Photo courtesy of Darius James

Darius James. Dr. Snakeskin. The artist and author embraces both titles, but neither expresses the frenetic genius of the man himself. Born in Connecticut but raised at the intersection of Hoodoo culture and New York City’s downtown literary scene, Darius James cut his teeth writing for various literary zines, as well as Penthouse magazine’s “Ask Dr. Snakeskin” column. His first book, Negrophobia: An Urban Parable (1993), is the story of sixteen-year-old White teenager Bubbles Brazil and her frightening vision of African American culture. James’s electrifying mix of screenplay, performance art, and poetry makes for a tasty gumbo that’s sure to titillate your satirical palate. For his second book, the semi-autobiographical tome That’s Blaxploitation! Roots of the Baadasssss ‘Tude (1995), James mined the hazy days of his ’70s youth. Through interviews with key figures in the blaxploitation genre and hilarious, pointed reviews of many blaxploitation films, James welcomes new-jack and seasoned fans alike.

Living in Berlin for the past ten years, James recently presented his new sound piece at a performance space in Brooklyn, New York, where I caught up with him. Over a few plastic cups of wine in between sets, I spoke with Mr. James about cinema and culture.

Tell me about the early years of Darius James.

I was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, which is between Asbury Park and Red Bank. It’s a beach town. Asbury Park is Bruce Springsteen and Red Bank is Count Basie.

You were trapped between two worlds.

You could say that. My grandfather knew Count Basie and my father grew up down the street from Norman Mailer’s father on Potter Avenue. Norman Mailer’s father was a junk dealer and my father used to sell bottles for him.

Did you start writing when you got to New York?

No, it was way before that. When I was thirteen, I had written some plays, and one of the plays I had written was called Panther. At that time, the Black Panther Party had just started out. The play was modeled after the Black Panthers and Amiri Baraka. I was also hanging out at the Yale Drama School in New Haven. What happened was that the Living Theater came back from Amsterdam and performed at the Yale Drama School. I babysat for them, and I got to watch them rehearse for all their plays and shit like that. It blew my mind! That shit was crazy! People were running around naked, hanging themselves. Crazy!

What year was this?

Around ‘67 or ‘68. I wanted to run away and join the Living Theater, but they wouldn’t have me because I was thirteen years old. [laughs] That made a major impression.

They were known for some wild performances.

After that experience, I wrote a play called Pimp. Later, I met this directing drama student at Yale named Walter Dallas, who last I heard was out in the Midwest teaching. He had done a theatrical production of Cooley High. It was fucking brilliant, you know what I’m sayin’?

What was your first published piece?

It was for Between C & D. It was a radical literary publication that came out of the Lower East Side of New York City. Gary, Indiana, had a great quote about it: “a magazine so hip, it comes in a plastic baggie.” It was printed on a dot matrix printer with fucking perforated edges and sealed in a storage bag.

Was it an essay? A poem?

It was actually a chapter from Negrophobia. This was around ’89.

What inspired you to write Negrophobia?

Well, there were two things. I was trying to write this satire of Disneyland, which didn’t work. Then I started thinking about riding the bus in the morning to high school. The bus would first come to our neighborhood, and then they’d go to the White section and pick up all the White kids. We were just fuckin’ out the box, man, and all the White kids on the bus would be completely terrified. We were just fuckin’ around, you know? But I suppose it didn’t help that we were sitting at the bus stop smoking dope the entire time.

I’m sure they were in shock the entire time. These crazy Negroes going ape-shit!

Yeah, yeah. We smoked dope all the time and listened to Funkadelic. So I was partially thinking about that experience in writing Negrophobia. In fact, Bubbles is based on a friend of mine who had this Black maid. I used to call her up and ask, “Is Sally home?” And the maid would say, “Sally ain’t heah!” And I would say to Sally, “Oh, you have a Black maid!” And she would say, “No, she’s just a woman who lives here!” But she just happens to be cleaning up? Yeah. Sally’s one of my oldest friends to this day.

