Snow Business: The Sundance ASCAP Music Café Celebrates 25 Years with Performances and Conversations
By Erik Philbrook, ASCAP Editor in Chief • January 31, 2023
The Sundance Film Festival came back in full force this month, bringing with it all the offerings for which the prestigious event has become legendary: a wildly expansive and diverse showcase of work from filmmakers from around the world, throngs of cinephiles and industry folks, snow piled as high as the eye could see and the Sundance ASCAP Music Café, which this year celebrated its 25th anniversary as the Festival’s hub for highlighting the natural bond between music and the movies.
This year the Music Café presented memorable performances from some of today’s most exciting songwriters as well as conversations between filmmakers and composers behind some of Sundance’s most acclaimed 2023 films.
Performers included the morbidly humorous Amigo the Devil, the R&B vocal powerhouse Sha’Leah Nikole and the beloved SoCal folk singer-songwriter (and filmmaker) Matt Costa. Also, poet, hip-hop artist, producer, actor and director Saul Williams and activist, rap artist and author Momolu S K Stewart, who both starred in 1998’s Sundance Grand Jury Award-winning film, SLAM, performed as part of a celebration of that film’s 25th anniversary. Williams, in a nod to supporting new and local artists, introduced a performance by José Soto, a National Poetry Slam finalist.
Composer Roger Suen, who scored the music for this year’s film Jamojaya was joined by the film’s director Justin Chon, for a conversation with ASCAP’s Amanda Shoffner. They discussed their collaboration on this engaging Asian familial drama which tells the story of an aspiring Indonesian rapper and his demanding father.
Composer Nainita Desai and filmmaker Laura McGann talked about their work on the documentary The Deepest Breath, which explores the world of extreme competitive freediving. Set against a stunning underwater backdrop, the film’s story, cinematography and Desai’s score combine to create an experience that keeps viewers on the edge of their seat.
Saul Williams and Momolu S K Stewart also joined ASCAP’s Erik Philbrook for a discussion on making SLAM when Williams was an emerging spoken word artist and Stewart was a teenager in prison (at the time serving a life sentence for murder, which was later suspended by a judge, thanks in part to Kim Kardashian). The two artists hadn’t seen each in 25 years since making the film and, with raw emotions, each shared how art had shaped their lives.