The Witch’s Flight

Sep 22, 2026 · 1h 56m

On this episode we enter the vibrant after-hours world of Downtown Los Angeles for a conversation about DTLA Art Night and the possibilities that emerge when art, nightlife, and community converge. We hear from Art Night Director Sidney Brocious about her vision for creating spaces of cultural exchange, followed by a live conversation with multidisciplinary artist Ziv Sade, whose practice explores identity, queerness, intimacy, beauty, and self-expression. Together, the conversations invite us to consider art as a portal into the elsewhere and otherwise—spaces beyond prescribed ways of seeing, where imagination, visibility, connection, and joy can take shape.Sidney Brocious is a Los Angeles-based creative and cultural producer whose background in nightlife has shaped her understanding of gathering, community, and the power of creating spaces for cultural exchange. As Director of DTLA Art Night, she brings that sensibility into the arts, connecting galleries, artists, and audiences across Downtown Los Angeles for an evening of exhibitions, discovery, and creative connection. Her work sits at the intersection of nightlife, art, and community, inviting us to experience the city—and contemporary art—through a more social, expansive, and after-dark lens. This Friday on The Witch’s Flight, Sidney joins us to talk about her vision for Art Night, the artists and spaces that make it possible, and the possibilities that emerge when art, community, and the city converge.Ziv Sade is an internationally exhibited, self-taught photographer, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary visual artist whose practice spans portraiture, fashion, editorial, commercial image-making, and mixed media. Beginning his career in Tel Aviv and later expanding his practice to Los Angeles, Sade has spent more than two decades exploring the space between the personal and the public, the intimate and the spectacular. His work centers identity, queerness, beauty, and self-expression, often transforming photography through tactile materials and sculptural interventions. In many ways, Sade’s practice inhabits what I think of as the elsewhere and otherwise: creating visual spaces where people can exist beyond prescribed ways of seeing, and where fantasy, intimacy, visibility, and joy become forms of possibility. Sade is currently one of the artists featured in DTLA Art Night, with his work exhibited at the Braly Gallery in Downtown Los Angeles.

Jul 18, 2026 · 58m

In this episode of The Witch’s Flight, Dr. Zama Dube sits down with Abuja-born, Los Angeles-based artist, producer, and sound engineer Cheekychizzy for a conversation that moves beyond the global success of Afrobeats to explore the philosophies that shape his creative practice. Together, they trace his journey from Nigeria to Los Angeles, reflecting on the evolution of his career, the cultural responsibility of creating music across continents, and his concept of “Confucius music”—an artistic approach rooted in storytelling, emotional depth, and meaning.The conversation also explores the spiritual undercurrents woven throughout Cheekychizzy’s work, from the role of prayer, family, and faith in songs like No Worry to the symbolism embedded within his sonic choices. Dr. Dube and Cheekychizzy discuss artistic brotherhood, his collaborations with artists including D’Banj and Burna Boy, the importance of humility in an industry often driven by competition, and the evolving global language of African music. Anchored by his latest single, Wah Wah, this episode offers an intimate portrait of an artist whose work reminds us that rhythm can carry not only movement, but memory, philosophy, and hope.

May 21, 2026 · 1h 58m

On this week’s episode of The Witch’s Flight, Zama Dube sits down with British-Nigerian artist Shae Universe for an intimate conversation on migration, creativity, vulnerability, and becoming. Shae Universe is a singer, songwriter, and sonic storyteller whose music moves fluidly between alternative R&B, soul, jazz, and atmospheric electronic textures. Fresh off her move from London to Los Angeles, Shae reflects on diasporic identity, emotional reinvention, and the inherited interior worlds carried by children of African migration.Moving between music, memory, spirituality, and Black womanhood, the conversation explores softness as a form of resistance, sound as emotional archive, and the complexities of intimacy in contemporary life. Together, Zama and Shae Universe reflect on longing, belonging, sensuality, and the emotional textures that shape Black diasporic artistic practice.

Jan 22, 2026 · 1h 44m

South African-born musician, producer & multi-instrumentalist Warren Duncan is rapidly paving his way towards greatness. Warrens musical background includes schools of Jazz, Classical and African Gospel. Duncan’s heart is set on taking his brand of Soulful Amapiano to the world. This mix features exclusive music from his forthcoming amapiano EP; “All Class: Vol. 2”. Blending live jazz instrumentations and amapiano, this mix is a master class in South African soulful amapiano.

