Black Psychedelic Musics

“I improvised, crazed by the music… Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.” –Josephine Baker

Welcome to another two hours of psychedelic musics from your host The New Elastic Infinite right here on Global Psychedelia, WEFT 90.1FM and streaming live at weft.org. Today’s show is Black psychedelic musics. This week and next week will be presentations of Black psychedelic musics from around the world: many genres, styles, forms, geographies, temporalities, affects, and assemblages.

It’s time to turn on and tune in!

“Commercial rock ‘n’ roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression.” –Ralph Ellison

“Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.” –Nina Simone

“Broken English has been completely broken into the African way of talking, our rhythm, our intonation.” –Fela Kuti

“People called rock & roll ‘African music.’ They called it ‘voodoo music.’ They said that it would drive the kids insane. They said that it was just a flash in the pan – the same thing that they always used to say about hip-hop.” –Little Richard

“That’s because we did not set out to make black music. We set out to make quality music that everyone could enjoy and listen to.” –Smokey Robinson

Funkadelic . Funkadelic Live – Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan 1971 . Alice In My Fantasies . 1996 . (Westbound Records) [USA]

Sun Ra . My Brother the Wind . Journey to the Stars . 1971 . (Saturn Research) [USA]

Jimi Hendrix . Electric Ladyland . 1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be) . 1968 . (Polydor) [USA]

Chico Magnetic Band. Chico Magnetic Band . Explosion . 1971 . (Nosmokerecords) [France]

Scientist . Scientist Rids The World of The Evil Curse of The Vampires . The Voodoo Curse . 1981 . (Greensleeves) [Jamaica]

Witch . “Lazy Bones !!” . Tooth Factory . 1975 . (Zambezi) [Zambia]

Gilberto Gil . Cérebro Eletrônico . Futurível . 1969 . (Phillips) [Brazil]

Sonny Simmons & Moksha Samnyasin . When It Comes, I Don’t Fight It . 2014 . (Svart Records) [USA]

Flying Lotus . You’re Dead! . Cold Dead . 2014 . (Warp Records) [USA]

Anti-Pop Consortium . Tragic Epilogue . Your World Is Flat . (75 Ark) [USA]

Alice Coltrane featuring Pharoah Sanders . Journey in Satchidananda . Journey in Satchidananda . 1971 . (Impulse!) [USA]

Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ingozi Family . My Ancestors . Gone Forever . 2008 . (Hummingbird Songs) [Zambia]

Dr. Octagon . Dr. Octagonecologyst . Blue Flowers . 1996 . (Bulk Recordings) [USA]

Baby Huey . The Baby Huey Story . Change Gonna Come . 1971 . (Curtom) [USA]

Barry Brown . Rich Man Poor Man . Rich Man Poor Man Dub . 2003 . (Moll-Selekta) [Jamaica]

Exuma . Exuma . Mama Loi, Papa Loi . 1970 . (Mercury) [USA]

A new track needs to be added to this list from the AMAZING duo Black Spirituals: Zachary Watkins & Marshall Trammell. Thanks to Troy M for the heads up, and for having such great taste in music.

Black Spirituals . OF DECONSTRUCTION . BLACK . 2014 . (Sige Records)