Damion Shade and The Boom Bap Chorus
Month-long residency
Mercury Lounge
Tulsa
Oct. 16, 2023
When it comes to music, politics can be a powerful inspiration. Damion Shade knows this more than most, as his life is an intersection of both. Even his social media reflects both his music and the political landscape that we currently live in. By day he is project manager for ProsperOK at the Oklahoma Policy Institute. At night, his projects are music-focused, as he becomes frontman for the Boom Bap Chorus and other Tulsa ensembles.
With its dedication to local music and its inclusive principles, Mercury Lounge is the perfect place for these two worlds to collide, no matter what party fence you’re on. For the past month, Shade and the Boom Bap Chorus have been taking the stage at Mercury for a residency, and I was lucky enough to catch one night of the action last week — an experience of both feelings and passion that’s the hallmark of all Shade’s musical endeavors.
For each week of Boom Bap’s residency, Shade invited local guests to join him as opening acts. The Earslips, the energetic opener on this night, brought music’s ability to make us feel into strong relief. The Earslips is a trio that has the look of the typical garage band that had us all rushing to buy RockBand guitar controllers in our youth, in hopes of killing that one electric guitar solo. Some might categorize their style as “post-hardcore,” but at the same time, their multilayered tracks seemed to grab elements from various types of rock. At times it was like a psychedelic feeling, like Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun,” and at others something more upbeat that brought to mind Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Each song brought out a different emotion that resonated with the audience, no matter what category of rock you might have labeled it.
When it comes to passion, few artists can recreate that same emotion that it took to write the song when they perform it. Damion Shade is one of the best to do it. He sings with so much soul that it’s impossible to hide in the back mindlessly scrolling through social media. His voice cuts through the blue screens and yelling bar patrons. “I need the spirits in the ground to speak to me,” he said with a power that reverberated through the speakers. His vocal performance included rapping, scatting, and church — I say “church” because he sang like he was catching the Holy Ghost.
In his music, hidden messages intertwined in each bar, with Shade commanding his people as he sang, “Dance, dance, black people dance…. Dance, dance, white people dance.” Not to be outdone, the Boom Bap Chorus was a swirl of musical instrumentation, from the horn section to the guitar and bass players to the drummer. They all left it on the stage. And the keyboardist stole the show with his combination of passionate playing and use of a synth machine that played the backing tracks that set the stage for each song.
In a time where politics and other issues are trying to divide us, Damion Shade and the Earslips prove that a passion for the music and its ability to make you feel can bring us back together. You know it when you’re there. And if this time you weren’t, don’t worry. The Boom Bap Chorus is just getting started.
Next at Mercury Lounge: Hooks & the Huckleberries, Oct. 27
