Sun Ra was such a an intricate and thoughtful creator. He made sure that what he created had meaning. His lyrics in his songs, poetry, the powerful sound of his music shows off his seriously he took his craft.
During my research on Sun Ra, I was so happy to find out that he wrote poetry. I have always been a huge lover of poetry and I thought it would be I interesting connecting his poetry to Afrofuturist novels. I mean, Afrofuturist poems are incredibly interesting. To grasp the powerful vastness of space and otherworldliness in poetry is phenomenal.
At this point, I’m not even surprised to say how well Sun Ra pulled off Afrofuturism in his poetry. I will use the poem The other otherness (1972). He wrote two other versions of this poem in 1920.
The poem goes like this:
The Other Otherness (1972)
When one understands
There is no ego involved
There is no communication
In the supervised state of distances
For we who are
Know we are to is
To be
To rise above an evoluted eternity
To feel our worthless pricelessness
Invaluable similitude
A separate only onliness
Only on
Movement out to behold kindred outerness
An other-otherness
That is not like them
If they are a non-similarity vibration
Now let’s break this up and A N A L Y Z E
When one understands
There is no ego involved
There is no communication
In the supervise state of distances
Sun Ra has a vision of being an alien on earth to preach peace, forgoing negativity and hate in order to bring forth love.
He IS the other of otherness (Black). He is choosing to bring peace and love from Space with “no ego” and no communication for those were made with love will bring forth love and its stated in the following lines:
For we who are
Know we are to is
to be
to rise above in evoluted eternity
Sun Ra being such an outrageous and out there black man, he truly was the other of other mess and living in his truth, he is separate, living in “onliness” for he is the only one living this life. Not only was he deemed crazy or on drugs because of his truly out there behavior, people would run away from his performances. People who did not understand that this jazz musician wasn’t just playing Jazz.
The poem continues:
To fill our worthless pricelessness
invaluable similitude
A separate only onliness
Only on
Movement out to behold kindred outerness
An other-otherness
That is not like them
If they are of a non-similarity vibration
Our “worthless pricelessness” this poem begins by discussing being “the other of otherness”, so far removed from a society, truly living in the outskirts of everything. He writes that in order to become this other, you must forgo your ego and not communicate because those who are other naturally know how “to be”. He writes as if there are more people who are on the same plane as he is he uses “we” and “our” but then uses “only” and “onliness”. The loneliness of not being seen by the majority but how rewarding it must be to have traveled with so many people who were living in the same plane. His world, his people seem to be in a bubble. Free and out there creators.
Throughout his entire career, he never got the success he deserved for being so far out of societal norms. My family who was around during his rise give me mixed comments. My parents loved his work but I have older cousins who judged his work and assumed he and his arkestra were all in drugs. His work was dismissed and most people didn’t understand his vision. He was around before many well known jazz musicians like John Coltrane and Miles Davis but his work wasn’t as appreciated. Most people don’t even know who he is or that his Arkestra is still performing to this day.
I believe his space persona was his way on alienating himself. He knew that his vision and his sound will place him out of the norm but he followed his dreams anyway. He lived as an outsider with a passion, a dream. He grew up with his family alienating him because he chose not to continue his education in school or go into the military. Instead, he chose to leave his family and create.
Sun Ra wrote different versions of this poem and it seems to continue in different moments of loneliness , in version one written in 1980, he finishes most of his pieces with dots trailing after, “to rise above the earth’s tomorrowless eternity…..” Which sounds like he’s saying that he is trapped in some sort of endless cycle. His onliness is leaving him in a world with a “tomorrowless eternity”. A living with no end. Sun Ra once wrote “If death is the absence of life, then death’s death is life”. A circular idea of what life and death may be (there may be something here, or I’m totally over analyzing anyways. Let’s move on)
His SOUND! I’ve mentioned before how my dad felt about his music but this is a slightly edited stream of consciousness while listening to the 21 minute Space is the Place song, on his album Space is the Place. Please listen to it before or after reading this in order to get the gist.
Space is the place… a lot of insane and funky sounds. Many instruments being played and throw in at once. To indicate which instruments are being played is a challenge. There are a few women signing “Space is the Place” all through the sound of the instruments. With all of its intensity, it’s a bit calming though I can see how the sound is a bit anxiety inducing.
There is so much happening in this.
It is a 20 minute song that just continues having intense and disastrous sounds. My cat is going insane just listening to this. She is running around the room fighting her imagination.
By six minutes in with so much sound. I am truly wondering if there will be some kind of turn down because from the very beginning of this song, there was just sounds bombarding each other. What does Space is the Place mean? That is what I’m wondering now that I am almost 8 minutes in.
Now there is a man saying “Yea, space is the place. don’t you want to go outer space.” He is joining in with the women singing. Even when most of the instruments drop out, there is still so much going on.
His (Sun Ra and his Arkestra) sound has no end, there are so many webs just in this one song. So much happening. This sound makes me feel like I am stuck in a web or falling down the rabbit hole in Alice and Wonderland. I can see myself falling down a black hole with wildly vivid colors and having no end to this hole. Just falling for all eternity.
“OUTER SPACE”
My cat is still losing her shit.
It’s toning down around 13 minutes. It’s calming down. There is this strange sound that sounds like someone screaming or laughing but I bet you twenty bucks it’s an instrument. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised because Sun Ra’s mind is insane (In the greatest way possible). Totally a genius. I just can’t imagine screaming and making a sound like this for that long. It is starting to sound like a tea kettle when it’s ready. My cat has chilled out.
15 minutes now and it toned down again and it sounds pretty classical jazzy.
My cat is now fighting a bottle. I think she wants to be a musician.
Around 17 minutes, it sounds like it’s toning out. All the vocalists ae saying space is the place and riffing off of each other.
As their voices tune out, there are horns and other instruments being played calmly to match it
and we get another vocalist. OH! now the space is the place female vocalists are back. The instruments are coming back up now. We are coming back into space.
19, is it zoning out? no, we still hear a vocalist singing space is the place.. I think we are coming to a close at 20 minutes. OH NO! another loud sound to override her voice but then he sings louder.
This song took me on a whole ass trip. It is ending with a piano I believe but not your average piano sound because. What the heck?
All in all, listening to his music was an amazing experience and I have never had an experience like that while listening to music EVER. I definitely understand why he was criticized. Just hear me out, if you listened to his music, you would hear how insane it sounds and the fact that there is no sound like that ever. There is no artist, even today that is as genius as Sun Ra. Artists today will copy Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald etc. but Sun Ra’s sound is unheard of!
In the next and final post on Sun Ra, I will again delve into his life as a creator using his poetry and music. After that, we will be getting into N.K. Jemisin! Let’s go!
