River Moon, the Martyr
The multi-hyphenated and other-worldly talent that sparked from South Africa’s queer-electro scene has a lot to say and she’s speaking it through her music. But, not all that sits between the notes of her break-out album is transcribable.
So, she sat down with office to talk traveling to outer space and becoming the astronaut she’s always wanted to be.
Who is River Moon?
I'm a 21-year-old songwriter, producer, and occasional DJ. I wouldn't call myself a DJ because I feel like I don't have the credentials yet. You know what I'm saying? Like a lot of these people have no skills, but they call themselves a DJ. It's like - there's room for everyone for sure, but I mean, sometimes some people just take up space, especially - you know those people. But yeah, I'm just like I'm 21 years old and I'm popping bitch, aspiring popstar!
And where are you living right now?
I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I've been living here for like four years, I was born here. And then I lived in New York City for a couple of years, and then I came back here because I felt like I needed to return home. This is because nowhere, where I moved into the world really felt like home until I moved back here. So now I'm just based here and I love it.
So what is the underground electro queer scene in Cape Town like?
Oh my God. It's still a lot of tokenism, Cape Town is still very much like little Europe, so it's very white. I feel like whenever there's somebody of color or somebody black and queer coming up, it's like there can only be one. You know, we have all these white spaces, like all these white queer pop bitches, and we only have like one or two like black people who are queer in the art and music scene and poppin'. And it's like the radio doesn't play us, the fucking techno clubs don't book us, it's really still segregated because this is like the city of apartheid and whatever. It's really still segregated, but in Joburg, there's a much larger queer Black scene. And I feel like the only reason that I'm not there is because I love it here in a sense of like the climate, environment, and stuff. But I really would prefer to live in Johannesburg, which is like the queer black like metropolitan of the future of Africa, you know?
And you're talking about how there's such big segregation within where you live and the pop scene, but how have you been trying to break through or like break that boundary to get where you need to be?
I think just creating something for myself. A lot of the time, these kids are so used to being exploited and being tokens that they would do free work for these white kids who want to be down with us or down for the culture. And I feel like it's better for me to make my own table than to have a seat at the tabe because that's not going to pay my bills. And by collectively standing together and inviting all these pop girls, non-binary people and like, you know, all the queer people, the girls, inviting everybody into one place together - It's like creating a community that wasn't there before. And I feel it's really starting to evolve. It's really starting to fill over, and it's slowly getting there. It's not there yet. It's not where I would want it to be, but it's getting there and I've seen more black kids doing the same thing, where they would create their own parties because they were told "no." They were told "you can't be here, you can't sit with us." So it's slowly getting there.
How do you envision a world that is suitable for everybody plus you? What does that look like? How do those characteristics manifest?
Honestly, niggas only. Like, I really don't care for like the white electronic music bro-dudes and like the fucking white gays. Like I just want to be with the girls and like everybody Black, that's what I see in my future. I feel like there's enough white people who are champion in this world. It's time to uplift the people who don't get seen. That's the future I want. I want everybody who's been invisible for the last 100 years to like be in the fucking forefront and be seen as rockstars because we're the real rockstars.
Let's get into the album: I'm getting electronic, I'm getting house, I'm getting ethereal, and genre-bending. Most of all, it's giving otherworldly. If you could describe your album within five seconds or if you were pitching this, what would you say?
Oh my God. Intergalactic, science-fiction, it's very Afro-futuristic in a way. Like since I was a kid, my room as a kid was painted as like outer space. I was always fascinated with outer space, like deep space and the deep sea. Those are the two things that are unknown to us as humans, and when I was like a little I swore I was gonna be a fucking astronaut. I swore I was going to go to space one day, go to another planet, and see life on another planet. But like I'm a dumb ass, It never happened.
But you went there on this album, though. What planet does this album live on?
Uranus, ha! Period. No, but I feel like subconsciously I'm just being that kid who would dream of like diving deep into the ocean or going up in space. That influenced my sound. Like I never made music thinking 'Oh, let me make it sound like the stars or planets or whatever.' It just subconsciously influenced the sound, I guess.
Why the name Martyr?
I feel like that's the reoccurring theme in my life, where it's like I have many rebirths. I feel like the theme throughout the album, even though there're no words, I feel there's a lot of emotion in the sounds. So I just felt like that's the thing that always reoccurs in my life is like dying for myself to be reborn as a better version of me. I just always felt like a Martyr. I always felt like I always die for what I believe in. Like, I stand by what I believe in and I will fucking die for it. I feel like you can hear that whole thing come together on the song "To freedom." It's me kind of like using somebody else's voice to say that I want to be free, you know?
That's super deep and almost intoxicating. If Martyr was a drug what would it be?
