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ISOLATION DRILLS

Isolation Drills: Ill Doots

Like the majority of you, all of us in the Philadelphia area are staying at home, learning to adapt to our “new normal.” MAGNET is checking in with local musicians to see how and what they’re doing during this unprecedented time. Photos by Chris Sikich.

Ill Doots: Collectively, we’ve been processing and adjusting to the new normal as best we can. It’s given us time to rest, plan and activate the continued mission of learning, living and loving. Pre-COVID, we were gearing up for a release show for our upcoming album, The Mess.

When we realized that the city would be shut down for longer than a few weeks, we started thinking about alternative options to commemorate the release. Which then sparked our idea to migrate the celebration online. So, these past months we have been preparing to share a place for us and fellow artists to think out loud, to let out the art within us as a means of healing and activism. We call this sharing and airing-out event, The Let Out.

(n.) a pre-determined location—decided upon among friends—that signifies where to meet after an event has ended: a party, club, church, movie, date, work, etc. Or even right outside of the event itself. 

In our case, The Let Out is an online meetup, the official event celebrating the successful release of Ill Doots’ second studio album, The Mess; the album will release earlier in the day, and this event will be in the evening after an afternoon of livestreamed listening parties. The Let Out will also be an “outlet” for our 30-plus fellow artists of all genres to share their work and “let out” the stories, songs and expressions that have been building within us in these truly unprecedented times.

Finally, the title of our event aligns with our mission in partnering with the Village of Arts and Humanities: to abolish youth incarceration. Let them out.