Jan 22, 2026 · 53m

This month’s broadcast features Asari Aibangbee.Asari Aibangbee is an interdisciplinary artist, specializing in filmmaking, fiber/textile art, and art curation. Originally from Los Angeles, their artistic journey began in San Francisco, where they founded the collective To Be Black and Queer and established themselves as an independent filmmaker. As a queer Nigerian femme, their work centers on the experiences of Black Queer individuals across the African diaspora, exploring themes of identity, community, and intersectionality. In 2021, they began experimenting with tufting, a medium that became central to their practice in 2023 during their first artist residency, alongside their work with cyanotypes. Their fiber art blends traditional techniques, such as hand tufting with a tufting gun and punch needle, with sustainable yarn and other materials to create intricate compositions. These pieces explore symbols, cultural artifacts, and motifs significant to the Black Queer community, serving as metaphors for broader conversations on identity, belonging, and the diasporic experience.

Jan 12, 2026 · 1h 32m

This month’s episode features a special guest and friend of the show, MoRuf.MoRuf Adewunmi is a Nigerian-American rapper, writer, and cultural curator based in Los Angeles. Known for his introspective lyricism and jazz-infused sound, MoRuf blends hip-hop, soul, and personal storytelling to create music that resonates deeply with listeners. He is the founder of Some Jazz Playing, a creative platform and community space that celebrates Black culture, jazz aesthetics, and artistic expression. Through both his music and multimedia work, MoRuf continues to build a legacy rooted in authenticity, emotional depth, and cultural reverence.MOOLODIC, MoRuf’s latest offering, was recorded between 2021 and 2023 in his Long Island home, with Jesse Boykins III as executive producer & Joshua Kissi as Art Director. Inspired by Q-Tip’s Amplified and J Dilla’s Welcome to Detroit, the album channels what MoRuf calls “hotep luxury” — staying conscious, elevated, and finally allowing himself to embrace nice things.The project is built around community. SZA, a friend since 2011 from their neighboring Jersey towns, appears naturally after years of real connection. Fousheé, a college friend from Kean University, joins alongside Jersey producer Jay Versace. Contributions from Mez and Mick Jenkins came through the creative family surrounding Jesse Boykins III and Joshua Kissi.

Sep 21, 2025 · 1h 47m

Zeinabu Irene Davis is a celebrated director, screenwriter, and professor of Critical Gender Studies and African American Studies at UC San Diego. She is perhaps best known for her films Compensation (1999), A Period Piece (1991), and Cycles(1989), works that center the lives, voices, and imaginations of Black women with a rare tenderness and vision. As part of the legendary L.A. Rebellion—a movement of Black filmmakers who came together at UCLA in the late 1960s through the 1980s—Davis helped define a cinematic practice rooted in community, memory, and resistance to Hollywood’s narrow depictions of Black life. Her work carries forward the rebellion’s ethos while also carving out a distinctive space for Black feminist storytelling that is at once experimental, deeply intimate, and politically urgent. Across film, teaching, and mentorship, she has remained committed to expanding the possibilities of Black visual culture, showing us that cinema can be both a site of healing and a form of resistance.

Jun 24, 2025 · 54m

On this month’s edition of The Witch’s Flight, Zama Dube is joined by Simphiwe Ndzube. The conversation spans personal biography, grief, sobriety and sourcing from ancestral memory to create a radical visual grammar.Simphiwe Ndzube is a South African visual artist whose work moves between painting, sculpture, and performance with an unmistakable sense of imagination and political depth. Originally from the Eastern Cape and now based between Cape Town and Los Angeles, Simphiwe draws on magical realism, folklore, and the post-apartheid condition to build entire worlds—what he calls the “Mine Moon” or “Pink Universe.”His art spills off the canvas, often incorporating second-hand clothes and found objects to explore themes like power, migration, and survival. From solo shows at the Denver Art Museum to major exhibitions in Mexico City, Shanghai, and Joburg, Simphiwe is carving his own lane—unapologetically surreal, grounded in spirit, and rich with Black South African memory.

Apr 22, 2025 · 48m

On this month’s episode, Zama is joined by special guest MoRuf Adewunmi.MoRuf Adewunmi is a Nigerian-American rapper, writer, and cultural curator based in Los Angeles. Known for his introspective lyricism and jazz-infused sound, MoRuf blends hip-hop, soul, and personal storytelling to create music that resonates deeply with listeners. He is the founder of Some Jazz Playing, a creative platform and community space that celebrates Black culture, jazz aesthetics, and artistic expression. Through both his music and multimedia work, MoRuf continues to build a legacy rooted in authenticity, emotional depth, and cultural reverence. His latest EP, Tiny Mic Raps series offers a glimpse into his diverse range, blending battle rap roots with captivating visuals. Each track features freestyles over his favorite beats into a tiny microphone, elevated by visualizers.