New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The multi-GRAMMY award-winning drummer, producer and educator Terri Lyne Carrington and new band Social Science have released "Pray The Gay Away" from their upcoming double album Waiting Game (November 8 / Motema) - a moving, musical meditation on intersectionality, politics, and life in modern America.
"Pray The Gay Away" is so blunt and direct that when Carrington was first performing it live, she felt the need to add additional lyrics to make it clear that it was satirical, and a song about striving for acceptance. It opens with dispersed shouts: "You are perverted…" and moves to a powerful mantra: "Pray the hate away."
Carrington - whose Mosaic Project and Money
Jungle albums touched on social issues - has moved more and more toward confronting issues head-on with her music. Waiting Game is driven by the events of this critical time, Afropunk deeming it, "her most overt statement on contemporary life in AmeriKKKa."
Previously released singles include "Trapped In The American Dream," a pointed criticism of mass incarceration, "If Not Now," which addresses gender equity, and "Bells," about police violence against people of color. "Bells" features Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and was deemed "poignant...and haunting" by NPR and included in their Top Songs of August.
Carrington was recently the featured guest drummer in the 8G Band on Late Night with Seth Meyers. She's the Berklee
Institute of Jazz and Gender
Justice founder and artistic director, and a fervent advocate for social justice. She is also the co-artistic director of The Carr Center in Detroit, MI and sits on the board for
Little Black Pearl Art and Design Academy in Chicago, IL - both organizations promoting the arts as a means toward social equity in underrepresented communities.
Social Science is built around the friendship and collaboration of Carrington, pianist/keyboardist
Aaron Parks (Terence Blanchard, Kurt Rosenwinkel) and guitarist Matthew
Stevens (Christian Scott, Esperanza Spalding), along with multi-instrumentalist
Morgan Guerin, vocalist Debo Ray, and MC/DJ Kassa Overall.
Waiting Game boasts an impressive host of guests, including rappers Rapsody, Kokayi, Raydar Ellis, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, bassists Derrick Hodge and Esperanza Spalding, vocalist Mark Kibble of Take 6 and spoken word contributions from Meshell Ndegeocello and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. The second half of the double album is an improvised suite recorded in one take, with
Esperanza Spalding (bass) joining Carrington, Parks and
Stevens for an adventurous excursion musing on the idea of personal and musical freedom.
Waiting Game is now on pre-order in double CD, digital and double vinyl LP formats
TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON FALL TOUR DATES:
* 10/28 - Cambridge, MA - Radical Commitments Conference @ Harvard University, Knafel Center / Radcliff Institute
*10/30 - Boston, MA - Event for Berklee
Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice
@ 11/16 & 17 London Jazz Festival (UK) -
Kings Place - LONDON ALBUM RELEASE EVENT
@ 11/30 - New York, NY - Le Poisson
Rouge - NYC ALBUM RELEASE EVENT
There will be Additional Social Science touring in 2020
@= performing with Social Science
* = Terri Lyne Carrington music direction
