MUSIC

During the UK’s first lockdown in 2020, the saxophonist, poet and MC Soweto Kinch followed the rules – one state-sanctioned walk a day.

Kinch, who is a historian as well as a musician, took a good look at the streets of daily walks and noted all – a sardonic way of referencing that symbolic, racialized power play – is an album that takes aim at it all, and it has been written and recorded at a tumultuous time. Layered over the album’s music are some of the subjects of the day: Black Lives Matter, the weasel words of Boris Johnson, and of government and police spokespersons denouncing ‘cultural vandalism’. Long known as a jazz man, Kinch expands his reach of sax and poetry to include orchestration – the album was recorded live at London’s Barbican Theatre and backed by the London Symphony Orchestra – and the result is powerfully emotional.