Obsidian and Zami introduce Moor Mother's Black Encyclopedia Of The Air

Very out-there, blistering, uncompromising tracks from this autumn's Moor Mother album Black Encyclopedia Of The Air (-Anti) are streaming. Joining the US breakthrough avant poet-performer is experimental UK vocalist, BBC Radio 3 presenter, and …

Published: 13 Jul 2021. Updated: 2 years.

Very out-there, blistering, uncompromising tracks from this autumn's Moor Mother album Black Encyclopedia Of The Air (-Anti) are streaming. Joining the US breakthrough avant poet-performer is experimental UK vocalist, BBC Radio 3 presenter, and newly announced Wigmore Hall artist Elaine Mitchener heard on the excellent springtime album Some Good News who guests on 'Clock Fight' although that track so far isn't available. Listening to what is available all I can think of is Sun Ra, Jayne Cortez, and maybe The Last Poets in the sound with an intensity within the internal drama of the by times hip-hop laced work as jumping-off points but then all bets and guesses are to be completely set aside.

For now check out ‘Obsidian’ and 'Zami' named after Audre Lorde's 1982 book Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.

Album featured artists also include Elucid, Antonia Gabriela, Brother May, Lojii, Bfly, Pink Siifu, Nappy Nina, Maassai, Orion Sun, Yatta, Black Quantum Futurism and Dudu Kouate.

Moor Mother, who also guests on the latest Sons of Kemet album Black to the Future, is pictured top. Photo: -Anti

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TV highlight coming up – When unheard voices are heard: Uprising

Uprising new on 20 July from Steve McQueen and James Rogan, a 3-part BBC series takes us to 1981 and events surrounding the tragedy of the New Cross fire that killed 13 black teenagers and the protests that followed, is important to watch. Somehow …

Published: 12 Jul 2021. Updated: 2 years.

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Uprising new on 20 July from Steve McQueen and James Rogan, a 3-part BBC series takes us to 1981 and events surrounding the tragedy of the New Cross fire that killed 13 black teenagers and the protests that followed, is important to watch. Somehow in the media narrative and the broader societal prioritisating of the time the tragedy did not matter in the slightest.

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Read, in case dismissively or politely you decide that all this is ancient hIstory, instead from the text of the deeply moving Ben Okri poem ‘Grenfell Tower, June, 2017’ of which these lines particularly resonate: ''At a destiny that draws near with another name/Sometimes it takes an image to wake up a nation.'' Steve McQueen, top. Photo: BBC