A Message from Mozambique

Fifty years ago, change was brewing. The outrage piqued by US-backed war and civil war in Africa, by racism, injustice and white supremacy, was at boiling point. Or at least, it was in San Francisco's Bay Area, where a group of African-American and exiled South African musicians led by tenor saxophonist James ‘Plunky Nkabinde’ Branch played jazz, funk and R&B through an Afrocentric lens, their politics as vital as their music.

Juju's debut masterpiece album A Message from Mozambique (originally released in 1973) is a container for the sextet's big statements, part of an avant-garde project that plugged into the civil rights roots of jazz while investigating the genre's knack for absorbing other elements (notably, the intricate rhythms of the diaspora) in ways that drive the music and the message forward.

Featuring the likes of vibraphonist Lon Moshe and high energy percussionists Babatunde Lea and Jalango Ngoma, the band had an underground following around the Bay Area, with Plunky telling the stories behind tracks called things like ‘Soledad Brothers’, ‘Freedom Fighter’ and ‘Make Your Own Revolution Now’ between blasts of shrieking, Shepp-esque horns. Fast forward to now, to the era of racial reconsideration and the Black Lives Matter movement (unofficially soundtracked by Kendrick Lamar's jazz-fuelled Grammy-winning tune ‘Alright’), and this astounding debut feels more important, more prescient than ever. A vital historical document, and a cracking listen.