Gonjasufi

Photo by Alex Rapada

Gonjasufi is the name the dreadlocked, dark-eyed, Mojave Desert-dwelling Sumach Ecks assumes for his current musical incarnation. It’s more accurate to describe him as a vocalist than a singer, as the sounds that he disgorges on his debut album, A Sufi and a Killer, travel rapidly from warbling notes to gravelly wails and dry-throated cackles.

The haggardly psychedelic and Eastern-influenced feel of Gonjasufi is layered and complex. Produced by the Gaslamp Killer, Mainframe, and Gonjasufi’s Warp Records label mate Flying Lotus, A Sufi and a Killer is an involved listen. Ten rotations of the album may not bring you any closer to Gonjasufi than the first, but when an artist is shrouded in mysticism, sometimes what you don’t know about them is just as intriguing as what you do know.

While from the outside coming to understand Gonjasufi is as simple as carrying water in your hands, he is acutely attuned to his own sense of self. Gonjasufi speaks to Wax Poetics on his inner reflections, the role that yoga plays in his life, and what brought him to the sound that he shares with us now.

You’re originally from San Diego. What was it like growing up as someone different from the norm?

When the whole underground rap movement was going on, like ’90 through to ’93, there was a lot of artists in the Gaslamp District, so it was actually a pretty good spot to be in. Then from ’94, it just became a very military-type environment. Very conservative. So it was difficult [and I was] getting stopped by cops everywhere I went. I’m known throughout the city—the whole police department knows about me just ’cause of the way I look. So San Diego is a very racist town, [or] it was in the ’90s and early 2000s. Right now it’s not as much, but I struggled.

My father, he’s a judge out there. So I had to balance not speaking out as much as I really wanted to for the sake of his work environment. I almost feel like I was targeted more because he was one of the only Black judges in San Diego. So then the police would want to come and make an example out of me. So it was tough, man. I had to drop off the radar. I remember driving through a certain part of town, and I was like fifty [minutes], an hour out of San Diego out to Alpine, and they knew who I was—the police knew who I was out there. They asked me if I was still rolling through the same streets, so I sold my car, man, ’cause I felt like I was marked. The FBI was following me—some crazy shit, showing up to my father’s house—and I had to get off the grid. So I sold everything I had, my transportation, and I just started sleeping on the streets, and sleeping in friend’s houses and couches. Just trying to get out of the grid, and out of the spotlight, ’cause I was being watched. Like, for no reason; I wasn’t doing anything. So it was hard from ’97 to 2002. It was pretty rough for me out there.

It must have been extremely hard feeling like you were a target at all times.

Yeah, it was frustrating. It strengthened me, but I had to master the art of non-reaction. People would do stuff just to get me to react, so I had to just focus on going inside more and controlling my emotions. A lot of my anger got pent up and I didn’t know what to do with it. But when I found yoga, it helped me basically channel it, and release it, and let go of all this hatred that I had.

It’s interesting that the release came through both yoga and music.

Yeah. Well, you know, during that time that I was going through it, I was into drugs and that was my release, but that was basically just masking it. I’ve always been into music but I’ve never been able to really fully express myself the way I wanted to until I got into yoga. Once I started practicing yoga, I was able to soften up and realize that being soft was actually being harder than I ever was. Like going into those places that people are afraid to go into—like the darkest place in me and just sit in there until I could make it light—that’s what yoga’s taught me. It’s taught me how to go into all those dark spaces in myself and turn it into light. And that’s enlightenment. Self-realization.

Do you think that yoga has helped you to focus on the physical and mental connect?

Yeah. It’s definitely a marriage between them. What it’s done is help me to focus on my breath and my breathing, which is the bridge between the visible and invisible—my mind and my body. And the more I focus on breath and my breathing technique, the more present I am, [and] the more control I have over my emotions and my reactions. It’s different forms of yoga: Asana, and the Hatha practice of putting my body in these certain positions. Putting my head lower than my heart, and opening up my chest, and creating space between my heart and my lungs so that they can work in union. Inside my chest, they fight for space, and if I can create more space in there, and they can fall back in love with themselves, that has an effect on everything else. So it’s not only physical, but metaphysical, and it’s quantum physics, too. When I’m in this body, every element is inside me. And if I can master the art inside, then the outside world becomes a reflection of what’s inside of me.

Spirituality on record sometimes alienates people, but this hasn’t been the case for you. What do you think has allowed you to do this?

I think it’s from letting go of a result. Letting go of the need to be accepted, or the need to be rejected. Just doing it and letting it go. First off, I’ve learned to forgive myself for mistakes that I’ve made, and that was the most important part in the last couple years of my life—forgiving myself for hurting others and hurting myself, and letting people down. And in doing that I let go of so much of what I thought was me.

So [it’s] the ability to let go of the result and just be, and work, and act from the heart. Stop thinking and put my heart where my brain is at, and go from that space. So I visualize in my meditation and in my practice throughout every day that I’m taking my brain outta my head and just chucking it as far as I can. Throwing it out. Then I take my heart out, and I put it right there where my brain was at, and then my heart pulsates from my third eye. And then I exist from that spot at the top of my head. So maybe just the fact that I’m not really attached to the result. People are drawn to it.

And also I feel like people admire that you’re not afraid to bare everything on record.

I mean, the fear of being afraid…everything that I fear I go into now. And that’s what I’ve learned. Like, fear is just…it’s like not even real, man. I mean it is real in the sense of if you allow it to be, but it’s a fuel that can progress you and propel someone into the realization of full self.

So everything I’m afraid of, that’s the dark spot. So I have to go straight into it and deal with it head-on. And the ones that I have treasured the most—people in the world who gave every part of themselves, like Jimi [Hendrix], and Bob [Marley], and [John] Lennon—these are guys that poured everything, man. Like it was their last moment on earth. And when I perform and I record, that’s what I do. And that’s what I’m gonna do. And when everybody’s in one spot at the same time, witnessing that take place, it creates a freedom, ’cause it allows people to step outside of their own fears and to say, “Hey, it’s okay to trip and fall and make a fool of myself.“

Do you feel like you’re at the point where you’re completely fearless?

No, not at all. Not even close. There’s a lot of stuff I fear. I still fear the stage. I fear the ocean a lot. A fear of flying. Those are the things that I have to do.

I hear you’re recording new material.

Well, I’m still recording. I don’t want to redo what I already did, first of all. So the new stuff is pretty out there. It took a while to record without thinking about Warp Records, and my second album, and what everybody wants. The only thing I have to do is stay true to my heart and what I feel. What I’m going through. So everything I’m going through now, with the record coming out and the pressures and shit, once again it’s creating something else, so I’m creating new sounds. I wanna do a lot of live stuff eventually. Find a guitar player. Finally, I got a drummer, I got a key player, we’re just gonna lock ourselves in a room one of these days and see what we come up with.

A new set of pressures?

Yeah. It’s become more intense now, which is forcing me to stay even looser than I was before. But it’s a good thing, ’cause the pressure turns charcoal into diamond. So the more pressure that comes at me, you just gotta soften even more and become water and yield to it. And eventually it will yield, and manifest, and lead me to where I need to go. I’m happy with where I’m at, and I look forward to what the future holds.