LISTENING JOURNAL is a collection of playlists as journal entries, curated through embodied listening.¹ Each entry offers a way to tap into a combination of my music taste, sounds I’m momentarily interested in, and different ways I’m building awareness of my participation in media culture through music.

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The playlist for June is now updated in my [listening journal], a virtual page where these entries rotate. Through that page, you can listen to the current playlist, as well as check out any of the songs’ music videos. As a preview, the vibe is giving various forms of instrumentalism, and a taste of both alt-R&B and Altanta rap.

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Below are archived tracks from the previous journal entry.

FILM RESEARCH MEGA MIX

This entry was a special edition: a playlist highlighting music mixes I’ve discovered through doing film research. Each selection corresponds to a film screening I curated and hosted for Blacks of Are.na Cinema Club. My starting point for deepening connection to a film I’m researching is finding corresponding music to accompany my reading and writing sessions, which eventually become the music I use to open the screenings with. I’m glad to have this space to reflect on so much of the music I’ve come across specifically because of my work in film curation/programming.

This archived playlist includes a set of annotated citations that reflect on my process connecting each mix to its corresponding film. 

Solange Knowles. When I Get Home, Colombia Records, 2019. Accessed September 2025.

It felt incredibly lovely to begin my film programmer in residence role with Blacks of Are.na with When I Get Home (2019), Solange’s hybrid film/visual album released in tandem with the studio album of the same name. It felt like a fitting introduction both to me and to the community who, because of the previous Cinema Club voting structure, actually chose this film out of a final selection of 4. The resonance of WIGH getting chosen was beyond amazing, and while I’ve written on this visual album before I decided to take on the challenge of recontextualizing the film & Solange’s work through a Filmmaker Highlight. I definitely hope to keep showing this film to audiences who will find it exactly as necessary as it is in the Black aesthetic, experimental, and U.S. Southern canons. (Sidenote: does anyone have the DVD that was released? I would love to have it for my collection, or at least lay eyes on it!)²

?uestlove. “?uestlove Boiler Room RBMA takeover NYC DJ Set.” Boiler Room, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXCNw1DaIzo. Accessed October 2025.

I found this Questlove mix to pair with a screening of Summer of Soul (2023). One of the nice things about choosing more contemporary films to screen is that film directors often have more room to be publicly multi-faceted, so it was a no-brainer to find a Questlove DJ set to tie together the thread of his cultural work beyond the film itself.

“Larry Levan live at Paradise Garage 1985.” Defected Records, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luAx0xKWiRo. Accessed November 2025.

Oh man, this was truly an exciting find, a DJ set by Larry Levan to open the screening for The Passion of Remembrance (1986). I remember being so preoccupied with the write up for this screening that I hadn’t found opening music until pretty close before. I found myself in just the right node on the interweb, where some film programming notes I was reading mentioned a connection between a nightclub featured in the film to Larry Levan. I considered if I could find a mix online, which honestly should’ve been very difficult considering this was not a contemporary film, nor is Levan a contemporary DJ. I am so grateful that some archival work is being shared on YouTube that led me to find 1 of 2 Larry Levan sets, which helped me understand his role in pioneering DJ-centered club scenes.

Ephraim Asili. FISHING IN TOKYO, 2025. https://soundcloud.com/effieasili/fishingintokyo Accessed February 2026.

Ephraim Asili’s cover image for this all vinyl DJ set happened to perfectly match up with the film he directed, Fluid Frontiers (2017). I was experimenting with a new research and writing format during the time and this mix was a perfect time container for setting the space. 

Darol Olu Kae. Keeping Time: A Prelude To Keeping Time W/ Darol Olu Kae, 2020. https://www.mixcloud.com/lowergrandradio/keeping-time-a-prelude-to-keeping-time-w-darol-olu-kae/. Accessed April 2026.  

This mix was a lovely gift from the director himself: an audio experiment made as a prelude to the film (Keeping Time, 2023). While I have a preference for instrumentals while I write/research, the interview parts of this mix served as resonant material for the rest of the research I was doing.

Mati Diop. NTS Radio: Mati Diop 17th October 2025, NTS Radio, 2025, www.nts.live/shows/dont-assume-day/episodes/dont-assume-day-mati-diop-17th-october-2025. Accessed May 2026.

So this mix couldn’t have been a better choice: the director of the film literally having a radio show where she shares soundtrack highlights from her filmography. For Mati Diop’s Dahomey (2023), I chose this mix to open the screening, though admittedly I was doing most of my research to Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland’s 8. (Dean Blunt was one of the composers for Dahomey, and I had just discovered a track from 8 around that time). I appreciate this mix for serving as a reminder of film’s capacity for interdisciplinary dialogue between audio & visual cultures.

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Hope you encounter something that resonates with you,

Paris