Rosina Kazi and Nicholas Murray are LAL. The Toronto-based, Bengali-Bajan duo have been holding down Canada’s underground DIY music scene for decades. Having started performing separately in hip hop and spoken word, they came together as music and life partners, bonding over the shared ideal of making electronic music that puts community first.
Drawing on the transcendent and transgressive roots of house music, LAL use each successive album as a chance to explore further and further into the future. With so many futures awaiting us, we’re fortunate to have their music as a guide. The fragile melodies and throbbing bass sound out, like a rope and plank bridge across a dangerous chasm. We could choose to plunge into the gaping maw and take what comes our way; we may instead make unsteady, swaying steps towards safety on that far side. Not the dead happiness of certainty and security but rather the comfort of a future built by vulnerability, magical thinking, generosity and the tenderest of rage.
Impatient for paradise, LAL works tirelessly to make that future a reality in the here and now. They launched the community centre and performance venue Unit 2 ten years ago as a space for marginalized artists and communities to build themselves up and create connections across social boundaries. LAL’s recent theatre work in Noor and Out The Window take their world building one step closer towards a critical gesamtkunstwerk. Murray and Kazi are regularly sought after for public speaking engagements, to share their insights on music, arts and social justice. LAL is the answer to a question we’re finally ready to ask.
