Paradigm/Windish APAP Showcase: Saul Williams, Mariachi Flor de Toloache

MartyrLoserKing has just tagged his screen name onto the White House lawn via remote drone. He's working from a remote e-waste camp in Burundi, Central Africa, neighboring the more well-known Rwanda, with equipment scrapped together from our old Dell PC towers and Sidekick IIs. Homeland Security, the NSA, and the CIA are tracing his signal back to a place that isn't on the map or on the grid, and the alert level rises when he hacks NASA just to show he can do it.

At least, that's what Saul Williams will tell you when you ask about his upcoming album and the story it's inspired. Written and recorded between Senegal, Reunion Island, Paris, Haiti, and New Orleans and New York, 'Martyr Loser King' is a multimedia project that engages the digital dialogue between the First and Third Worlds, and the global street sounds that yoke the two. "In Senegal, I was buying iPhones for $20, Beats for $10, because they get all the influx from China, with no regulation," Williams explains. "So everyone's online. Everyone's high tech." He sights Beyoncé, Fredo Santana, and Haitian field recordings as musical inspirations for his self-produced sixth album, straining trap hi-hats and mbira strokes together for a nuanced, entirely original sound. "I'm just letting you know what I'm reading and seeing while I'm writing. When I'm writing, the music leads."

Williams has been breaking ground since his debut album, 'Amethyst Rock Star,' was released in 2001 and executive produced by Rick Rubin. After gaining global fame for his poetry and writings at the turn of the century, Williams has performed in over 30 countries and read in over 300 universities, with invitations that have spanned from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, The Louvre, The Getty Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, to countless villages, townships, community centers, and prisons across the world. The Newburgh, New York native gained a BA from Morehouse and an MFA from Tisch, and has gone on to record with Nine Inch Nails and Allen Ginsburg, as well as countless film and television appearances.

The announcement of 'MartyrLoserKing' follows a new world tour and to-be-announced collaborations with several artists, producers and writers. It's slated for release this summer 2015.


Mariachi Flor de Toloache is the first and only established all female mariachi band founded in New York city in 2008 by Mireya I. Ramos. Originally a trio, the band has grown to 10 members with all the essential and traditional instruments, violins, trumpets, guitarron (bass), vihuela (5 string guitar) and guitar. In addition, each members' cultural background adds even more diversity to their already unique sound and appearance as an all women band spanning the globe from Puerto Rico, to Mexico, Singapore, Germany, Cuba, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and the United States.

Their goal of representing Mexican music and adding their own edgy and versatile sound comes together incredibly naturally and seamlessly. Although as individuals their talent has allowed them to grace stages world­wide from stadiums to acclaimed theater venues, they perform together like a band of sisters, with grace and vibrant beauty casting a spell over their audiences like the legendary and magical Toloache flower that is still being used in Mexico as a love potion.

Mariachi Flor de Toloache has performed at legendary and top venues in New York City including: Blue Note, Rockwood Music Hall (monthly residency), Prospect Park Bandshell for LAMC 2013, Kennedy Center and many more.. They have been featured on Univision, NBC, The Today Show, and reviewed by the New York Times, El Diario, Daily News, appeared in L.A. Times, New York Magazine, NPR, MTV Iggy and have performed special events for the Mexican Consulate, Queens Museum, El Museo del Barrio, high profile private events, the annual St Cecilia mariachi festival, annual Guadalupe festivities in dozens of churches.
Mariachi Flor de Toloache has always caught the attention of different types of audiences and art events that lead to invitations such as: touring for 5 weeks in Spain summer 2011 featured in top theatre festivals throughout the country as part of the Cross Border Project; and being invited by the Department of State to India for a cross cultural program representing the U.S. by doing performances in five different cities and teaching workshops and performing for the U.S. ambassador in November of 2013. They continue to perform all over New York city intending to preserve the richness of Mexican culture and evolve the Mariachi tradition with respect, pride, passion and creativity.