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Sons of Kemet: Black to the Future review – an eloquent dance between anger and joy Kitty Empire Jazz is most often a collegial endeavour, but it has a star system too. It’s hard to overstate the significance of Sons of Kemet’s Shabaka Hutchings, a saxophonist whose relentless energy and pioneering spirit have been key to the development of the British jazz scene over the past decade. Dividing his youth between London, Birmingham and Barbados, Hutchings played with the Ethiopian jazz great Mulatu Astatke, among other more routine jazz apprenticeships. Currently, Hutchings has three bands – Kemet, the South African-leaning Shabaka and the Ancestors, and the Comet Is Coming. Tomorrow’s Warriors, the forward-thinking London jazz incubator that schooled so much of the current crop of musicians in their teens, have become Today’s Warriors. They could hardly have a more urbane, bold and deep-thinking field marshal than Hutchings. ....
Article content 1: Nightflyer. Talk about a song that could have been a massive hit back in the days of the whole Laurel Canyon scene in seventies California. Russell sings with such a smooth soulfulness that you know she isn’t exaggerating when she talks about being a “midnight rider, nightflyer and an angel of the morning too.” 2: Persephone. Blessed with a fluid and flexible instrument, Russell can entirely morph from one song to the next. She is a fully countrified crooner à la Kelly Willis on this celebratory love song. The killer clarinet break is probably courtesy of Russell too. 3: Hy-Brasil. This tune seems to be a variation on a klezmer classic awash in acid rock reverb and then it shifts completely. The ensuing drum-and-voice folk chant that sounds straight out of the Appalachian songbook. It’s a heart-wrenching confessional about soul travelling from bad places. ....
Published May 12, 2021 8 In many respects, jazz has acted as a vehicle in which musicians can draw from a vast well of historical and contextual memory, transforming their sound to encompass elements of the past, present, and future. Shabaka Hutchings, saxophonist and bandleader of UK jazz group Sons of Kemet, understands the significance that history holds within the realm of music. Having played in several other jazz ensembles, such as Afrofuturist group the Ancestors, and even with Sun Ra Arkestra, Hutchings work has made him a hot topic within music circles. His recent work with Sons of Kemet has been met with critical acclaim for its unique blend of Caribbean and South African genres, with an acute awareness of current culture and politics. ....
“My revolution rides a black horse, and it is stunning!” exclaims guest poet Joshua Idehen barely 2 minutes into Black to the Future. “We are rolling your monuments down the street like tobacco, tossing your effigies into the river,” he continues, indignantly, over tumbling drum fills and squalls of sax, and the effect is a combined sense of unease, resistance, desperation and celebration of Black protest, both righteous and insistent. It sets the tone for the rest of the fourth album from Sons of Kemet, which swings between exultant skank and soulful melancholia (and occasionally mixtures of both) while incorporating in its first half an array of bilious guest rappers and poets into the now trademark Kemet sound: rasping reeds above earth-rattling sub-bass tuba, and a double-percussion pincer movement tight like a rottweiler’s jaws. ....
Album: Sons of Kemet - Black to the Future | reviews, news & interviews Album: Sons of Kemet - Black to the Future Album: Sons of Kemet - Black to the Future Shabaka’s jazzers raise a fist for BLM by Guy OddySaturday, 08 May 2021 A mash-up of Calypso-Reggae-Hip-hop-Jazz and more Shabaka Hutchings is a busy man. Not only does he head up the Calypso-Reggae-Hip-hop-Jazz mash-up that is Sons of Kemet, there’s also The Comet is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors, and plenty else that we don’t hear about, no doubt. His various ensembles aren’t just occasional outings either, and since Sons of Kemet’s exquisite ....