Kamasi Washington: The Sky’s the Limit

Washington’s affiliation to the movement is endemic to his musical output. Last year, he released The Epic on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint. The album is a three disc, three-hour combustion of extravagant soul jazz, fusion, funk, free form, Coltrane-influenced orchestration and blank canvas experimentation. And despite employing a 20 person choir for the record’s choral cooings and vocal melodies, The Epic expresses its message with a brass-bound political backbone rather than with lyrics. “Music and politics are so connected,” Washington says, pausing for an extended duration of time, as if every word was a puzzle piece being put in to its rightful place. “Politics are policies that govern people. Music is the expression of thoughts that govern ourselves. It should go hand in hand, because one definitely affects the other.”

This synergy Washington speaks of is by no means newfangled, but a tool wielded by those strong enough to unshackle themselves from the confines of music’s commercial perimeters. The Epic is a trilogy loosely based on a sequence of dreams Washington had about a guard of a gate at the peak of a mountain. At the bottom of this mountain is a village where its inhabitants train to defeat the guard. This narrative, sheathed by its political radicalism, is an overwhelming dejection of the norm, a jazz album for jazz fans that has been recognised by a young mainstream audience. But for Washington, his jazz’s lawlessness is as natural as the changing of the seasons. “Definitely there is a question of whether to conform,” he says, highlighting the restrictions of other commercial artists, “Like the mentality that all music has to fit in to one singular format for people to be able to enjoy it. I’ve never agreed with that.

“But I know that argument’s there. I’ve felt that questionable pressure in my own music. Why’s it so long? Why’s it this? Why’s it that? The notion of being commercial, that somehow people want to hear the same thing, it just doesn’t work for me. The best music you can make is music that forces you to actively listen. Sometimes the business side of music forces artists to conform and to do what they think is safe. But making the best music you can make is the safest thing you could do. People may associate it with certain paradigms but just creating what’s within you, what you really think is dope, that’s the safest thing to do.”

One of these albums, Washington agrees, that forces you to listen is Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly. Credited for playing alto saxophone on the record and arranging the track Mortal Man, Washington is reminded of the sobering experience of working alongside Lamar. His tone, however, suggests that we are far from realising the social gravitas of TPAB; a release Washington regards as “generation defining”.

“To make an album like that and to have it come out on that scale will change a lot of things,” he says. “I see the influence of that record. It may take a couple of years to realise because the album itself is so lush. It’s going to take future generations a little while to absorb. But it’s that same thing we were talking about; the notion that people need to hear the same thing. That  album couldn’t be further removed from the classic construct of what popular hip-hop should be. But it is popular and it definitely opened the door for self-expression. Not to be overdramatic, but it’s one of the most important albums in the history of music.”