Kamasi Washington’s new album Heaven and Earth is a two-sided journey through the world as we both imagine it and how we experience it. The South Central-raised spiritual jazz musician has worked with Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg (the latter while he was still at college), and has surrounded himself with childhood friends and members of the musical community in South Central, forming his current band and collaborative partnership, the West Coast Get Down.
Heaven and Earth was recorded in just two weeks, and arrives three years on from his sprawling opus The Epic. Since then, Washington has appeared on both To Pimp A Butterfly and DAMN alongside Kendrick Lamar, won the inaugural American Music Prize for The Epic, and worked on the creation of Harmony of Difference, a standalone multimedia installation during the 2017 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The new double album has features from fellow Kendrick collaborator Thundercat, vocalist Patrice Quinn, and bassist Miles Mosley.
“Earth are the songs that came from my own experiences of life, and Heaven are the songs of how I imagine life,” Washington told us recently. “The journey, you realise, is one and the same: how you imagine the world affects how you experience it.”
Heaven and Earth is streaming on Apple Music now – listen to it below.
Listen to Kamasi Washington’s new album Heaven and Earth on Apple Music. New users can try the streaming service for free for three months.
