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Baker's Dozen

Learning Through Listening: Shabaka Hutchings Favourite LPs
Olamiju Fajemisin , March 28th, 2018 09:07

In anticipation of the release of Sons of Kemet's latest LP, Your Queen Is A Reptile and their appearance at this year's Field Day Festival, saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings detailed the thirteen albums that shaped his experiences as both a man and a musician to Olamiju Fajemisin

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Don Cherry – Brown Rice 
I see Don Cherry as a 'pure' artist. I don't align him to any style. He always seemed like the kind of artist that has life experiences he shares with the world via music. I don't take inspiration from his approach to his genre, but rather how he shares his take on life with the audience. Well, not the audience. Audience isn't the right word...it's really more about communicating with people. How do you communicate and interpret your worldview with music? Brown Rice is the product of making music with this intention. You can't listen to this record and define it in any other way apart from as the experience of Don Cherry in that specific time-space. That's what I'm trying to do, but to do that you need to be aware of the time-space you actually inhabit – to be in the present as opposed to trying to be in the past or future. You need to be in the present scenario, appreciate what has historically led to the present in order to understand the totality of what the present means.