Consumer Guide Album

Sons of Kemet: Black to the Future [Impulse, 2021]
Shabaka Hutchings isn't the first jazz musician to believe aurally arresting musical originality has intellectually salient political bite, and this project's cheerful, tuba-grounded resolve is a message in itself. But losing the thread comes naturally when an album launched by the scornful Joshua Idehen attack on the audacity of Caucasity "Field Negus" passes Idehen's baton to lesser lyricists and then turns strictly instrumental for its second half. Luckily for us, Idehen gets the last word with the climactic "Black," which is salient and then some from "Black is tired/Black would like to make a statement/Black is tired/Black's eyes are vacant/Black's arms are leaden/Black's tongue cannot taste shit" to "This black struggle is dance/This black pain is dance/This black struggle is dance/And this black blaze is dance/Just leave black be/You already have the world just leave black be/Leave us alone!" B+