Sons Of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile (2018) [Hi-Res]

Sons of Kemet is the iconoclastic mix of tenor sax, tuba and double drums. On this third studio album, they bring a genre defying approach that celebrates the restless exploration of identity within the Caribbean diaspora within the U.K. Your Queen is a Reptile was recorded in London with a host of guests spanning the breadth of the U.K. scene including jungle legend Congo Natty and poet Joshua Idehen.

Sons Of Kemet are born of many vital elements – including a name that nods to ancient Egyptian culture, and a line-up that comprises some of the most progressive 21st-century talents in British jazz and beyond. Band-leader, composer and sax and clarinet don Shabaka Hutchings (himself named after a Nubian pharaoh-philosopher) brings together his fiery vision alongside London-based bandmates Tom Skinner and Max Hallet (forming a dynamo duo on drums here) and Theon Cross on Tuba.

These collaborative players have previously won major praise in celebrated acts such as Polar Bear, Hello Skinny, Melt Yourself Down, Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics, and Sun Ra’s Arkestra. Yet there’s still nothing quite like the ‘supergroup’ sound of Sons Of Kemet: eloquent, fierce, explosively funky – and thrillingly out-there.

Sons of Kemet will be releasing their new record ‘Your Queen Is A Reptile’ in Spring 2018 on Universal’s Verve Imprint – Impulse Records, the first major label release from Shabaka Hutchings.

Your Queen considers herself our better; by right of blood, by way of lineage, by grace of conquest, by the reason of tyranny, by the confidence of tradition. Your Queen asserts this message through her crown, her church, her parliament, her loyal subjects, her wealth, her relationship with the media and the British empire, who celebrate her lifestyle, her fashion, her cuisine and her culture. Your Queen is financed by our taxes, which in turn validate the injustice of class and race discrimination of Great Britain: That some are born superior, and deserve more because of where they’re from, or who they worship, or who their parents are. Your Queen Is Not Our Queen. She does not see us as human.

And we see ourselves as human. We judge our worth, not by Christmas speeches or golden jubilees, but by deeds. Our Queens walked among us. Our Queens led by action, by example, our Queens listened. Our Queens made bright futures out of cruel and unfair pasts. Our Queens cried and laughed with us. Our Queens knew they were just like us from the beginning, not just when it suited them.Our Queens are just like us, and we are human. We need new royalty. Your Queen Is A Reptile.

Sons of kemet is the iconoclastic mix of tenor sax, tuba and double drums. On this third studio album, they bring a genre defying approach which celebrates the restless exploration of identity within the Caribbean diaspora within the U.K. ‘Your Queen is a Reptile’ was recorded in london with a host of guests spanning the breadth of the UK scene including jungle legend Congo Natty and poet Joshua Idehen

Shabaka Hutchings, saxophone
Pete Wareham, saxophone (track 4)
Nubya Garcia, saxophone (track 7)
Theon Cross, tuba
Tom Skinner, drums
Seb Rochford, drums (tracks 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 9)
Moses Boyd, drums (tracks 3, 7, 8)
Eddie Hick, drums (tracks 3, 7)
Maxwell Hallett, drums (track 9)
Josh Idehen, vocals (tracks 1, 9)
Congo Natty, vocals (track 2)