Brandon Meeks Drops Two Albums in “Optique” & “Red.Black.Green” (Release)

Indiana’s own Brandon Meeks has recently dropped two albums back on October 8th, titled Optique and Red.Black.Green, respectively. Optique is more hip hop and beat influenced and Red.Black.Green is some jazzy goodness. You might know that Brandon is not only in hip hop band Native Sun, but he is also quite the bassist (he even played iconic bassist Ron Carter in Miles Ahead).

Read Brandon’s words and take some time to dive into his musicianship below.

I’m releasing two albums simultaneously on October 8th (my birthday). They are called Optique and Red.Black.Green. Both are inspired by the idea of liberation. It started a couple of years ago when I began to dig deeper into history to understand the context of modern issues surrounding race and cultural traditions that impact my life directly.

This lead me to question everything I’ve ever been taught about religion, education and social economic factors that affect black people. What I discovered is that since childhood my creativity has been hindered in numerous ways in order for me to fit the status quo, blend in and not make life harder on myself by standing out in any meaningful way.

I discovered this hinderance to be sort of a defense mechanism in black culture that at one time helped us manage enslavement but in modern times often holds us back from our potential. So in 2015 I began taking steps to liberate myself from these cultural constraints.

I left the comfort zone of 9 to 5 employment to build my own business as an artist and began to practice community building within my circle of influence. The music in both Optique and Red.Black.Green symbolizes this transition of liberation in my personal life and is meant to inspire others, especially black people to take similar action