Sayde Faraday Finkel

Singing at the Super Bowl in my hometown stadium, mid field at a piano my wife painted was truly a full circle life experience. In stark contrast, on the day before the big game we performed on a local high school football field for my first ever Love Riot Festival. The idea being to present a completely free music festival putting money back into the community by partnering with local community groups, churches, high schools, and non profits in service to the forgotten parts of our city by boosting local economy, shining a light on culture and providing jobs when big events like the Super Bowl come to town. It's a love offering to curate and share six hours of performances by living musical icons, Grammy award winning artists, local community groups, choirs, musicians and dancers. We did it! Processing all this in the context of my own personal journey, and in the context of the collective journey of this country, a lot music began to pour out of me and I'm want to start sharing some of this new music. I'm so inspired that I just decided to release a set of two new songs today, a digital only A/B side record entitled MY UNITED STATE. One of the tracks on MY UNITED STATE is a Beethoven coded , new age blues coded , ambient music coded interpolation of the national anthem that I almost considered playing at the Super Bowl, but then took a completely different musical direction. The one similarity is that both versions include the Triggerman beat sample in it — a staple of New Orleans bounce and hip-hop culture — which I'm proud to say is a first in NFL history to have a recording sample included in the anthem. The other song on MY UNITED STATE is entitled Notes From My Future Self. It's me speaking to a younger version of myself from present day, perhaps even from the future. Sonically and lyrically it's such an achievement for me. Big thank to my team(s) (@JemelMcWilliams et al) for making all this happen this weekend, to my beautiful wife Suleika for her brilliant artistry painting the Super Bowl piano in between chemotherapy treatments, to all my fellow performers and to @NFL and @RocNation for having us. Thank God for all these amazing blessings 🙏🏾