of the many wildly joyous highlights of Tunde Olaniran's 2015 debut Transgressor, take a few minutes to listen before proceeding with... well, anything in your life. A boundlessly inventive ode to individuality, it sounds, appropriately enough, like nothing else.

A Flint, Mich., multi-hyphenate whose artistic ambition suggests a drive for immortality — he's a singer, rapper, organizer, choreographer and so much more — Olaniran stuffs his songs with ideas. "Symbol," his first song since Transgressor, is no exception: It slithers along at an even pace, but lets unusual sounds, samples and effects (as well as pointed bits of commentary about identity and power) spring out in every direction.

"I wrote 'Symbol' as the child of an immigrant, under the global specter of violence against black and brown bodies, and in light of the international refugee crisis," Olaniran writes via email. "Now, with the Trump Administration, black and brown bodies are again held up as political symbols to attack DACA and feed white nationalism. It saddens me that these lyrics feel like they will be relevant for many more generations. 'Symbol' is about still finding joy in the knowledge that despite a dark history, we still became the future, and that my body is the literal wildest dream of my ancestors."

"Symbol" is out now.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.