Fold
The Painful Truth

psyche / neo-soul / soul / jazz / experimental

“Truth is an endangered space” is the phrase that opens Fold’s latest piece, once again voiced by the late bell hooks and in tribute to her. Using these delicately paced statements by hooks The Painful Truth reflects today’s society in which people’s “deep longing to avoid conflict” along with their fears are being increasingly manipulated by powerful interests to stifle dissenting voices. Yet there is hope because, as bell hooks emphasises, “people are really hungry for truth.”

That sense of hope is brought to life by a beautifully cinematic, jazz-funk soundscape with horn arrangements by long-time Fold collaborator Emma Johnson.

“We are continually amazed by the prescience & brilliance of bell hooks’ observations. With each new discovery we feel her loss more keenly. Like me bell hooks was also a New Yorker. She was a professor at CUNY where my father taught for most of his career. This piece uses excerpts from a 2002 interview that triggers memories for me of how it felt to live in post-911 New York and more broadly the USA. The environment was stifling; dissident voices were ruthlessly oppressed. Many powerful forces took full advantage of the hurt and fear that people were experiencing. What bell hooks observed at that time was the beginning of a trend that has only increased since. We are now very much, as she puts it, ‘in danger of silencing any form of speech that goes against what is perceived to be the status quo.’ This is the perspective that we want to amplify right now.“ — Fold