Musicians who 'blow' tunes are a different kind of Musician altogether. Especially when you talk to them during their performance. In 2010 at the Cafe Oto I asked Yhaya Abdul-Majid, the tenor saxophonist from the Sun Ra Arkestra a simple question about his opinions on the legacy of Sun Ra..below is his answer..it went for fifteen minutes and was only interrupted as he had to go back on stage to perform the second set of the evening.
Hotep with Yhaya & Dave Davis Cleopatra's Needle 2010
Sun Ra was a human being, a musician, he you know..like I tell everyone..you get at least-every musician get at least one person like that in their lifetime and all that time Sun Ra was that one... in our millennium…who was a great teacher and he was a avid reader of all the music known and unknown to man and I wasn’t aware that I was capable of doing the impossible- being with Sun Ra-because he made things that I thought was impossible possible. Because the first experience I had with Sun Ra I didn’t know nuthin and it was the only job in the world I got hired for doing nothing..I can’t ever get over that..I thought you had to have you know mental capacities to be able to get a job out here but Sun Ra hired me for the LACK of mental capacities-for what I didn’t have-for WHAT I didn’t know. So I says its the first job where I got hired for doing nothing..I was over qualified cos I didn’t know NOTHING..I thought I knew..but I now I know I didn’t know I really didn’t know and you still don’t know you just can’t really never know- but Sun Ra made me more able to be more intuitive because he was true to his philosophy and to his equations you know he always had his equations working through all his life through his music is equational and acted like the goal and so forth, his colors, his profession, pure equations and he used them very seriously-even with names and sounds-anything he’d hear he got these equations to put it through and he’d use these equations to learn, even got to quasive equations he learned from other beings and I believe he was one of those people who had an outer body experience at a very early age and tried to hide that fact and it was discovered at high school in his diary and they started teasing him and calling him the moon man, but he was put on a mission through these meta beings and that were to try to tune us-to help tune up planet earth and make them more better neighbours-cosmic neighbours because we think we the only one in uni-we think the whole universe evolves around US.
Yhaya at Cleopatra's Needle 2010
That’s a big ego for this planet because we’re not alone out here- we’ve got neighbours-do you want to teach your neighbour a certain way you want to be treated-Well don’t be throwing a bunch of trash out there on the street. You got too much garbage on this planet-you’re trashing the planet..you’re trashing the cosmos with your trash and people don’t like that..some people don’t want you to throw trash in the yard. Our neighbours the same way-our cosmic neighbours they say all this nuclear madness and all the terms of the planet is going to effect us because there’s a delicate balance of the known universe or the omniverse..because the universe has the word uni in it..thats that word similar that word uni-unit also applies to unit or one thing or part of a thing-just because it has one of the meanings that it can be part of a thing it cannot represent the universe or he stopped using the word universe he used the word omniverse because it describes more of a total. He says omniverse is the sum total of all the universes-so from an omniverses perspective Sun Ra was able to try to see if he could figure a better way to music to use these vibrations to create a better world. Make musicians go beyond norms and do what they were here for. Cos a lot of us got confused as to why we here. Most of us want to be entertainers-we want to meet stars-we want to make money-we want to be popular and all that kind of stuff. It ain’t got nothing to do with that. We have a mission where people know us or not see us or not as long as they can hear what we do. We are-we’re here to do things with vibrations to keep the equations down here on this planet otherwise this planets gunna leave sooner than we think because we’re going to die anyway but while we’re here we can try and see if we can build it better because you’re not going back to nothing that’s what I learned. Man came from nothing but he’s not going back to nothing-he’s going somewhere from here-you get a lot of here but he’s going somewhere-where you go has a lot to do with why you’re here-why we’re here we try to see if we can clean up our ACT from a- from a neighbourly earthly perspective and from a cosmic planetary perspective.