Negrophobia had a lot of Black activists accusing you of being racist.

I felt for those people, and I mean that sincerely. The fact that I have to clarify that I mean that sincerely pisses me off. I only met one woman who hated the book. It was an older women who worked at the publishing company when I was about to publish Negrophobia. Obviously, she had come up in the ’40s and ’50s when there was no serious Black representation on television or radio or anywhere—before the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King. I felt for her. Then she started talking about how a bunch of Jews ran the company and all this other shit, but you can’t fight racism with another form of racism. I stay outta that bullshit. I can’t support you. Fuck that. The thing is, that company also published a book about Black entertainment, the history of Black entertainment and how it affected the civil rights movement. People talk about how all these Black entertainers were being exploited by these Jewish managers and agents and shit, but it was the same entertainers who got to that point because of the same exploitive Jew. Entertainment has changed the people’s perspective on racism. You read any good history on rock and roll and it’ll tell you those White boys that had nothing to do start hanging out with the guy who was mowing their lawn or fixing shit in their houses. Then they come to find out that these same Black motherfuckers, who were gardeners, had hits in the ’30s that they didn’t make any money off of! And they said, “Teach me how to play guitar!” That’s how it happened.

I read somewhere that Negrophobia was to be made into a stage play in L.A. What happened with that?

That was the John Cusack connection. He was into his recreations too much to care too seriously and carry it through. We were riding in the back of some limousine, and he said, “Yeah, I’m gonna commit $35,000 to this!” and I said, “Okay, fine. Whatever.” It never really went beyond the backseat of that limo.

That would’ve been mind-blowing!

Yeah, yeah. Something similar happened to me before, actually. There was this Hollywood dude that produced a lot of Black movies in the ’90s, and he was president of Motown for a minute, and then he died. George Jackson was his name. He was gonna do a remake of The Mack (1973), and he wanted me to come in and write the book about the making of it.

Did he have a cast in mind?

The dude from Undercover Brother [Eddie Griffin] was gonna play the Richard Pryor character and Snoop Dogg was gonna play the Mack, and all this other shit he was talkin’ about. It sounded like it would happen but never did.

Speaking of The Mack, you explored blaxploitation films in your second book, That’s Blaxploitation!

You know, I never meant the book to be a definitive guide to 1970s Black film culture. If I did, I would’ve explored more topics, such as music and fashion. It’s a celebration and a memoir of a warped Afro-American adolescent who was a child of blaxploitation films. I thought the book was funny and that I could pay my rent with the advance.

I’d like to get your thoughts on some seminal films of the genre. Let’s start off with The Cool World (1964) by Warren Miller.

I loved the book, and I loved the follow-up book that he did about the Black Revolution told through a series of radical, Uncle Remus tales. The book was called The Siege of Harlem. Apparently, [Miller] and his wife used to own a head shop on the Upper West Side. It was a very influential film by Shirley Clarke and I’m sure Spike [Lee] and Melvin Van Peebles would agree. Shirley Clarke was this White woman who was a dancer who became interested in Black popular culture. She was involved with Carl Lee, who was her boyfriend.

Carl Lee starred in that film, but he’s best known as Eddie in Superfly (1972).

Yeah, his father was Canada Lee, who starred in many of the early race films. Anyway, Carl Lee was supposedly hippin’ her to Harlem and all the shit that was going on up there.

You mentioned that you thought Melvin Van Peebles was influenced by The Cool World. What’s your opinion of his film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)?

I love that film. There are gestures in the film that were clearly influenced by The Cool World, but I think the film itself is a remarkable piece of street poetry. That’s what it is. He’s trying to translate the rhythms of Black speech into film. That’s really the secret to the blaxploitation film genre that no one really addresses. When I wrote That’s Blaxploitation!, I was trying to write it to young people. At the time, I was disturbed that the hip-hop generation embraced the principles of the Nation of Islam as opposed to the Black Panther Party. To be fair, the Nation of Islam was there for them when the Black Panther Party was not, because it had been destroyed. There’s a lot to say about that period, and there’s a documentary called Bastards of the Party, which was shown on HBO, which talked about L.A. street gangs. It talked about the history of L.A. street gangs, COINTELPRO, and the FBI involvement in the destruction of the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam. I think that’s necessary viewing for everyone.

