Video Premiere: Tomas Doncker Confronts Racism on “Some Ol’ Dolls”

Brooklyn artist Tomás Doncker cut his teeth as a guitarist with such genre-busting groups as James Chance & The Contortions; Defunkt; J. Walter Negro & The Loose Jointz; and many more, making him a prime mover on New York’s downtown “No Wave” scene in the early 1980s. Eventually, he went international, touring and recording in Japan with jazz pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, and producing studio and songwriting sessions with Bootsy Collins, Yoko Ono, and Grammy-nominated Reggae vocal group The Itals, among others.

Since then, Doncker has continued to work with an A-list of iconic artists including Madonna, Ivan Neville (on his solo album, Thanks), Bonnie Raitt, Meshell Ndegeocello, Corey Glover of Living Colour, former Parliament Funkadelic keyboardist Amp Fiddler, 2013 Grammy award nominee Shamekia Copeland, Artist John Ransom Phillips, and of course Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. Beyond that, he has produced hundreds of records and is the Founder and CEO of NYC’s fastest rising record label, True Groove Records.

In advance of the vinyl release of The Mess We Made (due July 7th), Tomás is premiering the video for “Some Ol’ Dolls,” an allegory for Doncker’s experience as a disenfranchised black man in America which features clips of old, racially-charged cartoons, mammy dolls and the artist himself donning blackface in an effort to subvert the practice and challenge viewers to confront institutional racism in America. Watch the video below. 

Channeling his anger and frustration after the Charleston Church Massacre and the highly publicized deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner & Michael Brown, Doncker’s politically charged LP, The Mess We Made, combines afrobeat and other world music genres with ’60s & ’70s funk & soul to create a unique sound Doncker calls “global soul.” Doncker’s brand of “global soul” is firmly rooted in historical American music while pushing the boundaries of what Americana truly means. For more information visit HERE.