Berlin-based artist Astan Ka drops the video for her second independent release, ‘Deng Deng’ with the aid of director Sami Grill. “I wanted to create outstanding imagery for Astan‘s outstanding music,” explains Sami. “We follow her on a journey through intense emotions, visualized by intense images. It feels more like a music film than a music video in the classical sense. We never return to a place just like the song never returns to a previous part. We go on through dark emotions, danger and betrayal but we also find hope, light and healing. This might be Gangsta Jazz Cinema”
‘Deng Deng’ is an experiment, as well as in the combination of different genres, different producers and different states of mind. It’s like three different songs in one. It is a way for me to experiment and find my own sound, build my universe. I write a lot and sometimes very personal thoughts end up being a song that will come out to the world. Before recording ‘Deng Deng’ I had this feeling of insecurity about the lyrics because they are really personal but it’s their raw truth that makes them beautiful and it’s a way for me, as it might be for many other artists in their own working process, to air out the mind which has to free itself from unfavorable thoughts.
– Astan Ka
Astan is a Berlin-based artistic performer that expresses herself through music, writing, acting and dancing. Born in France and traveling regularly to Mali since the age of 3, Astan grew up with a double culture which led her to consider herself today as a “child of reconciliation”. She combines different musical genres, from jazz to trip-hop to afro-electronic to rap, to illustrate her mostly experimental sound. She is developing a musical universe that she calls « Gangsta Jazz ».
Astan is also the lead singer of the band Asphalt Djelis, which mixes ancient and futuristic sounds together and one of the vocalists from Sonic Interventions, a collective of 14 musicians that improvise around free jazz, afro fusion, latin jazz, soul and many other genres. Her songs are about life, love, unity, protest and intellectual rebellion, but also about growing up with a double culture and the importance of acquiring the right knowledge, as there is a lot that school purposely doesn’t teach us. Although much of her work aims to glorify the black woman, she still preaches a great message of universality.
Astan started dancing at the age of 6 with ballet and then started modern jazz at the age of 11. Today, she expresses herself through all the dance influences she has encountered and tries to dance more “from the inside than the outside”. She has appeared as an actress in music videos and commercials, mainly in Germany and France, and got a role in a musical in Berlin in 2019.
In February 2022 Astan played a role on a new Amazon TV-show, “Love Addicts” produced by Warner Bros Germany. In July 2022 she played the role of Nila in the short film « Indigo » directed by Mona Okulla Obua. She has been involved in many creative collaborations such as with Puma, Sevdaliza, the Hoodoo Musical in Berlin, Nyege Nyege in Uganda or Sony.
Astan also curates events at a cultural center in Berlin-Neukölln, which promotes migrant, queer, fem and decolonising ideas. She is also a co-founder of Culture Supply, a cultural event focusing mainly on afro-hybrid artistic content and ancestral knowledge and a member of Out Of Time Embassy, a multicultural group of curators who generate conversation and curiosity about art and culture in Berlin, of which Sonic Interventions is the main project. Astan has also been working since 2020 for the clothing concept KASAPIO designed by Exocé Existe.
Events
19.04, 20.04, 21.04.2023: Performance piece Brown Labels directed by Mirah Laline, starring Astan KA, Jota Ramos & Amowia, in Oyoun-Neu Denken
8.04.2023: Performance with SONIC INTERVENTIONS at YAAM Berlin
12.4: Astan KA performance alongside Exoce Existe – Headz Radio Live Stream at Sameheads Berlin
Beginning of May 2023: Release of next music video LOVE (song produced by BJH) of Astan KA directed by Arabella Bartsch, screening + performance at Oyoun Berlin, exact date tba.
13.05.2023: Performance with SONIC INTERVENTIONS at XJAZZ Berlin
1st or 2nd of July 2023: Astan KA performance at Fusion Festival alongside Binghi and Exocé Existe
Follow
@tisskeen
@samigrill
Photos by Maria Louceiro @marialouceiro
‘Deng Deng’ is out now: https://astanka.bandcamp.com/track/deng-deng
