14 December 11-17, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | 14 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Holy Beats and Ancestor Calls Revel in the spiritual power of DJ Pressure Point. BY STEVENSON ALTIDOR A kia Dorsainvil, known in the Miami music scene as Pres- sure Point, is a DJ, creative force, and the powerhouse be- hind Masisi — a Black queer Caribbean party and radio platform. Through music and expression, he channels his Hai- tian roots and spiritual worlds onto the dance floor. “I think Black people need Jesus and magic to survive,” DJ Pressure Point pleads in conversation with New Times. “I think black people need prayer and self-determina- tion, and with help from our ancestors, who you believe are working in your favor.” Pressure Point is well aware of the expenses he is incurring on us here. Belief is another subscription to consider. The task of suspend- ing our suspicion of the fantastical to shed the real-world dread that drapes our shoulders. It’s a heavy ask. One answered by the titillating and propulsive vitality of his sets, which bring another form of suspension: emulsion. Here, the dance floor becomes a pocket dimension to those in search of belonging. A place where you plop a version of you to move in all the ways that are perilous beyond here. His rigidity on the decks is a testament to his spiritual prowess. He demands that you dance. To contort your body in ways that are solely natural to you and allow the vocals to guide you. The reverence he displays for the sounds and voices across the Black musical diaspora is evident. Blending into a kaleido- scopic romp of a Windows Media Player vi- sualizer. Chopping vocals to chants to land on the down beat, stretching out melodic phrases to coo as synths, or leaving them un- touched to spill over the beat, and onto the dance floor. All while showing compassion for the energy you’ve already spent. The night and the bodies it cloaks into the wee hours depend on these expenses to survive. The collections of all that he is as a curator, com- munity leader, music nerd, and, most impor- tantly, who he is as Akia. It’s recording day inside the Little River Cultural Garden, home to Masisi Radio. En- circling the room are the black and white fil- tered faces of notable Haitian creatives, tacked against the moss-green slab of con- crete. Overhead, there are branches of foliage drooping, grazing every shoulder, patting ev- ery crown that could reach, gifting them a wreath. Dressed in flowy black trousers and skin-wrapped black vest, Pressure Point is ev- erywhere and everything. It’s a magic trick he’s learned to conjure since starting Masisi. In 2019, Dorsainvil sought a party for the demographics who looked like him to be free, even if it was just for a night. He formed Ma- sisi. During the pandemic, when the commu- nity sought to answer its own questions, it evolved into a platform that hosted fundrais- ers, auctions, open mics, a cinema club, and an online radio station. Masisi, like any liar for the young and discarded, became too comprehensive to be so insular. During this three-hour block, he transitions from director to sound engineer and gaffer, moving around the room to attend to the needs of everyone, all while unmarred by the physi- cal exertions of labor: sweat. Fresh off his first trip to London, he’s unbothered. That’s not to say there’s no lamenting being done. There are things beyond his grasp that he condemns, si- lently. The big one is superstardom, and who does he have to be to reach it? “I guess it would be beneficial to have a persona.” Throwing his head back, a bitter chuckle unaligned with the carefree visual. The morose lighting accentuates his beam- ing, velvety, granular profile. Persona falls on the outskirts of magic. Let Dorsainvil tell it, there’s no separation be- tween him and the DJ. Both are collections of everything around them. Both are the off- spring of ancestors who went a far way south so the next generation can live a life far better than their own. Each serves the other in its own fashion. Without Dorsainvil to fund these projects, Pressure Point would be an ideological thesis. But the idea is the same: Accepting that the current version of you is unable to fulfill a vision as is, so recreating yourself for the vision is the most common magic trick of all. His lullaby-soft tenor dissolves when dis- cussing the range of the community they rep- resent, placing clear boundaries between the city they serve and the community he seeks to be no King of. “I can’t worry about Miami as a whole, I just can’t,” he says, “I’ve got to worry about my community. The people who check up on me, where it flows into each other’s lives directly, and just try to listen and be like, make sure that my humanity is at the center.” Masisi Radio is a sanctuary, a college nes- tled within a nominal and unassuming build- ing. A closed practice designated solely for the next generation of Queer creatives. A lan- guage where “My Love” is less of a noun phrase and more of a symbolic gesture, an open palm resting on top of flesh. A send-off to someplace safer than these walls. Confined inside the walls, you are human. But most of all, you are your own savior. “I do think that it’s okay to be selfish, like, at the end of the day, I’m not here to save you. I’m not.” Unfurling his arms off his chest, closing the distance his words have to travel. “I didn’t sign up for this job at all to save any- body. The job I signed up for was to be an art- ist, and hopefully, through my example, that folks know that they can do the same thing.” The night closes with one last hymn from a forebearer, the original Miami Queen of Soul, Betty Wright. “My Baby Ain’t My Baby Any- more” is an intimate revelation of loss. Wright is composed, “Maybe it doesn’t pay to play fair in this game called love,” stonewalls the horns’ caterwauling. As much as we spoke about the community, love has a price. The price is an investment. To imagine a locale that accepts you and live long enough to reach it. As we said goodbye, Pressure Point says with a hug, “Get home safe, okay, love.” Espe- cially on a Sunday, when the ancestors had an entire three-hour block dedicated to them, a simple goodbye requires the power of prayer. [email protected] ▼ Music Music Pressure Point is the powerhouse behind Masisi. Photo by Sunny Fischer From Broadway to Broward Alicia Keys’ bio-musical is bound for the Broward Center. BY GABRIELA B. DOS SANTOS A licia Keys, R&B superstar and 17-time Grammy winner, re-enters the na- tional stage with a new project: the North American tour of her Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen. Hell’s Kitchen is an artful jukebox musical loosely inspired by Keys’ life. Directed by Michael Greif (Rent, Dear Evan Hansen) and choreo- graphed by four-time Tony Award nominee Ca- mille A. Brown (Once on This Island, for colored girls), the show brings Broadway glitz to Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts for a run from March 10–30, 2026. Ticket prices range from $60 to $160, depending on the seating location. From its world premiere at the Public The- ater in New York to its Broadway debut at the Shubert Theatre, crit- ics agree that Hell’s Kitchen reimagines the jukebox musical genre with a unique charac- ter story, not a concert disguised as a plot. The story follows 17-year-old Keys growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, in the 1990s. In search of independence from her overprotec- tive mother, she discovers identity, community, and purpose. Alongside her personal journey, the musical touches on the social challenges of the era, from encounters with police brutality to systemic racism. The show breaks from the typical jukebox musical trope of bending the story to a catalog of pop songs. Hits such as “Empire State of Mind,” “Fallin’,” and “No One” are refreshed to reflect Keys’ personal journey, alongside new songs written exclusively for the show, includ- ing “Kaleidoscope.” Hell’s Kitchen has also sparked Broadway debuts for several artists. Gospel icon Yolanda Adams stepped into the role of Miss Liza Jane on November 21 for a limited engagement through January 25, 2026. Grammy-winning R&B artist Ne-Yo will join the cast as Davis be- ginning December 4. Accompanying the musical is the book Hell’s Kitchen: Behind the Dream by Kristopher Diaz, which provides an inside look at the cre- ative process and the revisions made for the stage. The book highlights how Keys’ story, while inspired by the singer’s teenage years, is in part a fictionalized coming-of-age tale. Hell’s Kitchen. 8 p.m. nightly from Tuesday, March 10, through Sunday, March 30, 2026, at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; broward- center.org. Tickets from $60 to $160 via bro- wardcenter.org. THE MUSICAL ALSO TOUCHES ON THE SOCIAL CHALLENGES OF THE ERA.
