Los Angeles-based composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, visionary, and one of the two people behind the Jazz Is Dead label and series, Adrian Younge, has released a powerful new groundbreaking album, titled The American Negro, which unapologetically calls out historic racism and white supremacy, and the ongoing trauma it’s caused on Black people in the United States.

This incredible new soul jazz album coincides with with his equally brilliant Invisible Blackness podcast and features 26 tracks that include both spoken word messages and music. Even though the music is great throughout the recording, blending together elaborate orchestrations, soulful vocals, and multi-layered grooves, this is one instance were the message is much more important, discussing topics like white supremacy and imperialism, the fallacy social construct of race, the continued effects of Jim Crow, the need for Black owned communication outlets, and much more. The recording even brings closer attention to some tragic historic events, like George Stinney Jr., who was wrongfully executed by the electric chair at the age of fourteen without due process. There is also a track dedicated to Margaret Garner, who was an enslaved African-American woman that killed her own daughter rather than allowing the child to be returned to slavery.

Most of the instrumentation on the recording is played by Adrian Younge, who recorded and mixed the album at his all analog Linear Labs Studios in Los Angeles. The session also includes The Linear Labs Orchestra and a chorus featuring Loren Oden, Sam Harmonix, Chester Gregory and Jasmin Hicks.

The American Negro is much more than an album, it’s an insightful, provocative, and eye-opening critique about the deep rooted racism that continues to harm Black people in America. If there is one album you listen to all year, please do yourself a favor and make it this one.

Adrian Younge — ‘The American Negro’
(Jazz Is Dead)

1. Revisionist History
2. The American Negro
3. The Black Broadcast
4. Revolutionize
5. Double Consciousness
6. Watch The Children
7. Dying On The Run
8. Intransigence Of The Blind
9. James Mincey Jr.
10. Disadvantaged Without A Title
11. Mama (Will You Make It)
12. The Black Queen
13. Margaret Garner
14. Race Is Fallacy
15. Light On The Horizon
16. A Symphony For Sahara
17. America Is Listening
18. The March of America
19. Paradox Of The Positive
20. The Death March
21. Black Lives Matter
22. Rotten Roses
23. Jim Crow’s Dance
24. Patriotic Portraits
25. George Stinney Jr.
26. Sullen Countenance

BUY RECORD

• Jazz
• New Releases
• Soul
• Spiritual Jazz