Sun Ra is better known to most as a musician than a poet, but he identified equally as both. My Words Are Music provides direct access to the sentiments of a poet who never called Earth home. The spoken word album hosts an inspired array of artists who personally chose their favorite Sun Ra poems to recite. Freed from the page, his poetry acquires an unexpected simplicity and poignance it possessed all along.
This all-star and intergenerational lineup of artists conjure wisdom from his words: spoken word elder Abiodun Oweyole of The Last Poets; rapper, and singer-songwriter Saul Williams; jazz experimentalist Melanie Charles; British-Trinidadian poet, novelist and musician Anthony Joseph; poet Mahogany L. Browne; poet, playwright, and conceptual artist Carl Hancock
Rux; musician/digital composer L'Rain; singer, actor, and director Tunde Adibempe of TV on the Radio singer; British DJ and BBC radio host Zakia Sewell; ballistic hip-hop poet Jive Poetic; and longtime members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, and Tara Middleton.
Punctuated by impish electronic interludes composed and played by Marshall Allen, these voices bless Sun Ra's poetry with new life My Words Are Music offers the opportunity to follow Sun Ra into a better future. "Prepare for the journey,” he writes in his poem "The Cosmic Age”, "You have a rendezvous / With the living wisdom.” My Words Are Music is a project developed in conjunction with Living Sky, the all-instrumental Sun Ra Arkestra album released on Omni Sound in 2022.
A1. Marshall Allen - EVI Introduction (0:09) A2. Saul Williams - When Angels Speak (0:45) Mahogany L. Browne - Circle Eternity (3:38) A3. Anthony Joseph - The Three Dimensions of Air (1:15) Melanie Charles - [Anything can give up its life] (1:04) Abiodun Oyewole - Somebody Else's Idea (1:06) Tara Middleton - I Have Forgotten (2:20) A4. Jive Poetic - Flight (0:36) A5. L'Rain - Love in Outer Space (0:41) A6. Tunde Adebimpe - The Endless Realm (0:52) A7. Zakia Sewell - The Cosmic Age (1:39) A8. Carl Hancock Rux - Sun-Day (1:29) A9. Knoel Scott & Marshall Allen - The Melody of Air (2:28) B1. Anthony Joseph - The Invisible Giants (1:13) B2. L'Rain - I Deal In Souls (1:19) B3. Tunde Adebimpe - Black Prince Charming (1:08) Mahogany L. Browne - Message to Black Youth (2:51) Jive Poetic - Nothing Is (0:34) B4. Melanie Charles - The Friends of Skill (1:10) Saul Williams - The Outer Darkness (1:17) Zakia Sewell - If I Told You (1:19) B5. Carl Hancock Rux - The Void (2:55) B6. Knoel Scott & Marshall Allen - The Neglected Plane of Wisdom (3:10)
- Format Detail: LP Includes Liner Notes Sheet And Poetry Printed Record Envelope
- Genre: Comedy & Spoken Word
- Handling Time Note: ** Please allow an additional 72 business hours for this item's shipment. **
- Released: 1/12/24
- Format: Vinyl