It seems a lot of your sensibilities and your writing is informed by that era.

Yeah, I suppose. That was the era that I came up in. I’m a TV baby, and I watched a lot of bullshit on TV. The most disturbing images on television in the early ’60s were watching Black people get the shit beat out of them in Mississippi. I grew up in New England, which is a whole other different kind of racism. Racism is such an interesting phenomenon.

What’s your opinion of Coonskin (1975), the Ralph Bakshi picture?

I love Coonskin. It’s a brilliant film. I would have loved to have seen Ralph Bakshi make Negrophobia. We were talking and bullshit like that. He had a television show on HBO called Spicy City. It was an animated series with all this sex and shit. He offered me an episode of Spicy City to write and direct. It didn’t happen for bullshit I’d rather not get into. I’d like to clear the air on a Bakshi-related issue though.

Let’s get it out there.

There was a Black animator that worked for him on Cool World (1992). He’s pissed at me because I said some really stupid things about him. At the time, Bakshi was a person my so-called management was to approach to do Negrophobia if Cool World had done well. Cool World died. I pointed to one particular animator who was doing completely stupid shit in the middle of this movie. In fact, he did what he was told. At the time, I was unfamiliar with press and how to deal with press and all of that. I tried to apologize to this guy numerous times, tried to get certain statements withdrawn, but it didn’t happen because the person that was to withdraw the statements behaved like an old woman. Anyway, I withdraw those comments about your abilities as an artist and an animator.

You mentioned your admiration of Jamaa Fanaka’s work. What impresses you?

He produced an extraordinary cycle of films. Charles Burnett was his cinematographer on Welcome Home, Brother Charles (1975). I didn’t really cover them in my book, That’s Blaxploitation!, because I don’t consider their films blaxploitation. Fanaka doesn’t consider his films blaxploitation.

Fanaka’s films came after the genre’s heyday, and I think were a conscious reaction to the public’s perception of the genre.

It’s funny. You know who killed that period? He had one of the most popular films of that genre. Rudy Ray Moore. But I love those movies! They’re fucking hilarious!

His films definitely have a cult following among schlock and B-movie fans.

The thing is that some films are good even if they aren’t technically good and even if the director doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. There are reasons why they endure and they last. Like, I can’t say grindhouse cinema is bad. There is some great grindhouse cinema. There are some really well-executed films, and the director really told the story and made his fucking point. I think they just weren’t tasteful. The whole thing is that a lot of exploitation directors used what they had to say, what they needed to say. They worked within those confines. Many blaxploitation films fit right in there.

Is there a key film you think should’ve been seen by a wider audience?

Haile Gerima’s Bush Mama [1979] without a doubt. I’ve never seen anything like it, ever. It’s like Black theater. It has the immediacy of live theater. It’s extraordinary. It’s so much more alive than anything on film. They talk about film being a dead medium, Hollywood films anyway. That it sucks out your soul. This will renew your faith in the possibilities of cinema.

What’s going on with Black cinema today?

I haven’t really followed what’s happening, but I could sit here and say terrible shit about Tyler Perry, but he really thought about his shit. He started out doing plays, and he turned them into movies. Do I like it? Yeah, I like it ’cause that shit is funny! Do I think they are technically good? No. But I think he’s really cynical. It may lack structure, but the main thing is, Black people relate to it. You have to hit your mark, you know what I mean? That’s how you make a good fucking movie!

