Production Details

“it’s almost like i’m feeling something” is a presentation of songs by Maya Nell, drawing from two of their albums “adullessence”, and “i need the beach.” Through songwriting and lyricism, their work names and gives space to the gritty challenges of creating communities of care. Sounds curated by the artist are a meditation on coming of age, navigating numbness, loss of sensation, and trying to find meaningful connection in a media oversaturated world. Join Maya Nell for “it’s almost like i’m feeling something,” a melancholy journey through young and sorrowful queer relationships, and an unraveling of a compartmentalized adolescence.

"Maya Nell” is the current stage name and creative outlet for Mutooro and Southern artist, Abwoli Maya Nell Murungi Kairumba Burke. Through instrumentation, prose, lyricism, and vulnerable storytelling, their work contributes to expansive conversations about sexuality, grief & loss, queer & trans kinship, gender identity, racialized identities, interracial relationships, decolonizing praxis, ecological collapse, and tangible solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty and Black liberation movements. Their introduction to music was through traditional Ugandan music, through listening to Billie Holiday on Sunday mornings cleaning with their mother, and humming to John Prine late at night with their father. Maya grew up with a mother who is proud of Tooro culture, and within a community in Kentucky that is passionate about Old Time Mountain music. These influences are present in all the brushstrokes of their work. In their time as a working artist they have shared work under their name “Maya Burke,” in ensembles, solo performances, as a production assistant, creative director, composer, and curator. "Maya Nell" is an expression of the artist's Southern Identity, and the current manifestation of their performance energy. Historical, environmental, ecological, socio-political, geo-political, revolutionary, and poetic studies are a bedrock to their research and cathartic practice. Decalcifying conduits between the abstract and the concrete are of utmost priority in their curations. Maya Nell's work considers sound as a tangible medium through which we transmit and receive information with our surrounding ecologies.

Ouree Lee (Editor; co-producer)

Derek Bairder ( accompanying guitarist)

Dale Everingham, Paul Korte (sound engineering)

Renee Lopez (videographer) @misslopezmedia