#music

Space Is the Place

Sun Ra had registered as a conscientious objector when drafted to fight in the Second World War, citing the absence of African-Americans on the draft board as his reason.

After witnessing endless post-war civil rights abuses from his vantage in Birmingham, Alabama, Sun Ra came to the conclusion that Earth was a no-win situation for Black people, and that the future would inevitably see a new African diaspora—in outer space.

This prophecy followed a vision Sun Ra claims to have had in the late 1930s:

“He was transported to Saturn where aliens advised him to drop out of the college he was attending back on Earth and become a sort of musical prophet who would shepherd the world through an upcoming period of great chaos.”

Source: Things With Feathers: Juan Garcia Esquivel and Sun Ra’s Sweet Storm