Various Artists – My Words Are Music: A Celebration of Sun Ra's Poetry – New LP
Limited to 500 copies. Hand numbered. Comes with liner notes sheet and special poetry printed vinyl envelope.
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
All poetry appears courtesy of the Estate of Sun Ra, administered by Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Melanie Charles appears courtesy of Impulse! Records. All EVI prelude and interludes played by Marshall Allen. Credits Sinan Sakızlı, Editing Dave Darlington, Mastering Cem Akkan, Cover Photo Kenan Ünsal, Graphic Design Ahmet Uluğ, Executive Producer Rana Uludağ, Assistant Producer