February 19, 2010

Like obvious forebear Booker T. and the MGs, Brooklyn’s Menahan Street Band–an instrumental outfit led by Dap-Kings guitarist Thomas Brenneck and featuring members of the Dap-Kings, Antibalas, El Michels Affair, and the Budos Band–sounds great both behind an R&B vocalist and in the absence of one. And it was this back and forth (the band on its own and backing the gritty singers Charles Bradley and Lee Fields) that fueled the group’s February visit to the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

To open the show, the Bushwick-based septet ran through tracks like “The Contender” and “Home Again!” from its debut, Make the Road by Walking, an album of uncontrived, often orchestral-sounding soul music that touches on dub, Afrobeat, psychedelia, and Ethio-jazz. But the evening began in earnest with the arrival of Bradley, a former James Brown impersonator. Howling and dancing his way through tunes like the moving “The World (Is Going Up in Flames),” Bradley, dressed in all white, energized the Friday night crowd, and warmed them up for Fields, the night’s headliner.

Fields, also backed by the Menahan Street Band (who presumably transformed into the Expressions at this point in the show), provided a different experience than the one offered by Bradley; where Bradley was loud and ecstatic, Fields was subdued and focused. Simply burning on cuts like the smooth “Honey Dove” and the show-stopping “Ladies,” Fields embodied much of what the Daptone movement is all about: grace, subtlety, and soul. With Fields’s exit, the nearly two-hour revue ended just the way it began: with horns blasting, rhythm section grooving, and people gettin’ down.

Wax Poetics and Dubspot present Funk Aid for Africa & Haiti, an event to raise awareness and funds for Africa and Haiti. This official SXSW showcase will donate its proceeds to charities NextAid, whose mission is to improve the lives of African children affected by the AIDS crisis, and SOIL, which promotes disaster recovery in Haiti and sustainability as a solution to poverty.

We are also fortunate enough to have Maker’s Mark graciously matching all donations up to $5,000 made at this Funk Aid event.

Featuring live musical performances and DJ sets by:

Adrian Younge & the Black Dynamite Sound Orchestra (LA, CA)
Ocote Soul Sounds (Austin, TX)
Chico Mann (Jersey City, NJ)
Jovi Rockwell (Kingston, Jamaica)
Grimy Styles (Austin, TX)
Keys N Krates (Toronto, ON, Canada)
Brownout (Austin, TX)

DJ sets provided by:

DJ Obah (NYC)
DJ Rich Medina (Philadelphia, PA)
DJ J. Boogie (San Francisco, CA)
DJ Chicken George (Austin TX)
DJ Smiles Davis (LA, CA)

The Scoot Inn Ÿ 1308 East 4th Street Ÿ Austin, TX

March 18, 2010

8PM – 2AM

Free with SXSW badge

This event is ponsored by Puma, Serato, Avid and M-Audio, and hosted by Austin’s Soul of the Boot Entertainment, StrangeTribe Productions, and Fusicology.

Download a free track by Brownout here.

This week we bring you a free track  called Gettin’ Down by the High-Fly Orchestra off of the Contemporary Jazz compilation on Tramp records. This compilation presents a fine selection of hand picked songs to show that creative minds are still on the planet that are committed to keeping Jazz alive.

Converse Presents 45 Live with Wax Poetics and Stones Throw Records.  Over the last year, Wax Poetics has teamed up with Converse to produce a limited edition 45 Series; an editor-selected music series pressed on 7-inch 45 RPM vinyl that is polybagged and accompanies our bimonthly magazine.  The 45 Live music event is the culmination of the Converse 45 Series partnership with Stones Throw Records for Wax Poetics Issue 40, which will feature tracks by labelmates Mayer Hawthorne and James Pants.

