Objects: Ayanna Heaven and the Immigrant’s Ear
On nostalgia, image, and the way sound becomes home.
I wanted to christen my newest Substack series; Objects, a curation of people’s interiors and favorite things, with my friend Ayanna Heaven: a Jamaican born, Brooklyn DJ and my favorite conversational ethnomusicologist.
Some of Ayanna’s recent career highlights include her incredible Boiler Room set & her charming Sounds of Heaven radio show on Lot Radio that is usually on my Thursday morning radar.
On one particularly recent, frigid and rainy Saturday, me and Ayanna meet near the UWS where she just wrapped a radio show on WKCR. We struggle to share my mini umbrella, grab some Shake Shack sandwiches and fries with mayo, ketchup and cholula and shriek after getting splashed by oncoming traffic while crossing the street to head to her Brooklyn apartment.
With the backdrop sounds of Bunny Wailer’s Bide Up on vinyl, the views of Ayanna’s radiant Brooklyn space and a very potent ital spliff passed around, the downer of the weather begins to brighten and we chat more about the space and her favorite objects.
CD: If I were to guess your personal aura color, it would be the color of your apartment. What personal connection do you feel towards the color orange?
AH: Growing up my hair would turn pretty red from the sun. It’s something that runs on both sides of my family but only shows up in everyone as children. It was often a topic of conversation because even though it runs in the family, my hair would sometimes get particularly bright. I honestly don’t know if that was the reason why I often gravitate to orange as a color, but it might be. It’s just one of those things that just is, you know? It’s funny because I wouldn’t even say it’s my all time favorite color, but I definitely feel like at my essence, I am orange.
CD: Talk me through some of the items you picked out and why you love them.
Herbie Mann’s Sugarloaf - Jazz Impressions of Brazil on vinyl
AH: One of my favorite instruments is definitely the flute. You can pretty much guarantee that if the tune has flutes, I’m probably going to like it. I discovered Herbie Mann’s music a few months ago (I know, I’m late!) and I picked up this record at A-1 Record Shop in the East Village, definitely one of my favorite record shops.
I am a big fan of Brazilian music. In high school I was obsessed with the song “Belle” by Jack Johnson. The song is only 1 minute and 42 seconds long so I would just listen to it on repeat. I ended up typing it into Pandora to see what similar songs it would serve me up, and this was the moment I discovered Brazilian Jazz. Turns out what I loved about the song was that it was a simple Bossa Nova guitar melody. I fell in love with the sounds of João Gilberto, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and Gal Costa. I later discovered that my mom loved it too! It was something we loved listening to together.
Back to A-1, I found this record and when I listened to the first track and realized it was a cover of “Aquarela Do Brasil,” titled as simply “Brazil,” I knew I had to have it as it was one of my mom’s favorite songs. What’s even better is that the cover is of the Christ Redeemer, which is the setting that my mom heard that song and fell in love with it. A choir bursted out into song near our group and it was so magical. It was one of my mom’s favorite memories. The entire record is lovely.
Fish Cheeks Zabb Seasoning
AH: My favorite restaurant in New York City is Fish Cheeks. They serve authentic Thai food with a seafood focus, and I dream about their coconut crab curry, crab fried rice, fried fish, oysters, and sautéed cabbage. Seriously, the entire menu is amazing.
They use this Zabb seasoning on their wings and I always have a container in my pantry. It’s wonderful - salty, sweet, spicy and like no other seasoning I’ve ever tried, a blend of lemongrass, makrut lime leaves, and thai chili powder as described on the label. I like to add it to my hard boiled eggs, salt and pepper shrimp, and fried green plantain.
Family Portrait
AH: One of my most treasured pictures is this one of me, my sister, mom, and grandma back in 2018. I come from an incredible lineage of women and I have received so much love, wisdom, care, and guidance from them. This picture lives at eye level on my bookshelf and I look at it every day.
Franco Rosso’s Babylon & Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing on DVD
AH: My two favorite movies. I had the honor of doing the patois subtitles for Babylon for the long overdue US release back in 2019. Listening and watching it as closely as I had to just made my love it even more.
Both films are incredibly beautiful visually and masterfully explore the socio-economic dynamics of urban life in the 80’s. I love how well they capture the cultural fabric of post-Windrush Caribbean London and the so-called melting pot of Brooklyn, New York. Both films use storytelling of the everyday experience to reflect the respective cultural backdrops. They also both use music SO wonderfully! Now that I think about it, they are actually super similar films. Both really important and inspiring to me as an artist.
One lonely plantain :)
AH: The love for the banana is real in my life. My home parish in Jamaica is known as the banana parish, St. Mary, and you can always count on several bunches of different varieties in various stages of ripeness on our kitchen counter as my grandpa has a banana farm.
“Fry-and-squeeze” fried green plantain as well as fried ripe plantain were staples with every Jamaican breakfast in our household. When I was little a lot of my family also called me Ayanna Banana. I have a tattoo of a painting of a plantain bunch and I usually have one (or three) in my fruit bowl. The love is real.
CD: Thanks you so much for this incredible overview.
