Kamasi Washington: Making Music (Finding Freedom)

Kamasi Washington is a bonafide jazz icon and visionary who embodies the idea of music making as a communal act: collaborating with folks from across the music industry and infusing his free ranging Angeleno jazz into rock, rap and beyond. You've likely seen his name in the liner notes of your favorite artists’ work from Kendrick Lamar to St. Vincent and Snoop Dogg. In this episode, Adia sits down with Kamasi to talk about his musical upbringing, creating in an unpredictable world, and the transcendent power of Black art. For a playlist of songs curated for this week's episode, visit http://bit.ly/cr-kamasi

/ Show Notes / 

Kamasi Washington’s most recent album is Heaven and Earth. 

Kamasi’s favorite childhood song was “The Pink Panther Theme” by Henry Mancini. He cites “A Chant for Bu” by Art Blakely and The Jazz Messengers and “Out To Lunch”by Eric Dolphy, as well as Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, as music that has inspired him throughout his musical journey. 

/Music in This Week's Playlist/

Nina Simone, “Sinnerman”

Kamasi Washington, “Hub-Tones”

Joshua Asante, “Everybody Gets Used”

Sun Ra, “Honeysuckle Rose”

Beyonce, “Formation”

Kendrick Lamar, “King Kunta”

St. Vincent, “Pills”

Henry Mancini, “The Pink Panther Theme”

/ Credits / 

Call & Response is a Sonos show produced by work x work: Scott Newman, Jemma Rose Brown, Adia Victoria, Babette Thomas and Megan Lubin. Our engineers are Sam Bair and Josh Hahn of The Relic Room.