Sons of Kemet albums

2018

Your Queen is a Reptile – 77%

2021

Black to the Future - 87%

               Sons of Kemet have ben on the rise for a while (see the awesome 2018 record Your Queen is a Reptile), but this album is the best fusion of music they have done so far. The mixing of different types of music is what rock n roll has always been about from the start, and it changes even still. Their music is more of a conglomeration of influences then I have ever heard- heavy on the saxophone with the groovy dance of the Afro-beat world on songs like “Pick up Your Burning Cross” and “For the Culture”, elements of hip hop at its darkest and weirdest on the outstanding and morphing “Hustle”, the smooth jazz element that channels music of the Fourth Word in “Never Forget the Source”.  “Throughout the Madness” has one of the coolest tenor saxophone solo’s I have ever heard, channeling Neil Young’s guitar playing through a different culture’s ears. Bandleader Shabaka Hutchings has another group named Comet is Coming, and together these two London based groups made up of people from all over Europe and Africa are changing the landscape of music in the 21st century.

               This record contains the most groove ridden and short and catchy songs of their career, but as accessible as it is it has a number of challenging tracks as well. The longer, hypnotizing grooves of “Envision Yourself Levitating” is perhaps the climax of their entertaining mix of jazz, African, and pop music; it is an instrumental piece, but I swear I can hear a voice in there somewhere. Percussionist Seb Rochford has also played with Brian Eno and Herbie Hancock, and the level of musicianship on display channels those influences. Closing track “Black” sums up the mindset of a type of anger to match the fury punk music, but it’s not quite the same music…I can’t be sure there is a genre for this type of sound just yet. The music knows the culture it came from but is also made for a mass audience- Sons of Kemet are on their way to making African music the new vanguard of provocative rock n roll.

Best songs: Hustle, Throughout the Madness, Never Forget the Source, Envision Yourself Levitation