Adrian Younge - The American Negro

I'm going to spend the day with one of the more powerful albums i've heard in a long, long time.  If the album cover art of Adrian Younge's "The American Negro" caught your eye as it did mine, i think you get an idea of what i'm talking about.  While he's been writing and recording for years, i first noticed the LA composer a few years back with his work with Ghostface Killah and then later his "Luke Cage" soundtrack with A Tribe Called Quest's Ali Shaheed Muhammad.  New album "The American Negro" elevates his particular hybrid of jazz, soul, and hip-hop onto a whole different level.  Spoken word pieces with slam poetry hearts weave their way in and out of jazz and soul sections ruminating on the history and state of race and racism in this country.  Here's what the artist has to say about it:

The American Negro is an unapologetic critique, detailing the systemic and malevolent psychology that afflicts people of color. This project dissects the chemistry behind blind racism, using music as the medium to restore dignity and self-worth to my people. It should be evident that any examination of black music is an examination of the relationship between black and white America. This relationship has shaped the cultural evolution of the world and its negative roots run deep into our psyche. Featuring various special guests performing over a deeply soulful, elaborate orchestration, The American Negro reinvents the black native tongue through this album and it’s attendant short film (TAN) and 4-part podcast (invisible Blackness). The American Negro - both as a collective experience and as individual expressions - is insightful, provocative and inspiring and should land at the center of our ongoing reckoning with race, racism and the writing of the next chapter of American history.

I've got a feeling this one's gonna stay with me for a while.  Check out the wonderful "Light on the Horizon" below and order the album here via Jazz Is Dead.

For some reason, this post (along with several others) from back in March was deleted in err by Blogger.  They have reinstated it, but i'm having to repost it.