Dawoud Kringle (or as the underground mystics of the Tri-State Area call him, Dawoud the Renegade Sufi) does not so much play music as channel its flow. He recomposes music mid-performance, resonating with that unseen, indefinable voice in our hearts. His dautar (a sitar-guitar-cello hybrid in royal purple) alone should tell you this man laughs at borders. They claim his compositions and improvisations sound like ‘Hans Zimmer and Jimi Hendrix dueling over a beautiful princess from another galaxy.”
But the real music happens in the silence between the notes: neoclassical blues ragas that dissolve time, digital symphonies that map the synapses of the soul, and the late-night improvisations where the instrument plays him and angels are his only audience.
Of course, he’s played with saints, sinners, and even robots (okay, let’s name-drop: Lauryn Hill, Nona Hendryx, Spaghetti Eastern Music, Daniel Carter, Idris Muhammad, Mark Deutsch, SoSaLa, The Brooklyn Raga Massive Orchestra). But the names are just shadows. We could mention his sixteen solo albums, radio airplay across three continents, an orchestral fantasia fusing free jazz maqam with orchestral raga, film scores, collaborations with theater and dance companies, etc. But these aren’t credentials. They’re mere aftershocks of a man who treats the next note as if it might annihilate him.
Dive deeper, and you’ll find the psychoactive and essential properties of sound, the jihad against genre, and the whispered secrets of a man's soul.
"Dawoud Kringle, aka Dawoud the Renegade Sufi, is one of the more forward-thinking, globally-centric and productive music-makers on the New York scene... Dawoud has created a musical world that unites the past, present, and future of sound. For him, no borders seem to exist,t and the most distant of inspirations, the most seemingly warring thoughts can live in perfect harmony. This is music as a healing and calming force, something the world needs now more than ever. "
- Sal Cataldi (nysmusic.com)
