The quarantine mix that started it all, filled with songs of love and hope

For Marea Stamper, the inimitable selector and DJ/activist now known as The Blessed Madonna (she changed her stage name from The Black Madonna out of respect to the Black Lives Matter movement), crate-digging is more than an art or craft—it’s a way to connect. That’s why Boiler Room tapped her for the inaugural mix of their quarantine series Streaming From Isolation, which began in March 2020 as the pandemic swept the globe. “I needed to do it,” she tells Boiler Room Radio. “I needed to feel like life was going on. Boiler Room has been such an amazing way to connect with people around the world, and my first impulse when everything happened was, can we do that? It was almost a therapeutic response because I was so afraid.” What better way to spread love and hope than with the resilient thumps and prideful shimmers of house and disco? Stamper, of course, doesn’t stop there; her imaginative, eclectic mix weaves through dozens of forgotten gems from protest eras gone by. There’s the jazzy incantations of Gil Scott-Heron, the cathartic gospel coos of Detroit’s Clark Sisters and even Italian drummer Tullio De Piscopo chanting away on his international hit “Stop Bajon”. It’s the sort of colourful mix that makes the world seem smaller and more interconnected, pulled closer by songs of hope, love and togetherness.