Name: Your Queen is a Reptile
Brand: Sons of Kemet

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

B002797001

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2018-03-30

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Unive­rsal

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

602567364320

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Total Cap

B002797102

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602567364351

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1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Sons of Kemet

Genre US

Jazz

Label US

Impulse!

Albums of the Year 2018

Sons of Kemet is a British jazz band known for their unique and captivating sound. Led by the talented clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer Shabaka Hutchings, the group also features Oren Marshall on tuba, as well as Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford on drums.

With their impressive lineup of musicians, Sons of Kemet has gained recognition as a super-group in the jazz scene. Their music showcases a fusion of different styles and influences, creating an innovative and refreshing sound that captivates audiences worldwide.

Through their powerful performances and thought-provoking compositions, Sons of Kemet continues to push boundaries in the world of jazz music. With each album release, they prove themselves to be true pioneers in the genre, earning them a dedicated fan base and critical acclaim.

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Sons of Kemet's album Your Queen is a Reptile. Available here on LP and CD.

Sons Of Kemet are born of many vital elements – including a name that nods to ancient Egyptian culture, and a line-up that comprises some of the most progressive 21st-century talents in British jazz and beyond. Band-leader, composer and sax and clarinet don Shabaka Hutchings (himself named after a Nubian pharaoh-philosopher) brings together his fiery vision alongside London based bandmates Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford (forming a dynamo duo on drums here) and latest addition Theon Cross (taking over from Oren Marshall on tuba). Taking inspiration from such diverse sources as the Afro-Caribbean carnival tradition and contemporary UK club culture of grime and dubstep, Your Queen Is A Reptile is party music with a purpose – like Fela Kuti and James Brown. The title itself is an attack on the concept of lineal superiority, the absurdity of the notion that one can possibly be more deserving by birthright. In his song titles, Hutchings offers alternate queens, powerful and influential Afro women from the famous to the familial (Ada Eastman of album opener My Queen Is Ada Eastman is Hutchings' great-grandmother).

With the group's drum interplay and tuba driven basslines, one can't help but be reminded of New Orleans' brass band and second-line traditions, yet the reference points here lie further to the Southeast, deep in Hutchings' Afro-Caribbean heritage. Poet Joshua Idehen's vocals on the opener are reminiscent of another brilliant British artist from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, Linton Kwesi Johnson. Delivered with dramatic pacing and power, Idehen confronts themes of racism in contemporary London. My Queen Is Nanny Of The Maroons begins with a Nyabinghi-esque drum pattern – a nod to the spiritual music of the Rastas which was itself derived from the musical traditions of African slaves brought to Jamaica in the 17th and 18th century – while My Queen Is Angela Davis, perhaps the most "spiritual jazz" leaning track here, is informed by the Afro-centric sounds of late '60s America. It is these subtle allusions within Your Queen Is A Reptile that show Hutchings is not simply listing off names he read in a book, but rather he is paying homage to women that deeply inform his political views, compositional personality, his very self-identity.

Your Queen is a Reptile

Music US