Sons of Kemet’s first release on the legendary jazz imprint Impulse!, 2018’s
Your Queen Is a Reptile, was a scintillating statement of intent. It was a record that weaponised bandleader Shabaka Hutchings’ musical virtuosity and used it to deliver a scathing rebuke of colonialism and the British establishment, while simultaneously serving as a series of paeans to influential black women like Harriet Tubman, Angela Davis and Mamie Phipps Clark. Field Negus, the opening track on follow-up
Black to the Future, appears to be bringing the curtain up on a similarly political work, but to pigeonhole the record that way would be hugely reductive.