culture and influence

Joy Crookes and Ravyn Lenae in a conversation shaped by lineage and light

A moment where two artists carry their heritage into one shared frame of sound and intention

A collaboration can shift the room when two artists carry entire worlds inside their sound. Joy Crookes moves with a palette shaped by South London, Irish folk, Bangladeshi memory and the quiet discipline of piano, guitar and bass. Ravyn Lenae arrives from Chicago with a voice that glows in soft colours, shaped by jazz rooms, alternative R&B corners and a long tradition of experimental soul. Their new version of Feet Dont Fail Me Now feels like a moment where two perspectives meet with natural clarity.

Joy carries a sense of memory in everything she does. Her grandmother’s voice appears on her debut album Skin, her father’s monologue about punk opens another track, and her own upbringing moves between Elephant and Castle, Ladbroke Grove and the cultural intersections of London. She learned piano, guitar and bass as a teenager, which shaped her ear in three dimensions. Her influences are wide and intentional. The Pogues, Gregory Isaacs, Sinéad O Connor, Madvillain, Young Marble Giants. It creates a musical identity that feels like a map of her heritage rather than a playlist.

Ravyn brings a different map. Her work moves with a soft electricity, shaped by Chicago’s experimental soul and a vocal style that bends light. Her track Love Me Not reached platinum status and her recent album Blue Island received critical praise. She has always carried a sense of weightless precision, a tone that feels both grounded and floating. When she steps into Joy’s world, the track becomes more than a rework. It becomes a conversation between two forms of diaspora, two ways of seeing life, two approaches to melancholy that align in surprising ways.

Feet Dont Fail Me Now already had a life of its own. It reached new streaming peaks this year, passed three hundred million streams and became a global anthem through its presence in FIFA 22. Joy wrote it from the perspective of someone who stays silent out of fear, yet the chorus carries a universal call for courage. Ravyn’s presence adds a new layer. Her tone lifts the track into a space where reflection feels natural rather than heavy.

Their meeting reveals how heritage shapes rhythm. Joy’s background blends Irish folk progressions with Bangladeshi melodic sensibilities and London’s multicultural pulse. Ravyn’s background blends Chicago’s soul lineage with modern R&B structures. Together they create a frame where identity, rhythm and intention move as one. The release feels like a bridge between continents, yet it lands with the intimacy of a late night studio moment.

This collaboration isn’t about a single track. It’s about perspective. Joy and Ravyn share a sensitivity shaped by heritage, cities, instruments and the quiet work of growing into your own voice. Their meeting shows how two artists from different corners of the world can create a sound that feels both familiar and entirely new. It’s a reminder that music shaped by memory carries a different kind of weight, and when two forms of memory meet, something rare happens.

Country has always been Black. The industry is only now willing to admit it.

Photo credit Colin Tunney

A story that began centuries ago and continues to shape the sound today

Sunny Black steps onto the Jelly Roll tour this summer with a new single that carries the same Southern weight he brings to every release. It is a raw mix of lived experience, melody and grit. For many listeners he enters a movement that has been building for years, one that is finally becoming visible on the surface. For anyone who knows the roots of American music, his presence feels overdue.

Country did not begin in Nashville. It began in the hands of Black musicians in the American South. The first banjo was shaped by people who were taken from West Africa and forced into a new world. They built instruments from memory and made music that held their stories. The sound that would later be called country was already alive in their communities. The return of Black voices in country has been unfolding quietly for a long time, carried by artists who kept the lineage alive even when the industry looked away.

As the years moved on, white performers copied these sounds in minstrel shows. They used Black music to entertain white audiences and pushed the original creators out of the frame. The industry built a clean and marketable version of country and sold it as a white tradition. The truth was left behind.

That truth has been rising for years, carried by artists who refused to let the roots disappear. The industry is only now catching up. A new wave of Black artists is reclaiming space in a genre that was always theirs. They bring rhythm, storytelling and presence that connect directly to the origins of the music. The industry sees the shift and understands that audiences want something real again. Authenticity has become a form of value.

This is the landscape in which Sunny Black steps forward. His place on the Jelly Roll tour is not a coincidence. It reflects a deeper movement. He stands in a line of musicians who shaped the sound long before it was given a name. His voice carries the same Southern reality that once defined the genre and is now returning to the surface.

