Shabaka Hutchings — the saxophonist, clarinettist and bandleader of Sons of Kemet and Shabaka and the Ancestors — has detailed his debut solo EP. As Shabaka, the artist will share Afrikan Culture on May 20 via Impulse! Records.
Co-produced with Dilip Harris, the eight-song Afrikan Culture finds Hutchings collaborating with kora player Kadialy Kouyate, harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and guitarist Dave Okumu.
Opener "Black meditation" is the first song from the effort to arrive, and you can hear it slowly unfurl in the player below. Afrikan Culture also includes songs with mindful titles like "Ritual awakening," "Explore inner space" and — as Beenie Man once said — "Memories don't live like people do."
As Hutchings explained in a statement, "Afrikan Culture was made around the idea of meditation and what it means for me to still my own mind and accept the music which comes to the surface. It features various types of Shakuhachi flutes and a new technique of creating that I've been experimenting with in layering many flutes together to create a forest of sound where melodies and rhythms float in space and emerge in glimpses."
Last year, Hutchings and his Sons of Kemet bandmates released Black to the Future.
Afrikan Culture:
1. Black meditation
2. Call it a European paradox
3. Ital is vital
4. Memories don't live like people do
5. Ritual awakening
6. Explore inner space
7. The dimension of subtle awareness
8. Rebirth
Co-produced with Dilip Harris, the eight-song Afrikan Culture finds Hutchings collaborating with kora player Kadialy Kouyate, harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and guitarist Dave Okumu.
Opener "Black meditation" is the first song from the effort to arrive, and you can hear it slowly unfurl in the player below. Afrikan Culture also includes songs with mindful titles like "Ritual awakening," "Explore inner space" and — as Beenie Man once said — "Memories don't live like people do."
As Hutchings explained in a statement, "Afrikan Culture was made around the idea of meditation and what it means for me to still my own mind and accept the music which comes to the surface. It features various types of Shakuhachi flutes and a new technique of creating that I've been experimenting with in layering many flutes together to create a forest of sound where melodies and rhythms float in space and emerge in glimpses."
Last year, Hutchings and his Sons of Kemet bandmates released Black to the Future.
Afrikan Culture:
1. Black meditation
2. Call it a European paradox
3. Ital is vital
4. Memories don't live like people do
5. Ritual awakening
6. Explore inner space
7. The dimension of subtle awareness
8. Rebirth