Featuring all-45 DJ sets by:

Madlib
Peanut Butter Wolf
Dam-Funk
Amir
14KT
and Guests

Speakeasy Ÿ 412D Congress Avenue Ÿ Austin, TX

March 17, 2010

8PM – 2AM

First 200 entrants will receive a collectable 45 from the Converse 45 Series

Free with SXSW badge

This event is sponsored by Fairtalizer and will feature Maker’s Mark drinks specials all night

Download free tracks from Stones Throw x Wax Poetics Issue 40’s Converse 45 here

Wax Poetics, Dubspot and Bemba Soul Tribe Productions kick off the week at SXSW with World Groove, a SXSW extension of the famous World Music Night Series at the legendary live music club, Momo’s. This monolithic showcase will rock Austin collectively and plant a seed that will inevitably sprout and flourish into one of Austin’s most dynamic music production partnerships.

Featuring:

Chico Mann (NYC),
Ocote Soul Sound System (ESL Music/ATX, Hybrid Ableton infused ensemble)
Ancient Astronauts (ESL Music/Germany)
Austin Piazzolla Quintet

DJs Pleasuremaker & Señor Oz (Afrolicious/SF) w/ John Speice (Ocote Soul/Browout) on percussion
DJ Chorizo Funk (ATX)

Maker’s Mark drinks specials available.

Momo’s Ÿ 618 W. 6th Street Ÿ Austin, TX

March 16, 2010

8PM – 2AM

$5 cover from 8:30-9:30PM
$10 cover after 9:30PM
$15 cover for people under 21

Sponsored by Dubspot, Heavy Rotation, ESL MUSIC, Fusicology, KUT 90.5 FM and TODO AUSTIN

Download a free track by the Ancient Astronauts here

This week we bring you Black Tiger, a track by Deep Jazz on Perfect Toy Records.

Following in the footsteps of the classic Impulse and Blue Note recordings, Deep Jazz is presenting Spiritual and Modal-Jazz of the highest intensity.

Our friends over at Ego Trip and the Maysles Institute will be hosting a showcase of classic hip-hop films tomorrow night. This is the second night in a series of screenings, and will focus on the documentaries “Electric Boogie” and “Beat This! A Hip Hop History” with a panel discussion to follow. The guest list for the discussion includes hip-hop pioneers Soulsonic Force, and Easy A.D. of the Cold Crush brothers, as well as filmmaker Tana Ross, director of “Electric Boogie,” as well as a few surprise guests.

“Electric Boogie” documents the art of breaking and being a b-boy when it was up and coming in the early ’80s, while “Beat This! A Hip Hop History” is a BBC production directed by noted documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine, and includes interviews with the Cold Crush Brothers, Soulsonic Force, Afrika Bambaataa, and Lisa Lee.

Party starts at 7:30 pm, the doors open an hour early, and there’s a suggested donation of $10 — so remember get to class early and be ready for school!

Check out more info at the Maysles Institute.

Om'Mas Keith, Taz Arnold, and Shafiq of SA-RA Creative Partners. © Pablo Aguilar Photography

To start it the way it ends, SA-RA is about to take over. From their latest full album, Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love, to the EPs and singles and group members’ solo efforts like Shafiq’s Shafiq En’ A-Free-Ka and Om’Mas’s forthcoming City Pulse, it’s clear that something special is continuously unfolding. The following is a conversation with Om’Mas, the multi-instrumentalist whose abstract answers reflect his group’s enigmatic sound.

Is there a general mission statement for SA-RA, and the music that you create?

If we could put it on paper, the SA-RA sound, we do have doctrines but not about the sound. But you’d find a mission statement that says something to effect of…truthfulness. Truth first. It’s a general statement, but that’s how we talk. I would say to somebody who would read that that whatever is in fact true in whatever is going on, that’s what comes out in the music. Truth in how you’re feeling, truth about what you’re going through, what you like. Not necessarily truth in an event that happened, but the simple fact that you’re thinking about that makes it the truth. It makes it a reality because you are thinking about that kind of stuff. As long as it’s rooted in truth, that is the key to us. Then you have the equal sign after that, so truth equals… It equals creativity.

What was the common bond that brought you three together?

