Let Me Smoke

Second Single Out Now

Our second single is a collaborative project with producer Orestes Gomez. It is built on Afro-Venezuelan chimbangueles drums reimagined with electronic textures, and includes sampled melodies from Afro Venezuelan traditions.

It features spoken word by Janelle McDermoth, reciting her poem “Let Me Smoke” about migration, justice, and unity.

Full poem below.

Produced and Composed by: Orestes Gómez & Caracas Trio
Poem, Spoken Word and Vocals: Janelle McDermoth
Chimbangueles: Carlos Tales
Video Director: Orestes Gómez
Model: Dalia Drake
Edition: Orestes Gómez
Lighting: Orestes Gómez

Let Me Smoke

If justice be a pipe dream, let me smoke.
Lungs, expansive with the commitment to loving.

Loving. Not just my neighbor, but my enemy, my refugee, my asylum seeker, my cast aside

For we all dream.

learning new tongues. in new lands.
Hoping to be Made new, and not just newsworthy.

So far from the beaches of our home, Exchanging niceties with new currencies,

Learning Loneliness and longing under the wave of new flags

But we never forget the old recipes and past lives, those under rubble and those lost to our corrupt systems.

We dream, not of colonized lands and arbitrary borders, but of whole families and full stomachs.

We protest. we pray. We march with the faith of our fathers. We cross oceans to meet the needs of our mothers.

We make family. We make resistance. We make love. We make lives worth remembering. We make meaning with every breath.

With every breath. Every Breath.

If justice be a pipe dream, let me smoke.

Janelle McDermoth