🎵🌍✊🏿🎷🇫🇷 For their second album, released last year, the Black Lives collective had tightened their ranks a little. But there are still a good fifteen of them to produce People Of Earth, initiated by bassist Reggie Washington and produced by Stefany Calembert for Jammin’ Colors. The message of peace and tolerance remains unchanged, and the music is just as delightful a blend of jazz, soul, funk, spoken words, folk and Afro-Caribbean influences. The mainstays of the first version are again present, between America, the Caribbean and Africa, and Europe is strengthened by the arrival, alongside DJ Grazzhoppa, of saxophonist Pierrick Pédron. The album has received critical acclaim (Jazz Magazine, Muziq, Jazz News, le Monde, le Soir…) and the ensemble has been nominated twice for the German Jazz Prize, in 2023 and 2025. On the West Indies side, Sonny Troupé offers the very conscious On Sèl Rèv, while Jacques Schwarz-Bart contributes two inspired tracks, Fifth Dimension and I Apologize (in family with the voices of Ezra SB and Stephanie McKay) and Grégory Privat composes the title track. The album opens with the luminous When We Love, sung by Tutu Puoane, with the complicity of Christie Dashiell. The latter, who was nominated for a Grammy this year, leads the groove of Move with delectation. Further on, Adam Falcon signs Better Days, with its West Coast jazz fusion accents that are hard to resist! Sharrif Simmons, a member of the Lasts Poets, spreads his words over several tracks, chanting the message with his own voice. In short, with People Of Earth, Black Lives meets the challenge of their second album with flying colors, continuing the legacy and philosophy of Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor.
In the spring of 2025, Black Lives is back on the road, playing at the Coopérative de Mai in Clermont-Ferrand on 11 April, and at the New Morning in Paris on 14 April. Not to be missed!