The common bond was hip-hop. Word up, that was it. That’s what locked us in. The old ball and chain: hip-hop. And we can’t evade it. It’s so deeply ingrained in our psyches and in our makeup as men. It was really that love of hip-hop. The first time we all met, we were around beat machines. When I met Shafiq and then Taz [Arnold], it was in the studio, with beat machines and records. We met under that pretext. It’s pretty amazing. Hip-hop is a divine force.

How long did it take to find that SA-RA essence, that element that supersedes hip-hop? Was it a fast transformation or did it take some time to evolve?

Nah, there was nothing slow about it. There is nothing slow about how we create. We just came together, and everyone was just being themselves, and we continue to do so. Being yourself equals truth. Truth is the parent of all of the subfolders for us. What do you like? What do you want? What is you? Because we are so focused on epitomizing and embodying what we are, who we are, it appears to be effortless. When we’re ourselves in front of a computer and some Pro Tools and some beat machines, then that’s what you hear. When we’re ourselves shopping on Rodeo Drive, then that’s what you see.

You may have just answered this, but is it conscious to wild out the way you guys do or is it some innate quality that all of you share?

The consciousness of the all is more what we are part of. It’s not really a conscious effort, we are part of this effort. We are part of this wholeness. Because we’re part of it, it is what we are. We’re just truth, just light, just ourselves. It will always be a direct reflection of the individual and collective minds. Every display of SA-RA is a joint venture.

We’ve been talking about the unit, but what does each person bring? There has to be certain things that as individuals each of you bring to the table.

What each person brings is their own mastery. You will find where there are scenarios, there are overlapping duties and in many cases overlapping responsibilities. Clearly, both Taz and myself excel at being in the public eye. Shafiq is a Zulu king; he is that dude. He is one of the best selectors you’ll ever met in your entire life. Clearly, Taz has one of the best eyes for fashion that the world has ever known. I have something that the world is recognizing, you know, MTV style… It’s still so early on that people have not yet had the opportunity to develop their own opinion. Really, who are we to say what qualities we bring? We’re visible people, and becoming more visible as every day goes on. We’d love for people to watch the display and comment on it, and see what opinions they form about us. It’s enjoyable to see what people think, like, “Oh, he does this, he does that.” Later, they’ll find out they had it the other way around. That’s kind of the mystique of SA-RA, our process and our procedure. That’s our business. Going back to the first answer about mastery, I can assure you, my two partners are masters. Master teachers and masterful men. They focus on mastery in whatever they deal with. When you put that level of mastery together, it triples up, and then you have SA-RA. You have something that we can’t even control anymore. It’s beyond us. I swear to you, it’s beyond us. There are times when we do nothing but focus on our unique and individual endeavors, and while focusing on those, unsolicited requests for SA-RA continue to pour in. That ain’t no fluke. It’s got nothing to do with me, Shafiq, or Taz, or any of our efforts from being out there hustling. No, that’s people out there, I’m searching for these dudes right here. I mean, look, that’s what happens with masters. That’s why as you climb the ladder, in all structures, you find less and less people at the top. The highly refined and developed skills of a tenured individual are few and far between. Having Taz and Shafiq as my partners is like having Ralph Lauren, James Brown, and Duke Ellington, all in their thirties. That’s what I would compare us to. The flyest dude on earth that epitomizes the height of luxury and opulence, the King of Rhythm, and then a guy like Duke Ellington, one of the most historic figures in American popular music.

When I listen to your music, and I’ve been saying this since I first started listening, it’s very apparent that you guys are on a whole other musical plane. In your opinion, what is stopping you guys from being household names?

