At a gig turned research trip in a house turned den of music we heard Sons of Kemet for the first time.
And they were glorious and they played with time and they shook the room.
They created a world where the queen was replaced by awe inspiring black woman after awe inspiring black woman.
‘Don’t want to take my country back, mate / I want to take my country forward’ (‘My Queen is Doreen Lawrence’)
This was utopianism in action.
Here are some thoughts about time and music and utopia. We encourage you to add to them.
‘I do not hear it at all consecutively in my imagination in the way it must subsequently come, but as if all together at once’ (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
‘Sun Ra was developing some sort of synchronic sense of time suggested in the image of “sound diminished to its smallest point,” which would presumably be all sound and thus all of time, motion, and energy all at once’ (Nathan Ragain on Sun Ra)
‘All motion becomes sound, words, forces’ (Henry Dumas, Echo Tree)
‘The purpose of art is to stop time’ (Bob Dylan)
‘Now it’s my life I’m living / My only concern for tomorrow is my turn’ (Nina Simone, ‘Tomorrow is my Turn’)
‘My politics still lively … I’m still here, still unruly / All sound and all fury’ (Sons of Kemet, ‘My Queen is Ada Eastman’)
