Theo Croker Announces New Album BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST Ft. Wyclef Jean, Ari Lennox, Malaya, Kassa Overall, And More Available September 24 - Preorder Now
"State Of The Union 444 || BLK2THEFUTURE" Ft. Wyclef Jean (Official Video) - Out Now
Announces U.S. & European Tour Dates
08/06/2021
NEW YORK, Aug. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter, composer, producer, and artist THEO CROKER has announced a new album BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST, his first since the critically acclaimed Star People Nation, the album that earned him the nomination. Available September 24 via Sony Masterworks, the album was produced by Theo Croker and features Wyclef Jean, Ari Lennox, Gary Bartz, Charlotte Dos Santos, Iman Omari, Malaya, and Kassa Overall. With the announcement comes a video for the new track "STATE OF THE UNION 444" Ft. Wyclef Jean who notes:
"I love the idea of taking it back to the future. The vibe of this song is just when we look at what has happened to us as a people, like literally in the past 40 years, and how history constantly keeps repeating itself ... so this is like a cry of the youth, but it's a different kind of cry - we've heard cries of freedom. We've cried for freedom so many times, and we've sung "we shall overcome" so many times, but we still don't see things overcoming. So, this is like the youth - when you hear Theo hitting those horns, and you hear that track - it's a revolution. And this revolution, unlike the other revolution, this one has been televised. And it's been televised through every social outlet in the world. The idea of oppression, the idea of equal rights, the idea of "when are we gonna really get justice?" The idea of what real human rights is... but at the same time, keep in mind, this is Theo Croker and Wyclef Jean - so we gotta keep it sexy at the same time. We're gonna make y'all think, but we're also gonna make y'all move. Just to say we celebrate our ancestors. At the end of the video, I start to speak Creole, and you'll feel that energy when we start to turn the whole thing into a celebration and into a movement."
A contemporary oratorio, the 13 tracks that make BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST are inspired by the forgotten hero's journey towards self-actualization within the universal origins of blackness. It's a sonic celebration of Afro-origin, and ultimately a reclamation of the culture, for the culture. "Our hero receives a transmission from his ancestors while in meditation that sets him on a mission to raise the planet's vibrations through music that defies the confines of a 'genre' and frees the culture from the imminent threat of commercial gentrification," says Theo.
Written in the solitude of his childhood home in Leesburg, Florida, during the pandemic much of the album was informed by psilocybin meditations and astral travels. By retreating inward, Theo extracted a universal story with major implications and spiritual resonances. "In the beginning, the universe was birthed out of a black hole," he says. "Everything came from blackness. Black is every color combined. So, all cultures are full of this rich blackness. It isn't a racial statement; it's about understanding and accepting that this is not a new cultural phenomenon or new science, that we can reclaim our origins, traditions, and culture to better the future. I'm making a statement with the title and project, 'I can be an artist first before I am a black artist'. I can be a musician, creator, and producer without category."
Theo will hit the road in support of the new album starting with a two-week residence at San Francisco's Black Cat this August. Other dates will take him to select cities in the U.S. with more dates across the world - stops including Oslo, Prague, Milan, Paris, London, Berlin, and more - full tour schedule and ticketing info can be found here.
Listen to previously released "HERO STOMP || A FUTURE PAST"
ALBUM ARTWORK: DOWNLOAD
PUBLICITY IMAGE (CREDIT OBIDI NZERIBE): DOWNLOAD
BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST
TRACKLISTING
"4KNOWLEDGE"
"Soul Call || Vibrate"
"Just Be (Prelude)"
"Every Part Of Me" [feat. Ari Lennox]
"Anthem" [feat. Gary Bartz]
"Lucid Dream" [feat. Charlotte Dos Santos]
"Where Will You Go" [ feat. Kassa Overall]
"No More Maybe" [feat. Iman Omari]
"Happy Feet (for dancers)" [feat. Malaya]
"Imperishable Star"
"State Of The Union 444 || BLK2THEFUTURE" [feat. Wyclef Jean]
"Hero Stomp || A Future Past"
"Pathways"
AUGUST 2021
8/4 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/5 Brooklyn, NY/ Prospect Park Bandshell – BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival
8/6 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/7 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/8 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/11 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/12 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/13 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/14 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/15 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/18 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/19 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/20 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/21 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/22 San Francisco, CA, USA / Black Cat
8/28 Hamburg, GERMANY / Grand Hall Elbphilharmonie
SEPTEMBER 2021
9/6 Atlanta, GA, USA / Atlanta Jazz Festival
9/11 White Plains, NY, USA / White Plains Jazz Festival
9/28 New York, NY, USA / (Le) Poisson Rouge
OCTOBER 2021
10/1 Jacksonville, FL, USA / Jacksonville Jazz Festival
10/11 Santa Cruz, CA, USA / Kuumbwa Jazz Center
10/16 Saint Etienne, FRANCE / Rhino Jazz Festival
10/19 Stockholm, SWEDEN / Fasching (Stockholm International Jazz Festival)
10/20 Göteborg, SWEDEN / Nefertiti
10/21 Oslo, NORWAY / Cosmopolite
10/22 Brussels, BELGIUM / Flagey
10/23 Eeklo, BELGIUM / Muziekclub N9
10/24 Mannheim, GERMANY / Enjoy Jazz @ Alte Feuerwache
10/25 Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC / Jazz Dock
10/26-27 Belgrade, SERBIA / Dom omladine Beograda (Belgrade Jazz Festival)
10/28 Vienna, AUSTRIA / Porgy & Bess
10/29 Bergen, NORWAY / Sardinen
10/30 Trondheim, NORWAY / Dokkhuset Scene
10/31 Milan, ITALY / Teatro dell'arte
NOVEMBER 2021
11/2 Paris, FRANCE / Duc des Lombards
11/3 Paris, FRANCE / Duc des Lombards
11/4 Paris, FRANCE / Duc des Lombards
11/5 London, UK / Ronnie Scott's
11/6 London, UK / Ronnie Scott's
11/27 Berlin, GERMANY / Philharmonie (Sketches of Miles with Berlin Philharmonic - Performance)
FEBRUARY 2022
02/19 Chapel Hill, NC, USA / Carolina Performing Arts Center
MARCH 2022
03/26 New York, NY, USA / Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall)
ABOUT THEO CROKER
Theo Croker is a storyteller who speaks through his trumpet. A creative who refuses boundaries, the GRAMMY®️ Award-nominated artist, composer, producer, thought leader, and influencer projects his voice through the music. After seven years of sojourn in Shanghai, Croker crash-landed with a simmering original sound on the 2014 Dee Dee Bridgewater-assisted album Afro Physicist. Following the success of Escape Velocity in 2016, he ascended to a new stratosphere with Star People Nation in 2019. The record garnered a nomination in the category of "Best Contemporary Instrumental Album'' at the 62nd GRAMMY®️ Awards. It attracted widespread critical acclaim including Stereogum, Paste, and The New York Times who called it "an album that gallivants from swirling, left-field hip-hop beats to propellant swing to entrancing passages of African percussion. Through it all, Croker's understated trumpet playing holds his small band together with swagger and poise." Along the way, he also lent his sound to platinum-selling albums by everyone from J. Cole to Ari Lennox while touring his band across the globe many times over. In 2020, he hunkered down at his childhood home in the midst of the global pandemic and wrote his sixth full-length album, BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST, releasing September 24th via Sony Music Masterworks.
CONNECT WITH THEO CROKER
TheoCroker.com | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Larissa Slezak | Jamie Bertel – Sony Music Masterworks
Ryan Cunningham – Biz3
SOURCE Sony Music Masterworks
