“Black is King” trailer has me revisiting Black music and visuals that have philosophical and spiritual meanings in it. Denience Williams’ “Black Buttefly” is one of my favorites. She sings, “While you slept, the promise was unkept, but your faith was as sure as the stars.”

It’s rooted in the idea in many mystic/spiritual traditions (including the story of Jesus) that one must go through a karmic cycle — break family curses — before they “inherit the kingdom” or The Promise. She sings, “a dream conceived in truth can never die.” A negro spiritual.

Earth, Wind, & Fire’s “Fantasy” does a similar work. They’re known for combining galactic and Egyptian symbolism, & threading ideas that are rooted in African spiritual traditions. Lyrics are pretty literal, “Many lives has brought you to, recognize it’s your life now in review.”

One of my favorite artists to do this is Sun Ra! He made a whole film illustrating the Black American as alien to Earth called “Space is The Place” sent as a Moses figure to liberate the bodies and spirits of other Black people. He married Egyptian and galactic aesthetics too.

I interpreted “Us” as a film dealing with the idea of inner-child and the self we invent. And which one wins. His use of Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleurs” affirmed that for me. She sings, “Inside every man, lives the seed of a flower. If he looks within, he finds beauty and power.”

“Come into knowledge of spiritual law. Heaven and earth are one if you can see, you are in heaven in reality.” Roy Ayers’ protégés, RAMP were quite literal with their message as well which makes sense because most of Roy Ayer’s work is deeply philosophical and spiritual too.

Funkadelic reworked a negro spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and gave it galactic and astrological meaning with “Mothership Connection (Star Child)”. We’ve been retelling the story of the journey of the human soul for so long, that we’re remixing our own remixes now. Wow.

Adding Isaac Hayes aka Black Moses because duh and he is currently my crush. I’m excited to see how “Black is King” fits into this long tradition of preserving Black philosophies and mysticisms in plain sight (and sound). And if I don’t like it, I’ma just turn RAMP back on