ALBUM REVIEW: Sons of Kemet – Black To The Future

Impulse! Records

Released: 14.05.21

Oddly enough, calling the fiery fourth studio album by Sons of Kemet their most dynamic outing somewhat undersells its potency. Equal parts discursive and atmospheric, Black To The Future boasts an acute, zestful mojo chiefly buoyed by the sinuous interplay of its supple diasporic palette. Recorded amid the nationwide protests spurred by the 2020 murder of George Floyd, it emphatically evinces an incendiary and prodigiously affective clarion call for a decisive reframing of 21^st Century Black resistance.

Vibrant polytonal nuances and charged rhetoric aside, the blisteringly propulsive grooves here also fluently evoke the cathartic ecstasy of sweat-soaked nights spent on the sweltering dancefloors of heaving jamborees. Yet more proof that chanting down Babylon needn’t always be an entirely sombre affair.