Gif Confronts Race & Identity in America with “EX.O.L.L.” [ALBUM]

Radical thought requires radical art. That’s the idea behind everything emcee and performance artist Shawn “Gif” Folk does, including his latest album, EX.O.L.L.

EX.O.L.L., which was released on May 1st on iTunes, Amazon, and Bandcamp, was born out of Extraordinary Ordinary Lives of the Living, the hip-hop infused live theatre project Gif has been performing in and around New York City for the past three years. The show challenges conventional perceptions of Black urban youth identity and the accepted idea of progress.

When Gif realized what he had to say about his community was something people hadn’t heard before, might be considered controversial, and could apply to anyone not in the majority, he knew he couldn’t just make an album, he had to draw people into the experience. With EX.O.L.L, he does this by using his own experiences growing up in Spanish Harlem as “a Black wayward youth not bad enough to be saved, or good enough to be praised.” His goal is to address the question of how, in the face of ethnocentrism, do Black youth that identify with the criminalized culture of hip-hop feel about their intrinsic self-value?

Gif’s performances of “Extraordinary Ordinary Lives of the Living” has sparked intense conversations about race amongst audience members and with EX.O.L.L.’s wide release Gif hopes to engage in those conversations with a national audience, and spark changes within communities across the country.