KAFARI: Soul Music & Pop-Up Dinner

Doors at 5:45 pm, Musical performance and rhythm bones workshop by Kafari after 6pm, followed by a dinner at 7pm. For equity & inclusion to the full experience, tickets to the communal pop-up dinner are offered by sliding-scale $25-50. and include admission to the performance. Tickets to the concert only are $15. with a sliding-scale option are available for those who self-identify as experiencing financial hardship.

"Kafari’ (he/him) is the alias of Cincinnati, OH born, Portland, ME based pianist and rhythm bones-weilding beatmaker Ahmad Muhammad. Kafari’s music synthesizes his love of ambient piano music, instrumental hip-hop and acoustic percussion, taking inspiration from pioneering jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby, beatmaker J Dilla, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who in a 2014 performance sparked Kafari's interest in traditional music and the Irish rhythm bones - a percussion instrument popularized in America in the 1800s through Blackface Minstrelsy. Kafari often distributes and teaches bones to his listeners at performances, sharing pieces of their complex and fraught history and workshopping basic rhythmic techniques with his audiences over original beats. Through his intimate live performances, Kafari explores music-making as a balm for the spirit, taking the listener with him on a journey of spiritual discovery and self-healing. "I think of being a musician as a private public journey. My intention is to care for myself and to cultivate a personal relationship with music that is expressive, healing, and that serves my needs at the time. And perhaps through that act of expression and of making a statement, I can make a connection with you." LISTEN HERE