EXPAT (Mykki Blanco & Samuel Acevedo)

American poet, performance artist and genre-distorting musical futurist Mykki Blanco has always worked to challenge perceptions. On their influential early run of mixtapes for New York's cult UNO imprint Blanco distilled their early inspirations, from riot grrl punk and R&B to trip-hop and rap, into a fractal queer narrative that was as unpredictable as it was critical. Last year they absorbed indie rock and funk into their repertoire on "Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep", collaborating with Blood Orange, Jamila Woods and others, and they're set to follow it with October's "Stay Close to Music", rubbing up against Saul Williams, ANOHNI, Kelsey Lu and Devendra Banhart.

At Unsound this year, Blanco appears with their partner Samuel Acevedo as EXPAT, a brand new project that combines queer, Black theatre and poetry with Latin American heavy metal and murky hardcore punk. EXPAT is a vital reclamation of extreme sound and expression in the face of violent colonization - a live fusion of spoken word, sound collage, DIY noise and rock 'n roll that's rooted in radical freedom.