Moor Mother has shared a second track from her recently announced new album ‘Jazz Codes,‘ out on July 1st – her second album for ANTI- and a companion to her celebrated 2021 release ‘Black Encyclopedia of the Air’.
A stunning blend of jazz, hip-hop and soul, Moor Mother’s “Rap Jasm“ shifts from the noise-inflected sound of her previous albums and towards R&B sweetness. Across the new project, Camae uses free jazz as a starting point but takes a turn towards more melody, singing voices, choruses, and complexity. In its warm, densely layered course through jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, and other Black classical traditions, Jazz Codes sets the ear blissfully adrift and unhitches the mind from habit.
Other ‘Jazz Codes’ links: https://moormother.ffm.to/jazzcodes
Inspired by a book of poems of the same name – a collection of poems written in honor of jazz and blues icons like Woody Shaw, Amina Claudine Myers, and Mary Lou Williams – ‘Jazz Codes’ uses poetry & free jazz as a starting point, moving toward more melody, more singing voices, more choruses and more complexity. In its warm, densely layered course through jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, ‘Jazz Codes’ sets the ear blissfully adrift and unhitches the mind from habit. Through her work, Ayewa illuminates the principles of her interdisciplinary collaborative practice Black Quantum Futurism, a theoretical framework for creating counter-chronologies and envisioning Black quantum womanist futures that rupture exclusionary versions of history and future through art, writing, music, and performance.
Moor Mother – aka the songwriter, composer, vocalist, poet, and visual artist Camae Ayewa – is also a professor at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She released her debut album ‘Fetish Bones’ in 2016 and has since put out an abundance of acclaimed music, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians who share her drive to dig up the untold. She is a member of many other groups including the free jazz group Irreversible Entanglements, 700 Bliss and moor jewelry. She has also toured and recorded with The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Nicole Mitchell.
This summer Moor Mother will be performing at End of The Road Festival in Dorset and various other European festivals; she will also be headlining an album release show at Los Angeles’s Resident on July 8. All upcoming dates are listed below.
‘Jazz Codes’ will be released on July 1st through ANTI-. Pre-order here.
‘Jazz Codes’ track list: