Moor Mother Announces New Album, Shares "Obsidian" Single

'Black Encyclopedia of the Air' will arrive in September

BY Megan LaPierrePublished Jul 6, 2021

Philadelphia musician, poet and activist Moor Mother has announced her new album Black Encyclopedia of the Air. The record will arrive September 17 via her new label home of ANTI-, and today the artist born Camae Ayewa is sharing another taste with single "Obsidian," featuring L.A.-based rapper Pink Siifu.

Black Encyclopedia of the Air follows Moor Mother's two 2020 outputs: Circuit City and BRASS, the latter of which was a collaborative project with New York's billy woods. Moor Mother's ANTI- debut will be a 13-track collection that promises to stretch the universe through ghostly cinders of memory and chart imprints of the future.

Recorded at home in March 2020 with soundscape artist/producer Olof Melander, it's said to be a quintessential Moor Mother release with a polyphonic smattering of voices and instruments coming together to create an otherworldly atmosphere.

Of "Obsidian," the artist said the song is about present danger: "One's proximity to violence. Thinking about violence in the home; violence in communities." Under two minutes, the scant track follows last month's lead single "Zami," which paid homage to the book by Audre Lorde.

Since Moor Mother's 2016 debut Fetish Bones, Ayewa has kept up a steady stream of releases. She's also a vocalist in MoorJewlery and 700bliss, co-leads the group Irreversible Entanglements and is one half of the Black Quantum Futurism collective alongside artist/creative director Rasheedah Phillips.

Check out the Ari Marcopoulous-directed video — which begins in front of Alice and John Coltrane's house — for "Obsidian" featuring Pink Siifu below, along with the album's tracklist.



Black Encyclopedia of the Air:

1. Temporal Control Of Light Echoes
2. Mangrove (ft. Elucid & Antonia Gabriela)
3. Race Function (ft. Brother May)
4. Shekere (ft. Lojii)
5. Vera Hall (ft. Bfly)
6. Obsidian (ft. Pink Siifu)
7. Iso Fonk
8. Rogue Waves
9. Made a Circle (ft. Nappy Nina, Maassai, Antonia Gabriela & Orion Sun)
10. Tarot (ft. Yatta)
11. Nighthawk of Time (feat. Black Quantum Futurism)
12. Zami
13. Clock Fight (ft. Elaine Mitchner & Dudu Kouate)

Pre-order Black Encyclopedia of the Air.

Latest Coverage