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Listen to Jake Blount & Mali Obomsawin's "Live Humble," from their album 'symbiont.' About the song, the artists write:
"'Live Humble' epitomizes the remix methods used in the creation of symbiont. Inspired by a spiritual of the same name collected at the Hampton Institute that includes a spine-tingling necromantic invocation (delivered here with only minor changes), this arrangement also incorporates another version of the song recorded by Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, a shape note hymn called 'Occum' penned by Thomas Commuck (Narragansett/Brothertown) in 1845, and a banjo tune called 'Koromanti' collected from enslaved Black Jamaicans in 1687. The lyrics warn the listener to humble themselves before the world's greater forces, calling up the dead from hell and the seas to bear witness; the music, however, invites us to revel in our smallness."
Mali Obomsawin: bass, vocals
Jake Blount: percussion, synthesizers, guitars, banjos, vocals
Sources:
'Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro' edited by R. Nathaniel Dett
"Live Humble," by Bessie Jones & the Georgia Sea Island Singers
Additional material from:
“Occum,” from 'Indian Melodies' by Thomas Commuck
“Koromanti,” from 'A Voyage to the Islands' by Hans Sloane
Lyrics:
Humble, yes humble
Humble yourselves the bell done rang
Humble, yes humble
Humble yourselves the bell done rang
Talk the glory and honor (Save freedom)
Talk the glory and honor (Praise the land)
Oh how secure and blessed are they who feel
Joys of pardoned sin
Should storms of wrath shake the earth and sea
Their minds have heavenly peace within
Bright days glide sweetly over their heads
Made of innocence and love
Softly and silently as the shades
Their nightly moments so gently move
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From the first notes of symbiont, the radical new collaborative album and document of Black and Indigenous futurism from Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin, the listener is met with rising tidewaters, massive droughts, and the appearance of an iconoclastic uprising amidst the world’s indifference. Questions of future or present tense swirl around the music as the duo unspools the intertwined threads of racial and climate justice. Amid rumbling synthesizer drones, the thrum of banjo, and the thwack of drum machines, a whisper of truth can be heard: this crisis has been unfolding for centuries.
Jake Blount:
Website: jakeblount.com/
Facebook: / notjacobnotblunt
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Mali Obomsawin:
Website: www.maliobomsa...
Facebook: / maliobomsawin
Twitter: x.com/featherb...
Instagram: / maliobomsawin
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