Say it with us: The only good system is a sound system!

From Thursday, December 7 to Sunday, December 10, in Little Haiti, Miami, FL, Data for Black Lives will convene over 40 artists and the public for four days of art, performances, panels, and movement building as part of our first Decompress Fest.

Our Founder & CEO launched Decompress one year ago as an emergency response to the absence of spaces or places for people to find refuge from violence, both physical and psychological, happening on and offline. By celebrating the history and future of electronic music as Black protest music, we have reopened a universal portal for collective freedom.

Right now, two wars are happening - the apartheid state of Israel advancing genocide on the Palestinian people in historic proportions and the global ideological battle to finally unseat the settler colonial mindset that has become the algorithm for the systematic humiliation and dehumanization of downpressed people worldwide.

Our movement was designed for such a time as this, and in addition to shifting power through data & policy change, we are fostering spaces of genuine solidarity. Institutions, governments, and systems come and go. Still, relationships, especially those grounded in a shared vision for the future, are the foundation for the new world we know is possible.

Joy is our resistance. Our weapons are not physical but sonic, computational, epistemological, and spiritual. And our demands are simple: No more war! End the Occupation! End all downpressive systems and conditions! We stand with the Palestinian people and any Israeli civilians who refuse to be collateral damage in demanding a total ceasefire and an end to the occupation as a whole.

As activists, organizers, scientists, artists, and musicians, we are also people who know war intimately. Join us as we come together to chant down Babylon, a symbol in Rastafari of the contemporary exploitative economic and cultural system that recalls the historical regime under which the Jewish people were held captive.

This Miami Art Week, we unshackle art & culture from its current commodification to liberate each other and ourselves. This event is open to the public. Visit d4bl.org/decompress for tickets and the festival program.