MUSIC
What’s Behind the Masks?
Cartel Madras’ mantle as Asian queer women gangsters
BY STEVE ERICKSON
In real-life, Contra and Eboshi,
the two sisters who formed the
hip-hop group Cartel Madras,
started an NGO to help out
women with development issues
in the Indian province of Chennai.
On record, they take no shit, to put
it mildly: they tote guns and fi re
them, leave mirrors with lines of
cocaine lying around, and casually
objectify both men and women. To
quote “Goonda Gold,” “Bitch, I got
nothing to lose… More sex/ I want
drug money/ Onto the next bad
honey.”
This persona is familiar: Tony
Montana via Rick Ross and Pusha
T. But Cartel Madras attack it
from a very specifi c perspective:
as queer Indian-Canadian women
Priya “Contra” and Bhagya “Eboshi”
Ramesh. While the gangsta
MADRAS CARTEL, continued on p.25
Thrust Out of This World
Moor Mother joins Zonal’s Kevin Martin, Justin Broadrick
BY STEVE ERICKSON
An astronaut hurtles
through space toward a
black hole on a doomed
mission. The knowledge
of her fate triggers a deep depression
and realization of the many
unfair reasons why she was chosen
for this suicidal trip into space.
I’m describing Zonal’s album
“Wrecked” rather than a movie.
This narrative isn’t explicitly
spelled out, but its song titles frame
a cry for help in sci-fi imagery: “Debris,”
“Black Hole Orbit,” “S.O.S.,”
“Alien Within,” “Stargazer.” The
fi rst half features vocals by queer
rapper and poet Moor Mother, but
it then turns entirely instrumental,
growing more minimal and
even grimmer.
This is the second time around
for Zonal, although the fi rst under
RALPH AND FLOYD GONZALES
this name.
British musicians Kevin Martin
and Justin Broadrick formed the
electronic duo Techno Animal in
1990, releasing six albums. With
the benefi t of hindsight, their 2001
“Brotherhood of the Bomb” was far
more signifi cant than it seemed at
the time.
A collaboration between the
group and leftfi eld rappers like Rob
Sonic, Antipop Consortium, and
Company Flow, it paved the way for
artists like Death Grips, Clipping,
and JPEGMAFIA’s mix of punk,
hip-hop, and industrial attitudes
and textures.
But Broadrick and Martin had
many other projects — Broadrick
started out as the singer/ guitarist
of Godfl esh and later founded the
shoegaze-metal Jesu, and Martin
Cartel Madras’ Eboshi and Contra, queer Indian-Canadian sisters Bhagya and Priya Ramesh.
FACEBOOK/ MOOR MOTHER
Moor Mother is featured on Zonal’s album “Wrecked.”
➤ ZONAL, continued on p.39
October 24 - November 6 24 , 2019 | GayCityNews.com
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