Nothing. Nothing is stopping us. To anyone reading that, you asked that question just to see what we’d say, and to that I say nothing has ever stopped us. SA-RA have been professionally creating content for all to enjoy for not yet ten years. For myself to be on MTV in front of millions of people, for Taz to be in magazines and taking pictures with Kanye at Fashion Week, and for Shafiq to have a solo record out…these achievements are of great stature for anyone. Look at a guy like Tim Allen, we’re talking about a man who didn’t achieve millions until he was well into his thirties. The prime example for gentlemen like us is Berry Gordy, who was well into his thirties when he began to really make things happen. There is a kind of power from being a tenured man. There is something to that. People can get millions by twenty-two—yeah, it can go down like that, but if you look deep at examples of mega-success, they are not always directly related to a human being’s individual contribution. There are so many factors involved that deal with the random nature of things. Or just the mathematics of the universe. You just gotta accept that. For us, everybody who is big who we have worked with has indoctrinated us into the cipher. If anything, what’s happening now is we are really being encouraged and pushed along. I don’t know how else you could view SA-RA being on MTV other than stratospheric forward movement. From a 12-inch to fifty-two million viewers. Let’s talk about it! People who are reading this, there is some shit going on. Spin magazine called our album one of the best albums of the year so far. We got nine out of ten stars, and we were up against major shit. How did that happen? We’re kinda stumped by that too…

Really, you are stumped by that?

Yeah, because Spin magazine doesn’t show love to artists who are in our realm like that. What it is though, we created a persona… We created something that mainstream America is recognizing. Cats like you asking the right questions gives us the platform to explain what it really is and explain the myths that people get caught up in. Hopefully, by explaining how we feel about it, it will show people that there is another way to look at this. It’s all about forward movement and positivity, though.

That brings us to where we are now: Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love. There is so much to that title. I read it as an ushering in of a new era for not only the group, but a direction for music. We can all draw our own conclusions, but for you, what does that title mean?

Yeah, I mean a new positive era. You are right, though, it ushers in a new dawn for SA-RA. Evolution was something we know we needed to deal with, and to continue to reinvent and redevelop and tweak. All of our records are going to be evolutionary and evocative of the Age of Love. There is a book Nuclear Evolution, though… It was the kind of thing where we’re all sitting around, and Shafiq had read the book, and he introduced us all to it. It was always sitting around in the studio, and it just struck us as a great way to embody our energy in a statement. Like wow, how are we going to put a product out that’s gonna last for the rest of humanity as long as there is a recorded history and have such a powerful title? It was just there… We probably had a deadline to fucking turn in an album—that’s how brainstorming goes, though. There are those little subsequent circumstances that are attributed to final decisions. To add to that, it’s so easy when we work… There is no resistance when it’s great. We realize it’s about the path of the least resistance. If somebody says something you like, you just take it. You say, okay, cool, and just go with it. It’s not a focus on anyone’s individual contribution as much as it is about the final output. Every industry has that terminology, the final product. From the toothpaste you use, the food you eat, with us we realize that there is always a word attached to it: SA-RA. The easier it is to make, the more of it you make. To make it the best, and do it the easiest way so we can make tons of it. That’s what Nuclear Evolution is about, the path of least resistance for us. That’s how we’ve evolved, this is really important, but we’ve evolved in our abilities to allow creativity to effortlessly flow through us. We’re bossing up now. It’s time. SA-RA is about to take over, don’t get it twisted. We’re about to take the fuck over, yo!

(Clockwise top L to R)

Bobby Williams
Funky Superfly
Label: Jazzman

Click here to download.

Chico Buarque
Chico Buarque de Hollanda Vol. 3
Label: Som Livre

Click here to download.

Various Artists
Ghana Funk
Label: Hippo Records

Click here to download.

Various Artists
Nigeria Special Volume 2: Modern Highlife, Afro-sounds And Nigerian Blues
Label: Soundway Records Ltd

Click here to download.

Wax Poetics x Converse 45 Series Presents Adrian Younge and the Black Dynamite Sound Orchestra “Shot Me In the Heart”

· 9 CDs of rare & unissued recordings
· 208 page full-color hardbound book
· New essays by Amiri Baraka, Val Wilmer & other Ayler scholars
· Unpublished photos & family encounters with Ayler’s music
· Exhaustive chronology of Ayler performance activities
· Housed in lavish Spirit Box cast from handcarved original

Click here to buy.