KETAMINE! Ketamine, Period. That's the only drug I know, that's the only drug that I acknowledge. I don't know, but I don't do no weed, that's the devil's lettuce. Everything else is a chop to me but ketamine. I truly believe in it. I truly believe that ketamine saved my life. Like no shade, Like its nothing. No shade to other drugs, but it just doesn't have the effect that ketamine has. Like so many people recommend me to try marijuana for my mood disorders, I tried it and it made me more anxious and it made me more moody. But ketamine is like actually FDA approved. They FDA approved a nose spray, a nasal spray for a derivative of ketamine called 'esketamine' which is now used for depression. And I feel like the future of antidepressants and like bipolar disorder medicine is ketamine. I just hope that these big pharmaceutical companies don't up the price because it's affordable right now. I'm not paying triple for fucking a kundle.
Did you do ketamine while you were making your album?
Yes. I actually started this album—the oldest song on the album is called "she, her." And it's about, you know, my identity and stuff. It's a very feminine song. Like I felt like I was on ketamine and I was in a K-hole when I made this shit. A K-hole is basically like the state of when you are on ketamine and you can't get out of it. And it feels like you're in a tunnel. I don't know how to describe it. And I sampled like - this is the craziest shit I ever done. Like I sampled pots, I sampled cans opening, and like coins, and I made those the percussion sounds because like -I don't know. I don't know what I felt like, It's just unexplainable. But, I did do ketamine when I was making this album and halfway through I actually stopped because I had a hip replacement. I was in a wheelchair for probably four or five months. Like I just woke up one day and I lost my mobility. And just halfway through that, I just stopped making music. And I feel like half of the album is me before I stopped walking and half the album is me in recovery and being fully healed. And again, that's another thing, you know, I died and I got reborn.It's been a tough recovery. It hasn't been easy but I will say that not to sound dramatic— it gave me a second chance at life. Like now, I'm walking better than ever before. Like ever.
The first track has a deeper feeling compared to the rest of the album, why?
The reason for that is it's my funeral song. I made that two days before my surgery. Not to be dramatic, but I thought I was going to die on the operating table and I made the song because I wanted the song to be my funeral song in case I die. And at the end of the song, I'm playing piano, that was the first time I played the piano in three years. And it was like me recording myself playing the piano. You can hear in the background, I'm crying. I was like, "mom, dad, if I die on this table, this is the song you got to play at my funeral. Because this is a song that I wrote for myself, for my funeral. Okay?"
So on the album, there's a limited amount of songs and a limited amount of words and lyrics. On "To Freedom" is the only song where there's actual lyrics, why did you choose that artistic direction and what made "To Freedom's" messaging so important?
I just wanted to because I felt voiceless. At the time, while I was making the album, I felt like there was nothing for me to say except like what I feel. Sometimes what you feel you can't vocalize it. Like you can't express it with words. And the best way for me to express what I feel was through the sound and you can interpret it any way you want. You can make the song mean whatever you want when there's no words. Whereas if you have words, that is what the song means to you. The songs without words could mean anything, you know? And the reason why I only have the one song exactly was just because I felt like I could. I wanted to write a song for this, but I just couldn't. And my friend Tama Gucci actually heard the song, It was out like for months before this thing even dropped. He heard the song, and he was like "let me get on it." And I was like "what do you feel when you listen to this? Like before you even sing on this, what do you feel when you listen to this?" And it was freedom. And I was like "Bitch, write the song right now. Sing that shit." like that is exactly what I felt when I made this. Other than that, it would've just been an instrumental album But, the next project I'm dropping is only all my vocals on there. Like, people don't know this, but when I first started making music and putting it on Soundcloud, I was actually singing the songs myself. Yeah, but I stopped. I don't know.
But I feel like this grabs your whole attention. It takes me to a place of you traveling somewhere independently. Where would you say you're traveling to?
I'm traveling to the inside of myself. I feel like a lot of times I just like ignored the inside of my head and my thoughts. And I feel like this is just like an audio psychedelic trip, you know? It's an auditory psychedelic trip. That's the best way to describe it. I don't know how else to describe it. It's like I'm traveling through the experiences, the feelings, and emotions that I experienced for the past year. Because inside of yourself, there's many places. You know what I'm saying? Does this sound crazy?
No, there's a lot of things you just haven't tapped into. And like sometimes you can't do that with words, so you have to find other mediums and forms to express that for you.
But like now, I feel I have words now to have a voice. Like I found my voice and that's why the second album is going to be more of vocals, you know? I'm singing everything.
What do you want people to take from this, where do you see yourself and this album in a couple of years?
I want people to understand that there are black artists who make experimental electronic music. And not only that, but our stories are important too. I want this album to speak to the kids who don't feel like they don't have a voice, you know? 'Cause I was that kid years ago, I was that kid. I couldn't express myself freely because the environment I was growing up in, the people I was surrounding myself with, I just felt very stifled. And I want those people to feel the same, to relate to it, you know? And I just want people to dance. I just want people to dance like nobody's watching. Take your mind on that fucking trip. Period.
