Sons of Kemet: Your Queen Is A Reptile
ByYour Queen Is A Reptile offers a stripped-down alternative to the sometimes overlong and overbaked cosmic offerings of artists such as Kamasi Washington. Washington's otherwise excellent triple-CD debut, The Epic, would have been improved by rigorous editing, and less wafting and warbling from its heavenly choir. (Excessive running-time was addressed on Washington's follow-up, Harmony Of Difference. Saccharine choral overload, unfortunately, was not). The nine tracks on Your Queen Is A Reptile, by contrast, are paragons of concision and grit.
More importantly, perhaps, unlike Washington's take on cosmic jazz, the Sons of Kemet's music is explicitly grounded in everyday life, specifically the everyday life of people of African-Caribbean heritage living in Britain. Performance poet Josh Idehen adds excoriating verses to "My Queen Is Ada Eastman" and "My Queen Is Doreen Lawrence," and toaster Congo Natty rides "My Queen Is Mamie Phipps" dub style. All nine tracks are named after women of African heritage, and the sleeve notes contain a hard-hitting refutation of the relevance of the British monarchy to Britain's immigrant diaspora.
The line-up on the album differs a little from that on Sons of Kemet's debut, Burn, and second album, Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do. Hutchings and Theon Cross, who replaced tuba player Oren Marshall on Lest We Forget, are both still here. But the high energy, yet light footed, twin-drummer team of Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford is expanded on some tracks to a trio by Moses Boyd or Eddie Hick. There are also guest appearances by saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Pete Wareham.
The title Your Queen Is A Reptile, by the way, references the surprisingly widespread belief that the members of the British royal family are all shape-shifting lizards from an alien civilisation. The jury is still out on that, but not on the inspirational lives of the women cited in the track titles. As large chunks of British society, and parts of American society too, whip themselves into an orgy of excitement over the upcoming marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Your Queen Is A Reptile offer a timely antidoteand one given added impact by the multi-racial composition of the band.
Track Listing
My Queen Is Ada Eastman; My Queen Is Mamie Phipps Clark; My Queen Is Harriet Tubman; My Queen Is Anna Julia Cooper; My Queen Is Angela Davis; My Queen Is Nanny of the Maroons; My Queen Is Yaa Asantewaa; My Queen Is Albertina Sisulu; My Queen Is Doreen Lawrence.
Personnel
Shabaka Hutchings: saxophone; Pete Wareham: saxophone (track 4); Nubya Garcia: saxophone (track 7); Theon Cross: tuba; Tom Skinner: drums; Seb Rochford: drums (tracks 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 9); Moses Boyd: drums (tracks 3, 7, 8); Eddie Hick: drums (tracks 3, 7); Maxwell Hallett: drums (track 9); Josh Idehen: vocals (tracks 1, 9); Congo Natty: vocals (track 2).
Album information
Title: Your Queen Is A Reptile | Year Released: 2018 | Record Label: Impulse!
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Instrument: Band / orchestra
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