Traversing Time and Memory: Lonnie Holley & Moor Mother's Afrofuturist Reckoning

 

Lonnie Holley and Moor Mother

By Darlene Donloe

Lonnie Holley and Moor Mother, two visionary artists, will ignite the Bram Goldsmith Theater at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on November 20 at 7:30 p.m., conjuring a sonic reckoning that traverses time and memory, fueled by the Afrofuturist vision of Sun Ra.

Together, they speak of tenderness, grief, and resistance. They invite their audience into an intimate act of creation—crafted live, shaped by the room, the people, the moment.

“I hope they experience my depths of doubt,” Holley said during a recent interview. “I want them to go into the ocean of thought to receive the spiritual information that I have to feed back out to them.”

Asked why there is doubt, Holley said he wasn’t quite sure how to explain it.

“All I know is that when I take the stage, my music is like Siamese twins,” he said. “If I’m building a piece of art or a rehearsal, the words will come the same way. The words come with the art.”

Holley said that when he performs, nothing is planned. He doesn’t write a script. He follows his spirit.

“We leave certain amounts of energy,” he said. “It's the most relevant teacher of our experiences. I analyze it and speak about it. Whatever comes out, comes out."

Moor Mother

Moor Mother, whose real name is Camae Ayewa, performs the same way.

“See the truth of our experiences, of what we see and feel in the world,” Moor Mother said. “What we care about. We move through spirit. The spirit will guide us to do what we’re going to do.”

Moor Mother said she wanted to work with Holley because she loves his music.

“I fell in love with his music,” she said. “We finally got together and then, over the years, we just kept performing together. We toured Australia and Europe. It’s a kinship. He’s a mentor, a friend, an uncle, and a brother. It’s beautiful to have this collaboration.”

Moor Mother has a song called “Vera Hall,” a slow funk number on the album Black Encyclopedia. It’s a tribute to Lonnie Holley because his

Industriousness is evident throughout his 40 years of home-recorded improvisational music, stone carvings, and found-object sculptures.

Moor Mother said she sees a lot of herself in Holley’s work. 

Their music moves toward you with open arms. From free jazz to spoken word, from survival to liberation, these two prophets open a portal.

Those lucky enough to attend their performance will experience the stunning, evocative, and haunting gifts of Lonnie Holley and Moor Mother.

Their music moves toward you with open arms, pulling you in, insisting you listen and respond.

Moor Mother, aka Camae Ayewa, has been called a seismic voice of haunted histories and imagined freedoms. She’s known for her multitude of instruments, voices, and cacophony, which explore themes of Afrofuturism and collective memory.

“I don't know what 'a seismic voice of haunted histories and imagined freedoms' means,” said Moor Mother, a poet, visual artist, and Professor of Composition at the USC Thornton School of Music. “One part is that I do uncover unheard, untold stories. I’m called Moor Mother because I care about mothers. I’m a historian. I like taking huge historical moments and bringing them to the forefront.”

Lonnie Holley and Moor Mother

Moor Mother has several monikers, as Pitchfork magazine dubbed her "the poet laureate of the apocalypse." Her music is a testament to the power of Black life as freedom.

Internationally known Moor Mother, who specializes in practical concepts but also works in speculation and historical thought, draws inspiration from the past to inform her present work.

“The past is still here with us,” she said. “There are different degrees of past. The past is yesterday, 10 years ago, 50 years ago. It’s a nonlinear concept folded into the present. It’s about our capacity to extend the timeline. Sometimes it’s nerve-wracking. You go into a process. You don't just go willy-dilly; you do that work before you go onstage. I like to prepare by working, reading, and sitting in nature.”

Moor Mother creates soundscapes from field recordings and archival sound collage to map sonic journeys to our buried histories and futures.

She is an artist who, through writing, music, film, visual art, socially engaged art, and creative research, explores personal, cultural, familial, and communal cycles of experience, and solutions for transforming oppressive linear temporalities into empowering, alternative temporalities.

Lonnie Holley

Lonnie Holley is a well-known multidisciplinary artist and improviser of raw spirit and sound, who has devoted his life to creativity since 1979.

Since then, he has devoted his life to the practice of his improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, have manifested themselves in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, music, and filmmaking.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Holley's art and music are born out of struggle, hardship, and curiosity, manifesting in various forms, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, music, and filmmaking.

Holley said he sings from what he feels and experiences in his life.

“Momma had 27 children out of 32 pregnancies,” he said. “My grandmother didn't have the education to do it in a written manner.  I grew up learning how to communicate, especially. I’m the seventh child of the 27.  I’m singing about my experiences and trials and tribulations that I carry – for those who have not spoken. Some think speaking is in vain. I choose to sing about it instead of getting out there with a shotgun – and shoot my way through life.”

Holley, who is also known for his sculptures, said he prefers freestyling when he performs because he wants to feel free.

“I’m an improviser of raw spirit and sound,” said Holley, who has released six critically acclaimed albums. “I do freestylin’. I go into my mind to create something. If you’re going to protest, do so with love, rather than getting into a deeper argument. Do it in honor of love. You have to feed love. I sing nothing else but the truth – in an old-fashioned manner. Sometimes I fall into a trance. Sometimes it’s so deep, I don’t know what I said.”

'Lonnie Holley & Moor Mother,' Bram Goldsmith Theater, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, November 20, 2025, 7:30 p.m., $22.