Yhaya Star Cloth Portrait Cafe Oto 2010
We’re felched beings and we’re greedy-I read in one of the books that the creator said man if you give him a valley of gold he’ll want another one he’s not a content species-so what I’m saying that and in gravest consumption people want this world they think this worlds dedicated to me like that which creators can’t do better than this they’re saying those people are so soul deluded to think that this was even HARD for him to do okay it wasn’t even HARD for the creator to do that for all those people it was effortLESS for him to do that. Don’t try to put human conditions on the creator its beyond our abilities to comprehend and Sun Ra was aware of this he was sensitive to try to be pure at heart and always try to be sensitive to what he learnt from his cosmic consciousness from his-from him allows a means to experience things that beings-ordinary people don’t experience on this world and as a musician someone who’s dealing with vibration and a responsibility to try to do with vibration nothing to do with trying to be responsible by using this equation to tell the whole story coz some people only tell part of the story coz music like I always tell people its beauty there’s lots of beauty in it coz since we just feature beauty but to tell the truth about the whole thing it ain’t all beautiful coz you’ve got to have ugliness too coz everyone-we all have our thing its beauty and ugliness- knowledge-ignorance angels and demons its five five five..making good music you need to know how to use both forces which is kind dangerous I’m not capable of doing that I’ve got to stay away from negative forces as much as possible. I’m too weak-I’m a weak person-I’m a weak human being I’m a weak in the form of a human being and I’m not trying to get grounded here in this world because you can become very grounded if you CHOOSE this world and you consume like there’s no tomorrow then you won’t you won’t get the best of the next world coz that’s where we’re going we’re just you know we’re travelling the spaceways and this thing about death you can’t conquer it you can’t get around it so we’re gotta say uh whats the best way through it-best way through it is try to keep your nose-keep your hands clean and clean..keep yourself-make your heart clean try to keep the music pure and honest-we play honest music we don’t wor-worry ah who are we-where we are whatever condition we are our intentions are always humble intentions because we know we’re in a creative band we know that we’re not responsible for nothing. Creators responsible for everything-once we can recognise that it’s a lot of weight off of us coz really what are us able to do-he comes to me oh man just just just that-you just get heavy on me coz that’s that-I take it because there’s lack of understanding-the real truth the real truth of that is I’m nothing I’m one of the worst wretched people on planet earth coz I’ve got the ability to to have little free will I can choose disregards the creator when the only thing I can choose to disregard the creator TOTALLY you think I don’t want to go that way-I’ve got my own reasons-alright well you can but the creator won’t ALLOW YOU a certain amount of time then you’re going to realise that you’re going to want when you go beyond this thing called death to be near that light that’s the creator but he’s not-everybody ain’t allowed to be near because they don’t-first of all they don’t believe in it so and you know if you don’t you don’t work towards it you can’t go straight to the top when you’re there-everybody think-everytime somebody die they say they’re going to rest in peace-no there’s no peace in rest either-some people go to the grave man-if you had any idea what was going on over in that grave you would be an angel on earth- coz that’s the only safest thing to do-FOLLOW the angels-the angels they not-they not trying-the only the only thing about the angels they don’t get all emotional they’ll obey the creator unhesitantly without thought without question-un undutifuly I believe is the word my man here would say ah so when they-we always used to say Oh send down an angel to us oh if you’re a true god won’t you send an don’t send us no mad still at us or nothing send us an angel-BOY you do not want him to send an angel on you-they’re already here BUT the ones that you thought most send down on you-you do not want to meet them- I tell you coz they’re not going to be nice see it being right-they come to do a job-
Yhaya Interview Cafe Oto 2010
If you are a wretched person on earth don’t expect no favours from the creator but you should mind to behave yourselves-try to do the best you can with what he gave you-gave us a little talent-play a little beauty-do a little music-be responsible and do all beautiful stuff you know and be you know use your brain I gave you-you realise that this is a big image-WE can’t see more than we can see-we don’t know more than we know-I mean we know less we don’t know-what we don’t know is greater than what we know and what we can’t see is greater than what we see WE’re VERY LIMITED so LIMITED so dependent-you gotta sleep eat you die all that stuff here’s notebook all over so you’ve got to really make choices in this world and try to use yourself in a way that’s going to be constructive because man is destructive by nature and so he he always be constantly suffering in his selfishness and his greed and how he got so in the first place coz MAN wasn’t all MAN wasn’t-initially he wasn’t here on earth-he had he hadn’t met something had to HAPPEN we’re the descendants of the ones who were punished who was getting-who was BANISHED from a beautiful place to a place were you’ve got to struggle and work your way back-we’ve got to work our way back crew-it was nice IT was nice at first we didn’t have to worry