LA Times Explores Black Nile’s Connections To Art And The City’s Jazz History

The Los Angeles Times recently featured Black Nile, exploring how Inglewood brothers Lawrence and Aaron Shaw connect Los Angeles’ rich jazz history with a new generation of listeners. Published ahead of their recent Hollywood Bowl appearance on a bill with Erykah Badu, the piece traces the duo’s relationships with visual artists Lauren Halsey and Charles Gaines, who designed the artwork for their latest LP, Indigo Garden. The brothers discuss the MASS MoCA residency that inspired the album, their city’s jazz resurgence, and how younger audiences are discovering the music.

“The long legacy and history of visual arts with music, they are hand in hand because in some ways they elevate each other,” Lawrence tells the Times. “The experience is elevated when you attach visuals to music and audio to visuals and being surrounded, in that environment where it’s nothing but creatives, it really brought us back, in a lot of ways, to childhood because that’s how we grew up in a lot of jazz camps and a lot of art camps.” Read the full feature here. Indigo Garden is at radio now!