Chipped by José Vadi

Author:José Vadi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2024-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

8.

KING SHIT

(OR CAN A KING BE A KING?)

Sun Ra is my favorite skater of all time and I’ve never seen him skate, nor do I have any evidence that one of the most underrecognized and greatest jazz musicians, performers, and composers of all time was, indeed, a skateboarder—but his heelflips, I imagine, are flicked, lofted, caught, and landed with such immeasurable style that he can only be number one in my heart. Imagine being a teenager, opening up the first skate magazine you’ve ever purchased, probably in a grocery store checkout line instead of a proper skate shop, and beholding the image unveiled like a secret: a sixtyish-years-old piano destroyer and composer-meets-conductor, wearing a galactic dashiki while executing an impossible heelflip over a car—from flat. How would you react to the feeble attempts at describing this extraterrestrial activity documented in 35 mm, published in a Thrasher spread, and presented to you, consumer and new worshiper of this wooden toy?

Sun Ra the persona frequently precedes Sun Ra the musician, bandleader, and cultural dark horse, and it’s one reason why the myth of Sun Ra makes him, in my eyes, a skater: an extremely disciplined young man, obsessive about the technical prowess of his craft, who was mentored by elders growing up in Birmingham, Alabama. A bookworm, a library lurker, and a devoted walker, young Ra dedicated himself to mastering the craft and, later, as an adult, sharpening the skill set of his commune-cohabitating ensemble, the Arkestra, which was filled with neophytes and legends alike. But how would we react then to Ra leading by example and skating a demo with obstacles so terrible he’s forced to levitate on demand over an apparently donated car? Is this beholden image instead a visual vibration, like the approximate measurement of a shadow, an assumed and changing form all the same?

Many of the myths surrounding Ra were popularized by the fictional, trippy 1974 blaxploitation film Space Is the Place. We find Sun Ra walking in a forest, adorned in full neo-Egyptian garb, as floating props (aliens?) move through the sky at the behest of his telepathic or telekinetic powers. The film’s loose narrative is centered around Ra and his Arkestra’s music and this weird attempt to get Black people out of Oakland and into their new homeland, space itself. He hums with a gorgeous vibrato a few notes to himself, looking away from the camera, and begins: “The music is different here. The vibrations are different. Not like planet Earth. Planet Earth sounds of guns, anger, frustration. There was no one to talk to on planet Earth who would understand. We set up a colony of Black people here. See what they can do on a planet of their own without any white people there. They could drink in the beauty of this planet. It would affect their vibrations. For the better, of course.”

Sun Ra was one of the first jazz artists to seriously experiment with electronic keyboards and synthesizers. They allowed Ra’s hands to

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