The Festival Soundtrack: 5 Songs Created within the New Sounds Lab

Tucked within the Music Apprenticeship space of the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival sat a smaller nook, filled with cozy rugs, couches, and… a makeshift recording studio. No one may predict precisely what would emerge from the tent of the New Sounds Lab. But Brandon Yangmi, the lead engineer facilitating the area, aimed “to capture the different musical groups that were going to be at the Festival and to find interesting collaborations.”

The New Sounds Lab was conceptualized and tailored by the employees and college students of Rebel Song Academy (RSA). Based in Kansas City, RSA mentors artists ages eleven to eighteen in inventive songwriting and music manufacturing with particular emphasis on psychological well being and self-development, so as to empower the following technology of songwriters. The RSA delegation on the Festival included founder and government director Enrique Chi, program director Brandon Yangmi, operations supervisor Gabrielle Stanley, mentor Justin Fowler, alum and chief Malek Azrael, and college students Alejandro Arias and Charles Fisher.

The New Sounds Lab’s contributors included invited artists and fellow Festival individuals from Hawai‘i, Bolivia, the Northern Mariana Islands, Stax Music Academy, the Alliance of Black Orchestral Percussionists (ABOP), the Cultural Academy for Excellence’s Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra, RSA musicians, Festival employees and interns, and guests from round the world.

“They had never done something like that before,” Yangmi stated about the group from the Northern Marianas. Their recording session started with the group singing and taking part in conventional music on ukuleles. Before lengthy, they’d piqued the curiosity of ABOP percussionists close by, in addition to members of Positive Vibrations. Cliff Murphy, director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, additionally stopped in his tracks whereas strolling previous the tent earlier than leaping in together with his personal guitar abilities. The music additionally included interns and guests. Ultimately, the collaborations that happened within the music completely embodied the objectives of the New Sounds Lab.

“Recording with and watching musicians and non-musicians all collaborate in one place is the most fun I’ve ever had,” recounts William Diaz-Contreras, Festival intern and musician.

But in the long run, groovy, modern tracks had been solely a portion of the merchandise. The New Sounds Lab cultivated an environment by which lecturers discovered from college students, expert improvisation remained relaxed, and intercultural collaborations occurred always.

“People go off on their own islands and worlds, but there’s a lot of similar rhythms around the world,” Yangmi shared after the Festival. “The Mariana Islands participants were playing a drum beat that Enrique jumped on because he listened to similar-sounding stuff in Panama. It’s cool to see cultures meld together to make one thing… to see the breaking down of barriers and bringing different backgrounds together.”

Below are 5 combined tracks of the New Sounds Lab, recorded on the Festival and produced by Rebel Song Academy. Read the audio transcripts of the songs.

The Northern Marianas singers anchor this observe with repeated phrases in Chamorro and Carolinian, Indigenous languages of the Mariana Islands. It’s a well-liked up to date music that describes the “nostalgia that locals feel for the Mariana Islands and the happiness experienced when returning to them after being away,” shared chief Leo Pangelinan.

The singers’ lovely harmonies attracted an infinite quantity of close by ears and prompted many collaborators. The Positive Vibrations Youth Steel Orchestra joined in simply after their workshop wrapped up on the Beatworks tent subsequent door. They had been quickly joined by ABOP’s London Reese Johnson and Folklife director Cliff Murphy.

Every day of the Festival, folks may catch Andes MC (Carlos Andres Orellana Patiño) and his mentor Eber Miranda performing on the Wordsmiths’ Cafe. These Bolivia-based lyricists write and rap in Quechua, Aymara, and Spanish, highlighting the struggles of youth of their communities in La Paz and El Alto. Andes MC made his solution to the lab and recorded contemporary phrases, accompanied by Rebel Song musicians and the bass stylings of Festival program coordinator Pablo Molinero-Martinez.

This observe includes a collaboration between Ghanaian rapper Maqash, and Rebel Song Academy mentor Malek Azreal. Yangmi recounted that he and RSA scholar Charles Fisher had been engaged on an superior hip-hop beat with Fisher on keys, and “the rappers soon jumped on top of it.” Azreal’s vocal melodies function a colourful distinction to the voice of Maqash.

Every day of the Festival, the “Popcorn Songwriting Workshops” within the Music Room had been full of pleasure, laughter, and pleasure, as RSA artists led guests and fellow individuals in high-energy, ultra-immersive songwriting classes. Beginning with temporary however wealthy explanations of pop-style chord progressions, the workshops guided guests by means of a number of steps of a songwriting course of: selecting a method, choosing chords, and writing lyrics. RSA artists made all of it come alive proper then and there, and typically a number of songs emerged from a single forty-five-minute session!

Yangmi chosen this recording for the playlist as a everlasting fixture of this distinctive, interactive songmaking expertise—and an expressive reflection of the recent, sizzling climate on the National Mall in July.

This observe options the seemingly inevitable collaboration between two highly effective teams of Festival individuals: RSA and Stax Music Academy, a Memphis-based program that trains younger soul musicians in efficiency and ability improvement. The two academy teams created, carried out, and recorded the music in complete partnership.

Liv Berg is a program intern at the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the music, dance, and sports activities staff. She holds a bachelor’s diploma in ethnomusicology from UCLA.