Duluth music community remembers singer and activist AfroGeode
April 14, 2023
Duluth-based singer, songwriter, and activist Diona Johnson — who performed for years as AfroGeode — is being remembered as a powerful neo-soul bandleader and fearless activist who worked to address important gender, racial and social justice issues.
Johnson died unexpectedly on Monday, April 10. She was 35.
Steve Karels, Johnson’s husband, told the Duluth News Tribune the cause of death was unknown and autopsy results are pending. He said a pulmonary embolism or blood clot was a possibility. Johnson had recently undergone surgery for a broken ankle.
Duluth music community friends and musicians say Johnson was a rising star with a big heart and an endless desire to change the world.
“She was loud and clear about advocating for the queer community and the Black community,” says Daniel Oyinloye, CEO of DanSan Creatives, the talent agency representing AfroGeode. “That was what she wanted her music to advocate for, to symbolize and fight for. I have no doubt if she would have made it to the bigger screens and the bigger platforms that’s exactly what she was going to fight for.”
Oyinloye calls Johnson a selfless and considerate person who always wanted to make people comfortable. “Everything she fought for and stood for she embodied,” he says. “She embodied love. She embodied justice — social justice. It was her day-to-day.”
Johnson told Visit Duluth she grew up in St. Paul, completed graduate school in Milwaukee, and moved to Duluth in 2012 to serve as a licensed therapist and intercultural specialist at the College of St. Scholastica. She began performing in Duluth about five years ago when Olinloye discovered she could rap and sing.
“When she did the rap it was cool, it was dope — but then the second time she sang and I was like ‘Oh my goodness.” She’s got a neo-soul vibe and all that. I was going crazy,” he says. “I just fell in love.”
Duluth Local Show host Brittany Lind says she became friends with Johnson during production work for the FeMN Fest, a multi-day music and arts festival that was staged annually in Duluth from 2017-2019. Johnson organized the event workshops and sang “I Try,” the Macy Gray hit, with the band Me-N-Her during the 2018 festival.
“It’s a bit of a cliché to say that she lit up a room, but honestly, I can’t think of another person who actually did. Her laugh was loud, unique and contagious. I’m going to miss it so much,” says Lind. “She loved with all her heart. And when she loved you, you felt it. She was so thoughtful and mindful of everyone … and she taught me to be more mindful … both in how I saw the world, but also in the words that I use.”
“I think Di will be remembered as a human who did good in the world, who knew who she was, what she loved, what she deserved, and she sang beautiful songs about it,” says Lind.
AfroGeode released a debut EP, Unprotected Woman, in 2022 and finished work on a new album this spring. AfroGeode and the Gemstones, which featured a five-piece funk band backing Johnson, was scheduled to appear during the Duluth Homegrown Music Festival and the Bent Paddle Festiversary celebration next month.
Ren Cooper, vocalist and violin player with the band One Less Guest, performed on Unprotected Woman and shared a billing with AfroGeode in a 2021 live stream concert.
Cooper said the two met during a Black Lives Matter event in Duluth and the two began to collaborate musically.
“She was a force,” says Cooper. “She was so honest in whatever she was conveying. She didn’t try to hide anything. She was who she was and she sang about things that were important to her. Lessons that she learned and things she wanted to share with people. I loved her music.”
Cooper said the live stream concert made her a better musician.
“She gave me the opportunity to try stuff on my own, which is something I hadn’t really done before,” she says. “She gave me the license to do whatever I wanted and share the stage with her. We put on something really beautiful.”
One Less Guest was planning a summer concert in Superior with AfroGeode and the Gemstones literally the day Johnson died, says guitarist Nick Muska. “She had such a big personality. She didn’t give a damn what other people thought about her. She dressed the way she wanted to, she talked very openly about things that other people would talk about in hushed tones,” he says. “I always have a great deal of respect for people that do that.”
Twin Ports photographer Keely Zynda calls Johnson an inspiration.
“When you yourself grow up as a little brown girl, seeing someone like AfroGeode up on these stages, it ignites something in you. If she can do it, so can I. It reminds you that you are allowed and have the power to claim your space wherever that may be,” she says. “Diona was unapologetically herself. Creating in her presence was inspiring. She took charge while holding space for others. Diona encouraged others to also take up space and to not take less than what they are worth.”
After Duluth’s LGBTQ-friendly club Blush closed in 2022, Johnson won a grant to stage “Jazzy, Classy, Queery,” a music and burlesque event, in February. “The evening was healing. The notion of the evening was to ‘show up as you are’ and that’s what people did,” says Zynda. “Diona poured her heart into the evening, and gave everything to everyone. She made sure everyone was taken care of.”
Oyinloye said a new music video featuring AfroGeode was completed last month and he plans on working with Karels to release the album.
“For me that’s the focus, I’ll help get that record out,” he says.
A memorial for Johnson is being planned and funeral arrangements are pending.
