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Dark Skin

from Emergence by Saltation Ignite

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  • Streaming + Download

    Download "Dark Skin" in your choice of format! :)
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Hand-packaged with love CD sitting in a 100% recycled chipboard Arigato Pak with original artwork on 100% recycled labels by Nasim Peterson.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Emergence via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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about

This song was originally written as a message to Mardhavi's fellow Sri Lankan people to undo the self-hating damage, to embrace and take pride in their lovely brown skin again, rather than continuing the self-oppression after centuries of colonization, leaving darker people in the dust and only favoring lighter skinned people - even using unhealthy skin creams to lighten their already glorious skin.

However, after the song was written, she realized that this message applies to many more people of lovely shades world-wide than just her own Sri Lankan people.

Guest artists:
November Morris flew out from Hawaii to play ukelele and add his beautiful voice to this track.

Poet, rapper, and Korean musician extraordinaire, SKIM, delivered fierce rhymes in this track as well.

lyrics

Dark Skin
Don't hate your lovely dark skin
Eradication within
Will never lead you to truly fit in

We've been free For over fifty years
So people take pride
And please switch gears

You come from a beautiful place
And have such a curvy nice face
Why do you strive to look like your captors?
Why do you strive to be one with your captors?

We've been free For over fifty years
So people take pride
And please switch gears

You want to marry someone
Whose standards are white beauty and fair skin
You want to marry someone
With self-denial and void within

We've been free For over fifty years
So people take pride
And please switch gears

credits

from Emergence, track released September 2, 2011
mixed by Semaph and Darren Carter
mastered by Darren Carter
recorded at Semaphore Studio

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about

Saltation Ignite Los Angeles, California

Mardhavi, female Sri Lankan-American producer and musician, brings you Saltation Ignite, the sonic dances of her imagination. The eclectic instrumentations and arrangements of Saltation Ignite range from ukeleles and tabla, 808 and urhu, movement-inducing combos of various electronics, lush piano and strings married to contralto vocal longings and snarls, drums and spaceships, and much more. ... more

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