Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City

by William Sites

Sun Ra (1914–93) was one of the most wildly prolific and unfailingly eccentric figures in the history of music. Renowned for extravagant performances in which his Arkestra appeared in neo-Egyptian garb, the keyboardist and bandleader also espoused an interstellar cosmology that claimed the planet Saturn as his true home. In Sun Ra’s Chicago, William Sites brings this visionary musician back to earth—specifically to the city’s South Side, where from 1946 to 1961 he lived and relaunched his career. The postwar South Side was a hotbed of unorthodox religious and cultural activism: Afrocentric philosophies flourished, storefront prophets sold “dream-book bibles,” and Elijah Muhammad was building the Nation of Islam. It was also an unruly musical crossroads where the man then known as Sonny Blount drew from an array of intellectual and musical sources—from radical nationalism, revisionist Christianity, and science fiction to jazz, blues, Latin dance music, and pop exotica—to construct a philosophy and performance style that imagined a new identity and future for African Americans. Sun Ra’s Chicago shows that late twentieth-century Afrofuturism emerged from a deep, utopian engagement with the city—and that by excavating the postwar black experience of Sun Ra’s South Side milieu, we can come to see the possibilities of urban life in new ways.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Jazz

321 pages, Paperback

Published December 21, 2020

Reviews

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Over the past quarter century Sun Ra has become more widely known than at any time during his career.'

'In the course of Ra’s final decades with the Arkestra, the sounds of disco, funk, children’s songs, movie themes, and marching-band music all made their way into the repertoire, culminating (if that is the correct word) in an album of Disney-inspired material recorded in 1989.'

'...when Ra originals such as “Astro Black” (“Astro-Black American / The Universe is in my voice”) made explicit the universalistic ambitions of his pan-African space mythology...'


A magnificent companion piece to Paul Youngquist and John Szwed's defining biographies. This is the pantheon of Sun Ra scholars. Sites's analysis of urban and racial demographics in relation to cultural development (and revolutionary ideals for emancipation) is equally fascinating, especially in context of Sun Ra, who blurred the Jazz Age with the Space Age.

[Hopie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed. Space is, in fact, the place. Also I’m getting back to star ratings in 2026 OKAY

[Mills College Library]

781.65092 S957s 2020

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could have given this book a more thorough read, but overall it's a fascinating look at a time and subject I knew nothing about, and the connection of music and religion in the person of Sun Ra, who more or less founded his own religion around the idea that he was from another planet while also selling records and adding a voice to the Afrofuturist movement, was unique in my reading experience.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult at times to grasp. Enjoyed it for the tough journey. Made me feel like I earned the understanding. Sun Ra was a polarizing character/person and musician. That's why I think I am attracted to his story and music. Scholarly.
Side note...finished reading and went to see gang of four. Sarah Lee the bass player took it when I offered it to her. had to pass this one along

[Brian Shevory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ended up reading this book right before and during a trip to Chicago. I thought, what better way to learn about the city than to read about the time that avant garde jazz musician Sun Ra spent in Chicago. This was a fascinating read with a great mixture of history and social analysis. Sites examines the role that Chicago played in helping to facilitate some of Sun Ra’s future work and interest in solar myths and space. I found it interesting that as one of the major cities of Black migration in the mid 20th century, Chicago provided Sun Ra with a broad range of new influences and participants to explore ideas of Black empowerment that were not just different but also artistically focused. In particular, it seemed like there were opportunities in Chicago that were absent from his original home in Alabama, and it seems like Sun Ra met some friends and collaborators who facilitated and birthed his unique views of space life and afro-futurism. I thought that Sites’s analysis of the poetry and artwork involved in Sun Ra’s collective was one of the strengths of this book, and provided more insight into some of his more well-known future works.