BLK JKS... the sound of our time.

blk jks july 5 rebel soul at weeksville from joshua bee alafia on Vimeo.

South Africa's luminous band BLK JKS plays Bed Stuy's rootsy music festival Rebel Soul at Weeksville on July 5th, 2009. On July 4, 1827, New York state declared emancipation from slavery for Africans. Unable to celebrate openly on Independence Day due to threats of violence, the black community honored newly won freedom publicly July 5. So the day was one of liberation in commemoration of our Independence with BLK JKS offering liberted sounds that conjured the Ancestral Spirits of Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti and King Tubby and framing them within traditional South African and Zulu sensibilities. It was a day that the Brooklyn Renaissance was honored by our South African bredren in the sunshine of Brooklyn with grass beneath our feet.
The first time i saw them was at the New Africa Live series that Rwandan songstress Somi hosts a year ago. I ended up shooting them as they recorded at Electric Lady Studios, Jimi Hendrix's epic studio that has continued to be the recording studio of choice to folks like D'Angelo, Common, Pharrell, Erykah Badu, and on and on... I talked to Knox, their manager and we agreed this had to be documented for many reasons. I was leaving for Kenya the next day so I spent just one day shooting them lay down their Mystery EP with Brandon Curtis of Secret Machines at the mixing board. One of my favorite moments was sitting at Jimi's pianos.. he has a black one and a white one facing eachother, mini grands... his Spirit is still there... strong... you can definitely hear it in the funk that comes out of there. So down the line, be on the lookout for a doc project that i hope to finish shooting with BLK JKS in september, when they come back to town.