{"id":119670,"date":"2023-03-14T17:11:56","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T15:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=119670"},"modified":"2023-03-14T17:18:23","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T15:18:23","slug":"juju-a-message-from-mozambique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/juju-a-message-from-mozambique\/","title":{"rendered":"Juju\u2019s cosmic jazz reissued by Strut Records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Releasing again on March 17th, <em>A Message From Mozambique<\/em> is a 50-year-old masterpiece, sublimed by Juju\u2019s cosmic jazz and strong stances on Black liberation.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the late 60s and early 70s, under Richard Nixon\u2019s presidency and Angela Davis\u2019 activism, a peculiar band moved the Bay Area\u2019s jazz spots with great music. \u201c<em>As a band, we blew, pounded and stroked our instruments like there was no tomorrow, like our life\u2019s work was wrapped up in each session. We approached our performances like religious rites and the music mesmerized, informed and awakened people, <\/em>\u201d recounts James \u201cPlunky\u201d Branch, saxophonist and founder of Juju. Led by the arts and the pillars of Black Liberation, the instrumentalist met in San Francisco the future members of a band that would make noise way beyond music. First came the bassist Ken Shabala and the flute-player Lon Moshe, off of Plunky\u2019s mentor band The Natives. Then joined theater-trained local musicians Al-Hammel Rasul on the keyboards, Babatunde Lea on percussions, and Jalango Ngoma on the timbales. Together, they led political and social activities in their area, and gave birth to a wonderful blend of free jazz and African rhythms on their first album \u201cA Message From Mozambique\u201d.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Soledad Brothers (Live At The East, 1973)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gn10nj4rYTQ?feature=oembed&#038;autoplay=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Released in 1973 through Strata-East Records, <em>A Message From Mozambique<\/em> served as a musical vessel for the band\u2019s loud statements. From its opening track \u201c(Struggle) Home\u201d to its support for the \u201cSoledad Brothers\u201d inmates, the project focused on the struggles of their contemporaries both in the US and in countries such as Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa. Denouncing white supremacy and colonialism, the opus was deliberately and unapologetically political. Furthermore, the album was impressively avant-garde, bringing forward an innovative approach to jazz music. &#8220;<em>This record was pivotal to us (Juju) because it was our first album release and I think it was also significant in that it was one of the earliest examples of African rhythms being fused with free cosmic jazz to make an international political statement<\/em>&#8220;.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>50 years later, the British label Strut Records is giving a second life to this timeless record, its 6 tracks &#8211; including the 11-minutes long \u201cMake Your Own Revolution Now\u201d &#8211; releasing on vinyl and streaming platforms on March 17th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1010\" height=\"1022\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-1010x1022.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-119671\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-1010x1022.jpeg 1010w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-759x768.jpeg 759w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-100x100.jpeg 100w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-661x669.jpeg 661w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-465x470.jpeg 465w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-375x379.jpeg 375w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-85x85.jpeg 85w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique-73x73.jpeg 73w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/A-Message-From-Mozambique.jpeg 1186w\" sizes=\"(min-width:1010px) 759px,100vw\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Message From Mozambique is a 50-year-old masterpiece, sublimed by Juju\u2019s cosmic jazz and strong stances on Black liberation.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":120241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3944],"tags":[5255,23842,32739],"location":[7976],"yst_prominent_words":[10318,8539,16195,9554,8993,8995,8414,8447,8613,9024,30659,37761,8402,8543,8619],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119670"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=119670"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=119670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}