Madame Gandhi

Dope Track: Madame Gandhi “Wazey”
October 19, 2015 Music and Other DrugsMusic

Music & Other Drugs has been blessed with an amazing email from Madame Gandhi. Reading her bio, we are honored to share her track on our site. Madame Gandhi, whom you may know her as Kiran Gandhi is a social activist, who you may have heard of her as the woman who ran the London Marathon to combat period stigma around the world. Kiran Gandhi performs under the stage name Madame Gandhi, and has released a dope track that Music & Other Drugs could not pass up. Gandhi has released her track “Wazey,” and we love the influences within this track. It sounds in the direction of M.I.A.; however, Madame Gandhi has a style and is in her own lane, musically. The track “Wazey” is produced by Anthony Saffery, and vocals & drums are performed by Madame Gandhi. Madame Gandhi is an electronic drummer based out of New York City. Her music’s purpose is to address themes of liberation. The project features two electronic musicians along with Gandhi. Music & Other Drugs cannot stop playing “Wazey,” and we know that this will make its way into your daily rotation. The chorus is perfection! The productions drum lines are sick, and Gandhi’s voice melts right onto the track. Check out Madame Gandhi’s electronic driven track, “Wazey,” below. - Music and Other Drugs

By Eric Althoff - The Washington Times - Thursday, September 24, 2015
Lady Parts Justice, an organization dedicated to reproductive rights, will host its “V to Shining V” party Friday at the District’s Tropicalia in Northwest. The evening will feature dancing and music as a way to raise awareness for reproductive rights and to celebrate womanhood. It is part of a day of simultaneous shindigs nationwide.

MIA drummer Kiran Gandhi will make a special appearance at the event Friday.

“This will be my debut show performing as Madame Gandhi with an all-female band,” Miss Gandhi said in a statement provided to The Washington Times. “My dream has been to perform uplifting music to a crowd who can vibe with it, who connects with it, who sees value in music that directly confronts sexism and describes experiences women have daily,” she said.

Miss Gandhi was much in the news in August when she ran the entirety of the London Marathon while menstruating — and without using any sanitary products. Due to the extensive online backlash she experienced for bleeding freely into her running gear, Miss Gandhi has become an outspoken critic of “period-shaming.”

“It is problematic that we are so awkward, uncomfortable and scared of something so normal,” Miss Gandhi said. “The reason why fear of periods is a problem is that it then makes it OK to silence women who want to ask their friends for a tampon, who may experience pain when on their periods. It makes us live in fear of having a stain, which then makes us more focused on preventing shame than on focusing on the work we have to get done that day.”

Miss Gandhi maintains she had no intention of becoming a cause’s spokeswoman, but life, she said, sometimes provides you a megaphone unexpectedly.

“I have seen women around the world take to blogs, their social media or their immediate public spheres to speak openly about why this issue is important to them,” she said. “The run was as a concrete act, but more than that, it served as a lens through which women and men could engage and debate safely about this issue.

“For this, it felt empowering to take on any backlash that came my way, because the larger good was that it enabled people around the world to have a direct place to express their own voices.”

For Friday’s event Miss Gandhi will perform a song she co-wrote with Rupi Kaur, “a fellow period stigma abolitionist,” with an inspiring message of “I have my own voice, and no, I am not afraid.”

The event will feature golden uterus flash tattoos. More information is available at LadyPartsJustice.com.

“I am so inspired by the work Lady Parts Justice has been doing,” Miss Gandhi said, “and I think there is nothing more powerful than combining the arts with social justice.” - The Washington Times

In the art world, not much is taboo. The artistic community may not always err on the liberal or progressive side, but very little is off-limits rhetorical discussion. Because of this liberated sphere of influence, radical social justice commentary is widely popular. Often, so-called "feminist" art is a prime example of work that exploits shock value to raise awareness. Take Kiki Smith and Judy Chicago for example, contemporary artists whose unpalatable and shocking works highlight the contributions of women that had too often and for too long been ignored, overlooked, or ridiculed.

New York-native Kiran Gandhi, known for being M.I.A. and Thievery Corporation’s touring drummer, is not unfamiliar with her forebears. This April, Gandhi ran the London Marathon while "free-bleeding." Months later, around the same time Donald Trump made remarks to Megyn Kelly about her “whatever,” Gandhi’s story of menstruating through a marathon resurfaced as a metonym for radicalized modern feminism. Running 26.2 miles sans-tampon was considered, at most, revolting, and at least, like running a marathon. Gandhi, however, acquired a close following, including anti-Trump enthusiast Rosie O’Donnell who called her “a radical feminist woman empowering people by going ‘fuck you.’”

Last week, Gandhi sat down with The Creators Project to discuss the impact of shock culture in art as it pertains to a modern feminist agenda.

“Shock culture is used by artists as a very effective tactic to put into the public ether and the societal ether something of the future. Something that is radical and boundary-pushing. It makes people unpack and question norms..." Gandhi says. "See, when did we decide to think about ‘This life is okay and this one’s not,’ and since when did we decide a period is disgusting but a bloody nose is not? We’ve just decided these things arbitrarily."

- Vice (The Creators Project)

NYT does not allow copy/pasting, please see link. - The New York Times