10/5/2021

What does Metro Boomin and a sound healer have in common? Muxture.

Muxture [muhks-chr] is a portmanteau of MUX –– the script abbreviation of music —– and structure. It’s what I consider the scaffolding that music and sound can provide, and the structure that a story can live within. Where someone delivering information in real life can rely on things such as body language to determine tone, in audio works, where sound is (arguably) the only sense actively engaged, muxture provides the body language.

The folks over at Transom invited me to write a manifesto where I coined this term and explored how radio makers can implement it in their own work. Through breaking down one of my favorite YouTube videos of Metro Boomin and Young Thug, speaking to both a sound healer about their practice and a DJ who's wordless mixes move bodies like I've never seen, this essay was a thrill to report and write.

Take a read and let me know what you think. In the essay, I built an accompanied sound work that you can hit play and listen to as you read. I also curated a seven-track playlist that demonstrates muxture in musical forms. You can listen to that on Apple Music and Spotify.