We should be thankful for DJ Drez. He’s one of the LA underground music pioneers who helped expand what our notion of devotional music could be by embracing the stylistic grooves of hiphop, soul, jazz, and chill electronic beats. I remember when a friend lent me The Capture of Sound CD years ago, and what [...]
A commitment to meditation, education, and devotion delivered me to Rishikesh, India, the “City of the Divine” where I completed a 200-hour teacher training course. My activities in Northern India have revolved around yoga, wellness, holistic living, savory and sweet food around every turn, and chakra and ear cleanings offered on the winding paved road [...]
Canadian Brenda McMorrow is a devotional kirtan artist inspired by folk melodies, world beats, and sacred Indian devotional chants. She is one of the most recent artists on White Swan Records, a music label that brought us such delights as Deva Premal and specializes in cultivating spiritual, meditative, healing music for the yoga world and beyond. Kirtan [...]
The first album by singer/songwriter Kimberly Haynes is a richly produced, genre-crossing collection of uplifting poetry put to song. I was pleasantly surprised to find she avoids the cliché of syrupy sweet “life-is-but-a-dream” lyrics I too often find in New Thought music. Her offerings reveal an authentic wisdom and depth earned from the highs and [...]
Gurujas from White Sun photographed by Julia Yang IG: @julia_photographs Mantra Music Wins a Grammy Music so powerful that it wins a Grammy and the attention of UCLA researchers doesn’t just happen by chance. This is music created with intention and purpose. Yoga supergroup White Sun's second album broke through the Grammy mantra [...]
Photo of Jai Uttal by Jeffrey Newberry Always leading with musical majesty and soul-stirring passionate vocal delivery, Jai Uttal returns with Roots, Rock, Rama! proving once again that he has the ability to go where no one else in the genre can, radically furthering the experience of kirtan in the modern era. Jai Uttal’a new double album puts the ecstatic [...]
J Brave is most widely known as one of the vocalists from the conscious hip hop band Luminaries; Amethyst is his first solo project. Amethyst is a sincere expression of J Brave’s mission to spread messages of peace, love, and unity through the vehicle of hip hop music. The album’s name is inspired by the [...]
Grammy Winning White Sun II Album Release Party. Photo by Santosh Khalsa Powerful music is timeless: it envelops us, welcomes us into its essence, and stays with us long past the last song on the album. The mantra music created by yoga supergroup White Sun is good music that uses mantra to nourish [...]
Lee Mirabai Harrington is a bit of a newcomer on the devotional music/chant scene, but her release, Beyond the Beyond, shows the musical depth and maturity of someone who has been producing albums for a long time. A lifelong spiritual seeker, Lee Mirabai has been studying yoga since her teens and has been on the Mantrayana [...]
The very first notes of the opening track “Gayatri Mantra,” create a deeply sacred mood that also reveals some inkling of the variety of world music influences present in this album Niguma as a whole. Sound artist, vocalist, and musician Sangeeta Kaur’s second album Niguma demonstrates both her dedication to her practice as well as her [...]