Press kit, Kamasi Washington · Press kit, official use
There is a tender proposition behind composer, bandleader, and saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s fifth studio album, Fearless Movement: we’re all born elastic, and if you don’t use it you lose it. Dance was on Washington’s mind while making this record, and it serves as a metaphor for this practice of flexibility. “When people hear that I’m making a dance album, it’s not literal,” Washington says. “Dance is movement and expression, and in a way it’s the same thing as music — expressing your spirit through your body. That’s what this album is pushing.” Turning his attention to dance, and bringing the audience with him, is a natural progression of Washington’s ongoing study of music as a means of connection. His 2015 album The Epic, as well as 2018’s Heaven and Earth were received by critics and audiences as a kind of intervention, across generations and genres. Both of those records were big offerings, heavy on choir and strings, but Fearless Movement offers something different: it’s still immense, but more rhythmic — and this time he’s brought the rappers into his world. Collaboration, and a multi-disciplinary perspective, is key to Washington’s process. It’s what keeps him creative. The release of Heaven and Earth was accompanied by a short film, “AS TOLD TO G/D THYSELF,” that was made with the filmmakers Bradford Young, Terence Nance, and Jenn Nkiru, and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In the years since, he’s been playing in the musical ‘supergroup’ DINNER PARTY with friends Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, and 9th Wonder. And the original score he wrote for the Michelle Obama documentary Becoming was nominated for Grammy and Primetime Emmy Awards in 2020.
