The Goddess Alchemy Project

Artist Information

Biography

Who is The Goddess Alchemy Project?

Bringing forth a timeless science through a live, lyrical experience of “more than one sista on the mic at a time”… this crew gives voice to the potent sound of Goddess Alchemy rising from underground urban-scapes to mainstream airwaves. In collaboration with many artists and producers, this unique sound provides a fresh flavor by integrating elements of underground hip hop, world accents, spoken word flows, and soulful melodics. Combine this with ancient texts, quantum physics, ancestral roots, multi-dimensional symbology, and an all-female cypher… the result to this equation is a new, musical science they call “Open Source Soul Floetics”. Utilizing multi-media as their tool of mass creation, The Goddess Alchemy Project fuses music, visual art, spoken word poetry, dance, their al.KEM.y Designs clothing company, and community outreach to bring sacred intention to the forefront of artistic momentum.

2007 has proved to be a breakthrough year for the 'Alchemistas' who have opened up for artists such as Common, Lyrics Born, The Coup, STS9 and thrown down with Bassnectar, J.Boogie, Wisdom, Ganga Giri, Zilla-to name a few. They are well known for their surprise element of collaboration with guest artists and often feature MC's, poets,singers, and dancers greatly enriching their live sets. Some more recent collabs include the potent crew of fierce female mcs...Las Krudas (de Cuba), Yaqui de Cuba, MC Souleye, Apostle (heavyweight dub champions), three-time battle champion Aima (Mamaz), beatbox-lyrical prodigy...LYNX, and Wisdom. Hence the saying"expect the unexpected." After experiencing a live music set of Goddess Alchemy, observers have often reflected being transported beyond boundaries, borders and boxes to a common place of tangible truth, arriving at the harmonic crux of cultural-co-existence. “Zapped,” “alchemized,” “transformed,” “inspired,” Goddess Alchemy has magnetized full-spectrum support from all walks and talks from punk rockers to conservatives.

Founded in grassroots community organizing and creative activism, The Goddess Alchemy Project has been generating cutting edge works since its inception in 2002 as an independent arts collective. The collective’s core intention to empower the voices of female artists from the underground to the frontlines has sustained the project through its many phases of evolution. Beginning in Santa Cruz, CA, the four core project members have roots from Tennessee to Hawaii to California, and integrate both national and international artists to represent a vast spectrum of voices. Grounded in the collaborative process, the first emanations of art to arise came as incantations in the form of spoken word, and evolved into musical compositions as the project expanded. Each member carries with her a diversity of experiences, passions, skills, stories, inspirations, offerings, and insights informed by each unique path she has walked. The collective expression emerges as a tapestry of sound, weaving myriad influences and distinct individual styles into a unified composition. The music offered by The Goddess Alchemy Project is one key aspect within the totality of their work, which also includes international solidarity work with indigenous peoples, youth service, arts empowerment education, young women’s programs, clothing design, event production, and other forms of community outreach. These elements of the project have always informed the music, and are deeply connected to the work the collective presents through their performances.

Instrumentation

Celena delPHI -DJ-lyricist-poet
Dakini staR -MC-lyricist-poet
e.Ma Luna -MC-lyricist-poet
Nikila 'mamawisdom' -Melodic vocalist-poet
*At the core, there is four...and Goddess Alchemy is a collective that foundationally integrates full-spectrum collaboration with national and international guest poets, mc's, and dancers...always keepin the mix fresh and exciting!

Discography

Tapestrategic WorX EP- Released May 2007

1. Secrets
2. Visionary Alliance
3. Science of A New Time
4. Song Of The Serpent
5. Kundalini Manifest
6. Art Murmur
7. What's It Worth?
8. Listen
9. Transcendent Realms

Frequencies of The Motherland- Coming 2008!

Streaming tracks on local radio stations in Northern California, online mixes

Official Website

http://www.myspace.com/goddessalchemyproject

Links

• Goddess Alchemy Website
• Goddess Alchemy @ MySpace

Audio

• Think Twice Unreleased
  Listen  
• Science Of A New Time
  Listen  
• Kundalini Manifest
  Listen  

Lyrics

• Justice
• Science of A New Time
• L.O.V.E

Video

"Think Twice"

Photo Gallery

Press

• From the Farm to the Stage... [+ Show ]
  

  From the Farm to the Stage With roots in communal living, Oakland's Goddess Alchemy Project tak...
  From the Farm to the Stage
  With roots in communal living, Oakland's Goddess Alchemy Project takes music, art, and fashion to another level.
  By Nate Seltenrich
  
  November 12, 2008
  
  Goddess Alchemy Project.
  Some projects begin on a whim or a chance. Others seem forged from the fabric of their creators' souls, invested with as much heart as blood, sweat, and tears. Oakland's Goddess Alchemy Project, if its name didn't give it away, is unrepentantly of the latter type: an all-encompassing art and social experiment that has become inextricable from the identities of the four core members who cultivate it.
  
  Goddess Alchemy is serious business, and has been since its inception five years ago when founding members Celena deLphi and e.Ma Luna had a revelation while attending the University of California at Santa Cruz. They'd both been writing poetry for most of their lives, but discovered that as college life sent creative sparks flying, they had trouble finding new outlets for expression. Worse yet, they felt sidelined within an artist community dominated by men's voices.
  
