If you follow the band, you know what we’re about, and that we put a lot of social and political content and commentary into our work. The current uprisings, coupled with the self -isolation we’re dealing with re the pandemic, add both a special urgency and a serious challenge to how we’re going to be a part of the necessary change.
It should go without saying that we believe strongly that Black Lives Matter, and that there are serious and frightening systemic issues in our society that have been boiling for centuries that are coming to a head now. While we often address them in our work, thinking about how we in particular must move forward is of real importance to us, and we don’t want to do it badly or in a counter-productive way.
The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated this for us because we cannot get together, as three of us are in personal high-risk situations and one is in a high-touch public exposure job. So we are currently limited in terms of our options.
Here are a couple of first steps.
We distribute our work to all the various streaming and download services through an agreement with a company called DistroKid, who put out the following statement earlier this week:
“DistroKid donated to NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Color of Change to help in the fight against racism and social injustice.
“Some artists have asked how they can auto-donate some of their royalties, too. DistroKid just made it super easy for artists to automatically donate a portion of royalties to Black social justice organizations.”
Which we have done.
Every time you download or stream our track “Crumbs” from any service, a portion of our royalties go to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
At the moment, we’re limited that to that one fund and track; we are exploring other options for this type of support. It’s our most popular track with words that connect directly to the struggle, so it seemed a fitting choice.
- Full disclosure: our current deal with DistroKid includes a distribution connection to Amazon. We are acutely aware of issues with Jeff Bezos and Amazon, and dialogue about that connection and what to do about it will continue.
In addition, we do use Bandcamp for distribution of some of our work, and a further (and exciting announcement) concerning an effort through Bandcamp will be coming soon.
More soon.
The Duende Project 