about nothing we didn’t have to worry about even trying to be nice because nice people was not repaying their dues because now we got to work on being nice.. you know before food was just there just by thought-now you gotta crack the earth make tools dig the earth- get the seed-plant the seed-water the seed-til you grow it into a plant-make tools-take the seeds off-grind the seed make flour get water-bread-create fire-you got all the ones to do just to get a loaf of BREAD you know how much time you got-that’s why people who really know the truth they cry all the time coz they know that we blew it WE blew the Nice place we blew it, now we gotta work our way back but NOT everybody’s going to make it back That’s that-that lie people walk around saying oh everybody you know you know God ain’t going to put nobody in no in no fire he wouldn’t do that hey man you know god ain’t a man-you keep thinking that-everybody who lives on the earth you know-look at the justice-you cut yourself with heroes I mean your body breathes all the things that’s happening with you that you living life that you have no control over it so why don’t you behave yourselves because you’re got to recognise in the divine justice-keep doing wrong don’t understand the light-you know the world-you know I-I swing back from good bad negative they know its not sposed to be good all the time not sposed to be bad all the time but you can stay stable and the one place while the tide keeps changing and you keep your thought focused. I’m not going to be here forever-I’m going to leave here I’m going somewhere else and where I go has a lot to do with why I’m here so I’ve got to make the right choices here so I won’t blow it-so people blow it because they just selfish greedy they think about their own stomachs their own sexual organs their own everything I need I I I I I Man we I’s the I’s ain’t nothing but the I ain’t going back to nothing-you know even I know I ain’t going back to nothing If I was really true to being an I like I’s sposed to be then it’d have a better chance but not everybody can make-I can’t walk around and worry about that I-I feel like my job is to try to help as many people realise that man we have to watch our passes-dangerous territory-planet earth is dangerous territory- you have to really be careful-you got to respect all living things you’ve got to be receptive to everything that stands before you and you’re not in control of that-coz some people they can’t get it-they just can’t get it-they keep trying to force their will off on other people-as musicians we can’t do that we know our will we have no will first of all that’s a delusion think you got a will-you have no control over the weather-the planet you have no-you can’t even control yourself-that’s one of the problems that start all this trouble because we’re-when the world was created that forth that forth bit of light there they got jealous hey man what is THIS This thing aw this thing has all kinds of hang ups they got PROBLEMS they got PROBLEMS I tell ya-I going to show you how many problems we have so we’re actually on trial here-we’re given time for this this this er er conflict that’s going on that we got caught up in to demonstrate that we were worth creation.
Yhaya with Hotep & Dave Davis - Cleopatra's Needle 2010
The creator already said no you’re condemned first I know what I’m doing you don’t know what I’m doing-I created this thing I knew what I was doing-most of them will create something that was worth it-so we can’t do that-create another creative thing that was worth it-but the forth are here to make us still worthless and behave worthless and we do worthless things that’s the delusion because you’re only going to be here-this is the shortest part of this trip-you think a hundred years is a long time man-you ain’t even going to remember this hundred years when you get over into infinity and eternity and all that its going to be like a bad dream you know-you know you might not even remember this-so this is very important this was the brief thing you call life-you can be-you don’t you don’t have to eat everything you don’t need everything all the TIME give yourself a break FAST all them holy ones came to this FAST put your element at rest and take fair portions and care about somebody else more than you care about yourself-treat your brother right-treat your mother right-treat your sisters right oh my oh my god MAN you all turn to woman for sport and that that really hurts the creator woman’s not-that’s very serious issue that’s why the planet can’t get it right-everytime there’s this great cluster here on this planet because man has mis-used a favour that was given to him-we couldn’t have been creative without a woman-we could be just a bunch of men walking round this planet but someone was nice enough to give us a companion and a lot of love and make kids and all that you know grow old together that’s NICE and we gone and take it and turn it into a SPORT oh so we was deal with things we have our own DESIRES and animal self all the time animal-animal consumption no you don’t need that much the best thing is moderation because if you always do something you ain’t going to like its like SEX people always do SEX so they got go through Schling I see like some people go through for sex I say MAN I’m so glad that work hard WORK and it took a turn to labour and took this planet you can’t beat it all the time man do what you got to do to keep moving don’t get lost in it you know like that’s the only time that’s as close as you get to heaven most people that’s as close as they going to get to heaven I’m going to tell you you got lighten up put the woman in her proper place you can enjoy her-you can enjoy each other but don’t abuse her man don’t treat her bad put out....
Yhaya in performance Cafe Oto 2010