Sunny Black is not an outsider. He is part of a history that was hidden and is now being acknowledged. His presence marks a quiet correction. A reminder that country has always been larger, richer and more complex than the industry allowed it to be. And that the people who built it are finally being seen again. He steps into a current that was already moving, and his presence gives it a new point of focus.

Sunny Black – Lonely

Part 2 — Stichting Timer: The foundation in progress

The light touches his work while the city stays raw around it.

Part two of a two part reflection on legacy, creativity and the work that continues

After TRACK 2025, a different kind of conversation began. It was no longer about a performance or a season, but about how the story of Timer could continue in a way that reflects who he was and what moved him. His work was never only about form. It carried the rhythm of his life, the moments of falling, getting up and finding direction again. What seemed unfinished to others often held meaning for him. That sense of movement is part of what gives his work its depth.

From that idea grew the first steps toward Stichting Timer. The foundation is being developed by our family and the people who stood close to him. The aim is to create space where people can explore what drives them from within, just as Timer did in his creativity and in the love he shared with us. The focus is on strength, direction and the inner anchor that helps you move through both flow and difficulty.

In this early phase, there are ongoing conversations with a leading space within Rotterdam’s hip hop and street culture. It is a place where people work who have known Timer since the nineties and who witnessed his development from close by. The responses have been warm, although the practical and financial steps still need attention. If this collaboration takes shape, it would be a meaningful location for a first presentation of the foundation in progress. Not as a launch, but as a moment where the city, the culture and the people who knew him come together in a natural way.

The foundation will focus on three directions. The first is keeping Timer’s values alive: creativity, perseverance and the love for the people around you. The second is creating space for others to discover their own anchor, through workshops, programs and support for makers and non makers. The third is preserving his artistic legacy. This includes the archiving of murals, sketchbooks, stories and other work, so that everything comes together in one place where his presence remains visible and tangible.

This next chapter is still taking shape, but the intention is clear. It is about honoring the story behind the work and offering others the space to find their own.

If you want to know more about the foundation or feel connected to the work we are building, you can reach out to me directly via info@timerofficial.nl

Part 1 — Track 2025: A retrospective

Part one of a two part reflection on Timer and the city that shaped him

TRACK 2025 ran at Theater Rotterdam from 10 to 14 September 2025 and turned the building into a two hour walk through movement, sound and city life. It was never meant to be a standard theater visit. The route moved through corridors, studios, stairwells and the streets outside, where dance, music, fashion and performance appeared without warning. The program was shaped by artistic director Alida Dors and co produced by Tjon Rockon.

One of the quiet threads running through the experience was a tribute to Timer, the Rotterdam street artist whose clocks and raw line work shaped the visual rhythm of the city. Timer was my brother, Gregory Oron. He grew up in the hip hop and graffiti scene of Rotterdam and left a mark that still moves through the city long after he passed away in November 2024.

Dors brought together a group of artists who offered an early look at the season ahead. Choreographers Alice Ripoll and Cheroney Pelupessy, theatermaker Dionne Verwey, the collective Grande Loge and musician Kay Slice each carried their own artistic language. Together they created an evening that felt layered and open, as if the building itself was speaking through them.

The theme, Sample, Scratch and Rewind, reflected the way hip hop treats memory and time. Earlier works returned in new forms, future ideas appeared as fragments and influences from different continents and generations blended into a single route.

TRACK 2025 acknowledged Timer through digital clocks placed along the route. They appeared without explanation, echoing the way his tags once lived in Rotterdam: visible to some, unnoticed by others, always part of the landscape.

“It is a subtle nod to Timer,” co producer Tjon Rockon said at the time. “You move through the building and then out into the city. Along the way you see clocks. Some people notice them, others walk past. That is how his work existed here. Everywhere, but not always seen. At the start of the route there is even a moment where we talk about time itself.”

The entire run sold out quickly. For those who walked the route, the experience became more than a preview of a new season. With distance, it reads as an early public moment of recognition for an artist whose influence continues to grow.

TRACK 2025 became the point where a quiet tribute opened the door to a larger conversation about legacy, memory and the place Timer holds in the city.

This reflection continues in Part 2, where the story moves toward Stichting Timer.