“Shabaka Hutchings is one step ahead – always. The saxophonist last released a record, his other band Shabaka and The Ancestors’ ‘We Are Sent Here By History’, in mid-March last year. This was the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic tearing through the United Kingdom; the album centred around themes of confronting the destruction of humanity. ‘Black to The Future’, Hutchings’ latest record, this time with”
“Sons of Kemet prove themselves leaders of London jazz with Black To The Future”
““My revolution rides a black horse, and it is stunning!” exclaims guest poet Joshua Idehen barely 2 minutes into Black to the Future. “We are rolling your monuments down the street like tobacco, tossing your effigies into the river,” he continues, indignantly, over tumbling drum fills and squalls of sax, and the effect is a combined sense of unease, resistance, desperation and celebration of Black”
“Shabaka Hutchings leads his brass band on a propulsive mind- and body-moving record, advocating through music that change comes from speaking directly about collective oppression.”
“What Black to the Future has in refinement, it ever so slightly lacks in the electricity of the group's past work.”