  "We saw something that needed to be fulfilled," said Celena. "There was so much space for women artists to create their own forum because it wasn't really happening." This was followed closely by another, more pragmatic realization: "We're the only people who can represent our own voices. We're the only ones who can be responsible for making that happen." Thus was born Goddess Alchemy, and although its scope has expanded beyond women alone, the principle of self-empowerment continues to be its guiding light.
  
  Building upon its founding members' backgrounds in poetry, the project first went public through spoken-word performances in Santa Cruz and San Francisco. Around the same time, a small-scale exercise in screen-printing lyrics from their poems onto shirts, sweatshirts, yoga pants, bags, and dance clothes began to expand and yield financial dividends that would, four years later, allow them to introduce themselves to the world through an even more universal and visceral channel: music.
  
  For Celena and her sister Dakini Star, who joined the project in 2004, music and art were part of their upbringing. They were born to artist-musician parents in a Tennessee counter-cultural community known as the Farm, which was founded in 1971 by a few hundred San Francisco hippies. In 1984, when Celena was two and Dakini was five, their family left the Farm for Oakland, where their mom had previously lived. Both sisters drifted toward music among myriad artistic pursuits, with Celena learning to DJ and Dakini becoming involved in the Bay Area's underground hip-hop scene. Years later, the Farm would play a more direct role in the birth of the Goddess Alchemy Project when Celena and e.Ma jumpstarted their screen-printing business using the commune's own equipment.
  
  Selling their clothing hand-to-hand from the trunks of their cars while traveling across the country, attending festivals, and performing spoken word, the members of the Goddess Alchemy Project began to gather momentum through their fashion line, dubbed al.KEM.y designs. Their pieces treated fashion as an artistic medium for expression and activism, but at the same time were groomed to finance future Goddess Alchemy Project endeavors. That's still the case today, and the members' intense artistic and spiritual focus is balanced by a savvy business sense. "We're moving it ourselves so we have to be really aware of our margins and not undercut ourselves," said Celena.
  
  It took nearly $20,000 of earnings from al.KEM.y designs' five-year history to fund the Goddess Alchemy Project's debut album, Frequencies of the Motherland, due out this week after a series of delays. By pumping all of the fashion profits back into the music, they were able to record, produce, and release their record independently, which is more than a point of pride.
  
  "It's been a crazy journey to witness the unfolding of the project," said Dakini. Unlike Goddess Alchemy's premeditated beginnings, the album developed organically and was allowed to take as much time as it needed — which amounted to nearly four years from start to finish. "It was intensely challenging at times to keep letting it go, and pushing it back," Dakini added.
  
  The decision not to rush paid off by allowing time to involve a wide variety of Bay Area musicians. Along with guest vocalists Taylor MaidenSpace, Climbing Poetree, Daniella Magdalene, and Ilen Young, five different producers — including Soundtribe Sector Nine's Zack Velmer — helped shape the sound of the album. Nikila MamaWisdom and Aima the Dreamer, who joined the project in recent years, also contributed their talents. This many collaborators often muddles the end result, but Frequencies of the Motherland's slick fusion of hip-hop, spoken word, electronic, and world stays commendably focused in its breadth. Clean, pulsating nightclub beats, subtly transcendant synth and keys, and vocals that waver between forceful rap and prayerful spoken word strike a balance between urban rap and new-age consciousness.
  
  Yet more intriguing than the sound of the album is its content. Listening brings the Goddess Alchemy Project's underlying message into greater focus at the same time that it calls more into question. We are taking back what was taken from us is repeated like a chant at the end of "Secrets." The bridge of the next track, Existing in a rift/Prepare for paradigm shift, is followed by In the in-between/time to permeate the mainstream unconscious beings/wipe your slate clean. Album closer "Transcendent Realms" implores listeners to Invoke yourself as the source/Merging with the whole entire universe.
  
  The liner notes dig even deeper: "At the core of this album exists the presence of the divine mystery we recognize as our source," its introduction reads. "We acknowledge the immense community of people, energies, deities, ancestors, and angels supporting our lives and expression." Further down, references to Satya, a Sanskrit word meaning truth, and "the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers Council" hint at deep spiritual roots that reach back to Celena and Dakini's childhoods on the Farm.
  
  While the Goddess Alchemy Project's adherence to indigenous and aboriginal spiritual paths may not connect with every listener, it should be familiar to the group's core audience of artists, free-thinkers, and socially conscious globe-trotters, many of whom find common ground at Nevada's Burning Man Festival. Goddess Alchemy has performed at the massive counter-cultural gathering each of the past four years before ever-larger audiences.
  
  Looking forward, the group envisions international touring and simultaneously pursuing service and outreach within communities around the globe. But while the Goddess Alchemy Project was born of anything but apathy, its members are content to apply a whatever-may-come-will-come sensibility to the future. "I feel like this creation has its own life and its own destiny," said Celena, "and I trust that it will go exactly where it needs to be."

Setlist

Goddess Alchemy is a versatile collective, offering a full spectrum of live performance art ranging from a 30 minute a capella spoken word poetry set to a 90 minute live fusion music set.
A typical sample set would be 60 minutes and consist of the following tracks:

1. Velocity
2. Science of A New Time
3. Ground-Break-Kin
4. Kundalini Manifest
5. What's It Worth?
6. Justice
7. Think Twice
8. Lasting Origins
9. Secrets
10. Diasporic Footprints
11. Juntas
12. Transcendent Realms

Basic Requirements

PDF Rider

Goddess Alchemy Rider & Stage Plot

Calendar